The Fall of Reach (Updated)

At some point before July 19, 2552, the Office of Naval Intelligence ran a series of calculations that predicted the future movement of the Covenant force sweeping throughout the galaxy. Based on these calculations, ONI determined that there was an 87% probability that the Epsilon Eridani system would be discovered by the Covenant within five months. Admiral Margaret Parangosky, the head of ONI, debated with Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth about using Reach as the stage for the planned Operation: RED FLAG; the pair considered that the presence of large-scale Forerunner artifacts on the planet would be a source of Covenant interest in the planet. The rest of the UNSC, however, was given no warning of the predicted attack.

ONI's prediction came true less than a month after Admiral Parangosky sent her message. Despite suffering a severe defeat at the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, the Covenant managed to place a tracking device on the UNSC Iroquois with the intent of using it to find human colony worlds. When the Iroquois returned to Reach, the human presence - and its extent - was revealed to the Covenant. However, the location of Reach itself was already known to the Covenant; a Forerunner artefact that the Covenant had recovered from Sigma Octanus IV indicated that Reach held another artefact, proving Parangosky's and Stanforth's suspicions correct.

Before dispatching a full-scale force, the Covenant sent the Fleet of Valiant Prudence, consisting of several SDV-class heavy corvettes and a CSO-class supercarrier, Long Night of Solace, to Reach to serve as a pre-invasion force; after arriving at Reach, the fleet clandestinely deployed a large ground force to the Viery Territory. This invasion force was cloaked from UNSC sensors by sophisticated stealth pylons deployed around it. The Covenant also sent a small Sangheili Zealot strike team led by a Field Marshal to recover a Forerunner artifact from an excavation site near the Visegrád communications outpost.

On the night of July 23, 2552, two days before the invasion began, the Covenant dispatched a small strike force, forces from the Fleet of Valiant Prudence disable the communications array at Visegrád, leaving Reach isolated from the rest of the UNSC. This operation, however, went unnoticed by the UNSC and it was surmised by the Office of Naval Intelligence that the local insurrectionist organization, an ultra-radical cell of the People's Occupation, was responsible for the loss of contact with the facility. In response, several Army fireteams were sent to investigate the matter. Contact with these fireteams was lost shortly thereafter.

The day after the Visegrád Relay was disabled, Spartan NOBLE Team was sent to investigate the disturbance in lieu of the missing Army fireteams. Upon landing in Visegrád and scouting the surrounding countryside, NOBLE Team quickly discovered that insurrectionists were not responsible for the attack; a small Covenant advance force had found Reach and landed at Visegrád, with the intent of disabling Reach's communications with other UNSC colonies. After wiping out the advance force, NOBLE Team proceeded to the relay station, where they were ambushed by a group of Sangheili Zealots, a team sent to hunt down vital data on a Forerunner artifact. WINTER CONTINGENCY was then declared on Reach.

Operating using cloaking technology and stealth tactics, the Covenant had created a fortified landing zone on Reach, with anti-air guns around the perimeter of their staging area in the Viery Territory where they had covertly inserted a large amount of forces, including several corvettes.

SPARTAN-B312 and Jorge-052 watch a Covenant corvette sinking after being neutralized by an orbital strike.
Two days after the skirmish at Visegrád, the Covenant attacked SWORD Base in an attempt to overrun the ONI facility and access the Forerunner structures there. However, these forces were repulsed after NOBLE Team reinforced the base and brought its M71 Anti-Aircraft Guns and communications back online. The Covenant corvette attacking it was forced to retreat and was destroyed by an orbital defense platform's Magnetic Accelerator Cannon.

ver two weeks after the defense of SWORD Base, the UNSC sent reconnaissance teams into Covenant-controlled territory in preparation for a counterattack and to investigate the enemy positions and forces they would be facing. With a Covenant staging ground on Reach, the UNSC Army, Marine Corps, and Navy launched a joint offensive in an attempt to defeat the Covenant forces before reinforcements could arrive. The assault was spearheaded by the Army and NOBLE Team, who attacked Covenant anti-air weapons to make way for GA-TL1 Longswords and Paris-class heavy frigates to make bombing runs. The attack, though initially successful, was thwarted when a cloaked CSO-class supercarrier, Long Night of Solace, appeared over the area, attacking the UNSC frigates and reinforcing the Covenant troops. Meanwhile, Covenant forces made another strike on SWORD Base, this time with much greater success. Around this time, sixty percent of the Fleet was recalled to Reach from existing deployments; these reinforcements were scheduled to arrive by August 15.

