2: Stained red as blood, he is roaming higher.

Tuesday 6. June 2547

Commander Shawn Hobson, colony of new Shanghai

It was quiet aboard the UNSC Big Momma, though only because it was still early in the morning on the colony of New Shanghai. The only people on the bridge at the time were the night shift, tired after 8 hours of doing absolutely nothing except routine checks, and he himself, who always arrived early to enjoy the quiet before the bridge shifted to a hive of bustling activity.

He loved his Halberd class, at least as much as he could be said to love anything that is, having no family to speak of, with only a few close friends from the Reach naval academy who he kept in regular contact with. His four years at the academy had sped by him, and when he graduated in the class of 2534, he not only felt as if his education did not translate into an ability to take up a, relatively, high position on one of the UNSCs many warships, but also separated from his peers emotionally. Where they celebrated the fact that they had successfully graduated, he dreaded what would come, for while there were very few threats left to the UNSC and UEG, there also weren't many opportunities for advancement and learning, and if anyone in any position messed up at an inopportune time, they would be facing a court martial for incompetence and dereliction of duty.

Despite his fears and insecurities about what the future would bring, he still managed to advance through the ranks with relatively minor hindrance, but also contribution. His largest naval achievement was in 2541, when he and the ship he was serving as the XO on at the time were assigned to a larger task group, with the sole mission of raiding and destroying an Insurrectionist outpost with a small but real fleet guarding it. The ships may have been obsolete and their victory over them relatively minor compared to the ones at the height of the insurrection, but he was nonetheless rewarded with the elevation to Lieutenant Commander. A mere two years later he was promoted once again, though this time it was not due to distinguishing himself in combat, but a shortage of officers with real achievements to their names, who could staff the yet again expanding outer colonies of the UEG.

While the outer colonies were more heavily guarded than 50 years ago, and the change was not limited simply to tonnage. The officers leading the reinforced garrisons which would have been called overkill by most administrators before the insurrection were mostly from the inner colonies, with firm loyalty to the central government, and very unlikely to decide to take their ships and become advocates for something which, as long as the UEG existed, would never be allowed to pass.

Soon, the day shift replaced the tired personnel of the night shift, and the bridge along with the CIC turned into bustling hives of activity, constantly in motion despite the lack of anything that would fall outside the norm. And it, despite some lulls, stayed that way until sometime after lunch.

"Sir, we've a call for you from the long-range sensor net operator, they have a possible bogey some 2 light seconds out. What are your orders?"

"All stations, begin preparations for ascent and declare TACCON alpha 2! Comms, I want you to keep me updated and get this info to the LCDR (Lieutenant commander) aboard the ODP if he doesn't have it yet!"

As the klaxons and automated messages began to blare around the ship, ordering everyone to battle stations and to prepare for imminent combat, he marched over to comms, and commanded the lieutenant to call the operator.

As soon as what was presumably the operators face appeared on the screen, he asked: "I need more than just 'possible bogey' what more can you tell me?"

The operator, not wasting any time immediately answered: "Not that much more sir, all I have is visual and some drive trails on infrared, the gradar seems to be bugging out- reporting objects changing mass and the like."

"Do you have any visual matches in the database?"

"No, they are still very far away, and the drive trails are not helping. Even the dumb AI can't recognize them, I am afraid you will have to go in blind."

"Keep me updated if you get something useful, Hobson out."

Walking back over to his seat he asked: "Engines, how much longer before we are in the air?"

"Give me 20 seconds sir!"

As soon as he sat down buckled in, he felt the ship begin to lift off. Looking at the tac display showed that the only other ship of the garrison, a stalwart-class light frigate rising away from the surface as well, some 10 seconds behind his own ship.

About 3 minutes of 5 into the climb, he received another message, this one from the LCDR onboard the ODP: "Sir, they are now inside our effective range, have no transponder and have yet to answer to our hails, I am asking for your permission to open fire."

"Hail them one last time and if they don't answer, you may open fire."

"Thank you sir, Bardey out."

A couple of seconds later, as they finally started to see the sky turn into the darkness of space on the cameras, the tactical display also showed two new contacts racing away from the ODPs and toward the unidentified contacts- the ODP SMAC shells.

LCDR Bardeys' voice rang out in the CIC again: "Scratch 2 targets, I repeat, scratch 2 targets! The rest have begun accelerating towards our position but have not yet opened fire. ODP 1 will be reloaded in approximately 20 seconds, with ODP 2 will be ready in 25."

"Roger, I will take my ships and try to enter effective MAC and archer range, I request you focus on the largest targets."

"Wilco sir"

As he instructed comms to relay his commands to the frigate commander, he felt the halberd class pick up some Gs as it accelerated. With the bogeys firmly in front of them, they could do nothing but wait to get into effective range. IF they had accelerated more, they would possibly have to flip the ship in order to brake enough to get a long enough intercept, which is never a good approach when dealing with unknowns.

