Ascendant Justice

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 appeared in Halo: First Strike. 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, when its size was taken into consideration. It also apparently had someone named the Guardian of the Luminous Key, although who this might be is unknown as he most likely died either in the Master Chief's original assault, or when the ship was destroyed. 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" (Covenant Engineers).

This ship was present at the destruction of Installation 04, and was hijacked by surviving UNSC forces. The ship was, in turn, used against the Covenant, and was responsible for the destruction of the battle station Unyielding Hierophant, delaying Earth's inevitable doom. Prior to its sacrifice, the ship also helped rescue survivors from Reach, more specifically, from ONI's CASTLE Base.

Its Slipspace generators were placed on the UNSC Gettysburg, making it the fastest and most accurate ship in the UNSC with regards to Slipspace travel.

The future Arbiter was mentioned as "the incompetent who...lost Ascendant Justice" (p. 340) at the end of First Strike, and the High Prophet of Truth instructed Tartarus to "let his fate match the magnitude of his failure" (p. 340). Although not THE head starship of the Covenant forces that pursued the Pillar of Autumn to Installation 04, Ascendant Justice obviously was of great importance to the Covenant for Truth to issue such a severe punishment as witnessed in Halo 2.