Unyielding Hierophant

The Unyielding Hierophant was a Covenant command-and-control center and refit-battle station that was capable of supporting a fleet of over 500 capital ships. It was capable of Slipspace jumps, and was over 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) in circumference. Scans show this type of vessel to have at least 2 fusion reactor cores for power.

Appearance
The Unyielding Hierophant is shaped like an eight, with two tear-drop shaped bulbous sections connected at the center, each 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) long or 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) total. A rotating ring is connected to the central hub, where Covenant cruisers and carriers can dock.

Internally it has large "rooms" that are built with foliage and animals to simulate the Covenant's worlds to make occupants feel more at home, rather than on a huge station. These areas even have temples for their religious sessions.

Destruction
At the time of its destruction it was located in the Tau Ceti system. The system was conquered by Covenant forces in 2530, and was therefore used as a rendezvous point for a Covenant force of approximately 500 warships before they prepared to launch their impending attack on Earth. When the UNSC found out about this, the crew of the Ascendant Justice-Gettysburg decided to initiate a first strike against the enemy. A team of SPARTAN-IIs, among them John-117, Grace-093, Fred-104 and Linda-058 took a Covenant dropship, after they had reinforced the armor of the dropship with Titanium-A armor inside and out so the ship could withstand the transition from Slipspace to normal space. The team departed and made the transition from Slipspace to normal space in one piece.

Once they entered normal space, John saw the vastness of the station and realized that the 60 little dots were actually mighty Covenant cruisers, all attached to a central hub. Their ship was pinged three times, but according to the copied Cortana, the Covenant had been curious about their status, but not as much as would be expected. There was a tremendous amount of COM traffic, and the station was probably only concerned with their being a navigational hazard. John figured to test his luck and told Cortana to send a reply that the ship's engines were down and to send out a recovery team to take them in for repairs. The Covenant sent out a C & C ferry to take them in. Cortana simulated static when asked about the ship's ID number, but the Covenant were too preoccupied to care.

They infiltrated the station to render it inoperable but, quickly realized that even if the station is inoperable, the Covenant armada would still make the jump to Earth. The only solution was for the SPARTANs to blow the station up by triggering a self-destruct mechanism. Once on board, the team found that there was an artificial gravity of some kind. Everyone but Linda was going in hot and heavy, while Linda was light and covered the team's back. To John's surprise, they found very little resistance when they exited the ship in the repair bay. They did however find thousands of Engineers. There were also two Grunts with white methane breathers, who were probably mechanics or some other non-combatant rank; they were easily avoided, however. John took the bay in at a glance and saw enough slots for over a hundred single ships. John finds a holographic terminal and places the Cortana copy in the drive slot. The good news was each lobe has a central reactor complex with five hundred twelve-terawatt units, similar in design to the pinch fusion reactors of their ships. The bad news was John had to physically get Cortana to the nearest reactor interface which was 7 kilometers away. John knew it was possible, but refused to go that distance without info on Covenant patrols. So, the copied Cortana said there is a way, she could copy herself, but warned that there were some risks of copying a copy. John said do it anyway.

The only way to the reactor was to run about three hundred meters across "open" space, in full view of Banshees, Grunts, Jackals, and other covenant forces; however, they would be running so fast, the covenant that see them would not have time to react, and Linda was posted somewhere in the shadows providing cover fire. John crossed the distance with little resistance and slid to a stop in some sort of temple. He called over Blue Team and they moved into the temple. Cortana mentioned there were some kind of ceremonial guards whose names translated into Brutes. . While John was surprised with one Brute he heard what sounded like three grenades going off, those would later be the last sounds Grace ever heard as a Brute shot her in her midsection three times with its Brute Shot. John managed to wrestle free from the Brute's grip and put a frag grenade in its belt. There were two more Brutes, but not for long as John threw a Lotus Anti Tank Mine at the ceiling above them.

Grace was dead, but John was not about to let the Covenant get their hands on her, so he set her armor's fusion reactor to overload, annihilating anything within a 10 meter radius. The team crawled through a tiny engineer's shaft and entered the reactor conduit. Cortana set the ship's reactors to overload, but the team's exit was blocked by the now alert covenant forces. The only plan was to run to the windows that led to the repair bay which led to space. John, Will, and Fred hijacked three banshee's and made for the window and Fred and Will placed a Lotus mine on the window. John went back for Linda. The mine exploded but the window remained. The copy Cortana had made so many copies that she ceased to function and the only way to break through was to crash the banshees into the window. The window broke and they were through, in space. They hijacked a floating covenant dropship and made their way to the assumed location of the Ascendant Justice-Gettysburg

Not all was well though, there was still time left on the clock until the reactors overloaded and now every covenant force was on their way to John's location. John proceeded to where he thought the Ascendant Justice-Gettysburg would be but only found the UNSC Gettysburg. Admiral Whitcomb and Lieutenant Haverson were on the Ascendant Justice headed for Unyielding Hierophant, but they had one more trick. First, they left the ship's Slipspace engines on the Gettysberg, second, they made a holographic copy of the artifact found on Reach and sent the image along with a message to every covie ship in the area saying it's theirs for the taking...if they dare to board this ship and face Earth's best warriors. The ploy worked and all of the covenant ships converged on the ships position, right on top of the station. The Admiral and the Lieutenant sacrificed themselves and took almost all of the 500 ships of the covenant armada with them, with only about 12 of them surviving. It stands as a monumental achievement for the UNSC, and a discerning loss for the Covenant.

Trivia

 * Because of his trouble reading small text, Sergeant Johnson incorrectly (or jokingly) refers to this station as the "Uneven Elephant."
 * This is the location of the Spartans first encounters the Brutes. John is almost defeated by one and Grace-093 takes Brute Shot rounds to her mid section, killing her instantly.
 * The five hundred twelve-terawatt energy is used to power a shield generator that can repel the collision of a small moon.