FC RP Short: Prototype Titan
Foreword: I won't be putting up a poll for the next story, i'll be going through all the last options. Between the containment series I want to expand on, CIoG, and all of the mini series and shorts I have listed, i'll have plenty to write for awhile.
This short is based off of how events may have played out in a Simulation room scenario, and is not guaranteed to be canon in FC lore or in the lore of the CIoG universe. (unless I really like how it turns out.)
There would only ever be one chance to stop this monstrosity, and to do it, they had to destroy it before it ever awakened. The empire was creating a massive ship, one strong enough to take on entire fleets by itself. This titan-class ship was the ultimate culmination of their experimental weapons division. It used all of the technology the empire had at it's disposal. Thankfully, that means lot's of workers, a lot of jumping across different divisions. All of that meant it was easy to learn about from their spies. People talked after all. This ship boasted armour that was thicker than a frigate, at 2000 feet thick. The ship itself was almost 50 kilometers long, 15 kilometers bigger than a Hadrian-class titan. It's shields were powerful enough to survive a direct ram on a supercarrier, and then take all of it's weapons hits without breaking. It boasted Twenty MAC cannons capable of firing heavy rounds, and Fifteen Super MAC cannons. It had an additional armament of 500 centurion missile pods, nearly 2000 point defense cannons, fifty nuclear mines, and one hundred nuclear missile pods, which could decimate entire fleets on it's own.
It's arsenal held a fighter contingent of twenty thousand fighters, and could store ten capital ships of destroyer or lower class inside of it for repair and refit. It's experimental weaponry included four forward facing Hadron shrapnel cannon, essentially a space shotgun. They fired A wave of debris out to block incoming missile fire, or collide with nearby ships. It also had an energy projector scavenged from covenant ships mounted to it's bottom. It had four slipspace drives, allowing it to jump basically whenever the hell it wanted, wherever it wanted.
This ship could jump in, destroy a fleet of a hundred, burn the planet, and be out before the distress call gets out.
But, this ship was offline. Incomplete. It was the single most expensive endeavor the empire had ever attempted, and all that stood before us and it was a mere 2000 feet of Titanium-A. Well, that and an entire empire fleet.
Spartan team Juliper watched the forward view screen as the ship around them re-entered normal space. In front of them stood the full might of the imperial navy. Hundreds upon hundreds of frigates and destroyers. Fleet carriers, cruisers, battleships, and even some titan class ships were scattered about them. Single ships buzzed between them non-stop, carrying needed supplies and running patrol routes. They turned to look at a rear facing view screen. The brotherhood forces were insignificant by comparison. Only two hundred ships stood to face the nearly 900 imperial ships. They weren't here to fight off the empire though, they only needed to take out one ship. The new prototype titan was easily visible amongst the fleet, bigger than most of the other ships combined. The fleet would engage the enemy fleet, while a team of prowlers and corvettes were set to deploy teleportation boarding craft directly on the prototype. Hopefully, there would be mostly construction teams on board, and the spartan teams waiting to deploy would be able to sabotage it from the inside out. There was plenty of ordnance on board for them to mess with. The problem was, the boarding craft didn't have a long enough range to accurately deploy the teams past the armour. The solution devised by the brass was... experimental. Theoretically, it would work, but there were risks. The plan was to fire the boarding craft at several key locations around the titan. They wouldn't be able to scan the insides properly, but it should be possible to teleport inside by triangulating the position of the pods relative to each other and using their combined scans to set waypoints to base the jump off of. This way, the chances of them ending up inside a wall was, well, smaller. That still assumed they could position themselves properly, and there were no counter-intrusion systems already active. Easy.
Jeremy, also known as Juliper-001, moved towards the boarding craft bays as the ship lurched forwards beneath him. Other than his team, there were nine other spartan teams boarding the ships, supported by a further ten teams of odst's, who were on support. He looked at the four spartans to his side. To his left stood Jamie, the explosives expert of the team. If they needed something to go boom, he'd be the guy to go to, and he felt that by the time this was all over, they'd need a lot of explosions. Behind him stood will, the marksman. He was their best shot, able to shoot a penny flipping in the air from almost two miles away. Having him was less than ideal on a close quarters mission, but he had insisted on joining the team for it. To Jeremy's right stood Tabitha, she would be their go to reference for moving through the ship. She was their best CQC fighter, and carried the team's AI. Just behind her walked Katelyn, she was a proud "jack of all trades" choosing not to specialize in any one thing, but to be as adaptable to the situation as possible. She'd come in handy in the no doubt constantly changing situation.
