All Under Heaven

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All Under Heaven
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Plasma lines bit at the heels of the UNSC All Under Heaven, as she barrelled through the rings of the gas giant Ægir. Two torpedoes luffed up on either side, curving towards the port and starboard hull platings. Exterior cameras tracked their movements, appearing on all the view screens on the bridge like the system had three suns; one a vibrant and rich yellow, the other a burning amber and blue. 
“Evasive pattern Bravo!” the captain yelled, standing at the centre of the bridge with his legs apart, and arms crossed, gazing at the viewscreen ahead. “Pulse thrusters on the port ventral, and starboard dorsal sides. Put us into a spin.”
A moment later, the spacious bridge was filled with a flurry of activity, and the ship beneath him lurched. He felt a tug on his stomach, and the viewscreen began to spin, making the sensation at the root of his stomach all the more visceral. He remained steadfast, watching the torpedoes track their movements. They made straight for two colliding asteroids in the ring, and the Epoch-class carrier barely managed to scrape between them, with barely two miles of clearance between their hull and the rocky surfaces.
The torpedoes, however, were less lucky than the ship they were tracking so fervently. They impacted the pair of asteroids, having spun right into their paths. The rock shattered apart under the intense heat, and molten globs flew off, scattering and glimmering in the sunlight from Epsilon Eridani's star.
The All Under Heaven kept going through the rings, pitching lazily to the Captain’s right hand side, the viewscreen polarising to block out the blinding rays of the star ahead of them.
The holographic table behind the Captain spluttered to life, revealing an aging woman in a cocktail dress. “Captain.”
“Evening, Kepler. So nice of you to join us.”
“Need I remind you,” Kepler said with a roll of her eyes, “that I am always here.”
“Do you have tactical on the enemy?”
“Yes sir. Two CCS-class cruisers, two corvettes, and a host of single craft are pursuing.”
“We won’t be able to link up with the fleet, at this rate.” the Navigations officer wheeled around from his station, facing the AI and the Captain. “If we lead these ships back, they’ll be able to ambush whoever we link up with.”
The Captain turned to face him, and flicked a hand for the officer to turn back to his post. “We won’t be linking up with the fleet.”
“Captain, are you sure that’s wise?” Kepler affixed him with a gaze. “We would have strength in numbers, and as it stands our odds of beating this flotilla are slim to none.”
“It doesn’t matter if we beat them,” the Captain said, with a grim faced nod towards the spinning viewscreen ahead. “We only need to waste their time.”
The All Under Heaven broke through the ring system of Ægir with little ceremony, trailing several bits of debris and small rocks jostled from their passage through the ring system. Orange pulse lasers followed them out, tracing angry red lines over the Epoch’s thick armour plating. 
The Captain felt the ship shudder as the laser fire sliced through their hull, and closed his eyes when the bridge erupted into panicked voices a mere second later.
“Hull breaches on decks seven, nine, fifteen. Sealing bulkheads—”
“Fire on deck twelve. Activating suppression system—”
“Confirmed casualties, we are venting atmosphere—” 
“Bulkheads on deck five unresponsive, dispatching engineering team—”
Kepler took her own measures to seal off the ship and prevent further loss of life, ignoring the spike of pain she felt when the ship took a hit. Integrated as she was, each impact was like a physical blow. “I highly advise we seek shelter among the ring system, Captain,” she said.
The Captain opened his eyes. “Agreed. Helm, pitch us forward twenty six degrees, come about bearing two-five-five.”
“Copy that, bearing two-five-five, twenty degrees pitch,” his NAV officer said a moment later, and the ship pulled on the Captain’s stomach again, their viewscreen filled with spinning rocks once more.
“Stop our spin whenever you like,” the Captain said. “Kepler,” he turned to face the AI once more. “Tell me we have some nukes.”
Kepler ran an inventory check in the time it took the Captain to blink. She nodded. “We have seven HORNET nuclear mines.”
“Captain,” another officer drew both of their attention. The officer was frantically tapping on his console, bringing up different external camera views. A fair distance away, obscured by rocks, was the unmistakable silhouette of sleek Covenant ships breaking through the rocks with brute force, their shields sparking. 
He watched them break through a sizable asteroid with laser fire to follow them, lateral lines aglow with blue fire.
“Covenant vessels are closing,” the officer said. “The corvettes are gonna pull up alongside us if we don’t do something.”
“Kepler,” the Captain watched the vessels blindly ignore their own safety just to catch up. “Deploy three of the mines as soon as we pass through the rings again,” he ordered, “and pray the Covenant pursues us.”
“Aye, sir.” Kepler sent the order for the mines to be loaded into aft tubes and deployed. A moment later, three teams entered the hold to grab the mines, two personnel to a mine, carrying them through the ship towards the back. 
