Leviathan
#1 of Halo: The Jewel of Lylat
Fleet Admiral Harper halted at a pressure door guarded by two marines who saluted. He crisply returned their gesture. The admiral then set his hand on a biometric reader and face, retina and palm were simultaneously scanned, and with a hiss the door opened.
Back during the first battle for Earth against the Covenant invaders Harper had been the first into the fray. And he'd shed first blood without a bat of an eye. There had been no hesitation, just courageous dedication to cause that drove him jaw-first into the howling carnage of zero-gee ship-to-ship combat with a technologically superior enemy.
As bold and fearless as he was, Harper's instinct was not to enter the room beyond. He, in fact, wanted to be anyplace but that room. Better on a derelict frigate assaulted on all sides by enemy destroyers than in that room. But he couldn't refuse the Office of Naval Intelligence. Least of all ONI's commander in chief. Harper was an aging man and after the life he had led so far the thought of death looming over him didn't frighten him in the least. But if he was going to be offed he'd be done on his terms.
Not on Parangosky's.
When the doors sealed behind Harper he was sealed in the faraday-cage. No electronic signals could leave, ensuring all conversations within were completely confidential. Just how ONI liked it whenever they wanted to discuss their blacker than black dealings.
The room had white concave walls that hurt the admiral's eyes, and the black table in the middle made him feel like he was sitting at a giant eye, always under observation. There were a mixture of officers, all commissioned navy personnel sitting at the table, a few of them recognisable; others not so much. All of them were on the UNSC's admiralty board. Only one other than Harper stood.
Vice Admiral Parangosky leaned a little heavier on her cane and assessed the faces around the room before her eyes finally pinned on Admiral Harper. "Fashionably late as usual, Admiral."
She gave a thin lipped smile that made Harper feel like a mouse about to be devoured by a cat.
Margaret Parangosky was a frail old woman who looked closer to 170 rather than the seventy years she actually was. But her appearance was like that of a venomous flower. Nothing much to look at, but so dangerous a single scratch would put you in a coma. Her reputation alone was the stuff of nightmare. Noncoms and junior enlisted throughout the UNSC had heard all the stories under the sun and were rightfully afraid of her. Harper had even heard corpsmen diagnose this fear as Parangosky-itis.
Harper didn't say anything, and satisfied everyone she wanted present was there, she began.
"The war is over."
The nearest admiral, an almost too young looking man scoffed. "All the naïve civvies cheering in the streets, I didn't expect you to be one of them, admiral."
Parangosky's expression didn't change and Harper made the dangerous gamble that the young man who'd scoffed would survive the night. "The war is over," Parangosky repeated, her walking stick tapping the floor with a firm tchock to punctuate her statement.
Nobody argued her point anymore.
"Of course, our battles are far from over," the Empress of Naval Intelligence continued to explain. She walked as she talked, slowly circling the table at her own pace, not making eye contact with anybody. "As much as I loathe saying it, the leftover Covenant loyalists and the sangheili race are the least of our concerns right now.
"The sangheili have withdrawn to their homeworld. A lifetime of dependency on the Covenant has weakened them to the point that they no longer pose a viable threat. Now should they rebuild their empire of course, the threat assessment will be revisited."
Parangosky paused to reach out and rest a hand on a young woman's shoulder. She was tall, even sitting a little taller than the full grown men beside her. She had a lean, athletic build and Mediterranean coloured skin. Probably Turkish if the raven hair and dark eyes were anything to go by.
Harper did not recognise the lady with captain markings on her collar - she was certainly the odd one out among the admiralty - but he knew enough of Parangosky's very subtle expressions to note a certain fondness for the young captain. "But in the meantime I have measures in place to ensure that won't happen for a nice long time."
The captain's expression twitched. Harper immediately saw all the same subtle nuances it took to read Parangosky's mood.
Harper's own mood flared and he cleared his throat; softly and politely so not to betray his slowly growing impatience. "I'm sorry, admiral, but are you just briefing us on current affairs or is there an actual point to this meeting?"
"There is indeed, Jason. Please sit." Parangosky continued her rounds, passing by where Harper stood. He crossed his arms and didn't move. "I'd like to talk to you all about a growing concern outside our little bubble in the galaxy. Does anyone remember the Lylat System?"
"If I'm not mistaken it's a system home to the cornerians, neutral aliens we approached for help when we lost Reach to the Covenant."
The man who'd answered was part celebrity, part warrior knight. Fleet Admiral Terence Hood was the de facto leader of the UNSC once you put aside the politics and PR bullshit.
The _warrior knight_comment was no exaggeration either. He was a combat veteran and British noble; something that never struck Harper as very relevant in any context though. It just seemed a convenience considering his position at the top of the UNSC pecking order.
... or second to top whenever Margaret Parangosky entered the equation.
"And if I remember right, they flipped us the proverbial bird." From anyone else that would have sounded flippant, but Admiral Hood could switch on a tone so sincere and commanding that was completely disarming. If he had any lingering hate for the aliens who'd turned down humanity's pleas for help he was very good at hiding it.
Parangosky nodded affirmative. "True, Corneria wanted nothing to do with the UNSC. But does that really surprise you? To them, we are aliens. They have their own problems."
"You're... you're actually defending them, admiral?" the young admiral who'd spoken first stuttered.
