1900 Hours, July 12th, 2536 / UNSC Resolute Fury, In Orbit of Planet New Constantinople, Byzantine System
Captain Riley Voss — CO, Titan Lance "Cerberus" POV
Even with half a ton of armor wrapped around me, the launch bay always felt too quiet.
The Titans stood in perfect ranks—thirty-meter steel giants braced into their magnetic clamps, cooling vents hissing, jump-jets primed, and visor eyes glowing like gods awaiting battle. Their matte-black plating bore UNSC kill markings, while their shoulders flew unit banners faded by exposure and orbital dust. My own Titan, A03 "Ravager," crouched low at the front of the pack, fists clenched, head lowered as if ready to pounce.
And inside its neural cradle, I was home.
"Ravager, you awake?"
"Always, Captain," came the Titan AI's voice—deep, patient, sharp-edged. "Vitals steady. Ammunition full. Hostile telemetry syncing from command net. Shall we dance?"
I smiled grimly.
"Almost time."
The comms crackled, and then came the words we'd been waiting for:
"Cerberus Lance, stand by for hard-drop deployment. Orders confirmed: Defensive coverage around Orbital Defense Platforms Constantine Red and Basilica Blue. Repeat—deploy to orbital net. 3D pattern Omega-7. Engage fighter screens and intercept boarding craft."
The clamps disengaged with a clunk that rattled through my spine, and then came the roar.
Boosters fired.
One by one, Titans launched—massive forms hurtling into vacuum from the drop bays like spears of iron and wrath. Our booster platforms had deployed moments ago—dozens of rotating, low-mass grav-wells and thruster nodes tethered in three-dimensional space, giving us a full XYZ axis of movement.
No more front-line only. No more flat tactics.
This was true 3D warfare.
My HUD synced to the nearest platform, and Ravager angled its thrusters accordingly, landing on the spinning surface with a magnetic thump. All around us, the rest of Cerberus Lance touched down in a staggered net pattern—defensive triangles layered across multiple axes.
"Cerberus Lance, defensive net in position," I called out over the squad channel. "Engage anchor routines. Sync with point-defense radar and command AI grid."
"Enemies inbound," Ravager intoned.
We watched the first volley arc across the void—Casaba-Howitzers ripping into the dark like horizontal lightning, cutting through the Covenant shield layers. MAC rounds followed, like war drums being smashed in low orbit. The entire platform beneath us shuddered as the orbital gun fired its first shot, sending a ripple through the deck and my stomach alike.
"Hold position," I ordered.
Fighter formations blipped red on the radar.
They were coming.
We'd hold the line—one mech, one soul, one purpose—until either we broke, or they did.
"Multiple bogeys. Six wings, Jackal-pattern. Fast movers. ETA: fifteen seconds."
Ravager's voice was cold steel and fire, no edge of fear—just a countdown to hell.
"Cerberus, scatter net!" I ordered. "Use booster platforms, maintain axis spacing, and don't bunch up."
The Titans moved like dancers in thunder.
Massive forms kicked off from magnetic footholds and launched into open vacuum, drifting and weaving, using the booster grid like stepping stones in three-dimensional space.
I rotated Ravager's core ninety degrees, activated dorsal thrusters, and brought my magnetic cannon to bear. My targeting reticle bloomed with red—six Jackal-class Covenant fighters, split into two attack trios, spiraling like gnats with plasma breath.
"Firing solution. Lethality 94%."
"Send it."
I squeezed the trigger and Ravager's mag rifle boomed in silence—just a vibration through the frame. A tungsten slug cored the lead Jackal, shattering its engine housing in a bloom of violet and debris. The second peeled too late, catching shrapnel that tore its wing off. The third jinked… right into Titan A06's missile volley.
Across the grid, Cerberus tore through the first wave. Grapple harpoons snapped out, pulling Titans into better position. Plasma fire bounced off angled plating or was caught by magnetic shields. One fighter clipped Titan A12 with a glancing blow, only to be caught mid-drift by a wrist-mounted flechette pod, tearing its fuselage to ribbons.
Then came the call.
"Boarders! Covenant dropship just impacted Basilica Blue's lower hull! They're inside!"
"Ravager—entry vector?"
"Marking breach point. Plotting route. Recommend rapid drop and breach through maintenance shaft."
"Cerberus!" I barked, flipping Ravager and magnetizing to the nearest platform. "Boarders in the station. Mechs four through eight on me—we're going in."
