Welcome back to what was Beyond Contact, returning to my old story design – I've decided to maintain what already existed and expand upon what I wrote in its original interpretation. Beyond Contact has been officially abandoned but in its place, Brawler Doctrine has arrived. I'm abandoning the Mass Effect crossover status because I don't have the time to develop it. Thanks for all the continued support guys, please read and review.
…
Welcome to "Brawler Doctrine," a non-profit fan-produced fiction product under the ownership of set penname: RiptideZ.
DISCLAIMER: All intellectual property revealed in this work belongs to their rightful owner(s). RiptideZ, the author, owns only that of his intellectual assets. Please Read and Critique constructively via private messaging or review.
…
["Opening Shots"]
[2555, Military Calendar]
…
"For too many years, humanity was on the back-foot, reacting to threats, rather than preventing them. The rest of the galaxy was bigger than us, stronger than us. We were mice hiding in the shadows, hoping the giants would not see us. No more. Humanity is no longer on the defense. We are the giants now." – Commander Thomas J. Lasky (2510-Present), during the christening ceremony of the UNSCS Infinity
…
Years before the events of a fragile peace, conflict reigned over known galactic space – almost completely in that of the territories held by Humanity which could easily be referred to as "Known Space" since contact with another alien species or any civilization for that matter, was nonexistent.
Humanity was alone in a galaxy without only themselves to share with, whether through compromise or war. It was an empty sandbox for Mankind to play in, or so it seemed. That had been 2525, the year Mankind made concrete contact with another form of sentient life: the Covenant.
While Mankind referred to the alien union, made up of several different species, as the Covenant – the actual name is indescribable with the Human tongue. The closest definition would be a religious Caliphate or an all-consuming theocracy. The contact had not been pretty and over the Human world of Harvest, the Covenant declared war on Humanity on the basis of their holy duty to their deities. The planet of Harvest was glassed and its population and fleet were turned to dust by burning plasma.
What started out as the first contact, had transformed into an embattled twenty-seven-year conflict. Humanity had been fighting for its survival the entire time, and the Covenant always seeking to stomp them out. For the early parts of the war, the UNSC, Mankind's united military front, had been on the losing side for the most part with some marginal victories, it wasn't until the final years of the war that the favor of battle turned to Humanity when members of the Covenant swapped sides in what was referred to as the "Great Schism."
The UNSC and its allies moved quickly to eliminate the Covenant but even if the war had come to an end, the fight continued without relapse with no end in sight.
The Human-Covenant War began in 2525, thirty years ago. It ended in 2553, only two before today.
Rear Admiral Laurence Kenneth Jones, the commander of the UNSC Task Force Dominion, was transitioning the short distance from the Officers' Quarters to the bow of his vessel, the UNSCS Mogadishu.
A relic of the Human-Covenant War, the Mogadishu was an older command vessel of the Marathon Heavy Cruiser class. The Marathon series of vessels, named after significant individual conflicts in Human history and were known for their unique cigar-styled bodies taken from the structural doctrine of the Marathon's predecessors, the Halcyon series of Light Cruisers.
Like in all UNSC warships, the Mogadishu's design was constructed with an emphasis on convenience and survivability in deep space. The Officers' Quarters were built within the first hundred meters toward the front of the vessel, near the Bridge and CIC. On the Mogadishu, these two functions had been rolled into a single superstructure next to the main gun. Within the Mogadishu, the warship's hallways, built like large, hexagonal catacombs were designed with defense and mobility in mind, favoring function over comfort as wiring, electronics, important life support systems, and onboard defensive mechanisms littered the vessel's internal halls.
The walls were a drab grey and alit with a variety of fluorescent lights of various colors in an attempt to avoid servicemen and women from becoming unhinged in a giant metal box inside an endless vacuum. A little jab at Space Dementia if you're into that thing.
While the design of the ship was boring and almost ugly, its effectiveness and functionality could not be denied. The Mogadishu was an older vessel but had been given access to modern upgrades in the recent reconstruction of the UNSC's defense forces and to extend the service life of their aging vessels in the post-Great War era. All UNSC vessels had been given access to limited plasma technology, ionized shielding, intelligent counter-munitions systems, and advanced sensory devices. Plus, secret black projects developing next-generation vessels had been accelerated into service to increase vessel numbers.