"I am, Weatherby. But only because it's amusing to see the Cornerians are still losing their own little war." Parangosky's smile stretched to deepen the creases in her cheeks. "Their world is being invaded by a faction calling themselves the Anglar Army as we speak. They're standing on the very same precipice we once stood on."
"Stop mincing words, Margaret. What's your point?" Hood demanded sharply.
Harper secretly winced. Fleet Admiral Hood was not afraid of the old gal, not in the least. But there was a fine line between brave and suicidal.
Parangosky didn't seem to mind. "My point is we are not in an official state of war anymore. And our neighbours are suffering. Perhaps we should muster together a little aid."
Harper nearly made the mistake of scoffing. "Cornerians refused to help humanity when we stood on the precipice of extinction. Why shouldn't we return the favour?" he asked calmly.
Hood answered that one with a humourless, knowing grin. "Because helping out a neighbour in need is the decent thing to do. But that's not Margaret's motivation, isn't it?"
"Why, Terence, you know me so well. Ladies and gentlemen, the days of hiding away from the galaxy is over. The war weakened us, yes. But in the end, we came out on top. We've made more technological advancements in the last year than we have in the previous fifty. We are the giants now, and we should flaunt it.
"When the Anglar Army is done with Corneria, where do you think they'll look next? They'll start looking for the bigger fish on the Sol-side of the galaxy."
"There's no evidence to indicate any of them would flood our way after they're done in the outer systems," the young captain in the room stated.
"Strength through paranoia, Serin," Parangosky told the captain as if reminding a pupil of an age old lesson.
"Yes, ma'am."
"My point is we should make a bowel-releasing statement to the whole galaxy. We are here." She punctuated her sentence by striking the ground with her cane again. "And we are not going anywhere."
Harper sighed and nodded. He had to admit, Parangosky's point was fair. Do this and the UNSC weren't just out making new allies to assist them with future threats, they were preventing threats from rising against them.
"Well, I'm sold," Harper admitted. "Just one thing though. The SPARTAN-IV programme is only going into the final training phase now, and Project Infinity won't be done until the end of the year. How do you suggest we muster a competent force to help out the outskirt systems and defend our own borders?"
Parangosky seemed to have an answer for everything though. "Simple. One ship, a re-fitted destroyer with all the mod-cons we're reserving for Project Infinity. She'll be fast, durable and pack one hell of a punch. And she'll be deployable inside the week."
"Fair enough. You have a crew in mind?"
"I do. In fact, I already have a mechanised division of marines and a company of ODST scrambling over each other to get in on this mission. I just need a commander and a bridge crew."
"And who would be crazy enough to command such a mission?"
Admiral Jason Harper almost wished he hadn't asked, because when he did Vice Admiral Parangosky smiled like a hungry cat again.
"Well now, Jason. Why do you think I invited you to this meeting personally?"
SniperSpartan-977 presents...
HALO The Jewel of Lylat
Chapter 1 Leviathan
Harper eyed the unassuming bridge with the same scrutiny he'd inspected the bladed panels of armoured hull that covered the exterior of the destroyer to form a knife-like point at the inverted prow. For all intents and purposes, from the outside she looked like the business end of a high-tech halberd; fitting for the halberd-class destroyer.
From the inside she looked like a well-oiled machine prepared to lay down unfathomable layers of destruction down on any who crossed her. Harper couldn't help but let his hardened expression melt into a smile.
He was brought back, way back to his earliest command. The nostalgia hung heavy in the air between the familiar faces milling about to the thick odour of fresh plastic and chemical scrub. Several techs had the panels of bridge stations open and were jacked into the thick ribbons of cabling with their diagnostic computers. With them the more permanent bridge staff Harper had hand selected for this mission were getting familiar with what systems were already online.
The only one not in his seat at the moment was Chief Petty Officer Scott Pressley. The customarily rough-looking chief had a tablet slung into the crook of his arm as he guided the admiral into the bridge following their shuttle tour of the exterior of the ship, and then their gander through the engineering and hanger decks. Pressley was known for his general lax attitude towards normal grooming standards. He seemed to have a permanent five-o'clock shadow on his face and always had creases in the most obvious places of his uniform. But there was an untold rule somewhere that said if you were capable of lashing together a slip-space engine with little more than masking tape and bailing wire you got a free pass on your appearance.
Unlike Pressley though, the rest of Harper's bridge crew had their sleek black uniforms squared away to taught lines and immaculate collars and cuffs. Faces were clean shaven and hairlines were ruler-straight.
Lieutenant Aki Jaggers took particular pride in her appearance. Harper expected her to have some kind of background in the marines. Then again, judging by her physique she could have been a Spartan. She could probably at the very least punch like one. The tactical station from where she locked firing solutions and operated the ship's weapons seemed to suit her.
At the very front of the bridge Harper could see his helmsman was already giving one of the technicians grief. He was already complaining about lag in the hull-cam-to-station feed, and then had a few things to say about the giant window that seemed to surround where his station hung free.
At the very head of the bridge the large transparent screen that revealed space outside gave away their positioning on the foremost belly of the destroyer. From their little suspended station down in the helmsman's "well" the navigation officers had a forward and downward view of space around them. Not that they needed it though, relying on hull-cameras and sensor data to fly the ship.
