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"… And finish them off." Waters rubbed his hands together in unconscious anticipation.
The fireballs cooled to red and a single sleek silhouette emerged: one of the Covenant destroyers had survived. Plasma charges launched toward the center of the UNSC battle group—directly at Admiral Patterson's flagship carrier, the Stalingrad.
The prows of the UNSC ships flared as their magnetic accelerator cannons fired.
Lines of flame and superheated slugs crossed the space between the two forces.
The UNSC destroyer Glasgow Kiss accelerated in front of the fleet; the narrow craft turned sideways, placing itself between the incoming plasma and the Stalingrad. A dozen escape pods popped from her hull as the ship caught three of the four lances of fire. The hull heated for an instant, and then shattered into fragments.
"Track those pods," Lash ordered Lieutenant Yang.
"Aye, sir."
On-screen, the Stalingrad took a direct hit on her port side. Plasma etched through the meters of titanium-A armor plating like a blowtorch through rice paper, and her center amidships decks vented.
The UNSC fleet MAC rounds impacted on the Covenant destroyer. The slugs battered through the ship's reconstituted shields, and then through the hull, knocking it back so violently it tumbled out of control into the planet's atmosphere, leaving a trail of turbulence and fire.
Its engines flared and accelerated into an extremely low orbit—away from the fleet.
"Cowards," Waters muttered.
"I wonder," Lash replied. "We've survived five UNSC-Covenant engagements." He stared into deep space, remembering the carnage, and that the UNSC had only won one of those battles. "The Covenant do not simply run away. Lieutenant Commander. They might disengage to regroup, but when outgunned and outnumbered… they go down swinging."
There was only one conceivable reason this lone Covenant destroyer would turn tail.
Lash told Lieutenant Durruno, "We're going bright. Increase speed to flank. Hold your course."
"Sir… ?" She leaned over her controls. "Aye, sir."
Lash keyed SHIPCOM to Engineering. "Lieutenant Commander Cho, drain the Slipspace capacitors and route the power to engines. I want them one hundred thirty percent hot."
What had felt like victory on the bridge a moment ago faded and Lash's officer again appeared wary and weary.
There was silence over the SHIPCOM and then Cho replied, "Routing power now."
The Dusk was out in the open, and Lash was violating the first rule of any prowler captain: stay hidden.
But every instinct he had screamed that the Covenant wouldn't be this easy to defeat, and that they'd overlooked something of vital importance.
Admiral Patterson's seven ships chased after the single Covenant vessel. They vanished as the Dusk arced around the planet.
Lash returned to the captain's chair and uneasily settled into it.
Waters stood next to him and whispered, "Tell me you know what you're doing, Richard."
Lash leaned forward and said nothing.
"Coming up on the dark side of Onyx in fifteen seconds," Lieutenant Yang said. "Ten… five… three, two, one."