The New York Times bestselling series based on the blockbuster video game for Xbox! It is 2555, more than two years after the Master Chief went missing-in-action following a decisive conflict on Installation 00—the massive, extragalactic Forerunner construct known as the Ark—as part of the final chapter in humanity’s bloody thirty-year struggle against the overwhelming forces of the Covenant. Now, as a tenuous peace exists between the humans and the Elites, a startling scientific discovery is made…and the riddle behind its Forerunner origins could very well seal the fate of the entire galaxy within a matter of weeks. In order to unravel these dangerous secrets, a heroic, hastily formed coalition of humans and Elites must attempt to overcome their differences as they embark on a covert mission back to the Ark—an astonishing, enigmatic place beyond comprehension from which few have returned and where mortal danger awaits them all… Peter David is a prolific writer whose career, and continued popularity, spans more than twenty-five years. He has worked in every conceivable media—television, film, books (fiction, nonfiction, and audio), short stories, and comic books—and acquired followings in all of them. Hunters in the Dark CHAPTER 1 Luther Mann’s dreams were entrenched in that time when he had been a child, fleeing for his life from the only world he had known. He remembered his mother shouting at him and hurting him. His eventual reconciliation with his mother would run through his mind, only to be annihilated by her suicide. It wasn’t your fault that she did that went through his head, but even as a grown-up, he didn’t entirely believe that. To this day, so many years after her lifeless body had been discovered, he still told himself that he was somehow, in some way, responsible. That maybe if he had done more, been cleverer, a better son, a better man . . . . . . maybe she would have found something to live for. When he awoke, his body was shaking and covered in sweat. He sat up, rubbing his face and moaning softly. It had been a long while since he had dreamt of her, and he certainly hadn’t missed it. Luther could not recall the last time he slept in a normal room. It wasn’t as if he didn’t own one. He had perfectly vivid memories of his own rather sedate apartment. Actually, in retrospect, sedate might not have been the proper word to describe his facilities. His apartment back on Earth, situated on the third floor of an unremarkable building in an equally unremarkable section of Seattle, had the bare minimum of accoutrements that one would expect for a place that someone was actually living in. That was because Luther spent, at most, a grand total of eight weeks there during any given year. The rest of the time was spent out in the place where he was right now: the field. Luther Mann was a lifelong explorer. Throughout the galaxy was where he went, studying all manner of archaeology. The civilizations that he researched were hardly limited—every era in the history of man had been subjected to his scrutiny at one time or another. And yet it wasn’t the limits of humanity that engaged him. Because no matter where he was or what he was in the midst of exploring, Luther’s imagination always tended to turn toward the same direction: one that took him as far from the study of humankind as archaeology could go. Sooner or later, it always came back to the Forerunners. And there was no greater expert on their culture and their history than Luther Mann. None. Anything there was to know about them, that is, anything which could be known from the relatively little information available, was rattling around in his head. He had read every study and done quite a few of his own. When it came to the Forerunners, Luther was a walking database, and any major dig that related to them sooner or later requested his presence. Nor was anyone ever disappointed with the results. He was also noted for his command of alien languages—Luther had spent years of his life studying nearly every dialect that was spoken by the various races in the Covenant, with translation skills that were also second to none. And still, it was always returning to the Forerunners. “Doctor?” There was something akin to a knock at the front flap of his tent. “Doctor, are you up and around?” He certainly was, and had been for the past two hours. As was typical for him during this particular expedition, Luther once again found himself unable to sleep beyond minimal required hours to rest, and that kept shrinking. Other places, he needed seven, eight hours for his brain to be fully back up to snuff. But out here, in the field? Four, and he was ready to go. The only reason he was still in his tent was out of deference to the others on his team who might require something approaching a normal amount of slumber. “Yes, yes, hang on a moment, Henry,” he called out. Luther was also dressed, shaven, and wired for work. He was meticulous about keepin