PROLOGUE

NOVEMBER 2552, LOCATION UNDEFINED. LAST VERIFIED REALSPACE LOCATION:

THE CORE OF THE PLANET ONYX.

It’s a beautiful sunny day. The oak branches are swaying gently in the breeze and the air’s scented with unseen blossom.

And we’re trapped.

Did you ever run and hide as a kid? Ever slam the closet door behind you, giggling because you were sure you’d never be found, and then realize you’d locked yourself in? Did you panic or breathe a sigh of relief? I suppose it al depends on what you were hiding from.

We’re hiding from the end of the world.

For al we know, it’s already happened. If there’s anyone left out there, they don’t even know we’re here. We may be the last sentient life left in the galaxy—me, Chief Mendez, and a detachment of Spartans. Correction: three of my Spartans—Fred, Kel y, and Linda—and five others who are something else entirely, five I didn’t even know existed until this week, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s not knowing.

You’ll explain yourself to me, Chief. I’ve got all the time in the world now. I’ve got more time than I know what to do with.

Mendez takes something out of his pants pocket and gazes wistful y at it like a pilgrim with a holy relic before putting it back.

“You can read Forerunner, Dr. Halsey,” he says, impassive. We’re stil ignoring the elephant looming over us at the moment, neither of us saying what’s real y on our minds. He has his secrets, and I have mine. “Do you know the symbol for pantry? That would be handy right about now.”

He’s staring up at a sun that can’t possibly be there, set in an artificial sky that runs from summer blue at one horizon to starless midnight at the other. We’re not on Onyx any longer—not in this dimension, anyway.

“Chief, this is the most advanced doomsday bunker ever built.” I’m not sure who I’m trying to reassure, him or me. “A civilization sufficiently advanced to build a bomb shelter the size of Earth’s orbit wouldn’t forget to address the food supply. Would they?”

It’s a permanently lovely day inside this Dyson sphere, and beyond its wal s is … actual y, I don’t know any longer. It was Onyx. Now it’s somewhere in slipspace. Every time I think I have the measure of the Forerunners’ technology, something else pops up and confounds me. They must have shared our sense of beauty or bequeathed us theirs, because they made this environment idyl ical y rural; trees, grass, rivers, almost landscaped perfection.

Mendez pats his pocket as if checking something is stil in there. “Better hope they evolved beyond the usual procurement charlie-foxtrot, too, then. Or we’l have to live off the land.”

“We’ve got unlimited water, Chief. That’s something.”

Mendez has known me a damned long time. Over the years he’s perfected that hoary old CPO’s careful y blank expression that looks almost like deference. Almost. It’s actual y disgust. I know that now. I can see it.

But you’re in no position to lecture me on ethics, are you, Chief? I know what you’ve done. The proof’s right in front of me here. I’m looking at them.

Mendez walks away in the direction of the two recon teams waiting under the oak trees. The Spartans—my protégés and Ackerson’s little project, these Spartan-IIIs—look impatient to get on with something useful. They don’t handle idleness wel . We made warfare the sole focus of their lives.

Now we don’t know if there’s stil a war outside to fight, or even a galaxy left to fight it in.

But that’s fine by me. My Spartans are safe here. That’s al that matters. Safe if the Halo Array fires, anyway. I don’t know if this is the haven it appears. Perhaps it’s already got tenants. We’l find out the Navy way, Mendez says.

“Okay, Spartans, the camp’s secured, so let’s shake out and see what’s in the neighborhood.” Mendez unslings his rifle and looks at Fred.

“Conserve rations until we know if there’s anything on the menu here. Right, sir?”

“Right, Chief. Radio check, people.” Fred, Spartan-104, has been made a lieutenant at the ripe old age of forty-one. “Priorities, in this order— secure the area, locate a food supply, and find a way to revive Team Katana and the others.”

How many Spartan-IIIs did Ackerson create? Five are already in suspension here, with three other men we can’t identify, but we have no idea yet how to open their Forerunner slipspace pods. They’l have an interesting story to tel when we do.

Fred gestures to take in the terrain. “Treat this as an acquaint. Spartan-Twos familiarize themselves with Spartan-Threes so that when we get out of here, we’re ready to fight effectively. Kel y, Dr. Halsey, Tom, Olivia—you’re with Chief Mendez. Linda, Lucy, Mark, Ash—with me. Move out.”

Just as Fred turns to walk away, I catch his eye. He was never much good at burying his feelings, but he can’t hide them from me anyway. I know al my Spartans better than their mothers ever did. He shuts his eyes tightly as if he’s blocking out an unbearable world, just a fraction of a second, and then it’s gone. We’ve buried our dead here. Two of those Spartan-IIIs, just into their teens, just children … and Kurt never made it into the sphere.

I thought you were dead already, Kurt. Now I’ve lost you twice.

Fred pats Lucy on the shoulder. “You okay, Spartan?”

She gives him a distracted nod. She’s a disturbing little scrap of a thing, too traumatized to speak. Mendez trained these kids. He knew. He knew what Ackerson was doing with my research. He was part of this al along.

And I won’t forget that, Chief.

Kel y slows and drops back to walk beside me. I’m not twenty-one anymore and I certainly don’t have the stride of a two-meter Spartan, or even these … new ones. My God, they’re too small. How can they be Spartans?

“You’ve fal en on your feet again, Dr. Halsey,” Kel y says. “Some rabbit hole. Did you know it was here?”

“I should stop trying to look as if I know everything, shouldn’t I?”

“You think we’re going to lose this war. I know we’re not.”

“I extrapolate from known facts. But I don’t mind being wrong sometimes.”

How far would I go to save my Spartans? This far. I lured them to Onyx, the safest location I could think of, because I knew they’d never abandon their posts any other way. I lied to them to save them.

