Battle of Meridian

The Battle of Meridian was a campaign for the control of the moon of Meridian during the last years of the Human-Covenant War.

Initial Contact
Due to the system's remote location and distance from Covenant invasion routes, Meridian went by entirely unnoticed by the Covenant, being discovered only a year and a half before Earth. The first Covenant to scout the world was the Fleet of Valiant Prudence, commanded by Fleet Master Rho 'Barutamee, then a force of more thirteen vessels. The UNSC Navy suffered heavy losses after engaging with Barutamee's fleet on the 14th of March, having been off-guard by the sudden close arrival of Covenant ships. Despite the casualties, the UNSC was successful in dissuading the hostile fleet from initiating a ground assault. The Fleet of Valiant Prudence left the system after the loss of two destroyers and a cruiser.

Barutamee had narrowly avoided a demotion and likely suicide because of his defeat and shameful withdrawal, where it not for the discovery of a heavy Forerunner presence of the moon. Both the UNSC and the Covenant correctly surmised that each side would be gearing up for another round of fighting over the world.

This late into the war, with as much experience as the UNSC had with the Covenant, it was quickly decided that Meridian would need to be evacuated. If necessary, UNSC Army forces would still do battle with hostile forces if they were given the opportunity, though rare. The Harvest campaign proved that UNSC forces could in fact win a ground campaign and perhaps force the Covenant to abandon their campaign entirely. Meridian was of significant strategic importance to the UNSC and was thus worth shedding blood for. ONI's assessment of the relics throughout the war led them to the only partially correct conclusion that the Covenant would not simply glass the world and leave - they would either fight for it or decide it was not worth the effort.

2nd Space Battle of Meridian
The UNSC Navy formed Battle Group Lima-Six, comprised of a battlecruiser, a carrier, seven cruisers, twelve destroyers and sixteen frigates, and various support vessels including a mobile repair station, to cover the estimated two week evacuation time. Civilian evacuations of the world began in earnest only three days after the initial space battle and 60% of its citizens had left the world before Battle Group Lima-Six had even arrived on the 26th of April. World wide panic and subsequent poor management of the hysteria greatly delayed ONI's efforts to transport its data and research out of system, and moving heavy equipment via space elevator was nigh impossible under these circumstances, and it did not occur until after the return of the Covenant on the 10th of May.

The recently refitted Fleet of Valiant Prudence had bolstered its forces with the inclusion of the Fleet of Sacred Consecration, both Covenant fleets numbering a combined total of thirty-six vessels. Meridian's importance to the Covenant had drawn the attention of the highest Echelons of the Covenant leadership, including the High Prophet of Regret and several ministers, whom would personally oversee the assault on the world.

By request of the Sangheili commanding the ground forces of the campaign, Regret would allow for a ground assault of the world with minimal to no glassing. Regret's respect of the Sangheili and eagerness to get a hold of the Forerunner artefacts meant that this decision was all but assured.

Civilian evacuations would halt almost entirely after the Covenant gave battle with UNSC space forces once again on the 10th of May. Knowing they did not have the numerical superiority to beat the Covenant in a stand up fight, human forces resorted to hit-and-run and other unconventional tactics in an attempt to gain an upper hand against their enemy. The fact that the UNSC could not maintain a strong presence meant that Covenant forces were able to establish a blockade over the world, albeit thin. Civilian transports suffered horrific losses attempting to run the blockade and approximately 110 000 civilians were killed either in space attempting to flee, killed when Meridian's single space elevator collapsed, or were killed in ports waiting pick up, many of whom had been sleeping in line for days. A further 150 000 civilians would be killed in subsequent ground invasion.

Battle of Attrition
On the 10th of June, Covenant forces made landfall even despite a relative stalemate in space. Effective UNSC resistance meant that both sides had progressed into a game of chicken, with each side daring another potentially casualty heavy engagement. By this point, UNSC High Command had already deployed a second round of reinforcements, this time with a focus on supporting a terrestrial battle.

The UNSC's Battle Group Lima-Seven arrived in the Hestia System on the 6th of July, comprised of four cruisers, two destroyers, eight frigates, several corvettes and two carriers, and a support train. NAVSPECWAR also approved the deployment of a Spartan III in order to secure/destroy the still yet to be evacuated ONI Research Site Alpha, which had been under siege for a week.

Lima-Seven came under attack mere hours after arriving in system. The Covenant won a strategic victory over the UNSC after the destruction of the mobile repair barge Soteria and with it one docked warship, denying human forces a long term solution for in system refits. On the same day, Covenant ground forces had disabled the baffler concealing Xeno Site Alpha and established themselves in on the installation, but not before UNSC forces successfully executed a torch-and-burn operation on the ONI facility in Marbremont itself. The day after, UNSC forces attempted to pull the same trick a second on Site Alpha, but were not successful. Despite suffering heavy losses, the Covenant defended their holy site with great zeal and prevented UNSC forces from gaining a permanent foothold. After UNSC forces were forced to pull out, the Covenant guarding the site rotated out in kind.

A detachment of Covenant ships left the system a few hours after the battle at Site Alpha, with the UNSC frigate Midsummer Night giving in order to retrieve a strategically important artefact liberated from the installation. Human and Covenant forces however continued to fight over the world for several more months, including Site Alpha.

Frustrated at the grinding progress of the campaign Regret went back on his word and ordered tactical glassing efforts on the world, and eventually introduced the Fleet of Profound Solitude of twenty-eight vessels to speed up the campaign. UNSC Naval forces would finally retreat despite a slow trickle of ships over the last months of the campaign, finally abandoning the system on the 14th of September 2551 after suffering staggering losses.

The Covenant paid a hefty price with the equivalent of one fleet worth of vessels lost, and ground casualties numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Aftermath
The Covenant unearthed a critical discovery at Xeno Site Alpha, a Forerunner Lifeworker ship. This craft contained logs that mentioned the discovery of "the cradle", which the Prophet of Regret would intepret to mean the fabled Forerunner home/capital world of Maethrillian. Immediately after its decryption, Regret assembled his Fleet of Sacred Consecration and made for the coordinates designated within the log, which turned out to be Humanity's homeworld of Earth. Many post-war historians argue that the UNSC's defeat at Meridian almost cost the entire galaxy, however in many respects the actions at Meridian also brought about the downfall of the Covenant due to Regret's hasty actions after discovering the logs on this moon.

Meridian as of 2563 is lightly glassed with a dying ecosystem, however terraforming initiates could save the biosphere and allow the world to be resettled in several decades.