Halo: Ghosts of Onyx (36 page)

The line, however, between sane and not was becoming increasingly blurred in this system.

Lash settled in the captain's chair. "Lieutenant Yang? Status?"

"As dark as midnight under a rock, sir."

Lash nodded, pleased at Yang's hyperbole. A little humor was a good sign. "Lieutenant Durruno, move us to lunar Lagrange-Four, one-quarter full. Tell Lieutenant Commander Cho to trickle-charge our Slipspace capacitors."

"Aye, sir." She tapped in the commands, cursed, and then backspaced and retyped them correctly.

Durruno needed sleep. They all did. But he'd keep her in play a little longer. There was no one to replace her, and this would be over, one way or the other, very soon.

"Covenant fleet on-screen," Lash ordered Waters. "Rescan and give me a full spectral analysis."

"All sensors on target," Waters replied.

Rainbows played over the central viewscreen, building composite images from radiation far-infrared to soft gamma, and fourteen Covenant ships resolved, clustered together in a spherical formation three hundred thousand kilometers distant.

To Lash they looked like hungry sharks, ready to pounce on a few sardines.

Their spectral analysis, however, painted a different picture. Thermal blooms and radiation leaks spewed in helical showers from the vessels. They'd been damaged by Admiral Patterson's alpha strike and the captured plasma redirected by the alien drones.

The enemy was sitting there, making repairs, in all likelihood frothing from their split

mouths to get back in the fight and go another round with the UNSC battle group.

Patterson, however, had another plan: hit them first. Hard.

"Activity from Onyx on the E-Band?" Lash asked Yang.

"No, sir. Not a flicker since that ONI AI took care of the alien drones."

Lash wondered how the AI and Spartans on the planet had

neutralized the alien fleet. Had they recovered some new super-weapon? However they

did it, he promised he'd personally shake every one of their hands. "Continue to monitor all UNSC bands," he told Yang. "Those Spartans might need a lift."

"Action on-screen," Waters announced. The camera snapped aft and centered on the silver moon.

In the twilight regions on either side of the moon, magnetic accelerator cannons flared, briefly illuminating the now-split UNSC battle group in high orbit. Slugs of steel and tungsten rocketed into space, curving slightly from the gravitational distortion—streaking toward the Covenant ships.

The Covenant ships broke formation.

One MAC slug cleanly missed.

Three hit.

The targeted ships lit as their shields absorbed the massive kinetic energy. They

careened backward… slowed, and stopped, undamaged from the single MAC strikes.

Covenant ships turned and accelerated toward the moon.

The MAC salvo had done precisely what Admiral Patterson had hoped: tweaked their

collective noses, and gotten them good and mad.

The UNSC battle group maneuvered behind the moon, denying the enemy a clean line of fire.

"Set EMP dampers," Lash said, trying to control his rising adrenaline. "Shut down primary and secondary computers."

"Aye, sir," Durruno and Yang said together. They scrambled to isolate the
Dusk's
delicate electronics from the impending nuclear blasts.

The Covenant battle group divided—each half moving to opposite sides of the moon, taking flanking positions where they could blast the hiding human ships into oblivion with

their plasma.

What they couldn't see on their approach vector, however,

was Admiral Patterson's fleet backing directly away from the moon.

"Enemy vessels approaching distal radius of alpha and beta minefields," Durruno

reported.

"Arm alpha and beta fields," Lash whispered.

Yang fidgeted and said, "Command sent, sir… and confirmation received across the

board."

That Covenant fleet was about to find out why UNSC battle groups always had a prowler assigned to their ranks. They were the sneak thieves and spies of the UNSC fleet, capable of behind-enemy-lines recon, rescue missions… and under the right conditions, the pinpoint placement of a nuclear minefield.

"Proximal enemy group now in the center of alpha field," Durruno announced. Her hands shook. "Distal group crossing the terminal line of beta field."

"Remove safety interlocks," Lash said.

Yang nodded and typed in the code words that made the sixteen nukes hot.

The red "inferno" button on Lash's command console lit. He set his thumb next to it, and it beeped, verifying his biometric signature. He then flipped up the clear protective cover, inserted the master key in the adjacent slot, and turned it.

"Proximal group approaching terminal plane," Durruno said. "Beta group of ships now centered in distal field."

"Here goes nothing," Lash whispered. "Here's goes everything."

He pressed the button, and it made a satisfying
dick.

On either side of the moon, seven tiny suns flashed into existence, ballooned, and enveloped the Covenant battle groups.

