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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 ain 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 so of vital importance

Adle 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 hi, Richard"

Lash leaned forward and said nothing

"Co up on the dark side of Onyx in fifteen seconds," Lieutenant Yang said "Ten… five… three, two, one"

The planet's nightti clouds on the edge of twilight

"Hot spot!" Yang shouted "On the horizon: twenty-seven degrees north, one hundred eighteen east Recalibrating therh at i at flank speed through the atmosphere--on an intercept vector toward Adine power to one-third," he said "Reenable stealth protocols Coht 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 alignines rumbled and the prowler arced up toward the ice caps of Onyx

"Zenith in twenty-three seconds," Durruno said

Lash tuned to Lieutenant Coaze 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 eneiven Patterson a few extra seconds to see as co quarterthe 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 kilonetic accelerator cannons and launched a volley of Archertoward the s scars

Lasers flashed fro 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 ar 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 atte One lone destroyer, however, spun in orbit, its forward momentum neutralized

A victory Lash kneould be short-lived

The enemy outnumbered them almost three to one with superior weapons and defensive shields And the proxiravity well hter

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 atteines of his ships heated and they angled into a lower orbit--accelerating into the attack

This would do nothing to stop guided plash to avoid a second attack

The plasma tracked the UNSC ships as they dove A split second before it iy projectors lit on the Covenant ships and dazzling beams of pure white radiation illuht, 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 s cracked husks of UNSC ships

Miraculously five human warships rocketed fro at into the heart of the Covenant fleet

A UNSC destroyer, Iwo firazed a Covenant carrier three times its size, deflected off its shields, and careened into two other Covenant destoyers The UNSC vessel erupted frole nuclear warhead detonated in an act of self-destruction

The fireball enveloped eight nearby eney 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 onesaid 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 sto his display, and then he said, "No, sir Look, on your screen"

Lash tuned the tiny captain's chair display toward him and exah three-dimensionalstructures

"They're threeup thousands of thee 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 Adroup Lateral lines heated and plas alien forht-sided construction and an energy shield coalesced that looked like gold-dappled water The plasnetic field It heated to yellohite-hot, and then tinged blue and ultraviolet The plash 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 forh the ate of their fleet

A hundred energy beah their hulls

The superheated plas the beaed Covenant ships, vaporizing hulls,decks and superstructures like they were plastic film

Three Covenant destroyers detonated under this cohout the upper at purple haze

The surviving Covenant ships struggled to accelerate out of the gravity well