“There—” Dr. Halsey pointed to a blip on the screen. “It’s there again.”
Captain Wallace stroked his dark beard, thinking, then said, “That puts our ghost at eighty millionkilometers. Even if it were a ship, it would take a full hour to get within weapons range. And besides—”He waved at the screen. “—it’s gone again.”
“May I suggest that we go to battle stations, Captain,” Dr. Halsey told him.
“I don’t see the point,” he said condescendingly; the Captain was clearly less than pleased about havinga civilian on his bridge.
“We haven’t let this be widely known,” she said, “but when the aliens were first detected at Harvest,they appeared at extreme range . . . and then they were suddenly much closer.”
“An intrasystem jump?” John asked.
Dr. Halsey smiled at him. “Correctly surmised, Spartan.”
“That’s not possible,” Captain Wallace remarked. “Slipstream space can’t be navigated that accurately.”
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“You meanwe cannot navigate with that kind of accuracy,” she said.
The Captain clenched and unclenched his jaw. He clicked the intercom. “General quarters: all hands tobattle stations. Seal bulkheads. I repeat: all hands, battle stations. This is not a drill. Reactors to ninetypercent. Come about to course one two five.”
The bridge lights darkened to a red hue. The deck rumbled beneath John’s boots and the entire ship tiltedas it changed heading. Pressure doors slammed shut and sealed John on the bridge.
TheCommonwealth stabilized on her new heading, and Dr. Halsey crossed her arms. She leaned overand whispered to John, “We’ll be using theCommonwealth ’s dropship to go to the testing facility on ChiCeti Four. We have to get to Project MJOLNIR.” She turned back and watched the radar screen.“Beforethey do. So get the others ready.”
“Yes, ma’am.” John keyed the intercom. “Sam, muster the squad in Bay Alpha. I want that Pelicanloaded and ready for drop in fifteen minutes.”
“We’ll have it done in ten,”Sam replied. “Faster if those Longsword interceptor pilots get out of ourway.”
John would have given anything to be belowdecks with the others. He felt as if he were being left behind.
The radar screen flashed with blobs of eerie green light . . . almost as if the space aroundtheCommonwealth were boiling.
The collision alarm sounded.
“Brace for impact!” Captain Wallace said. He laced his arm around the brass railing.
John grabbed an emergency handhold on the wall.
Something appeared three thousand kilometers off theCommonwealth ’s prow. It was a sleek oval with asingle seam running along its lateral edge from stem to stern. Tiny lights winked on and off along itshull. A faint purple-tinged glow emitted from the tail. The ship was only a third the size oftheCommonwealth .
“A Covenant ship,” Dr. Halsey said, and she involuntarily backed away from the view screens.
Captain Wallace scowled. “COM officer: send a signal to Chi Ceti—see if they can send us somereinforcements.”
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“Aye, sir.”
Blue flashes flickered along the hull of the alien ship—so bright that even filtered through the externalcamera, they still made John’s eyes water.
The outer hull of theCommonwealth sizzled and popped. Three screens filled with static.
“Pulse lasers!” the lieutenant at the ops station screamed. “Communication dish destroyed. Armor insections three and four at twenty-five percent. Hull breach in section three. Sealing now.” TheLieutenant swiveled in his seat, sweat beaded on his forehead. “Ship AI core memory overloaded,” hesaid.
With the AI offline, the ship could still fire weapons and navigate through Slipstream space, but Johnknew it would take more time to make jump calculations.
“Come to heading zero three zero, declination one eight zero,” Caption Wallace ordered. “Arm Archermissile pods A through F. And give me a firing solution.”
“Aye aye,” the navigation and weapons officers said. “A through F pods armed.” They furiously tappedaway on their keypads. Seconds ticked by. “Firing solution ready, sir.”
“Fire.”
“Pods A through F firing!”
TheCommonwealth had twenty-six pods, each loaded with thirty Archer high-explosive missiles. Onscreen, pods A through F opened, and launched—180 plumes of rocket exhaust that traced a path fromtheCommonwealth to the alien ship.
The enemy changed course, rotated so that the top of the ship faced the incoming missiles. It then movedstraight up at an alarming speed.
The Archer missiles altered their trajectory to track the ship, but half their number streaked past thetarget, clean misses.
The others impacted. Fire covered the skin of the alien ship.
“Good work, Lieutenant,” Captain Wallace said, and he clapped the young officer on the shoulder.
Dr. Halsey frowned and stared at the screen. “No,” she whispered. “Wait.”
