• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

So why did this feel all wrong?

"Initiate Slipspace transition," Commander Lash ordered.

Around the Dusk space flashed blue and white and the stars vanished.

Eight UNSC ships dropped from Slipstream space into black interstellar vacuum and there was a fireworks show of blue Cherenkov radiation and spiraling subatomic particle decays.

Commander Lash used this to his advantage.

"Set new course to port, perpendicular to fleet attack vector," he ordered Lieutenant Durruno.

"Aye, sir." Under the red glow of the bridge's battle lighting, his officers looked more alive now… and more scared.

The stealthed Dusk moved away from the destroyers, carrier, and cruiser of Admiral Patterson's battle group.

Lash wasn't running away—a sentiment he found himself repeating ever since he had witnessed the events at the Halo ring.

He had volunteered the Dusk to go back and scout the planet on a second recon mission. But the Admiral had told him there was no time. He was going to "catch those Covenant bastards

with their pants down" and strike while they were near the planet's gravity well.

With the odds in his favor it was a sound tactic. Still, it bothered Lash that the Admiral committed so many lives without a complete picture.

"Move us into an elliptical orbit around the dark side of Onyx," Lash ordered. "Set apogee to fifty thousand kilometers. Ahead one-third power."

"New course set, sir." Lieutenant Durruno turned to face him. Looking pained, she opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and then quickly said, "I beg your pardon, Commander. I thought we had orders to remain clear of the combat."

"We will," Lash said, "but we're going to finish that planetary scan." He moved to the NAV

station and set one hand on Bethany's shoulder. "Just take us in nice and easy."

Her eyes locked forward on her screens. "Yes, sir."

To Lieutenant Yang he said, "Monitor the engine thermals and push us past one-third

power… right up to the dark-line limit."

Yang swallowed, and then replied, "Aye aye. Commander."

Lash danced a fine line. He wanted speed and invisibility.

"Action on-screen!" Lieutenant Commander Waters announced.

On the central viewer flashes appeared in the dark. Admiral Patterson had launched his

alpha strike.

"Magnification forty," Lash ordered.

The two Covenant destroyers snapped on center screen. Scattered Archer missiles detonated harmlessly on their shields. The ships turned out of orbital alignments to face their enemy, and in doing so, closed ranks.

Three white spheres popped behind the vessels—expanded and enveloped the now-clustered enemy destroyers. Jets of supercharged ions funneled downward into the planet's magneto-sphere.

"Perfect placement of the nukes," Yang murmured, glancing between the viewscreen and his instruments. "Maximum destruction and radiation trapped by the planet so the fleet can move in."

"… 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