The arrival of the supercarrier led to Operation: UPPER CUT, in which NOBLE Team used YSS-1000 Sabres and the corvette Ardent Prayer to deliver an improvised slipspace drive "bomb" to the supercarrier and destroy it. SPARTAN-B312, Jorge-052, and a team of Air Force pilots, with the aid of the frigate Savannah, boarded the Ardent Prayer and took control of it. Noble Five then sacrificed himself to destroy Long Night of Solace. However, just as the supercarrier was destroyed, a fleet of Covenant warships exited slipspace in orbit over the planet. Despite the mission's success, the destruction of the supercarrier was an inadvertent setback for Operation: RED FLAG.

Over the next week, Covenant ground forces landed on the planet and Covenant ships began glassing targeted areas. However, most of the planet's population, both civilian and military, (particularly those assigned to Operation: RED FLAG), were kept unaware of the invasion. HIGHCOM withheld major counteroffensives on the far side of the planet in the hope that a Class-5 Covenant vessel, which was needed for the operation, would be drawn in and make itself vulnerable for capture. Millions perished as a result of this relative inaction.

A battle broke out in the city of New Alexandria, with large numbers of civilian evacuation transports being shot down by Covenant air and ground forces. Members of NOBLE Team assisted UNSC forces in clearing evacuation zones, succeeding in damaging a Covenant corvette in the process. Though the UNSCDF succeeded in clearing the city of Covenant troops, Covenant naval assets began to glass the city, and while retreating Kat-B320 of NOBLE Team was killed by sniper fire.

Redeployed, NOBLE Team and a small force of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers were ordered to destroy the Covenant-occupied SWORD Base in a "torch-and-burn" operation. Proceeding into the base, the team encountered Dr. Catherine Halsey, who enlisted their help in defending her laboratory amid the ruins of a Forerunner complex from advancing Covenant forces. Halsey ordered Noble Six, Carter, and Emile to transport a fragment of the AI Cortana to the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, while Jun-A266 escorted her to CASTLE Base elsewhere on Reach.

As August 30 dawned, a massive Covenant combined fleet — headed by Supreme Commander Thel 'Vadamee and his Fleet of Particular Justice — was detected exiting slipspace on the edge of the system. The fleet was first detected in slipspace by remote scanning outpost Fermion. The station's commander, Chief Petty Officer McRobb, sent an emergency message to FLEETCOM and ordered self-destruct to prevent the station's data from falling into enemy hands.

A few minutes later, 315 Covenant ships exited slipspace at the edge of the Epsilon Eridani system. Admiral Roland Freemont issued UNSC Alpha Priority Transmission 04592Z-83, ordering all ships in the Epsilon Eridani system to rendezvous at Reach in preparation for the coming assault. The Covenant moved in on the orbital defenses before the UNSC fleet fully consolidated. Fifty-three belated UNSC ships,[3] including the UNSC Pillar of Autumn, ran a gauntlet of screening Covenant warships as they attempted to link up with the main fleet. At this time, only about a hundred UNSC ships were readily available to defend Reach.

he main Covenant force moved in on the orbital defenses. The initial salvo of plasma torpedoes was mostly absorbed by the sacrifice of three refit and repair stations, allowing the defenders to return fire. The orbital defense platforms and four nuclear mines combined to take down a full third of the Covenant fleet. The vaporized Titanium-A armor of the refit stations also served to block incoming plasma torpedoes. However, the next Covenant salvo significantly damaged the UNSC fleet, as the Covenant maneuvered for clear shots around the titanium dust cloud and moved in for the kill. They destroyed five of the Super MAC platforms, further crippling the UNSC orbital perimeter, before retreating out of range. A previously unknown warship type, armed with a powerful energy projector, revealed itself and destroyed the UNSC Minotaur and four other ships before withdrawing temporarily. The rest of the Covenant fleet withdrew to regroup after deploying hundreds of dropships to the surface. The remaining UNSC fleet of 20 ships pursued the Covenant dropships, destroying some, but many still made it through and landed on Reach's northern and southern poles.

As the surviving dropships disgorged thousands of troops, the Covenant fleet began another attack. Some ships made pinpoint slipspace jumps, putting them within the UNSC formation. This left them vulnerable for a short time but allowed them to strike the ODPs directly. Meanwhile, the Covenant vessel returned and destroyed the UNSC Herodotus and UNSC Musashi from beyond ODP range. The UNSC Pillar of Autumn engaged the warship, launching a Shiva nuclear device timed to explode within its shields. The detonation reverberated off the shields and disintegrated the vessel.

