Waters asked, "Could one be the Spartans' ship? We could send a narrow-band encrypted ping, sir."
"Anything is possible with Spartans," Lash said, "but it's not our job to communicate with them. We're here to gather data for Admiral Patterson's strategic consideration."
Waters closed his eyes, thinking a moment, and finally said, "Aye, sir."
The Lieutenant Commander wanted to get into the fight. It was a deadly sentiment for the officer of a prowler. Lash sympathized. Waters had long ago lost his wife and children on Harvest. But stealth was their only defense against such a force. Vengeance had no place on his ship.
"Debris in orbit," Yang said. "Metallic structures. Unknown alloy composition on spectroscopic analysis."
"Recent combat?" Waters asked.
"Aye, sir, residual plasma detected. However… insufficient tonnage to account for even one Covenant destroyer."
"Come to course zero two zero by three two five," Commander Lash ordered Lieutenant Durruno. "Cut engines and shunt the power to recharging Slipspace capacitors."
She focused her laserlike attention on her NAV controls. "Coming about. New trajectory set. Our inertia will take us in for a tight orbit." All trace of her fatigue vanished and she tapped a rapid-fire message on her keyboard, and then replied.
"Lieutenant Commander Cho reports capacitors at fifty percent. They'll be hot in six minutes."
"Go active camouflage," Commander Lash told Waters.
Lash forced himself to remain collected. He felt like a fraud, but he had to try to maintain the illusion of confidence for the sake of his officers. He would never let them know how scared he was.
"Active camouflage online," Waters said. "Texture buffer full. Four minutes on the clock."
The Dusk dove toward the twilight demarcation line of the planet. The normally matte-black ablative coating on her dorsal surfaces flickered with patterns of cirrostratus and lapis ocean and glowing orange sunset.
"Radiologicals?" Lash asked.
"No Argus-eiTect beta radiation detected in the magneto-sphere," Yang answered. "The Spartan team has not detonated any FENRIS warheads."
"Is that a good, or bad, thing?" Waters murmured.
Lash wasn't sure. If the Spartans had been here, he'd expect there to be a swath of destruction. "Planetary energy sources?" he asked Yang.
"Nothing, sir," Yang answered as he pored over the data flashing on his screens. "We still have one-quarter of the planet's surface to scan, though. It will take seven minutes in this orbit to cover that area."
"One minute on the clock," Waters told him. He hesitated as if he had more to say… but didn't.
Lash knew what he wanted: a full orbit, more time, and a close pass near those Covenant combat assets. Waters wanted to be a hero.
"We're following Admiral Patterson's orders to the letter," Lash said. "We've got two Covenant warships on the other side of this planet. No detectable sign of Spartans. No nukes trig-gered. And we haven't been seen. That's enough."
Lash locked gazes with Waters.
Waters looked away, frowned, but nodded. He said, "Rig for Slipspace transition."
"Aye aye," Lieutenant Durruno said. She sighed, visibly relaxing at the decision to leave. "Matrix calculations input. Ready for transition in seventeen seconds."
Lash fidgeted in the captain's chair. It was the right move to leave. If they executed a full orbit, their luck would most certainly run out. And waiting for their recon data in Slipspace was Patterson's battle group of eight ships.
Two Covenant destroyers were a threat, but it was accepted that three-to-one odds in the UNSC's favor against Covenant forces was an even match. Four to one? They rarely had such odds in this war.
So why did this feel all wrong?
"Initiate Slipspace transition," Commander Lash ordered.
Around the Dusk space flashed blue and white and the stars vanished.
Eight UNSC ships dropped from Slipstream space into black interstellar vacuum and there was a fireworks show of blue Cherenkov radiation and spiraling subatomic particle decays.
Commander Lash used this to his advantage.
"Set new course to port, perpendicular to fleet attack vector," he ordered Lieutenant Durruno.
"Aye, sir." Under the red glow of the bridge's battle lighting, his officers looked more alive now… and more scared.
The stealthed Dusk moved away from the destroyers, carrier, and cruiser of Admiral Patterson's battle group.
