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Blue Team jumped to their assigned stations.
Will edged the Sergeant aside and quickly tapped three but?tons. "COM patch established," he reported. "On viewscreen two."
The bridge of Ascendant Justice appeared on screen. Lieu?tenant Haverson and Admiral Whitcomb stood on the central raised dais, adjusting the holographic controls. Behind them, the wall displays showed Covenant ships closing on their position.
Admiral Whitcomb smiled. "Glad to see you made it safely aboard, son."
"Sir, that fleet will destroy you before you can fire a single salvo."
"I don't think so, Master Chief," he replied and tapped the holographic display. A slim blue crystalline shard appeared— an exact copy of the alien artifact they found on Reach. "I'm
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sending this image to every ship in the system and letting them know it's theirs for the taking ... if they dare to board this ship and face Earth's best warriors." He laughed. "I think that'll ap?peal to those Elites and their overinflated sense of honor."
John nodded. "Yes, sir. It will."
He looked at the countdown timer: 1:42.
The Covenant fleet turned and moved toward the incoming Ascendant Justice. A cloud of cruisers and carriers. Hundreds of them. Impossible odds.
"Fire turret four, Lieutenant," the Admiral ordered.
"Firing!" Haverson replied, his face set in grim determination.
A lance of plasma discharged, arced, and impacted upon the nose of the nearest carrier. The energy splashed over their shields and dissipated.
"Turret five, Lieutenant. Take them down."
"Firing five, sir," Haverson said.
A second plasma bolt followed the first. It blasted the carrier's weakened shields and melted armor and hull, exploding through the foredecks. The ship rolled and crashed into a cruiser that had come too close.
"Nice shooting, Lieutenant," the Admiral murmured.
The Covenant fleet responded with a blinding volley of laser fire. Pinpoints of energy concentrated on Ascendant Justice's aft decks, boiled armor off in thick layers—sheared through to the other side, severing its engines.
The Admiral smiled. "A sound tactical response. Good thing they don't know we're just using that slingshot around the moon and our inertia to do the rest of the job." He glanced at the dis?plays and the station growing larger on them. "Hang on, Lieu?tenant. Brace for impact."
Ascendant Justice drifted closer to the station.
It crashed into the central ring, crushing the structure, and continued forward, dimpling the hull of the pinched center sec?tion ... and finally ground to a halt with its nose impaled within the Unyielding Hierophant.
The center viewscreen on the bridge of the Gettysburg shat?tered into static and then slowly resolved. The wavering image of Admiral Whitcomb pulled himself upright. A gash from his temple to the corner of his mouth wept blood. Lieutenant Haver-
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son groggily got to his feet as well, his arm held at an odd angle, broken.
"Systemwide transmission," Admiral Whitcomb barked to Haverson.