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The Lieutenant Commander wanted to get into the fight. It was a deadly sentiment for the officer of a prowler. Lash sympathized. Waters had long ago lost his wife and children on Harvest. But stealth was their only defense against such a force. Vengeance had no place on his ship.
"Debris in orbit," Yang said. "Metallic structures. Unknown alloy composition on spectroscopic analysis."
"Recent combat?" Waters asked.
"Aye, sir, residual plasma detected. However… insufficient tonnage to account for even one Covenant destroyer."
"Come to course zero two zero by three two five," Commander Lash ordered Lieutenant Durruno. "Cut engines and shunt the power to recharging Slipspace capacitors."
She focused her laserlike attention on her NAV controls. "Coming about. New trajectory set. Our inertia will take us in for a tight orbit." All trace of her fatigue vanished and she tapped a rapid-fire message on her keyboard, and then replied.
"Lieutenant Commander Cho reports capacitors at fifty percent. They'll be hot in six minutes."
"Go active camouflage," Commander Lash told Waters.
Lash forced himself to remain collected. He felt like a fraud, but he had to try to maintain the illusion of confidence for the sake of his officers. He would never let them know how scared he was.
"Active camouflage online," Waters said. "Texture buffer full. Four minutes on the clock."
The Dusk dove toward the twilight demarcation line of the planet. The normally matte-black ablative coating on her dorsal surfaces flickered with patterns of cirrostratus and lapis ocean and glowing orange sunset.
"Radiologicals?" Lash asked.
"No Argus-eiTect beta radiation detected in the magneto-sphere," Yang answered. "The Spartan team has not detonated any FENRIS warheads."
"Is that a good, or bad, thing?" Waters murmured.
Lash wasn't sure. If the Spartans had been here, he'd expect there to be a swath of destruction. "Planetary energy sources?" he asked Yang.
"Nothing, sir," Yang answered as he pored over the data flashing on his screens. "We still have one-quarter of the planet's surface to scan, though. It will take seven minutes in this orbit to cover that area."
"One minute on the clock," Waters told him. He hesitated as if he had more to say… but didn't.
Lash knew what he wanted: a full orbit, more time, and a close pass near those Covenant combat assets. Waters wanted to be a hero.
"We're following Admiral Patterson's orders to the letter," Lash said. "We've got two Covenant warships on the other side of this planet. No detectable sign of Spartans. No nukes trig-gered. And we haven't been seen. That's enough."
Lash locked gazes with Waters.
Waters looked away, frowned, but nodded. He said, "Rig for Slipspace transition."
"Aye aye," Lieutenant Durruno said. She sighed, visibly relaxing at the decision to leave. "Matrix calculations input. Ready for transition in seventeen seconds."
Lash fidgeted in the captain's chair. It was the right move to leave. If they executed a full orbit, their luck would most certainly run out. And waiting for their recon data in Slipspace was Patterson's battle group of eight ships.