Lash wasn't running away—a sentiment he found himself repeating ever since he had witnessed the events at the Halo ring.
He had volunteered the Dusk to go back and scout the planet on a second recon mission. But the Admiral had told him there was no time. He was going to "catch those Covenant bastards
with their pants down" and strike while they were near the planet's gravity well.
With the odds in his favor it was a sound tactic. Still, it bothered Lash that the Admiral committed so many lives without a complete picture.
"Move us into an elliptical orbit around the dark side of Onyx," Lash ordered. "Set apogee to fifty thousand kilometers. Ahead one-third power."
"New course set, sir." Lieutenant Durruno turned to face him. Looking pained, she opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and then quickly said, "I beg your pardon, Commander. I thought we had orders to remain clear of the combat."
"We will," Lash said, "but we're going to finish that planetary scan." He moved to the NAV
station and set one hand on Bethany's shoulder. "Just take us in nice and easy."
Her eyes locked forward on her screens. "Yes, sir."
To Lieutenant Yang he said, "Monitor the engine thermals and push us past one-third
power… right up to the dark-line limit."
Yang swallowed, and then replied, "Aye aye. Commander."
Lash danced a fine line. He wanted speed and invisibility.
"Action on-screen!" Lieutenant Commander Waters announced.
On the central viewer flashes appeared in the dark. Admiral Patterson had launched his
alpha strike.
"Magnification forty," Lash ordered.
The two Covenant destroyers snapped on center screen. Scattered Archer missiles detonated harmlessly on their shields. The ships turned out of orbital alignments to face their enemy, and in doing so, closed ranks.
Three white spheres popped behind the vessels—expanded and enveloped the now-clustered enemy destroyers. Jets of supercharged ions funneled downward into the planet's magneto-sphere.
"Perfect placement of the nukes," Yang murmured, glancing between the viewscreen and his instruments. "Maximum destruction and radiation trapped by the planet so the fleet can move in."
"… And finish them off." Waters rubbed his hands together in unconscious anticipation.
The fireballs cooled to red and a single sleek silhouette emerged: one of the Covenant destroyers had survived. Plasma charges launched toward the center of the UNSC battle group—directly at Admiral Patterson's flagship carrier, the Stalingrad.
The prows of the UNSC ships flared as their magnetic accelerator cannons fired.
Lines of flame and superheated slugs crossed the space between the two forces.
The UNSC destroyer Glasgow Kiss accelerated in front of the fleet; the narrow craft turned sideways, placing itself between the incoming plasma and the Stalingrad. A dozen escape pods popped from her hull as the ship caught three of the four lances of fire. The hull heated for an instant, and then shattered into fragments.
"Track those pods," Lash ordered Lieutenant Yang.
"Aye, sir."
On-screen, the Stalingrad took a direct hit on her port side. Plasma etched through the meters of titanium-A armor plating like a blowtorch through rice paper, and her center amidships decks vented.
The UNSC fleet MAC rounds impacted on the Covenant destroyer. The slugs battered through the ship's reconstituted shields, and then through the hull, knocking it back so violentl
y it tumbled out of control into the planet's atmosphere, leaving a trail of turbulence and fire.
Its engines flared and accelerated into an extremely low orbit—away from the fleet.
"Cowards," Waters muttered.
"I wonder," Lash replied. "We've survived five UNSC-Covenant engagements." He stared into deep space, remembering the carnage, and that the UNSC had only won one of those battles. "The Covenant do not simply run away. Lieutenant Commander. They might disengage to regroup, but when outgunned and outnumbered… they go down swinging."
There was only one conceivable reason this lone Covenant destroyer would turn tail.
Lash told Lieutenant Durruno, "We're going bright. Increase speed to flank. Hold your
course."
"Sir… ?" She leaned over her controls. "Aye, sir."
Lash keyed SHIPCOM to Engineering. "Lieutenant Commander Cho, drain the Slipspace
capacitors and route the power to engines. I want them one hundred thirty percent hot." What had felt like victory on the bridge a moment ago faded and Lash's officer again
appeared wary and weary.
