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

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

"Jesus," he muttered, "this better be good."

The Old Man had put the tech crews on triple shifts after the Pillar of Autumn jumped away from Reach. The ship was a mess after the battle, and what was left of the engineering crews worked around the clock to keep the aging cruiser in one piece. Nearly one third of the tech staff had died during the flight from Reach, and every department was running a skeleton crew.

Everyone else went into the freezer, of course -- nonessential personnel always got an ice-nap during a Slipspace jump. In over two hundred combat cruises, Marcus had clocked fewer than seventy-two hours in cryostorage. Right now, though, he was so tired that even the discomfort of cryorevival sounded appealing if it meant that he could manage some uninterrupted sleep.

Of course, it was difficult to complain; Captain Keyes was a brilliant tactician -- and everyone aboard the Autumn knew just how close they'd come to destruction when Reach fell to the enemy. A major naval base destroyed, millions dead or dying as the Covenant burned the planet to a cinder -- and one of Earth's few remaining defenses transformed into corpses and molten slag.

All in all, they'd been damned lucky to get away -- but Sam couldn't help but feel that everyone on the Autumn was living on borrowed time.

The intercom buzzed again, and Sam swung himself out of the bunk. He jabbed at the comm control. "Marcus here," he growled.

"I'm sorry to wake you, Sam, but I need you down in Cryo Two." Tech Chief Shephard sounded exhausted. "It's important."

"Cryo Two?" Sam repeated, puzzled. "What's the emergency, Thom? I'm not a cryo specialist."

"I can't give you specifics, Sam. The Captain wants it kept off the comm," Shephard replied, his voice almost a whisper. "Just in case we have eavesdroppers."

Sam winced at the tone in his superior's voice. He'd known Thom Shephard since 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'll answer some of your questions anyway. Dump it to a portable 'pad, grab your gear and get down here."

"Roger," Sam said. He stood, shrugged into his uniform tunic, and stepped over to his terminal. He activated the computer and waited for the upload from Shephard.

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

The terminal chimed as the feed from Shephard appeared in Sam's message queue. "Receiving the feed, Chief," he called out to the intercom pickup.

He opened the file. A frown creased his tired features as a new message scrolled 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 almost three years -- since his last shore leave on Earth, in fact. He didn't know anyone 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 the people back home. The war had been going badly for so long that morale was rock-bottom. Thinking about the home front only made things worse. The fact that Thom had personalized the security encoding was unusual enough; reminding Sam of his wife in the process was completely out of character for Chief Shephard. Someone was being security-conscious to the point of paranoia.

He punched in a series of numbers -- the date of his wedding -- and enabled the decryption suite. In seconds, the screen filled with schematics and tech readouts. His practiced eye scanned the file -- and adrenaline suddenly spiked through his fatigue like a bolt of lightning.

"Christ," he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. "Thom, is this what . . . who I think it is?"

"Damn right. Get down to Cryo Two on the double, Sam. We've got an important package to thaw out -- and we drop back into real space soon."

"On my way," he said. He killed the intercom connection, his exhaustion forgotten.

Sam quickly dumped the tech file to his portable compad and deleted the original from his computer. He strode toward the door to his cabin, then stopped. He snatched Ellen's picture from the workstation -- almost as an afterthought -- and shoved it into his pocket.

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

Unlike vessels designed by humans -- in which the command area was almost always located toward the ship's bow -- Covenant ships were constructed in a more logical fashion, which meant that their control rooms were buried deep within heavily armored hulls, making them impervious to anything less than a mortal blow.

The differences did not end there. Rather than surround themselves with all manner of control interfaces, plus the lesser beings required to staff them, the Elites preferred to command from the center of an ascetically barren platform 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 control room and stared at the data projections which appeared to float in front of him. One showed the ring world, Halo. Near that, a tiny arrow tracked the interloper's course. The second projection displayed a schematic titled HUMAN ATTACK SHIP, TYPE C-11. A third scrolled a constant flow of targeting data and sensor readouts.

He fought a moment of revulsion. That these filthy primates somehow merited an actual name -- let alone names for their inferior constructs -- galled him to his core. It was perverse. Names implied legitimacy, and the vermin deserved only extermination.

The humans had "names" for his own kind--"Elites" -- as well as the lesser races of the Covenant: "Jackals," "Grunts," "Hunters." The appalling temerity of the filthy creatures, that they would dare name his people with their harsh, barbaric tongue, was beyond the pale.

He paused, and regained his composure. 'Fulsamee clicked his lower mandibles -- the equivalent of a shrug -- and mentally recited one of the True Sayings. Such is the Prophets' decree, he thought. One didn't question such things, even when one was a Ship Master. The Prophets had assigned names to the enemy craft, and he would honor their decrees. Any less was a disgraceful dereliction of duty.

Like all of his kind, the Covenant officer appeared to be larger than he actually was, due to the armor that he wore. It gave him an angular, somewhat hunched appearance which, when combined with a heavy, pugnacious jaw, caused him to look like what he was: a very dangerous warrior. His voice was calm and well modulated as he assessed the situation. "They must have followed one of our ships. The culprit will be found and put to death at once, Exalted."

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

True Sayings aside, the Ship Master couldn't help but be reminded of the tiny, squealing rodents he had hunted in his childhood. He immediately banished the memory of blood on his claws and returned his attention to the Prophet, and his tiresome assistant.

The assistant, a lower-rank Elite named Bako 'Ikaporamee, stepped forward to speak on the Prophet's behalf. He had an annoying tendency to use the royal "we," a habit that angered 'Fulsamee.

"That is very unlikely, Ship Master. We doubt the humans have the means to follow one of our vessels through a jump. Even if they do, why would they send only a single cruiser? Is it not their way to drown us in their own blood? No, we think it's safe to surmise that this ship arrived in the system by accident."

The words dripped with condescension, a fact which made the Ship Master angry, but couldn't be addressed. Not directly, and certainly not with the Prophet present, although 'Fulsamee wasn't willing to cave in completely. "So," 'Fulsamee said, careful to direct his comment to 'Ikaporamee alone, "you would have me believe that the interlopers arrived here entirely by chance?"

"No, of course not," 'Ikaporamee replied loftily. "Though primitive by our standards, the creatures are sentient, and like all sentient beings, they are unconsciously drawn to the glory of the ancients' truth and knowledge."

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

'Fulsamee found it hard to believe that mere humans would be drawn here, the ancients' wisdom notwithstanding, but 'Ikaporamee spoke for the Prophet, so it must be true. 'Fulsamee touched the light panel in front of him. A symbol glowed red. "Prepare to fire plasma torpedoes. Launch on my command."

'Ikaporamee raised both hands in alarm. "No! We forbid it. The human vessel is much too close to the construct! What if your weapons were to damage the holy relic? Pursue the ship, board it, and seize control. Anything else is far too dangerous."

Angered by what he saw as 'Ikaporamee's interference, 'Fulsamee spoke through gritted teeth. "The course of action that the holy one recommends is 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 spend their lives -- can we do less?"

No, 'Fulsamee thought, but we should aspire to more. He again clicked his lower 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 their target."

A hundred units aft, sealed within the destroyer's fire control center, a half-commander acknowledged the order and issued instructions of his own. Lights began to strobe, the decks transmitted a low frequency vibration, and more than three hundred battle-ready Covenant warriors -- a mix of what the humans called Elites, Jackals, and Grunts -- rushed to board their assigned transports. There were humans to kill.

None of them wanted to miss the fun.

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