Three dozen Covenant cruisers surrounded her, their plasma turrets glowing a hellish red as they prepared to fire.
Apparently the order not to fire did not extend to Ascendant Justice.
Cortana needed five seconds to attain a full charge, five sec- onds before she could make good her escape... but five seconds might be long enough for her to become the center of a small Covenant-made sun.
She took the initiative and fired at the closest four cruisers.
Laser-fine plasma lanced from her turrets, burned though the Covenant shields, and split open their hulls. When the super- heated gas came in contact with the atmosphere inside the ships, plastic, flesh, and metal caught fire and roiled throughout their interiors.
Two of the targeted cruisers immediately detonated as the plasma beams found the reactors. Billowing clouds of vaporized metal mushroomed across the night and obscured her from the advancing ships.
Pinpricks of light appeared around Ascendant Justice.
ERROR.
Cortana rechecked the figures and quickly found the source of the problem: The fail-safe subroutine that tracked local gravita- tional conditions returned an anomaly.
The gravity from Reach no longer warped space ... which was impossible.
No time for speculation. She had to leave or fight.
She moved Ascendant Justice into the twisting spatial field— —and vanished.
Instead of the nonvisible nondimensions of Slipspace, how- ever, a blue-tinged field appeared on Cortana's monitors. It wasn't space—not the crowded space near Reach, or the star-filled space of the Epsilon Eridani system. But it was a space, where there should have been no space at all.
She probed the region with her sensors, but her range was lim- ited to a thousand kilometers as if she were in an obscuring fog.
There—a contact. And another. And then a dozen more.
Fourteen Covenant cruisers resolved from the blue mist.
"Cortana," the Master Chief said. "What's our status?"
"Same as ever," Cortana replied. "We're in trouble."
The Covenant warships fired.
"Damn," Cortana muttered.
She initiated her last option: She fired back, hoping to take some of them to hell with her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
TIME:DATE RECORD [[ERROR]]ANOMALY\Date
unknown\ Aboard captured Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, in Slipspace. Now.
"Cortana?" the Master Chief asked. "What's our status?"
The Chief and the rest of his team scrambled out of the Cove- nant dropship. Fred carried a semiconscious Kelly out and laid her on the deck of the launch bay.
"Same as ever," Cortana replied. "We're in trouble."
Video feed from the ship's external cameras appeared on the Master Chief's heads-up display. Covenant cruisers surrounded them, their plasma turrets aglow; they reminded the Chief of pictures he had seen of fish that lived at the bottom of Earth's oceans—swarms of phosphorescing lights and razor-sharp teeth.
He marched toward the edge of the launch bay and stood a centimeter from where the ship's energy shield abutted the open- ing to the space beyond. He looked directly into the vast blue fields and the giant warships far too close for his liking.
"We jumped to Slipspace, didn't we?" Lieutenant Haverson asked uncertainly.
"Yes," Dr. Halsey replied. "And no."
She withdrew the crystal from her lab coat pocket and frowned as she discovered that it was no longer a slender shard. The facets had rearranged like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle... but in a configuration that differed from the one the artifact displayed in the Covenant grav beam. This time it was a starburst of edges and refracted light.
"We jumped," she said, examining her reflection in the arti-fact's mirrored planes. "But not to the Slipspace we know."
The Master Chief's radiation counter clicked and a shrill alarm screamed through his helmet.
"Secure that, Anton," he said and nodded toward the glowing stone. "Get it into the reactor compartment of the Pelican."
Anton relieved the crystal from Dr. Halsey, who only reluc- tantly released it from her grasp. He sprinted toward the wrecked Pelican.
"There was a radiation surge, Doctor," the Chief explained.
"And that thing is the source." The Chief noticed that the intensity of the radiation did not drop off as Anton moved it into the Pelican.
"Whatever it is," Dr. Halsey said as she scrutinized the blue field outside their ship, "it warps space. When we first approached it in the great room, space curled around the crystal.
And again in the grav beam, it dispersed that field potential."
"And now?" Admiral Whitcomb asked. "This tiling is affect-ing our passage through Slipspace?"
"Apparently so," Dr. Halsey said, and stepped next to John to get a better look outside.
