The Mountain Among the Stars

by Johnjohns

Prologue

The Mountain Among the Stars

By: Johnjohns2

Prologue

"They told me to fight, and that's what I've done. Let historians sort through the wreckage, bodies, and broken lives to figure out the rest."
—Admiral Preston Cole

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0944 April 18, 2543/ UNSC Everest, Psi Serpentis System

Admiral Preston J. Cole stood with his hands cupped behind his back, staring through the thick, glass windows on the bridge of the UNSC Everest. Beyond the transparent surface, outlined in blue light against the black void of space, was a newly amassed fleet of over two hundred Covenant vessels.

Only thirty minutes earlier, Cole and the crew of the Everest had transitioned from slipspace along with the rest of Battle Group India. India was the largest assembly of UNSC naval vessels in history, bearing the full might of one-hundred and sixty-two warships. Their priority had been to engage the the combined forces of two Covenant fleets, totaling over three-hundred enemy vessels, on the far side of the system. The massive entrance of Cole’s forces sent out a massive wave of Cherenkov radiation, which immediately alerted the Covenant of their arrival. Almost as soon as they had arrived, Battle Group India quickly jumped into slipspace, only to emerge seconds later on the opposite side of a massive gas planet called Viperidae, with the enemy fleet on the other side. The fleet immediately split into two groups, and rocketed in opposite directions around the planet, to engage the Covenant.

During the first half of the engagement, the Covenant had lost twenty-three ships, while Battle Group India had lost almost a third of its forces. The remaining UNSC ships had all been damaged to some degree, except for the Everest, which hadn’t been scathed. The battle continued as most of India flew around the planet, being pursued by the Covenant fleet. At that moment, a fleet of fifty-five highly modified UNSC ships emerged from slipspace, flying straight into the heart of the Covenant fleet, destroying half of the enemy forces. The newly arrived ships had been led by the Bellicose, the Captain being Lyrenne Castilla. Lyrenne was Cole’s wife, and one of the most important leaders of the colonial insurrection. Losing a quarter of her own ships, Lyrenne and the remnants of her fleet disappeared into slipspace. The Everest and Battle Group India had regrouped to take on the stragglers of the Covenant fleet, when suddenly another fleet of two-hundred alien warships emerged on the far side of the system, to join the fight.

Cole watched the enemy fleet draw closer with each passing second.

“Orders sir?” asked Lieutenant Ryan Fosco, the communications officer.

“Tell the rest of the fleet to flee the system,” Cole ordered solemnly. “We will stay to give them a chance to escape. Bring us in close to the planet, and give me an open channel to the Covenant fleet.”

The remaining forces of Battle Group India parted away from the Everest to retreat. The enemy fleet turned to pursue the fleeing UNSC ships.

“The Covenant fleet is altering its course to pursue our forces,” stated Chief-Warrant Officer Joseph Ramirez, Everest’s weapons expert.

“The channel is live sir,” reported Fosco.

Cole tapped a monitor in front of him, activating his communicator.

“Listen to me, Covenant. I am Vice Admiral Preston J. Cole commanding the human flagship, Everest,” Cole said sternly to his enemy. “You claim to be the holy and glorious inheritors of the universe? I spit on your so-called holiness. You dare judge us unfit? After I have personally sent more than three hundred of your vainglorious ships to hell? After kicking your collective butts off Harvest - not once - but twice? From where I sit, we are the worthy inheritors. You think otherwise, you can come and try to prove me wrong.”

The Covenant forces suddenly turned their attention away from India, and made a course directly for Cole’s ship, others flew around the opposite side of Viperidae, cutting off any possible escape for the Everest.

“Bring us in closer to the planet, let the gravitational forces pull us in, and make one full orbit around,” Cole ordered.

“Done,” replied Maya, Everest’s new “Smart” navigational A.I.

The UNSC Everest fell into the extremely powerful gravitational pull of the gas giant, sealing her fate. The planet’s forces were so strong that it could almost fuse the hydrogen-rich atmosphere together. It was now impossible for the Everest to escape the spiraling orbit. The Everest’s exterior lighting was shut off, and all of her missile bay doors opened.

“Lead Covenant destroyers have lateral plasma weapons hot, now firing,” reported Maya.

White-hot streams of plasma erupted from several Covenant vessels, streaking across the blackness of space, towards the Everest. Upon nearing the planet, the plasma bursts were caught in Viperidae’s magnetosphere, and were dispersed outwards into space, leaving the Everest undamaged. The alien fleet followed up with a barrage of laser fire, which burned thousands of small holes in the Everest’s titanium armor plating , but did little, to no damage to the hull itself.

