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"Get primary computers online," Lash ordered "Cho, what's our Slipspace status?"

Over the COM Cho's voice crackled with static "Capacitors at eighty percent and draining I'll need full engine power for two more minutes"

"Understood," Lash replied Two minutes could be forever "Continue dark protocols," he ordered Yang "Lock down all external syste jets to presentvessels while they're on the blind side"

"Aye, sir" She activated the thrusters and tapped a joystick to manually reposition the ship

On-screen the ned

The Covenant destroyer pair eer on-screen Sleek and dangerous as hell, their gray-blue hulls bore down on the Dusk

"Replot their course," Lash told Lieutenant Commander Waters

Waters stood over his station, checked and rechecked his numbers "Not an intercept course," he whispered, "… but dammed close"

A coincidence? Or had the enee?

"Stay dark," Lash ordered

There was little else they could do

The destroyers' smooth blue curves filled their viewscreens

Lash felt the butterflies-in-the-stomach sensation of quantuines

The Dusk tu field of untwin-kling stars

"Thirty-one meters off the port bow," Waters breathed

"Repulsor wake has set us adrift off the Lagrange point, sir," Lieutenant Durruno said

"Let us drift, Lieutenant," Lash said "Fix ca stars on the viewscreens slowed and then centered on the four UNSC warships as they rounded thethe two Covenant destroyers

"They're lining up for a shot," Waters said "They've got six MAC slugs left That should be enough"

"Energy spike!" Yang shouted, "Not from our ships Not from the Covenant vessels, either, sir"

"Location?" Lash asked, and he pushed hi shook his head, opened his mouth, but no words came out

Waters went to the SENSOR-OPS station and looked "Power profile indicative of a Slipspace field," he said "A big one Deconvoluting signature Location is"--his features went slack-- "everywhere"

The space around the UNSC fleet rippled and blue lines appeared, connected, and intertwined like waves of sapphire water Slipspace fields ruptured norht--as dozens of Covenant destroyers, carriers, and cruisers appeared, swarroup and the two surviving ene croaked

Lieutenant Durruno froze at her station, eyes ith terror

The Covenant ary projectors flashed, and pure white light cleaved the dark The UNSC ships' titaniuen, and photonic pressure blasted the flanetic accelerator cannons fired in a desperate counterstrike

The ht paths, high explosives heated to the flashpoint Four MAC slugs rocketed though the energy projector cones, fireballs of liquefieduselessly on Covenant shields

Thirty-two lines of plasma heated, detached, and arced toward the hu craters, ripping through inner decks, until the superstructures buckled and inner at bubbles upon the now-molten hulls

The Covenant armada ceased fire and slowly advanced

Admiral Patterson's ships had been reduced to a field of debris in a matter of seconds

Pinpoint lasers fired fro debris," Waters warned

"We need to do so," Lieutenant Durruno whispered

What had been a victorious battle group chasing down a doo reactor cores A floating graveyard Ghosts

The hope that Co," Lash told the we survive the iive away our position"

"This close to so " He went to Lieutenant Durruno at the NAV station "Hang tight," he told her Her eyes shone with tears, but she nodded, and gripped the edges of her seat

Lash checked his atch and ht

The Covenant arht, and covered the Dusk with shadow

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

2115 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDARS \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM \ UNDETERMINED LOCATION IN THE FORERUNNER CONSTRUCT KNOWN AS ONYX

Kurt ap

Two by two theyfrom pillar to pillar, the SPARTAN-IIIs on point barely visible in their armor, part shadow, part striped onyx patterns The SPARTAN-IIs closed behind like liquidover velvet, senerations had been left behind Teale unit, faether in a crisis

Kurt watched his rid The Spartans had the best positions possible--set along each of the pillars that stretched up to the ten-meter-tall corridor Kurt, Tom, and Lucy had point

Olivia was on recon, her IFF disabled, so Kurt wasn't certain of her precise location in the roo Forerunner symbols of jade, turquoise, and lapis

Dr Halsey surle in the Forerunners' long-lost past

All Kurt kneas it was a kill zone, with scant cover and long sight lines A good place to get aht three tinal

Kurt motioned for Tom and Lucy to follow him, and they slinked into the room ahead

Shadows shrouded rows of squat i clustered in the center

These pods were semitranslucent, and within each lay a person, their features obscured