The corvettes continued to close, the All Under Heaven slipped between asteroids and rocks with a hairsbreadth between them, except now, tiny dots were trailing behind them, blinking red in the expanse of nothingness between rocks.
The corvettes blithely gave chase, loosing orbs of fire from their lateral lines and turrets.
“We have torpedoes inbound!” someone yelled.
The Captain watched the holographic table, where a representation of the belt and the ship was laid out, with Kepler to one side. The Captain watched as more and more red circles appeared behind the ship, and spread out around the Corvettes; who were inching their way closer into the killzone.
The torpedoes closed, the Captain took a breath and held it, and the corvettes entered the blast radius of the first mine.
“Detonate.”
The red light winked off. The viewscreen polarised as light flashed on screen; a blinding white-gold light. The corvette’s shields flared for a bright instant, then collapsed under the strain of a thirty megaton explosion and EMP. Its lifeless body continued to drift, smashing through rocks and asteroids.
The second Corvette pitched, avoided the drifting corpse of its brother, and continued to pursue. The first corvette’s listless body tracked into the path of a second mine, which detonated the very next second, blasting the twisted remnant of the corvette. The third one was triggered by the explosion of the second, and blasted the melted wreck into atoms.
The second corvette went wide, avoiding the explosive trap, and any others they may have laid out. The torpedoes fizzled out as the EMP surge overtook them, licking at the All Under Heaven as it went forward. 
The second Corvette loosed pulse lasers at the UNSC ship, charging every torpedo turret and gun it had. 
The Captain walked around to the side of the holographic table, eyeing the viewscreen from the corner of his eye. “I think we made them angry.”
“Shall I order the rest of the nukes to be deployed, sir?” Kepler asked.
The Captain shook his head. “No, we’re gonna need them.”
“Then how do we deal with his corvette?” the NAV officer asked. 
“I have one last trick,” the Captain said, holding up his hand.”
“I don’t think they’ll fall for the spinning again,” Kepler jabbed.
The Captain grinned. “You’re right, and they won’t be following along right on our heels anytime soon.”
“Torpedoes away, sir!”
“Kepler, this one's for you,” the Captain stared at her intently. “Our aft-side dorsal emergency thrusters, and fore-side ventral emergency thrusters,” he said. 
Kepler blinked, and waited for what felt like a lifetime. SHe located the systems, counted the flecks of gold in the Captain’s irises, then still had time to take a second look at the inbound trajectories of the torpedoes and effectively estimate their impact zones. Eventually the silence became too much for her, when in reality merely a second had passed.
“Yes sir?” she prodded.
“Fire them on my go,” the Captain ordered, turning back to the forward viewscreen. “Give me a view of those incoming torpedoes.”
Kepler shook her head from side to side. “I can’t believe I’m letting this happen.”
The bridge screen flickered, displaying the incoming fire. The Captain could barely make out where one torpedo ended and another began. They were lancing down at the ship, threatening to impact the bridge directly, and decapitate the ship wholesale. 
“Thrusters ready, sir,” Kepler reminded, as gently as she could, while the torpedoes closed. 
The Captain waited, and the torpedoes began to dominate the screen. His hands clenched. “Fire now!”
The ship jolted, and the Captain was thrown to the floor. The torpedoes slid down the port and starboard sides, turning the titanium plates to an angry red gold—but they didn’t hit. The ship’s engines pitched down, while the front of the ship, and the MAC, pitched up in a hasty circle, and the Corvette came into the firing line of the MAC.
Kepler fired maneuvering thrusters, aiming the MAC at the corvette, and preparing a solution. The coils were pre-charged, and the slug ready to launch. “Firing solution ready, Captain.”
The Captain looked up at the screen, half-kneeling. He saw the corvette and balled his hands into fists. “Give them everything we have.”
The MAC fired, a thousand tiny thuds reverberated through the hull, and missiles streaked away from the All Under Heaven off towards the tiny, glimmering purple corvette. The slug impacted the nose, shattering on impact from the sheer kinetic force. The shields glimmered strongly, but held. A thousand missiles impacted a few seconds later, peppering the vessel with tiny motes of light and puffs of smoke.
The MAC cycled, the missile tubes were reloaded, but the corvette’s shields tenuously held on. Kepler sucked in an artificial breath, then squelched the impulse, feeling rather foolish that she had just mimicked a human habit.
The Captain stood, squared his shoulders, clasped his hands behind his back, and set his feet apart, feeling the weapons fire through the deck below him. The next volley of missiles thundered out of their pods and broke the covenant’s shields with a myriad of shimmering blue sparks. 
“Finish them off,” the Captain ordered.
