by Eric Nylund
hundred ten percent.” “Aye, Commander,” Lieutenant Jaggers replied. “Reactor running hot, sir,” Hall reported. “Now exceeding recommended operational parameters.” “ETA?” Jaggers calculated, then looked up. “Forty-three minutes,” he replied. “Too slow,” Commander Keyes muttered. “Reactor to one hundred thirty percent, Lieutenant Hall.” She hesitated. “Sir?” “Do it!” “Yes, sir!” She moved as if someone had electrically shocked her. “FLEETCOM online, sir,” Lieutenant Dominique said. The weathered face of Admiral Michael Stanforth appeared on the main view screen. Commander Keyes breathed a sigh of relief. Admiral Stanforth had a reputation for being reasonable
and intelligent. He’d understand the logic of the situation.
“Commander Keyes,” the Admiral said. “The old ‘Schoolmaster’ himself, huh? This is the priority channel, son. This better be an emergency.” Commander Keyes ignored the obvious condescension. He knew many at FLEETCOM thought he
deserved to command nothing but a classroom—and some probably thought he didn’t deserve that. “The Sigma Octanus System is about to come under attack, sir.” Admiral Stanforth cocked an eyebrow and leaned closer to the screen.
“I’m requesting that all ships in-system rendezvous with theIroquois at Sigma Octanus Four. And any ships in neighboring systems make best speed here.”
“Show me what you’ve got, Keyes,” the Admiral said. Commander Keyes displayed the silhouette from the sensor outpost first. “Covenant ships, sir. Their silhouettes are overlapped. Our probes resolve them as one mass because Slipspace is bent by gravity more easily than normal space.”
The Admiral listened to his analysis, frowning. “You’ve fought the Covenant, sir. You known how precisely they can maneuver their ships through the
Slipstream. I’ve seen a dozen alien craft appear in normal space, in perfect formation, not a kilometer apart.” “Yeah,” the Admiral muttered. “I’ve seen that, too. All right, Keyes, good work. You’ll get everything
we can send.” “Thank you, sir.” “You just hang in there, son. Good luck. FLEETCOM out.” The view screen snapped off. “Sir?” Lieutenant Hall turned around. “How many Covenant ships?” “I’d estimate four medium-tonnage vessels,” he said. “The equivalent of our frigates.” “FourCovenant ships?” Lieutenant Jaggers muttered. “What canwe do?” “Do?” Commander Keyes said. “Our duty.” “Begging the Commander’s pardon, but there arefour Cov—” Jaggers began to protest. Keyes cut him off with a glare. “Stow that, mister.” He paused, weighing his words. “Sigma Octanus
Four has seventeen million citizens, Lieutenant. Are you suggesting that we just stand by and watch the Covenant glass the planet?” “No, sir.” His gaze dropped to the deck.
“We will do the best we can,” Commander Keyes said. “In the meantime, remove all weapons system locks, order missile crews to readiness, warm up the MAC guns, and remove the safeties from one of our nukes.”
“Yes, sir!” Lieutenant Hikowa said.
An alarm sounded at ops. “Reactor hysteresis approaching failure levels,” Lieutenant Hall reported. “Superconducting magnets overloading. Coolant breakdown imminent.” “Vent primary coolant and pump in the reserve tanks,” Commander Keyes ordered. “That will buy us
another five minutes.” “Yes, sir.” Commander Keyes fumbled with his pipe. He didn’t bother to light the thing, just chewed on the end.
Then he put it away. The nervous habit wasn’t setting the right example for his bridge officers. He didn’t
have the luxury of showing his apprehension. The truth was, he was terrified. Four Covenant ships would be an even match forseven destroyers. The best he could hope for was to get their attention and outrun them—hopefully distract them until the fleet got here.
Of course . . . those Covenant ships could outrun theIroquois as well.
“Lieutenant Jaggers,” he said, “initiate the Cole Protocol. Purge our navigation databases, and then generate an appropriate randomized exit vector from the Sigma Octanus System.” “Yes, sir.” He fumbled with his controls. He hung his head, steadied his hands, and slowly typed in the
commands. “Lieutenant Hall: make preparations to override reactor safeties.” His junior officers all paused for a second. “Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Hall whispered. “We’re receiving a transmission from the system’s edge,” Lieutenant Dominique announced.
