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330
HALO: FIRST STRIKE
sending this image to every ship in the system and letting them
know it's theirs for the taking ... if they dare to board this ship
and face Earth's best warriors." He laughed. "I think that'll ap-
peal to those Elites and their overinflated sense of honor."
John nodded. "Yes, sir. It will."
He looked at the countdown timer: 1:42.
The Covenant fleet turned and moved toward the incoming
Ascendant Justice. A cloud of cruisers and carriers. Hundreds of
them. Impossible odds.
"Fire turret four, Lieutenant," the Admiral ordered.
"Firing!" Haverson replied, his face set in grim determination.
A lance of plasma discharged, arced, and impacted upon the
nose of the nearest carrier. The energy splashed over their
shields and dissipated.
"Turret five, Lieutenant. Take them down."
"Firing five, sir," Haverson said.
A second plasma bolt followed the first. It blasted the carrier's
weakened shields and melted armor and hull, exploding through
the foredecks. The ship rolled and crashed into a cruiser that had
come too close.
"Nice shooting, Lieutenant," the Admiral murmured.
The Covenant fleet responded with a blinding volley of laser
fire. Pinpoints of energy concentrated on Ascendant Justice's aft
decks, boiled armor off in thick layers—sheared through to the
other side, severing its engines.
The Admiral smiled. "A sound tactical response. Good thing
they don't know we're just using that slingshot around the moon
and our inertia to do the rest of the job." He glanced at the dis-
plays and the station growing larger on them. "Hang on, Lieu-
tenant. Brace for impact."
Ascendant Justice drifted closer to the station.
It crashed into the central ring, crushing the structure, and
continued forward, dimpling the hull of the pinched center sec-
tion ... and finally ground to a halt with its nose impaled within
the Unyielding Hierophant.
The center viewscreen on the bridge of the Gettysburg shat-
tered into static and then slowly resolved. The wavering image
of Admiral Whitcomb pulled himself upright. A gash from his
temple to the corner of his mouth wept blood. Lieutenant Haver-