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 all depends on what you were hiding from.
We’re hiding from the end of the world.
For all 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, Kelly, 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 wistfully at it like a pilgrim with a holy relic before putting it back.
“You can read Forerunner, Dr. Halsey,” he says, impassive. We’re still ignoring the elephant looming over us at the moment, neither of us saying what’s really 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 walls is … actually, 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 idyllically rural; trees, grass, rivers, almost landscaped perfection.
Mendez pats his pocket as if checking something is still in there. “Better hope they evolved beyond the usual procurement charlie-foxtrot, too, then. Or we’ll 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 carefully blank expression that looks almost like deference. Almost. It’s actually 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 well. We made warfare the sole focus of their lives.
Now we don’t know if there’s still 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 all 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’ll find out the Navy way, Mendez says.
