Chapters 1-5

Chapter One - Just Dustin Echoes
            A great rumble spread through the structure of the Pillar of Autumn, and then its reactor core went critical. The ship was torn apart by a tremendous fireball. The explosion rocked the very infrastructure of the ring-world, and Halo was broken. The chunks of the great ring that were broken free by the explosion wheeled through space, drawn by the gravity of what remained of the ring. They collided with one another, smashing themselves apart. The Pillar of Autumn had started a chain reaction, and the Master Chief, the cause of all the chaos, watched from the window of his lonely Longsword fighter… as Halo destroyed itself.

            “Did anyone else make it?” he asked in his deep, monotone, almost mechanical voice.

            “Scanning…” replied Cortana, the Smart AI in the Master Chief’s helmet computer. Though she was only a computer, she sounded much more human than the Master Chief.

            “Just… Dust and Echoes,” she finished solemnly.

            The Master Chief knew what she meant. There had been one survivor… the only one. The man who survived every battle and never took part in them, the watcher, the sentinel, the observer, always remaining secret, gathering information, and then moving on… Dustin Echoes. As the Master Chief surveyed the cold blackness of space, he wondered where Echoes wandered now. For all he knew, the ONI agent could be floating right next to his own Longsword… for Dustin’s ship was a stealth craft, a special experimental ship built for him by ONI. The Chief had no love for the Office of Naval Intelligence, but he respected their agent, and their orders. He knew he must never reveal the existence of Dustin Echoes. Even when one was alone, he could not be spoken of. Ears were everywhere, and Dustin’s mission was too important to risk being discovered. His existence was not even to be acknowledged.

            And that was why Cortana finished her assessment by saying, “We’re all that’s left! We did what we had to do, for earth! Halo… it’s finally over.”

            The Master Chief sat down in the pilot’s seat of the Longsword fighter and began removing his helmet as he answered, “No, I think we’re just getting started.”

            Not too far away, watching the same spectacle as the famed Spartan super-soldier, was Dustin Echoes, the completely and totally unknown agent whose eyes had seen great sights, perhaps even more than the Master Chief ever had. He was wearing his simple, blank red navy uniform, seated comfortably in the pilot’s seat of his ship, the Blackdagger. The Blackdagger was about the same size as a Longsword fighter, but it had a more intricate design and less firepower. What it lacked in punch it made up for in stealth; the black-hulled craft could cloak in space just like some Covenant ships had been reputed to do. The technology was experimental and not officially used yet for a number of reasons. Since Dustin worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence, or ONI, however, he was allowed to use it. For Dustin’s one mission in life was to stay hidden, gather intelligence, and survive. He was to watch every battle he could that took place between the Covenant and the UNSC, and report whatever he saw back to ONI. He was not to take part in the fight, even to help his fellow humans. Only one person had to survive every battle he watched… and that was him.

            Echoes was not a tall man or a strong man, but he was a smart one. His keen grey eyes spoke volumes of his perception and intelligence, while his relatively long, thick dark brown hair spoke of his separation from the actual fighting force of the UNSC… and its strict guidelines on hair length.

            “Diana,” he said in his usual calm, quiet voice, “Who is in that Longsword fighter?”

            A hologram of a female figure appeared on the “dashboard” of the Blackdagger. Dustin always liked to look at Diana. She was a perfect female beauty, too perfect, in fact, to be real… or so he thought. She had long hair that hung down to her waist and wore beautiful, neat robes. A bow and a quiver of arrows was strapped across her back, for she was named after the Roman goddess of the hunt. Like Dustin, it was her job to remain hidden while on the prowl, and that was why she had been given this name and appearance. Her hologram glowed brightly, its color shifting from green to gold as Dustin watched. Diana was a Smart AI, a unit of artificial intelligence built by ONI from the brain of some unknown human. She had been with Dustin for a number of years, and she had grown on him. He knew that the lifespan of a Smart AI was limited, since after a few years they “thought themselves to death” by gathering and sorting too much information. After that, they went rampant. Still, he usually thought of Diana more as a companion than as a tool or computer program.

