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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, in hopes of capturing valuable information from the computers. 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 a shipboard AI.
 * To destroy the vessel from within (such as the Athens Station and Malta Station Orbital Defense Platforms during the 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 on board.

Operation
When a UNSC ship is being attacked by Covenant forces, rather than destroy it, the Covenant may attempt a boarding operation. 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 partially and internally with only the boarding tube being accessible and the cockpit being off-limits behind a locked door. These vessels usually carried a compliment of up to 8-10 Covenant warriors, usually Unggoy and Sangheili and 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.

It is likely that the boarding craft seen in Halo 2 was simply a newer variation of the craft seen in Halo: Combat Evolved as they contain many similarities to each other, with only small, aesthetic changes, as well as an energy shield incorporated into the later version.

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

 * The exterior of the Boarding Craft has a resemblance to a flower-like or palm tree-like shape.
 * The boarding craft is non-canonically referred to by some fans as either an Apparition or a Poltergeist. Both names are not the true designation of the vehicle, although they do fit the Covenant's vehicle naming scheme, being named after death or otherworldly creatures.
 * The tube appears to have some kind of anti-gravity function, as the troops being deployed float a little off the tube wall.