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Death From Above part II: Foreboding to Hell Fire
Posted By: AlphaBravo343<e.moeller3@verizon.com>
Date: 12 April 2003, 3:28 AM
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Hell Fire
0600 Hours January 12, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
UNSC Battlecruiser Horizon
Earth Airspace
Three hours turned into two days. The UNSC had been on the ready, with all ships on combat alert Alpha. And still, the Covenant had not returned to attack Earth, nor had any more recon pickettes come. Little did the UNSC know, a fleet of almost one-thousand Covenant frigates, cruisers, flagships, and destroyers were moving at that moment toward them.
"Scout probes returning in eight seconds sir," said Lieutenant Hayter. The small probes returned from their short slipstream flight. The probes were very unreliable due to the lack of understanding of slipstream space. They would sometimes show up thousands of kilometers from their point of origin, and drones would be sent out to retrieve them. Sometimes, they never came back at all. "Probes returning to normal space now sir," said Hayter as two of the twelve probes appeared outside of the Horizon. "Data transfer beginning, sir."
"Send data to my tac display," he said glancing out of the forward windows, out into the depths of space and the lattice of small stars in the distance. The data uploaded to his station and what he saw made his heart stop. On the monitor, there was the swirling Heredotus galaxy in the distance, an unknown gas-giant set in the corner of the shot...And as far as the shot could encompass, were Covenant battleships.
"Get me Fleetcomm on the Priority Alpha Channel now!" he shouted at Lieutenant Hayter. He jumped as Captain Lockheed shouted the order over the relativley silent hum, and the occassional conversation on the bridge.
"Yes sir!" he said back as he furiously typed in the command to the comm station planetside. "Sir!, Admiral Nyquist is on the line!" he said, twisting his head around to look at the Captain.
A small holographic projection of the tall, muscular, man in his late forties snapped to life on the pedestal next to the main tactical display screen.
"What have you got Lockheed?" asked Nyquist as he pulled on his collar.
"Sir, I have an estimated nine-hundred and thirty-four Covenant battleships on the outer ring of the Kushan nebula. They are moving at considerable speed, however, they are not in slipstream space. All ships that are docked should be ready to launch on a momaents notice and all secondary orbital defense platforms should be launched into orbit ASAP," said Lockheed as sweat began to run down his neck.
"Roger that Lockheed, good work, Nyquist out," he said as the line went dead and the small holographic projection rippled and flickered out. He looked out of the forward window again, finding it ironic that the space stretching endlessly all around them, looked serene and calm. But in reality, they were dark waters infested with sharks on a constant vigil, and circling toward Earth, and the only prey they cared about...Humans.
The fear and adrenaline coursed throuh Lockheed as the giant Covenant battleships appeared in the distance. It had been two hours from the transmission with Admiral Nyquist until they had jumped in system. The lumbering vessels grew larger on the monitors and in the veiw window.
Oh God, please don't let them take Earth. he thought. He had been there when they took Reach, and his crew had fought them fiercley when the took Babylon VIII, and when the Covenant had glassed the planet, the remaining UNSC ships jumped out of system, and he cried. He had sat in his quarters for hours, crying. So many lives lost, so many planets glassed, he cried, blinded by his mixed fury and sorrow.
He snapped back to reality, pushed aside his thoughts of sorrow; he set his jaw. Temporarily forgetting his emotional weakness, he saw that the Covenant fleet had halved the distance from Earth. They were now about 500,000 kilometers from the defense net, and closing at considerable speed.
"Ares, lock in targeting solutions, and get me the classifications of those vessels ASAP," he said to the hologram clad in Roman armor. Data scrolled across his muscular form, as he identified the ships in the fleet, and gave targeting solutions for the most hazardous targets. A lattice of small indicators flicked on the tac display. One-hundred and eleven flagships were tagged as targets. He relayed the targeting solutions to the orbital defense platforms, and they acknowledged and thanked him for the information. If they didnt take out those flagships, they could single-handedly take out the entire UNSC fleet.
The Admiral opened a public channel to all the UNSC battleships. "This is Admiral Nyquist to all UNSC warships, the Covenant are moving in, probably for the last time. This is it, the climax of all that has happened in the past thirty years. The Covenant have been destroying our planets and colonies, killing our women and our children, and slaughtering our soldiers. They have crushed our ships, and obliterated our most powerful of weapons. They have declared a holy war on us, and waged that war with uninhibitted tenacity. And here we are, at Earths 'welcome mat', waitng for them to begin the assult that will either decide their complete and utter victory, or send them home with their tails between their legs. Earth is all we have left, and we did our best to keep them from finding it. Well, folks, they finally did.....And now its time to do something about it. I'm uploading targeting solutions to your AIs, move to grid thirteen by twenty-four, they are moving in in a phalanx formation, and they'll run into our nuclear mine field in a few minutes. Take up postitions facing their appraoch vector and give yourselves room to maneuver. And one last note, everyone target the flagships first, they can wipe us out before this battle even starts. Good luck people, Nyquist out."
Lockheed looked at his bridge crew, then at his tac display, then at the UNSC warships moving into position, and finally at the approaching mass of death itself heading straight for the one place he had fought to protect in his time in the UNSC....Earth.
To be continued...
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