            “It contains the Master Chief and Cortana, the AI from the Pillar of Autumn,” Diana responded to his previous question in her flowing, musical voice with its dignified British accent, “They apparently escaped the explosion they caused when they destroyed the ring.”

            “Is there anyone else out there?” Dustin asked.

            Diana shook her holographic head, “I am unsure. It is possible that others may be alive and out of the range of my scanners… Wait, I am picking up something.”

            “What?” Dustin asked quickly, noting some alarm in her voice.

            “Two Covenant Seraph fighters on approach,” she answered, “They do not seem to be after us, however. They appear to be… fighting each other.”

            Dustin raised an eyebrow at her as he looked at the viewscreen. Sure enough, the image that Diana displayed showed the two teardrop-shaped purple fighters hot on each other’s tail, firing their plasma weapons at one another. Dustin sat back and watched the dogfight in relaxation. That was, after all, his job, and he figured this would be an entertaining distraction for a while. After it was over, then he could move in and try to find out why two Covenant ships would want to kill each other.

            “They’re getting dangerously close, Sir,” Diana warned.

            “Wait it out,” Dustin said, “Space is big. What’s the likelihood that they’ll hit us?”

            Diana seemed to turn and look at something, “Impact in five…”

            “What?” Dustin exclaimed, “Okay, take evasive action then!”

            Dustin knew this was a risky move. Whenever the Blackdagger made any kind of directional adjustments in space, it grew more easily visible. The ripples it made in light waves could be detected more easily by the naked eye, as well as by some detection systems. As the ship lurched to one side to avoid the oncoming Seraph, Diana knew it was too late. The Covenant fighter slammed into the Blackdagger’s wing, sending it rolling. A few light plasma shots from the second Seraph struck the Blackdagger’s hull, and as Diana fired the ship’s boosters to adjust its direction, Dustin knew their position was completely given away.

            “Fire on the attacking Seraph!” Dustin ordered, “Wait, give me manual control!”

            As the ship’s controls responded to his hands, he swerved it around to face the oncoming Covenant fighter. The Seraph was still seemingly ignoring him, chasing after its original prey. This surprised Dustin, and more than ever he wondered why they were fighting.

            “Can we contact that Seraph, Diana? Can you tell if there’s a human on board, by any chance?”

            “Negative, Sir,” Diana responded calmly, “There are no humans on board either craft, according to my scanners, and they are not responding to hailing signals. Wait – the attacker has just disabled his foe. He is now moving in for the kill.”

            Dustin saw it. The first Seraph had taken a major hit when it had struck the Blackdagger’s wing, perhaps disabling its shields, and now its foe had managed to take out its engines. Dustin could see the main plasma cannons charging now for the final blast.

            “Is there a way we can disable the ship before it fires?” Dustin asked quickly.

            “Done,” Diana responded.

            Dustin felt the ship move out of his control. It pointed directly at a nearby asteroid – or perhaps a chunk of Halo; Dustin could not tell which – and fired. Dustin did not know how Diana had calculated it, but the hunk of rock went spinning off in just the right direction to strike the Seraph fighter, hard. The ship was knocked off course and its plasma blasts went flying off in the wrong direction as they fired. The bent and broken spacecraft rotated slowly before Dustin’s eyes, apparently dead.

            “Are both craft disabled?” Dustin asked.

            “Yes, Sir,” Diana responded.

            “Please, Diana, haven’t I told you not to be so official about everything? Call me Dustin, and don’t say Sir after everything.”

            “I apologize, Dustin. I must have resorted to standard military programming as the dangerous situation approached.”

            Dustin nodded, “It’s no problem, Diana. Now, can you use the boarding tube to hook up to one of the Seraph fighters? If we could capture a pilot alive, it could prove useful.”

            “Boarding sequence initiated,” Diana said smoothly.

            The Blackdagger turned slowly about as a long, hose-like tube extended from the rear of the vessel. It grew long and longer until it touched the hull of the small purple Seraph fighter, hooking on precisely over the fighter’s boarding hatch. Dustin got out of his pilot seat, walked to the back of the ship, opened a compartment on the wall, and took out his alternate uniform. Diana followed him, appearing from a holo-projector on the briefing table. She “watched” as Dustin slipped out of his simple red Navy suit and began putting on his ODST, or Orbital Drop Shock Trooper, space suit. Sometimes Diana’s watching him change embarrassed him, and he had to remind himself that she was only an AI. Dustin Echoes was not an ODST, not a Marine of any kind, but he had been assigned a standard ODST suit of armor for his own personal use. When he was done suiting up, he loaded his assault rifle and walked over to the hatch at the back of the ship.

