Chapter 74

After leaving the research lab, Axel took the elevator back to the top where Sword base was located. Arriving back at Sword Base, an Officer was waiting by his office door. 

As soon as Axel got close, the officer stood up and handed him a tablet "Sir, here is the report from the recent Covenant invasion." Said the officer as Axel grabbed the tablet and started to read the entirety of the report.

The beginning of the report was filled with a few pages of logs from major events that took place which involved recorded comm link communications, major battles, and the deployment of forces across the planet.

After the logs were the casualty report which totaled 24,695 military casualties and 152,487 civilian casualties. Over 75% of the casualties reported happened within the first 12 hours of the invasion mainly due to the UNSC having less defenders on the planet during the initial attack and the Covenant bombed the planet from orbit.

However, these casualties were much lower than the projected casualties which were estimated at well over 50k Military casualties and around 200k civilian casualties. This showed that the UNSC had come a long way in terms of defending worlds and deploying forces to counter invasions by the Covenant.

Normally it would have taken weeks for the UNSC to gather a sizable fleet and retake the attacked planet, which at that point would have already been glassed and abandoned by the Covenant unless it contained Forerunner ruins.

But thanks to the revolutionary creation of the Warp drive, travelling across space for UNSC ships was much faster now. What would normally take weeks of travelling, could now be completed in hours.

After the casualties was the list on the number of equipment used and destroyed so that they could be replaced and the UNSC can keep track of their military equipment to better manage logistics across every world.

The second part of the report was the results of the battle between the UNSC fleet and the Covenant fleet. The UNSC had lost 0 ships during the engagement but had 4 heavily damaged ships. Meanwhile on the Covenant side, during the first battle of Actium, the Covenant had lost 15 ships before it retreated.

Then during the second battle, the entire Covenant fleet was either wiped out or disabled. Vice Admiral Hood had managed to take a lot of High-ranking Covenant leaders among the fleet's prisoners.

Now the last part of the report covers the final days of the battle to rid the planet of the Covenant. 

After reading the report, Axel pinched his nose and sighed. While the number of casualties was much lower than what they expected he felt that he could have done more to prevent the invasion in the first place.

His focus had been on producing offensive military weapons to help the UNSC during invasions and battles. But he had forgotten about increasing their defensive capabilities at the same time. Sure, the Orbital Defense Stations were part of their defensive capabilities, and they were somewhat effective when not outnumbered, however they needed more.

A simple defensive station would not be enough to stop the Covenant, especially if they kept sending larger fleets like they had just done. His preparations and overhaul of the UNSC ships and weapons were not yet completed simply because of the time it took to build things and the number of worlds that needed to be defended.

Handing the tablet back to the officer, Axel walked into his officer and sat down at his desk. He logged onto his computer and started up the program that he always used to develop new technologies and test them out in simulations before he created the actual experimental version of the technology.

Next to his computer, Omni's Avatar had popped up as he was curious as to what Axel was going to develop next. "So, Admiral, what are you going to develop next?" asked Omni. 

Keeping his eyes on the computer screen and his hands on the keyboard Axel answered his question "I have been focusing too much on the offensive capabilities of the UNSC that I have forgotten to balance between the Offense and Defense" 

"Well, without you I think the UNSC would probably be in more of a mess than what they are currently. With you they have saved millions of lives from the Covenant, and you have even managed to defeat the Covenant multiple times now. I don't remember the last time the Covenant succeeded in their goals without you putting a stop to them" Omni had stated his own opinion on the matter after he had read the many reports on Axel's past deeds before he was created and his current ones.

He ran simulations on how the UNSC would have would have been without Axel and the result ended up the same every time. The UNSC had either lost Earth after decades of fighting or were completely wiped by the Covenant.

"That is true, however there's always room for improvement" Axel stated.

Hearing this, Omni had pulled up a tab on another screen revealing a new technology. "In that case Admiral, allow me to assist you" Axel looked away from his main screen and onto the screen that Omni had brought up the new technology.

"Taking from your already created technology and utilizing a little bit of my knowledge, I have created a planetary shield structure that could be utilized alongside the Vacuum energy in order to create a shield to protect the planet form orbital bombardments" Explained Omni.

(Image Here)

Axel read through the data on its capabilities and found it to be exactly what he was about to come up with. The Planetary Defense shield would generate a Shield around the world in the timespan of 10 seconds which would prevent anything besides communications from travelling through the shield.

Anything that comes into contact with the Shield will find itself crashing into a forcefield that blocked any and all things from coming in. Of course this applied to UNSC ships as well, but there was a way around this which involved a Shield Gate to allow ships to fly to and from the planet.

Fleets would be stationed around these Shield gates to defend them during invasions and prevent boarding parties from taking control of them and allowing enemy ships through the shields.

"This is great Omni; this is exactly what I needed" exclaimed Axel

"Thank you, Admiral, I try to be as useful as possible." Responded Omni.

Axel continued to read through the data before he asked his next question "What else do you have that you think can be useful"

Omni brought up another technology which resembled a giant cannon "This is what I call the 'Iron defense'. It can be built on each world and is essentially a giant MAC cannon that is more powerful and larger than any known MAC cannon right now. One his from this could break right through a Covenants battlecruiser shield and put a hole through its hull." Omni Explained.

"Omni," Axel began, his eyes still glued to the screen. "How feasible is it to mass produce these Iron Defenses along with the Planetary Defense Shields?"

Omni took a moment to consider, running his own internal simulations. "The Shield would require significant resources to implement on a single planet, particularly dense materials that we have access to thanks to the Star lifter. Once installed it should require minimal maintenance and energy to operate. The Iron Defense cannon is more practical for mass production as unlike the Planetary shield which would require actual testing on an actual planet, the Iron defense cannon is just a massive gun that isn't that sophisticated to build."

"I see," Axel murmured, leaning back in his chair and thinking about these two new technologies. They were promising and he was most likely going to start researching and developing them.

"And I'm assuming AI can be integrated into these defensive systems" Asked Axel.

"Yes, a combination of AI with Human specialists would increase its efficiency, reaction time, and targeting" Explained Omni.

Axel nodded hearing this information. He put the two projects into a folder and sent them to the research department to start researching them and eventually building them onto worlds.