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264
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
The ship slowly angled toward the center of the large asteroid
and backed away.
"Cortana?" the Admiral asked. "Do we have a weapons turret
or not?"
"Yes, sir," Cortana said, "but the turret's magnetic coils that
shape and aim the plasma charge have overloaded."
The Admiral inhaled and sighed explosively. "Master Chief,
you got anything on Weapons Station One?"
"Archer missile pods depleted," the Master Chief answered.
He scanned the display, hoping he had missed something. "No
rounds for the MAC gun. All Shiva nuclear missiles fired as
well, sir. The only things left in the tubes are three Clarion spy
drones."
"No plasma and no missiles," Admiral Whitcomb said. "We
might as well open an air lock and throw rocks at 'em."
Throw rocks? The Master Chief wondered if they could fash-
ion a slug to shoot from the MAC cannon. Let its magnetic coils
propel the mass to supersonic velocities and—
Magnetic coils?
"Sir," the Master Chief said. "We may have a way to fire the
plasma turret after all. The Gettysburg's MAC gun has seventeen
superconducting coils. Cortana might be able to use them to
shape and aim the plasma."
"Yes," the Admiral said, nodding.
"Maybe," Cortana amended and stared off into space, think-
ing. "Calculating field strength drop-off now." The mathematic
symbols scrolling across her body increased threefold. She
frowned. "This would be easier if the Gettysburg was oriented
bottom to Ascendant Justice's top. I'll have to guess at the inter-
ference from the intervening hulls, but it still might work.
Chief—power it up. I'll need to recalibrate the pulse generation
to match the plasma output."
"MAC gun magnetic fields coming online," the Master Chief
said as he tapped in commands. "Rerouting power from Ascen-
dant Justice's reactor."
"We won't have enough power to move fast if we have to,"
Fred remarked, watching the energy fed to the Gettysburg's en-
gines drop to nothing.
"That's okay." The Admiral absentmindedly tugged at the end