Fall of Reach

"We knew this day would come. They have found our fortress among the stars. The Covenant are on Reach. They will burn this planet, kill millions, and when Reach falls--and fall it will--there will be nothing left to stand between them... and Earth."

- Catherine Halsey

The Fall of Reach, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Reach, was the largest engagement in the Human-Covenant War. It was fought between the UNSCDF and the Covenant from July 24th to September 7th, 2552, although the majority of human opposition was crushed on August 30th, when a massive Covenant fleet arrived in-system.

Background
Despite suffering a severe defeat at the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV, the Covenant managed to place a tracking device on the and use it to find human colony worlds. When the Iroquois returned to Reach, the human presence - and its extent - was disclosed and later revealed to the Covenant fleet. Ironically, the location of Reach was already known to the Covenant; a previously recovered Forerunner artifact indicated Reach held another artifact.

Winter Contingency
Before the eventual invasion, Noble Team was sent to investigate a disturbance in a communications array that kept Reach connected to the rest of the UNSC. Sabotage by Insurrectionists was suspected. As Noble Team arrived to the station, insurrectionists were nowhere to be found. Instead, they were soon ambushed by an advance Covenant invasion force.

Opening skirmishes
"Winter Contingency has been declared, all units are mobilized and ready."

- UNSC Officer

The Covenant had created a beachhead on Reach with anti-air guns around the perimeter of their staging area in the Viery Territory where they had covertly inserted a massive amount of forces, including several corvettes. After being discovered, the Covenant forces attacked Sword Base in an attempt to overrun the ONI facility. However, these forces were repulsed after Noble Team reinforced the base and brought its anti-air turrets and communications back online. The Covenant corvette attacking it was forced to retreat and was destroyed by an orbital MAC round. UNSC then sent reconnaissance teams into Covenant-controlled territory in preparation for a counterattack and to investigate the enemy positions and forces they would be facing.

UNSC counterattack
"...we are now under attack across the Viery territory, including Orbital Defenses. As per the Winter Contingency, we are countering on every front."

- Auntie Dot

With a Covenant staging ground on Reach, the UNSC Army launched an offensive in an attempt to defeat the Covenant forces before reinforcements could arrive. The assault was spearheaded by Noble Team with the Army who attacked Covenant anti-air weapons to make way for Longsword fighters and frigates to attack Covenant Corvettes and make bombing runs. The attack, though initially successful, was thwarted when a Covenant Supercarrier, the Long Night of Solace, appeared over the area and attacked the UNSC Frigates, and reinforced the Covenant forces. Meanwhile, Covenant forces made another strike on Sword Base, this time with much greater success. The arrival of the supercarrier led to Operation: UPPERCUT, where Noble Team used Sabres and the corvette Ardent Prayer to deliver a "Slipspace Bomb" to the supercarrier and destroy it. Unfortunatly, just as the supercarrier was finally destroyed, an advance Covenant fleet arrived.

Further engagements
Over the next week, Covenant ground forces landed on the planet and Covenant ships began glassing large areas. 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. Elements from Noble Team assisted Army and Marine forces in clearing evacuation zones, succeeding in damaging a Covenant corvette in the process. Though UNSC forces ultimately succeeded in clearing the city of Covenant troops, Covenant naval assets began to glass the city, and one member of Noble Team was killed by sniper fire while redeploying.

Redeployed, Noble Team and a small force of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers were ordered to destroy the Covenant-occupied Sword Base in a scorched earth operation. Proceeding into the base, the team encountered Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, who enlisted their help in defending her laboratory amid the ruins of a Forerunner complex from advancing Covenant forces. Halsey ordered SPARTAN-B312 to transport a fragment of the A.I. Cortana to the, while Jun-A266 escorted her to CASTLE Base elsewhere on Reach. Even as August 30th dawned, however, a second, much larger Covenant fleet was detected exiting Slipstream Space on the edge of the system.

Second Covenant fleet arrives
"Gamma Station, this is Fermion RSO. Unconfirmed reports of an in-system Slipspace rupture."

