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a second along their flight paths, high explosives heated to the flashpoint. Four MAC slugs rocketed though the energy projector cones, fireballs of liquefied metal. Three missed. One hit, spattering uselessly on Covenant shields.
Thirty-two lines of plasma heated, detached, and arced toward the human fleet, striking critically damaged vessels, blasting craters, ripping through inner decks, until the superstructures buckled and inner atmospheres decompressed in large bursting bubbles upon the now-molten hulls.
The Covenant armada ceased fire and slowly advanced.
Admiral Patterson's ships had been reduced to a field of debris in a matter of seconds.
Pinpoint lasers fired from the enemy ships as they destroyed escape pods.
"Incoming debris," Waters warned.
"We need to do something," Lieutenant Durruno whispered.
What had been a victorious battle group chasing down a doomed enemy was now tumbling, half-melted prows and glowing reactor cores. A floating graveyard. Ghosts.
The hope that Commandeer Richard Lash had felt was forever gone.
"Do nothing," Lash told them.
"If anything hits us, sir," Waters said, "assuming we survive the impact, the deflection angles will give away our position."
"This close to so many vessels," Lash replied, "so would maneuvering." He went to Lieutenant Durruno at the NAV station. "Hang tight," he told her. Her eyes shone with tears, but she nodded, and gripped the edges of her seat.
Lash checked his wristwatch and made sure it was wound tight.
The Covenant armada moved closer, blotted out the starlight, and covered the Dusk with shadow.
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← ^ → CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
2115 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDARS \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM \ UNDETERMINED LOCATION IN THE FORERUNNER CONSTRUCT KNOWN AS ONYX
Kurt motioned back to Fred and Ash, Linda and Mark to close the gap.
Two by two they moved up the corridor, gliding from pillar to pillar, the SPARTAN-IIIs on point barely visible in their armor, part shadow, part striped onyx patterns. The SPARTAN-IIs closed behind like liquid mercury rolling over velvet, smooth and silent.
The differences between their two generations had been left behind. Teams Blue and Saber worked as a single unit, family who had pulled together in a crisis.
Kurt watched his motion tracker, IFF tags overlaid on the grid. The Spartans had the best positions possible—set along each of the pillars that stretched up to the ten-meter-tall corridor. Kurt, Tom, and Lucy had point.
Olivia was on recon, her IFF disabled, so Kurt wasn't certain of her precise location in the room ahead.
This corridor was tiled with interlocking Forerunner symbols of jade, turquoise, and lapis. Dr. Halsey surmised it was an epic poem depicting a struggle in the Forerunners' long-lost past.
All Kurt knew was it was a kill zone, with scant cover and long sight lines. A good place to get ambushed.
Olivia flashed her green status light three times: the all-clear signal.