Ascendant Justice

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The Ascendant Justice was a Covenant Flagship, one of the ships in the Fleet of Particular Justice, and probably used to command large fleets. It was the ship that the Master Chief and his crew took over in the book First Strike

Background

It had seven plasma turrets and was noted to have three thousand Covenant personnel, mostly Engineers, along with quite a small crew of combat personnel, a light company of Grunts and only a hundred Elites, a small crew when its size was taken into consideration. There were apparently enough Engineers on board to merit them having an access tunnel of their own. The Master Chief noted that he "hadn't seen anything like this on the Truth and Reconciliation," and that it was "armed like a ship of war... yet had the support staff of a refit vessel".

History

The ship was present at the destruction of Installation 04, searching the wreckage for transmissions from survivors. It was boarded and captured by a small team of UNSC forces, among them was John-117, who used it to return to Reach and evacuate a small number of Spartan survivors, Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Dr. Halsey, as well as a Forerunner artifact from the planet, attaching the wreckage of the UNSC Frigate Gettysburg for additional power, and escaping through slipspace to the Eridanus Secundus System, forced to engage multiple Covenant warships, such as Cruisers and Carriers, in an alternate slipspace.This is also known as the battle in which John-117 launched a super-compressed plasma torpedo at the Covenant.

The ship recieved assistance from remaining Eridanus Rebels in a small asteroid colony, who provided personnel and repairs for the ships weaponry, before being discovered by the Covenant. Though the Ascendant Justice engaged the initial Covenant forces in battle, reinforcements arrived en masse, forcing it to abandon the colony. The Ascendant Justice inserted John and his Spartans near the Unyielding Hierophant in a Spirit Dropship, and provided a distraction later by crashing into the station, allowing the Spartans to reach the detached and operational Gettysburg, and observe the destruction of the station.

Though the Ascendant Justice was destroyed, along with the station and the majority of a Covenant fleet, the ships slipspace drive allowed the Gettysburg to reach Earth and warn the UNSC leadership of the Covenants plans to reach Earth. It is not currently known what has become of the Ascendant Justice's slipspace drive, though it is assumed that it was studied by UNSC technicians.

Only four members of the Ascendant Justice's original Covenant crew survived its capture. A Special Operations Elite who engaged the Master Chief in hand-to-hand combat was shot and pushed into an escape pod, some people state that this elite is the arbiter, and three Engineers were taken to Earth on the Gettysburg. The eventual fate of the commando, and of the captured Engineers, has not been stated.

The future Arbiter was mentioned as "the incompetent who...lost Ascendant Justice" at the end of First Strike, and the High Prophet of Truth instructed Tartarus to "let his fate match the magnitude of his failure".

Trivia

• When the Ascendant Justice first arrived Reach in the greeting that Cortana recieved, someone called the Guardian of the Luminous Key was supposed to be in command of the ship according to the string of honorifics attatched to the greeting.

• Cortana refers to the ship as a tin can in Halo: First Strike.