Second Fall of Arcadia

The Second Fall of Arcadia was the loss of the human Outer Colony of Arcadia in the Procyon system, on September 9, 2549 during the Human-Covenant War. Although Arcadia survived the Covenant's first attack in February 2531, the colony's major population centers were destroyed and most Arcadians evacuated the planet. However, over the intervening years, many Arcadians returned to their homeworld and rebuilt around Abaskun, a farming community.
However, the Covenant returned to the planet in September 2549, where a massive fleet glassed Arcadia from orbit. Only a handful of Arcadians managed to evacuate the colony aboard transport shuttles, with the UNSC conducting a special operation to evacuate a valuable artificial intelligence from the planet.
==Prelude==
:"It's rare that anyone returns to a world once left in ruin by the Covenant. Very rare. Arcadia became a symbol of humanity's resilience."
:— Doctor Catherine Halsey
Arcadia was a prosperous Outer Colony of the Unified Earth Government, until the Covenant attacked the planet in February 2531 during the Human-Covenant War. During the Battle for Arcadia, the Covenant's Fleet of Glorious Interdiction destroyed the colony's major population centers and several orbital facilities. However, the Covenant fleet was eventually repelled by Admiral Preston Cole and the Third Fleet. During this time, the Covenant explored a series of Forerunner ruins on the planet but were repelled by the forces of the UNSC Spirit of Fire which aided the planet's inhabitants during the early part of the battle.
After the Covenant left the planet, Arcadia was initially left alone by the empire. Most Arcadians had evacuated from their homeworld, leaving the capital of Pirth City and other cities to be overgrown with nature. However, some defiantly chose to remain behind. In the wake of the Covenant's attack, Arcadia was thrown into chaos and its surviving population fell into a state of anarchy. However, over the following years, Arcadians slowly returned to the planet and rebuilt their civilization with the small, rural farming community of Abaskun, a rich farmland area on the continent of Mu. Although Abaskun was largely lawless, the settlement continued to provide much needed foodstuffs for the United Nations Space Command and Inner Colonies.
==The battle==
On September 9, 2549, the Covenant returned to Arcadia with a massive fleet, one significantly larger than what was typically deployed to eradicate human colonies of Arcadia's size. Tasked to obliterate whatever remained of the human presence on Arcadia, the fleet was taken back to find that flora had overgrown the colony's cities while the remaining human settlers at Abaskun were living in a bizarre state of lawlessness and anarchy.
Shortly after exiting slipstream space, the Covenant fleet began bombarding Arcadia's surface with plasma. Arcadia's population attempted to evacuate the surface aboard civilian transport shuttles, though some Arcadians were left trapped on the planet unable to escape. The Covenant fleet took particular care in glassing every vital part of the planet, incinerating Abaskun and all major urban areas. The fleeing Arcadians attempted to evacuate aboard hundreds of transport shuttles, though the Covenant fleet shifted their main plasma beams to catch the shuttles' outbound trajectories, broiling the ships in orbit before they had a chance to even reach slipspace. Only a handful of shuttles escaped destruction. 
Several Stalwart-class light frigates took part in the fighting, including the UNSC In Amber Clad, eventually conducting a fighting retreat.
===UNSC evacuations===
Elements of the UNSC's Ignis Corps had arrived on the planet in the opening hours of the battle tasked with evacuating crucial manpower and an Office of Naval Intelligence smart AI. A pair Spartan-IIIs on the planet, one being Spade-B243, were charged with handling and evacuating the AI, being hastily organized under the callsign "Green Team."
Once Ignis Corps met up with Green Team and Kilo Platoon, a unit of Arcadia's UNSC Marine Corps garrison, they moved to the ONI base where the AI was kept. Despite suffering from early rampancy, the AI was still functional and Spade-B243 was responsible for carrying the data chip the AI was stored on.
To confuse the Covenant ground forces and avoid mass casualties, the combined force divided up their vehicle arsenal and split into two separate convoys each heading for the planned evacuation site of a nearby UNSC airbase, fighting through heavy Covenant ground force resistance on the way to the destination.
However, without the UNSC Navy in orbit trying to hold off the Covenant advance, more and more ships were slipping through into Arcadia's atmosphere, and a Ket-pattern battlecruiser arrived over the battlefield, glassing the airbase before the convoy arrived, forcing UNSC forces to divert to a hastily constructed forward operating base.
Continuing to suffer heavy losses as the convoys rushed to the FOB, a second Covenant battlecruiser arrived in orbit, glassing the nearest base, forcing the convoys to divert around to continue on to the base. Realizing the convoys were moving too fast, the fleet dropped a Deutoros-pattern Scarab directly on top of one of the convoys, which immediately destroyed the five nearest vehicles to it before continuing to move down the road attacking the convoy.
Amidst the chaos, Spade-B243 climbed onto the Scarab and destroyed its core from the inside, causing the walker to self-destruct and collapse. Largely unopposed, the remainder of the convoy drove the last of the length to the FOB. With all Covenant ground forces in the region closing in on their position, multiple D77-TC Pelicans landed at the FOB and began extracting. Green Team got onto the first Pelican and extracted immediately with the remainder of Kilo Platoon and the AI, while Ignis Corps boarded the next three Pelicans, though one was shot down fleeing the base as a third Ket battlecruiser appeared over the FOB. The last Pelican lifted off moments before the base was glassed. The survivors then extracted from the system and fled to Reach.
==Aftermath==
The glassing of Arcadia was made public knowledge in the evening, with reports on the event from the Outer Colonies being sent to civilian news organizations. The surviving Arcadians fled to refugee camps in the Inner Colonies, and then eventually to Mars in the Sol system, resettling in cramped huts in the UEG's reserve camps spread across the southern dunes of Terra Cimmeria. Some of these Arcadians would later resettle the abandoned colony of Carrow following the end of the Covenant War.
Doctor Catherine Halsey watched the destruction of Arcadia from cameras mounted on a meteorological satellite. She noticed that the Covenant attacked the planet with much more ferocity than was their norm, wondering if Arcadia posed some sort of threat or religious or political value to the Covenant. The satellite was destroyed before the glassing operation was completed. Halsey was greatly distraught by the sight of Arcadia's destruction.
The artificial intelligence was successfully delivered to the Office of Naval Intelligence later that week by Green Team, though the two members dropped the name after the battle. Ignis Corps, despite the situation, suffered rather minimal losses compared to the rest of the Arcadian marine garrison. Kilo Platoon was dissolved after the battle, its few remaining members being transferred to other units.
Category:Gamestrider1
Category:Battles
Category:Battles of the Human-Covenant War