“FrigatesAlliance andGettysburg are on an inbound vector at maximum speed. ETA . . . one hour.” “Good,” Commander Keyes said. That hour might as well be a month. This battle would be over in minutes.
He could not fight the enemy—he was severely outgunned. He couldn’t outrun them, either. There had
to be another option. Hadn’t he always told his students that when you were out of options, then you were using the wrong tactics? You had to bend the rules. Shift perspective—anything to find a way out of a hopeless situation.
The black space near Sigma Octanus IV boiled and frothed with motes of green light. “Ships entering normal space,” Lieutenant Jaggers announced, panic tingeing his voice. Commander Keyes got to his feet. He had been wrong. There weren’t four Covenant frigates. A pair of enemy frigates emerged from
Slipspace . . . escorting a destroyer and a carrier. His blood ran cold. He had seen battles in which a Covenant destroyer had made Swiss cheese of UNSC
ships. Its plasma torpedoes could boil through theIroquois ’ two meters of titanium-A battleplate in seconds. Their weapons were light-years ahead of the UNSC’s. “Their weapons,” Commander Keyes muttered under his breath. Yes . . . hedid have a third option. “Continue at emergency speed,” he ordered, “and come about to heading zero three two.” Lieutenant Jaggers swiveled in his seat. “That will put us on collision course with their destroyer, sir.” “I know,” Commander Keyes replied. “In fact, I’m counting on doing just that.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
0320 Hours, July 17, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSCIroquois en route to Sigma Octanus IV
Commander Keyes stood with his hands behind his back and tried to look calm. Not an easy thing to do when his ship was on a collision course with a Covenant battlegroup. Inside, adrenaline raced through his blood and his pulse pounded.
He had to at leastappear in control for his crew. He was asking a lot from them . . . probablyeverything , in fact.
His junior officers watched their status monitors; they occasionally glanced nervously at him, but their gazes always drifted back to the center view screen.
The Covenant ships looked like toys in the distance. It was dangerous to think of them as harmless, however. One slip, one underestimation of their tremendous firepower, and theIroquois would be destroyed.
The alien carrier had three bulbous sections; its swollen center had thirteen launch bays. Commander Keyes had seen hundreds of fighters stream out of them before—fast, accurate, and deadly craft. Normally his ship’s AI would handle point defense . . . only this time, there was no AI installed on theIroquois .
The alien destroyer was a third again as massive as theIroquois . She bristled with pulse laser turrets, insectlike antennae, and chitinous pods. The carrier and destroyer moved together . . . but not towardIroquois . They slowly drifted in-system toward Sigma Octanus IV.
Were they going to ignore him? Glass the planet without even bothering to swat him out of the way first?
The Covenant frigates, however, lagged behind. They turned in unison and their sides faced theIroquois —preparing for a broadside. Motes of red light appeared and swarmed toward the frigate’s lateral lines, building into a solid stripe of hellish illumination.
“Detecting high levels of beta particle radiation,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “They’re getting ready to fire their plasma weapons, Commander.”
“Course correction, sir?” Lieutenant Jaggers asked. His fingers tapped in a new heading bound out
system. “Stay on course.” It took all Commander Keyes’ concentration to say that matter-of-factly. Lieutena
nt Jaggers turned and started to speak—but Commander Keyes didn’t have time to address his
concerns.
“Lieutenant Hikowa,” Commander Keyes said. “Arm a Shiva missile. Remove all nuclear launch safety locks.” “Shiva armed. Aye, Commander.” Lieutenant Hikowa’s face was a mask of grim determination. “Set the fuse on radio transmission code sequence detonation only. Disable proximity fuse. Stand by for
a launch pilot program.” “Sir?” Lieutenant Hikowa looked confused by his order, but then said, “Sir! Yes, sir. Making it happen.” The alien frigates in the center of the view screen no longer looked remotely like toys to Commander
Keyes. They looked real and larger every second. The red glow along their sides had become solid
bands . . . almost too bright to look directly at. Commander Keyes picked up his data pad and quickly tapped in calculations: velocity, mass, and heading. He wished they had an AI online to double-check his figures. This amounted to no more than an educated guess. How long would it take theIroquois to orbit Sigma Octanus IV? He got a number and cut it by 60 percent, knowing they’d either pick up speed . . . or be dead by the time it mattered.
