Battle of Thebes

The Battle of Thebes was the invasion of the Theban Commonwealth's capital world of Thebes. The only major engagement between the forces of the Commonwealth and the Covenant throughout the , the battle ended in Theban victory as the attacking Covenant fleet was soundly and completely destroyed or driven from the Boeotia system.
==Background==
The Theban Commonwealth had, up until 2550, avoided direct contact with the Covenant. That year saw a major skirmish in the sparsely populated Shahat system between a Covenant picket force and local Naval Service vessels. While the Naval Service successfully destroyed the Covenant ships, they took heavy casualties doing so, including the loss of Rear Admiral Malcolm Sykes. The civilian population of the Shahat System was hastily evacuated either to concealed emergency shelters at the edge of the system, or outright taken to the Boeotia System. 
However, a major Covenant force did not return to the Shahat System. Though wary, Theban leadership believed that they may have avoided the worst. However, unbeknownst to them, the Boeotia System and Thebes itself had become a target for the Covenant. A relic, an archival piece known to the Covenant as an "Annal" that was discovered on a moon of Shahat VI, had been recently transported to a facility on Thebes for study by the Intelligence Service. Unknowingly, this act revealed the planet's existence and placed the world within the crosshairs of the Covenant.
==Battle==
===Opening Engagement===
At 0753 hours, on December 11, 2551, Defence Forces Listening Post Gamma-46 located around 110 million kilometres from the gas giant Orchomenos, registered a large slipspace contact. Alert and baffled, the crew of the listening post dispatched a notice of the contact to other installations around the system. At 0801 hours, the contact exited slipspace, revealing itself to be a Covenant fleet. The Fleet of Tranquil Contemplation numbered a total of 22 vessels: 1 , 2 Ket-pattern , 6 , and 13 . Upon recognition and confirmation of Covenant contacts, Gamma-46 quickly issued Defence Forces code FEINDBERÜHRUNG. The listening post was destroyed mere minutes later, and all 5 of its crewmen killed instantly. 
While the Territorial Defence Service mobilised and called up its reserve forces, the warships of the Naval Service quickly rendezvoused, as per the Lambda-Sykes doctrine, at a point near the gas giant Haliartos, relatively close to Thebes. Most of the Naval Service's active vessels at this time were refitted civilian vessels, including freighters, yachts, and haulers. Some proper warships, including both old UNSC/CMA-produced vessels and homegrown ships like the DFC Pelopidas, were present as well. The Theban fleet numbered at 89 total ships, two-thirds of which arrived at the Haliartos rally point around 1000 hours, with the force under the direct command of Rear Admiral Vasil Petrovikev, captain of the Pelopidas. 
Theban strategy involved drawing the Covenant fleet into a kill zone of ship-mounted weapons and surface installations scattered across Thebes and its moons. Theban warships directly engaged the Covenant fleet at 1023 hours, beginning a fighting withdrawal towards Thebes. Although they suffered losses, this maneuver was successful, and the Covenant fleet was hammered by the combined strength of the Naval Service's weaponry and MAC installations. Despite this, the Covenant maintained the initiative, and reacted quickly to the ambush. Plasma fire eliminated many of the surface cannons in their direct reach, while fighter squadrons and ground forces were dispatched to eliminate those that weren't. With mounting losses, the decision was made to withdraw the remaining vessels of the Naval Service from direct engagement. 
By 1400 hours, nearly half of the Naval Service's fleet had been crippled or destroyed in action. In return, the Covenant lost 3 CPV-class destroyers and 6 SDV-class corvettes. Both the CAS-class assault carrier Austere Breviary and CCS-class battlecruiser Faithful Liturgy received noticeable damage, but not critical enough to hinder their operations. 
The Covenant fleet's remaining destroyers and corvettes continued pursuit of the Naval Service vessels, while the CAS-class and CCS-class vessels moved to escalate their surface operations. 
===Planetary Assault===
The Covenant fleet's three capital ships dispersed in order to conduct major ground operations. The Faithful Liturgy positioned itself first above the moon of Chaeronaea, beginning the process of the city of Arimnestos. Austere Breviary initiated a major ground assault of the cities of Seventh Gate and Thisvi. The other CCS-class, Virtuous Triumph, deployed Zealot teams in search of the Forerunner relic, while deploying a simultaneous assault on the city of Uri as a diversionary effort. 
Quick reaction forces of the Territorial Defence Service moved to respond to these attacks. Forces of Strategic Group Lambda and Strategic Air Wing Dzelo were deployed to the area around Seventh Gate and Thisvi, along with the 19th and 30th Naval Infantry Battalions out of Bajar. Almost immediately, heaving urban fighting broke out in both cities as Theban forces worked to simultaneously evacuate the civilian populace and repel the Covenant invaders. Fighting in both cities would last throughout the rest of the day and into the next morning as more and more Theban and Covenant forces were drawn into the intense street-to-street combat.
Meanwhile, Theban forces in the city of Uri were able to successfully evacuate a majority of the civilian population but were effectively driven from the city's main urban centre within only a few hours. Covenant forces established a major staging ground near Uri, in the city-managed Kleinerkanton Forest Park, which Theban forces struggled to dislodge them from. With heavy casualties sustained and communications erratic, intact Theban forces in the area rallied under Colonel Peter Wetzel, eccentric commanding officer of the 105th Mechanised Infantry Division, who ordered a strategic withdrawal from the Uri metropolitan area as they awaited the arrival of reinforcements from Strategic Groups Gamma and Epsilon. 
===Raid on the Tropaion Facility===
At 16:30 hours, while heavy fighting continued in and around Uri, Covenant dropships were detected within the airspace of a clandestine Intelligence Service base a few dozen kilometres away from Uri. This base, called the Tropaion Facility, was where the "Annal" had been transported upon its extraction from the Shahat system. 
The base's garrison had been bolstered by a few small units of Naval Infantrymen, whose valiant efforts were ultimately in vain. The Covenant strike force, headed by a team of , quickly tore through the facility, interrogating and killing its defenders. A last-ditch attempt by the Intelligence Service was made to extract the Forerunner artifact, but the Wyvern intended to carry it was fired on and destroyed on its landing pad before the device could reach it. 
By 17:00 hours, the facility's personnel had been completely annihilated, and the Covenant forces, having recovered the artifact they sought, withdrew from the facility. The events of the raid would later be pieced together by the Intelligence Service using recovered camera footage and radio communications recorded during the incident.
===Operation: GRENDEL===
===Final Naval Engagement===
===Last Actions===
==Aftermath==
==Legacy==