- Fermion Remote Sensing Outpost

"Impossible. Check your source."

- Reach Station Gamma

The approaching Covenant 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 314 Covenant ships exited slipspace at the outskirts of the Epsilon Eridani System. WINTER CONTINGENCY was declared, and Admiral Roland Freemont issued file/bravo-tango-beta-five, ordering all ships in the system as well as those in the Jericho and Tantalus systems, to rendezvous at Reach in preparation for the coming assault. The Covenant moved in on the orbital defenses before the UNSC fleet fully consolidated. 52 late arriving UNSC ships, including the, ran a gauntlet of screening Covenant warships as they attempted to link up with the main fleet. At the beginning of the battle, only about a hundred UNSC ships were readily available to defend Reach.

Space battle


The main Covenant force moved in on the orbital defenses. The initial salvo of plasma torpedoes was mostly absorbed by three sacrificial refit and repair stations, allowing the defenders to return fire. The Orbital Defense Platforms and a nuclear minefield combined to take down a full third of the Covenant fleet, destroying about a hundred Covenant ships with the first salvo. The vaporized Titanium-A 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 a quarter of the Super MAC platforms, further crippling the UNSC orbital perimeter, before retreating out of range. A previously unknown warship type, the Covenant Supercruiser, carrying a new weapon, the energy projector, revealed itself destroying the before withdrawing temporarily. The attacking fleet withdrew to regroup after deploying hundreds of dropships to the surface. The UNSC fleet pursued and destroyed a large number of the Covenant dropships, 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. The Supercruiser returned and destroyed the and  from beyond ODP range. The engaged and destroyed the Supercruiser, detonating a Shiva nuclear device inside the Covenant warship's shields. The detonation reverberated off the shield and disintegrated the Supercruiser.

Final ground battle
"There are thousands of them. Grunts, Jackals and their warrior Elites. They have tanks and fliers. Christ, they've breached the perimeter. Fall back! Fall back! If anyone can hear this: the Covenant is ground-side. Massing near the armory!"

- UNSC Marine

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 escort, 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 killed.

The Spartans, after being briefed on the situation by Charlie Company, responded to a distress callout 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.

Unfortunately, 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.

Mission to Reach Station Gamma


During the space battle, the AI Doppler, controller of Reach Station Gamma, was unable to destroy the vital information onboard the, 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, 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 then were evacuated by Pelican back to the Pillar of Autumn. Linda-058 was clinically dead, but there was a chance of saving her, so she was placed in a cryo-chamber. John-117 asked Lieutenant Hall to scan for James (who was blown into space) and after they were unable to find him, the Pillar of Autumn made a slipspace jump to Installation 04 pursued by a dozen Covenant ships, while the remaining vessels glassed Reach.

Skirmishes
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 guerilla 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 5 SPARTANs (Fred; Kelly; Will; Vinh and Issac) had spent 5 days combing the remains of a Forerunner structure and an additional 5 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 Issac fell at the hands of overwhelming Covenant forces, and the others escaped by blowing the hallway down behind them.

Help arrives
The UNSC-controlled Covenant ship Ascendant Justice arrived seven hundred thousand kilometers from Reach where its crew assessed the situation. They noticed several ships in orbit along with an orbital docking station and that the planet had mostly been glassed. However, a small spot that had not been destroyed perked the interest of both John-117 and Lieutenant Haverson, the former because it meant that there might be survivors from the Spartan team, the latter because of the Covenant's obvious interest in that spot.

When they arrived at Reach, they sent all the standard responses to indicate that they were still Covenant controlled. The Ascendant Justice was supposed to have a high ranking person on board so the Covenant did not question their authority to be there and thus, the charade succeeded. From here, they were able to determine that the enemy fleet consisted of 13 Heavy Cruisers, a pair of Light Cruisers and a trio of Carriers along with hundreds of smaller ships. They also spotted a pile of debris where all the leftover Covenant and UNSC ships that had fallen in the Fall of Reach were being kept. They also picked up a weak transmission for the Master Chief, which was the Oly Oly Oxen Free signal. From this, he knew that there were SPARTANs still alive on the planet.