“Lieutenant Hikowa, set the Shiva’s course for mark one eight zero. Full burn for twelve seconds.” “Aye, sir,” she said, tapped in the parameters, and locked them into the system. “Missile ready, sir.” “Sir!” Lieutenant Jaggers swiveled around and stood. His lips were drawn into a tight thin line. “That
course fires the missile directlyaway from our enemies.” “I am aware of that, Lieutenant Jaggers. Sit down and await further orders.” Lieutenant Jaggers sat. He rubbed his temple with a trembling hand. His other hand balled into a fist. Commander Keyes linked to the NAV system and set a countdown timer on his data pad. Twenty-nine
seconds. “On my mark, Lieutenant Hikowa, launch that nuke . . . and not a moment before.” “Aye, sir.” Her slender hand hovered over the control panel. “MAC guns are still hot, Commander,” she
reminded him.
“Divert the energy keeping the capacitors at full charge and route them to the engines,” Commander Keyes ordered. Lieutenant Hall said, “Diverting now, sir.” She exchanged a glance with Lieutenant Hikowa. “Engines
now operating at one hundred fifty percent of rated output. Red line in two minutes.” “Contact! Contact!” Lieutenant Dominique shouted. “Enemy plasma torpedoes away, sir!” Scarlet lightning erupted from the alien frigates—twin bolts of fire streaked through the darkness. They
looked as if they could burn space itself. The torpedoes were on a direct course for theIroquois .
“Course correction, sir?” Lieutenant Jaggers’ voice broke with strain. His uniform was soaked with perspiration. “Negative,” Commander Keyes replied. “Continue on this heading. Arm all aft Archer missile pods.
Rotate launch arcs one eight zero degrees.”
“Aye, sir.” Lieutenant Hikowa wrinkled her brow, and then she slowly nodded and silently mouthed, “ . . . yes.” Boiling red plasma filled half the forward view screen. It was beautiful to watch in an odd way—like a
front-row seat at a forest fire.
Keyes found himself strangely calm. This would either work or it would not. The odds were long, but he was confident that his actions were the only option to survive this encounter. Lieutenant Dominique turned. “Collision with plasma in nineteen seconds, sir.” Jaggers turned from his station. “Sir! This is suicide! Our armor can’t withstand—” Keyes cut him off. “Mister, man your station or I will have you removed from the bridge.” Jaggers looked pleadingly at Hikowa. “We’re going todie , Aki—” She refused to meet his gaze and turned back to her controls. “You heard the Commander,” she said
quietly. “Man your post.” Jaggers sank into his seat.
“Collision with plasma in seven seconds,” Lieutenant Hall said. She bit her lower lip. “Lieutenant Jaggers, transfer emergency thruster controls to my station.” “Yes . . . yes, sir.” The emergency thrusters were tanks of trihydride tetrazine and hydrogen peroxide. When they mixed,
they did so with explosive force—literally blasting theIroquois onto a new course. The ship had six such tanks strategically placed on hardened points on the hull. Commander Keyes consulted the countdown timer on his data pad. “Lieutenant Hikowa: fire the nuke.”
“Shiva away, sir! On course—one eight zero, maximum burn.” Plasma filled the forescreen; the center of the red mass turned blue. Greens and yellows radiated outward, the light frequencies blue-shifting in spectra.
“Distance three hundred thousand kilometers,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Collision in two seconds.”
Commander Keyes waited a heartbeat then hit the emergency thrusters to port. A bang resonated through the ship’s hull—Commander Keyes flew sideways and impacted with the bulkhead. The view screen was full of fire and the bridge was suddenly hot. Commander Keyes stood. He counted the beats of his pounding heart. One, two, three— If they had been hit by the plasma, there wouldn’t be anything to count. They would be dead already. Only one view screen was working now, however. “Aft camera,” he said. The twin blots of fire streaked along their trajectories for a moment, then lazily arced, continuing their
pursuit of theIroquois . One pulled slightly ahead of its counterpart, so they appeared now like two
blazing eyes. Commander Keyes marveled at the aliens’ ability to direct that plasma from such a great distance. “Good,” he murmured to himself. “Chase us all the way to hell, you bastards.
