Orbital mine shell

"To prevent Nizat from being rescued by the return of a loyal captain, the Silent Shadow would have placed a shell of self-directing plasma torpedos in orbit around the planet. That was what Nizat himself would have done, and he had good reason to believe it was what they had done. Since the Fleet of Swift Justice's departure, he had seen five fireballs plunge from the sky."

- Nizat 'Kvarosee's inner musings.

An orbital mine shell is an orbital shell comprised of tens of thousands of Covenant self-targeting s so thick that not even a drop pod could land. Its intention is to isolate a particular planet so as to prevent anyone from ever landing there again. The Covenant were known to use orbital mine shells while exiling rogue members of the Covenant.

History
In 2526, the Silent Shadow exiled former Fleetmaster Nizat 'Kvarosee and his surviving ground forces on Netherop for their rogue actions. In order to prevent Nizat from being rescued by the return of a loyal captain, the Silent Shadow had the Fleet of Swift Justice establish an orbital mine shell around Netherop which Nizat acknowledged is something that he himself would've done. Following the fleet's departure, Nizat witnessed the destruction of five vessels that were presumably trying to rescue him, ships that fell victim to the mine shell. The presence of the mine shell also kept the UNSC from being able to launch a rescue mission for Lieutenant Commander Amalea Petrov and her forces that had gotten stranded on the planet.

About a year after the Battle of Netherop, the UNSC sent a rescue mission. A Prowler sneaked into orbit and established contact with Petrov. However, the orbital mine shell destroyed both Pelicans that were sent to Netherop's surface. Not prepared to clear a full mine shell and unwilling twenty lives to save eight, the captain called off the mission, but he promised that a better-equipped mission would come back when it was feasible. True to the Prowler captain's word, the corvette came years later and worked to punch through the mine shell. On the third day, the Alpina made contact with the UNSC survivors and promised that a Pelican would collect them before the next evening, having apparently found a way through the mine shell. However, Nizat was able to use the Divine Hand to destroy the Alpina and the third rescue mission that came after it.

In 2559, seeking a weapon that could destroy Cortana's Guardians, the Swords of Sanghelios visited Netherop. Arbiter Thel 'Vadam had Kaidon Olabisi Varo'dai coordinate an effort to dismantle the orbital mine shell in order to make it safe for his forces to land. Varo'dai's medium Covenant destroyer shepherded a swarm of Seraphs that flitted in and out of low orbit and used decoys and five-craft protective formations to laboriously clear out the mine shell. Observing the efforts to dismantle it, Thel was left wondering who had placed the shell around the planet in the first place. From their launching delay when a decoy passed one of the mines and their corkscrewing approach pattern, Thel was able to identify them as self-targeting s from early in the Human-Covenant War, but the Covenant World Registry made no mention of an orbital mine shell around Netherop, just the loss of the Radiant Arrow and the Steadfast Strike and that the Prophet of Truth had deemed the losses to be a sign of divine displeasure and forbade all Covenant vessels from entering the system. As observed by the Banished, by the time that the arrived, the Sangheli had spent three quarters of a cycle clearing out the mine shell and only needed another twenty units to finish the job. Once the orbital mine shell was finally cleared out, UNSC and Sangheli forces were able to descend to Netherop's surface, although the UNSC Pelicans were destroyed by Nizat with the Divine Hand.

With both the Created and the Banished closing in, Spartan Olympia Vale noted that the best that either the UNSC or the Sangheili could do was to reestablish the orbital mine shell in the hopes of securing the tel and its secrets until they had the strength to claim permanent possession.

After the Banished cleared out, the UNSC and Sangheili survivors were evacuated by an Owl to ten Condors in orbit. This included Petrov and her people that had been stranded beyond any hope of rescue for thirty-three years by the orbital mine shell and the Divine Hand. With the shell gone, Netherop was left open to outside access once again.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Oblivion
 * Halo: Outcasts