The Titans dove—feet-first, boosters flaring blue as we accelerated toward the orbital station. Ravager rotated mid-flight, ventral plate hissing red-hot as we hit the hull feet-first. My heads-up display marked the breach: Covenant plasma had carved a circular wound in the station's bulkhead. A dropship wedged inside like a parasite.
"Permission to breach?" Ravager asked.
"Granted."
A flex of my hand, and Ravager punched through.
Steel screamed as we tore into the corridor. Gravity flickered inside. We landed on the ceiling, rotated mid-fall, and I slammed back upright just as two Elites turned mid-roar.
Their plasma rifles lit up, but I was already moving—wall-running, shifting weight, using boost-thrust kicks to bounce from wall to wall in the confined space. I carefully aimed my MA5C and dropped both after dropping their shields.
Titan A08 opened fire behind me, plasma bolts ricocheting off her armor as she gunned down the remaining hostiles from her hole in the station's wall.
We cleared the hall, moved room by room while Titan A08 provided cover. Grunts died by the dozens, torn apart by autocannons and MA5Cs that broke them like toys.
Ravager's sensors pinged again.
"Another dropship inbound. External hull breach predicted in twenty seconds."
"Set up firing lanes. Seal this wing down." I bark out orders, "Everyone back to their Titans."
The pilots leap into the waiting arms of their Titans.
This station wasn't falling.
Not on our watch.
The second Covenant dropship didn't knock.
It ripped through the bulkhead, scattering plating and oxygen into space. My squad opened fire as Elites in white armor flooded in—Zealots, we'd been briefed—carrying fuel rod cannons that hissed like vipers before unleashing hell.
The first blast hit Titan A06 dead center, sending the mech toppling back and away from the station. I saw the pilot's vitals flatline before her Titan's chest ruptured in a green fireball. The next shot took A07's right leg off, sending it into a hard spin—then a final plasma bolt punched through the cockpit, ending it.
The interior of Basilica Blue was becoming a meat grinder. Both sides taking casualties.
A fuel rod shot rips my Titans left arm off at the shoulder.
Soon enough all the elites are dead.
"Ravager's armor down to twenty percent. Reactor integrity critical."
"I know, girl. I know."
Outside, the UNSC fleet was bleeding.
The Covenant had adapted to the gravitic curve MACs. Their capital ships were punching through our perimeter. Some of ours were giving as good as they got—but it wasn't enough. Debris fields were piling up. Plasma was carving lines through the heavens.
"Structural integrity of Basilica Blue is failing. Plasma barrage inbound."
I punched through a wall and ended up in what was once an observation deck. What was left of Cerberus Lance—just three of us now—had fallen back. My titan's left arm was gone. Half the screen was red. The booster packs were dead, the magnetic stabilizers warped.
And then I saw it.
A Covenant fighter squadron, flaring past the broken hull, lining up for another strike run on the eastern flank of the station.
"Ravager core breach imminent. Manual detonation possible."
My hand hovered over the trigger. Shaking. Bloody.
"…Captain?" Ravager asked.
"Let's make it count."
I looked out into the black. Saw the fighter formation tighten.
I smiled and launched myself at them.
"Do it."
A brilliant flash tore through vacuum as Ravager's core detonated, igniting in a chain of directed explosions that ripped through the Covenant formation mid-strike. Five Seraph-class fighters went up instantly—one spiraled into the side of the station, rupturing a hangar deck.
And then came the main event.
Everything went white.
But we'd held the line.
We'd kept the bastards from the surface.
1900 Hours, July 12th, 2536 / UNSC Iron Aegis, High Orbit Over Planet New Constantinople, Byzantine System
Shane-A112 POV
They said nothing could prepare you for your first combat drop.
Whoever "they" were, they weren't Spartans.
The Titan's drop clamps released with a thunk that echoed through my spine, followed by the howl of atmo friction as I plummeted through the atmosphere, strapped into my planet-class Titan frame, designation Warden-312. Ten tons of walking vengeance wrapped around a soul forged in fire and blood.
And I wasn't alone.
All of Alpha Company dropped alongside me—hundreds of black-armored Spartans, each sealed inside their personalized Titan frames. From recon-class Raptors to heavy Bastions, we fell like meteors in a controlled burn, fire streaking behind us as the city below came into view.
