Mantle's Approach

This article is about the ship used in Halo 4. For the ship in Halo: Cryptum, see Didact's ship.

The Mantle's Approach^[1] was the Didact's personal flagship.

History

This massive vessel was once captained by the Didact during the Forerunner-Flood war. Sealed inside Requiem along with its master by the Librarian, the Didact reactivated the ship after his awakening in July 2557. He jumped to Ivanoff Station alongside a Covenant remnant fleet, intent on reclaiming the Composer - an ancient Forerunner device with the power to wipe out entire species. The Didact test-fired the Composer on the station, then proceeded to Earth to settle his personal war with humanity once and for all.^[2]

Unbeknownst to him, John-117 survived the deadly pulse due to the Librarian's intervention. Pursuing the Mantle's Approach aboard a nuclear-armed F-41 Broadsword, the Spartan took out the ship's point defense turrets, allowing the Template:UNSCship to punch through the Mantle's hull with its MAC cannons. The Master Chief then fought his way through the ship, eventually finding the Didact controlling the Composer under an impenetrable force field. Cortana overloaded the shields by flooding the ship's mainframe with her rampant duplicates, allowing the Chief to confront and defeat the Didact with a pulse grenade.^[3]

With the Composer already firing upon New Phoenix, the Spartan manually detonated the HAVOK warhead as a desperate last resort. The Mantle's Approach was completely destroyed by the nuclear blast, taking the Composer along with it. The dying Cortana got the Chief out of the ship at the very last moment and created a hard light barrier around him, saving John's life at the cost of her own.^[3]