:: 29/12/2000 ::
While everyone else was probably worrying that the fleet would overrun him, I knew what was really happening. That bastard deliberately de-cloaked, and was leading them to us! I had nothing but circumstantial evidence to support my claim, but I knew I was right.
"Angels, form up!" shouted Captain Naabal. The seven of us went into Broad Formation, with the Bloody Dagger just turning in next to me. I looked at his ship with contempt. "Ten, are you OK?" inquired Alia. "More or less, Eight. Fortunately I was able to escape intact."
Yeah. Very fortunate.
I sighed. He was a dangerous guy, but we had more important things to do. "OK, Nine," said Jacyn. "Form up on me. There are some Standard Corvettes that insulted me back there, and I don't like criticism." I swooped in on his wing. He initiated his Cloaking Field and he was out of sight.
"Oh, no you don't, Ten," I said. "De-cloak so I can see you." I could hear the smug angle in his voice. "Cool your jets, Sjet. Set your canopy polarity frequency to 271.89." Confused, I did as he ordered, and suddenly I saw his Fighter back in front of me, if not slightly transparent.
His ship swept its vertical wings and headed towards a Standard Corvette. These craft were not equipped with missile tubes, and weren't much stronger than our Light Corvettes, but I'd rather see myself against a Fighter any day. As we sped towards it, Jacyn de-cloaked to fire a few rounds at the ship. With its strong weaponry, the CF burst holes in the hull, where I could see the methane atmosphere being vented. The pilot inside was slowly suffocating, clawing at its throat. I shuddered and turned my ship away.
"Nine, Ten, this is One." Was that bloodlust I heard in our leader's voice? "You are ordered to escort Halo 3. It's attacking two of the Minelayers, so its turrets are too busy to track attacking ships."
"Copy, Lead," we responded.
We navigated through the carnage to one of the Multi-Gunners. Its six turrets were frantically attacking both the two incoming Corvettes and an incoming wall of mines. I turned on my comm. "Ten, let's lure those mines away." I heard him copy my orders, and we cut thrust to about four hundred meters/second. The flashing mines picked up our engine heat as we passed by, and they stopped pursuing Halo 4. The mines came in quickly, but we released some chaff bursts, and about eight of the explosives dematerialised into an expanding ball of destruction. The flames were licking at my thrusters when I kicked in the emergency afterburners.
I turned back to Halo 4, and helped Jacyn down one of the Minelayers. Missiles flared past the MG Corvette, but its free turrets knocked the attacking Corvette's gyros into scrap, sending it spinning it off into a detonation of shrapnel. "Nine, this is Ten. Let's toast some convoy ships. They are five minutes from hyperspace."
"Copy that. Let's first target Lambda 4."
We approached the long, rectangular vessel. I scanned its cargo, and noticed something interesting. "Fleet, this is Nine. These ships are carrying foodstuffs and med supplies. We've hit the least crucial ones." 1R-F replied, "Maybe that's why their escort isn't very strong." Just then, a blue trail of Ion particles lit up my canopy, preventing me from targeting the convoy. "Sure, Seven. Real weak fleet."
I turned to face my enemy, and saw a large Ion Array Frigate. It fired again, but by then I was on the move. Firing at the main hull would do me no good; it would be like a Kharakian Desert Gnat biting a Hiigaran Mammoth Horse. Because of this, I aimed at its most vulnerable spot: the cockpit. I fired my rounds one after the other, and the transparisteel was cracking. I stopped, and the cockpit faded back to normal, until I was staring eye to eye with a grinning Turanic officer. Those windows must be self-repairing, I thought. If that were true, then my weapons were no good. I wish I had Napalm near when I needed him.
I got an urgent message from the Captain. "Alert, all ships return to Base. The Angel Base is under attack!" I turned away from my opponent and moved through the space clouds to Base, and saw that it was under attack by two Ion Array Frigates. I charged at the port one, and tried to remember how Nolan got his ship to fire the "Shotgun" attack. It hit me, and I fired a burst of shrapnel at one of the connecting hinges that held one of the solar arrays. Ensuring a steep reduction in the Frigate's recharge rate. It blew off with a satisfying effect of burning at the broken edge, and the Frigate slowly turned towards me, firing fast shots of Ion fury. I ignored it and turned to the next one.
The one to the starboard of the Angel Base was chewing holes and seriously charring the hull of the Troop Transport. I got an idea. "Say, Four?" Nolan replied, "Yeah?"
"How powerful is the burst weapon on the Black Runner? I'll bet it's heavily modified."
"If by that you mean it's firepower has increased threefold, then yes."
I grinned. "I'll distract the Ion Array to starboard of the TT. Get into position and attack on my mark." I moved in towards the war machine that was still spitting sapphire beams on our home ship, which my IFF transceiver recognized as the Recoil, and began my attack on the bridge view ports again, to no avail. But the attack wouldn't come from me.
"Nine, this is Four. I'm charged and in position."
I banked hard to port. "Fire!"
The Black Runner fired, and two streaking balls of white light shot out at the bridge. They shattered the canopy and exploded within, sending ripples across the hull, swelling and breaking off pieces of it. The main core at the base of the Ion acceleration ladder breached and the frigate underwent nuclear meltdown.
"Yeehah!" screamed Napalm. "That silhouette will look nice painted onto my fuselage."
I smiled. "Then how about we go after another one?"
"I like the way you think, Jake."
We both targeted another Ion Array Frigate, the one I'd wounded earlier, and saw that it was trying to destroy our captured Missile Corvette; renamed the Apocalypse Treason by Sgt. Gaalsien's troops, who weren't doing a bad job of flying it. We also noticed that it was getting dangerously close to a dense dust cloud. Napalm replied, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I hope so."
We both swooped towards the next target. Any idiot who is trusted enough ton be given a Scout knows simple astrophysics, and from tests, it was determined that the excited electrical charge of an Ion bolt could cause a dust cloud to go through a reaction that invoked an, in as few words as possible, an Ion storm. We both hoped that the Turanic pilots weren't as knowledgeable.
The Black Runner flew dangerously close to the firing tube of the frigate. Blue shots began spewing from it, but they managed to jink left and right to avoid them. At one point they even did a whole loop around the beam. Nice flying, Lt. Commander, I thought. He didn't say much, but Liir Hra did know how to fly.
In any case, the ship drew ever so slowly to the dust cloud, and with only milliseconds to spare the corvette made a U-turn out of the cloud and to safety. The ship fired again, and blue lightning lit up the area. The beams played over the hull, blowing up vents and power relays until the ship turned into a large, black mass of charred metal. Crude and effective. What else would I expect from Napalm?
After the fire works, I saw Angel Eight, Alia, chasing a flaming Missile Corvette. She was getting better; I grinned. But I traced the trajectory they were going on, and it led straight for the active Ion storm.
No!
"Eight, this is Nine. Alter your course, now! No questions asked!"
"Yeah, yeah, Jake. Just give me a second to take this guy out. Just a few mor-"
And then there was silence.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
I would have said just that, if that message weren't already being screamed in my comm. by Napalm. Our first fatality. I held back a scream as I turned to the convoy. Now they were going to pay. But before I got into firing range, the ships were engulfed in blue walls.
They had gone! We had lost.
I laid back in my seat, and took a deep breath, as all red pings on my radar disappeared. I turned towards the Angel Base as I heard Captain Naabal say, "Angels, we have lost. The convoy is gone, and we lost Alia, Jude, and 1R-E. We didn't make it."