A monument of ancient design—New Constantinople. High spires. Reinforced walls. Golden domes and metal markets. Now lined with AA cannons, flak towers, and desperate civilians watching the sky turn red.
And with us?
He led the charge.
Leonidas-151.
His Titan—BT-7274—was a Vanguard-class colossus, taller, broader, heavier than ours, his drop path flanked by autocannon bursts and counter-thruster kicks like a damn god descending from Olympus. The ground beneath his feet cratered when he landed.
"This is Commander Leonidas to all Alpha Company Titans. Initiate Formation Phalanx. Acknowledge landing zones and activate link syncs with Spartan neural cores."
"This is Warden-312. Shane-A112. Landing clean. Weapons green. Eyes on you, Commander."
I took a breath, calm and cold—more out of habit than need. The emotion suppression pellets did their job, but truth was… I didn't need them.
I wasn't afraid.
We weren't kids anymore. We weren't refugees.
We were the blade drawn in silence.
We were the cost the Covenant never calculated.
My HUD lit up as Titans landed all around me, forming defensive perimeters, turrets deploying, auto-sensors scanning. We had just long enough to establish positions when the sky fractured open.
Covenant assault carriers.
Three of them.
Majestic. Monstrous. Murder incarnate.
They broke cloud cover like gods of wrath, plasma venting from their underbellies. Dropships swarmed from their launch bays, like locusts ready to glass everything.
"Targets confirmed. Airspace violation. Weapons hot," my Titan AI states with perfect calm.
I stood atop a small hill. The people down here were running. The defenses were lighting up. My grip tightened on the railgun. No fear. No hesitation.
Only one thought:
You picked the wrong planet.
The first wave of Covenant troops hit the perimeter like an avalanche of plasma and bone.
Grunts by the hundreds, screeching and vomiting needles from their carbines. Jackals with their curving shields, marching like vultures behind the cannon fodder. And then the real threats—Elites, towering over the others in shimmering armor, flanking us with ruthless precision.
And we?
We were already waiting.
My Titan, Warden-312, loosed a full salvo of HE rounds into the first massed group of enemies. Grunts scattered. Jackals tumbled like kicked garbage. An Elite raised its plasma rifle—only to catch a shot to the chest that punched clean through its torso and the Jackal behind it.
I key the hatch release.
"Thirty-four hostiles eliminated," Warden-312 announced coolly. "Following mode enabled. You may disembark."
"Do it."
The cockpit hissed open and I dropped out, landing hard in the rubble of what used to be a street-level marketplace. My rifle came up before my boots settled, and I lit up two Grunts trying to sneak through a drainpipe beneath the Titan's legs.
In tight alleys, narrow corridors, collapsed buildings—Titans couldn't follow. But Spartans could.
I moved like a ghost, cutting down enemies inside shopfronts, vaulting rubble, clearing rooms with knife and sidearm. Other Spartans did the same, our mechs guarding the wide zones with suppressive fire while we surgically cleaned the city from the inside out.
Overhead, plasma fire and contrails painted the sky in chaos.
Civilians scrambled into newly opened bunker entrances—designed by Leonidas himself, disguised in building foundations, subways, and sewer systems. Safe zones. Emergency medical shelters. Tiered fallback corridors for urban evacuation.
Most made it.
Some didn't.
A fuel rod round clipped an evac tram before the doors could close. A kid ran back for a dog. A building came down with too many people still inside.
My HUD logged every life sign lost.
My heart didn't react.
Not because I didn't care.
But because I couldn't afford to.
That's what the suppression pellet was for.
Emotions slow you down. Grief gets you killed. Regret makes you hesitate.
So I didn't feel. I just fought.
More UNSC reinforcements dropped in from orbit—Marines in fireteams, Army mechanized infantry arriving in convoys, and then the ODSTs fell from the sky in OIV drop pods, hammering into the rear of the Covenant line like steel rain.
They weren't Pilots in Spartan command, not yet—but they were trained in our doctrine now. They flanked, cut off retreat paths, seized heavy weapon emplacements, and cleared landing zones for medevac and ammo drops While utilizing Stratagem Beacons.
The battlefield shifted from desperation to dominance.
And still… the Covenant kept coming.
They had numbers. They had shields. They had beasts and tech and faith in fire.
But we had terrain.
We had adaptability.
And we had wrath.
The kind of wrath that doesn't fade when your family dies.