They turned into the launch bays and strode up to the teleportation pad, just as a hard lurch to starboard nearly sent them to the floor. Jeremy keyed his mic. "Captain? Status report, soon as you can." He and his team stood ready, guns hefted up to deal with nearby problems.
"We're spotted. Distraction team is running as best they can, but nobody's going on a suicide mission here. <in the distance>Lopez, new heading! inclination 0-2-0 by 0-4-0. Divert all power to charging that slipspace generator! <back up close> Jeremy, we're only going to get one shot. All boarding pods are away and we're waiting on their impact now. We're jumping immediately after your team gets on. You'll have to find your own way out, copy?"
Jeremy snapped straighter reflexively "Sir, not a problem." He opened a channel to his team "Alright, we're in any second now. I want whatever room we get stuck in clear yesterday, understood?" Four green acknowledgment lights winked on. He blinked as the room exploded in front of him, the ship disappearing in a fireball. He saw the electric white light of the teleportation field, and then nothing.
Tabitha looked up, disorientated. Her training took over and rifle shot up. There was nobody around her. did something go wrong with the teleportation? She whispered aloud "Boris, where am I?"
The gruff but jovial voice of her AI filled her head. Boris took the form of an old earth Russian stereotype, apparently the form and personality amused him. She'd never understand it. "Hm, yes, you seem to be in a storage room for one of the ships kitchens on the starboard side of the ship. I can't seem to locate your comrades. I'll try making contact with one of the other AI's. You should get me into the ship's systems as soon as possible."
Tabitha nodded absently, opening the door and passing through into the kitchen. Nobody was home. I guess being attacked by a brotherhood fleet sends people running. She smirked to herself beneath her helmet. Alright, our team was meant to rendezvous with Tropera team and head directly to the Storage for the nuclear weaponry, sabotaging it to detonate and carve a nice big hole in the ship. The problem? She had no idea where she was in relation to the RV point. At least she was on the right side of the ship. She smashed the control panel of a door and emerged into a hallway, hearing footprints, she jumped back into the room she was just in, hiding. A team of imperial spartans rushed past, heading to some battle elsewhere. She crept out, heading the way they came from. On one hand, she'd give anything to find her team-mates, but if they were discovered... she grimaced. It was her duty to complete the mission above all. Besides, revealing her position would do nothing to help them.
She turned a corner and sprinted down the long hall. All of the doors here were labeled barracks and other living areas. They should be all out mounting a defense, but the last thing she needed was to- her thought fell silent, as the butt of a shotgun shot out in front of her. Boris shouted out "Ambush!" and she dropped to her knees, missing the butt of the gun. She twisted around, sweeping the legs out from her attacker and knocking him into the hallway. She raised her rifle and froze. 4 other spartans raised rifles towards her, and yelled on an open channel "Freeze. We're willing to take you alive, i'm sure your team is around her somewhere, and you'll be excellent collateral for us to take them by surprise." She watched the spartan she knocked down rise to his feet, and raise the gun to strike her with it. Two of the spartans stepped to either side of her in the hallway Then, in almost slow motion, she saw a waypoint appear on the spartan standing in the doorway of the room, and Boris whispered in her ear "Take them out, for the motherland. Have faith in your comrades." She felt relief, he must have made contact with someone. The shotgun fell impossible slow, and she twisted her head to the side as it fell, spinning and rising up. She leapt for the doorway, Ramming into the spartan there, he raised his assault rifle and fired, and bullets pinged against her shield before his aim was thrown off. The other spartan inside was surprised for only a moment, and raised his shotgun- but it was just a moment too much, as Tabitha pulled the spartan over her as they both fell to the floor. He couldn't take the shot without killing his team mate as well. The spartan on the ground slammed his elbow back into Tabitha, breaking her shields and winding her. He scrambled to get up and clear the line of site but she twisted and kept them locked together. She grabbed his side arm and slammed it against his helmet, unloading into him until his shields popped and pressing it against him hard. Everyone froze. The shielding, as it came back, wouldn't cover that area until the gun was removed. If either of the imperial spartans made a move, she would fire. It was a stalemate. They stared each other down with grim faces, when the shotgun wielding spartan spun around towards the door they had come through. Tabitha had only noticed it on a subconscious level during the fight, but she realized the other three spartans were MIA. As she turned towards the door, she saw the spartans faceplate shatter, and he fell back. Instinctively, she pulled her own trigger and felt the spartan fall limp in her arms. Standing in front of the door was will, with three dead spartans behind him.
