Colonel Jairus Tuya observed the chaos with his own eyes. He figured that, if he could observe it, he could analyze it. If he could analyze it, he could deal with it. That’s what intelligent officers thought, at first. However when the battles become more than just a tool for analysis, when they cross the impenetrable borders of reality that statistics and battle strategies try to hide, no soldier can “deal with it”.

The Spirit of Fire was a colony ship, suddenly rebuilt, re-outfitted and put in charge of the conquest of the space around Jericho. Even with the new armaments, this was a fool’s errand.

A shipboard AI appeared. It was Colonel Tuya’s most trusted assistant, Zero.

“Colonel. The Covenant Cruiser Flawless Error is within range of our Archer Missile pods. Shall I give the order to fire?” Zero asked.

Colonel Tuya shook his head. “Let our Longswords take care of those Seraph fighters first. Warm them up though.”

“Understood. Shall I play your music as well?” Zero asked.

“Yes. Dimension by Wolfmother this time I think,” Colonel Tuya suggested.

Colonel Tuya was a fan of 20th century music and had an eccentricity of listening to it during combat. Some saw it as irresponsible and childish, but this was his method of coping. He was a young Colonel. New and inexperienced in combat. He had been given the position because of an act of heroism during a covenant assault on an outpost planet, and now he was the captain of a ship.

Tuya was determined to prove the Admirality that not only could he lead, but he could do it better than any other captain assigned to this task force. And he would start by protecting the capitol city from this cruiser.

—

Chief Petty Officer Sun sat in his Longsword. He was preparing to order eleven men to their likely death facing the faster Covenant Seraphs. It was not an easy job, and even harder when you knew that you would be dying alongside them.

“Okay. You heard the man. The Colonel wants us nice and close to the enemy cruiser. We take out those Seraphs and then we get a little support,” Sun said. “Holt, Khoury, Wu: I want you to follow me down the center line. We then break formation and hit them ship to ship. Beattie, Patterson, Der Byl and Ario you take the left flank near the Archer pods. Play a little zone defense so that those Covenant bastards don’t knock them offline. Lam, Fan, Langlois and D’Aria take the right flank and try to draw some of the Cruiser fire.”