The Admiral was saluted all the way toward the Bridge as he passed junior officers and enlisted men wherever he went. While the Rear Admiral held respect among his subordinates, the traditional response for a higher officer was, of course, to salute them – however, Jones was not a traditional man, he was laid-back just like many of the post-War commanders who had developed personal relationships with their crews over a long period of battles that had forgone rank and file for a family without blood. There was a companionship among veterans, all who had faced the hopeless conflict head on, especially the volunteers over the "slave labor," the draftees.
It was for this very example that as the Rear Admiral entered the Bridge of the Mogadishu, his XO swiftly announced his presence. "Admiral on deck!"
There was a quick and clear response as the junior officers and security personnel throughout the chamber stopped with their jobs to glance at their superior officer in deep concentration as one. There was quick glance and a flip of Jones's right hand before the sailors and Marines went back to their work. The Bridge quickly calmed in their mannerism as they returned to their tasks but the tension had not disappeared. Underneath the familial structure and emotion within the chamber, there was a tension built upon experiences from the Human-Covenant War, the mark of war lay upon them all as they headed back into battle for the first time in two years. It was a common practice among the upper echelon of the UNSC Navy to keep their old crews over retraining new captains due to the team dynamic – it however would often lead to the loss of mission-critical personnel in a long, attrition-based conflict like the Human-Covenant War.
The Mogadishu Bridge was made up of three levels of displays and rows of chairs reminiscent of CICs dating back to the age of when Humanity still hadn't reached beyond the Sol System. There were three lines of work stations and multiple mission displays laying around set up in a style similar to a theatre house featuring a stage and several seating rows, at the place where a screen might have been placed, the infinite vision of Slipspace travel had engulfed the display in front of the Mogadishu, a similar scene on many warships.
All UNSC ships were fit with Slipspace drives that allowed vessels to travel at super-luminous speeds by tearing holes in the fabric of Space-Time, for many the dimension that was Slipspace was a long tunnel painted with blue or white light constantly spinning like a vortex, though there were reports that Slipspace portals were more of mini-dimensions or pockets in a greater Universe that contain a desired vessel across shortened distances until a vessel returned to its own dimension when the bubbles would burst and its goods were disposed back into real space. Right now the tunnel or bubble of Slipspace had adopted a bright, white hue of color.
"Beautiful display, is it not Admiral?" A voice asked from off to the Admiral's left.
Stepping up to the center of the command deck and looking at the tactical displays – a human-looking hologram had made his presence known on the big hologram table at the center of the deck near the Slipspace display being projected on the camera display at the front of the Bridge. This computer generation, a "Smart" AI known as "Fred," grinned up at his human superior.
"Same as it always looks Fred. I don't know why you always ask me that question when we're traveling through Slipspace." Jones replied to the robot with a personality.
"From my general understanding, my question is a socially acceptable conversation starter similar to how you humans discuss "how the weather is," I am simply trying to be conversational since talking has been known to help calm people before entering stressful situations such as fighting a space battle. This is the third time I've told you this Admiral since my last mandatory short-term memory wipe. I am simply doing my part to help keep unit cohesion at its maximum potential. I am maintaining three other conversations below deck with some members of the ODSTs in Third Platoon, one in the Mess, and with the agriculturists in the Live Habitat upstairs. Plus I'm keeping up with the ship's defensive systems and sensory packages on secondary intervals while playing an intensive, three thousand-move mega-Chess game between myself and the other AIs in the Dominion."
"Make sure to prioritize crew safety at all costs, Fred."
"I am aware Captain, I always am. You can trust me to multitask above mission-mandatory levels with ease. I'm a computer program Admiral."
"I know, just doesn't hurt to make sure; it's called self-assurance, Fred."
"Yes, Admiral. I am very knowledgeable in the subject and in a fantastic topic known as human sarcasm." Fred said with a cheeky grin, he leaned his waist off to one side in an almost pouty gesture.
"You going to kill me with humor now?" Jones replied grinning at his digitized friend.
"No. I find manual labor a much more efficient degrader of the human soul. I think endless paperwork is a fitting punishment, would you not agree, my flesh-bagged companion?"
"I might have to space you for that comment, Fredrick."