            “All right,” he said, his voice now filtered like the Master Chief’s as it escaped from his helmet, “Open the hatch, Diana.”

            “Done,” the AI responded.

            There was a hiss as the round portal opened wide. Dustin wondered if any oxygen had escaped, but he knew his space suit would protect him if it had. As he floated weightlessly down the long boarding tube, guiding himself with one hand and pointing his rifle with the other, he saw the gleam of the Seraph’s purple hull on the other side. The tube had fitted around the hatch perfectly, but Dustin did not know how to open it. So he merely knocked. The door flew open immediately, and a full blown Covenant Elite leapt out. He grabbed Dustin’s free arm with one hand and raised a plasma rifle with the other. Dustin fired his assault rifle at the alien’s freakish mouth as he kicked away at the creature’s gasping hand. He felt a plasma blast burn into his side as one of the shots the Elite was firing slipped through his armor. But Dustin had started firing first, and his aim was truer. The Elite, who luckily had no personal shielding system activated, finally released his hold on Dustin’s arm as life left his body. The ONI agent studied the dead creature’s mutilated face. He had unloaded nearly a whole clip into the alien’s head, shattering the Elite’s blue-white helmet and spattering the walls with its purple blood.

            Ignoring the pain of his wound, Dustin grabbed the Elite’s arm and began dragging its body behind him as he made his way back to the Blackdagger. Once he was back inside, Diana shut the hatch behind him. He turned to look at her and saw the medical storage compartment was already open.

            “Get to work on your wounds, Dustin,” she said, “I wish you had a suit like a Spartan soldier, so that I could begin feeding pain relievers into your bloodstream through a remote connection…”

            “Is that concern I detect in your voice, Diana?” Dustin teased as he walked over to the medical compartment and took out a med kit.

            “Well, yes,” she responded, “I care for your well-being.”

            Dustin did not respond. For some reason he felt sick. He knew that it was her mission to keep him safe, but when she talked like that he almost wished that she felt something more for him. He shook his head, clearing his mind of such thoughts. He’d been too long alone in space with her, he thought. That’s why he was having thoughts like this.

            “What about that Elite?” he asked aloud.

            “What about him?” Diana responded, “He is a standard Covenant Elite, dead. I can detect nothing special about him.”

            “No clues as to…”

            “Why he was fighting the other Seraph?” Diana finished for him, “No.”

            Dustin nodded, “Okay then, begin docking with the other fighter.”

            It was not long before Dustin Echoes was once again in the boarding tube, now dirty with blood, moving down toward the hatch of the first Seraph fighter, the one that had slammed into the Blackdagger’s wing. He was more nervous this time, but he had come prepared with one of the dead Elite’s plasma grenades this time. If nothing else, he thought, he could chuck that into the ship and close the hatch… if he had time. He was rapidly thinking up alternative plans as he opened the door. Sure enough, there was another Elite inside. This one was in shining red armor, but it dead not leap out and attack him like the last one had.

            “Put your hands in the air!” Dustin shouted, aiming his rifle.

            The Elite climbed very slowly out of his ship and into the tube with Dustin. He raised his hands, his long, thin alien fingers connecting with the sides of the tube.

            In broken English, a deep, alien voice, the Elite responded, “What do you want with me, human?”

            Dustin was surprised to hear the alien speak his language aloud, but he calmly replied, “Follow me back to my ship. Slowly.”

            The two of them crawled backwards into the Blackdagger. Once they were inside, Diana shut the hatch once again. Dustin pointed his gun at the Elite as it stood up. His hands shook a little. He had forgotten how tall these creatures were when they stood upright… its helmeted head nearly hit the ceiling.

            “No sudden movements, Elite,” Dustin said, “See what I did to your friend there?”

