Battle of Orchid IV

The Battle of Orchid IV was a short but bloody engagement between the United Nations Space Command and the , occurring in August 2539 on and above the colony Orchid IV. UNSC forces were caught by surprise by Covenant vessels, who approached the system while the defenders organised themselves. The battle was a tactical defeat for the UNSC, who took heavy losses and failed to prevent the colony being glassed. However, in the objective of evacuating civilians from the world, they were partially successful.
==The Battle==
At 06:56 system time on August 6th, an outgoing agricultural freighter near the edge of the system reported detecting multiple unidentified vessels exiting slipspace. The vessel was destroyed before it could jump to safety, and as soon as this event was relayed to local command at Orchid IV, the military began mobilising and civilians started to be evacuated. The vessels were confirmed as a Covenant fleet as they passed a spatial weather monitoring station on the system's outermost planet.
By 11:00 the following day the Covenant vessels had moved within firing range of the UNSC Navy's 14 assembled warships, which retreated to the far side of the planet. Almost half of the planet's 300,000-strong population had been evacuated by this point, with just two large groups of evacuation transports left to leave. The ten Covenant ships launched an invasion force of 17,000 troops from orbit, which descended into the planet's atmosphere; Marine air and ground assets engaged and destroyed roughly 20% of the force before they made landfall (approximately 4,000 troops). Throughout August 7th, Covenant forces pushed back the 65th Marine Regiment and supporting Colonial Militia, who were preventing them from entering the cities and destroying the spaceports. By 15:00 the second-last wave of transports was full to capacity and escaped the planet, missing the Covenant fleet and taking few losses. The defending forces fought throughout the night and into August 8th to prevent the Covenant reaching the last wave of transports, taking severe casualties. The last wave of transports were cleared for departure at 06:00 of that morning, with the Covenant fleet now positioned to completely eradicate it in the escape.
The UNSC fleet now faced the Covenant armada and attacked, opening fire with Magnetic Accelerator Cannons and Archer missiles, and partially drawing their attention away from the civilian ships leaving the planet's atmosphere. The Marathon-class cruiser UNSC Absolution and three Remembrance-class frigates covertly entered the planet's atmosphere and recovered the UNSC's military force and a small number of civilians, while the larger force of two Marathon-class cruisers, four Remembrance-class frigates and four UNSC destroyers engaged the Covenant vessels. The vessels departing the planet escaped with a loss of 133 civilian vessels and one Remembrance-class frigate; the ten vessels charging the Covenant were all destroyed.
As a result of the UNSC Navy's action, the last wave of civilian transports, totalling 214 ships and 110,000 civilians, had a chance to escape. Only 161 of these took off and reached orbit without being destroyed by Covenant ground or air troops, while a further eighty were destroyed by Covenant Navy fire. The remaining 81 vessels jumped to safety, saving 41,250 lives. In total, almost 300,000 civilians escaped the system safely, with a cost of almost 90,000 lives; most of these casualties occurred during the last wave of the evacuation. UNSC Navy losses were almost entirely from the diversionary attack on the Covenant vessels, which resulted in the destruction of all ten ships. Ground forces took serious losses while holding off the Covenant and preventing them reaching urban areas; the vast majority of surviving units were evacuated by the UNSC Absolution and three Remembrance-class frigates, who did this under cover provided by the rest of the Navy. Two of these frigates, UNSC Remembrance and UNSC Death's Head, escaped alongside the Absolution, while the third of these frigates, fully laden with embarked troops, was destroyed before it could escape the system.
==Aftermath==
Following the battle, the ten Covenant vessels presumably glassed the world and abandoned it. In 2545 a UNSC prowler conducting reconnaissance found the planet deserted. The planet's 300,000 refugees were taken to various worlds throughout UNSC space, with the majority of them being rehoused on inner colony worlds such as Reach and Earth. The 65th Marine Regiment and the UNSC Navy force, both of which took heavy losses during the battle, was reassigned to the orbit of Iophon, a small colony world far from what was seen as the 'front line', where their numbers were remunerated over the next few months. The 65th was later involved in the Skirmish at Iophon, which saw the Marines of the UNSC Absolution take losses of almost seventy per cent.
