Battle for the Truth and Reconciliation

This article is about the larger battle to control the cruiser later on in the conflict. For the first raid conducted by John-117 to rescue Captain Keyes, see Raid on the Truth and Reconciliation.

Previous:	Battle for the Control Room
Concurrent:	Mission to destroy Halo
Next:	Skirmish over Threshold
Battle for the Truth and Reconciliation
Conflict:	Human-Covenant War Battle of Installation 04
Date:	September 22, 2552
Location:	Truth and Reconciliation landing zone, Installation 04
Outcome:	Initial UNSC victory Total destruction of Truth and Reconciliation and all forces involved
Details Belligerents United Nations Space Command Covenant Flood Commanders Maj. Antonio Silva† Minor Prophet of Stewardship Proto-Gravemind† Strength John-117 Three D77 Pelicans 312 humans 235 Marines and ODSTs 76 Naval personnel Sangheili Unggoy Kig-Yar Mgalekgolo Covenant Special Operations strike team Special Operations Sangheili Special Operations Unggoy Pod infectors Combat forms Carrier forms Casualties All remaining UNSC forces destroyed All remaining forces destroyed Truth and Reconciliation All remaining forms killed

During the ongoing campaign on Installation 04, the Ket-pattern battlecruiser Truth and Reconciliation became the focus of an ongoing battle between the forces of the Covenant defenders, the Flood and the United Nations Space Command. The majority of the battle focused on a protracted struggle between the Flood and the Covenant for control of the ship, though the arrival of an ODST force late in the battle ultimately saw the vessel's capture and destruction.

Prelude

On September 19, 2552, the Truth and Reconciliation was one of the several Ket-pattern battlecruisers to take part in a space engagement over Installation 04. During the fighting, the Reconciliation was heavily damaged by UNSC Pillar of Autumn and forced to land to conduct maintenance and repairs, leading to the vessel being employed as a base of operations for Covenant ground forces on the ring. That evening, the ship was the subject of a raid conducted by a team led by John-117, using the simultaneous raid on the downed Autumn as a distraction.

The raid was very damaging to the Covenant on the ring, with the ship's commanding officer Lat 'Ravamee killed and the fact proven that humans could trick the Covenant's detection systems. In response, the perimeter surrounding the ship's gravity lift was fortified and teams began a compartment-by-compartment sweep of the ship to ensure no humans remained in hiding.

Later on in the conflict, a series of squabbles between the Fleet of Particular Justice's fleetmaster, Thel 'Vadamee and the assigned Minor Prophet, the Prophet of Stewardship, saw the former attempt to board the carrier Ascendant Justice - resulting in the Minor Prophet retreating groundside and establishing the still-grounded Truth and Reconciliation as his base of operations.

The battle

Flood attack

As the conflict on Alpha Halo bore on into its later stages, the fleet's command element issued a general order to evacuate the ring due to the ever-increasing growth of the Flood parasite.

However, the parasite ultimately was able to attack the cruiser. While the crew managed to repel the initial attack, the second in command, now in charge after the earlier death of the Shipmaster, was taken over by the Flood. The crewmembers who were taken over detonated a plasma relay in the tertiary core, consuming a host of defenders and crippling the Truth and Reconciliation. The former third in command, now in charge of the ship, sent an urgent transmission to Supreme Commander Thel 'Vadamee requesting the Fleet of Particular Justice destroy the Truth and Reconciliation so as to prevent the Flood from using it to escape from Halo.

As a consequence, the Covenant deployed a strike team to begin the process of eradicating the infestation and readying the ship for lift-off. What followed was a long and bloody engagement, as Covenant forces fought to clear the ship's many compartments while the Flood continued to pour into the canyons surrounding the landing site.

John's return

Having successfully escaped the clutches of 343 Guilty Spark and temporarily disabled the ring's firing mechanisms, Cortana was able to use the internal fusion reactor in the armour of John-117 to teleport the Spartan to the Truth and Reconciliation. Having established the need to destroy the ring, the duo determined that the best outcome was to use Captain Jacob Keyes' CNI transponder to detonate the Pillar of Autumn's fusion drives; hopefully blowing up the ring in the process. However, the Captain had been regarded as MIA since his disappearance in the Flood facility outbreak - with the only clue to his location being his CNI interface's transmission being located at the Truth and Reconciliation.

The SPARTAN was ultimately able to fight through the ship's seemingly-endless waves of Flood and Covenant attackers to the bridge - where he discovered that he was too late to save Keyes. Instead, the Flood had begun amassing biomatter in the bridge to construct a Proto-Gravemind, with Keyes at its centre. With no other options left, John punched through Keyes' skull to recover his neural interface, before escaping to the hangars to steal a Banshee and escape to the crash site of the Pillar of Autumn.

UNSC capture

While they attempted to rescue Keyes, Cortana was also able to link back up with the UNSC forces at Alpha Base and inform them of the current situation; the Truth and Reconciliation was spaceworthy and the ring was soon to be imminently destroyed. Consequently, Major Antonio Silva began to plan an operation to let his ODST battalion escape the ring, by capturing the Truth and Reconciliation for themselves. If all went well, either Cortana or Wellsley would be able to fly the cruiser, at which point they would return to Earth with an intact Covenant vessel full of data on the Covenant and the ringworld, Flood and Covenant prisoners and a myriad of technology samples to re