"Enable stealth protocols," Commander Richard Lash ordered. "Prepare for transition to normal space."
"Yes, sir." Lieutenant Commander Julian Waters turned to the Dusk's bridge officers.
"External power sources off-line," he said. "Lock ablative baffles. Secure engine dampers."
Lieutenant Bethany Durruno at her NAV station crosschecked the calculations for the slipspace-to-normal transition. "We're almost there, sir. Thirty seconds."
At the OP-SENSOR station. Lieutenant Joe Yang said, "Rigged for dark and silent running, sir. Five points confirmed."
Lash personally rechecked everything on the display by the captain's chair. All shipshape. So why did he have a feeling everything was about to hit the fan? Answer: in his short tenure as commanding officer of the Dusk, imminent disaster had been the norm. He expected no less this time.
"Go to normal space," he ordered. "Start the clock."
Waters set the chronometer and said, "Time on mission: fifteen and counting."
Lash glanced at his old-fashioned spring-and-gear wrist-watch, a gift from his dad when he'd graduated from OSC. "Keep it wound, Son."
He checked: it was indeed wound tight.
The bridge lights dimmed to red as the ship's power shunted to the Shaw-Fujikawa translight drive's particle accelerator, and it ripped a hole back into the normal three dimensions of interstellar space.
The trio of blackened viewscreens sparkled with stars. One point of light was unusually bright. The main screen centered on this star, and astronomical parameters streamed alongside Zeta Doradus. Elliptical orbits traced of the six innermost planets.
"Positive fix on stellar references," Lieutenant Durruno said. "We're slightly off target, sir.
Three million kilometers."
"Move us in," Lash ordered, "one-third full ahead on intercept course for the fourth planet. Tell Lieutenant Commander Cho in Engineering to start recharging the Slipspace capacitors."
"Aye, sir," she said.
She bit her lower lip, and Commander Lash knew that meant she was nervous, too… sensing something amiss already on this mission.
The Dusk skimmed through space, black on black; only a telltale flickering of the background stars gave the slightest indication that anything was there.
Waters glanced at the chronometer and whispered, "Sir, thirteen minutes to go. Barely time to close on the target while running dark, let alone gather a detailed analysis."
Time was never on Commander Lash's side. Either there was too much time and his crew waited days or weeks stealthed or, as was now the case, they had to rush and balance gathering accurate data with remaining hidden. It was a hell of a choice: The fate of thousands' lives and eight other ships depended on this. On the other hand, if the Dusk were detected, no intel would get back. Not to mention, they'd all be dead.
Eighteen months of crew attrition and constant action were now taking their toll on Lash's officers. He watched Lieutenants Durruno and Yang and saw the combat fatigue mirrored in their glazed, dark-circled eyes. They had endured endless waiting— punctuated by salvos of Covenant plasma and laser fire. They'd witnessed the fall of four colonies and the cremation of billions. They were close to the edge. For that matter, so was he.
"We have our orders," Lash told Waters. "Fifteen minutes in and then we transition back.
We'll do our best with the time allotted."
They had limited time for two reasons. First, past fifteen minutes detection by Covenant sensors grew at a statistically geometric rate. Second, after fifteen minutes the Dusk's ability to find the rest of their battle group in Slipspace would exponentially decrease.
Lash sat back, and in the fine tradition of prowler commanders everywhere, he practiced exuding patience.
The Dusk's journey back to Earth had occurred in record time. They had caught a wake in slipstream space, one indeter-minably larger then the Covenant wake they had followed.
Their NAV-AI reported: SOLITON-LIKE wave patterns detected near HALO CONSTRUCT.
Lash had no idea what had caused it, only reported it to Lord Hood… who had considered his report of Shpspace wakes and then immediately ordered them to attempt the same trick and follow the Spartan strike team's vector until they reached remote station Tripoli. There they would rende-vous with a battle group under the command of Admiral Carl "Buster"
Patterson, provide assistance to the Spartan team, and hopefully obtain new technologies that would turn the tide of this war.
Lash had heard rumors of the Spartans' audacious actions, boarding a Covenant ship, nuking its sister ship, destroying the Tallo Negro del Maiz orbital stalk in the process. The stuff legends were made of.
He was more than happy to stay in the shadows. No vid broadcasts about his glorious death, thank you.
The Dusk had had no chance at Earth to take on a full crew or resupply—instead they transitioned immediately to Slipstream space to catch the rapidly dissipating wake of the Spartan-captured Covenant ship.
"Maximum range for the X-ELF radar system," Lieutenant Yang announced. "Eight minutes on the clock, sir."
"Start a high-resolution series," Lash told him, "planet surface to the Lagrange points."
"Coming online now," Yang said. He straightened. "Two contacts in high planetary orbit! Covenant destroyers."
Silhouettes flashed on Lash's display, confirming Yang's analysis.
"Heavy destroyers," Lash murmured. Enough concentrated firepower to take out a dozen UNSC prowlers.
Waters asked, "Could one be the Spartans' ship? We could send a narrow-band encrypted ping, sir."
"Anything is possible with Spartans," Lash said, "but it's not our job to communicate with them. We're here to gather data for Admiral Patterson's strategic consideration."
Waters closed his eyes, thinking a moment, and finally said, "Aye, sir."
The Lieutenant Commander wanted to get into the fight. It was a deadly sentiment for the officer of a prowler. Lash sympathized. Waters had long ago lost his wife and children on Harvest. But stealth was their only defense against such a force. Vengeance had no place on his ship.
"Debris in orbit," Yang said. "Metallic structures. Unknown alloy composition on spectroscopic analysis."
"Recent combat?" Waters asked.
"Aye, sir, residual plasma detected. However… insufficient tonnage to account for even one Covenant destroyer."
"Come to course zero two zero by three two five," Commander Lash ordered Lieutenant Durruno. "Cut engines and shunt the power to recharging Slipspace capacitors."
She focused her laserlike attention on her NAV controls. "Coming about. New trajectory set. Our inertia will take us in for a tight orbit." All trace of her fatigue vanished and she tapped a rapid-fire message on her keyboard, and then replied.
"Lieutenant Commander Cho reports capacitors at fifty percent. They'll be hot in six minutes."
"Go active camouflage," Commander Lash told Waters.
Lash forced himself to remain collected. He felt like a fraud, but he had to try to maintain the illusion of confidence for the sake of his officers. He would never let them know how scared he was.