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Covenant Boarding Craft

Overview
The Covenant, although fully capable of reducing most UNSC vessels to heaps of molten slag in a matter of minutes, have also shown a desire to board and hopefully capture a Human vessel. Thus far they have done so by using Boarding Craft. This has only been done a few times, at 23 Librae and on the Pillar of Autumn. Usually the Covenant just eliminated opposition and glassed the planet. Infantry are deployed into the heart of a vessel for purposes the UNSC can only speculate. Suggestions and evidence collated so far for motivations have been.


 * To collect information/specifications of UNSC military equipment, vehicles, weapons, etc.
 * To capture key members of the vessels crew and thus unlock classified UNSC intelligence including the location of Earth.
 * To destroy or capture shipboard AI.
 * To destroy the vessel from within. (Such as the Athens Station and Malta Station Orbital Defense Platforms during the First Battle of Earth).

In Halo: Combat Evolved, they contained two Overshield power ups in the far corners of the pods, probably put there for the use of any Sangheili in need of assistance that were onboard.

Operation
When a UNSC ship is being attacked by Covenant forces, rather than destroy it, the Covenant may attempt a boarding. In such a situation the Boarding Craft is used. So far the Covenant have proved highly intelligent in their entry points, having burnt holes through hanger bay windows or used the empty UNSC escape pod docking rings to board a vessel.

The Boarding Craft is a reusable vessel and are able to leave the UNSC ship and return to a nearby cruiser should the need to retreat occur. When the craft boards via windows it seems to use the outer edge of the boarding tube to super heat the glass, thus the glass does not shatter. It must be done quickly and carefully because the vacuum of space will instantly cool the glass down and destroy it.

Types of Boarding Craft
So far two variations of the Covenant Boarding Craft have been seen. They are first encountered in Halo: Combat Evolved. To avoid damaging the ring world, the Covenant resorted to boarding the Pillar of Autumn as it attempted to flee towards Halo. These craft were only viewed internally and appeared to be rather cramped (of comparable size to the Bumblebee) with a rectangular interior and carried a compliment of up to 8-10 Covenant warriors, usually Unggoy and Sangheili. Each craft contained two overshields. The humans would launch their escape pods, while the Covenant would use the same docks to land their boarding craft.

The second, much larger, type of boarding craft were responsible for the destruction of the ODPs of the Athens and Malta stations. These possessed the large bodied structure with an attached boarding tube. The entrance/exit to the boarding tube was covered with an impenetrable shield that only allowed their considerable complement of Covenant soldiers out. The boarding tube seemed to function on a similar basis to the gravity-bridges found in the Covenant Holy City High Charity. The tube, once deployed, had a superheated rim to melt glass instead of shattering it, therefore cooling down so air cannot escape.

The Halo 2 Boarding craft on Cairo Station at the chapter Authorized Personnel Only, from the rear it slightly resembles a Spirit Dropship. This is only spoken of in Halo: Combat Evolved because only the inside is seen. In Halo 2, the whole craft is clearly visible numerous times.

Trivia

 * There are no boarding crafts seen by the player in Halo 3, obviously because there are no levels in which the player is in a UNSC ship or station.
 * The exterior of the Boarding Craft has a resemblance to a flower-like or palm tree-like shape.