“Track them,” he ordered Lieutenant Hall. “Aye, sir,” she said. Her perfectly groomed hair was tousled. “Plasma increasing velocity. Matching our speed . . . overtaking our velocity now. They will intercept in forty-three seconds.”
“Forward camera,” Commander Keyes ordered.
The view screen flashed: the image changed to show the two alien frigates turning to face the incomingIroquois head-on. Blue lights flickered along their hulls—pulse lasers charging. Commander Keyes pulled back the camera angle and saw the alien carrier and the destroyer were still
inbound toward Sigma Octanus IV. He read their position off his data pad and quickly performed the
necessary calculations. “Course correction,” he told Lieutenant Jaggers. “Come about to heading zero zero four point two five. Declination zero zero zero point one eight.”
“Aye, sir,” Jaggers said. “Zero zero four point two five. Declination zero zero zero point one eight.” The view screen turned and centered on the enormous Covenant destroyer. “Collision course!” Lieutenant Hall announced. “Impact with Covenant destroyer in eight seconds.” “Stand by for new course correction: declination minus zero zero zero point one zero.” “Aye, sir.” As Jaggers typed he wiped the sweat from his eyes and double-checked his numbers.
“Course online. Awaiting your order, sir.” “Collision with Covenant destroyer in five seconds,” Hall said. She clutched the edge of her seat. The destroyer grew in the view screen: laser turrets and launch bays, bulbous alien protrusions and
flickering blue lights.
“Hold this course,” Commander Keyes said. “Sound collision alarm. Switch to undercarriage camera now.” Klaxons blared. The view screen snapped off and on and showed black space—then a flash of the faint purple-blue hull
of a Covenant ship.
TheIroquois screeched and shuddered as she grazed the prow of the Covenant destroyer. Silver shields flickered onscreen—then the screen filled with static. “Course correction now!” Commander Keyes shouted.
“Aye, sir.” There was a brief burn from the thrusters and theIroquois nudged down slightly. “Hull breach!” Lieutenant Hall said. “Sealing pressure doors.” “Aft camera,” Commander Keyes said. “Guns: Fire aft Archer missile pods!” “Missiles away,” Lieutenant Hikowa replied. Keyes watched as the first of the plasma torpedoes that had been trailing theIroquois impacted on the
prow of the alien destroyer. The ship’s shields flared, flickered . . . and vanished. T
he second bolt hit a moment later. The hull of the alien ship blazed and then turned red-hot, melted, and boiled. Secondary explosions burst through the hull.
The Archer missiles streaked toward the wounded Covenant ship, tiny trails of exhaust stretching from theIroquois to the target. They slammed into the gaping wounds in the hull and detonated. Fire and debris burst from the destroyer.
A smile spread across Keyes’ face as he watched the alien ship burn, list, and slowly plunge into Sigma Octanus IV’s gravity well. Without power, the Covenant vessel would burn up in the planet’s atmosphere.
Commander Keyes flicked on the intercom. “Brace for emergency thruster maneuver.”
He punched the thruster controls—explosive force detonated on the starboard side of the ship. TheIroquois nosed toward Sigma Octanus IV. “Course correction, Lieutenant Jaggers,” he said. “Bring us into a tight orbit.” “Aye, sir.” He furiously tapped in commands, diverting engine output through attitude thrusters. The hull of theIroquois glowed red as it entered the atmosphere. A cloud of yellow ionization built up
around the view screen. Commander Keyes gripped the railing tighter. The view screen cleared and he could see the stars. TheIroquois entered the dark side of the planet. Commander Keyes slumped forward and started breathing again.
“Engine coolant failure, sir,” Lieutenant Hall said. “Shut the engines down,” he ordered. “Emergency vent.” “Aye, sir. Venting fusion reactor plasma.” TheIroquois was abruptly quiet. No rumble of her engines. And no one said anything until Lieutenant
Hikowa stood and said, “Sir, that was the most brilliant maneuver I have ever seen.” Commander Keyes gave a short laugh. “You think so, Lieutenant?” If one of his students had proposed such a maneuver in his tactics class, he would have given them a C+.
He would have told them their maneuver was full of bravado and daring . . . but extremely risky, placing