"I think those spheres are steering solutions," Linda said. "They indicate how far they can direct the plasma blots. They have us."

"Back us off," Fred told Will.

"Okay…" Will searched the controls. He grabbed an orange arrow and twisted it aft.

"Answering full reverse," he said.

"It won't be enough," Linda said.

Linda placed both hands on her controls, and a new pair of spheres appeared in the field of stars. "That's our firing solution," she whispered, and her voice cooled to that detached liquid-nitrogen temperature that Fred had come to identify with her Zen no-mind state.

Fred consulted his console. "Thirteen seconds until plasma impact," he said, and his hands gripped the edges of his console.

"Slipspace vector calculated," Will said, "Capacitors charging… in twenty-three seconds."

Linda made tiny adjustments over her controls, and flicked her fingers forward. "Plasma away," she said.

The bridge lights dimmed. The main hologram showed Bloodied Spirit as its lateral lines flared and plasma detached and accelerated away, but not toward the enemy frigate, rather toward the rapidly approaching plasma bolts.

Steering spheres appeared on Linda's plasma lines. Her hands twisted and turned.

The plasma oscillated back and forth in response.

The enemy lines started to move as well.

Fred understood what she was trying to do: fight fire with fire. But at these velocities hitting one plasma beam with another was like shooting a bullet out of the air.

Linda's trancelike motions slowed.

The plasma bolts raced toward one another. The enemy's plasma veered out of the way Linda brought her hands together in a blur—both of Bloodied Spirit's bolts spiraled about the enemy's line of fire, tighter and faster, and connected.

Three lines smeared into a blob and jets erupted across the dark of space, fading to a haze of red.

"Got it," Linda whispered.

"The other bolt still tracking," Will said. "Impact in two seconds."

"Shields?" Fred asked.

"Working," Will said. "No—they're down."

The holographic viewers spilled blazing red light onto the bridge.

Beneath the deck, the ship shuddered.

"Power loss across all systems," Will told Fred. "Slipspace capacitors draining from ninety-eight… trying to reroute."

"Jump now," Fred ordered. "Before we lose more power."

Underpowered Slipspace transitions were technically possible. Over the last thirty years UNSC ships had attempted such a maneuver, twice. Both times they succeeded transitioning… into atomized bits.

Fred hoped Covenant technology had a work-around for that problem.

"Aye aye," Will said. He tapped a control.

The enemy ships and stars vanished from the viewer.

The Spartans stood silent; Fred held his breath, unsure if they'd explode.

The viewers went completely dark. It was silent.

Slipspace parameters then streamed across Will's console.

"We made it," Will breathed.

Fred exhaled. "Good job," he told them. He stood there dumb and mute as he worked through the undeniable logic of what had just happened.

"What is it?" Linda asked.

"We were in Slipstream space," he said, "and answered a distress signal from a ship in combat in normal space."

Linda nodded and one of her hands nervously flexed.

"So?" Will asked. "The Covenant can send signals in Slipspace. So can we."

"But not hsten to those signals in normal space," Linda said.

"They could have heard Cortana's message and Dr. Halsey's," Fred told them. "They may know everything."

Ship Master Voro clutched the rail of his command platform and shouted, "Now! All thrusters answer new course one eight zero by zero zero zero. Divert engine and shield power to the forward energy projector."

"Answering new course," Zasses said.

The Incorruptible spun about—its momentum continued to carry it forward—but now they faced the pursuing frigate pair.

Uruo at his Operation station called out, "Projector hot, sir. Target solution ready."

"On my word."

Voro hesitated and listened to three beats of his hearts—one for faith, one for family, and the last for honor—the ritual mediation of the Mendicant.

The leading frigate fired lasers.

"Armor sections Prime One and Ventral Three severely damaged," Y'gar announced with utter calm.

"Stand by," Voro said.

He felt his junior officers' eyes upon him. They were wondering perhaps, as he was, if he had gone mad.

"Let them come closer for the kill," Voro said. "We have but one shot. Wait… Wait…"

Both frigates, the Twilight Compunction and the Revenant, filled and blurred the edges of the holographic viewers, their lateral lines powering.