"Oh no! Space! So terrifying! Wait, oh yeah, we're arriving in thirty seconds Admiral; a reminder as you requested." Fredrick, the Mogadishu AI said turning serious from his last line of banter.
The Bridge started to kick into high gear as a number of sirens began to go off. They were preparing to exit from Slipspace, the Mogadishu would soon be over the combat target. The first of many in coming months if Fate had shined brightly on Jones's future. Junior officers started to type away at their keyboards and the mission planners started to glance over the planetary display.
Fredrick quickly began to announce their transition back into regular space, "Preparing for transition into planetary orbit over Aragon. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. Transitioning."
There was a sudden jolt through the Mogadishu as it was yanked out of Slipspace and into orbit over a planet around the same size as Mankind's home world of Earth, lightyears away.
"Transition complete. Enemy armada holding around the planet's outer atmosphere. Hold for Task Force link up."
The camera display on the giant screen on the Bridge's stage flickered out of place and lights around the chamber dimmed to give a clear view behind the plasma windows and diamond glass panels of the setting of the coming battle ahead for the UNSC Task Force.
"Fredrick, how does our intelligence compare? What's change from the last intel grab from the Slipspace buoy?"
"Nothing much, the Loyalists ships don't seem to know we're in the system yet. They'll know within a few minutes however, the rest of our task force, accounting for margin-of-error, should arrive between the next three seconds and twelve minutes." The AI replied to the Admiral.
"Commander Abel, what is the status on our QRF?" The Admiral called out to his XO who was watching the distant enemy fleet, a number of twinkling dots in the atmosphere of this target planet of theirs. Commander Hemming Eric Abel, the Mogadishu's XO and a personal friend of Jones, had served alongside the Admiral since they both were thrown on a boat as a junior and low-ranking senior officer.
Abel turned to the Admiral, "Laurence. QRF needs another three minutes and should be prepped for ground assault within the time frame. They should make landfall in half-in-hour if we stick to the planned time stamp."
"That's only as long as the enemy doesn't detect us before we make our approach." Jones reminded his right man.
"I know. Let's assume that we do get spotted beforehand, we need to accelerate as quickly as possible but our Task Force is still partially in Slipspace. Fred, which ships have arrived successfully as of now?" Abel asked the AI on the table as he stepped close to the Admiral.
"The destroyers Alexander and Napoleon Bonaparte, a number of the frigates, and the Eternal Flame, the alpha assaulter. The rest are on their way."
"Good to hear. Complete landing preparations than for our ground teams. Fredrick, would you think it's a wise decision to deploy our surface fleet within the first volley?" The Admiral asked the AI who was visually studying the tactical display on the holographic table.
"Well, I can say the Covies have already spotted our approach vector. I got three heavy-hitters exiting atmosphere to meet our forces," Fred replied as he brought up the appearance of three CCS-type Battlecruisers, the mainstay of the Covenant fleet during and after the Human-Covenant War. They were all-purpose warships measuring three kilometers in length each and easily overshadowing the size of the less-than-two kilometer Mogadishu. "My best suggestion. Since this fleet is rather isolated based on our intelligence, they haven't left this planet since 2549 and haven't seen any action in just about six years. They weren't at Earth or Reach from what we've guessed and don't know of our full capabilities. Deploying our landing craft while still in their entry package should go unnoticed if we keep them to high velocities on approach and slow the descent while in atmosphere. We would still need to close the distance with the planet though and give our assault ships room to deploy their ground forces."
"The rest of the fleet here yet?" Abel asked Fredrick while crossing his arms. He could see the enemy warships closing the distance between the UNSC and the Loyalist fleet.
"Still waiting for one last destroyer and its escorts, so about three vessels but they should transition just about…now. The Ulysses S. Grant reports that it has drifted from its initial transition point and has landed some three-hundred-thousand kilometers toward or relative right. They're technically closer to those three heavy-hitters, I've already designated them to combat those three and have order the Bonaparte to assist." Fredrick replied as he marked the tactical display with different unit designations.
The Bonaparte and Grant combat group had been designated in yellow, "Fire Package Bravo," while the rest of the fleet was labeled in pink with "Fire Package Primary."
