0103 Hours, September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar) /UNSC CruiserPillar of Autumn, location unknown.

Tech Officer (3rd Class) Sam Marcus swore as the intercom roused him fromfitful sleep. He rubbed his blurry eyes and glanced at the Mission Clockbolted to the wall above his bunk. He’d been asleep for three hours—hisfirst sleep cycle in thirty-six hours, damn it. Worse, this was the firsttime since the ship had jumped that he’d been able to fall asleepat all .

“Jesus,” he muttered, “this better be good.”

The Old Man had put the tech crews on triple shifts after thePillar ofAutumn jumped away from Reach. The ship was a mess after the battle, andwhat was left of the engineering crews worked around the clock to keep theaging cruiser in one piece. Nearly one third of the tech staff had diedduring the flight from Reach, and every department was running a skeletoncrew.

Everyone else went into the freezer, of course—nonessential personnelalways got an ice-nap during a Slipspace jump. In over two hundred combatcruises, Marcus had clocked fewer than seventy-two hours in cryostorage.

Right now, though, he was so tired that even the discomfort of cryorevivalsounded appealing if it meant that he could manage some uninterrupted sleep.

Of course, it was difficult to complain; Captain Keyes was a brillianttactician—and everyone aboard theAutumn knew just how close they’d come todestruction when Reach fell to the enemy. A major naval base destroyed,millions dead or dying as the Covenant burned the planet to a cinder—andone of Earth’s few remaining defenses transformed into corpses and moltenslag.

All in all, they’d been damned lucky to get away—but Sam couldn’t helpbut feel that everyone on theAutumn was living on borrowed time.

The intercom buzzed again, and Sam swung himself out of the bunk. He jabbedat the comm control. “Marcus here,” he growled.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Sam, but I need you down in Cryo Two.” Tech ChiefShephard sounded exhausted. “It’s important.”

“Cryo Two?” Sam repeated, puzzled. “What’s the emergency, Thom? I’m nota cryo specialist.”

“I can’t give you specifics, Sam. The Captain wants it kept off thecomm,” Shephard replied, his voice almost a whisper. “Just in case we haveeavesdroppers.”

Sam winced at the tone in his superior’s voice. He’d known Thom Shephardsince the Academy and had never heard the man sound so grim.

“Look,” Shephard said, “I need someone I can depend on. Like it or not,that’s you, pal. You’ve cross-checked on cryo systems.”

Sam sighed. “Months ago . . . but yes.”

“I’m sending a feed to your terminal, Sam,” Shephard continued. “It’llanswer some of your questions anyway. Dump it to a portable ’pad, grab yourgear and get down here.”

“Roger,” Sam said. He stood, shrugged into his uniform tunic, and steppedover to his terminal. He activated the computer and waited for the uploadfrom Shephard.

As he waited, his eyes locked on a small two-dee photograph taped to theedge of the screen. Sam brushed his fingers against the photo. The prettyyoung woman frozen in the picture smiled back at him.

The terminal chimed as the feed from Shephard appeared in Sam’s messagequeue. “Receiving the feed, Chief,” he called out to the intercom pickup.

He opened the file. A frown creased his tired features as a new messagescrolled across his screen.

>FILE ENCRYPTED/EYES ONLY/MARCUS, SAMUEL N./SN:18827318209-M.

>DECRYPTION KEY: [PERSONALIZED: “ELLEN’S ANNIVERSARY”]

He glanced back at the picture of his wife. He hadn’t seen Ellen in almostthree years—since his last shore leave on Earth, in fact. He didn’t knowanyone on active duty who’d been able to see their loved ones for years.

The war simply didn’t allow for it.

Sam’s frown deepened. UNSC personnel generally avoided talking about thepeople back home. The war had been going badly for so long that morale wasrock-bottom. Thinking about the home front only made things worse. The factthat Thom had personalized the security encoding was unusual enough;reminding Sam of his wife in the process was completely out of character forChief Shephard. Someone was being security-conscious to the point ofparanoia.

He punched in a series of numbers—the date of his wedding—and enabled thedecryption suite. In seconds, the screen filled with schematics and techreadouts. His practiced eye scanned the file—and adrenaline suddenly spikedthrough his fatigue like a bolt of lightning.

“Christ,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “Thom, is this what . . .

who Ithink it is?”

“Damn right. Get down to Cryo Two on the double, Sam. We’ve got animportant package to thaw out—and we drop back into real space soon.”

“On my way,” he said. He killed the intercom connection, his exhaustionforgotten.

Sam quickly dumped the tech file to his portable compad and deleted theoriginal from his computer. He strode toward the door to his cabin, thenstopped. He snatched Ellen’s picture from the workstation—almost as anafterthought—and shoved it into his pocket.

He sprinted for the lift. If the Captain wanted the inhabitant of Cryo Tworevived, it meant that Keyes believed that the situation was about to gofrom bad to worse . . . or it already had.

Unlike vessels designed by humans—in which the command area was almostalways located toward the ship’s bow—Covenant ships were constructed in amore logical fashion, which meant that their control rooms were buried deepwithin heavily armored hulls, making them impervious to anything less than amortal blow.

The differences did not end there. Rather than surround themselves with allmanner of control interfaces, plus the lesser beings required to staff them,the Elites preferred to command from the center of an ascetically barrenplatform held in place by a latticework of opposing gravity beams.