==Battle Timeline==
August 6, 2539
*06:56: An outbound agricultural freighter, the Minuteman, broadcasts a general message back to Orchid IV; the message warns of roughly a dozen unidentified vessels heading into the system. Due to the freighter's distance the message is not received and responded to immediately; with no response and no detected slipspace rupture, the vessel is assumed destroyed.
*06:58: Rear Admiral Earnest Palmer, commanding from the Marathon-class cruiser UNSC Goliath, orders the complete mobilisation of Orchid IV's military force, and prepares a full evacuation of the planet's civilian population.
*0734: Remote Scanning Outpost Thucydides detects ten unidentified vessels passing the system's outermost celestial body. The outpost cannot positively identify them as Covenant but confirms they are beyond Human engineering.
*0752: Palmer contacts UNSC High Command (HIGHCOM) with the information that ten Covenant vessels are closing on the planet. He requests reinforcements but is denied, and is ordered to defend the planet for as long as is necessary to evacuate civilians, then abandon the world.
*09:12: The first civilian transport departs the planet and enters slipspace. Within the next hour 43 slipspace-capable non-combat vessels follow it and escape Orchid IV.
*23:59: By this time, approximately 150,000 civilians have been evacuated from the planet, with approximately 250,000 remaining.
August 7, 2539
*11:14: The first of the Covenant vessels is detected by Orchid IV's long range scanners, by which time Palmer has formulated his strategy. Palmer moves his 14-strong fleet to the far side of the planet. Thucydides self-destructs.
*11:32: The Covenant enter weapons range of the planet, initially bombarding major population centres before launching a ground invasion. Some 13,000 Covenant troops deploy to the surface, with Marine and Navy air units neutralising a further 4,000 before they make landfall. The Covenant engages the 65th Marine Regiment and Colonial Militia forces in rural areas, as they block the paths to the cities.
*15:02: A group of transports carrying a total of 50,000 civilians is authorised to take off and escape. Some of these have been waiting for up to five hours for permission, so that the craft could all depart at once, giving them a better chance of surviving the Covenant fleet in orbit. Most of the hundred or so craft escape as the Covenant fleet is poorly positioned to intercept them.
*15:30: UNSC forces have been steadily pushed back the dozens of kilometres to the outskirts of the urban areas, taking heavy losses. Throughout the rest of the 7th they are forced into the inner cities.
August 8, 2539
02:26: The Covenant make repeated and sustained attacks on UNSC forces, who are forced to hold out until the last wave of transports is ready. UNSC forces are ordered to make a last stand and prevent the Covenant reaching the spaceports. The battles descend to fragmented and bloody urban battles, drawing increasingly closer to the citys' centres and their ports.
06:00: All transports waiting for clearance to take off, totalling 214 ships, launch from the planet's ports. By this point Covenant forces are within hundreds of metres from waiting vessels in some cases.
06:12: 161 transports reach orbit, the rest being destroyed on the ground or in transit by Covenant ground and air forces. They are promptly engaged by the Covenant fleet.
06:12: The Marathon-class cruiser UNSC Absolution and three frigates including the UNSC Remembrance and UNSC Death's Head descend to the planet's surface to retrieve allied military forces.
06:12: Rear Admiral Palmer moves his fleet into range of the Covenant vessels, and launches a direct attack while discharging MAC rounds and Archer missiles; this charge is carried out by a total of ten UNSC warships. All of these ships, including Palmer's command vessel, the UNSC Goliath, are destroyed in an engagement that lasts no more than ninety seconds.
06:13: The remaining UNSC vessels escort the surviving transports out of the system; a total of three UNSC warships and 81 civilian transports make it away safely. One Remembrance-class frigate and eighty transports are destroyed by the Covenant during this brief engagement.
Category:AAO Events