Thousands of Covenant landed on Reach in an attempt to destroy the orbital defense generators, and were intercepted by Marine forces who were able to defend against the first few waves of Covenant forces while sustaining heavy casualties. The remaining Spartan-IIs who were not assigned to Reach Station Gamma were sent to Orbital Defense Generator Facility A-331 to assist in the defense of the station. Unfortunately, their Pelican transport, Bravo 001, was shot down, resulting in the deaths of four Spartans (including Malcolm-059), and some others were wounded as well. Near their crash site, the surviving Spartans discovered the shell-shocked remnants of Charlie Company.

Charlie Company had been assigned by Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb to find the prototype NOVA bombs. They were forced to help defend the orbital defense facilities on their way to their objective. Unfortunately, as the Covenant neared the orbital defense generators, someone at HIGHCOM panicked and ordered Longswords to bomb everything within 500 meters, resulting in the destruction of the Covenant ground forces in that location, but also catastrophic friendly fire: Charlie Company was reduced to four men, and its leaders: Lieutenants Jake Chapman and Buckman were cut off from their subordinates.

The Spartans, after being briefed on the situation by Charlie Company, responded to a distress call from Whitcomb, who requested immediate evacuation. Frederic-104, commander of the Spartans, split the remains of Red Team into four groups: Team Alpha (Frederic-104, Kelly-087, and Joshua-029), which was tasked with eliminating an encampment of 10,000 Covenant and their hovering cruiser (without doing anything that could damage the orbital defense generators as the EMP from a nuclear weapon would render them inoperative and accomplish the Covenant's objective for them), Team Beta, tasked with defense of the orbital defense generators, Team Gamma (Li-008, Anton-044, and Grace-093), ordered to retrieve Whitcomb, and Team Delta (the Charlie Company Marines and six wounded Spartans which included William-043, Isaac-039, and Vinh-030), ordered to secure the Spartans' fallback point at CASTLE Base.

Team Alpha hijacked three Banshees and approached the Covenant encampment (they were ignored by the Grunt Zawaz, who assumed they were Elites on a secret mission) and used Fury Tactical Nuclear Weapons within the shields of the Covenant ship, destroying the encampment and negating the EMP effect that would have disabled the orbital defense generators. Joshua was killed in the process by mass light weapons salvos from the 10,000 Covenant ground forces encamped around the Cruiser. The remaining Spartans of Team Alpha then fell back to CASTLE Base, blasting their way through the remaining Covenant in the area with two commandeered Wraiths. Team Gamma accomplished its mission and fell back to Camp Independence with Whitcomb, where they survived the partial glassing of the planet. Team Delta fell back to CASTLE Base, but in the process lost the remaining Charlie Company marines and every Spartan save for Vinh, Isaac, and William. When the remnants of Team Alpha and Team Delta arrived at CASTLE Base, they found Catherine Halsey there.

Team Beta was unable to stop the Covenant, who attacked in swarms of thousands. The orbital defense generators were compromised, and the Covenant, after eliminating the powerless, immobile ODPs in geosynchronous orbit around the planet, began the glassing of Reach. The planet, having been steadily weakened during the invasion throughout the prior weeks, had fallen with relative ease to the might of the Covenant invaders.

During the space battle, the AI Doppler, controller of Reach Station Gamma, was unable to destroy the vital information onboard the UNSC Circumference, an ONI Prowler involved in Operation: HYPODERMIC. As the Covenant deployed troops to the station, Doppler reported this violation of the Cole Protocol to the Pillar of Autumn before self-destructing himself to keep from further violation. In response, Captain Jacob Keyes sent John-117, James-005, and Linda-058 to the station. They accomplished their task and destroyed the NAV database onboard Reach Station Gamma, but at the cost of James and Linda. While onboard, they rescued some Marines onboard the station: Staff Sergeant Avery Junior Johnson and Privates Wallace Jenkins, Bisenti, and O'Brien. They were then evacuated by Pelican back to the Pillar of Autumn. Linda-058 was clinically dead, but there was still a chance of saving her, so she was placed in a cryo chamber. John-117 asked Lieutenant Hall to scan for James (who had been blown into space) but they were unable to find him.

With the battle for Reach now nearing its conclusion, the Pillar of Autumn set down at the Aszod ship breaking yards for repairs as well as to receive the fragment of Cortana that Halsey had tasked NOBLE Team with delivering to Keyes. Covenant forces soon descended on the shipyards and began landing troops. Although the docked Autumn managed to hold off the Covenant attackers, most of the facility and the surrounding area was occupied.

The remnants of NOBLE Team, consisting of Carter-A259, Emile-A239, and SPARTAN-B312, arrived on the outskirts of the facility. Carter sent Noble Six and Emile to deliver the package to Keyes. He then sacrificed himself to destroy a Scarab. Six and Emile fought their way to the shipyards, where they linked up with some surviving UNSC ground troops. Keyes then contacted the Spartans and ordered them to clear Landing Platform Delta so that he could pick up the package. Upon arriving at the platform, Emile took charge of a mass driver and used it to provide cover fire for the Autumn. Six, meanwhile, cleared the platform of Covenant troops.