John-117 convinced the team to go to the surface while Cortana continued to pilot the ship. Cortana determined a hole in the Covenant patrol pattern and used it to determine an extraction point.

Once the team left, Cortana started analyzing as much data as she could. However, she quickly realized that she wasn't running at optimal capacity and had spread herself too thin. Before she could rectify this problem, the Covenant AI took advantage of her distraction and stunned her before taking over the communications system and signaling the nearby fleet of the Ascendant Justice's capture. Cortana was able to recover in time to dismantle and assimilate the renegade AI, but not before the damage had already been done.

The Covenant forces immediately turned on the Ascendant Justice with 13 ships moving to engage it. However, while their weapons charged, Cortana took the opportunity to test its new improvements to the Ascendant Justice's weapons systems. Without a need to charge its weapons, she was able to destroy 3 warships and do damage to a Carrier's launch bay. However, she determined that the risk was too high to continue to fight and opted to flee instead, jumping to the Oort cloud of the Epsilon Eridani system to plot her next move.

The Covenant were also suspicious of the Transport heading to the surface of Reach, but a quick inspection allayed their concerns. The UNSC personnel were able to land without further incident and the team made contact with Team Gamma and Vice Admiral Whitcomb at Camp Independence. The two teams relayed information about the events since the collapse of the navy. When the Master Chief determined that there might be survivors underneath Menachite Mountain, Whitcomb approved a plan to try and rescue them.

The team was able to get inside Menachite Mountain without incident. They used the Covenant excavation tunnel and then landed at the bottom floor of the Forerunner installation. Li-008 and Polaski were assigned to stay with their dropship and Whitcomb ordered them into a position that would provide the least risk to the vessel. The rest of the team piled out and ambushed a group of about 100 Covenant soldiers who were trying to dig their way through to Dr. Halsey and her accompanying Spartans, Kelly-087, Fred-104 and Will-043.

By the time the Covenant forces had been dispatched, the opening the Covenant had been working on was finished by Halsey's Spartans. The two teams were beginning to call for extraction when they realized that an entire Battalion of Covenant forces were bearing down on them.

Two Hunters fired on the team - badly wounding Kelly and knocking her out of the battle as she tried to shield Dr. Halsey. However, the Hunters would, in turn, be fired upon by the rest of the Covenant forces. The Elite in charge made it clear that the Forerunner Crystal was not to be damaged and therefore, the UNSC forces were not to be fired upon. The Covenant charged en mass against the UNSC forces and were engaged by the Spartans while Polaski flew in to extract them. With John carrying Kelly, they escaped the fight.

As they were trying to exit the installation, a Covenant warship above them activated its Grav Beam, trying to force them back down. However, the Forerunner Crystal activated and shut down the Grav Beam long enough for them to escape. Free of the installation, they plotted course for the rendezvous.

Escape from Reach
Cortana meanwhile, had been working on her plan. She jumped into the debris field and began searching for a UNSC ship with an active power core. She settled on the Gettysburg and connected the two ships. Fortunately for her, the Covenant were busy with the UNSC troops and their dropship that they didn't realize that the Ascendant Justice had arrived. With the two ships joined and the power from both reactors available, Cortana was ready. She took a final check of the rendezvous point and found that the entire Covenant fleet was in the area and that the Covenant fleet had tripled. She also intercepted communications ordering that the UNSC forces not to be fired upon because they had the Forerunner Crystal.

Cortana jumped to the rendezvous point. Her arrival surprised the Covenant forces and by the time they had recovered to engage her, the UNSC team was already aboard. Using the combined power from the two reactors, Cortana charged her Slipspace drive and determined she needed five seconds to get a full charge. With that time, she fired on the nearest four Cruisers, destroying two of them. She then entered Slipspace, fleeing the system.