The collective nuclear fireballs cooled to yellow and then dull red. Even with vacuum-enhanced loads, nuclear warheads in space did not persist a fraction as long as aerial or ground bursts.

The destructive clouds thinned to translucency and a glittering

haze of cooling metal formed an expanding halo around the planetoid.

Inside this silver confetti, however, larger shimmering patches resolved: the energy shields of four surviving Covenant destroyers.

Admiral Patterson moved his fleet toward the moon and opened fire. MAC rounds tore through space and behind them Archer missiles traced lacy paths of exhaust through the vacuum.

Two Covenant ships sluggishly changed course and intercepted the MAC slugs. Their distressed shields shattered and their hulls cratered inward. Fire fountained as their plasma lines vented. Flocks of Archer missiles dove into the injured ships and explosions punctuated armor and propulsion grids.

The crippled ships turned toward the moon, and in slow motion tumbled toward their surface.

The UNSC battle group continued their charge. Four warships against the last two wounded Covenant destroyers… not entirely impossible odds.

Lash imagined that a hundred years in the future historians might look back at this moment and declare it the turning point of humanity's struggle. That they had fought and defeated the Covenant at Onyx, won the prize of alien technology, and gone on—not only to survive, but to win their long struggle.

He had secretly believed that they could not win this war for so long. Lash barely recognized the emotion that coursed though him now: hope.

"Covenant ships on new heading," Lieutenant Durruno said. She chewed on her lower lip and a tiny drop of blood appeared. "Intercept course, sir."

On-screen the last two enemy destroyers accelerated toward the moon. An extrapolated trajectory appeared: a slingshot orbit that would bring them around and back, and straight toward the
Dusk.

"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 systems." To Lieutenant Durruno he said, "Use docking jets to present minimal aspect to the incoming vessels 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 moon tilted as they realigned.

The Covenant destroyer pair emerged from the far side of the moon… and grew larger

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 enemy seen them and were coming for revenge?

"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 quantum fluctuations from the

Covenant repulsor engines.

The
Dusk
tumbled and spun.

The viewscreen cleared, revealing a rotating 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 cameras on the
Stalingrad."

The spinning stars on the viewscreens slowed and then centered on the four UNSC

warships as they rounded the moon at flank speed, chasing the 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 himself out of the captain's chair
. Yang 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 normal dimensions and Cherenkov radiation dazzled the night—as dozens of Covenant destroyers, carriers, and cruisers appeared, swarms of them formed a phalanx between the UNSC battle group and the two surviving enemy vessels.

"Counting thirty-two Covenant ships," Yang croaked.

Lieutenant Durruno froze at her station, eyes wide with terror.

The Covenant armada fired.

Spotlight energy projectors flashed, and pure white light cleaved the dark. The UNSC

ships' titanium armor boiled and vaporized, mixed with venting oxygen, and photonic pressure blasted the flames into wavering plumes.

Archer missiles and magnetic accelerator cannons fired in a desperate counterstrike. The missiles detonated a fraction of

a second along their flight paths, high explosives heated to the flashpoint. Four MAC slugs rocketed though the energy projector cones, fireballs of liquefied metal. Three missed. One hit, spattering uselessly on Covenant shields.

Thirty-two lines of plasma heated, detached, and arced toward the human fleet, striking critically damaged vessels, blasting craters, ripping through inner decks, until the superstructures buckled and inner atmospheres decompressed in large bursting 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 from the enemy ships as they destroyed escape pods.

"Incoming debris," Waters warned.

"We need to do
something,"
Lieutenant Durruno whispered.

What had been a victorious battle group chasing down a doomed enemy was now

tumbling, half-melted prows and glowing reactor cores. A floating graveyard. Ghosts.

The hope that Commandeer Richard Lash had felt was forever gone.

"Do nothing," Lash told them.

"If anything hits us, sir," Waters said, "assuming we survive the impact, the deflection

angles will give away our position."

"This close to so many vessels," Lash replied, "so would maneuvering." 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 wristwatch and made sure it was wound tight.

The Covenant armada moved closer, blotted out the starlight, 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 motioned back to Fred and Ash, Linda and Mark to close the gap.

Two by two they moved up the corridor, gliding from 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 liquid mercury rolling over velvet, smooth and silent.

The differences between their two generations had been left behind. Teams Blue and Saber worked as a single unit, family who had pulled together in a crisis.

Kurt watched his motion tracker, IFF tags overlaid on the grid. 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.