Will walked over to help tabitha up as she tossed the dead spartan off to the side. He immediately opened a com channel to her. "Well, I saw you could use some help here, so i figured i'd drop in and say hello."
Tabitha responded almost immediately to him "I had them right where i wanted them. A Killstealer is all you are." He missed their competitive back and forth. As the opposite ends of the spectrum, long and short range, they had a long history of competing over which was the better way to fight. Tabitha game him the traditional spartan smile gesture, and he returned it. Despite everything, He felt closer to Tabitha than any other member of the team. They understood each other.
He started the count that they took every mission. "So, four for me, one for you?"
Tabitha grumbled just loud enough for him to hear "Doesn't count if they don't know they're in combat..." She became serious then. "Will, have you heard from any of the others?"
He shook his head. "No word from anyone until Boris contacted me and led me here. No word from fireteam Tropera either." He watched Tabitha's shoulders slump slightly. "Well, no sense in sitting around here. They may have gone dark out of necessity." He moved back towards the hallway, "I took great care in studying the layout of the ship, needed to look for nice sniping spots. Open atriums, cafeterias... long hallways"
Tabitha shook her head "Yeah, it's all the short ones in between that you're useless for."
"Oh, you wound me so. I have you for the short ones, that's what makes us such a team eh?"
Tabitha nodded at him, but jerked to the side and pulled will into the shadows. He didn't see anything, but had long ago learned to trust her on these things. She had nearly perfect hearing, the best of any spartan he had ever met. They stood still for five minutes before she brandished a shotgun in one hand and a grenade in the other. "Liberated from our friends." she whispered jerking one thumb back the way they came. It was another minute before he heard them. Metal boots running down the hall. Boris spoke over teamcom "Hold your fire. I'm getting friendly IFF tags, they are our comrades. Tags read fireteam Tropera. Contacting now."
Will began to stand up, but Tabitha pulled him back, shaking her head. A liquid smooth voice appeared over their com chat, he guessed it was Troperas AI. "We've got pursuers. Multiple spartan teams inbound from our direction. Linking our teamchats now to ease communication."
They immediately heard spartans, but not who they expected. "Tabitha? Will? we're coming to you." The voice over the speaker was of Jamie. He must have already met up with fireteam Tropera. Not five seconds later, 6 spartans rushed around the corner. Jamie held a trigger device in his hand. "Hold fire, we'll meet at the end of the hall and let the first ones through. We set a charge to hit the ones in the middle and hold back the others, we'll hit the ones that get through all at once." Will and Tabitha both flashed their acknowledgment lights. Will watched as Tropera reached the end of the hall and took cover to either side of the entrance.
Jamie flashed a green acknowledgment light, then a yellow. Will watched Tabitha pull the pin on the grenade she was holding. The light flashed red, and she tossed the grenade. She waited a heartbeat, and spun around the corner. Five spartans were caught by the grenade in the narrow corridor. One lay motionless on the ground, blood oozing from his armour, three staggered, shields drained, and one more lay on the ground, reaching for a fallen gun. She ducked and fired two rounds, finishing the one reaching for his gun, and confirming the kill on the other on the ground. Assault rifle and battle rifle rounds passed over her shoulder and struck the three remaining spartans, bringing them down. More spartans rounded the corner, opening fire. That's when the explosions went off.