Suspended to Lieutenant Liam Jones' right was an a-typical co-pilot seat, home to the nav-station. Jones would fly and his rookie side-seater, Petty Officer Peterson would filter navigation data, plot courses and feed Jones course corrections.
Finally there was Petty Officer Doyle, like Peterson the communications officer was a new face. The young man was not Harper's first choice to fill the station, but when complications arose Admiral Weatherby from the admiralty meeting four days ago had extended an alternate.
He'd seemed pretty insistent Harper take Weatherby's comms-officer from his own ship. Petty Officer Doyle had a recommendation sheet as long as Harper's arm, so even though he didn't get his first choice, the comms-station would be in good hands at least.
They were kids though. All of them. The last few years of the war had bred most naval officers like that. Harper's selected crew were recruited young, trained fast and deployed straight into the shit.
With the Covenant knocking on Earth's front door it had been do or die. Jones, Jaggers and Pressley had served their baptism of fire on Harper's bridge. He had been unforgiving. The battle had been more so.
But they and many like them had walked away the next generation of officers and noncoms. The inheritors of the UNSC fleet so to speak.
Harper grinned and checked his thoughts before he started feeling like an old man. He was only in his fifties after all.
Plenty more flights in this old bird.
His new ship was a living testament to that statement. She'd served during the second battle for Earth and had been gutted by Covenant laser-fire before slamming her prow straight into an alien cruiser, breaking apart the enemy formation and scattering the alien aggressors for the final human push.
She'd gone down swinging and sacrificed herself so the UNSC could win a hard fought battle.
She'd been recovered, repaired, refitted; and now she was back better than ever to do a similar job. Only hopefully this time she'd outlive the tales that would be told of her.
New hardened alloys in the hull-plates, a brand spanking new slip-space engine like they were cramming into Project Infinity, they doubled up on cargo space to carry more troops, ground vehicles, drop ship and Starfighters; and that was without even beginning to list the new tactical improvements.
Some of the improvements the admiral had to wonder about.
"Isn't that a structural weakness?" Harper pointed out the transparent panels surrounding the helm.
The engineer smirked. "It's not really a window, sir," Pressley explained. "The engineers came up with it. The base element has so many syllables I can't even pronounce it. Think of it as solid titanium, only see-through."
"Fair enough." Standing by the edge of the observation dome, Harper rested his hands on his hips and looked down to the helm. "You okay down there, Jones?"
"The view kicks ass, sir."
Turning back into the bridge, the admiral skirted around a holo-table with a tactical display. It was set right in the middle of the bridge for all to see, in front of the command chair. Harper ran his hands over the glassy surface, the holo-table surface reacting to his touch. Several windows popped up to give a full three-dimensional display of the ship. Several figures and panels slid aside. Weapons status blinked crimson across the holographic representation hovering just a few inches off the table's surface.
"Halberd-class destroyer," Blaze sighed with a smile. "Just like the Iroquois."
Catching that with her sharp ear, Jaggers turned from where the tech finished putting the last polish on her station and re-fitted the computer panel. "The Iroquois, sir?" she asked.
"The ship commanded by the late Captain Jacob Keyes when he invented the Keyes Loop manoeuvre."
Harper looked around expectantly to find his crew were staring at him blankly. Holding out his arms almost flabbergasted, he gaped right back at them. "The Keyes Loop? It was a major naval victory against the Covenant. Jones, please tell me you know the Keyes Loop."
"Yes, sir; my duties as helmsman of this vessel dictate that I must state that I am intimately familiar with that manoeuvre and all its parameters and variations, sir." In the same breath he leaned across to the co-pilot and added without even bothering to lower his voice, "You ever hear of the Keyes Loop, Wetnose? I think the admiral is making shit up."
Even Harper joined into the ripple of laughter that rolled over the bridge. Maybe he was getting old. But then the rookie "Wetnose" saved the day.
Mimicking Jones' official tone earlier, Peterson turned in his seat and addressed the admiral. "Sir! I can confidently inform you that I have heard of the Keyes Loop. With it then _Commander_Jacob Keyes was able to destroy three Covenant ships with a single halberd-class destroyer, just like this one."
Harper nodded with a smile. "Absolutely correct. Gold star for you, Wetnose. So what does this say about humanity as a whole?"
Jaggers, Jones and Pressley joined their voices together in time tempered tradition to holler out; "We're not to be fucked with!"
"Damn straight." Harper crossed the bridge to his tactical officer. "Jaggers, run me through tactical."
"Aye, sir." The woman sat down and pulled up her display showcasing the full extent of the destroyer's destructive capabilities. "We have a pair of magnetic accelerator cannons with depleted uranium slugs. Twenty six archer torpedo bays, ten howler missile ports, a healthy compliment of chaingun point-defences and three SHIVA nuclear warhead ports - one forward and two on flanks."
"Don't forget to mention the shields, lieutenant!" Pressley reminded from his station.
"Oh, right." Jaggers rolled her eyes. "We've got energy shields on top of our armour too, but with this kind of firepower no enemy can lay a finger on us."
"Especially not with upgrades to the control thrusters and our main engines," Chief Pressley butted in again. "We're the fastest destroyer in the fleet. Oh, and we got those Forerunner upgrades in our slip-space engine too."