            The Elite turned its long-necked head to gaze at its dead brother, “The Sangheili you killed… was no friend of mine.”

            Thinking quickly, Dustin said, “Diana, open the cryo-tube.”

            He heard the hatch to the cryo-tube on the wall behind him glide open. With his assault rifle still pointed at the Elite, he indicated that it should enter the tube. The Elite slowly responded, walking calmly over to the tube. As he did so, Dustin looked him over for weapons. The Elite seemed to be unarmed… there were no plasma weapons or Needlers on his person, only two bent pieces of metal attached to the Elite’s “belt.” He thought no more about it as the creature lay down submissively in the cryo-tube.

            “Close the hatch, Diana, but don’t activate the freezing sequence,” Dustin said, “I’m just going to use the cryo-tube as a prison cell. There’s no way he’s breaking out of that.”

            Once the hatch was sealed, Dustin walked up to the window of it and peered in at the Elite. The alien turned his head toward him. Its milky, dark reddish eyes lacked pupils, and its four hideous mouthparts were lined with sharp teeth. Its skin was a dark shade of grey, almost black, in fact, and the inside of its maw was orange.

            “I ask again,” the Elite said, its voice echoing in the cryo-tube, “What do you wane with me, human?”

            “Information…” Dustin said, “First, tell me who you are.”

            The Elite paused a moment before replying.

“I am called…” it said slowly, “Rebas Noiproks.”

            Behind the controls of his ship, Thanatos the Brute turned to regard his companion, “It seems your Elite failed, Urgas Konoproksee. I have lost contact with him.”

            The golden-armored Elite beside him nodded, “But he made a great discovery, Thanatos. Another human survived the destruction of this Halo.”

            The Brute laughed, “You make good point, Urgas. What is your suggestion for our next course of action?”

            “Leave Rebas alone for now,” Urgas said, “For now, we will watch this human and see where he runs. Then, when the time is right, we shall strike.”

Chapter Two - Knowledge is Power
            “Ree-bus No-eye-procks?” Dustin Echoes echoed, mocking the Elite’s strange name, “What kind of a name is that?”

            “It is our kind of name, human,” the Elite snarled, “Rebas is my personal name. Noi is my title, and it means ‘sharp’ in your tongue. Proks is the title of my family… and finally, my name has lost the honorific ‘ee’ that many of my kind add to their family names. For this title is reserved only for those loyal to the army, the army now of the Covenant… and I am not.”

            Dustin nodded slowly, “Interesting. So you’re… a Covenant traitor? You’re the first one I’ve ever heard of.”

            The Elite made no reply.

            Dustin continued his questioning, “What are you out here for then? Just running away? Why come to Halo?”

            “I run from no fight I think I can win,” Rebas deemed it necessary to say, and he continued, “I am being chased by my kind, by another Sangheili named Urgas Konoproksee.”

            Dustin was a keen observer, a detective as well as a spy, so he caught on quickly, “Another ‘Proks’ I see. Didn’t you say that was your family name? So what is he, your brother?”

            The Elite nodded, “I suppose that is what a human would call it.”

            “Why is he hunting you, his brother?”

            “Did I not already tell you, or are you as stupid as your questions make you seem?” Rebas snarled, “He is hunting me, because I am a traitor and a heretic, and he is of a high rank in the armies of the Prophets and does not want me to spoil his good name. I came to Halo hoping to throw him off my track.”

            “Apparently you failed,” Dustin said, looking at the dead Elite still lying in a pool of its own blood in his ship, “Was that him?”

            “No,” the Elite said simply.

            “Is he alone?”

            “No.”

            “How many are with him?”

            “I do not know,” Rebas said, and he seemed to want to say no more.

            “I need more information,” Dustin said, “If they are chasing us, I need to get away from them. Don’t you need to get away from them too?”

            “Can your vessel enter slipspace?” the Elite asked.

            “Yes,” Dustin answered.

            “Can he detect it if it does? Yours is clearly a stealth craft. Perhaps you can escape him where I did not.”

            “Diana,” Dustin said offhandedly, “Keep on full alert and continue scanning for enemy vessels.”

            “At once,” Diana replied.