With the platform cleared, Captain Keyes arrived in a Pelican and personally took possession of the package from Noble Six. Just then a CCS-class battlecruiser appeared and started heading toward the Autumn. Keyes ordered Emile to take out the cruiser before it destroyed the Autumn. Emile, however, was attacked by a pair of Sangheili Zealots. The Spartan killed the Zealots but was also killed, leaving the mass driver cannon unmanned. With the cruiser closing in on the Autumn, Noble Six volunteered to stay behind to take charge of the gun.
Keyes returned to the Autumn with the package and prepared the ship for take off. Meanwhile, Noble Six took control of the mass driver and destroyed several Phantoms and Banshees before the Covenant cruiser came within range. As the cruiser prepared to destroy the Autumn with its energy projector, Six fired directly into the ship's exposed glassing port. The resulting explosion crippled the cruiser.

With the skies cleared of hostiles, the Autumn took off and escaped Reach. Once in space, it made a slipspace jump to Installation 04 (secretly arranged by Cortana). A dozen Covenant ships pursued, while the remaining vessels stayed behind to finish glassing Reach. Back at the shipyards, the stranded Noble Six continued fighting against the Covenant invaders. Eventually, the lone Spartan was overwhelmed and killed by a swarm of Sangheili warriors.

The UNSC lost their second largest military-industrial complex, after the Sol System, and sustained crippling military losses at Reach, losing over a hundred ships, including irreplaceable cruisers and supercarriers such as the UNSC Basra, UNSC Trafalgar, and the UNSC Musashi, not to mention the large numbers of civilian and military personnel killed by the invading Covenant forces. With the Epsilon Eridani system in Covenant hands, there were no further major stop points before Sol. Some estimates put total defeat as a matter of weeks. The Office of Naval Intelligence believed that the location of Sol was compromised and began relocating heavy industry facilities and command centers out of the system.

At the same time, despite such a devastating defeat, the UNSC still fared better than in previous battles. Even against the militarily and technologically superior enemy, outnumbered 2:1, they still managed to inflict disproportionate losses to the Covenant, due largely to the twenty orbital defense platforms orbiting Reach. The ferocious defense was so effective that at least one Covenant ship outright fled the battle. The AI Cortana commandeered the fleeing UNSC Pillar of Autumn to the previously undiscovered fourth Forerunner Halo. While the Battle of Installation 04 was tangential to the main front, the containment of the initial Flood outbreak - and the experience gained - was just as critical to the survival of the UNSC.

While Reach was the Covenant armada's main target, the other colonies in Epsilon Eridani would also come under attack. Tribute was besieged by Covenant forces for several months, ending only when the Great Schism caused the Jiralhanae and Sangheili to turn on each other, ignoring the human defenders. The small colony on Beta Gabriel was destroyed when Valorous Salvation deserted the Covenant fleet and fled there; ODSTs arrived shortly thereafter and killed all the Covenant deserters without incurring losses.

As the Covenant began glassing Reach, the surviving Spartans continued their fight. Team Gamma; a Red team splinter composed of Anton-044; Grace-093 and Li-008, had managed to survive and complete their mission to rescue Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb from HIGHCOM. Too late to reach CASTLE base, they hid in the mountains attacking Covenant units with the use of guerrilla tactics as opposed to a conventional assault. They programmed their MJOLNIR suits to transmit the "Oly Oly Oxen Free" secret code on E-Band radio, hoping that any surviving Spartans would discover it and help them.

Meanwhile underneath the ruins of CASTLE base, Dr. Halsey and five Spartans (Fred, Kelly, Will, Vinh, and Isaac) had spent five days combing the remains of a Forerunner structure and an additional five days trapped in a hallway inside the ruins by Covenant forces. They managed to retrieve a Forerunner crystal that the Covenant were seeking, but it emitted a burst of radiation which alerted the Covenant to their presence. Vinh and Isaac fell at the hands of overwhelming Covenant forces, and the others escaped by blowing the hallway down behind them.

After the survivors were recovered by Ascendant Justice, a Covenant Flagship captured by John-117 after the Battle of Installation 04, the ship drew a group of Covenant vessels out of the system in pursuit to Eridanus Secundus, leading to the destruction of the asteroid colony, and the destruction of the artifact and the recovery of only a small number of pieces by the Covenant. The Ascendant Justice also destroyed around sixteen Covenant warships during the escape in slipspace and at the rebel base.