A single, normal energy-projector shot could not by itself destroy a Covenant ship of war.

It would obliterate shields, but it had to be followed by a plasma bolt to damage or disable.

This was a tactic neutralized by the skillful maneuvers employed by a Jiralhanae frigate pair. They would shift to take alternate plasma hits efficiently, giving the pair an alternating energy shield. They could then combine firepower. If they made no mistakes, they were more than a match for the Incorruptible.

This was the standard Covenant tactical thinking. Recent events, however, had shaken what Voro had considered "standard" behavior. This would be a gamble, but in Voro's estimation, their only winning option.

"Now," Voro spat. "Fire!"

The overcharged energy projector sent a shudder through the Incorruptible.

All their power—shields, engines, Slipspace capacitor reserves—channeled into a single burst from the projector.

The darkness of interstellar space parted.

The shields of the Revenant boiled and popped. The hull peeled away, bubbling, as the beam penetrated through and through. The frigate was cut in half diagonally, ventral fore to dorsal aft—until it severed the starboard plasma line. Fire blazed along her surface and reached the main coils. The ship's aft section detonated and her mid and fore sections tumbled away aflame and spewing smoke.

"All weapons systems inactive," Uruo reported, as he stared at the destruction.

"No power to maneuver," Zasses said nervously. "Thrusters on standby."

The other Jiralhanae frigate veered away and continued to turn, presenting the flare of engine cones as it ran. After seeing the obliteration of its sister ship, the Twilight Compunction had no desire to face them alone.

As Voro had hoped: The Jiralhanae were quick to act without thinking. They were savage, yes, but not suicidal.

He counted his blessings that the Jiralhanae Ship Master had not taken the time to thoroughly scan the Incorruptible to assess her battle worthiness.

"Repairs underway," Y'gar announced. "All crews on task. Estimate seventy cycles until plasma lines ready."

"Direct repairs to the coils and Slipspace capacitors," Voro ordered.

"A brilliant tactical maneuver, sir," Zasses said, and bowed his head.

Voro grunted.

Brilliant? Desperate was closer to the truth. But Voro would never voice his feelings on this matter before his crew. Unvoiced, however, a mixture of shame and disgust rose in the back of his throat. He had risked everything to win. Perhaps this was how Tano felt? The lives of his brothers in his hands on every mission? Voro felt unworthy to lead.

He scrutinized the central viewer. The Jiralhanae frigate had headed toward the third ship in its battle group, the one that had turned to engage Bloodied Spirit.

They had intercepted the enemy's transmissions and seen the humans manning Bloodied Spirit. A disturbing revelation.

"Zasses," Voro growled. "You tracked the Spirit as it jumped?"

"Yes, sir," he replied, and rechecked his console. "Only one stellar system on that vector."

Voro gritted his teeth and flexed his hands. Then at least Bloodied Spirit could be hunted and destroyed. "Make ready to jump. We must warn our brethren… of everything."

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

1520 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ CAPTURED COVENANT DESTROYER BLOODIED SPIRIT, IN SLIPSTREAM SPACE

Bloodied Spirit was on fire. The shot she'd taken from the Covenant frigate had hit an auxiliary plasma line, and fire streamed along the side in a crimson plume.

The raging flames made repairs impossible. Fred couldn't find the controls to quench the broken line without shutting down the main plasma coil and dropping them out of Slipspace—so he let it bum.

Purple alloy melted and oozed through the aft quarters, consuming life support and several sensor nodes.

Bloodied Spirit would last only a few more minutes, but it was, he hoped, all they'd need.

Will smoothed his hands over the NAV console. "Shifting to normal space in three seconds," he said, "two, one—now."

Stars winked on in the central viewer. Fred moved perspective alongside Bloodied Spirit, revealing smoldering holes in her side, bare conduits spewing plasma, and in places gapping cavities two decks deep.

A planet rotated into view.

Will's jump had been uncannily accurate. They were only a hundred thousand kilometers from the world known as Onyx, a jewel of blue and white against the black.