Slipspace battle
Their escape was not what it was supposed to be. The Ascendant Justice/Gettysburg had entered some form of Slipspace anomaly. Fourteen Covenant ships were able to enter behind the ship. Within the anomaly, they could maneuver and fire at other ships, but the weapons they fired would jump randomly and there was no guarantee that they would do what was intended. This did not deter the Covenant from firing on the captured ship, nor Cortana from returning fire. This resulted in random bolts of superheated plasma impacting ships from both sides, causing heavy damage to the Ascendant Justice and destroying many of the Covenant warships.

Dr. Halsey determined what the anomaly was due to the Forerunner crystal, which seemed to warp Slipspace. She also concluded that it was only because of the considerable mass of the Ascendant Justice/Gettysburg configuration that they were able to stabilize space near themselves.

In the randomness of the trajectories, the various Plasma blobs eventually resulted in 3 hits taking out one of the Covenant cruisers. Two other shots made glancing blows against the Ascendant Justice, though her shields remained intact. A third shot took out two of her Plasma turrets. However, it quickly became apparent that the more dangerous threat wasn't from the Plasma shots but from the anomaly itself. The anomaly was ripping the ship apart and it became evident that staying too long would be disastrous.

However, with over a dozen Cruisers facing them, the option of reverting to Real Space was suicidal. Admiral Whitcomb chose to get into close range with the Covenant warships and take them out, one-by-one, where their turrets would be the least affected by the anomaly. However, when Cortana tried to power up the engines to fight, an explosion on the main drive conduit disabled their engines. Determining the explosion was sabotage, the Spartans and Polaski headed out to fight back the attackers and to fix the conduit.

The team was able to get to the conduit without major issue. Grace quickly confirmed the assumption of sabotage and while Fred and Grace set to repairing the damage, the rest of the team readied themselves for a possible attack.

It was a near-miss from a plasma bolt that alerted the SPARTANS to the incoming attack. The electromagnetic waves from the plasma overloaded the incoming Covenant Elites' active camouflage and the SPARTANS opened fire. However, shortly after the welders finished their task, Polaski warned them of the incoming ball of Plasma. The Spartans scrambled for cover as the plasma impacted the dropship.

The Covenant Elites, Polaski, Anton and Li all perished in the explosion. Only John was left conscious. He quickly secured his teammates by attaching their tethers to the ship, then attached his own. He had enough time to message the bridge and inform them that the job had been done before he, too, fell into unconsciousness.

By this point, Cortana felt that the Covenant forces had been reduced to a mere 3-5 warships, though she also speculated that the Ascendant Justice would only be able to survive another 5 minutes in the anomaly. Admiral Whitcomb determined that he wanted to destroy one or two of the remaining warships before he left to minimize the amount of fighting they had to do outside of the anomaly. He also was counting on the others taking so much damage from the anomaly by that point that they would be out of commission.

For the first ship, Whitcomb had Cortana pressurize the loading bay of the Gettysburg. As soon as the Spartans secured the conduit, he ordered a collision course with a nearby, lightly damaged, Covenant Cruiser. While the Covenant Cruiser continued to fire into the anomaly, the Ascendant Justice slowly approached. When they were a mere kilometer apart, the Ascendant Justice fired and the Gettysburg's launch bay doors opened, pushing the two Cruisers apart. At the close range, the weapons were able to cross as if they were in normal space and the Cruiser was destroyed.

They then used the aft of the destroyed Covenant warship and rammed it towards a Covenant carrier. Using it as both a shield and ram, they sent the chunk on a collision course with the Carrier. The Carrier shot the incoming missile into pieces, but still suffered damage. The Ascendant Justice fired upon the Carrier, finishing it off. Admiral Whitcomb ordered them out of Slipspace.

Aftermath


"We are not wasting a single UNSC ship to confirm what we have already seen a dozen times before: Reach is gone. Everything on it is blasted to bits, burned, glassed over, and vaporized. Everyone on Reach is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead."

