Mission V: The Battle Of Kholo

[kuran]

The Battle of Kholo

Time: 2537

Backstory: Kholo is an outer colony world that, by little more than coincidence, was largely ignored by the Covenant onslaught. This changed in early 2537 when a civilian freighter was captured. It's captain was interrogated in an effort to reveal it's point of origin, and upon finding out that they had missed a planet, sent a fleet to glass the world.

What they did not expect to find was evidence of a Forerunner artifact on the surface of the planet. Rather than simply Glassing the surface, it was determined that this holy relic be recovered.

The UNSC recived a distress call from the planet shortly before communication was lost with Kholo. Fearing for the loss of another colony, Task Force 77 was dispatched immediately to discover what had befallen Kholo.

The Heretic movement, recently formed, have travelled with their human allies into battle for the first time...

Objectives:

UNSC:

1. The Covenant are digging for something. If the Covenant want it, we should make sure they don't have it. Attack the dig site and ascertain the nature of the project.

2. There are still civilians alive on the planet, mostly in the main city, Kholo City. Evacuation of the civilians from the city's starport is a top priority.

3. The Covenant fleet in orbit above Kholo is able to provide reinforcements and strategic bombardment to their forces below. This threat must be neutralised before the Civilians can be evacuated.

4. A FLEETCOM terminal in a comms relay station several hundred miles from Kholo City is still active. If the Covenant can take this, they will be able to listen to all FLEETCOM communications. We must secure it before they do.

5. A Covenant cruiser which seems to have suffered some sort of engine failure has drifted apart from the rest of the fleet, and is well clear of the main Covenant staging area at this point. SPARTAN Gold team is to board this ship and secure any relevant data, including navigational information.

The Covenant:

1. A holy relic has been discovered on this colony world, and an advance team has been dispatched to begin excavations. This site will doubtless face attack from the human vermin, and must be defended adequately.

2. Pathetic humans cower in their city, waiting to be saved. Enter the city, make sure that none of the vermin survive this day.

3. Our fleet is in orbit above the planet. Be sure to protect it at all costs, against any attackers.

4. We have detected the presence of a human communications device that, if secured, would allow us to hear all of their communications. This is a vital objective for our forces.

5. One of our Cruisers has suffered a catastrophic engine failure. The Vermin will no doubt attempt to attack this ship. Make sure this does not happen.

Heretics:

1. The humans and the followers of the False prophets are both equally determined to take this world. Join the fight and do what can be done against those who refuse to see the Prophet's lies for what they are.

[kartoffelfogel]

On a side note, the Cruiser is not drifting from the rest of the Fleet, it's actually crashed.

[Deleted]

Kholo City was attacked by the Covenant, and it resulted in a minor UNSC Victory. They were successfully able to evacuate the inner city well the outer cities was under siege. By the time the Covenant Forces reached the Evacuation Space Port, they were already loading the last evacuation shuttle. Multiple UNSC Defensive Lines fell, but the shuttle launched and the remaining forces fell back onto Pelicans, Albatrosses and landed longsword interceptors on a full retreat.

The UNSC fleet emerged from Slip-space and engaged the Covenant Fleet. At the start, the UNSC began off sniping enemy ships well the Covenant advanced. Once the Covenant were in range for there Capital weapons, they burned right through the 14th Tactical Combat Fleet and Alpha Fleet, Admiral Klix had no choice but to launch almost everything he had at his disposal after the main barrage. Well most of the Covenant small ton ships were destroyed in Admiral Eric Klix's and Rear Admiral Micheals Shiva Nuclear barrage, the surviving Covenant Vessels fled the zone.

The Covenant Fleet would re-group and over whelm the UNSC, with only a small portion of the sixty vessels that were sent into the battle surviving. The Kilimanjaro and the Arizona were both damaged during the battle. The UNSC Fleet still fought until they had no choice but to flee to the edge of the system, thus resulting in the UNSC fleet being effectively out of the fight, however, they moved back into orbit over Kholo to extract UNSC Survivors without taking further losses, and engaged in one more space battle, resulting victorious after the Arizona took out a Covenant ship.

At the dig-site, the UNSC pushed hard during the first hours of the battle as twelve long-swords bombed the Scarab mining into the side of the mountain. As the UNSC Forces moved in, they were successfully able to hold the zone. When the UNSC Fleet was defeated in orbit, they went into full retreat and fled the zone. However, most of the surviving soldiers were killed when a reinforcement team came in with another Scarab to continue the mining operation.

At the COMM's relay, the Covenant had already tapped into the UNSC Fleetcom channel. Well the ODST's were able to successfully able to destroy the Communication Facility, the damage had already been dealt to the UNSC Fleet in orbit as there communications from ship to ship were heard by the Covenant Naval Forces. This allowed the Covenant Navy to use, at points, there own tactics against them.

At the crashed cruiser, the heretics were successfully able to kill most Covenant Troops stationed on the ship. However, two bombs were present. Well one was successfully able to be defused and relocated, the other one exploded, damaging the Battle Cruiser further. While the ship was tethered to available heretic vessels with some assistance from UNSC forces and promptly slipspaced towards the newly captured Templar's Rest, the cruiser is rated as heavily damaged, and will take several months at best estimate to be spaceworthy again, let alone combat ready.

This was a Covenant Victory over UNSC Forces.