The kind you train into a trigger pull and a heartbeat.
The skies were burning and Alpha Company was only getting started.
I link up with my Fireteam. We hit the street at a sprint—three Spartans, one pack.
Me, Dante-A143, and Jane-A203.
Callsign: Wolf Pack.
Dante and I had gone from nearly killing each other to finishing each other's sentences. Jane? The quiet knife between us. Our unit wasn't formed by politics or convenience—it was built in fire, sharpened in pain, and deployed for one reason only:
Kill anything alien that threatens our species.
"Wolf Pack, this is Leonidas-151," came the voice of command like it was built into my skull. "Bunker Delta-Two is collapsing. Marines are stretched thin. Civilians still inbound. You're the only unit close enough to make a difference."
"Copy, on the move," I responded, vaulting over a snapped power conduit and taking point.
We crested a rubble pile and saw the firestorm firsthand.
Dozens of civilians were funneling toward the blast-shielded entrance of the bunker, where half a dozen bloodied Marines were pouring fire into a full Covenant push—Jackals, Grunts, and three Elites using wrecked vehicles and plasma-scorched walls as cover. A sniper tower of collapsed rebar gave them elevation. This wasn't a skirmish. This was an execution in progress.
Not anymore.
"Drop 'em!" I barked.
My Titan—Warden-312—followed right behind me, Entering the defensive lines like a meteor, defense mode engaging as it locked into place between the Marines and the encroaching enemy. With a hiss and whine, it deployed two titanium-A barrier plates, each four feet tall, five wide, three inches thick—real cover that saved real lives.
Dante's Titan—Breaker-019—anchored left, deploying a third barrier and dropping suppressive fire from its chain-gun, blowing Grunts into chunks. The last of the civvies got through the gate—one was pulled in by a Marine seconds before a plasma bolt disintegrated the concrete beside her.
I dropped into a slide beside one of the barriers and came up firing. No shields. No second chances. Just armor, instincts, and violence.
"Push right!" Dante yelled. "Cut through their flank!"
We moved as one. Jane broke left and pried a Jackal's wrist shield from its still-twitching arm, reactivating it with a spark. I moved in tandem and planted a boot in a Grunt's face, rolling under its plasma bolt and yanking a Needler from another's claw.
It sang in my hands, warm and wrong—but effective.
"Weapon acquired: Covenant Type-33 guided explosive. Ammo: 16," Warden-312 updated through my HUD.
I dumped a full magazine into an Elite's chest. The rounds popped shields, burrowed, and detonated, sending the alien flying into a wall. The impact folded its spine in half.
Dante crashed into a second Elite shoulder-first, blade already in hand. It stabbed him once with a plasma dagger, through the side, but he didn't feel it—not in the moment. He reversed the grip on his own knife, stabbed its throat, and kicked the body off his blade.
Warden-312 rotated and brought its autocannon around to dome a charging Jackal that had made it past the barrier. Another barrier deployed behind the fallback point to guard our rear. Civilians were all inside now, the ones not littering the streets with faces of pain and shock.
It was just us now.
The enemy was regrouping.
Plasma hissed and cracked all around us.
Wolf Pack was alive for now.
My side leaking blood until biofoam seals it.
And the Covenant was bleeding just as much.
The bunker doors finally sealed with a final hiss, locking the Marines and civilians inside. Only an internal override would open them again. It was unlikely that the covenant would try to break in when they can just glass everything from orbit.
That meant we were on our own.
Fine by me.
"Wolf Pack," I called over comms, flicking through the stratagem interface now synced with UNSC orbital fire support. "Beacon selection: maximum spread. Confirm?"
"Confirmed," Jane said, panting but controlled.
"Make it loud," Dante growled.
I pulled a stratagem beacon from my rig and thumbed it active, setting the target radius dead-center in the Covenant's heaviest knot of infantry—right in front of the shattered fountain they'd been using for cover.
The beacon blinked red, then launched into the air.
A moment later, a vertical beam of crimson light stabbed the sky.
The Covenant hesitated.
For the first time since the drop… they hesitated.
They'd seen grenades. Mines. Even Titans. But they had never seen this until today.
Their confusion lasted six seconds.
Then the first 380mm SAPHE shell hit.
The earth erupted as the Semi-Armor-Piercing High-Explosive rounds screamed in from orbit—massive, hypersonic tungsten shells wrapped in plasma-reactive coating, built to punch through titanium-A and vaporize whatever was underneath.
