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She maneuvered the flagship toward the gas giant, Threshold. The incoming plasma might be disrupted by the planet's mag?netic field—if she dared get close enough.
Cortana diverted power from the foreshield to the aft por?tions, distorting the protective bubble around the flagship. She turned all seven plasma turrets aft and fired a pair of plasma tor?pedoes at the incoming salvo.
The plasma turrets warmed and belched superheated flame— but it dispersed into a dull red cloud only a few meters from the point of fire, thinned, and then dissolved.
She saw a subsystem linked to the weapons control: an ac?companying magnetic field multiplier. That was how the Cove?nant shaped and guided their charges of plasma. It acted as a sophisticated focusing lens. Something wasn't right, however— something had already been in this directory and had erased the software.
Cortana swore that when she caught this guerrilla Covenant AI, she'd erase it line by line.
Without understanding how the guiding magnetic fields worked, the plasma turrets were no more useful than a fireworks display.
The enemy Covenant plasma charges, however, were tight and burned like miniature suns; they overtook the flagship and splashed over its reinforced aft shields. They boiled against the silver energy until the shields dulled and winked out.
The plasma etched a portion of the aft hull away like hot water dissolving salt. Cortana sensed the dull thumps of atmospheric decompressions.
ERIC NYLUND
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She checked on the Chief. His signal was still on board, and his biomonitor indicated that he was still alive.
"Chief, are you there yet? I'm down to one last option."
There was a static-filled pause over the COM, and then the Master Chief whispered, "Almost."
"Be careful. Your armor is breached. You can no longer func?tion in a compromised atmosphere."
His acknowledgment light winked on.
Cortana pushed the Covenant reactors to overload and plotted a course around Threshold. She had to slip into the outer reaches of its atmosphere. The heat, ionization, and planet's magnetic field might protect them from the plasma.
The flagship rolled and dived into the thin tendrils of clouds. Bands of white ammonia and amber ammonium hydrosulfide clouds snaked in sinuous ribbons. A red-purple spot of phospho?rus compounds cycloned and lightning arced, illuminating an in?tervening layer of pale blue ice crystals.
But their ship no longer had shields. The friction heated the hull to three hundred degrees Celsius as she brushed against the upper reaches of Threshold.
On her aft cameras Cortana saw the trailing Covenant ships open fire. Their shots followed her like a pack of predator birds.
"Come and get me," she muttered.
She adjusted the attack angle of the flagship so it nosed up, which produced a slight amount of lift. She concentrated the building heat toward the ship's tail. A turbulent wake of super?heated air corkscrewed behind them.
"Cortana?" Polaski said. "We're approaching the viable edge of an exit orbit. You're getting too close to the planet."