Jones looked at the screen. "Mark the assaulters as Priority Alpha and have the Alexander follow us in. We'll target the atmospheric fleet and give the assaulters room to deploy their lot over the staging area and the surrounding sea. From there on out, have Fire Package Bravo make a b-line back to us and we'll force the Covenant forces out of orbit. ROE has been relaxed, as of this moment – we are weapons free. Fredrick, general order. Battle stations, right now!"
"Roger Admiral." Fredrick's avatar quickly disappeared from the display as the avatar and its data was spread across Task Force Dominion and units were designated to their mission priority.
"Well, here we go I guess," Abel said with a sigh. The CCS battlecruisers were now looking like purple pancakes against the starry horizon of space as they approached the Task Force.
"Napoleon, Grant. You are weapons free, good hunting." A Lieutenant reported on one of the Bridge communication systems. The two destroyers and their miniature battlegroup quickly broke off from the Task Force and moved to intercept the enemy battlecruisers, even if they were significantly bigger than the UNSC warships.
"Lieutenant Spooner, bring us into an attack run. I want us within that rat nest pronto, get us in their faces." Laurence called up to the Mogadishu's pilot quarters where a pair of junior officers were guiding the Mogadishu is all sorts of directions.
The Mogadishu shuddered once again as it lurched forward and it engines roared awake once again. Thruster ignited and the as one, the UNSC warships of Fire Package Primary as one force rushed into the Covenant force shifting their way out of the planet's atmosphere like giant dragons seeking out their prey.
The UNSC ships were behemoths in their own right but the Covenant warships were even greater in size; not a single human vessel broke three kilometers in length and yet every single capital ship of the Loyalist fleet was bigger than the UNSC ships and measured between two and four kilometers in length, they were a deep purple in color and shaped like rounded pancakes.
According to the tactical display before the Admiral and his crew, there were a total of nineteen warships among the Covenant fleet, seven capital ships and twelve escorts and supply ships. While the Covenant vessels were a deep purple hue and had ornate carvings and markers, representing a number of different dialects from the former Covenant Empire, the days of battle had done a number on the vessels as large skid marks and dented armor plaint suggested a lack of repairs over a long period of time – these ships were old and without adequate material and supplies to maintain their fleet so they had been left to rot on an old Human colony world without any use. Given the intelligence identifying the fleet as a Brute-led operation, it wouldn't be surprising that the big Apes had already eaten all their crews, their barbarism wasn't an unknown to Humanity or even the Elites – Brutes were just a bunch of monsters, they were barely intelligent and had more in common with rats rather than humans.
The UNSC Task Force had brought a unit of six capital ships and fifteen minor combat vessels – the UNSC numerically outnumbered their Covenant adversaries but they were definitely outgunned given the general firepower of the Covenant compared to even the post-conflict UNSC. The Mogadishu was the flagship of the Dominion, a single Marathon Heavy Cruiser, there were two Phoenix-class Assault Ships or Escort Carriers, and three new Sun Tzu Destroyers, a part of the accelerated naval development project that the UNSCS Infinity had been acquired from, some off-the-books shipyard on the edges of the Sol System.
The smaller combat vessels, pre-War destroyers renamed as Destroyer Escorts, were deployed as escorts for their replacements and a number of post and pre-war UNSC frigates of multiple classes to provide security and extra firepower for the capital ships and the ground forces below. The frigates had always been designed with an all-purpose mindset; they provided surface bombardment, strategic bombings, force display, light ground units, and limited air superiority on the side. The frigates were jack-of-all-trades, though that did little to prevent them from becoming mostly obsolete against the more numerous Covenant vessels where even Covenant corvettes, the midget monstrosities had little trouble fighting them.
The edges of the window display on the Bridge began to glow red with a bit of heat as the warships entered the Aragon atmosphere. "Atmospheric pressure increasing. Reactors stabilizing orbit." Fredrick stated as they moved to face off against the Covenant vessels ahead.
"Admiral, we're in position," Abel said as he swapped the tactical display to a holographic close up of the planetary positions of all the combat vessels in the area.
"Crew, welcome to Aragon," Jones said before the Mogadishu shook violently as the first plasma torpedoes smashed into the ion shields of the heavy cruiser.
[Context File: Aragon]
A historically-recent Human colony, Aragon, was a small communal community located at the edge of the Inner Rim of colonized space. The planet, named after a previously self-autonomous state of the same name located in European Spain, was discovered using advanced planet-hunt methods adopted during the second half of the twenty-first century. During its discovery, it was previously known by an assignment name before it was marked for colonization in the twenty-third century.