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The fire flared, then dimmed. The skin of the alien ship rippled like heat wavering off a hot road in thesummer. It fluttered with a metallic silver sheen, then brilliant white—and the fire faded, revealing theship beneath.
It was completely undamaged.
“Energy shields,” Dr. Halsey muttered. She tapped her lower lip, thinking. “Even ships this small haveenergy shielding.”
“Lieutenant,” the Captain barked at the nav officer. “Cut main engines and fire maneuvering thrusters.Rotate and track so that we’re pointing at that thing.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
The distant rumbling of theCommonwealth ’s main engines dimmed and stopped and she turned about.Her inertia kept the ship speeding toward the testing facility—now flying backward.
“What are you doing, Captain?” Dr. Halsey asked.
“Arm the MAC,” Captain Wallace told the weapons officer. “A heavy round.”
John understood: Turning your back to an enemy only gave them an advantage.
The MAC—Magnetic Accelerator Cannon—was theCommonwealth ’s main weapon. It fired a super-dense ferric tungsten shell. The tremendous mass and velocity of the projectile obliterated most ships onimpact. Unlike the Archer missiles, a MAC round was an unguided projectile; the firing solution had tobe perfect in order to hit the target—not an easy thing to do when both ships were moving rapidly.
“MAC capacitors charging,” the weapons officer announced.
The Covenant ship turned its side toward theCommonwealth .
“Yes,” the Captain murmured. “Give me a bigger target.”
Pinpoints of blue light glowed and then flared along the alien hull.
The tactical view screens on the nose of theCommonwealth went dead.
John heard sizzling overhead—then the muffled thumps of explosive decompressions.
“More pulse laser hits,” the ops officer reported. “Armor in section three through seven down to four
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centimeters. Navigation dish destroyed. Hull breaches on decks two, five, and nine. We have a leak inthe port fuel tanks.” The Lieutenant’s hand shakily danced over the controls. “Pumping fuel to starboardreverse tanks. Sealing sections.”
John shifted on his feet. He had to move. Act. Standing here—unable to get to his squad, not doinganything—was counter to every fiber of his being.
“MAC at one hundred percent,” the weapons officer shouted. “Ready to fire!”
“Fire!” Captain Wallace ordered.
The lights on the bridge dimmed and theCommonwealth shuddered. The MAC bolt launched throughspace—a red-hot metal slug moving at thirty thousand meters per second.
The Covenant ship’s engines flared to life and the ship veered away—
—Too late. The heavy round closed and slammed into the target’s prow.
The Covenant ship reeled backward through space. Its energy shields shimmered and glowed lightning-bright . . . then flickered, dimmed, and went out.
The bridge crew let out a victory cheer.
Except Dr. Halsey. John watched the view screen as she adjusted the camera controls and zoomed in onthe Covenant ship.
The vessel’s erratic spinning slowed and it came to a stop. The ship’s nose was crumpled andatmosphere vented into vacuum. Tiny fires flickered inside. The ship slowly came about and startedback toward them—gaining speed.
“It should have been destroyed,” she whispered.
Tiny red blobs appeared on the hull of the Covenant ship. They glowed and intensified and driftedtogether, collecting along the lateral line of the craft.
Captain Wallace said, “Make ready another heavy round.”
“Aye aye,” the weapons officer said. “Charge at thirty percent. Firing solution online, sir.”
“No,” Dr. Halsey said. “Evasive maneuvers, Captain. Now!”
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“I won’t have my command second-guessed, ma’am.” The Captain turned to face her. “And with respect,Doctor , second-guessed by someone with no combat experience.” He stiffened and placed his handbehind his back. “I cannot have you removed from the bridge because the bulkheads are sealed . . . butanother outburst like that, Doctor, and Iwill have you gagged.”
John shot a quick glance to Dr. Halsey. Her face flushed—he couldn’t tell from shame or rage.
“MAC at fifty percent charge.”
The red light continued to collect along the lateral line of the Covenant ship until it was a solid band. Itbrightened.
“Eighty percent charge.”
“They’re turning, sir,” the nav officer announced. “She’s coming to starboard.”
“Ninety-five percent charge—one hundred,” the weapons officer announced.
“Send them to Hades, Lieutenant. Fire.”
The lights dimmed again. TheCommonwealth shuddered and a bolt of thunder and fire tore through theblackness.
