UNSC Phyllis Wheatley
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| Phyllis Wheatley | |||||||||||
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Phyllis Wheatley | ||||||||||
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Scuttled during the Battle of Netherop[1] | ||||||||||
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UNSC Phyllis Wheatley was a salvage ship operated by Section Three of the Office of Naval Intelligence in the early years of the Human-Covenant War.[6] In 2526, it was deployed to Netherop to assist Blue Team in the recovery of the downed Covenant frigate Steadfast Strike, though was ultimately scuttled in the battle.
Overview[edit]
Design details[edit]
The Wheatley resembles a large horsehoe in form, capable of landing on a planetary surface with the arch at the top, akin to a "∩" shape. The inner sides of the arch are lines with fifty large claws which can extend inward, allowing the vessel to grab onto any spacecraft with an overall beam of 400 meters (1,300 ft) or less. The top of the arch-shaped hull is lined with several bands of viewing ports that indicate the position of the interior habitation modules and the ship's bridge.[4] The "legs" of the ship rest atop struts as large as main battle tanks, with ten[3] fusion drive nozzles situated between the struts large enough to cover a 160 meters (525 ft) long Razor-class prowler.
The gargantuan ship was considered by the Covenant to be in the middle range of human direct-lift transports; the largest observed by Fleetmaster Nizat 'Kvarosee during his tenure as an officer in the Covenant military had only six fusion drives, used to carry out mass evacuations on worlds under attack.[3] This massive excess of thrust-mass ratio is due to the ship's intended function: descend into a planetary atmosphere and use its claws to grab onto crashed spacecraft (or other similarly-large object), before once again ascending back into space - making the slipspace transit back to its home base once clear of the planet's gravity well.[4]
Armaments[edit]
Despite being a noncombat salvage ship, the Wheatley is armed for self-defence with a loadout of unspecified missile pods and 50mm, high-explosive magnetic linear acceleration point-defense guns.[4] There are twelve point-defense turrets in total,[7] with six lining each side.[4]
Crew and complement[edit]
The Wheatley has at least fifty crew.[8] The ship stocks an air wing of two Pelican dropships and twelve S-14 Baselard strike fighters for additional defense.[5] Only twenty-eight crewmembers survived the Battle of Netherop which was a seventy percent casualty rate.[9]
Service history[edit]
The UNSC Phyllis Wheatley was selected for service during the Human-Covenant War, following the chance downing of the Covenant frigate Steadfast Strike over Netherop. While selected by ONI Section Three for the task, the ship's security complement were not considered to have the expertise or equipment necessary to clear the frigate of its defenders - leading to SPARTAN-II Blue Team being recalled from the Battle of Mesra for the task.[6] The ship arrived in the Ephyra system on June 7, 2526, and was noticed by the intrusion corvettes of the Flotilla of Unsung Piety launching its twelve Baselard fighters to begin inspecting the moons and Lagrange points of Netherop for potentially hostile forces.[3] This was accompanied by the arrival of the Razor-class prowler UNSC Night Watch, who launched a Pelican dropship onto Netherop following Wheatley's successful insertion into the atmosphere. Unlike Wheatley, the Pelican was shot down by one of the intrusion corvettes, confirming to the prowler crew that the salvage ship had been permitted to enter the planet's atmosphere by their then-unknown attackers.[10]
Captain Dkani sent a transmission warning all other UNSC forces that the ship was facing an imminent attack from one to two hundred Covenant with support vehicles and heavy weapons. However, Task Force Pantea revealed the approach of eight intrusion corvettes and a full Covenant fleet. John-117 informed Dkani that Blue Team would be there in thirty to forty minutes to help, but Dkani informed him that forty minutes would be too late and if the enemy crossed the canyon, he would have no choice but to scuttle the ship as Dkani didn't have the personnel to defend it. John also informed him about the Castoffs and their mountain runners. Dkani warned the Spartan that he was going to leave the Wheatley booby-trapped if he was forced to abandon ship.[2]