There was silence over the SHIPCOM and then Cho replied, "Routing power now."
The Dusk was out in the open, and Lash was violating the first rule of any prowler
captain: stay hidden.
But every instinct he had screamed that the Covenant wouldn't be this easy to defeat, and that they'd overlooked something of vital importance.
Admiral Patterson's seven ships chased after the single Covenant vessel. They vanished
as the Dusk arced around the planet.
Lash returned to the captain's chair and uneasily settled into it.
Waters stood next to him and whispered, "Tell me you know what you're doing, Richard."
Lash leaned forward and said nothing.
"Coming up on the dark side of Onyx in fifteen seconds," Lieutenant Yang said. "Ten… five… three, two, one."
The planet's nighttime face appeared on every viewscreen, dark save the glimmering clouds on the edge of twilight.
"Hot spot!" Yang shouted. "On the horizon: twenty-seven degrees north, one hundred eighteen east. Recalibrating thermals to cut though atmospheric distortion."
On the main viewscreen a wavering image resolved into twenty Covenant warships— climbing at flank speed through the atmosphere—on an intercept vector toward Admiral Patterson's fleet.
Lash jumped to his feet. "Cut engine power to one-third," he said. "Reenable stealth protocols. Come to new bearing: polar orbit. Get me a clear sight line to the Stalingrad."
"New heading, aye," Lieutenant Durruno said, her voice straining as she calculated the orbit. "Brace for correction burn at one-third power."
The Dusk pitched and tilted into a polar alignment. Engines rumbled and the prowler arced up toward the ice caps of Onyx.
"Zenith in twenty-three seconds," Durruno said.
Lash tuned to Lieutenant Commander Waters. "Action report."
Waters's gaze was already locked onto his display. "Nothing. Covenant fleet is ignoring us."
Lash should have been relieved; they could have destroyed the Dusk with a few laser shots. Going dark was the right thing to do. But despite his years of training in evading the enemy, Lash wished the Covenant had turned. It might have given Patterson a few extra seconds to see what was coming.
He waited fifteen seconds—the most agonizing quarter minute of his life—watching the clouds, landmasses, and oceans of Onyx pass under his ship.
The Dusk finally crested the pole and the stars—as well as Admiral Patterson's fleet— reappeared on the forward screen.
Only a hundred kilometers apart the UNSC vessels fired all magnetic accelerator cannons and launched a volley of Archer missiles at the Covenant ships racing toward them. The meteoric rounds blazed through the atmosphere leaving smoking scars.
Lasers flashed from the Covenant ships destroying incoming missiles, but they couldn't stop the point-blank-fired MAC slugs.
Seven MAC rounds struck the two lead destroyers in the Covenant line, shattered their shields, dented the armor, and pounded through hulls, crippling the vessels so they aborted their attack run as they were caught in the planet's gravity pull. One ship's engines flared, overloading as its captain attempted a survivable landing. One lone destroyer, however, spun in orbit, its forward momentum neutralized.
A victory. Lash knew it would be short-lived.
The enemy outnumbered them almost three to one with superior weapons and defensive shields. And the proximity of a gravity well meant Patterson was backed into a corner. It would be a slaughter.
Plasma erupted from the Covenant fleet that looked like a solar flare as it boiled through the vacuum of space toward the UNSC ships.
Patterson was no fool. He didn't attempt to evade at this range. Instead the engines of his ships heated and they angled into a lower orbit—accelerating into the attack.
This would do nothing to stop guided plasma, but they'd emerge going much faster, possibly fast enough to avoid a second attack.
The plasma tracked the UNSC ships as they dove. A split second before it impacted, energy projectors lit on the Covenant ships and dazzling beams of pure white radiation illuminated Patterson's ships—so bright, the scene froze for an instant, burned in Lash's retinas.
Explosions and showers of molten titanium filled the view-screens and rapidly expanded into a cloud of sparks and smoke and the tumbling cracked husks of UNSC ships.
Miraculously five human warships rocketed from the center of this destruction, streaming fire and venting atmosphere— thundering into the heart of the Covenant fleet.