- Colonel James Ackerson

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, , and the , 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 Fleet of Particular Justice, outnumbered 2:1, they still managed to inflict disproportionate losses to the Covenant, due largely to the twenty Orbital Defense Platforms orbiting Reach. The AI Cortana commandeered the fleeing 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. In addition, a Forerunner artifact, a crystal, was discovered and recovered by UNSC forces, drawing a number out of the system in pursuit to Eridanus Secundus, leading to the glassing of the colony, and the destruction of the artifact and the recovery of a small number of pieces by the Covenant.

July 24, 2552

 *  0728 Hours: Noble Team is ordered investigate a possible Insurrectionist activity at the disabled Visegrad Relay. Shortly after, the team learns that the Covenant are responsible for the attack on the relay. After retaking the relay, Noble Team discovers a data module on one of the dead staff. Winter Contingency is declared.

July 26, 2552

 * 1128 hours: A Covenant corvette attacks ONI Sword Base. Noble Team is deployed to secure the base and surrounding outposts. After the corvette is destroyed by orbital bombardment, Noble Team meets up with Dr. Halsey and hands over the data module retrieved from Visegrad Relay.

August 12th, 2552

 * 0800 hours: The UNSC Army begins a full scale assault on the Viery Territory. Noble Team is sent to gather intelligence of Covenant-occupied sites and to destroy a EMP-emitting Covenant tower. The UNSC learn too late that the tower served as a teleporter linked to a cloaked Covenant Supercarrier. The  is destroyed by the Supercarrier's energy projector.


 * 2007 hours: Covenant invasion of Reach is fully underway. Noble Team begins developing a plan to destroy the enemy Supercarrier with a Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine used as a makeshift bomb.

August 14th, 2552

 * 1248 hours: Noble Team assaults and retakes the Sabre Launch Facility and use it as a staging point for a battle above Reach. Using the Slipspace Drive from the, Noble Team disables and boards one of the Covenant corvettes and use it as the detonation point for the bomb. Due to a malfunction with the triggering mechanism, a member of Noble Team is forced to detonate the bomb manually. The Supercarrier is destroyed just as a Covenant Fleet arrives above Reach.


 * 1248 hours: Covenant forces once again attack Sword Base and occupy the site. Dr. Halsey escapes capture by hiding under the facility.

August 23, 2552

 * 1534 hours: The Covenant fleet begins glassing Reach and a battle breaks out in New Alexandria. Noble Six and remaining Army infantrymen assist in the evacuation of civilians from the city.


 * 1857 hours: Noble Six links up with the rest of Noble Team. The team destroys three jammers installed by the Covenant, allowing the UNSC to safely evacuate all personnel from the ONI HQ. When the team reunites, they are debriefed by their supervisor to proceed to Sword Base. Another member of Noble Team is killed by sniper fire.

August 26, 2552

 * The remnants of Noble Team are extracted by a Pelican from the ruins of New Alexandria.

August 29, 2552

 * SPARTAN-B312 and a team of ODSTs secure a landing zone for Noble Team's Falcon. Later Noble Team proceed inside Sword Base only to learn their true mission: escort a part of Cortana to the Pillar of Autumn.

August 30, 2552

 * 0447 Hours: The Remote Scanning Outpost Fermion detects incoming Covenant vessels. An emergency message is relayed to FLEETCOM. The outpost then self-destructs per the Cole Protocol due to an unsecured science library and nearby Covenant forces.


 * 0500 Hours: A fleet of 314 Covenant vessels exits slipspace on the edge of the system.


 * 0517 Hours: Admiral Roland Freemont (FLEETCOM Sector One Commander) issues a general order to all vessels in the Reach, Jericho, and Tantalus systems. All vessels and stations initiate the Cole Protocol and rush to Rally Point ZULU.


 * 0534 Hours: Covenant vessels make pinpoint slipspace jumps attempting to destroy any incoming or outgoing human vessels before they can regroup. A Covenant Carrier targets the but is destroyed.