The first blast obliterated a Wraith and sent a squad of Elites flying in smoking pieces.
The second cratered their backline artillery.
The third hit their command point, if they even had one.
Seven rounds in total.
The ground was fire, and the Covenant was smoke.
"Beacon two—airstrike incoming!" Jane called, throwing the next beacon high. The crimson beam marked the Covenant's left flank.
A heartbeat later, a Longsword tore across the sky, engines screaming blue.
Its payload dropped with surgical wrath—canisters of napalm.
It turned the left flank into a writhing firestorm, plasma bolts cooking off, Jackals shrieking as their shields melted with their arms still inside them.
Then I threw the final beacon.
This one was personal.
"Walking barrage. 60mm SAPHE. Covenant right to rear. Let it walk."
The beacon gleamed into the sky. The sky replied.
Dozens of smaller, rapid-fire artillery shells began a methodical storm, hammering the Covenant's far right, then moving in a tight ripple across their forces—like death itself was marching across the battlefield.
Grunts ran. Elites shouted orders. Some tried to charge.
It didn't matter.
We'd taken their moment of dominance and shattered it in fire and thunder.
Dante keyed up his Titan—Breaker-019 stomped forward through the smoke.
Jane's Spectre-203 knelt to let her climb back inside.
I ran for Warden-312 and launched into the cockpit mid-stride, the Titan locking around me like a second skin.
"Welcome back, Pilot."
"Take us to Alpha Company. We're not done."
We turned and left the smoldering crater that had been the Covenant vanguard behind.
One bunker held.
More still stood.
And Alpha Company was waiting.
________________
Four hours.
Four hours of grinding, relentless, blood-choked hell.
The sky hadn't been dark in hours—it was lit with plasma discharges, collapsing ship hulls, and the silent flashes of nuclear detonations in low orbit. The distant booms echoed like judgment, and we knew the worst was coming.
I stood next to Warden-312's scorched leg, helmet clamped to my thigh, face streaked with grime and dried blood that was mine, civilians I couldn't save, and covenant. My chest rose and fell like a machine. Heart rate normal. Breathing steady.
Not everyone else could say the same.
The Marines, the Army grunts, even some of the ODSTs—those still standing—were staggering around in a haze. Eyes wide. Weapons low. Shoulders hunched from the weight of exhaustion, and the knowledge that they'd survived something they weren't meant to.
Some had thrown up inside their helmets. Some just sat on the ground, staring at nothing. Others cried—quietly, behind wreckage or in the shadows.
No one judged them. They were only human.
Their fight was over.
But mine wasn't.
"Pilot," Warden-312 said softly, "fleet status update received. Orbital engagement concluded."
I didn't need him to say it. The silence above did it for me. No MAC cannon fire. No casaba bursts. No burning fragments of Covenant warships raining from orbit.
"Outcome?" I asked.
"UNSC fleet reduced to eleven ships. Remaining vessels en route to rally point Theta-Rho. Evacuation protocols underway. Spartan Command authorizes Titan redeployment to exfil LZs."
"Meaning?"
"We lost. New Constantinople is lost."
Not immediately. Not visibly. But with the Covenant's fleet intact, and our last remaining capital ships preparing for retreat, the end was already falling. They would glass the surface—burn the planet clean.
"Civilian bunkers are secure," Warden continued. "Subterranean systems show full containment. Food, water, air for a decade. Heat shielding exceeds projected plasma thresholds. They will survive. As long as the covenant doesn't dig them out."
That was something.
A consolation prize, maybe.
But still something.
We'd held the line long enough for them to bury themselves deep, safe beneath layers of bedrock, reinforced alloy, and tech Leonidas himself had designed. The civilians would live.
We'd be back.
Someday.
If there was still a UNSC left to do it.
"Command?" I asked.
"New orders en route. Alpha Company exfil: six minutes. Rendezvous with Pelican group nine at LZ Sierra-One. Evacuation priority: Spartan assets and Titan systems. All others advised to regroup with mobile columns."
We were leaving a city still full of fire, still echoing with fighting. But the bigger picture was clear.
We'd killed two-thirds of the Covenant fleet before it happened.
Even as they brought in eighty-four new ships, forcing our reinforcements to scatter and the planet to fall, we'd left a mark.
They won the system.
But they paid for it.
And next time?
We'd bring more teeth.