            Dustin turned back to Rebas, “Your brother, is he working with a group of Elites from your family or with the Covenant army themselves?”

            “Those who follow the Covenant aid him in his hunt,” Rebas answered.

            Dustin bit his lip. This was not good news.

            “Why are they all hunting you? All this for just one heretic?”

            The Elite did not reply.

            “You have something…” Dustin guessed, “Something valuable. Diana, scan our guest’s Seraph fighter. Look for anything useful, and…”

            “I think you are my only hope,” the Elite said suddenly, interrupting Dustin’s orders, “So I will tell you the truth. I know the location of another Halo ring. The Covenant only found this holy ring recently, but the team that found it discovered something unique and terrible about this Halo. It contained no Flood.”

            “No Flood?” Dustin echoed, “You mean those things that killed Captain Keyes?”

            The Elite stared at him for a moment before responding, “I do not know your Captain Keyes. The Flood are parasitic life forms that live in the holy rings.”

            “What’s so special about there being no Flood on the ring?”

            Rebas did not answer. He sat clicking his mouthparts together and staring at Dustin. The ONI agent got the feeling that the Elite considered him stupid.

            “I’m asking these questions for my records,” Dustin said, though he did not know why he felt inclined to reveal that fact, “I need to know every detail. Now… What is so special about the Flood being missing?”

            “They were not missing,” Rebas answered, “They were dead.”

            Dustin paused a while in thought before asking, “So you’re the only one who knows the location of this other Halo?”

            “Yes,” Rebas replied. He seemed to think that simple answer satisfactory.

            “How?”

            “When the captain of the ship that discovered this Halo relayed its position to the next checkpoint, I alone received the message. I kept it secret from the rest of command, and the ship never returned.”

            “Did you destroy it somehow?”

            “Yes,” the Elite said, but this time he knew that answer was insufficient, so he continued, “I relayed incorrect navigational coordinates to the captain, who subsequently made a major miscalculation in his slipspace jump, causing him to exit into a star.”

            “Ouch,” Dustin said with a laugh, “I’m glad I didn’t kill you. You’re good.”

            The Elite did not reply. Dustin swallowed. The piercing stare of the creature made him nervous.

            “So,” Dustin went on, “Why did you do this? Why turn traitor like that?”

            “I believe,” the Elite said slowly, “that on this Halo is the secret of how to kill the Flood completely. I have long suspected that the purpose of the rings is not an entirely beneficial one. I know that they are somehow connected with the Flood. Perhaps, I thought, this ring malfunctioned somehow and accidentally killed the life forms it housed. I brought this information to my brother, who was with me… to Urgas. He told me that such talk was blasphemy. The rings, he said, never malfunctioned, and they did not destroy life. They must be activated, so that the cleansing wind would sweep through the galaxy. I knew that if I relayed this information to the Prophets, they would disregard it as blasphemy as well. They might even kill me. Similar things have happened before to anyone who doubted the pure holiness of Halo. So I escaped in the lone Seraph fighter you destroyed. But it is not due to fear of death that I ran away. I wanted to reach this Halo and discover how all of the Flood there were killed. There. Now you know my story. Will you help me?”

            Dustin looked at the Elite long and hard. He had never met a Covenant like this, so openly treacherous. Elites were zealously loyal to their commanders, fighting with religious fervor that few humans could rival. Yet this one seemed more peaceful than most, and he had betrayed his kind for a cause that could aid both human and Covenant alike. Dustin wondered if it was some kind of trick, but then he remembered the space battle. That other Elite had earnestly wanted to kill Rebas…

            “Do you still have the coordinates?” he asked.

            “Can your ship be tracked through slipspace?”

            “Perhaps,” Dustin said, “But it would be hard.”

            “We should outrun Urgas before we travel to the holy ring. If he discovers it, he may destroy the vital information on how the Flood died. He might activate the ring before even knowing what it actually does.”

            “He won’t find the Blackdagger,” Dustin said, “Just give me the coordinates.”

            “You may download them from my Seraph. The ship’s computer is locked, but you may get in with the code. The code is ‘delazbelok.’”

            “Diana…” Dustin began, but the AI interrupted him.