"The admiral isn't interested in your tinker-toys, chief," Jaggers retorted tiredly.
"Hey, without these tinker-toys your testosterone-flashers can't get into position to hurt anything!"
"Point is," - Jaggers smiled wickedly like a shark itching to go hunt - "she's a right leviathan, sir."
"Well, I think we've just found a new name for our ship." Harper straightened up and looked to the comm-station. "Doyle, relay that to control. We are christening this vessel as the UNSC Leviathan."
"Aye, sir!"
Harper patted Jaggers on the shoulder then moved over to the holo-table. Doyle almost immediately straightened up and turned to address the commanding officer again.
"Sir! I just got the green light. Non-essential personnel are off the ship. Marines are loaded up and cargo is secure." As he spoke Doyle was extremely clear and precise with everything he said. He even had a neutral accent Harper couldn't place. "We have the green light whenever you are ready to depart."
"Sorry, buddy; I didn't quite get that. Could you say again?" Jones called from across the bridge.
Harper noticed a heavy twitch of anger in the comm-officer's right eye. Clearly the man didn't like repeating himself.
"I said..."
Jones cut him off. "Sorry, go again?"
Harper stepped in before Doyle flipped a lid. The mission hadn't even started yet and the admiral needed Doyle sharp. "That's enough Jones. Get back to work."
"Sorry, sir. Just a little excited to take this baby out for a spin."
"Please be careful though, Lieutenant Jones," a disembodied woman's voice stated in a light Russian accent. "This is essentially my body you are man-handling."
With a burst of blue and white light the avatar of the ship's resident AI materialised in a glob of pixels over the tactical display in the centre of the room. The glob rippled and convulsed, forming a silhouette before their eyes that filled out into the shapely body of a woman. Though she had a beak and was covered in feathers, she more closely resembled a cornerian woman. The anthropomorphic avian was clad in an ancient cosmonaut's suit, sans-helmet, and stood with one feathered hand resting on a cocked hip.
Lieutenant Jones chuckled, wiggling his hands in the AI's direction. "Don't you worry, Chaika. These magic fingers won't let you down."
"Charming," the AI sighed sarcastically before Chaika directed her smile to Admiral Harper. "All airlocks are sealed and systems are green, admiral."
Harper took his seat in the command chair. "Thank you, Chaika. Jones, take us out of the cradle. By the book."
"By the book, aye."
Feeding power to the engines and relying on the exit vector provided by Peterson, Jones back the _Leviathan_out of the docking cradle with all the care reserved for a nervous tourist backing a rental car out of a parking space for the first time. The space station within which the Leviathan had been rebuilt was essentially a large platform with engines. Large was perhaps an understatement though; she was over a square kilometre. Three _Leviathan_s could be eclipsed by her shadow. The station running at full steam could refit six destroyers within a matter of hours.
Scaffolds, supply tubes, hoses and cargo trams retracted to her surfaces away from the _Leviathan_as she backed out of range, turned, then nudged past another destroyer in mid-construction.
Jones pushed the throttle and they accelerated away to minimum safe distance before Pressley began powering up the slip-space drive and Peterson began plotting their first jump. The cradle had shrank to the size of a dinner plate on rear-view cameras by the time navigation systems were green-lighting for launch.
"We have some time if you want to address the crew, sir," Doyle stated, and getting the nod from Harper the petty officer pinged the intercom.
"All hands to attention," his voice echoed, carried across every room and corridor.
An age old whistle belted over the intercom, the universal prelude to the ship's commander about to address the crew. Doyle was suddenly like a technical operator in a live newsroom. Clutching his head-set he turned in his seat then pointed in an exaggerated fashion to the admiral to indicate he was broadcasting live.
Leaning a little closer to an invisible mic hovering off the side of his chair, Harper spoke slowly and clearly, his voice broadcast across every corridor and chamber aboard the ship. He imagined thousands of bodies stopping what they were doing with cocked heads directing their gazes to the intercom system.
"This is Admiral Jason Harper. For too many years, humanity has been on the back foot, reacting to threats rather than preventing them. The rest of the galaxy was bigger than us. Stronger than us. We were mice, hiding in the shadows, hoping the giants would not see us.
"No more.
"Humanity is no longer on the defence. We are the giants now.
"Our mission is taking us beyond the outer colonies and into the outer systems where aliens tread. Our first stop is Corneria in the Lylat System. The cornerians turned us down when we asked for help during the war, but we will not stoop to that level. We heed the pleas of our neighbours. So strap in and get ready. We're going in."
Shutting off the intercom, Harper straightened up and addressed NAV. "Jones? Take us away."
"Aye-aye. Lylat System co-ordinates locked. Chief?"
"Full power to slip-space drive. It's all you, ell-tee."
"Bitchin. Stand by for slip-space transition in six... five... four... ready... steady... go!"
Energy surged from the reactors into the slip-space generator matrices. A path parted in space directly before them - a pinhole that became a gyrating wormhole of white light, fluxing and spinning.
Sparks danced across the hull as the tear in reality swallowed them whole and the forces of slip-space sped the Leviathan on her way.
~~~
In his quarters, Admiral Harper pored over the log files that had rolled in shortly after their opening jump. The shakedown run shortly after the slip-space engines had been fitted and raked in the majority of errors, which had promptly been rectified. Today's jump had rolled in a whole new set of problems.