Aragon was named when the first terraforming machinery arrived in the colony, a century before the first humans would walk its surface – its name is stemmed from the Spanish and Portuguese settlers that landed there during the Colonial Scramble following the successful implementation of FTL space travel using the first, modern Slipspace drives. During its prospering years before the first contact with the Covenant conglomerate, Aragon was a marginally well-established colony and a part of the "Human Breadbasket," one of many colony worlds known for their exceptional food production capabilities. During its prosperity, Aragon's farming community specialized much in the construction, tourism, xeno-archeology, and mining industries with meaningful prophetization that fueled the Colonial Scramble through its later years.
During the Insurrection Era, Aragon was a hot bed for colonial independence movements, hosting a number of home-grown chapters including the Human Liberation Front among others. While a real Insurrection presence was established on Aragon, the farming community for the most part was a nonaligned loyalist colony favoring self-determination and equal representation in Earth-based politics rather than full-blown secession. In many ways, the Aragon representatives were known to make references multiple times toward the British Commonwealth as examples of its ideal image for Aragon relations with the United Earth Government. The United Nations Space Command and Colonial Authority presence on Aragon was substantial hosting a small fleet of twelve CAA frigates, an orbiting trade station, and two UNSC bases, both militia and Defense Forces.
Following official contact with the Covenant at Harvest in 2525, Aragon became one of the first colonies to attack during the Covenant's earlier incursions, deep into Human space that led to the drawn out conflict with the "Cole Campaigns." Aragon escaped glassing but its small populations of twelve million either escaped or were wiped out by the Brute privateers that took the planet in the name of their Prophets.
As of 2555, Aragon has become one of five worlds to be marked for reclamation in the post-War Era. What the Earth media has come to know as the "Glasslands War," a number of incursions into Loyalist-held space that host a number of former Human worlds – glassed or otherwise. The Covenant Remnant that have come to call Aragon Home are unfamiliar with current UNSC combat doctrine as contact with UNSC forces have not taken place for several years. The UNSC and UEG have named Aragon as a staging point for future incursions into Loyalist territory.
[Context File: Aragon]
Aboard the Eternal Flame, a Phoenix-class combat vessel, the warning lights were blaring like crazy. Corpsmen were running all over the place and engineers were scrambling to complete final preparations for the orbital landing that was about to ensue.
Captain Angie Hurst sat atop a Pelican VTOL transport, a D77 TC model while waiting for the general order to go out for all forces to assemble. The hustle and bustle were real, however. The UNSC Navy was known for function and efficiency but the way they were about to approach the battle seemed a bit to last minute, only minutes ago, they were still in Slipspace and now they were locked in a gun fight with some alien warships.
There was a brief shake as Covenant plasma smashed into the side of the Flame as if answering Hurst's private thoughts.
"Hey, Captain Hurst. Could you do me a favor?" A male voice called from below the female Captain. Looking down, the Captain noted that a male Marine pilot was calling to her.
"What do you want Huggins?" The Captain asked, giving the man her best-bored look.
"Well. I am your crew's pilot down to the surface and I do need to prep for takeoff. My co-pilot is below the window and he needs to do the flight diagnostics and you just so happen to be sitting next to the turbine – could you please get off the damn Pelican?" The pilot, Huggins called up demandingly.
"You didn't say please."
"Oh, would you please come down with a cherry on top – no! Get the hell off my bird woman!" The pilot yelled at the annoying Captain.
"Fine."
"And don't give me that resting bitch face."
The Captain looked at him with a neutrally-uncaring expression.
"I said don't do that."
The Captain just shrugged her shoulders as she slid off the top of the troop transport. Below her, Hurst could see the copilot flipping her the bird for obscuring his duties.
Eh. She was bored and was looking for something entertaining, they had yanked the woman out of cryogenic sleep seven hours ago and told her to get cleaned up and prepared for battle and yet they hadn't even left the system. Between going over final battle plans and preparing her crew, it seemed unnecessary for them to go through all the preparatory trouble. Hurst was generally a high-intensity woman but if there was anything she didn't like, it was the Space portion of the UNSC Navy. They were all so boring and straight forward with their acts and they never did anything fun besides shoot a gun and point a marker at a target. This wasn't what navies were meant to do, they were supposed to fight and enjoy the rush of the combat around them. That feeling of being directly in the action, no Navy captain could understand that unless he really got into the thick of it.
