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The Admiral frowned. "Cortana," he shouted. "Whatever you do, do not return—"
Too late. Cortana returned fire.
Columns of fire streaked from Ascendant Justice—streamers that twisted and helixed, then vanished and reappeared.
The bubble of tangled blue space containing Ascendant Jus?tice and the Covenant warships now contained at least forty bolts of superheated plasma circling in random directions and accel?erated to incalculable velocities.
Three spheres of roiling fire appeared in front of the nearest Covenant cruiser and splashed across its bow. The first boiled away its shimmering silver shield; the second and third melted the armor and alloy skin beneath. Atmosphere vented and spun the massive ship like a child's pinwheel.
"Hot damn," Sergeant Johnson crowed. "All we have to do is wait for those trigger-happy bastards to take themselves out. Look, they're firing again."
The Covenant weapons heated and squeezed out a second salvo of plasma. The guided bolts of fire veered off course, swarmed, disappeared, reappeared, and spun out of control though the local?ized Slipspace bubble.
"No, Sergeant," Dr. Halsey said, her voice turning cold. "We're all in the same mess."
"Cortana," the Master Chief said, "drop the launch bay blast door. Now!"
The three-meter-thick door overhead shuddered and slid down.
A streamer of plasma on a parallel trajectory flashed through the dark not half a kilometer from the Master Chief's face—so close that the external temperature rose twenty degrees even through the ship's shields.
Red fire illuminated Ascendant Justice's starboard shield as plasma splashed across them; the film separating the launch bay from the external vacuum rippled like a thousand broken mir?rors. Static crackled across the Master Chief's armor, and his shields resonated in sympathy.
216 HALO: FIRST STRIKE
As the blast door lowered, the Chief saw another fireball spill across their port side. Energy sprayed across the bow in a blood red borealis. Ascendant Justice's shields flickered and faded... but they held. Barely.
The launch bay door touched the deck and sealed with a sub?sonic thud.
"Blast door locked and secured," Cortana announced.
"Let's get this boat under way," Admiral Whitcomb barked. "While we still have a boat." He looked around and frowned. "Chief, lead the way to the bridge."
"Yes, sir." He marched to the passage that led deeper into the alien ship. His Spartans and the rest of the crew followed.
Admiral Whitcomb turned to Dr. Halsey. "Catherine, explain in layman's terms just what the hell is going on here. If we can see those cruisers and they can see us, why aren't our shots connecting?"
Ascendant Justice rolled to port, and explosions chained over?head. The artificial gravity fluttered, and the deck tilted. The crew stumbled, and Dr. Halsey fell to the deck.
"Turrets one and seven destroyed," Cortana announced.
Whitcomb helped Dr. Halsey up off her knees. She glanced nervously up and down the passage. "I'd guess the alien artifact we've brought with us into Slipspace has expanded the region. Physicists believe Slipstream space is a highly compressed ver?sion of normal space, layered over and under itself, like a ball of yarn. Now, imagine that our ball of yarn"—she interlaced her ringers—"is looped and knotted. These threads are not solid, however; plasma, light, and matter jump from one thread to an?other given the slightest quantum fluctuation."