chapter 35 Flood Arrives and Battle For the Future Of Earth

A/N this chapter will be a mix of first and third person since it will have a large space battle I did two test and from that I found with my limited skills space battles sound better in third person than in first now due to this the chapter may possibly be longer than usual since I refuse to cut the chapter off mid battle it's annoying and I hate when it happens also this volume of the story is going to end soon but I have already plans for volume 2 some may have seen I did another story this was to test both my third person skills which will make an appearance in this chapter and the next volume will use this same format have both first and third person perspectives to give entataining fights and battles as well as to allow me to flesh tgings out abit more since i findbit harder to explain the world in first person so yea with that please enjoy.

Dark Pov

As time ticks by I am going through everything to make sure there is no issues with the remaining ships I can not afford to fail I never thought my intervention would result in me having to fight a god dam Gravemind that has absorbed God knows how many beings to increase ins intelligence and biomass and if I remember right it used an infected ship to follow the key ship while using it to locate the ark actual location in the galaxy but since it can not do that it will most likely bring High charity here instead.

Thinking this I can only hope that the special element cannon can actually do enough damage to high charity before it becomes unstable from my void elemental power since it's probably the only one of our powers that will do enough damage and kill everything on board at least if it's successful the flood will lose its intelligence and be unable to use ships but the problem the longer the battle the more of our ships will be infested and controlled so i have made sure that if a ship fails to send a code it will self destruct preventing the flood ships from increasing beyond manageable levels.

Not long after I finish my thought the clone assigned as the captain of the DSS Victory comes over " Supreme Commander all the ships in the fleet have reported that the preparation are ready and the medical team his ready too" I just nod at him and he walks back to do his duties as for the medical team they have already began attaching medical equipment to me this is because Destiny has informed me that the elemental cannon drains my elemental energy so I need to be monitored to prevent me from completely depleting myself to avoid an early death as Victor pointed out even though my life is bound to my team preventing my death I can still be comatosed so it's best not to risk it.

Not long after the medical staff finish a ship exits slipspace and begins making its way towards Earth but luckily we had arranged my fleet and the other two between it's entry point and earth it's self as the ship gets closer it gets within the range of Earth's defence stations and unceremoniously I watch the stations fire at the infested ship this would usually be used on a full fleet not a single ship but the general had insisted on using them to make sure it stays out of contact range to preserve as many ships we could for the main event so here I am watching a small ship be turned into nothing not leaving a single speck of the ship left.

3rd person Pov

After watching the destruction of the lone infected ship Dark orders his fleet to enter combat status unsurprisingly Dark was not the only one who issues this order both the general and the Arbiter did the same and thanks to the Arbiter bringing Sergeant Johnson back who decided to remain on the Arbiters Flagship to help relay communication to both Dark and the general which made coordination much easier since up until the Arbiter's arrival the Sangheili were part of the covenant so it's hard to trust a former enemy with Johnson being the one handling the communication it was easier to accept the information and discuss plans.

After every ship had entered combat alert another much larger slipspace disturbance was detected upon recieving this every captain of every ship readys their ships weapons as they do a larger station appears at the edge of the system and most instantly recognise it as high charity.

Everyone watches as it approaches fire range of the defense stations and as it does they fire unfortunately the stations shields hold long enough to withstand all the firepower of the defense stations and as it does ships start coming from high charity all infested by the flood although it's only 100 ships it's ships that can infect other ships but without questioning the decision every ship of all three fleets protecting Earth move to engage in combat with the ships all while trying to aid the DSS Victory getting in range of high charity so it could fire its elemental cannon.

As the ships close in the flood ships start shooting laser from the infested ships all targeting ships in order to tempaprealy disable the ships long enough to infest them but it was proving difficult due to the huge difference in the amount of ships even if they were able to disable one the others would shoot any ship that would get within range to infest the disabled ship.

