Battle of Arcadia

The Battle of Arcadia was a conflict that occured during the Human-Covenant War and was the last sighting of the UNSC Spirit of Fire by Humans for nearly twenty years. The Spirit of Fire was assigned to defend Arcadia from the Covenant and, after assisting in the civilian evacuation and bombing the Covenant bases from orbit, the Spirit of Fire led the Covenant away from the planet.

However, the ship was snatched by a Forerunner Shield World that had been infested by the Flood, and UNSC Professor Ellen Anders was kidnapped by the Covenant. After sending out all forces to save the professor, Sergeant John Forge and Captain Gregory Cutter directed an assault on a Covenant Super-Scarab before going full-on head to head with the Flood. Meanwhile, Spartans Jerome, Douglas and Alice deployed to assault Covenant on the ground, as directed by the AI Serina.

After saving Anders from the Arbiter Ripa Moramee, the UNSC forces made a plan to nuke the Shield World in order to prevent the Flood from escaping. Using the ships slipspace drive as a makeshift explosive, the crew of the ship armed the device but were attacked by the Covenant. Enraged, Forge and the Spartans made for the bomb and held off the Covenant whilst it was armed. After Forge killed the Arbiter and the Spartans dusted off the last of the Elites, the heroes realised that they would need someone to stay behind and manually detonate the device, so Forge ruled that it should be him. As he sent the Spartans away he gave the Spirit of Fire enough time to clear the roof before detonating the device, destroying the entire planet and the fatal parasite that lived on it.