A Master Chief story and original full-length novel set in the Halo universe—based on the New York Times bestselling video game series! 2526. It has been a year since humanity engaged in its destructive first contact with a theocratic military alliance of alien races known as the Covenant. Now the hostilities have led to open war, and the United Nations Space Command understands virtually nothing about its new enemy. There are only two certainties—the Covenant is determined to eradicate humanity, and they have the superior technology to do just that. The UNSC’s only hope lies with the Spartans: enhanced supersoldiers raised and trained from childhood via a clandestine black ops project to be living weapons. Their designated commander, Petty Officer John-117, has been assigned to lead the Spartans on a desperate counterattack designed to rock the Covenant back on its heels, and to buy humanity the time it needs to gather intelligence and prepare its defenses. But not everyone wants the Spartans to succeed. A coalition of human insurrectionist leaders believes an alliance with the Covenant to be its best hope of finally winning independence from the Unified Earth Government. To further their plans, the insurrectionists have dispatched a sleeper agent to sabotage the UNSC counterattack—and ensure that John-117 and the Spartans never return from battle.... Troy Denning is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels, including Halo: Divine Wind , Halo: Shadows of Reach , Halo: Oblivion , Halo: Silent Storm , Halo: Retribution , Halo: Last Light , a dozen Star Wars novels, the Dark Sun: Prism Pentad series, and many bestselling Forgotten Realms novels. A former game designer and editor, he lives in western Wisconsin. Halo: Silent Storm CHAPTER 1 0342 hours, March 5, 2526 (military calendar) UNSC Razor-class Prowler Starry Night High Equatorial Orbit, Planet Netherop, Ephyra System The distant slivers of five alien spacecraft burst from Netherop’s pall of brown clouds and climbed into orbit on tails of white-hot propellant. The attack plan was to match velocities with the vessels, then have a squad of Spartans go EVA and follow them into their mothership’s hangar. But the aliens were traveling about twenty times faster now than when the Starry Night had spotted them just fifteen seconds earlier, and John-117 didn’t know if a Razor-class prowler could match that kind of acceleration. There were a lot of things John didn’t know about this operation, like whether the alien craft were reconnaissance boats or superiority fighters, or whether their mothership was a survey frigate or an assault corvette. He didn’t know the size of the vessel’s complement, or how many of them would be trained for close-quarters combat, or why the Covenant might be interested in a greenhouse planet that had probably cooked its native population a hundred centuries before. What John did know was that the aliens were the enemy, and today they were going to die. He continued to watch the five spacecraft via a tactical monitor mounted high on the drop-bay bulkhead, and a crisp female voice sounded over the Starry Night’s internal comm net. “Brace for acceleration. The inertial compensator won’t handle what we’re throwing at it.” “Acknowledged.” John and his eleven Spartan companions lowered their center of gravity against the prowler’s acceleration. A moment later, they began to hear muffled clangs and thumps as poorly secured equipment slammed into nearby bulkheads. “How long until we catch the targets?” he asked. “It depends.” When she failed to elaborate, John said, “That’s not an answer, ma’am.” He tried to keep the impatience in his voice to a minimum. Halima Ascot might have an informal manner, but she was still a captain in the United Nations Space Command, and he was just a fifteen-year-old petty officer first class. Not that his age mattered. The date-of-birth had been falsified in the service records of all Spartans, and no one in the Starry Night’s crew had reason to believe any of them were younger than nineteen. Besides, John and his fellow Spartans were no ordinary fifteen-year-olds. At age six, they had been conscripted into a top-secret program to develop bioengineered super-soldiers. The intention had been to use them against a massive colonial Insurrection that threatened to shatter humanity’s young interstellar civilization, but priorities had changed when the Covenant appeared. That was the life of a Spartan. He went where he was needed, he didn’t complain, and he killed whatever he had to. It was that simple. Deep down, John knew he had been wronged when he was taken from his family at such an early age—that he should have hated his abductors for robbing him of a normal childhood. But he didn’t. They had molded a schoolyard bully into a soldier, then forged him into the leader of the finest fighting unit in the UNSC. He was grateful for that. And he was