Most Captains never do; it was an unspoken criticism of the UNSC Navy but there was some truth in the exaggerations. While on one hand, the UNSC Navy was known for hosting the most important tasks of the Great War; ferrying around Marines and Army, bolstering the Air Force, fighting the Covenant and losing the most personnel through the entire conflict. They did the most work and had the best funding and brain power; they were the ones that first proposed and created the Spartan program anyway, them and the Office of Naval Intelligence
The other, not so honorable side was the lack of combat that the Navy actual saw. The Navy's tactics during the war, at least after the Cole Campaigns practically destroyed the majority of the UNSC fleet along with their best commanders, were pretty much hit-and-run. They would land troops on a planet, throw a few shots in, and then bug out. They didn't stay and fight like the rest of the UNSC Defense Forces. They ran like the cowards they were.
Most captains were too scared to throw their sailors at the Covenant war machine, not after Preston Cole himself bit the bullet in a damn supernova. They always turn and ran. Sure there were some brave ones and usually, they ended up getting themselves killed, one way or another. The story of Captain Jacob Keyes was a well-known tale among the Navy, everyone knew the war hero for his success with the Keyes Loop and his sacrifice on the Halo ring. His story, however, ended with his death because he threw his life away in what was essentially a suicide mission.
The smart officers ran like Hell, the dumb ones both tried to run and got their ships gutted or tried to fight and the same results occurred. There was a reason UNSC ship graveyards were a common thing over former Human colony worlds. There was another type of naval officer however, the least appreciated, the ones that were looked down upon just like the Colonial Authority was in the military community and just as the Air Force was treated within the UNSC. The Wet Fleet, sailors that took the path of least vacuum and most ground.
Captain Angie Hurst was one of these ill-respected souls.
The United Nations Space Command, sometimes referred to its old name, the Security Council, still maintained a healthy surface fleet to accommodate the necessity for sustained naval engagements on colonial seas. Aircraft Carriers, battleships, cruisers, landing ships, amphibious assault vessels, destroyers, frigates, and corvettes. The political and social stigma of the Wet Fleet still remained a healthy and constant challenge for sailors left to maintain the surface fleet – the common stereotypes was that individuals that served in the Wet Fleet were the failures and washouts for the regular Navy. They were called puddle pirates, prison draftees, and vacuum paranoid.
The other military branches and the public always seemed to forget that whereas the UNSC Navy ran from the fight, it was the Wet Fleet that stayed because they had nowhere else to go. They managed to get a decent number of kills during the later years of the war when oceans became more common, the closer the Covenant approached toward Earth. The Covenant found a new menace on those wet worlds: the nuclear submarine.
Today's mission would be no different. The Wet Fleet would be deployed early on to establish a front on the planet's surface and gain aerial superiority by establishing a carrier group to provide aircraft and to establish a mobile air field closer to the surface, freeing up the Navy space vessels to focus solely on the orbital battle.
"Diagnostics check complete. We're all green and prepared for takeoff." The co-pilot called across the external speakers of the Pelican.
"Good. Hey, Captain – get your damn crew on board. We got places to be, money to make. Covies to kill. Time is money, and money is fun juice!" Huggins, the pilot yelled at the Captain.
Just when she had just started to ignore the Marine pilots' bullshit, and let the record show, they always have shit to say. Marines never stop running their mouths, it goes one of two ways – they do it to hide some deep, dark secret psychosis from seeing horrors of war or they were just blabbering idiots. Most of the time it was both.
The Eternal Flame's hangar began to clear out as all the Navy and Marine personnel finally found their way to their transports between the all-purpose Pelicans and the larger, cargo-oriented Darters and Albatrosses. The latter pair, however, were much less common due to their insignificance to the overall battle effort – the Pelican was more versatile than its larger counterparts and the number of cargo transports lost during the early years of the Great War had forced the UNSC to redevelop its field doctrine to support deployment of cheaper but tougher Pelicans. The Albatross for one was heavily armored but poorly optimized for a battlefield with complex VTOL equipment and an unorthodox design, it wasn't a surprise when the Army started to call the Albatross, "The Brick."