            “Done,” she said, “I have the coordinates now, Dustin.”

            “Then off we go,” Dustin said, striding back to the cockpit, “Strap in tight, Elite. We’re about to drop into slipspace.”

            “It goes against my honor to be in this sector and not be hunting the humans who destroyed the holy ring, but that is not my task today. Keep watching the location of the two Seraph fighters,” said Urgas Konoproksee to his crew, “Watch closely. Look for movement. Any movement. If you see any, then track it.”

            Urgas stood atop a platform suspended above his bridge crew, which were seated below him behind a row of Covenant computers. On either side of him upon the platform were his two mates, Thanatos the Brute and another Elite. The dark purple interior of the alien ship glowed eerily in the light made by the holographic computer screen, and data flashed before Urgas’s red eyes as information appeared hovering around him. One of the grunts below him suddenly squealed and pointed at his screen.

            “They move!” the Grunt, named Dordap, shouted, “They move! Tracking!”

            “Track it well!” Urgas said, “Or I strip you of your armor and feed you to the Jackals in the prison cells!”

            Dordap shuddered, but his attempt was successful. As the invisible ship streaked away, he was able to follow its trail. The Covenant slipspace technology was far superior to that of humans, and they could easily determine the ship’s destination and follow it there. Dordap began inputting the coordinates immediately.

            “Cease your typing, worm!” rumbled the deep voice of Thanatos, “I will input coordinates to be sure of no mistake!”

            “Or perhaps to see them yourself…” Urgas hissed.

            Thanatos laughed, deep in his throat, and turned to regard the Elite, “Perahps so. But that is my mission, after all.”

            “By all means; don’t let me stop you,” Urgas said, “I obey the will of the Prophets, but they are not why I am here today. The score I wish to settle with Rebas… is personal.”

            “But it also official,” Thanatos grunted, “So I will make sure it get done right. If you fail to ‘settle your score’ with Rebas, then I…”

            “Silence, Brute!” Urgas interrupted, “This is a matter of honor, something your kind does not understand. I, and I alone, will kill Rebas. You will not interfere. If you do, then I will take YOUR armor, tie YOU up, and feed YOU to the Jackals! And I will let the Grunts laugh at you while you are ripped apart!”

            Thanatos gave an uncaring huff, so as to retain some measure of dignity, and fell silent. Though not particularly intelligent, even for a Brute, he saw it was no use to argue the point.

            “We are making jump to slipspace now,” Thanatos grumbled.

            The sleek and deadly Covenant cruiser known as the Relentless Inquisitor then activated its slipspace drive and shot away into that alternate dimension, heading for the same destination as the tiny Blackdagger.

            When the Blackdagger came diving back into real-space, Dustin found himself almost on top of… another Halo. He had been so awed by the first Halo that he could hardly imagine there was even enough material in the universe to build another one… but here one was. He saw the clouds floating gently over the lush, grassy terrain below, the blue oceans, mountains, forests, and valleys lining the inside surface of that great, enormous ring. He had never been this close to the first one. It took his breath away. Then he spotted something, far down on the surface below. The ring was huge, but he thought he could make out something recognizable on its distant surface.

            “Diana…” he said, “Is that… a human vessel, crashed on the surface of Halo?”

            “Scanning…” said the AI, “Very perceptive, Dustin. Yes, it is indeed a human vessel. It appears to have crashed on the surface, much like the Autumn did on the last Halo.”

            “I’ll go talk to our friend about it,” Dustin said, “Begin approaching it, but slowly. Don’t land until I give permission.”

            “Aye, Dustin,” Diana said.

            Dustin walked back through the door into the rear of his ship. There in his cryo-tube, the Elite waited. It was creepy, Dustin thought, having an Elite on board his ship like this. Rebas seemed to be in a trance, staring down at the bottom of the inside of the cryo-tube, his mandibles slowly opening and closing.

            “We’re here,” Dustin said, “We just arrived at your Flood-less Halo ring.”

            The Elite did not look up when he asked, “Were you followed?”

            “Negative,” came Diana’s calm voice as she appeared on the holo-projector on the table nearby, “I detect no enemy ships in the area.”

            “Then perhaps it is good I found you, after all,” Rebas said, looking up.