The battle continues as both sides start to lose ships the UNSC taking most of the damage due to the lack of shield tech and as the ships were decreasing it became easier for the flood to infect ships but every time they try to infest a ship from Dark's fleet said ship would explode making it a waste of effort and exposing the ship sent to infest to the full force of the rest of Dark's fleet however the Arbiter and UNSC fleets were not as prepared and a few of their ships had been infested and joined the Flood fleet.

Dark Pov

How many ship have we lost so far it's got to be a lot by the looks of it by the time I get in range most if not all ships will have been infested we need to increase the pace in order to be successful if not we will fail I quickly open the communication channel that connects me to both the Arbiter and the UNSC " we need to hurry if we continue at this pace we will not survive this and will result in failure" the general is the first to give a response " I know the more ships we lose the easier it is for them to infest more ships we need to find a solution and fast" the Arbiter is the last to speak " can the Victory use the element cannon to disrupt the flood ships long enough to let it get close enough" hearing this I now it will not work since my power causes pure destruction however I than think what if Alice was to use her power and surround the ships with some explosive gas however she would need to maintain it due to the vacuum of space with this thought I look at Alice before I speak" my power will not work and we need it to destroy high charity however Alice has Wind manipulation which can control any gas luckily I made sure to keep a supply of different gases for Alice to use if we put that into the cannon the launch the gas however Alice will have to manipulate it to prevent it from dispensing due to the vacuum of space" even though I was saying this I can not help but want to avoid doing it since it's a risky plan.

After a few seconds of discussing everyone decides that it's the only viable plan that would work with that I order the crew of the DSS Victory to load a full tank of explosive gas in to the element cannon champer connecting Alice to the controls in hopes she will be fine but i had the medical team ready just incase.

3rd person Pov

During the time which Dark and the medical team had got Alice been connected to the cannon the Flood had taken another 15 ships causing both the General and the Arbiter to ask them to hurry to avoid further losses once everything was ready Dark gave the order to release the gas as he did Alice controls the cannon to launch the gas at the flood infested fleet while simultaneously maintaining it to avoid the dispersion of the gas after 5 minutes the gas was in the middle of the flood fleet and ready to ignite however Alice was struggling to maintain so Dark gave the order to fire at the gas.

Once the lasers from Dark's fleet his the gas it instantly ignites as the flames from the gas his the ships it began to cause the ships hulls to melt due to the heat from the ignited gas after a short time the heat hit the engine causing some flood ships to explode starting a chain reaction of explosions causing other ships which had been effected by the ignited gas to explode as well after a few minutes Dark had Alice stop maintaining the gas since due to the flames obscuring vision the only reason they knew the plan worked was due to the sound of explosions that they could hear.

After Alice stops maintaining the gas the flames quickly disappear to reveal that almost 75% of the flood fleet was either destroyed or has damage to most of its hull and systems using this opportunity Dark quickly disconnects Alice from the cannon and connects himself and orders his fleet to move forward as fast as possible before the Gravemind is able to recoordinate his ships luckily by the time it did the DSS Victory was in firing range and Dark had began supplying the cannon with his void energy it took 5 minutes for the cannon to charge and once it was dark gavebthe order to fire releasing a an almost invisible beam directly at high charity.

Dark Pov

I watch as the element beam launches from the front of my ship heading straight for high charity after a few seconds the beam hits and nothing happen I have a feeling of dread but I can not stop supplying the cannon with energy this is our only option as I was worrying a high charity stops shooting its weapons and what seems almost impossible it collapse in on itself as if there's a black hole in the middle I notice a small ship trying to escape from it but is pulled in causing its destruction after seeing this I stop supplying energy and watch as the symbol of the covenant completely disappears without leaving a single trace of it left.

3rd person Pov

After high charity disappears the rest of the flood fleet stops functioning and becomes sitting ducks not wasting time every opens fire destroying every flood ship without worry of losing any more ships everyone spent a few hours destroying every trace of the flood just to be safe but deep down they all knew that this was not the end of the flood there will be more so now while it's weakened they needed to prepare for all out war in order to survive.