Pacing from one side of the room to the other with a tablet in one hand and a plastic cup with two fingers of seventy-year-old brandy in the other, Harper went through the glitch report. The crew were all over the problems already, and even as he was noticing new errors in the log they flashed green moments later as techs locked the problems down and solved them.
Taking a sip from his cup, he placed the whiskey on his desk in time for a burst of light in the corner of his quarters. Looking, he saw Chaika materialise above the holo-tank in her usual calm fashion.
She said, "Admiral, I just got data back from the recon drones we sent out ahead," and waved her hand lazily before replacing it on her hip.
Harper's log data swiped aside and he was treated to a detailed report on what Chaika's fast drones had recorded in the Lylat System. A few years ago tech that was able to be launched in slip-space and then send telemetry back to the mothership while in slip-space would have saved so many lives. Then again it would have made the prowler corps almost entirely redundant. But at the same time deploying fleets with good intel would have become a much speedier affair.
The admiral was treated to a fully compiled report of the situation in orbit above Corneria, and Chaika had made the executive decision to adjust their re-entry point in normal space to the dark side of Corneria's single moon. The kind of decision if made by another member of his crew Harper would have preferred they informed him first, and Chaika was no exception to that rule. Still, while she had made the call in error, it was a good call and Harper would have done the same. He'd have a private talk with her about taking liberties later.
For now he focused on the count of enemy and friendly ships in Corneria's orbit and assessed how he might approach the situation.
In the meantime Chaika took some time to look around the admiral's quarters as if she were taking it all in for the first time. In truth she had constant awareness of everything within the Leviathan without the need for a pair of eyes. But she always felt that having her avatar look around and notice things as if she were a biological member of the crew put other crewmen at ease.
Her holographic eyes lingered on what looked like a framed paper napkin and a crudely sketched tactical map drawn across it in black ink.
"This looks dicey," the admiral said finally, drawing Chaika's attention away from the unusual relic. "Anglar forces are hitting the cornerian defenders hard."
"That's not even the extent of it. Thermal shows this is a blitz tactic. They're tying up orbital defences while they rain troops onto a single city on Corneria's surface. My suggestion would be to have ODST and marines ready to make planetfall."
"Agreed. Bring Gypsy and Raider Company up to speed and get the marines geared up."
Chaika's eyes glazed for a moment, like she was in an entirely different universe for a few seconds. When she came back, her beak twisted into a smile.
"It's done. Also, Jones informs me we're arriving ahead of schedule, sir."
Admiral Harper drained his cup and left his quarters. The walk up to the bridge didn't take long, a little less than thirty seconds. And as he marched onto the deck, Jaggers immediately jumped to her feet with a bellowing "admiral on the deck!"
"As you were," Harper immediately ordered before everyone else could jump up.
Sliding into the "hot-seat" Harper pulled up a status report and nodded approvingly of the green tick-marks across the board. They were still in slip-space, a swirling vortex of white light twisting around some far-off unseen drain far beyond the prow of the Leviathan.
"Okay, people," the admiral began. "Recon indicates that we are hopping into the suck. Let's make ready. Go to condition amber."
"Amber, aye." Doyle delved into his console and his voice echoed over the intercom. "All hands, we are on condition amber. All hands to battle stations."
Tactical lit up on the holo-table, all armaments flashed to green in quick succession. "Loading archers and howlers now. MAC chambers full and coils charging. SHIVA warheads in the tube, ready to go."
"Power to shields stable. Power to engines stable. All systems nominal."
Everyone was doing their job. Just one more piece of the puzzle left.
"Nav?"
"Thirty seconds to real-space," Peterson answered, counting down the seconds as they passed. "Fifteen... ten."
"Leave it on the screen. I can read."
The ensign threw the readout to the holo-table and the digits popped up just as they ticked past five seconds. The next few seconds of Harper's life screeched to an agonising crawl as he mentally re-read Chaika's recon report and tried to imagine what kind of hell they were jumping into.
The readout hit zero and the Leviathan materialised in the Lylat System.
~~~
The deck jumped and threw Captain Fox McCloud face-first into a wall.
As he lay there in a daze he pondered the title he'd been given by the Cornerian Army only a few days ago. Captain.
The full weight of the responsibility hadn't broken his back until just a few hours ago, when the Anglar Blitz had begun proper. And as he lay there a pathetic ball of rust and white fur the anthropomorphic fox wondered if he was deserving of the title at all.
He'd seen his team through some pretty dicey situations. He'd seen Corneria through dire straits, between venomian attacks and aparoid invasions. But this was the only time an invasion had been so dire Fox and his team had actually been drafted by the Cornerian Military rather than hired.
One by one the planets of Lylat had fallen to the dark force that had risen from the toxic seas of Venom. Each world left devastated. Sauria. The Fichina outpost. Even the Cornerian Army garrison world of Katina was no match for the overwhelming force of ships sweeping the system.
Now Corneria stood as the last bastion of hope for a Lylat System free of tyranny and oppression at the hands of the anglars. And in only a few hours Fox's armour plated resolve had buckled and he wasn't just leading his crew as an act of defiance against his attackers - it was an act of desperation to survive.
