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"Sir?" he asked.
"Do it. Pull denotation codes and send then down."
Waters sighed explosively and nodded his head. "Yes, sir. Understood."
His junior bridge officers exchanged a look, but they all knew they had to lose the nukes. They were going to remain stealthed, no matter what the cost, and fissile materials exiting Slipspace lit up with Cherenkov radiation—a signal flare to any Covenant ship within light-minutes.
"Mines away," Waters whispered.
"All external power off-line," Lash ordered. "Ablative baffles locked. Recheck engine dampers, and full power to counter sensor array."
The crew scrambled to make the Dusk virtually invisible.
Green LEDs lit on Commander Lash's status board. "Transition," he said.
"Stand by," Lieutenant Durruno said from her NAV station.
"Coordinating with Lieutenant Commander Cho in the core room. In four, three, two—now."
Stars snapped on the forward viewscreen. A sun blazed to the left.
"New course zero three zero by zero three zero," Commander Lash said. "One-quarter full."
"Aye, sir," Durruno said, "answering new heading."
It was a good idea to alter trajectory on a transition exit in case some telltale sign of their appearance manifested. Over the seven years he'd been on a prowler. Lash had learned that this class of ship was one of the slowest, most underpowered, and most poorly armed vessels in the UNSC fleet. Invisibility was their only defense.
Lieutenant Yang's display lit with carrier wave patterns. "Signals," Yang cried. "Not our guys. Too many—at least a hundred of them!"
Durruno at NAV craned her head for a better look, and then snapped back to her station. "Signal origin near the fourth planet," she said. "Magnifying and enhancing starboard camera view."
The central screen panned to starboard and the image magnified a thousandfold.
There were a hundred or more Covenant ships, a Covenant superbase or orbital city… and dwarfing all this was a ring-world construct as large as a moon.
For a split second. Lash couldn't think. He was all animal, fight or flight… with an overwhelming portion of his mind focused on the flight portion of that imperative.
He snapped out of it.
"Yang," he whispered.
Yang stared, mouth agape at the overwhelming Covenant forces.
"Yang!"
"Sir, yes." Yang shook his head clear. "I'm here, sir."
"Good. Triple-check all countersensor packages. Make absolutely sure we are locked down tight. Very tight."
"On it, sir."
"Durruno," Commander Lash said, "move us dead slow into that asteroid field, at two point four AU."
"Aye, sir." Her hands shook, but she plotted the new course.
"There's no trace of In Amber Clad," Lieutenant Commander Waters said, staring into his display. "Or the Redoutable, Paris, or Coral Sea."
"Detecting multiple energy spikes," Yang said, his voice now oddly steady. "They may have spotted us, sir."
"Make ready to go to full power," Commander Lash said.
The bridge officers tensed.
"Sir," Waters said. "I see weapons discharging in the region… directed plasma fire, energy projectors. None targeting us."