The fighting was raging in orbit and on Reach...
On August 14, 2552, at 12:48, the Spartan warriors of Noble Team launched a brazen attack on the launch station for the Sabre program. After capturing it, they used the advanced Sabre fighters there to take to space and join several dogfights in Reach's orbit. They successfully crippled a Covenant light cruiser, the Long Night of Solace, and delivered the Warp Drive supplied by the UNSC frigate Savannah to the Covenant vessel.
At 20:22, the Warp Drive Noble Team had delivered to the light cruiser was activated. At last, at minimal cost, it successfully destroyed the Covenant's CSO-class supercarrier, the Long Night of Solace, blowing it apart in space and scattering countless fragments across Reach's surface...
That was the rough account of the destruction of the Long Night of Solace, flagship of the Covenant's Fleet of Valiant Prudence, and the battle report that the UNSC and ONI had announced to the public for reasons of their own. The UNSC troops who knew about it were greatly encouraged, and their morale soared!
However, senior UNSC officers and ONI personnel with the proper clearance knew another version of events. The flagship of the Fleet of Valiant Prudence, the Long Night of Solace, hadn't actually been destroyed by Noble Team. Although Noble Team had indeed had a chance to destroy it at almost the same time...
Whatever the case, Noble Team's Number Five had truly been about to detonate the charge at the last moment, only to give up. Instead, a little girl from another "super soldier program" run by the ODSTs had accomplished something that astonished many people and delighted just as many!
However, that joke of a "Plan C" had barely gotten underway before it was stillborn. Most of the ten elite