Far below Fox Corneria City blazed like a controlled fire. He knew it would be only the beginning. The Anglar Blitz would not end until the jewel of the Lylat System was reduced to a hunk of coal and anglar control over the Lylat System was absolute.
The Anglar Army had made no demands and given no warning. They simply warped into orbit with a mass of ships far larger than Corneria's defence fleet and began laying waste to everything in their path. Corneria's once clean orbit had become a smouldering graveyard of the ships the anglars had breezed through.
And on his own little dying star lost in a sea of twisted metal, Fox was being tossed around his own ship like a midget in a circus.
More torpedoes hit the Great Fox as her captain tried to find his footing. This time as the deck bucked a hand reached out and grabbed Fox.
Turning to face the anthro toad who had caught him, Fox wasted no time pointing his friend back down the corridor to the engineering decks.
"What are you doing up here?" Fox demanded, and Slippy was taken by surprise.
"I... I..." Slippy wasn't sure what to say. Normally catching his friend when he fell had been enough for a "thank you" at the very least.
"Get the shield generator working, Slippy!" Fox demanded. "Standing here gawking at me isn't going to help us survive the next thirty seconds!"
Slippy skulked off to do what he had been told to do, and Fox continued to struggle back up the command deck. Now, not only did he feel the back breaking responsibility of his title and the looming dread as the shadow of a superior enemy drifted over him; Fox now felt like a massive asshole too. But he'd been right. Gawking wouldn't see them through this.
He needed everyone at six-hundred-percent. They could hate him for it later, he didn't care. So long as his friends survived long enough to hate him.
Once upon a time the Great Fox had been a privately owned vessel. She had been fully automated, with their robotic pilot ROB-64 tied into every deck and system. There had been no need for a command deck.
Then the Cornerian Army stepped in and re-fitted the Great Fox in a desperate attempt to make her war-worthy against the Anglar Army. The re-fit hadn't even been completed, and thick conduits and cables still trailed over the floor to trip up any personnel running around who weren't paying attention. Stations were crudely welded and bolted to the deck and Cornerian Army personnel manned the multitude of new tactical computers, most of which didn't even have panels to cover up the circuitry within.
Fox marched into the fray, avoiding the techs struggling to get the small electrical fires under control. "Report!"
"We got an anglar cruiser off our port bow, ten kilometres," the executive officer on tactical yelled in a fit of panic through a curtain of sparks falling from a busted light-fitting. Fox felt the same emotions grip him too. Ten kilometres in space when dealing with massive starships was barely considered breathing room.
The tactical officer continued to say, "Our weapons took out their laser batteries, but we can't seem to crack their armour. Vice versa, they're hitting us with plasma torpedoes but our armour is holding... just about."
"ROB, get us clear before they decide to try ramming us," Fox ordered the ciling.
From the cockpit raised to the front of the command centre, the robotic torso of their AI pilot spasmed and blurred his articulated steel fingers over the control boards of the Great Fox. His nervous, metallic voice carried down the steps leading up to his private compartment.
"I'm on it, but a barrel roll is hard to do in a full-sized starship."
"I don't need a barrel roll, ROB! Just get us out of here!"
"Also hard to do, since the engines just died."
"Oh, for..." Fox ran to the nearest wall computer and pounded the direct line for engineering. "Slippy!"
"Intercom is also down sir,"
"Well what the hell is not down?"
The silence was deafening, just a hair above the rumble of the deck plates with every anglar torpedo that whittled away at their armour
"Forget I said anything." Fox rubbed his muzzle before an idea sparked in his mind. "ROB, are the port-side ballistic torpedo bays still operational?"
"Yeah, but we're out of torpedoes."
"Doesn't matter. Open the torpedo hatches and let them decompress explosively. All of them at the same time."
The response was a light rumble through the deck, overshadowed by another enemy bomb hitting by the hull.
There was a cheer from ROB-64 though as he reported, "We're listing to starboard. We're moving slow, but we're moving off."
Moving slowly was better than not at all, Fox decided.
"Arm all the weapons. Arm everything and fire when ready!" Fox crossed to the comms-station as several tactical officers bellowed 'aye-aye' and lowered his tone so only the ensign on comms could hear him. "Has there been any word from Star Wolf's squadron?"
The young husky matched Fox's volume. "No, sir. Not since Krystal went down."
"And combat search and rescue? Have they located her yet?"
The ensign shook his head, momentarily silent as he was torn between saving the captain's feelings and being blunt. The deck shook hard enough for a support to his right to crack and buckle. He made up his mind quickly.
"Sorry sir, but CSAR has their hands full assisting with civilian evacuation. We cannot dedicate a search for one individual in that mess."
Fox understood, but his temper flared none the less. In a display unbecoming of an officer he threw his fist into the nearest wall. His knuckles ached as he withdrew having left a bloody crater in the panelling. He was pretty sure he'd broken something in his hand, but didn't care.
Fox had asked Krystal to leave the Star Fox team little under a year ago, after the Aparoid Invasion. The vixen had taken it hard, hard enough she had been ignorant of the fact Fox wanted her off the team for her own safety; because he cared for her a great deal...
No, ignorant was the wrong word. Fox had been the one who was ignorant. Krystal was a fine pilot and could take care of herself no matter the challenge. Fox had been a complete idiot the way he'd handled the situation, he had no delusions of grandeur about that anymore.