Jamie watched Tabitha and Will as they jogged to meet up with fireteam Tropera. He gave them a smile gesture and they returned it. He heard them in the teamchat, Tabitha was saying she was catching up at three now. They must be up to their games again he thought. He was more interested in what fireteam tropera was saying though. "Alright, from the info we got off of that terminal, the munitions storage room for nuclear weapons is only a short distance away. That's probably why we've encountered so many guards. This section of the ship seems dedicated to maintenance of the nuclear weapons systems. It even has it's own guard."
Tabitha interjected here "Yeah, we ran into their living quarters down that way" gesturing to the hallway heading out left from the intersection. "assuming that we can't head the way we just came from, i suppose we head right?" She paused a moment. "Boris confirmed, one of the boarding craft got a good scan of this area. We can loop around to the right, and there's a maintenance accessway leading around behind their defenses. We just have to hope it's not guarded."
The member of Tropera that spoke before nodded. "Very well, we'll head that way. I'll have Vamora run interference on their systems." Before he could say anything else, one of the other members of the team jerked backwards. "Sniper!" he shouted, falling to the side of the entranceway. Everyone fell back to either side. "Jamie, care to explain how they got through that hallway?"
Jamie paused in thought. "No idea. Must be details i'm not aware of. Thruster packs? A gravity failure?" he shrugged. he winced as the members of Tropera turned towards their dead team mate and gripped their rifles harder. Will shot past him, firing a shot down the hallway. Before he made it halfway across, his gun exploded in his hands, and his shields flared.
"Go!" he shouted, and everyone ran across the doorway. "I only injured him. Didn't have a clear shot, but took out his shoulder. he won't be sniping anytime soon." They ran, side stepping into the room with the tunnel access hatch as they went passed it. Jamie sealed the door behind them, planting a proximity charge on it. They ran through the tunnel and Jamie keyed the activator. They had only gone down a few seconds before the charge went off. The chase was on.
Katelyn dropped out of the vent, using her momentum to drive her readied combat knife into the seal around the neck of an unsuspecting spartan. As he fell, she pulled out the knife and readied her side arm. She scanned the room quickly, but found him alone. She sighed, and fell against a nearby wall. Ever since her arrival, she had been hunted mercilessly. But now she was the hunter. Blood oozed from the seal on her left elbow, and she took a minute to apply a cannister of biofoam. She opened the door out of the room she was in, a bathroom, and moved down the hallway. She turned into the nearest door, and entered into a war room. Before her were multiple people clustered around a holographic representation of the ship. To her left was a REDD spartan. Instinct took over, and she raised her side arm, firing at him as she reached to knock his gun away. Her gun clicked empty and she backed into the empty space on her right. I suppose that's where the guard I took out earlier was. A stroke of luck I found him when I did, she thought. She reloaded and examined the room. All of the naval officers stood staring at her. Some had their hands on sidearms, but the shock of being face to face with an enemy spartan overwhelmed them. She cracked her knuckles, or at least, made the motion of doing so, and walked towards them. "Alright boys." She said, looking over the nearby terminals. "Now, who's going to be the one to tell me what i want to know, and who's going to be the ones who are dead?"
Jamie clutched his leg, leaking hydrolic fluid and blood. The enemy in this ship had too great a control over the ships systems. They had sealed them in this room, and the only way out was through an open door leading into a mess of infantry. They were just a few rooms away from their goal now, but resistance was fierce. Boris estimated close to twenty five man teams stood between them and the nukes. Vamora was having little luck in over riding the controls, but was able to give status updates on the other teams. As expected, the crew was mostly staffed for construction and diagnostics, but there was much heavier resistance near the key areas than was expected. Teams Hendrem and Zerox had reported success at taking control of the point defense controls, and teams Yannick and Rain reported success at taking the power controls. The other teams reported failure to take the engine room and bridge, but were still attempting to break through. Hendrem reported thousands of craft on an intercept course, heading for the hangers to drop off reinforcement. They confirmed the guns were operational, but dropped contact shortly after. The worst had to be assumed. No contact from Zerox either. Team Yannick had set up remote det charges at the power station and was now heading to the bridge, while Rain was heading to aid the engine room break in.
The door shut, sealing out the assault rifle fire. The mix of team Tropera and Juliper sank to the ground. "Good work... Vamora" Breathed out a Tropera member, clearly having difficulty breathing.