            “But we detected a human ship down the surface of the ring,” Dustin said, looking the Elite in the eyes though he knew he could tell nothing from what facial expression the creature was capable of, “Do you know anything about that?”

            “Yes,” the alien answered, nodding, “That is the Equinox, a vessel that attacked the Covenant cruiser that discovered this ring. Our side won the fight, and the Equinox crashed on Halo. The crew of the Covenant ship then proceeded to launch a surface assault to explore the ring and make sure everyone onboard the human vessel was dead. We… I mean, they… were successful. No humans survived.”

            “We’ll have to go and be sure about that,” Echoes said, “Diana, land on the surface, as close to this Equinox ship as possible.”

            “Done.”

            The Blackdagger’s engines fired, and the ship shot through space, turning toward the surface of Halo. Diana adjusted the ship’s trajectory so that it would survive the entry into Halo’s atmosphere, and then it plunged into the clouds. Unseen behind it, another ship dropped out of slipspace… the Covenant cruiser Relentless Inquisitor.

            “Are you picking up the human anywhere nearby?” asked Urgas in the ship’s bridge as he stared at his holographic computer screens, their glowing displays reflecting in his shining gold armor.

            “Yes,” Thanatos replied, “He is headed for Halo’s surface. Hmm… Appears to be a human starship crashed there!”

            “More humans?” squeaked Dordap, “Uh oh… I smell a battle!”

            “Ah, it is good to see the lust for blood in one so small,” said Urgas sarcastically, “Very well, Dordap, I will let you lead the group of your kind, the Unggoy I’m sending for the surface attack.”

            “Yikes!” Dordap squealed, “Uh…”

            “No going back on it now, Dordap,” Urgas interrupted, “I am going as well. No one shall keep me from Rebas. Worra will be in charge while I am gone.”

            The red-armored Elite on the station below him turned and saluted, “Yes, Sir!”

            “Come, Thanatos. You will go with us as well. It does not become a true warrior to wait on his ship as his troops fly into battle. Do you not agree?”

            Thanatos snorted, “Of course…”

            Urgas nodded and descended from his Captain’s throne, “Then prepare the Phantom! We leave immediately!”

            The Blackdagger dropped swiftly into Halo’s atmosphere and came to a gentle landing upon its serene, grassy surface. Dustin sat staring out the window at the beautiful alien landscape for a while, and then he got up and walked to the back of the ship. Diana’s hologram appeared on the briefing table again, and Rebas the Elite stared at his human captor from inside the cryo-tube.

            “Okay, Diana,” Dustin said, “Now that we’re here, we need to make sure what our Covenant friend said is true. And if all the Flood here really are dead – we need to find out why. But before we do any of that, we need to check for survivors from the Equinox.”

            “I can help you,” came the deep, calm voice of Rebas Noiproks, “You cannot do this alone.”

            Dustin turned his head slowly to regard the Elite, “Can you be trusted?”

            “It would do me no good to kill you, human,” Rebas said, “It would only make my mission a thousand times harder… perhaps impossible. You have my word that, on my honor, I will not harm you if I am released.

            Dustin stood and stared at him a moment before nodding, “Fair enough. Diana, release the Elite.”

            The cryo-tube slid open with a hiss, and the giant alien uncurled from inside. Once again, Dustin was impressed with his height. The spikes on the back of his long, red helmet almost touched the ceiling of the ship. The creature’s red eyes almost seemed to glow with fiery intensity against its dark grey skin. Rebas’s four mouthparts occasionally opened very slightly, as if he had to open his mouth to breathe. As Dustin’s eyes wandered down the rest of the alien’s body, he wondered where an Elite kept its reproductive organs, and he wondered what those bent pieces of metal were hanging from the half-circle of metal that was wrapped around Rebas’s waist. The Elite’s legs were also interesting, as were its feet, which were almost like hooves.

            “Come along my good even-toed ungulate,” Dustin said with a laugh as he pressed the button for the hatch to open, “Stay close behind me. If we run into any humans, they might just shoot first and ask questions later.”

            “And there is no doubt as to what the Covenant will do,” Rebas added.