"Looks habitable," Fred remarked.

"Reading water vapor, oxygen, and nitrogen," Linda said.

"Other ships?" Fred asked. "Scan the region."

Linda bent over the Covenant sensors. "No plasma signatures. No silhouettes on radar,"

she said. "They didn't follow us."

"Yet," Will added.

"I'll take the lucky break," Fred told him, "and figure out why we got it later."

Fred couldn't relax, though. Leading Blue Team and the responsibility to "captain" this ship was his alone. He had been trained in rudimentary astrogation and ship-to-ship tactics, but it wasn't enough; it was like trying to perform brain surgery with only a basic aid kit. The sooner he got groundside where he could fight on his own terms, the better off they'd all be.

He wasn't sure what the Covenant were doing fighting amongst themselves and stealing human nukes… but whatever it was, he hoped it kept them busy The Covenant captain who had seen them wasn't going to let a human-crewed Covenant ship slip off his radar for too long.

"Groundside signals," Linda said. Lines wavered in a window floating off her console.

"UNSC E-Band."

"Put it on audio," Fred said.

There was a hiss, a pop, and it went dead. The hiss repeated and then again fell silent.

"That's a looped signal," Linda said. "Hang on, slowing it down by a factor of three hundred."

A series of beeps resolved from the noise.

"Slow it down more," Will told her.

Three longer beeps pinged, then three shorter ones, and three longer. After a moment, this repeated.

"Not 'SOS,'" Linda declared. "It's 'OSO.'"

"Signal source?" Fred asked.

Linda retuned to the console. "Multiple point sources," she said. "Cycling at random.

Someone doesn't want to get triangulated."

"If SOS is a distress call," Will said, "then what's OSO supposed to be? A warning? Why would Dr. Halsey send a distress call and then warn us away?"

"The message repeats every twelve seconds," Linda said. "Twenty-seven OSO units, a pause of two seconds, and then another one hundred eighteen units."

"Twenty-seven by one one eight?" Fred considered. "Latitude and longitude?"

"Which direction?" Will asked. "North or south? East or west? Any matches of those permutations to the random signal sources?" He moved closer to Linda's station.

"There," she said. "Twenty-seven degrees north, one hundred eighteen east."

Fred told them, "Set course to those coordinates. Give us a nice and easy deorbital burn.

We've got to—"

"Hang on," Linda said. "Picking up contacts. Wait… recalibrating." Her hand flicked over the control surfaces. "Multiple silhouettes in high orbit. The system missed them; it's not set up to detect something so small. Objects are three meters long. On the central viewer."

Fred moved to the holographic display.

Floating before him was a simple structure: Three cylindrical booms sat parallel to one another. From the end-on view they formed an equilateral triangle. In the center of this sat a sphere, a quarter meter in diameter. The booms were a brushed matte sliver metal. The resolution was just good enough to see a swirled pattern etched onto the alloy. The sphere glowed dull red, as if it were heated from within. Nothing connected the sphere to the associated rods. There were no shimmering energy fields, either.

"A bomb?" Fred asked. "Dr. Halsey's new technology?"

"No radiologicals detected," Linda reported.

"Satellites?" Will offered.

"I'm reading two thousand four hundred twenty-three of these objects in orbit," Linda said. "That's overkill for a COM network. Wait, they're breaking orbit."

With a flick of her hand she shifted perspective in the central tank and Onyx drifted in the center. Bloodied Spirit was a glowing purple dash among the stars.

"Image enhancement online," she said.

A haze of red dots swarmed in the black of space and slowly drifted toward them.

"Shields!" Fred barked at Will.

"Responding. Full strength confirmed." Will rechecked the alien controls. "No error," he said. "They're up this time."

"If those aren't nukes," Fred told them, "there's no way something that small can penetrate Covenant shields."

Fred watched the holographic viewer as the hostiles approached. It was like watching a tide come in, and Fred remembered one of Deja's childhood lessons: jellyfish swarming the tide lines on an Australian beach. One sting from the tiny invertebrates caused tissue necrosis and paralysis. A hundred was overkill-lethal.