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ERIC NYLUND
209
within the outer hull of Ascendant Justice to secure the docking
points mating the two ships and adapt their power uplinks.
The reason for this salvage operation, her pinpoint jump into
the debris field, and the hybrid docking.. . it was all for power.
Ascendant Justice's cover had been blown; the Covenant
knew that their flagship was human-controlled. That made their
original plan of rendezvousing in orbit around Reach impossible.
She could have jumped to that location and picked up the Chief,
but then they would be stranded there while the Slipspace
capacitors slowly recharged—and in the meantime they would
be boxed in and obliterated by the Covenant armada.
So she had to change tactics; she'd jump into the thick of a
hostile and wary Covenant force, grab the Chief, and just as
quickly jump out of the system. For that she'd need power to in-
stantly recharge the Slipspace capacitors—the kind of power
only two ships could produce.
The power uplinks connected. Gigawatts flowed from the
Gettysburg's reactor into Ascendant Justice's energy grid.
"Perfect," she purred.
It was 0712 hours. She had less than three minutes to prepare
for the next phase of her plan.
Cortana checked and rechecked the calculations for what had
to be the shortest Slipspace jump ever: from the floating junk-
yard to the rendezvous coordinates, a mere three thousand kilo-
meters. She scanned that region of space—and discovered it was
no longer a blind spot in the Covenant defenses. There were
three times as many ships insystem as when she'd left.
Cortana spotted the Chief's hijacked dropship ascending from
the lower atmosphere of Reach, with a pack of Seraph fighters
surrounding the craft.
She intercepted a series of repeated orders from the Cove-
nant's fleet commander: Do not fire or you will be targeted and
destroyed. The Infidels have captured the holy light.
This was both good and bad. Good because the Master Chief
and his team with this "holy light" avoided being blasted into
vapor. Bad because every Covenant ship in the system was clos-
ing in on their dropship—ultimately they'd box it in, grapple
with the tiny craft, and take it with overwhelming force.
This also made Cortana's jump target increasingly crowded.