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266
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
tip; streamers looped upon themselves like tiny solar flares, vi-
brated, intensified to orange and then blue-white.
"Almost there," Cortana cried. "Hang on."
The ball of squeezed plasma imploded. It instantly boiled
away a thirty-meter section of armor and hull from Ascendant
Justice; the plasma vanished for a split second—then a bolt of
coiled energy corkscrewed toward the edge of the planetoid.
The Covenant cruiser rounded the planetoid, targeted the Get-
tysburg, and fired.
Cortana's single shot impacted on the nose of the enemy craft
first. The cruiser's shield flashed solid silver for a moment and
was gone. The supercompressed plasma tore into the hull of the
warship—exploding the metal where it touched. The plasma
forked and detonated outward as it chained through the vessel.
Secondary explosions rippled through the alien ship's hull.
Edges of its shattered hull glowed red and then white hot as
their superheated atmosphere vented. The bolt ripped through
the engineering compartment, shattered their reactors—and the
entire warship blossomed into fire and ejected trails of golden
sparks and dying flickers of static electricity.
The five plasma bolts that the Covenant cruiser fired at the
Gettysburg dispersed into a red haze. There was no longer any
magnetic force to shape and guide them to their intended target.
The bridge crew watched the explosions fade from the for-
ward screens. The Admiral said, "Status?"
Fred tapped the screen of the Engineering station and re-
ported: "Engines and reactor offline. That magnetic pulse did
something to them."
Static washed over Weapons Station One as the Master Chief
looked up and said, "MAC accelerating coils intact. Drone one
destroyed. Retrieving drone two, sir."
Cortana's holographic presence was missing, but her voice
sounded triumphantly through the bridge speakers: "Turret
number three destroyed. But if we ever get any of the other six
turrets in working order, we'll have a formidable arsenal."
"We may not get that chance," Lieutenant Haverson remarked
as he bent over the NAV station. "Contacts inbound. Small ships.
Dozens of them. Transferring to the forward screens."
Armored Pelicans, exoskeleton welders, a handful of Long-