As they neared, he gave out additional orders in preparation for the confrontation, but he was interrupted with the first wave of enemy fire some 0,3 light seconds out, with their relative speeds already lessening as his small taskforce having begun braking mere moments before. Immediately preforming automatic evasive maneuvers, the ship used its maneuvering thrusters, and not the emergency one-use maneuver drives, to evade the estimated path of the incoming shells.

As the second salvo from the SMACs shot out from the ODPs, the enemy did not stay idle. The now seemingly 14 strong fleet started dispersing almost immediately, but the fact that they had accelerated towards the planet and their tight formation working against them and allowing one perfect hit on one of the 2 now recognizably different, larger targets, completely obliterating it, and the second shell to clip one of the smaller ones, sending it spinning off into nowhere, and potentially killing the crew or at least injuring them severely with acceleration.

A response could also be seen in their return fire almost immediately afterwards, with all of the contacts now firing every 5-10 seconds instead of 10 or more. It was at this moment that the situation started becoming truly serious for CMD Hobson. They may have held the defenders advantage with ODPs, but with this volume of fire, their maneuvering capability could be overwhelmed from a range at which their own return fire would be easily evaded.

Their luck ran out just as they were entering MAC range. The frigate was hit near the rear on one of its engine mounts which seemed to almost disintegrate the connection to the main body of the ship. While the penetration on the front armor was small, the damage hind of the hit was devastating, with the entire part of the ship being ripped as if someone had taken ship sized shotgun and shot through the, relatively, tiny initial penetration.

The frigate was surprisingly holding the course though, not having been spun around like the enemy ship. Both the defending ships almost immediately opened fire with their MACs and released their first archer salvo. Consisting of 8 pods from the frigate 12 from the destroyer with 24 missiles each, the resulting swarm featured 480 missiles.

The 3 MAC rounds sent the enemy fleet into a frenzy to evade, though the smaller frigate had some success, with its MAC hitting the last of the larger targets, though this time the result was quite different from that of the SMAC. The enemy ship seemed completely undamaged even after a clean hit, however with an interesting gradar (gravimetric sensor) reading.

As the archers neared their targets, the bogeys began opening up with some sort of laser point defense and cutting down a relatively large portion of the swarm, but ultimately not enough to save the 3 smaller ships from joining their brothers in oblivion, and a fourth being seemingly heavily damaged, with pockmarks being visible on its hull as they closed to less than ten thousand kilometers.

Hobson noticed an uptick in the mood of the CIC, with this newly acquired positivity being quickly squashed with a reminder of the fact that they were outnumbered as they received a hit.

"Damage report now! Can we keep firing?"

"Sir! We seem to have been hit on the portside, we have lost a couple of sections, and our structural integrity won't be at maximum until we get to a proper shipwright- the shot seems to have partially distorted some structural segments from what I can see on the cameras. The MAC seems to be fine but one of the loaded archer pods is not responding."

"Engines, limit our evasive maneuvers unless absolutely necessary, I don't want to lose any parts of my ship, weapons, fire as soon as you are able- get the rest of our archers on the way to that last big target and cooperate with the frigate, I want the swarm to hit 'em hard."

The MAC was soon ready for another shot and the archers were fired in tandem with it. A salvo of five hundred and four missiles raced toward the enemy fleet, which once again managed to successfully evade all but 1 shell, though this time from the destroyer. Once again, the shell had no effect and the remaining ships seemed to clump together around the large one, as if they wanted to protect it with their own bodies.

As the missiles reached the enemy, their laser point defense activated again striking many of the archers, but not enough. Many got through and of the 8 remaining small ships, 4 were destroyed, including the one damaged in the earlier salvo. Their defense was effective though, as only a few archers got through the gaps, and none seemed to breach the mysterious shield surrounding the enemy ships.

Despite this success, they were practically out of ammunition, except the 2 SHIVA nuclear missiles aboard his own ship. Quickly announcing his decision to the crew before the remaining enemies could finally focus their fire, not only at even closer range, but also without much risk of retaliatory damage: "Weapons! Prepare to launch our SHIVAs, how long until they're ready?"

"A minute commander, maybe a bit less."

"Good, engines, disregard my previous command, use the emergency thrusters at your discretion." After a small pause he continued: "Crew, it has been a pleasure serving with you, we shall attempt to preform an emergency slipspace jump if we are still able after our nukes launch, but it is possible we will not be able to escape. It was good serving with you."

With the seconds slowly ticking away, they could do nothing but wait, evade, and maybe shoot back once. He felt adrenaline flood him as the frigate was hit for a second, then a third time, disintegrating into debris on his sensors.

In the last fifteen seconds he contemplated the crew of the frigate, how he had not even known any of them personally, and how they were simply gone now, extinguished.

Once the fifteen seconds went by, the commander gave the order to launch and prepare for a emergency slipspace jump.

The missiles went away successfully, with one of them even detonating close enough to the turian fleet to destroy one of the remaining frigates, now retreating out of the range of the orbital grid and away from the debris of two ships, drifting ever farther from the world they protected.