The Revelation of War, Chapter Two: Part II
Posted By: russ687<russ687@hotmail.com>
Date: 21 July 2004, 8:01 AM
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1200 hours, September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Aboard ONI Stealth Frigate Valiant Knight
Imbari System
Captain Rayford stood up from his chair as the sleek craft exited slip-space and entered the Imbari System. The view of the system flashed up onto the tactical display and the sensors immediately picked up the four planets orbiting the old star, its moons, and the ships in system. Near Imbari V the display was cluttered with contacts.
"Magnify the surrounding area of Imbari V," Rayford ordered.
The tactical display zoomed in on the planet and its two moons to show a more accurate picture of the area. The sensors read hundreds of ships floating aimlessly, all of them having inactive reactor cores. There were hundreds more fragments and pieces of destroyed ships, all of which cluttered up the space near the planet.
"My god..." Rayford's XO said silently.
The sensors finished a scan and identified the ships. FOF tags began popping up as destroyed UNSC ships were identified, their rotting hulls floating through the black void around the small green planet. The view was depressing and angering at the same time as the identification for the Covenant ships came up.
Rayford looked over at the command console and brought up the results of the scan. Fifty-two UNSC ships destroyed, twenty-nine Covenant destroyed.
He looked again at the display and felt his neck tighten. Two fleets slaughtered around the small green planet with barely half the same number of enemy ships destroyed. He knew the Covenant were superior but he never figured by this standard; they had been effectively eliminated, despite having nearly twice the numbers.
"Scan for any ships with active components." Rayford said, trying to find any survivors.
"One ship, sir." The Operations Officer replied. "The UNSC ship Turner has no active reactor core, but has life-support and limited electronic functions on decks three and nine, otherwise the ship is lost."
"Set a course for the Turner," Rayford ordered. "And let Captain's Baker and Scorzio know to head directly for the planet and secure a landing zone."
His crew complied quickly and the stealth ship headed towards the battle-field around the planet. The bridge crew was mostly silent, taking in the images of the destroyed ships. This was not something any of them were accustomed to seeing.
"Run a scan of Imbari V," Rayford said quietly, waiting as they closed in on the Turner.
"Monitoring radio frequencies," his XO said. "Looks empty."
Rayford sighed. Was everyone down there dead?
"Negative, sir. We're picking up chatter." His XO said suddenly. "Putting it through."
The speakers crackled to life as a static transmission filtered through. "...Targets two o'clock! Call in the air support now and wipe them off the board..."
"Secure the left flank, we will go straight up this street and secure the housing developments..."
"...Negative, we have hostile fire coming from the roof-tops, get the heavy weapons squad up here..."
Rayford listened as the reports came through. There were Marines down there, fighting. And from the sounds of things, they were fighting hard.
"Locate the area of the transmission and relay them to the Melbourne and Triton," Rayford said.
"Aye, sir."
Rayford sat back down and leaned back. The battle for Imbari V was not over, and with any luck, they could help change the direction of it and find the artifact. He smiled to himself.
With any luck, they could win the war.
Captain Baker sat on the bridge and watched as they moved steadily towards the mess surrounding the green planet before them. The battle had claimed nearly the same percentile of casualties as the Harvest System battle years ago, and that fact made him very uneasy.
They were making progress against the Covenant; everyday there were breakthroughs in captured technology and improved systems that they could turn against the seemingly infinite race of aliens, but in retrospect it was not enough. The recent attack on Reach was proof enough that the Covenant were indeed slowly working their way into the inner-colonies, and turning the once-great human empire into a fragmented group of the edge of being destroyed.
But he believed now in the cause they were fighting for. He truly thought that what they were trying to accomplish in finding the last artifact would be the deciding factor against the Covenant. All he had to do was ensure that their troops survive on the surface long enough to recover the artifact.
"Prepare to launch all fighters to perform and initial sweep of the space around Imbari V." Baker ordered. "And put the Marines on a ten-minute standby for transportation to the surface."
Cmdr. Grover spoke up, his voice thick with question. "Captain, it looks as if there is heavy radio chatter from Marines in the city called 'Rocere'. It appears as if there is also air support communicating with them."
Baker thought for a second. Maybe the Marines had done better then he expected; the possibility of them tactically achieving superiority on the surface was not all the far-fetched. While it was obvious that the Covenant probably outnumbered them, it was still possible for those two MEFs to slowly saturate the surface of those aliens.
"Give me a strength estimate based on the chatter we're receiving." Baker said, thinking.
Grover interfaced with the ships AI quickly. "Communications on the ground suggest at least three aerial craft and a Company's worth of Marines in Rocere, which is two hundred miles from Opeca, the planets largest city."
"How large were these cities prior to the invasion?"
"Rocere was about half a million, and Opeca was reaching two million citizens." Grover replied. "Reports were that at least sixty-percent of the cities' populations were evac'd safely, but rural populations were pretty much untouched. A good estimate of the planets former population of three hundred ninety-two million is about one hundred million, taking into consideration the genocide that must have occurred on the initial landings of the first attack wave May 19."
Baker nodded in disgust. The Covenant were not known for their sympathy towards unarmed civilians.
He looked at the tactical display and saw that they were entering a high orbit around Imbari V. The relatively small planet was now huge, its green and blue features visible through white clouds that dotted the planet. He looked around them at the hulls of destroyed ships that were in deteriorating orbits; they would soon end up as large arcs of fire that swept across the sky to their doom on the surface.
"Contact Major Griffith and his Company: time to head into hell.
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