 * 0545 Hours: The Covenant vessels begin a frontal assault. As the Covenant and Human fleets engage above Reach, it seems to be a stalemate, as Covenant ships take out UNSC ships, while the UNSC ships and MAC cannons take out an equal number. The first salvo by the UNSC vessels destroys a third of the remaining Covenant fleet. A previously unknown Covenant warship, called a Supercruiser by Captain Keyes, arrives and destroys several UNSC ships while outside human weapons range.


 * 0558 Hours: Station Gamma Dockmaster AI Doppler is unable to implement the Cole Protocol on the, an ONI prowler docked at Reach Station Gamma, due to measures taken to maintain the secrecy of Operation: HYPODERMIC. Doppler sends priority message to FLEETCOM concerning this violation. Covenant intrusion software detects this oversight, and the Covenant deploys troops to seize the NAV database aboard the Circumference.


 * 0616 Hours: The SPARTAN soldiers are dispatched from the Pillar of Autumn. John-117, Linda-058, and James (SPARTAN-II) form Blue Team and go aboard the Dock to destroy the Circumference, while the remainder form Red Team and head to the surface of Reach to defend the power generators for the MAC guns. James goes MIA when a Needler hits his T-PACK and propels him into space during combat. Blue Team continue through the station, rescuing Sgt. Johnson; Pvt. O'Brien; Pvt. Bisenti and Pvt. Jenkins from Kig-yar and Sangheili.


 * 0620 Hours: The Covenant fleet retreats from the system after deploying dropships. The UNSC fleet fires on the ships, destroying many. Hundreds of dropships land on Reach.


 * 0621 Hours: The boarding craft are landed and the armory is overrun; the Covenant fleet returns to the system. The Covenant split their 150+ remaining ships. One fleet attacks the UNSC ships, while another takes out the MAC cannons and send in troops to land on Reach. The UNSC try to split their 50+ remaining forces to engage the Covenant, but there are too many platforms to cover and too many casualties. The Supercruiser continues to destroy UNSC ships, allowing the other ships to attack the MAC cannons. Eventually the Supercruiser is destroyed by the Pillar of Autumn, but the UNSC fleet is practically decimated so it is too late to do any good.


 * 0631 Hours: Red Team is shot down. They have no choice but to jump from the crashing Pelican and make a "hard landing" on the ground. Results in four dead and six seriously injured.


 * 0637 Hours: The SPARTAN-II team on the Circumference mission returns to the Pillar of Autumn. Only John-117 and clinically dead Linda-058 make it back, with Sergeant Johnson, Private O'Brien, Private Bisenti, and Private Jenkins.


 * 0647 Hours: The Pillar of Autumn attempts to retreat from the system, but remains there for unknown reasons and heads for a drydock at the Aszod ship breaking yards on Reach.


 * 0649 Hours: Red Team sets up defenses around ODG Facility A-331.


 * 0711 Hours: Fred-104, Joshua-029, and Kelly-087 plant a nuclear warhead through the gravity lift in a landing Covenant cruiser, leaving Joshua-029 MIA, (presumed KIA) in the process.


 * 0720 Hours: The Covenant destroys ODG Facility A-331 by aerial bombardment (glassing), though some Spartans escape. The surviving MAC guns are now offline and are quickly destroyed by plasma torpedoes. Remaining UNSC vessels have no choice but to retreat. The Covenant warships are split into two groups: 5 ship teams that hunt down the surviving UNSC vessels and a group of ships that align themselves in formation and begin to glass Reach.


 * 1652 hours: The remainder of Noble Team head to the Aszod ship breaking yards to deliver a fragment of Cortana holding important navigation data to the Pillar of Autumn. Before 20.00, S-B312 successfully delivers the package to the Autumn and allows the vessel to escape by destroying an incoming Covenant battlecruiser. The Pillar of Autumn, pursued by a dozen Covenant vessels, retreats from the system, heading for Installation 04.


