Halo_ Ghosts of Onyx - Eric S. Nylund [87]
True to their nature, Huragok were just as likely to fix something broken as they were likely to take apart something that worked perfectly.
A dozen Huragok pressed closer around the device, all squirming tentacles and glistening eager eyes.
The voice from the box started again—now loud and clear:
"This is the prototype Nova bomb, nine fusion warheads encased in lithium triteride armor. When detonated it compresses its fusionable material to neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. I am Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, temporarily in command of the UNSC military base Reach. To the Covenant uglies that might be listening, you have a few seconds to pray to your dammed heathen gods. You all have a nice day in hell."
Kwassass pushed his way through the throng of Huragok. He had to get to the thing. Pull those wires.
There was a flash of the most beautiful light, and more glorious heat than he'd ever—
A battle group of eighteen destroyers, two cruisers, and one carrier collected in high orbit over Joyous Exultation, and
drew in a spherical formation about their flagship, the Incorruptible.
They shimmered blue-white and vanished into Slipspace.
A heartbeat later Vice Admiral Whitcomb's ploy of slipping the UNSC prototype Nova bomb into Covenant supplies had finally paid off: a star ignited between Joyous Exultation and its moon.
Every ship not protected on the dark side of the planet boiled and vaporized in an instant.
The atmosphere of the planet wavered as helical spirals of luminescent particles lit both north and south poles, making curtains of blue and green ripple over the globe. As the thermonuclear pressure wave spread and butted against the thermosphere, it heated the air orange, compressed it, until it touched the ground and scorched a quarter of the world.
The tiny nearby moon Malhiem cracked and shattered into a billion rocky fragments and clouds of dust.
The overpressure force subsided, and three-hundred-kilometer-per-hour winds swept over Joyous Exultation, obliterating cities and whipping tidal waves over its coastlines.
The Covenant Schism—the shattering of its client races for a thousand years, and the genesis of their end—had truly begun.
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SECTION VI THE GHOSTS OF ONYX
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT 1700 HOURS, NOVEMBER 3, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \ ZETA DORADUS SYSTEM, PLANET ONYX \ NEAR RESTRICTED REGION ZONE 67
Kurt crouched, motionless in the undergrowth, and waited for the Sentinels to move into position.
There'd been no happy reunion with Blue Team, no time for explanations, not even a handshake; all there'd been time for was running. The Sentinel patrol had been on them the instant they'd recovered the Spartans—an hour of nonstop cat and mouse through the jungle.
The drones were getting very good at hunting them.
A pair of Sentinels paused, hovering four meters above the ground. After bombarding the jungle from a hundred meters with energy blasts… and missing, they had finally descended to their level.
Their lateral spars flexed as if they could smell the trap. The spars about each sphere then drifted farther part and both spheres moved within centimeters of each other.
It reminded Kurt of cell division, only in reverse. They were combining.
What the purpose of this "mating" was, Kurt wasn't sure. He was, however, sure he didn't like it.
The now-double Sentinel crept closer.
Team Saber on the left flank detonated fougasse positioned under the drones. Flames shot up and lit the canopy, smoldering shrapnel obliterating the foliage.
A split second later Blue Team on the right flank let loose an SPNKr missile and a hail of MA5B fire. They were in perfect defilade.
The air filed with white-hot tracers and black roiling clouds. Two nearby trees crackled and fell.
Kurt flashed his red status light, and the fire ceased.
Saber had jumped the gun. A half second maybe, but they had definitely shot before the Sentinels were in position.
What