The Admiral joined her and watched as the Covenant ships' turrets heated. "Can they even fire those things in Slipspace? If they can, we're sitting ducks."
The Master Chief could make out more ships in the distance.
The Covenant vessels flickered, faded, disappeared, and then reappeared in the fog. The nearest enemy Covenant ships fired.
Amorphous balls of superheated gas belched from their turrets and accelerated toward them, tingeing the blue space purple.
The Master Chief saw Locklear as he helped Polaski out of the Covenant dropship. He kept her hand in his, and they watched together as the plasma sped toward them.
The balls of plasma streaked on—then curled and spiraled off their trajectories. Several simply winked out of existence, only to reappear somewhere else. The enemy shots raced up, down, sideways—any direction but toward Ascendant Justice.
"What the hell is this?" Sergeant Johnson said and he stepped next to the Master Chief to watch the display. "I didn't think their ships could fire in Slipspace. Ours sure as hell can't."
Dr. Halsey removed her glasses, and her eyes widened. "Nor- mally, they can't. If they can fire, then logically, we're not in Slipspace. And wherever we are," she murmured, "the rules have changed."
The Admiral frowned. "Cortana," he shouted. "Whatever you do, do not return—"
Too late. Cortana returned fire.
Columns of fire streaked from Ascendant Justice—streamers that twisted and helixed, then vanished and reappeared.
The bubble of tangled blue space containing Ascendant Jus- tice and the Covenant warships now contained at least forty bolts of superheated plasma circling in random directions and accelerated to incalculable velocities.
Three spheres of roiling fire appeared in front of the nearest Covenant cruiser and splashed across its bow. The first boiled away its shimmering silver shield; the second and third melted the armor and alloy skin beneath. Atmosphere vented and spun the massive ship like a child's pinwheel.
"Hot damn," Sergeant Johnson crowed. "All we have to do is wait for those trigger-happy bastards to take themselves out.
Look, they're firing again."
The Covenant weapons heated and squeezed out a second salvo of plasma. The guided bolts of fire veered off course, swarmed, disappeared, reappeared, and spun out of control though the local- ized Slipspace bubble.
"No, Sergeant," Dr. Halsey said, her voice turning cold. "We're all in the same mess."
"Cortana," the Master Chief said, "drop the launch bay blast door. Now!"
The three-meter-thick door overhead shuddered and slid down.
A streamer of plasma on a parallel trajectory flashed through the dark not half a kilometer from the Master Chief's face—so close that the external temperature rose twenty degrees even through the ship's shields.
Red fire illuminated Ascendant Justice's starboard shield as plasma splashed across them; the film separating the launch bay from the external vacuum rippled like a thousand broken mir- rors. Static crackled across the Master Chief's armor, and his shields resonated in sympathy.
As the blast door lowered, the Chief saw another fireball spill across their port side. Energy sprayed across the bow in a blood red borealis. Ascendant Justice's shields flickered and faded...
but they held. Barely.
The launch bay door touched the deck and sealed with a sub- sonic thud.
"Blast door locked and secured," Cortana announced.
"Let's get this boat under way," Admiral Whitcomb barked.
"While we still have a boat." He looked around and frowned.
"Chief, lead the way to the bridge."
"Yes, sir." He marched to the passage that led deeper into the alien ship. His Spartans and the rest of the crew followed.
Admiral Whitcomb turned to Dr. Halsey. "Catherine, explain in layman's terms just what the hell is going on here. If we can see those cruisers and they can see us, why aren't our shots connecting?"
Ascendant Justice rolled to port, and explosions chained overhead. The artificial gravity fluttered, and the deck tilted. The crew stumbled, and Dr. Halsey fell to the deck.
"Turrets one and seven destroyed," Cortana announced.
Whitcomb helped Dr. Halsey up off her knees. She glanced nervously up and down the passage. "I'd guess the alien artifact we've brought with us into Slipspace has expanded the region.
Physicists believe Slipstream space is a highly compressed ver- sion of normal space, layered over and under itself, like a ball of yarn. Now, imagine that our ball of yarn"—she interlaced her ringers—"is looped and knotted. These threads are not solid, however; plasma, light, and matter jump from one thread to an- other given the slightest quantum fluctuation."