However, none of these things were at the forefront of Ship Master Orna’Fulsamee’s mind as he stood at the center of his destroyer’s controlroom and stared at the data projections which appeared to float in front ofhim. One showed the ring world, Halo. Near that, a tiny arrow tracked theinterloper’s course. The second projection displayed a schematic titledHUMANATTACK SHIP, TYPE C -11. A third scrolled a constant flow of targeting data andsensor readouts.

He fought a moment of revulsion. That these filthy primates somehow meritedan actual name—let alone names for their inferior constructs—galled him tohis core. It was perverse. Names implied legitimacy, and the vermin deservedonly extermination.

The humans had “names” for his own kind—“Elites”—as well as the lesserraces of the Covenant: “Jackals,” “Grunts,” “Hunters.” The appallingtemerity of the filthy creatures, that they would darename his people withtheir harsh, barbaric tongue, was beyond the pale.

He paused, and regained his composure. ’Fulsamee clicked his lowermandibles—the equivalent of a shrug—and mentally recited one of the TrueSayings.Such is the Prophets’ decree, he thought. One didn’t question suchthings, even when one was a Ship Master. The Prophets had assigned names tothe enemy craft, and he would honor their decrees. Any less was adisgraceful dereliction of duty.

Like all of his kind, the Covenant officer appeared to be larger than heactually was, due to the armor that he wore. It gave him an angular,somewhat hunched appearance which, when combined with a heavy, pugnaciousjaw, caused him to look like what he was: a very dangerous warrior. Hisvoice was calm and well modulated as he assessed the situation. “They musthave followed one of our ships. The culprit will be found and put to deathat once, Exalted.”

The being who floated next to ’Fulsamee bobbed slightly as a gust of airnudged his heavily swathed body. He wore a tall, ornate headpiece made ofmetal and set with amber panels. The Prophet had a serpentine neck, atriangular skull, and two bright green eyes which glittered with malevolentintelligence. He wore a red overrobe, a gold underrobe, and somewhere,hidden beneath all the fabric, an antigrav belt which served to keep hisbody suspended one full unit off the deck. Though only a Minor Prophet, hestill outranked ’Fulsamee, as his bearing made clear.

True Sayings aside, the Ship Master couldn’t help but be reminded of thetiny, squealing rodents he had hunted in his childhood. He immediatelybanished the memory of blood on his claws and returned his attention to theProphet, and his tiresome assistant.

The assistant, a lower-rank Elite named Bako ’Ikaporamee, stepped forwardto speak on the Prophet’s behalf. He had an annoying tendency to use theroyal “we,” a habit that angered ’Fulsamee.

“That is very unlikely, Ship Master. We doubt the humans have the means tofollow one of our vessels through a jump. Even if they do, why would theysend only a single cruiser? Is it not their way to drown us in their ownblood? No, we think it’s safe to surmise that this ship arrived in thesystem by accident.”

The words dripped with condescension, a fact which made the Ship Masterangry, but couldn’t be addressed. Not directly, and certainly not with theProphet present, although ’Fulsamee wasn’t willing to cave in completely.

“So,” ’Fulsamee said, careful to direct his comment to ’Ikaporameealone, “you would have me believe that the interlopers arrived hereentirely bychance ?”

“No, of course not,” ’Ikaporamee replied loftily. “Though primitive byour standards, the creaturesare sentient, and like all sentient beings, theyare unconsciously drawn to the glory of the ancients’ truth andknowledge.”

Like all the members of his caste, ’Fulsamee knew that the Prophets hadevolved on a planet which the mysterious truth-givers had previouslyinhabited, and then, for reasons known only to the ancients themselves,subsequently abandoned. This ring world was an excellent example of theancients’ power . . . and inscrutability.

’Fulsamee found it hard to believe that mere humans would be drawn here,the ancients’ wisdom notwithstanding, but ’Ikaporamee spoke for theProphet, so it must be true. ’Fulsamee touched the light panel in front ofhim. A symbol glowed red. “Prepare to fire plasma torpedoes. Launch on mycommand.”

’Ikaporamee raised both hands in alarm. “No!We forbid it. The human vesselis much too close to the construct! What if your weapons were to damage theholy relic? Pursue the ship, board it, and seize control. Anything else isfar too dangerous.”

Angered by what he saw as ’Ikaporamee’s interference, ’Fulsamee spokethrough gritted teeth. “The course of action that the holy one recommendsis likely to result in a high number of casualties. Is this acceptable?”

“The opportunity to transcend the physical is a gift to be sought after,”

the other responded. “The humans are willing to spendtheir lives—can we doless?”

No,’Fulsamee thought,but we should aspire to more. He again clicked hislower mandibles, and touched the light panel. “Cancel the previous order.

Load four transports with troops, and launch another flight of fighters.

Neutralize the interloper’s weaponry before the boarding craft reach theirtarget.”

A hundred units aft, sealed within the destroyer’s fire control center, ahalf-commander acknowledged the order and issued instructions of his own.

Lights began to strobe, the decks transmitted a low frequency vibration, andmore than three hundred battle-ready Covenant warriors—a mix of what thehumans called Elites, Jackals, and Grunts—rushed to board their assignedtransports. There were humans to kill.

None of them wanted to miss the fun.