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The alien carrier listed and crashed into the asteroid thePillar of Autumn had just narrowly avoided. Itstuck there, hull broken and cracked. Columns of fire blossomed from the shattered vessel.
Captain Keyes sighed. A victory.
The Spartans, however, would not be taking that ship into Covenant space. It wasn’t going anywhere.
“Cortana, mark the location of the destroyed ship and the asteroid. We may have a chance to salvage herlater.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Ensign Lovell,” Captain Keyes said, “turn us around and give me best speed to rally point Zulu.”
Lovell tapped the thrusters and rotated thePillar of Autumn to relative space normal with Reach. Therumble of the engines shook the decks as the ship accelerated in-system.
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“ETA twenty minutes at best speed, sir.”
The battle for Reach could be over by the time he got there. Captain Keyes wished he could movethrough Slipspace for short, precision jumps like the Covenant. That carrier had materialized a kilometerbehind thePillar of Autumn . If he had that kind of accuracy, he could be at the rally point now—and beof some use. Any attempt to jump in-system, however, would be foolish at best. At worst, it would be afatal move. Jump targets varied by hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Theoretically, they couldreenter normal spaceinside Reach’s sun.
“Cortana, give me maximum magnification on the fore cameras.”
“Aye sir,” she said.
The view on the forward screen zoomed in—jumped and refocused on planet Reach.
Twenty thousand kilometers from the planet, a cluster of a hundred UNSC ships collected at rally pointZulu: destroyers, frigates, three cruisers, two carriers—and three refit and repair stations hovering overthem . . . waiting to be used as sacrificial shields.
“Fifty-two additional UNSC warships inbound to rally point Zulu,” Cortana reported.
“Shift focus to section four by four on-screen, Cortana. Show me those Covenant forces.”
The scene blinked and transferred to the approaching Covenant fleet. There were so many ships CaptainKeyes couldn’t estimate their numbers.
“How many?” he asked.
“I count three hundred fourteen Covenant ships, Captain,” Cortana replied.
Captain Keyes couldn’t tear his gaze away from the ships. The UNSC only won battles with theCovenant when they outnumbered the enemy forces three to one . . . not the other way around.
They had one advantage: the MAC orbital guns around Reach—the UNSC’s most powerful nonnuclearweapon. Some called them “Super” MAC guns or the “big stick.”
Their linear accelerator coils were larger than a UNSC cruiser. They propelled a three-thousand-tonprojectile at tremendous speed, and could reload within five seconds. They drew power directly from thefusion reactor complex planetside.
“Pull back the camera angle, Cortana. Let me see the entire battle area.”
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The Covenant ships accelerated toward Reach. The fleet at rally point Zulu fired their MAC guns andmissiles. The orbital Super MAC guns opened fire as well—twenty streaks of white hot metal burnedacross the night.