"If that's the case, Doctor," Lieutenant Haverson said, "then what about our ship? Why aren't we tangled and spread along a trillion alternate spatial pathways?"
"Because of the mass of this ship." She pushed her glasses higher onto her nose. "Imagine a rumpled sheet that represents this space. If you set a heavy mass upon that sheet, it draws it taut, smooths it out."
The Chief came to the heavy bulkhead door and held up his hand, telling the rest of them to halt. He opened the door and stepped onto the bridge, sweeping the space with his rifle.
"Clear," he told them.
Admiral Whitcomb and the others entered the bridge. Lieu- tenant Haverson stepped onto the raised platform and said, "Cortana, project tactical on the displays."
Enemy ship positions and plasma tracks appeared on the inte- rior walls. Contacts multiplied and coalesced, making the plasma appear like waves sloshing about in a bowl. Another bolt broke across the prow of Ascendant Justice.
Through the deck the Master Chief felt the successive thumps of explosive decompressions.
"Hit on subengineering decks," Cortana said. "Sealing those regions. Fire in the lower levels. Attempting to isolate and pump out the atmosphere."
John's childhood AI teacher, Deja, had taught the Spartans about the great Naval battles on Earth's oceans before humans traveled to the stars. They had studied victories in the Punic Wars, and at Midway, as well as the disastrous defeat of Xerxes by the Athenian Navy. Deja had told them, however, that one thing was greater than any human enemy on the sea: nature.
Tidal waves and typhoons could crush the mightiest of battle- ships ... and ignored the tactics of the most brilliant captain.
Ascendant Justice was in the center of a sea of fire ... and it was being battered apart.
Thunder ripped through Ascendant Justice's hull; a geyser of flames shot out the passageway to the bridge. The air jumped and hissed as it escaped the pressurized chamber.
The bulkhead door slammed shut, and the air stilled.
Sergeant Johnson shook his head clear from the sudden drop in pressure. "Let's drop out of this mixed-up Slipspace and start fighting."
"Yeah, or just get rid of that crystal," Locklear said. "If it's the cause of all this mess." He drew his pistol. "One round and boom! Problem solved."
"Don't do that!" Dr. Halsey snapped. "A drop back to normal space has us facing a dozen or more cruisers. And if you destroy the crystal, the expanded Slipspace bubble we're in would in- stantly collapse. Every separate mass in the bubble will compact into a single mass. We wouldn't survive the transition."
Worry creased Admiral Whitcomb's features. "That leaves just one option. Cortana, give me flank speed and heat up every weapon we have. We're going to run right over these Covenant ships. Tangled space or not, we're going to blast them right back to normal space from point-blank range."
"Yes, Admiral," Cortana said. "Engines answering flank speed."
A dull thump echoed from the aft section.
"Stand by," Cortana said. "There's a problem with the primary engines—a power drop occurred just as I engaged."
On the bridge displays the external cameras turned and focused on the aft hull of Ascendant Justice. A snakelike plasma conduit came into focus. Cortana adjusted the image, and a three-meter-wide hole in the conduit snapped into view.
Streamers of blue-white gas vented from the breach.
"That's our main drive conduit," Cortana said. "It's taken a hit.
I'm shutting down engines to conserve power."
The Master Chief squinted. "That was no plasma hit," he muttered. "It was too precise and too inconvenient—this had to be sabotage."
Admiral Whitcomb scowled. "Chief, take your team and pre- pare for a zero-gee repair of the plasma conduit."
"Yes, sir."
Polaski stepped forward. "I'll go too, sir," she said. Locklear grasped her by the arm and tried to pull her back, but she shrugged his hand off. "I can pilot the dropship—get the Spartan team in and out faster."
The Admiral narrowed his eyes, assessing the young woman.
"Very well, Warrant Officer." He added so softly that the Chief almost missed it: "Too many damned heroes in this war."
Polaski turned to Locklear, handed him back his bandanna, and whispered, "Hang on to that for me, Corporal. I'll pick it up when I get back."
Locklear's hand clenched, then relaxed. He took the token, nodded, and looked away. "I'll be here," he said and tied it around his arm.