The Covenant ship stood its ground. The bloodred light that had pooled on its lateral line burst forth—streaked toward theCommonwealth , passing the MAC round a mere kilometer away. The red lightglowed and pulsed almost as if it were liquid; its edges roiled and fluttered. It elongated into a teardropof ruby light five meters long.
“Evasive maneuvers,” Captain Wallace cried. “Emergency thrusters to port!”
TheCommonwealth slowly moved out of the trajectory path of the Covenant’s energy weapon.
The MAC round struck the Covenant vessel amidships. Its shield shimmered and bubbled . . . thendisappeared. The MAC round punched through the craft and sent it spinning out of control.
The inbound ball of light moved, too. It started tracking the Commonwealth.
“Engines—full power astern,” the Captain ordered. TheCommonwealth rumbled and slowed.
The light should have sped past them; instead, it sharply arced and struck her port amidships.
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The air filled with a popping and sizzling. TheCommonwealth listed to starboard, then rolled completelyover and continued to tumble.
“Stabilize,” the Captain cried. “Starboard thrusters.”
“Fire reported in sections one through twenty,” the ops officer said, panic creeping into his voice.“Decks two through seven in section one . . . have melted, sir. They’re gone.”
It grew noticeably hotter on the bridge. Sweat beaded on John’s back and trickled down his spine. Hehad never felt so helpless. Were his teammates below decks alive or dead?
“All port armor destroyed. Decks two through five in sections three, four, and five, are now out ofcontact, sir. It’s burning through us!”
Captain Wallace stood without saying a word. He stared at their one remaining view screen.
Dr. Halsey stepped forward. “Respectfully, Captain, I suggest that you alert the crew to get on respiratorpacks. Give them thirty seconds then vent the atmosphere on all decks, except the bridge.”
The COM officer looked to the Captain.
“Do it,” the Captain said. “Sound the alert.”
“Deck thirteen destroyed,” the ops officer announced. “Fire is getting close the reactor. Hull structurestarting to buckle.”
“Vent atmosphere now,” Captain Wallance ordered.
“Aye aye,” the ops officer replied.
There was the sound of thumping through the hull . . . then nothing.
“Fire is dying out,” the ops officer said. “Hull temperature cooling—stabilizing.”
“What the hell did they hit us with?” Captain Wallace demanded.
“Plasma,” Dr. Halsey replied. “But not any plasma we know . . . they can actually guide its trajectorythrough space, without any detectable mechanism. Amazing.”
“Captain,” the navigator said. “Alien ship is pursuing.”
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The Covenant vessel—a red-rimmed hole punched through its center—turned and started towardtheCommonwealth .
“How . . . ?” Captain Wallace said unbelievingly. He quickly regained his wits. “Ready another MACheavy round.”
The weapons officer slowly said, “MAC system destroyed, Captain.”
“We’re sitting ducks, then,” the Captain murmured.
Dr. Halsey leaned against the brass railing. “Not quite. TheCommonwealth carries three nuclear missiles,correct, Captain?”
“A detonation this close would destroy us as well.”
She frowned and cupped her hand to her chin, thinking.
“Excuse me, sir,” John said. “The alien’s tactics thus far have been unnecessarily vicious—like those ofan animal. They didn’t have to take that second MAC round while they fired at us. But they wanted toposition themselves to fire. In my opinion sir, they would stop and engageanything that challengedthem.”
The Captain looked to Dr. Halsey.
She shrugged and then nodded. “The Longsword interceptors?”
Captain Wallace turned his back to them and covered his face with his one hand. He sighed, nodded, andclicked on the intercom.
“Longsword Squadron Delta, this is the Captain. Get your ships into the black, boys, and engage theenemy ship. I need you to need to buy us some time.”
“Roger that, sir. We’re ready to launch. On our way.”
“Turn us around,” the Captain told the nav officer. “Give me best speed on a vector toward Chi CetiFour orbit.”
“Coolant leaks in the reactor, sir,” the ops officer said. “We can push the engines to thirty percent. Nomore.”
“Give me fifty percent,” he said. He turned to the weapons officer. “Arm one of our Shiva warheads. Set
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proximity fuse to one hundred meters.”
“Yes, sir.”
TheCommonwealth spun about. John felt the change in his stomach and he tightened his grip on therailing. The spinning slowed, stopped, then the ship accelerated.
“Reactor red-lining,” the ops officer reported. “Meltdown in twenty-five seconds.”
Over the speakers, there was a crackle, a hiss of static, then: “Longsword interceptors engaging theenemy, sir.”
