“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.

SECTION I

PILLAR OF AUTUMN

CHAPTER ONE

0127 Hours (Ship’s Time), September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar)

UNSC CruiserPillar of Autumn, location unknown

The Pillar of Autumn shuddered as her Titanium-A armor took a direct hit.

Just another item in the Covenant’s bottomless arsenal, Captain Jacob Keyes thought. Not a plasma torpedo, or we’d already be free-floating molecules.

The warship had taken a beating from Covenant forces off Reach and it was a miracle that the hull remained intact and even more remarkable that they’d been able to make a jump into Slipspace at all.

“Status!” Keyes barked. “What just hit us?”

“Covenant fighter, sir. Seraph-class,” the tactical officer, Lieutenant Hikowa, replied. Her porcelain features darkened. “Tricky bastard must have powered down and slipped past our sentry ships.”