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“Arming silos one through six, aye,” Jorgenson replied. She opened the button covers and flipped off the safety mechanisms for six of the seven banks of missiles in the Las Vegas’s arsenal. She activated the automated control systems. Green acknowledgment lights winked across the board.

“They’re a sitting duck,” Captain Lewis said with great satisfaction.

Cole stared at the automated control system, the lines about the corners of his eyes deepened, and he frowned.

EXTERNAL CAMERA 6-K, UNSC DESTROYER JERICHO / 0317.235

HOURS MARCH 2, 2494 (MILITARY CALENDAR)

Eighteen Ares missiles streaked silent through space, leaving feathered plumes of gray smoke behind. For twenty seconds they remained on course tracking the Callisto. The enemy vessel moved on a vector directly aligned with an asteroid the size of Manhattan.

The Callisto then rolled, her engine cones flaring white hot, as she executed a slingshot orbit to the far side of the cratered rock.

The missiles split their unified trajectories, each one independently optimizing the best targeting solution, and left eighteen smoky trails that looked like giant fingers reaching out into the dark . . . as if clutching the asteroid.

They never hit.

For the blink of an eye a new sun appeared in the 26 Draconis system.

A wash of white filled the screen . . . which coalesced to a boiling center of ultraviolet.

A nuclear device had been buried in the asteroid, facing outward. It blasted the rock apart, vaporized and shattered iron and ice, and spewed forth a shower of molten metal and plasma—a tide of destruction that rushed into the UNSC battle group.

It hit the Buenos Aires, which had been leading the charge. Her antennae and MAC trajectory sensors boiled away . . . as the cloud enveloped her in seething energies . . . from which she did not emerge.

A chuck of spinning rock hit the Las Vegas—a glancing blow, but enough to crumple her side and bend the ship’s hull twenty degrees—she careened backward, venting atmosphere from a dozen ruptured decks.

A cloud of tiny molten fragments hit the Jericho—eventually killing all forward momentum, until she spun slowly backward in space, lights winking on and off.

Camera 6-K spun as well—but in the distance still tracked the prow of the Callisto—unscathed as it angled out of the plane of the asteroid field, and turned toward them.

A chunk of iron-silicate rock appeared for a split second in the field of view—moving directly into camera 6-K.

Static.

EXTERNAL CAMERA 6-K FEED TERMINATED

0329 HOURS MARCH 2, 2494 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ UNSC

DESTROYER LAS VEGAS PATROLLING 26 DRACONIS SYSTEM

BRIDGE LOG (PRIMARY, VIDEO, SPATIAL ENHANCEMENTS=TRUE)

Shards of shatterproof plastic tumbled through the air on the bridge. Captain Lewis, tethered to his chair, hung, arms limp. One emergency light burned and tinged everything bloodred. Commander Rinkishale’s body twisted at unnatural angles, floating, and in the strange light looked like an insect trapped in amber during its death throes.

The only stations active were nav, comm, and one winking panel on the otherwise static-filled weapons station.

Second Lieutenant Cole remained at his station, belted in to his seat, his legs wrapped around the pedestal for good measure. His hands flew over the nav controls, checking and rechecking.

“Buenos Aires destroyed, sir,” Cole reported, his voice cracking. “I’m reading a debris field along her last reported vector. There’s too much radiation . . . but I think the Jericho has come about to engage the Callisto. Reading multiple missile locks. I’m not sure from whom.”

Second Lieutenant Cole waited for his orders.

And he waited.

He then turned and looked . . . and saw his dead captain and commander . . . and the rest of the motionless bridge crew.

He unbuckled himself and moved to each checking for vitals—finding only Lieutenant Jorgenson still breathing, and quickly tying a tourniquet above her bleeding calf.

He tapped the comm station, cleared his voice, and said, “Any medical personnel, any