Vamora replied after a one second delay, impossibly long for a smart AI. "That wasn't me. I'm detecting it came from a control station towards the Aft." Another door opened across the room. "Well, whoever's doing it save your lives, so I'd take the free pass."
Will struggled to his feet. "She's right, let's move. That hallway should lead to the room we need to go to. Who's not accounted for? It had to be Jeremy."
Tabitha nodded thoughtfully. "Or Kate. She's always been a survivor." They moved down the corridor, and a door ahead of them opened on it's own. Entering, they came upon a massive chamber. Nuclear missiles filled the length of it, ready to be loaded and fired out of the above silos. Jamie looked around gleefully, like a child in a candy shop. One of the members of Tropera collapsed and Will left to help them administer first aid.
Jamie began climbing up to what looked like a control room running along the top of the room. "Here's the plan. Those doors above us.." He stopped and pointed above everyone. "are only one set of four. Two are automatically open in the middle area of the launch tube, and another is closed at the top. The way these systems usually work, the missile will only fire if it's in the tube, the bottom door is closed, and the top is open. The middle doors are in case of damage to the top door. What i'm going to do is trick the system, i'll open the top door and trick it into thinking it's missing. The second from the top door will register as the new top, and will close automatically. Then, i'll lock the door positions and re-register the top door. Missile can launch, missile hit door, missile go boom." His voice deepened. "oh yes, boom it shall go. I recommend we get the hell out before that happens.
Will looked around the room. "Easier said than done. How the hell are we going to do that?"
Kate stood by the computers, leisurely looking over the data in front of her. She hadn't managed to contact anyone yet, but she was able to provide remote assistance to all the teams. All three groups were approaching their goals, but there was a problem with that. Enemy forces were converging on their positions, and from the looks of things, the battle in space may as well have been over. She couldn't tell who lost what with all the debris, but the remaining brotherhood forces were retreating.
Something wasn't right though. This ship was massive, and even if the guards took a shortcut through space to the nearest hangers, they were moving QUICK. She watched a holographic representation of a group of new arrivals, they entered a room near the hanger and then... disappeared. She scanned for their IFF tags, and saw them appear in a room near the bridge. Of course, teleportation! stolen off of the brotherhood no doubt. That would also explain the interference with their teleports onto the ship. She couldn't do anything from where she was though.
As if on cue, her radio crackled to life. "All Brotherhood forces, this is Fireteam Brackus, we've found an empire communications jammer and disabled it. We're the last ones left here, but communications should be up now." Brackus? one of the ODST teams. It seemed like they really raised some hell and kicked some ass out there. But if they were the last ones...
She clicked onto Yannick's channel "Yannick, does your team still have access to the power controls?" There was silence for a moment, and a voice came over with gunfire echoing in the background. "Affirmative, we left our AI with it to trigger the charges... if needed."
"Send her a message, there are teleportation terminals around key areas and i need power rerouted. I'll provide locations i need blocked and locations to restore power to."
Jamie dropped down the last meter, collapsing to the ground. Tabitha jumped up to help him before he raised a hand. "heh, in all the excitement i may have forgotten about that. Too many toys to play with to worry about a leg." He sighed deeply. "It's done. Everything is ready to blow."
Will walked over from his position with Tropera. "I assume you heard fireteam Brackus' message? Hell of a job they did, and you'll never guess who i got in contact with just now." They both looked at him expectantly. "what, no guesses? Alright, fine. Kate. She's alive, and apparently she's the one we owe our lives to in getting us here safely."
Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief. "I assume she's not just calling to say hello?"
Will shook his head. "Good news on that front. Teleportation terminals. We've got one in the back of this room and they discovered it juuuuusst before a group teleported in."
Jamie clicked in, "Not so good news. Neither of us can stand. too much blood loss, both his lungs have collapsed, he'll be gone in a minute, if that." Referring to the Tropera member near him. "we'll stay here and hold down the fort."
Both will and Tabitha looked at each other, and then at Jaime. "Like hell" Tabitha exclaimed. "we aren't leaving you behind."