Krystal had run off and joined Star Wolf squadron, a rash rival team of mercenaries with the moral compass of a venomian. Perhaps it had initially been to spite Fox, he didn't know. Whatever her original reasons, she'd remained a member of Star Wolf and soon after the Anglar Blitz on Corneria began Wolf O'Donnell and his team had been drafted like Fox and his friends. They'd operated out of the Great Fox and Fox had sent them down to Corneria City to devent the city from the anglar fighters and ground troops streaming down from orbit.
Krystal's arwing had gone down in the opening hour of the blitz and Star Wolf had gone dark. Fox tried not to worry. Krystal was a fighter and she was tough to boot. But it was about as hellish down there as it was in orbit. He couldn't help worry.
His hand throbbed harder and Fox figured he might need to get it cast... then he'd smash the cast on Wolf O'Donnell's face next time he saw him.
"Scrub O'Donnell's squadron from the active roster for now," Fox eventually ordered. "Mark them as missing in action and get the next squadron out of the hangar to replace them as soon as possible."
"All the arwings in the hanger are shot up, sir. Repairs will take time."
Fox snapped for what felt like the hundredth time in three hours. "Everything we have is shot up. Just make it happen. How's the rest of the fleet doing?"
The ensign opened his mouth about to deliver grim news when something pinged on his station. He averted his attention to check in case it was important and did a double take.
"I got a new contact! It just presented itself from around the dark side of the moon. Unknown classification!"
Fox groaned. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. "Tag it and blast it!"
"Wait, sir. It's..." the comms-officer paused to process the data and Fox's patience grew palpable.
"What is it soldier?"
"I got a classification match from the archives. Banners and markings recognised." The husky looked up, his jaw ajar with shock. "It's human sir!"
~~~
Just over the lunar horizon a planet slid into view. Corneria was almost exactly identical to the view of Earth Harper had been privileged to see from orbit most of his life. It had glistening blue oceans, lush green land-masses and the view was speckled by crisp white cloud-cover. It was beautiful.
The battle raging in orbit was a different story altogether. It was the kind of thing most people only read about or saw in movies. Two fleets, almost twenty ships on one side and about eight defending on the other, the Lylat sun glistening on the chrome hulls of the aggressor ships and Corneria's shadow-side bathing the defenders in near complete darkness.
Between them a deadly firework display of reds, greens and blues exploded. Plasma and laser-lights zipped over and back between the two fleets forming base lines of fire. It was like an old earthling method of warfare from the 1700's AD. Two armies would line up neatly and would be given turns to take pot-shots at each other.
Harper intended the _Leviathan_to be a militia group to break the rules in the defenders' favour.
"We going into that, sir?" Jaggers asked. Her tone didn't have a hint of fear though. She sounded almost excited.
Harper had a secret little chuckle as he realised there were brave, unwavering expressions on every face on the bridge. Even Peterson looked unmoved by the heavyweight fight they were witnessing. He'd chosen his crew well.
Chaika let out a Russian curse-word before she piled a three-dimensional representation of the battle above the holo-table. "That's a lot of bad guys. I count three cruisers, eight destroyers, nine frigates and two small ships our sensors almost missed. Prowlers perhaps."
"Starfighters?" Harper asked.
"Like you wouldn't believe. There's dog-fights in the aggressor fleet, the defender fleet and everywhere in-between."
It was friendly-fire just waiting to happen and the admiral wasn't even sure where to begin. More importantly, who was Harper supposed to announce himself to? If he just swooped in to save the day he risked the cornerians opening up on him as well as the anglar fleet. It would turn this simple scrap into a brutal three-way battle. He needed to report to the cornerian chain of command before he did anything drastic.
Doyle turned his chair to face the admiral as he belted out a report. "I'm patched into their comms now. Looks like one of their ships is separated from the fleet and right in the thick of it. They're dead in the water with an enemy cruiser danger close off their port bow."
_"I see them,"_Chaika assured and she blew up the representation on the tac-map.
Harper watched the picture bloom until only two holographic ships remained hovering over the holo-table. The cornerian vessel was elegant, almost swan-like in profile with a quad of back-swept wings. She looked aerodynamic, especially compared to the bulbous bulk of the anglar vessel hitting them with plasma bombs.
The anglar cruiser looked like an orca whale moving in for the kill, in both profile and posture. All eyes looked to the admiral.
He didn't flinch. His face was a stony veil of resolve.
On the inside Harper felt like a fifteen year old sprung with a surprise test and yelling "fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck!" in his head. Eventually he asked that inner fifteen year old what he would have done.
Bad idea.
"Nav, set heading three seven two, full sub-light." Jones was punching in commands even as Harper was giving them. "As soon as you can, flank and match speed with that cornerian ship for escort. Jaggers, give me an akimbo MAC across the broadside of that orca."
"That'll leave both guns offline until they charge, sir," the tactical officer reminded.
"I know that. But hopefully they don't."
Jaggers gave that shark-like grin of hers again. "Firing solution locked."
Harper didn't give himself the time to reconsider. "Bust 'em."
Jaggers hit the fire control with a satisfying click. "On the way! Sixty seconds to effect on target."
