Halo_ Ghosts of Onyx - Eric S. Nylund [106]
Its engines flared and accelerated into an extremely low orbit—away from the fleet.
"Cowards," Waters muttered.
"I wonder," Lash replied. "We've survived five UNSC-Covenant engagements." He stared into deep space, remembering the carnage, and that the UNSC had only won one of those battles. "The Covenant do not simply run away. Lieutenant Commander. They might disengage to regroup, but when outgunned and outnumbered… they go down swinging."
There was only one conceivable reason this lone Covenant destroyer would turn tail.
Lash told Lieutenant Durruno, "We're going bright. Increase speed to flank. Hold your
course."
"Sir… ?" She leaned over her controls. "Aye, sir."
Lash keyed SHIPCOM to Engineering. "Lieutenant Commander Cho, drain the Slipspace
capacitors and route the power to engines. I want them one hundred thirty percent hot." What had felt like victory on the bridge a moment ago faded and Lash's officer again
appeared wary and weary.
There was silence over the SHIPCOM and then Cho replied, "Routing power now."
The Dusk was out in the open, and Lash was violating the first rule of any prowler
captain: stay hidden.
But every instinct he had screamed that the Covenant wouldn't be this easy to defeat, and that they'd overlooked something of vital importance.
Admiral Patterson's seven ships chased after the single Covenant vessel. They vanished
as the Dusk arced around the planet.
Lash returned to the captain's chair and uneasily settled into it.
Waters stood next to him and whispered, "Tell me you know what you're doing, Richard."
Lash leaned forward and said nothing.
"Coming up on the dark side of Onyx in fifteen seconds," Lieutenant Yang said. "Ten… five… three, two, one."
The planet's nighttime face appeared on every viewscreen, dark save the glimmering clouds on the edge of twilight.
"Hot spot!" Yang shouted. "On the horizon: twenty-seven degrees north, one hundred eighteen east. Recalibrating thermals to cut though atmospheric distortion."
On the main viewscreen a wavering image resolved into twenty Covenant warships— climbing at flank speed through the atmosphere—on an intercept vector toward Admiral Patterson's fleet.
Lash jumped to his feet. "Cut engine power to one-third," he said. "Reenable stealth protocols. Come to new bearing: polar orbit. Get me a clear sight line to the Stalingrad."
"New heading, aye," Lieutenant Durruno said, her voice straining as she calculated the orbit. "Brace for correction burn at one-third power."
The Dusk pitched and tilted into a polar alignment. Engines rumbled and the prowler arced up toward the ice caps of Onyx.
"Zenith in twenty-three seconds," Durruno said.
Lash tuned to Lieutenant Commander Waters. "Action report."
Waters's gaze was already locked onto his display. "Nothing. Covenant fleet is ignoring us."
Lash should have been relieved; they could have destroyed the Dusk with a few laser shots. Going dark was the right thing to do. But despite his years of training in evading the enemy, Lash wished the Covenant had turned. It might have given Patterson a few extra seconds to see what was coming.
He waited fifteen seconds—the most agonizing quarter minute of his life—watching the clouds, landmasses, and oceans of Onyx pass under his ship.
The Dusk finally crested the pole and the stars—as well as Admiral Patterson's fleet— reappeared on the forward screen.
Only a hundred kilometers apart the UNSC vessels fired all magnetic accelerator cannons and launched a volley of Archer missiles at the Covenant ships racing toward them. The meteoric rounds blazed through the atmosphere leaving smoking scars.
Lasers flashed from the Covenant ships destroying incoming missiles, but they couldn't stop the point-blank-fired MAC slugs.
Seven MAC rounds struck the two lead destroyers in the Covenant line, shattered their shields, dented the armor, and pounded through hulls, crippling the vessels so they aborted their attack