            As the hatch opened, the fresh forest air wafted into the room, and the human took a deep breath of it. But a strange sound met his ears, coming from the trees in the distance. It was a very faint humming noise. It sounded mechanical. As he watched, he saw four flying robots float up. They were long and thin, made of a shining metal. When they stopped, strange wing-like appendages unfolded on either side of them, and he saw a gun unfold on each robot’s belly.

            “Sentinels,” Diana said from the ship’s speakers, “They are the protectors of Halo. The UNSC forces encountered them on the first ring.”

            “They apparently aren’t hostile,” Dustin said, approaching one and peering at it, “What is their intention?”

            Then a third robot floated out of the woods, hovering from the shadow of the trees. This one was more round, a metallic orb with a glowing green “eye” on the front. It turned, darting from side to side, to view both the Elite and the human.

            “Greetings!” it piped in a friendly voice, “I am 10268 Regretful Vector!”

            “Regretful… Vector?” Dustin echoed.

            “Yes!” it responded, its eye flashing as it talked, “I am the Monitor of this installation. I am in need of your assistance. The Reclaimer seems to have gone missing; she is evading my sensors somehow and has escaped my notice. We must find her and help her get to the Index.”

            “Who is this Reclaimer?” Dustin asked.

            The Monitor stared at him for a moment before responding, “Oh, you mean the name she gave herself? She said she was named Sarah Morrison.”

            “Sarah Morrison? So there are humans still alive here?”

            “I believe she is still living, yes. The Sentinels would not have hurt her, and all of the Flood on this installation have regretfully been mysteriously terminated.”

            Rebas nodded, “The first of your objectives has just been completed, human. As you can see, I was not lying.”

            “I guess you were right then,” Dustin said, “But since we’re working together, why don’t you just call me Dustin?”

            “You have not yet earned my respect. My people only give names to those who are worthy of our respect.”

            “I saved your life,” Dustin said.

            The Elite paused a moment to think. After a moment of staring into the distance, he pivoted his head toward Dustin and replied, “Very well. I shall call you Dustin, and you shall call me Rebas. Is it well?”

            “It is well,” the human replied, “So let’s go find the Reclaimer.”

            “Yes, indeed!” the Monitor exclaimed enthusiastically.

            “Sir,” interrupted the voice of Diana from inside the ship behind them, “I don’t like you leaving like this, beyond the range of my sensors…”

            Dustin turned to regard the woman in the green hologram, “I don’t like it either, Diana, but what else can I do?”

            “I’ll sort myself for removal from the ship,” she said, “and you can insert me into one of those flying androids. I believe there is a port on that one that my disk could fit in.”

            Dustin turned to look at the Sentinel hovering next to him. As she had said, there was a slot on the machine’s belly that looked just the right size. He found this strange, but he remembered how Cortana, the AI from the Pillar of Autumn, had been inserted into the core computer of the other Halo ring, so he knew it was possible.

            “Are you sure you can take care of yourself?” he asked with concern.

            “You may remove me now,” was all Diana said, and then her hologram disappeared.

            Dustin strode up into the ship and took her disk out of the control panel. Then he ran back outside and, before the Monitor could say anything, shoved the thin piece of metal into the slot on the nearest Sentinel. The robot shook for a moment, and then its wings folded and contracted. It turned to face Dustin.

            “I am in,” said Diana’s voice, coming from the Sentinel.

            “Amazing…” Dustin muttered.

            “What?” squealed the Monitor, “I cannot allow you to tamper with the guardians! This AI Construct being inserted into one of my Sentinels is a severe breach of protocol!”

            “Don’t worry about it; she’ll help me,” Dustin said soothingly.

            “I…” the Monitor began, but it stopped itself and said, “Very well. But the Construct must be removed once your mission is completed.”

            “Of course,” Dustin said.

            “Wait!” Rebas interrupted, “Something approaches… Look…”

            Dustin turned to look where the Elite indicated. There, dropping out of the clouds and dipping quickly behind a mountain, was the unmistakable form of a purple Covenant craft. It was a Phantom, and it was no doubt headed their way.

            Rebas Noiproks nodded slowly, resignedly, and said, “We had better move. Urgas has come.”