ONI Black Ops Part Five
Posted By: Havok<Tactical_Havok@hotmail.com>
Date: 13 May 2003, 3:09 AM
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The main briefing room aboard the Archangel was fairly empty. Designed to seat over thirteen hundred personnel, the twenty-five scientists, along with the master chief and their support group, barely filled the first two center rows.
Dietrich was standing on stage, along with a grizzled looking Marine Lieutenant and a middle-aged Captain in a Navy uniform. "Hello everyone, and welcome aboard the UNC Archangel. This," He gestured to the Marine, "is Lieutenant Brenner Holwitz. He is heading the security detachment aboard this vessel, and will be accompanying us to the surface for field deployments. The Marine gave a curt nod to the audience and said nothing.
The scientist continued, "And this is Captain Wallace. This man is a veteran of one of this first encounters with the Covenant. I believe that he once ferried the master chief to a very important location on the UNSC Commonwealth." The Captain stepped forward and nodded, and Vladimir could see that his left arm ended just below the elbow.
Dietrich continued. "We have placed this cutting edge vessel in the capable hands of Captain Wallace. Since his first encounter at Chi Ceti 4, he has survived more encounters with the Covenant than any other ship commander.
Now Dietrich stepped forward, and the lights dimmed. On the stage in front of him, a large holographic image was displayed from the holo crystals on the ceiling. On the image was a planet. "Ladies and Gents, I present to you, our objective. This planet is the fruit of section three's hard labor over the last six months. A new mission order was issued to virtually all ONI stealth ships. That order was to search systems previously unexplored, the objective being to find any systems inhabited with Covenant life forms." He paused, trying to find his audience through the dim lighting. "Of course, we looked in all the wrong places at first. We found a few dozen empty systems, which we promptly took over for colonization and shipbuilding. But then a ship stumbled on this place."
The image sharpened into crisp focus and then zoomed in on the planet, which took on an ethereal swirl of green and purple as the image got larger. "We have determined that this planet is on the edge of Covenant controlled space. Not necessarily a home world, we have reason to believe that it was terraformed into something the covenant could survive on."
The image zoomed out and a dozen covenant ships lanced into view. The Captain took over from here. "This system is not very heavily defended, as far as covenant systems go. We believe that this place either has very little importance to the Covenant, or that they would never think we could find them and take this war back on the offensive." The old man grinned, continuing. "Well, we are going to show them that they have a lot more to fear from us. We will be entering the system in force."
The image changed again, this time displaying ten UNSC ships. "These will be our support group. The UNSC Warspite, the Iowa, the Stalingrad, the Interceptor, the Executioner, and the Stiletto. All Hades class battlecruisers. These have been pulled right off the assembly line to assist us in this operation." Vladimir caught a glint in the old man's eye. "This will not only be a test of MJOLNIR II. This will be an operation to strike a very real fear into the minds of our adversaries. The other four ships in our group consist of three cargo ships and one ONI stealth job. The cargo ships will be choc full of MAC rounds, as our new guns will cycle through one hell of a lot of ammunition. The stealth ship will reconnoiter the area surrounding the area before we jump into the system."
"Once we have confirmed the total number of covenant ships, well, then they will all be blown to hell. I doubt they will even see it coming. The stealth characteristics built into the ships in our little armada should hold up quite nicely." The captain grinned against the harsh light of the holo image and stepped back into darkness.
Now the Lieutenant Holwitz stepped forward to finish off the briefing. The image hovering in front of him morphed into a computer simulation. "As you can see, once we have eliminated the covenant ships, the battle group will dispatch a full ODST division to the surface." The hologram showed an image of three hundred troop transports diving through the atmosphere. They landed at a spot marked 'Landing Zone Alpha' and disgorged thousands of troops. The Marine waved his hand and the image halted. "They will assault and secure this land to the west of this city. An additional armored battalion will be shuttled down to supplement their defenses. Once the beachhead has been secured, a shuttle will make its way down to the surface with all of you." He stopped and looked at the master chief.
"This will be the staging area for the first operational test of the MJOLNIR II armor. The tests will be conducted under combat conditions. Bases around the planet's surface will be assaulted and all threats are to be neutralized. Test data on the armor and evaluations on the master chief's performance will be carried out at the divisional research center on the surface. Specifics will be given at a later time." The lieutenant wrapped up his speech and stepped backwards into the shadows.
The lights came back on and Dietrich took center stage again. "I hope this answers all of your questions. Any additional comments or questions can be sent to me via email. Well, this wraps up the briefing. We will be leaving orbit shortly. It's a pretty long ride, so you gotta hit the cryo chambers."
A multitude of groans met this last sentence. The audience filed out of the briefing room, headed for the unpleasantness of cry sleep.
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