And they’re al that stands between me and damnation. I’ve done terrible things—monstrous things, criminal things—that were necessary, but I did it to them. Kidnapped them as children. Experimented on them. Altered them terribly. Kil ed half of them. Made them into soldiers with no life outside the UNSC.

It had to be done, but now I have to do this.

There’s no god waiting to judge us when we die. This is our heaven or hel , the here and now, the pain or the fond memories we leave behind with the living. But I don’t want the forgiveness of society, or Mendez, or even to forgive myself.

I just want to do what’s right for these men and women, whose lives I used. Theirs is the only forgiveness that can absolve me.

Kel y—tal , confident, nothing like the victim I feel I’ve made her—points into the distance. I’m starting to forget we’re trapped in a sphere in the folds of another dimension, because my brain’s getting used to tel ing me benign lies. I stare across a sea of trees at two elegant honey-gold structures protruding above the canopy some kilometers away.

“That’s impressive, Doctor,” she says. “Hey, Chief, what do you think they are?”

“Better be the chow hal .” Mendez keeps scanning the trees as if he’s stil expecting to run into trouble. “Or a way out of here. Don’t forget there’l stil be a hel of a mess to clear up when we get out.”

He’s right. Won or lost, wars never end cleanly. I think we’ve lost already. If the Covenant doesn’t overrun the galaxy then this life-form they cal the Flood wil , or the Halo Array wil fire and wipe out al sentient life. But if we win— Even if we win, the galaxy wil stil be a dangerous, desperate place.

I wonder where John is now. And Cortana. And … Miranda.

See, Miranda? I didn’t forget you. Did I?

CHAPTER ONE

A GOD WHO CREATES TOOLS IS STILL A GOD. IT IS NOT FOR US TO IMPOSE

QUALIFICATIONS UPON THE DIVINE OR PRESUME TO GUESS ITS INTENTIONS.

(FORMER FIELD MASTER AVU MED ‘TELCAM OF THE SANGHEILI NERU PE ‘ ODOSIMA—SERVANTS OF THE ABIDING TRUTH— ON REVELATIONS ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE FORERUNNERS)

FORMER COLONY OF NEW LLANELLI, BRUNEL SYSTEM: JANUARY 2553.

It was an ugly bastard, and the temptation to kil it where it stood was almost more than Serin Osman could handle.

It was also pretty upset. Its arms flailed as if it was on some passionate Sangheili rant about politics or religion or whatever they played instead of footbal , its cloverleaf jaws snapping open and shut like a demented gin-trap. Osman watched from the shuttle cargo bay with her rifle resting on the control panel. Matters could get out of hand with a two-and-a-half-meter alien before you knew it. She was ready to drop the thing before it crushed Phil ips.

He could actual y speak their language, even if some of the sounds defied simple human jaws. She wondered what he sounded like to them. He was making mirroring gestures back at the Sangheili, and although she couldn’t hear the conversation it seemed to be working. The alien did that odd trick with its split mandibles, pressing the two sides together to mimic a human jaw and trying to force out more articulate sounds.

So the hinge-head was mirroring too. It was a good sign. A good sign in a bad deal. No, not a bad deal: a dirty one. Osman stepped down from the bay, careful to keep her rifle close to her leg so she looked prepared but not threatening. Phil ips glanced over his shoulder at her, seeming oblivious of the risk.

I’d never take my eyes off that thing. God, what do they teach these academics about personal safety?

She leaned against the hatch frame and waited, glancing at her watch to check Sydney time. Around her, the ruins of New Llanel i felt like a rebuke. The dead tapped her on the shoulder, appal ed: And you’re talking to these bastards now? On our graves?

A shaft of sunlight struck through a break in the clouds and threw up a bright reflection from a lake in the distance. No … that’s not a lake. Her brain had joined up the dots and made the wrong assumption. She eased her datapad out of her jacket pocket one-handed and checked. There was no body of water for a hundred kilometers on the map in the CAA Factbook. The reflective surface was vitrified sandy soil, mirror-smooth, square hectares of it where there had once been rye and potatoes.

When the Covenant glassed a planet, they real y did just that.

Phil ips gestured to get her attention and distracted her from the uncomfortable thought that the planet was making a point to her. He walked over to the shuttle, looking pleased with himself.

“The Bishop wants a word,” he said. “I told him you were the boss woman. His English is pretty good, so play it straight. And don’t cal him an Elite. Use the proper name. It matters to them.”

Osman pushed herself away from the bulkhead with her hip. “What, like bishop?”

“Ignore that.” Phil ips—Professor Evan Phil ips, another respectable academic who’d been sucked down into ONI’s drain—put on his serious face again. “They told me he was devout, but I didn’t realize how devout.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Might be a bonus.”

“Yes, they do tend to stick to a plan.”

“I meant that he’s a fundamentalist. The Abiding Truth. Very, very old tradition of faith.”

“Prompt me. I’m not an anthropologist.”

“They’re said to have squirreled away original Forerunner relics from the time of their first contact. Their equivalent of saints’ fingers.”

“It must be my birthday.” Osman wasn’t sure when that real y was. Today seemed as good a day as any. “Maybe they’ve got some schematics in a dusty drawer or something.”

“Come on, don’t keep him waiting.”

“How is he with women? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a female Sangheili. Do they keep them in purdah or something?”

“It’s not that simple.” Phil ips beckoned to her to fol ow. “The ladies wield a hel of a lot of political power in the bloodline stakes. When you’ve got a few hours to kil , I’l explain it.”

She didn’t, and it could wait. She walked up to the Sangheili, steeling herself not to cal him an Elite or a murdering hinge-head bastard.