The Wheatley crew were forced to abandon ship, fleeing in eight Warthogs and on foot, chased by enemy forces. The crew lost a number of personnel and six Warthogs with the injured riding in the remaining two vehicles. However, Dkani's crew managed to inflict heavy casualties in the process[7] and the Covenant lost half of their forces to the UNSC counterattack and the planet's heat.[11] Nizat 'Kvarosee's intent had been to plant two Luminal Beacons aboard the ship for his plan to destroy ONI, but he realized that the ship was likely booby-trapped and shifted tactics.[7] When John, Fred-104 and Linda-058 arrived, it was to find the Wheatley abandoned with the Castoffs fighting six Sangheili who were armed with plasma cannons. Taking advantage of the skirmish, the Spartans finished off the Covenant forces and stopped the Castoffs in their attempt to claim the Wheatley for themselves.[4] After they left to try to capture the Steadfast Strike, an Umbra carrying Silent Shadow forces from the Fleet of Swift Justice arrived to investigate the Wheatley, but were careful enough not to trigger the self-destruct. Ten Elsedda-pattern Banshees attacked the Spartans, but were eliminated by a squadron of F-29 Nandaos from Task Force Pantea.[12]
Dkani's crew took a break, apparently to contemplate passing through a tunnel which would give them an excellent defensible position where they could wait in comfort and pick off Nizat's forces at their leisure.[11] Dkani had his engineers set a landslide trap for the pursuing enemy, intending to lure the aliens into the kill zone by idling his forces.[8][9] Nizat ordered Tam 'Lakosee to launch an attack to plant the beacons on the Wheatley crew, directing Tam to retreat once the beacons had been planted.[11] Linda-058 spotted Stealth Sangheili marksman sneaking up on the crew and took them out. Inexperienced in infantry combat, Dkani sprang the landslide early, causing it to fail. Linda made contact with a grateful Dkani who informed her of the crew's weapons' status. Linda did her best to reassure him and ordered the captain to immediately open fire with his Warthogs' LAAGs and to dig belly scrapes in the talus for everyone to hide in and hold their fire until the Covenant were fifty paces away. Dkani himself manned one of the LAAGs, although Linda warned him to move away from the Warthogs as the commanding officer should not be so close to such high-priority targets.[8]
In the skirmish that followed, the Warthog gunners killed over a dozen Sangheili, but one was killed by three marksmen before Linda took them out and gave the Wheatley crew sniper cover. The Sangheili charged en masse, eventually using a barrage of plasma grenades to create a smokescreen that kept the remaining Warthog gunner from being able to see them. The second Warthog lasted seven minutes before it was destroyed with Dkani, who hadn't listened to Linda's warnings, being blown to pieces along with one of the Warthogs. The Covenant closed in on the belly scrapes and the crew quickly depleted their ammunition trying to fend them off before Samson and the Castoffs arrived in two mountain runners to help. The Wheatley crew suffered heavy casualties before the surviving Covenant forces retreated after successfully planting both beacons, leaving only twenty-eight survivors of the Wheatley crew, five of whom were immobile due to injuries, a seventy percent casualty rate.[8][9]
Under the leadership of ONI Captain Stocken, the salvage ship crew recovered the body of a Sangheili with an intact shield generator. The survivors were evacuated back to the ship in mountain runners.[9] Later, with no chance of getting off Netherop in the Wheatley, the salvage ship's self-destruct was activated once all of the survivors had been lifted clear by Pelicans.[1]
Trivia[edit]
The ship was presumably named after Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American author considered to publish a poetry book.
List of appearances[edit]
- Halo: Oblivion (First appearance)
Sources[edit]
- ^ a b Halo: Oblivion, chapter 21
- ^ a b Halo: Oblivion, chapter 12
- ^ a b c d Halo: Oblivion, chapter 5
- ^ a b c d e f g Halo: Oblivion, chapter 15
- ^ a b c Halo: Oblivion, chapter 8
- ^ a b Halo: Oblivion, chapter 4
- ^ a b c Halo: Oblivion, chapter 14
- ^ a b c d Halo: Oblivion, chapter 19
- ^ a b c d Halo: Oblivion, chapter 20
- ^ Halo: Oblivion, chapter 6
- ^ a b c Halo: Oblivion, chapter 18
- ^ Halo: Oblivion, chapter 17