 * 2000 Hours: SPARTAN-B312 is one of the few standing survivors at the ship-breaking yards of Aszod. He or she fights off waves of Covenant forces, until overwhelmed and eventually killed by Sangheili warriors.

September 2552

 * September 7th
 * 0002 Hours: The SPARTAN Red team survivors and Dr. Halsey, after days of walking through the abandoned Titanium mines below CASTLE base, reach a corridor covered in Forerunner symbols.
 * shortly afterwards: A series of detonations by Covenant forces looking for them cause the deaths of Vinh-030 and Isaac-039.


 * September 11th-12th
 * Unknown time: The Installation 04 survivors arrive at Reach, having experienced a temporal anomaly sending them nearly two weeks into the past.

Space assets

 * Carriers
 * , Supercarrier
 * Cruisers
 * Destroyers
 * Frigates
 * Destroyers
 * Frigates
 * Destroyers
 * Frigates
 * Frigates
 * Frigates
 * Frigates
 * Frigates


 * Prowlers
 * Other/Unknown Type
 * Remote Sensing Station Fermion
 * Anchor 9
 * Prowlers
 * Other/Unknown Type
 * Remote Sensing Station Fermion
 * Anchor 9
 * Remote Sensing Station Fermion
 * Anchor 9
 * Anchor 9

Personnel
Navy
 * Lieutenant, Junior Grade Brightling, David
 * Lieutenant Dominique
 * Admiral Freemont, Roland
 * Lieutenant Hall
 * Lieutenant Hikowa, Aki
 * Captain Keyes, Jacob
 * Ensign Lovell, William
 * Chief Petty Officer McRobb
 * Flight Officer Mitchell
 * Lieutenant, Junior Grade Streeter, William
 * Vice Admiral Whitcomb, Danforth
 * Vice Admiral Stanforth, Hieronymus Michael
 * Captain Dare, Veronica
 * Li-008
 * Joshua-029
 * Vinh-030
 * Isaac-039
 * William-043
 * Anton-044
 * Chief Warrant Officer Jorge-052
 * Linda-058
 * Malcolm-059
 * Kelly-087
 * Grace-093
 * Frederic-104
 * Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
 * James (SPARTAN-II)
 * Warrant Officer Emile-A239
 * Commander Carter-A259
 * Warrant Officer Jun-A266
 * Lieutenant SPARTAN-B312
 * Lieutenant Commander Catherine-B320

Marines
 * Private Bisenti
 * Gunnery Sergeant Buck, Edward
 * Corporal Errera, C.
 * Private Jenkins, Wallace A.
 * Staff Sergeant Johnson, Avery Junior
 * Private O'Brien
 * Staff Sergeant Stacker, Pete

Trivia

 * During the Battle of Earth, Terrence Hood estimated the size of the Covenant fleet at Reach as 750 ships, stating the fleet that destroyed Reach was "fifty times" bigger than the fleet at Earth. However, it is clear that Hood was using hyperbole to express how much larger the fleet at Reach was. The reissued version of Halo: The Fall of Reach took this statement literally, and changed the number of ships at Reach from "over 300" to "over 750". However, this change was only made in one instance in the reissue, with all other statements regarding the fleet's size stating it to be over 300, rendering the change an error.
 * In Halo 3: ODST, on a wall in the level Mombasa Streets, "Remember Reach" is written as a rallying cry to the people of Earth, much like the battle cry "Remember the Alamo." The slogan is also the name of a Halo: Reach marketing campaign.
 * The Fall of Reach has often been compared to the attack on Pearl Harbor. An example of this is when Chief Petty Officer McRobb compares Reach to Pearl Harbor. He remembers that Pearl Harbor, too, was once thought too strong to attack, and resolves not to let his lack of attentiveness allow the Covenant to surprise the Reach defenders.
 * At the time of the invasion, at least one hurricane was raging on the surface of Reach.

List of appearances

 * Halo 2
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: The Flood
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Dirt
 * ''The Return
 * Halo Legends
 * Origins
 * i love bees