Quoted By:
“Lieutenant, we’re in position and ready to fire on your call.” You radio to the marines as the Longinus slowly rolls into position alongside the cruiser. The old Able class destroyer was almost entirely eclipsed in scale and lethality by the covenant warship. And compared to the two warships, the force of pelican dropships waiting only a few kilometers away from the alien vessel looked like a handful of remoras waiting to latch onto a whale.
You don’t have to wait long for the order to come. “Understood Longinus, send it. My boys will go in as soon as you’re done.”
“Firing.” You announce, loud enough that Lieutenant Bergen on the weapons console can hear you. He gets the hint without needing to be prompt, and you watch as the ship’s belly guns erupt in fire.
The Longinus had a mixed defensive battery, larger M66 Sentry naval coilguns on the sides and upper face of the ship, and lighter quadruple M870 Rampart guns along the lower flanks. Of the two, the ramparts thunder into life, the sub-second burst putting hundreds of shells into the void. In the same instance the guns fire, the shield over the hangar flickers and dies as Diana cuts the power. The cloud of flash-frozen air explodes out of the hangar, and acts as a perfect medium in which to see the 50mm shells detonate, spraying shrapnel into the ship.
Unfortunately, at the velocity they’re going, all the shrapnel does is slam into the back wall. And given how it absorbs it, you quickly realize that the wall itself is armored. The rain of tungsten fragments shred the few crates and containers magnetically-locked to the floor, defeating what little cover it provides. But for hundreds of fighter-killing shells, all you manage is a single kill. A single grunt was sucked out of cover by the decompression, and shredded by shrapnel.
The corpse flies out of the hangar, and a few seconds later, a pair of pelicans fly in.
Almost instantly, the chin guns of both pelicans erupt into life. You’re not sure if the pelicans are shooting at targets identified by Diana, or if the pilots are just shooting against obvious cover. But a few seconds later, you see bolts of bright plasma slamming against the armored hulls of the dropships. Diana notices your concern, and pulls up a camera feed from inside the ship. The surviving covenant soldiers -a mix of grunts, jackals, and elites; all in environment suits- were busy firing against the invading dropships. And in the contest between 70mm AP rounds and Covenant armor, the armor simply fails.
By the time the shield over the hangar was raised back to full, the 20 Covenant defenders had been cut down to their last few members, who were busy rushing back out of the corridors leading out of the hangar. With the bay clear -for now- one of the pelicans lowers itself to the deck, and disgorges the first squad of marines.
