On Reach, a secret military project to create cyborg
super-soldiers takes on newfound importance. The
soldiers of the SPARTAN-II project rack up an
impressive record against the Covenant in test
deployments, but there are too few of them to turn
the tide of the war.
Existing SPARTAN-II soldiers are recalled to Reach
for further augmentation. The plan: board a Covenant
vessel with the improved SPARTAN-IIs and learn the
location of the Covenant home world. Two days
before the mission begins, Covenant forces strike
Reach and annihilate the colony. The Covenant are
now on Earth’s doorstep. One ship, the
Pillar of
Autumn, escapes with the last SPARTAN-II and
makes a blind jump into deep space, hoping to lead
the Covenant away from Earth.
The year is 2552. Planet Earth still exists, but
overpopulation has forced many of her former
residents to colonize other worlds. Faster-than-light
travel is now a realit y , and Earth’s unified
government, through the United Nations Space
Command, has put its full weight behind the
colonization effort; millions of humans now live on
habitable planets in other solar systems. A keystone
of humanity’s colonization efforts is the planet
Reach, an interstellar naval yard that builds colony
ships for civilians and warships for the UNSC’s
armed forces. Conveniently close to Earth, Reach
is also a hub of scientific and military activity.
Thirty-two years ago, contact with the outer colony
Harvest was lost. A battlegroup sent to investigate
was almost completely destroyed; only one badly
damaged ship returned to Reach. Its crew told of a
seemingly unstoppable alien warship that had
effortlessly annihilated their forces.
This was humankind’s first encounter with a group
of aliens they eventually came to know as the
Covenant, a collective of alien races united in their
fanatical religious devotion. Covenant religious
elders declared humanity an affront to the gods,
and the Covenant warrior caste waged a holy war
upon humanity with gruesome diligence.
After a series of crushing defeats and obliterated
colonies, UNSC Admiral Preston Cole established
the Cole Protocol: no vessel may inadvertently lead
the Covenant to Earth. When forced to withdraw,
ships must avoid Earth-bound vectors—even if that
means jumping without proper navigational
calculations. Vessels in danger of capture must
self-destruct.
[5]
[4]