Almost immediately Doyle chimed in again. "Sir, I'm getting a hail from the wounded ship."
"Put them on speaker."
As soon as Doyle did, a voice crackled over the poor comm-line. Their array must have taken hits because the volume faded in and out as if their comms-officer was playing with the mic volume.
"Human vessel, this is Captain Fox McCloud of the Great Fox_. Please state your intent."_
Harper paused with an unusual dizzy spell playing havoc with his inner ear. It was a mixture of excitement and realisation that hit him as he spoke to an alien. Only unlike all the times he'd sent messages of warning and brutal war-cries over open comms at the hostile aliens of the Covenant fleets he'd battled, this time he was reassuring the alien commander that he was here to help.
"Breathe easy, captain. This is Admiral Jason Harper of the UNSC Leviathan. I'm about to demonstrate our intent. See that anglar cruiser off your port bow?"
Before Captain McCloud could answer, Jaggers laughed loudly and gleefully cried "splash!" At that exact moment both MAC rounds hit the broadside of the anglar cruiser.
There were no shields to stop the impact, and the armour buckled from the thousands of terra-joules that carried the heavy rounds through deck upon deck of ship before exiting in a hail of glistening slag out the other end. The anglar cruiser listed heavily and flexed into an unnatural angle, engines flaring as the pilot desperately tried to regain control. Zero-gee fire spilled like liquid from the breaks in the anglar armour and the cruiser came apart soundlessly with a billion shimmering pieces of a massive, complicated puzzle spinning away into space.
"Now you don't," Harper announced, and the Great Fox captain's shock was audible in the brief silence that followed.
"... much obliged, admiral. But there's plenty of fish left in this stretch of space."
"Get your ship mobile and behind the firing line, captain. We'll escort you to safety."
Captain McCloud's response was panicked as he practically begged Harper to reconsider. "Negative, admiral. We need all available weapons on the line. Our capitol city, Corneria City is under targeted attack. We still have civilians trapped down there and anglar air-forces are making extraction difficult. We need to break this orbital attack so the ground forces stand a chance."
"Say no more, captain. I'm deploying my marines to make planetfall and assist your troops in defence of the city and its people. Just fire us co-ordinates. In the meantime we'll do what we can to ruin the anglar fleet's day."
"Thanks, admiral. If we survive this the first round is on me. Great Fox out."
The channel closed on a data burst and Chaika sent the co-ordinates to the NAV computers on ODST drop pods and marine pelicans. Harper immediately ordered Doyle to jack into the anglar fleet-comm. With Chaika's help he was able to bypass their low-end encryption and interrupt messages between all anglar ships. It wouldn't take long for them to isolate the problem and rotate frequencies, but then the admiral didn't need long.
The moment he got the nod from Doyle he announced himself and his intent upon the enemy with a deadly serious in tone, without stuttering, pausing or losing pace of any kind. "This is Admiral Jason Harper of the UNSC Leviathan addressing the anglar commander of the aggressor fleet. I feel the need to inform you that I have in my possession a pair of very big guns and a dozen even bigger ballistic explosive devices that will turn your fleet into nothing more than a hazy memory. Now I am a gracious man, so I will allow you thirty seconds to withdraw from cornerian space before I unleash upon you a hell the likes of which will drive mortal men into insanity.
"Test me and you will fail. Your thirty seconds begins now."
Thirty seconds came, and right on the mark Harper sent his second message. "Pray to your heathen gods while you can. Prepare to die."
Now Harper now had a dilemma on his hands. The Great Fox was but one ship that the admiral could not waste time protecting. There was a whole fleet of cornerians up there being decimated. He had to break off the Great Fox's flank before she was mobile, and as soon as the Leviathan pulled off it was open season on that fox.
On top of that, Harper had to spend more time dropping marines into Corneria City. They'd be circling the battle in orbit to do so and the Leviathan would lose the time it needed to draw fire away from the fleet and break the enemy fleet's formation.
And on top of all that, to drop the marines they'd have to enter geosynchronous orbit over the city. That placed them right in the thick of the enemy fleet.
Harper tightened his grip on the arms of his chair and exhaled slowly. "Okay, we're going in hard. Jones, get us in position over Corneria City. Breakneck-fast."
"Altitude, sir?" Jones asked.
"Scrape the bow over atmo and roll to keep our top armour facing the enemy. Chaika, take control of the ODST launch and kick them off this ship the moment we're in position."
"Aye, comrade admiral!"
Scraping atmosphere would put the marines in a good drop position and would generate heat that would hopefully throw off enemy sensors and prevent the enemy from getting a solid lock. On top of that he'd need a blanket of covering fire. "Jaggers, be ready with the archers. Launch all tubes the moment the drop is initiated, full spread. Hit whatever you can, but just focus on blanketing the area with covering fire."
"Ooh-rah!"
Turning his chair left, Harper finally addressed Doyle. "Scramble broadsword starfighters and get me the ODST major."
"Aye, sir. Major Cooper of Gypsy Company is on the comm for you now."
"Major. Prep your marines. You're going for a walk."
The gruff, excitable disembodied voice of the ODST major bellowed in Harper's ear. "Roger that, sir. If you don't mind me asking, where are we going?"
Harper paused to grimace at the holo-table replication of a city on fire before he answered;
"To war."