The ship shuddered, and the MAC slug raced from the ship, crumpling the corvette’s nose, and gutting the ship from stem to stern. She listed to the side in a lazy fashion, blue explosions raking her hull, and atmosphere venting from her breaches.
A cheer went up from the bridge crew, but a nagging sensation pulled at the Captain’s neck hairs. 
He spun to face Kepler, eyes wide and full of fear. “Please tell me you tracked those battlecruisers.”
Kepler went rigid in realisation that the biggest ships in the flotilla were nowhere to be found, and her probes had long since gone silent.
A red light illuminated the bridge holographic table, and a klaxon wailed overhead. The nav officer turned to his console, and Kepler put up a representation of the display on the table. Out of the rubble of the ring system, the cruisers were rising up out of the rocks, dark, megalithic ships, as sleek as sharks, and glinting in the light. Not two thousand kilometers aft.
They turned to face the All Under Heaven, weapons bristling, and a thousand tiny motes of shimmering light veering towards them.
“Single fighters. Captain…” the NAV officer trailed off, as the Captain stepped up to the bridge railing, leaning over on it and staring at the display in front of him. 
“So be it,” he gripped the railing. “Get every available pilot in the air, now. I don’t care if all they pilot is a pelican, get us a screen out there, and tell them to prepare for contact.”
“Aye sir!” came the reply off to his left.
“Kepler,” the Captain looked over his shoulder. “Get the rest of the nukes attached to missiles, any way you can. We’re gonna need them.”
“I fail to see what that will accomplish.” Kepler said. 
He turned around to nod at her. “Just do it!” He turned back ahead to watch the ships coming closer, and the swarm of insect-like fighters growing bigger with each second. “Engines, all ahead.”
There was silence for a split second, the very ship itself holding its breath.
Two crewmen looked at each other, another two slumped in their seats. 
“Ahead?!” Engineering spoke up. 
“Yes. Ahead,” the Captain nodded. “If we are to die here, we won’t die like cowards.”
“Aye,” came the answer. The engines pulsed, flaring up and moving the massive ship towards the empty space left between the two cruisers ahead of them, and their eventual fate. 
“Single craft are moving to engage—”
“Point defence cannons primed—”
“Archers ready on your go, Captain,” someone said. 
“Sir, the MAC gun is ready to fire,” Kepler reminded him. 
“We won’t need it much longer, but fire away.”
MAC blasts tore away from the ship. Kepler cleared her throat and motioned a hand towards the captain. “Begging your pardon, sir, but—”
“How are the nukes?” he cut her off.
Bristling, she closed her eyes and counted to ten thousand. “Engineering have replaced four archer-grade missiles with HORNET-grade warheads,” she replied in a terse tone.
“Load two on the starboard, two on port,” He motioned his hands as he spoke. “Archer pods eighteen and sixty three.”
“Aye.” Kepler replied.
“Covenant are not discharging weapons,” someone reported. 
“They won’t need to,” the Captain said. “We’re going to them, not running away. They’ll rake us, point-blank, with laser fire and eyeballed torpedoes. We won’t stand a chance.”
Kepler looked around the bridge at the panicked faces of the bridge crew. “With respect, Captain, but, what exactly is your plan?”
“Give them a lightshow,” he responded.
Another MAC round broke harmlessly against one of the cruiser’s shields. Two fighters screamed silently past the viewscreen, trading fire with one another. Another thousand followed behind a Longsword, filling the void between with plasma fire. It took flak to its wing, pitched out of control, and detonated on the All Under Heaven’s outer hull.
The shark-like forms of the cruisers grew bigger, and more imposing, as the Epoch-class carrier passed between their snub-nose prows
“Captain, we are passing between the cruisers. If there was ever a time for one of your plans, now would be the time.” Kepler said.
The Captain nodded. “All fighters, disengage to minimum-safe immediately,” he ordered. “As soon as we’re in between them, Kepler, I want you to launch all four nukes.”
Kepler blinked. “What?”
“The EMP will fry their shields,” he said, “stop them from using their torpedoes, and may even disable them if we’re lucky.”
Scoffing, Kepler raised her arms wide and shrugged. “And it’ll destroy us if we’re not!” The AI pointed out. 
“And it’ll fry our MAC coils, coilgun systems, PD computers, and a whole lot of other systems,” the Captain said with a nod. “But missiles will still be functional, and they will have no shields.”
Kepler shook her head, finally understanding his plan. A full on broadside fusilade, at point blank range, with no chance of a Covenant counterattack. “Captain, I—”
He turned around to face her, framed against the viewscreen behind him, dominated by the Covenant cruisers as they saddled up beside the Epoch on both sides. “This is the only way,” he said, offering her a solemn smile. “Now fire.”
“Firing.” Kepler said.