“Laser impacts reported on various locations on our stern, unable to penetrate our ten meter titanium-A armor. No atmosphere leaks, but all outer decks have been evacuated anyway as a precaution. No reported casualties on board. UNSC Io is in position, awaiting directive.”

The UNSC cruiser, Io had been severely damaged in a previous engagement with the Covenant. Captain Wren had suggested to Cole to have the empty cruiser towed to a position in Viperidae’s atmosphere, for use as a fire ship. Cole however, had other plans in mind for the cruiser. For the second and final time, Cole broadcasted to the Covenant fleet.

“Is that the best you can do?” Cole laughed. “Watch what an unworthy human can do!”

Cole turned to face Maya’s hologram. Her avatar was that of a tall, long haired woman in a one-piece UNSC navy suit. Her holographic eyes met his. Even though she could not see out of them, she could see Cole clearly through the many cameras in the bridge. Cole nodded his head.

The Valiant-Class Super-Heavy Cruiser fired everything she had. One hundred Shiva nuclear missiles rocketed through Viperidae’s atmosphere, towards the planet’s center. Meanwhile almost one-thousand Archer missiles, followed by a dozen Shivas flew straight towards the leading Covenant ship. The Archers had no effect against the Covenant ships, except temporarily obscuring the line of sight on the Everest. The Shivas impacted moments later, obliterating the lead vessel in a nuclear fireball.

“Fifteen seconds till impact,” announced Maya. “We have just passed behind the UNSC Io. Shall we proceed as planned?”

“Do it,” replied Cole, glancing one more time at the Covenant fleet through a viewscreen.

The missile pod doors on the damaged Io opened, and hundreds of Archer missiles flew outwards for a few seconds before detonating in the atmosphere. In a dazzle of fireworks, the view of the Everest from the outside was once again obscured.

“Five seconds till impact,” reported Maya. Cole stared out into space.

“Four... three... two...”

“Slip now.”

In an instant, an all-new highly advanced formula for an in-atmosphere slipspace jump, created by Cole and Maya themselves, was put to use. There was a flash of blue light, and then the Everest was gone. Moments later, one-hundred flickers of light appeared in Viperidae’s lower atmosphere. The super-pressurize hydrogen was pressurized beyond its breaking point by one-hundred nuclear detonations. The hydrogen atmosphere ignited, and the resulting micronova, if only for a brief moment, turned Viperidae into a small sun. The outer layer of atmosphere, turned to plasma, blasted away from the planet, vaporizing everything, including the Covenant fleet. After a few moments the synergistic reaction ceased, and all that remained was a noticeably smaller, glowing Viperidae.

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Author's Notes

This prologue is basically just a recap of the ending of The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole. The majority of the events in this chapter were envisioned and created by Eric Nylund, not myself. Besides Admiral Cole himself, almost all of the human characters in this chapter and in the story were created by me. This is simply due to that fact that there is no in-depth account of the actual crew members aboard Cole's ship in the Halo Universe. Even Maya, the ship's A.I. was created by me because there are no details about the new A.I. that Cole requested to have on board, to replace the former A.I. "Sekmet." (It is unknown if Sekmet was a Smart or Dumb A.I., but if she was indeed Smart, then she would have run rampant by the time of the events of this chapter, which would have given Cole a good reason to request a new A.I.) As you can see, there is a lot of speculation as to the exact details of Cole's final mission, as well as the people who served under his command. This is why most of the characters are OC's. I'm doing my best to create a solid crossover without the amount of information available for other topics in the Halo Universe. I apologize if you don't like the story because of this.

Comments

[radiation_pony]

in first strike Cortona dos an in atmus jump between halo 1 and 2, at the time it was impossibal for a UNSC ship to do that. she used a hijacked covenant warship

[EverfreeSparkle]

I liked the idea, but how could 100 nuclear bombs cause a Chain reaction like that? Even if only for a second the energy to turn a supergiant core into a star would be tremendous. Unless those nukes had a yield of about... a few Quadrillion megatons each. (This is likely to be to small depending on how big the star is.) I have not read the story this is based on so it could be the other authors mistake or what. I might be wrong if the planet is massive enough that it only needed a tiny push for the nuclear force to counteract gravity enough for the type of mini nova in the story. Anyways, I feel as if I am ranting. I just sometimes randomly pick something that irks me in a syfy story and complain about it; ever have those moments?