Halo Lighting System Games manual Halo First Strike

78 HALO: FIRST STRIKE

of the ship, assuming that there had only been one point of sabo- tage. It was a mistake she would never have made if she'd been operating at full capacity.

She checked every system of the flagship. She then locked them out with her own security measures.

Cortana turned off her feelings of anger and guilt and concen- trated on keeping the ship in one piece, and the Master Chief alive. No. . . she reconsidered and kept her emotions active. The "intuition" provided by this aspect of her intelligence template was too valuable to deactivate in a battle.

She maneuvered the flagship toward the gas giant, Threshold. The incoming plasma might be disrupted by the planet's mag- netic field—if she dared get close enough.

Cortana diverted power from the foreshield to the aft por- tions, distorting the protective bubble around the flagship. She turned all seven plasma turrets aft and fired a pair of plasma tor- pedoes at the incoming salvo.

The plasma turrets warmed and belched superheated flame— but it dispersed into a dull red cloud only a few meters from the point of fire, thinned, and then dissolved.

She saw a subsystem linked to the weapons control: an ac- companying magnetic field multiplier. That was how the Cove- nant shaped and guided their charges of plasma. It acted as a sophisticated focusing lens. Something wasn't right, however— something had already been in this directory and had erased the software.

Cortana swore that when she caught this guerrilla Covenant AI, she'd erase it line by line.

Without understanding how the guiding magnetic fields worked, the plasma turrets were no more useful than a fireworks display.

The enemy Covenant plasma charges, however, were tight and burned like miniature suns; they overtook the flagship and splashed over its reinforced aft shields. They boiled against the silver energy until the shields dulled and winked out.

The plasma etched a portion of the aft hull away like hot water dissolving salt. Cortana sensed the dull thumps of atmospheric decompressions.