The voice of the Eternal Flame's onboard "dumb" AI, Draco-Five, broke the rhythm of wailing battle sirens and flashy red lights. The monotone volume in his character was only a testament to how lacking the gap between smart and dumb AIs could be. "Orbital Maneuvers complete, engagement phase has begun. Completing final launch preparations…docking pre-deployment procedures complete. All Eternal Flame personnel, report to your stations – QRF standby for LZ Designation."
The AI went silent. For a few moments the mikes were dead silent as Angie climbed into the back of Huggins's Pelican then the radios cracked back to life; one of the Bridge Ensigns. "Attention all hands. Standby for the Captain."
The door of the Pelican closed shut and the artificial atmosphere ballooned around the troop compartment. The pilots sealed the cockpit from the rest of the gunship. There were now fifteen people, Angie Hurst's Bridge Crew for her own Navy vessel planet side, now bathed in a deep red hue from the preparatory lights overhead in the flight canopy. The radio crackled once again as every listened in for the Captain of the Eternal Flame to give a speech before his men.
"Men and women of the UNSC Eternal Flame. I know, many of us have just been awoken from our sleep and many of us are still adapting to not being in the freezer," The man paused, "Through the Great War, we suffered a great deal at the hands of the Covenant's relentless march to stomp the light of Humanity out for good and forever. Good for us, not for them, they failed – and now, we're going to give them the taste of their own medicine."
The cabin and outside the Pelican, multiple "Hoorahs" were expressed in agreement and support. Humanity had suffered an Extinction Level Event over the period of twenty-seven years of war – this was their retribution for wiping out half the Human population across colonized space. There were many onboard this ship, and others like it that had lost family and friends. It had gotten so bad that out of every ten or so people, there was not one that didn't know someone who had been hurt or killed during the fighting. The Human-Covenant had left a toll and two years of relative peace was not going to change the minds of either side any time soon. Mankind would have its blood, preferably on its own turf as well, as in Aragon. This former colony world was the perfect place to strike back.
"The war may be over, but no one has forgotten the losses we faced. The friends and family we watched die at the hands of monsters from Deep Space. We were pushed to the brink and now they expect peace – or think we'll leave them alone. No. Not after they tried to snuff out our flame and murder our children. That war was and is personal for each and every one of us. They started this war but we will be the ones to end – we're beginning a new conflict today Friends, one of revenge and retribution!" The Captain went silent as he took another breath.
"We've seen war but here we have a chance to change to strike back and show them the true might of Mankind. We're no longer on the defense, we are on the attack! Below our feet, kilometers below us – the surface of Aragon awaits, marked and violated by the aliens that murdered millions in the name their religion. This is our Home, this was a Cradle of Humanity and it shall be again. Under the cover of a Tropical Depression, our Surface Fleet will make a beachhead and gain supremacy over their forces. The battle in Space continues now but the battle for the Ground has just begun. Godspeed Humanity! Show them that we will not let them step on us again – We are Humanity and from here on out – they will grow to fear us!"
The Captain's voice was quickly replaced once again with Draco-Five. "Pre-deployment locks unlatched, activating reentry vehicles – hardening RFEAs. The green light has been given, QRF is cleared to leave flight hangar. Repeat, QRF – launch. Activating auxiliary launchers, ODST pods released. Beginning RFEA deployment. QRF is green."
There was silence as the radio signal cut out and there was a lurching in the back of the Pelican. The landing gear had unlatched and the zero gravity environment seeped into the hangar bay.
Huggins' voice broke radio silence, "Here we go ladies and gentlemen! A perfect, picture-perfect view of Humanity's retribution. Lucky you all! We're getting front row seats!"
Captain Hurst quickly swapped her Heads up Display, HUD, to the exterior camera mount aboard the Pelican and watched in pristine detail as ODST pods fell away to the planet below. Several larger pods, the size of Frigates latched off the bottom of the Eternal Fire; they were rounded and shaped very much like torpedoes or missiles with a rounded body made of Titanium armor plating and a sharped tip at the front. It was like a giant, archaic rocket flipped upside down with some miniaturized flight fins and several boosters in the rear. This was a RFEA or Reinforced Fluid-Entry Apparatus, a larger version of the ODST drop pods but instead of carrying people, they carried large construction bodies, mostly surface warfare vessels. The Eternal Flame had been optimized to deploy a naval task force rather than a series of pre-fab ground landers due to the landing sight being close in proximity to the planet's seas.