An explosion blew open part of the door in. Jaime Shook his head violently. "I'm done, and so is he. We can buy you some time." he removed his helmet and gave them a bare smile. "Besides, for an explosives expert, nuclear fire is a hell of a way to go."
They hesitated, And Tropera leader put his hands on their shoulders. "We've all left good men behind today, men who deserved better." He paused, gazing into nothing. "We don't have to join them." Will and Tabitha nodded, and turned towards the teleportation pads.
The engines were looked over and found to be in working order, and although there was no navigation data, they'd only be moving a short distance anyways. Team Yannick, team Rain, and Team Brackus were already through, and kate had just set up the jump for Tropera and Juliper. The other teams had volunteered to stay behind and hold the line to stop the empire from fixing their problems. There was a private, one man teleporter linked between this room and several other rooms of importance, but with a little help from Yannick's AI, she was able to connect it to the main system. She stepped through without a second thought.
In front of her was a Remus class frigate. A powerful capital ship, and even that was small enough to fit inside a specially designed hanger in the titan. The other teams were around her, and as Juliper arrived, Tabitha embrace her. Surprised at such unusual behavior from a spartan, she froze until Tabitha asked, "Jeremy, have you heard from him?" Kate looked down and shook her head. No, she had heard from all of the spartan teams, but not him. Will and Tabitha stood still a moment, and then green acknowledgment lights turned on. Kate had to ask. "Jaime?" A single Red light from Tabitha.
Shortly after, Tabitha sat at the controls of the frigate. The spartan and ODST forces had been deployed to track them down, and the ship itself was only being run on a skeleton crew, who were... convinced, to help them man non-critical systems under supervision of Boris, in exchange for being allowed to be interrogated, rather than killed, when they reached brotherhood space.
"So, who want's to hear the good news, bad news, and worse news?"
Will spoke up first. "Bad news first then. We've had enough of it, may as well take it all at once."
Tabitha smiled beneath her helmet. "Well, bad news is, i lied about the good news. Worse news is, we can't drop out of here."
Kate walked up the console. "The hell do you mean we can't?" she demanded.
"well, do you remember that fleet out there? it's still out there, and will blast us to pieces." Tabitha saw Brackus team look at each other in despair. There had to be a way out, they couldn't have come this far to lose now. Wait, maybe there was one way out... "Alright, I have a plan. I should add that at this point it's a fairly terrible one and will probably get us killed. We jump inside the titan."
The whole room was silent as the thought sunk in. It had never been attempted to their knowledge, to jump a ship inside a bigger ship. Theoretically possible, but nobody knew enough to know if they'd survive the transition. Will spoke up first, "I'll take maybe dead over guaranteed dead." He walked over to the console, and Tabitha felt a gloved hand on hers. "Seven."
Tabitha nodded, hand hovering over the enter key. With a look back up at Will, she pressed the button. As space warped around them, She whispered out "Seven."
The operation was a success, but at a cost. Several prowlers had remained hidden and stayed to watch what happened. The battle in space was devastating as expected. Nearly 150 of the 200 or so Brotherhood ships lay in ruins, and only 60 of the empire's ships were destroyed, nearly half of those salvagable in some way. The rest of the brotherhood forces had retreated. A short while later, The prowlers confirmed the completion of the primary objective. The Titan had begun to power on after being boarded by numerous empire ships and forces, and left the shipyard. It was unknown who had control of the ship, until it turned on a course heading towards a nearby planet. It was a barren planet, incapable of supporting life, but the impact was still devastating. As it left the station, A slipspace event was triggered inside of the ship. Once it was over, A sizable chunk of the ship and surrounding stations were gone. Explosions triggered in various areas of the Titan, and as it entered the atmosphere, nuclear fire detonated along it's other side, ballooning inside the thick armour and bursting out the sides. The ship was split in half, Before striking the planet with enough force to cataclysmically damage the planet . The ship was little more than molten slag and ash. There was no confirmation of spartan or ODST survivors. They made sure to record the empire's mighty fleet in orbit, all that survived the battle, and turned on out of system vectors, ready to come home.
With this 'victory', The brotherhood prepared to march on the empire. Thousands of ships awaited orders outside frontline worlds, ready to match the empire at every turn.
<<:Simulation End:>>