The nukes left their tubes and thundered towards the Covenant ships. At such a close range, their pulse lasers didn’t have time to track and fire, before they impacted the shields, and detonated on contact. For a moment, the Epoch was framed on four corners by miniature, thirty megaton suns, blazing bright.
The ship tossed everyone to the ground as it violently bore the brunt of the detonations and the EMP surge, washing over their systems like a tsunami of sparks. Kepler winced in agony, dropping to her knees on the table, feeling every one of her systems strain and struggle under the assault.
The Captain grabbed ahold of the railing and held on with white-knuckled intensity. He was yelling something. Kepler tried to listen, but it was so hard to cut through the fog. She focused on him a bit more, with every instrument on the bridge at her disposal.
“Every archer missile we have!” he was yelling. “Fire! Fire everything!” 
Kepler’s eyes went wide, and she sent an immediate impulse to every archer pod to fire simultaneously. The ship rumbled, all seventy pods discharging all at the same time. Missiles veered out of the ship, leaving ghostly tendrils of grey black smoke, and moments later, the broadside hulls of the Covenant cruisers were lit up by hundreds of detonations.
“Vent the airlocks, launch garbage, give them everything!” the Captain screamed.
The Covenant vessels listed away from the brutal volley, their hulls exposed. They brought their guns to bare, fired off torpedoes that fizzled out in the wake of electromagnetic surges. Their lasers pierced the smoke and debris easily enough, raking down the hull of the All Under Heaven and burning through the plating like it was paper thin.
The bridge became a flurry of motions, of sparks and impacts. The ship jostled, vented atmosphere, explosions wracked the hull, and plates lifted from the ship. Vapourised metal danced in the vacuum of space from thousands of punctured holes made by laser fire, but the Covenant faired little better.
Every missile impact tore away sections of their hull, every detonation ripped apart valuable internals. A plasma coil ruptured, burnt for a few seconds, then blew back into the ship, blasting away segments of organically-curbed hull as it went. 
The ship lurched to one side too sharply, and Kepler winced in pain. She’d just lost something important, but she didn’t have the threads to check what right now, focused as she was on losing missiles, and reloading the pods. She felt systems going dark, segments of the ship failing, and life signs winking out one by one. Pressing on, she loosed another volley, then another, watching the Captain as she did.
The viewscreen ahead of him was hit by a piece of Titanium plate, and the glass cracked. A fire raged in the corner, beneath the Navigation terminal, the officer sprawled on the floor. Orange lights and red alarms wailed, lighting up the Captain as he stood on the bridge, legs apart and hands clasped.
She watched him reach into his back pocket, picking out a box containing a single cigar. He placed it in his mouth, and discarded the box over one shoulder. With his other hand, he struck a match on the railing in front of him, and lit his cigar with a puff of black smoke.
“It’s too late to disengage now, ladies and gentlemen.”
Kepler watched him take a long draw, savouring it with closed eyes and a smile. The ship continued to lurch and list, jostle and quake, vibrate and rock with each impact, and each launch. 
One of the Cruisers suffered a catastrophic breach. Something burned brighter than a star for a split second, then raced outward in a shockwave; the collapse of a pinch-fusion reactor. The ship split apart in a thunderous explosion, silent from the bridge of the All Under Heaven. 
The second cruiser listed downward, a series of exposed corridors, systems, conduits, and cavernous rooms along her underbelly. She vented atmosphere, and her guns went quiet as her power failed for good, too crippled to do anything but silently coast.
The All Under Heaven kept going, her engines crippled, and reactor breaching the red line. Something new came into view of the viewscreen, a large asteroid, measuring miles across. It was too late to evade, and everyone knew it. The Captain took one last draw of his cigar, and waited. The nose of the All Under Heaven collapsed under the impact, crumpling up and back as the asteroid tore through it.
The Captain was thrown forward, along with all the other bridge crew, and all faded to darkness. The back of the ship kept moving into the front, the reactor came loose from its moorings, the slipspace engine sparked and spluttered, and a catastrophic breach of fusion containment ripped through the engineering bay faster than a flash fire, burning everyone alive.
The Captain crawled over towards Kepler’s holographic table, clutching a ruined hand. He braced himself up against the table and spat blood onto the decking beneath. The power sparked and died one last time, and it was suddenly very cold in the room.
“Kepler,” he said. “Did we win?”
Kepler prepared to follow the Cole Protocol, and smiled to herself. “Yes, Captain,” she said. “We won.”
He laughed, and went silent.
Kepler deleted herself and dumped all files, erasing all traces of her or their existence. 
A thousand thousand miles away, in orbit above Reach, two fleets traded fire in volleys and barrages, unaware that the All Under Heaven quietly burned in orbit around Ægir.
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