A UNSC destroyer, Iwo fima, grazed a Covenant carrier three times its size, deflected off its shields, and careened into two other Covenant destoyers. The UNSC vessel erupted from inside, reactor overload and single nuclear warhead detonated in an act of self-destruction. The fireball enveloped eight nearby enemy ships… of which six survived behind their shimmering energy shields.
The Covenant fleet was in disarray, slowed and paused to regroup.
Patterson's ships continued to accelerate and arc around to the far side of Onyx.
They had survived… at least for one more orbital pass.
"Additional contacts," Yang said. He half stood from his seat and hovered over the sensor board. "Rapidly ascending from the planet's surface. Intercept course for the Covenant fleet."
Lash's heart sank into his stomach. "Reinforcements," he said.
Yang was silent, studying his display, and then he said, "No, sir. Look, on your screen."
Lash tuned the tiny captain's chair display toward him and examined a ship silhouette. The computer extrapolated a rough three-dimensional model of three boons, and a sphere with no connecting structures.
"They're three meters stem to stern," Yang said. "Passive radar is picking up thousands of them."
The main viewscreen snapped to a medium-orbital vantage and Lash watched as a cloud of the tiny craft coalesced into three octahedral shapes.
The Covenant ships turned toward this new threat, abandoning their pursuit of Admiral Patterson's battle group. Lateral lines heated and plasma barrages arced toward the approaching alien formations.
Fire rained upon the leading eight-sided construction and an energy shield coalesced that looked like gold-dappled water. The plasma hesitated there as if caught in a magnetic field. It heated
to yellow-, white-hot, and then tinged blue and ultraviolet. The plasma melted though the shield, and then passed harmlessly inside the formation.
"Plasma capture?" Waters whispered in awe. "That's a hell of a trick."
The spheres within the alien formation glowed, and from each, scintillating beams shot through the atmosphere toward the Covenant ships comprising the leading edge of their fleet.
A hundred energy beams penetrated Covenant shields and sliced through their hulls. The superheated plasma inside the alien formation then streamed along the beams, co
iling and writhing snakelike, and painted the damaged Covenant ships, vaporizing hulls, melting decks and superstructures like they were plastic film.
Three Covenant destroyers detonated under this combined fire.
The plasma dissipated throughout the upper atmosphere, filling the near vacuum with a fading purple haze.
The surviving Covenant ships struggled to accelerate out of the gravity well.
The other alien ships, however, were faster and gained on them.
Two Covenant vessels spun about and fired their energy projectors and lasers at the lead alien formation.
The octahedral's shields crackled with static and dissipated. The tiny craft within the formation bloomed into fireballs.
The remaining two alien formations fired upon this Covenant rear guard—energy beams cut their shields and blasted them to atoms.
The Covenant ploy, however, had worked.
The balance of their fleet had escaped the gravity of Onyx and outdistanced their persuaders.
Lash's mind reeled. Who were these new aliens? Or was this a weapon captured and controlled by the Spartans sent ahead of them?
The Covenant's tactics also confused Lash. They hadn't used a Slipspace jump— something he was certain they would have done to escape rather than sacrifice two ships.
Suddenly, everything in this war had changed. Commander Lash wasn't sure if it was for the better, or for the worse.
"Break orbit… dead slow," Lash whispered. "Move us to Lagrange-Three. Lieutenant Yang, continuous check on our stealth profile. Durruno, keep on the passive radar and watch for escape pods."
"What the hell are they?" Waters asked, staring at the viewscreen.
The octahedral formations drifted apart and the drones spread out in the upper atmosphere.
Lash shook his head.
"Transmission on the UNSC E-Band, sir," Yang said, straining to listen into his earbud. "From the planet surface. Someone is broadcasting in the open."
"To the UNSC forces in orbit over the planet designated XF-063, this is the Artificial Intelligence Endless Summer, MIL AI ID 4279. If you want to survive the next three minutes, answer this hail."
Lash and Waters exchanged startled looks.
"Message repeats, sir," Yang said. "Encoded scheme in the carrier wave indicates a reply via encryption protocol JERICHO."