There was a shutter from each of the RFEAs as they lit up and spun their way down at high velocities toward the planet's surface. They quickly disappeared out of sight and beneath the clouds. One of the last ones to go was familiar to Hurst, her own RFEA or rather her own ship. Along the side, the RFEA spoke with great pride, UNSC Nathaniel Lincoln. The best damn Aircraft Carrier, and the best damn Aircraft Carrier Crew that Aragon would ever see.
One of the seated crewmembers in the Pelican troop compartment whistled in awe before saying, "What a beauty; here we go!"
Hurst could do nothing but nod and agree whole-heartedly as they smashed into the planet's atmosphere; to war.
[Context File: Wet Fleet]
A continuation and legacy of the vessels that sailed the high seas when Humanity had been isolated on Earth without spacefaring capabilities, the United Nations Space Command Navy maintains a limited but effective space-faring oceanic force to patrol planetary waters.
Dating back to the era of Ships-of-the-Line and Dreadnoughts, the UNSC Navy's official establishment began as a volunteer organization appointed on United Nation Peacekeeping missions in the twenty-first century, primarily to counteract piracy, prevent the denial of sea access, and move humanitarian aid and troops in large quantities over long distances; major nations that contributed to this effort were the United States of American and the United Kingdom, both seafaring giants into the final decades of national borders and nation-states. The United Kingdom, then known as the British Empire, is the longest-lasting naval power in Human history, controlling the world's sea lanes for the better half of the last millennia while the United States and what would become the United Republic of North America became the most powerful naval force in Human history developing almost unparalleled domination of the Earth's oceans like their British predecessors and becoming the centerpiece for the almost every international ocean-faring task force into the twenty-second century through the deployment of unique Carrier Battle Groups or CBGs.
Notable engagements that the predecessor of the UNSC Navy fought include the Global War on Terror, the Rainforest Wars, and the extensive Interplanetary War that ended with the birth of the Unified Earth Government. During the early decades of the Colonial Scramble, any need or interest of maintaining a surface fleet fell by the wayside; naval vessels were left to rot away, sold off to private institutions, or scuttled to become artificial reefs or recycled to construct space-faring vessels. For about two hundred years, seafaring combat vessels fell out of favor. It wasn't until the rise of Insurrections, that surface patrol fleets regained in popularity - with military space vessels stretched thin with Slipstream Space voyages extending months in length, having naval surface and submarine craft permanently stationed on colony worlds helped to lessen the burden on the UNSC.
Colony Fleets, maintained by the Colonial Authority Administration, would typically deploy vessels of tonnage and class reminiscent to the naval vessels on Earth centuries before. Aircraft Carriers provided increased firepower and promoted presence in volatile regions, Cruisers provided communications and defensive capabilities, Missile Ships provided long-range fire support and provide planetary defense against space-faring pirates or rebels by deploying anti-satellite weaponry against space vessels, and Corvettes were used to provide security in shallow waters and limited fighting capabilities to promote peace and security in areas where other vessels could not be. Submarines remained unpopular, except for major military worlds where the vessels provided an extra combat capability in the form of stealth; it would be the UNSC that would learn to deploy submarines swiftly from low orbit during the Insurrection Era after the development of the Reinforced Fluid-Entry Apparatus, or RFEA, an orbital reentry concept designed to allow large objects to enter a planet's atmosphere and perform a landing in a fluid environment intact.
When the Human-Covenant War escalated across Human Space, the Wet Fleet's use of RFEAs extended to all forms of sea-faring vessels including surface-fighting vehicles. A number of other vessel classes would be included at a later point in the war including Destroyers and Amphibious Assault craft. The Wet Fleet, during the Great War, claimed a number of Covenant ship kills - primarily submarines using hypersonic ballistic and cruise missiles. In the post-War era, the Wet Fleet has been recognized as a valid part of the UNSC defense doctrine, however, the stigma against their sailors remains an active challenge to their legitimacy.
[Context File: Wet Fleet]