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To Lash they looked like hungry sharks, ready to pounce on a few sardines.
Their spectral analysis, however, painted a different picture. Thermal blooms and radiation leaks spewed in helical showers from the vessels. They'd been damaged by Admiral Patterson's alpha strike and the captured plasma redirected by the alien drones.
The enemy was sitting there, making repairs, in all likelihood frothing from their split mouths to get back in the fight and go another round with the UNSC battle group.
Patterson, however, had another plan: hit them first. Hard.
"Activity from Onyx on the E-Band?" Lash asked Yang.
"No, sir. Not a flicker since that ONI AI took care of the alien drones."
Lash wondered how the AI and Spartans on the planet had
neutralized the alien fleet. Had they recovered some new super-weapon? However they did it, he promised he'd personally shake every one of their hands.
"Continue to monitor all UNSC bands," he told Yang. "Those Spartans might need a lift."
"Action on-screen," Waters announced. The camera snapped aft and centered on the silver moon.
In the twilight regions on either side of the moon, magnetic accelerator cannons flared, briefly illuminating the now-split UNSC battle group in high orbit. Slugs of steel and tungsten rocketed into space, curving slightly from the gravitational distortion—streaking toward the Covenant ships.
The Covenant ships broke formation.
One MAC slug cleanly missed.
Three hit.
The targeted ships lit as their shields absorbed the massive kinetic energy. They careened backward… slowed, and stopped, undamaged from the single MAC strikes.
Covenant ships turned and accelerated toward the moon.
The MAC salvo had done precisely what Admiral Patterson had hoped: tweaked their collective noses, and gotten them good and mad.
The UNSC battle group maneuvered behind the moon, denying the enemy a clean line of fire.
"Set EMP dampers," Lash said, trying to control his rising adrenaline. "Shut down primary and secondary computers."
"Aye, sir," Durruno and Yang said together. They scrambled to isolate the Dusk's delicate electronics from the impending nuclear blasts.
The Covenant battle group divided—each half moving to opposite sides of the moon, taking flanking positions where they could blast the hiding human ships into oblivion with their plasma.
What they couldn't see on their approach vector, however,
was Admiral Patterson's fleet backing directly away from the moon.
"Enemy vessels approaching distal radius of alpha and beta minefields," Durruno reported.
"Arm alpha and beta fields," Lash whispered.
Yang fidgeted and said, "Command sent, sir… and confirmation received across the board."
That Covenant fleet was about to find out why UNSC battle groups always had a prowler assigned to their ranks. They were the sneak thieves and spies of the UNSC fleet, capable of behind-enemy-lines recon, rescue missions… and under the right conditions, the pinpoint placement of a nuclear minefield.