Draconic Saviour Chap 1

Noble Six, SPARTAN-III Leon B312, growled as he swung the Sabre around, turning its guns against a Seraph that was attempting to slot in behind one of the other prototype human fighters protecting the Anchor Nine orbital shipyard.

¨Damn,¨ Jorge snarled, ¨They're starting to overwhelm the others.¨

¨Are they onto us?¨Leon wondered, launching a missile quartet at the Seraph whose shields he had just downed, and turning his attention to another one.

¨[More impulse signatures detected. Dammit, it looks like the Supercarrier's sent out their entire fighter contingent!]¨

¨They certainly know we're up to something,¨ Jorge replied, ¨And they aren't taking any chances.¨

¨[Incoming Phantoms. Gunship variant!]¨

¨Dammit!¨ Leon snarled, ¨Now of all times!"

¨Avoid getting caught in a furball," Jorge said calmly. A little too calmly.

{What does he mean by-.} Leon questioned in his mind, before he realised. He felt it as well.

Called ¨Spartan intuition¨ by regular troops, and more accurately  ¨Spartan Sense¨ by the Spartans, all S-IIs, and many of the S-IIIs, had an uncanny ability to tell when something was about to happen. This ranged from ¨funny feeling I'm going to need this¨ scenarios, to premonitions of danger, to situations like this, where one or more Spartans somehow knew help was on the way, despite having no communications.

"[What the-? Twenty-four unidentified fighter-sized signatures just appeared on sensors, and are rapidly accelerating towards the Covenant craft!]¨

Leon slewed the Sabre around to face the newcomers and hit the zoom on his helmet's visor. He instantly recognised the formation and tactic, although not the fighters; the vaguely arrow-shaped craft were in a classic offensive wedge, and were screaming in for a high-speed slash.

The Covenant was caught completely flat-footed, and lost all five Phantom gunships to the attack, along with a large number of Space Banshees and several Seraphs. Once past the Covenant craft, the new fighters split into pairs, coming around to hit the Covenant again, this time joining the dogfight. One pair slotted in beside Leon's Sabre, one on each wing. Leon could see what looked like kill marks painted just beneath the cockpit canopy of the one on the right; Four enemy fighters downed before this engagement.

The unexpected help had turned the battle in the UNSC's favour, as the Sabres and the arrow-shaped fighters massacred the Banshees, and, just like the Sabres, were at least two steps above the Seraphs, although they were capable of stunning acceleration at full engine output. They were also fitted with not only traditional projectile machine guns, but also some form of rapid-fire pulse laser, a set of external missile racks, and what appeared to be wingtip-mounted mini-MACs..

"[This is Captain James Cutter of the UNSC Spirit of Fire to all UNSC forces. I am declaring Code Avenger. I repeat, I am declaring Code Avenger.]"

"Holy… Six, that ship! That code!"

"Yeah. I know."

Leon knew the code, but he had never anticipated that it would be used. Code Avenger, unlike emergency codes like the (regrettably common) Bandersnatch, represented something positive for the UNSC; allied alien forces (not Covenant ones, however; that was represented by Code Redemption).

All of a sudden the war didn't seem quite so bleak.

The Covenant pulled out when even more fighters joined the battle, this time of a different type; slower, but clearly more heavily armoured. There were also many more of them.

Regular forces? Leon wondered, combining fire with the fighters on his wing.

"[Covenant forces are pulling back. Sabre-. Wait, what was that? Yoú've got to be kidding me! Damn. Noble Five, Noble Six, the slipspace drive took a hit. It's inoperative.]"

Leon felt his heart sink. Savannah had been in for a complete refit, including its Slipspace drive; they had been forced to press it into service with only about half the upgrades complete, its old slipspace drive still in place. That was the only reason they had been able to convince the brass to use it as a makeshift bomb. Worse, Savannah was the only ship still being refitted; all the other drives had already been disassembled.

"Are repairs possible?" Jorge asked.

"[Negative, Noble Five. We don't have the parts, or the time.]"

"Without that drive, we don't have a bomb," Leon stated, trying to think of something, anything, that they could use in its place.

"[Anchor Nine, Spirit of Fire. What were you thinking of using as the delivery system for this bomb?]"

"Spirit, this is Sierra-zero-five-two," Jorge stated via the Comms, “We were planning on hijacking a Covenant Corvette and using it to carry the slipspace bomb to the detonation point.”

“[What about using the Corvette itself?]” a new voice, laced with the slight static caused by speaking through an electronic translator, asked, “[Use its self-destruct sequence, or override the safeties and overload its reactor?]”

“It might not do enough damage,” Leon said, “Still, it’s better than nothing. All the nukes in-system have already been used, or went down with the ships carrying them. Otherwise we wouldn’t have resorted to a slipspace drive.”

A moment of silence.

“[Some of those ships would have been disabled, not destroyed. Those nukes might be intact,]” Cutter stated.

“[Spirit, this is Colonel Holland. Is your Spartan group intact?]”

“[Affirmative, Colonel. What do you have in mind?]”

A globe of Reach appeared in a small window on Leon’s HUD. A second later, a dot marked with coordinates appeared near it.

“[The Marathon-class cruiser Storm of Darkness is at these coordinates. During the initial battle, she suffered a massive radiation leak and life-support failure after being hit by a broadside. Her bridge and life-support systems are both gone. Fortunately, her munitions magazines and nuclear tubes are both intact. Unfortunately, her reactor is compromised, and is leaking lethal levels of radiation. Our standard troops wouldn’t stand a chance.]”

“But all Mjolnir armour systems are shielded from radiation, even the Mark Four,” Jorge stated.

“[So are Draconian powered armour systems,]” the translated voice added.

“[The Covenant isn’t going to want us salvaging nukes,]” Kat added, unexpectedly joining the channel, “[And there are the problems of insertion, and operation time. Mjolnir armour only has a ninety minutes worth of air in its internal rebreather. And any external tanks will quickly become irradiated.]”

“[If we can insert close to the ship, ninety minutes should be more than enough,]” Cutter stated, “[If not… Captain Ladris, how long can Solaris armour operate in a vacuum?]”

“[Up to five hours with its internal tanks, Captain Cutter,]”  came the response, “[We usually fit them with additional, external tanks for long space or hazardous-environment operations.]”

“[Delivery?]” Holland asked

“There’s a second Corvette due to make a refueling run in six hours,” Leon informed them, remembering the (admittedly impromptu) briefing for this mission, “Pious Inquisitor, it’s the same class as the first. We could possibly synchronise its self-destruct with the detonation of the nukes.”

“[That’s our in; even if they refuel it remotely, they have to lower shields in that area,]” Holland stated, “[Even the smallest holes in their energy shields would be disastrous during a nuclear detonation. We’ve seen Battlecruisers with full shields completely destroyed because they were in the process of firing when the nukes detonated.]”

“[I’ll have my troopers suited up and ready,]” Ladris informed them, “[Cutter, can they ride in your Pelicans? They’re better suited to this operation than our own dropships.]”

“[Of course,]” Cutter said, “[Their pilots are already standing-by. I’ll send them over immediately.]”

“The Sabres should be able to provide escort,” Leon said, “However, I must recommend Anchor Nine be evacuated; the Covenant’s attention has been drawn to it.”

“[The Spirit can evac Anchor Nine,]” Cutter said sounding slightly reluctant, “[We’re definitely not up to current standards, but we have more than enough room for the staff of the station.]”

“[Agreed,]” Holland said, “[Let’s get to it.]”