Halo: First Strike

Eric Nylund returned to write the third novel, Halo: First Strike, a sequel to Halo: Combat Evolved taking place before the events of Halo 2. It was published in December 2003, after being written in a period of sixteen weeks.

Brief Summary
Halo: First Strike clarifies a few plot questions that might have been raised by Halo fans, including exactly what happened to the SPARTAN's on Reach and also how Avery Junior Johnson survived the attack of the Flood. This book is written by Eric Nylund, who also wrote Halo: The Fall of Reach, and is part of the official Halo canon. This has led to certain inconsistencies in Halo 2.

DATE: August 30, 2552-September 13, 2552 (Date revised due to an anomalous Slipspace bubble)

Section 0: Reach
The prologue begins before the Battle of Reach flashing back to Chapter 34 in Halo: The Fall of Reach where Captain Keyes informed the Master Chief of the matter of the unsecured NAV database. Frederic-104 is made the leader of Red Team and ordered to take the other SPARTAN-IIs down to Reach to protect the generators powering the orbital MAC guns.

The narrative then follows Red Team as they ride a Pelican down to the surface, but are forced to make a supersonic hard landing to the ground after the pilot gets hit by plasma fire from Seraph Fighters. The impact killed four of the Spartans and leaves many more seriously injured. Most lost their weapons and ammunition, Fred-104 and Kelly-087 improvise using rocks until they were able to police Covenant weapons from a group of Jackals they had killed. The Spartans then grouped up with the remaining four Marines in Charlie Company. The Marines summarized how the battle had gone, saying that they were the only ones who survived the entire battle.

Vice Admiral Whitcomb contacts Fred and orders him and the Spartans to extract him and his staff claiming that he was the current officer in charge of the defense of Reach. Fred takes Kelly and Joshua-029 on a mission to destroy a large Covenant camp in a valley near the bunker Charlie Company once occupied. Taking three Banshees, they delivered a Fury Tactical-Nuke into a Covenant ship. Joshua's Banshee slipped under enemy fire described as a large needler round and is presumed dead. Fred and Kelly completed the mission without complications.

Despite their efforts, however, the Covenant managed to overrun the reactors on Reach. The Covenant Starships began glassing Reach, even though they glassed only the poles. Fred however, refuses to sit around and die comes up with a plan. He and Kelly take their captured banshees, and together they fly away from the scene.

Section 1: Threshold
The narrative then moves to the debris field of Installation 04, right after the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. Aboard the Longsword Cortana and the Master Chief used to escape the destruction, Cortana and the Chief conversed, with the Chief insisting that Cortana repeat her scans of the debris for any signs of life.

A battle group of seven Covenant starships entered the system, along with a Covenant flagship. Cortana found three cryopods that were jettisoned from the Pillar of Autumn prior to its crash on Halo. While she moved the Longsword towards the cryopods, she finds a Pelican that landed on a nearby asteroid. As the Chief retrieved the cryopods and returned to the Longsword, the Pelican took off and attacked the lead Covenant starship, diverting attention away from the Longsword. The two small ships linked up, and several survivors jumped out of the Pelican, namely Sergeant Johnson, ODST Corporal Locklear, Petty Officer Second Class Shelia Polaski, and an ONI Lieutenant Haverson. The Master Chief having seen a video of Johnson getting infected, slams him into the bulkhead and aims Johnson's pistol squarely at Johnson's head, waiting for an explanation on how he could have survived. Apparently, Johnson through his own words says that they "passed him up because he didn't taste too good". After confirming with Cortana that he wasn't infected he releases Johnson.

Together the group managed to board the flagship, called Ascendant Justice, they fight their way to the bridge and along the way they plugged Cortana into the vessel's computer and she effectively kills most of the combat crew by decompressing most of the decks of the vessel. The group makes it to the bridge only to confront a Spec Ops Elite wielding an Energy Sword the Master Chief defeats the Covenant warrior with the help of Johnson and Locklear,sustaining a slight injury, but the defeat of the Elite warrior allows the humans to gain complete control of the Covenant flagship. In the confusion between the other vessels, the Ascendant Justice entered Slipspace, escaping Halo's remains. The group argued about where to go next, but ultimately, the Chief persuades them all to return to Reach. First, because the Cole Protocol forbids them from taking a Covenant vessel to Earth directly. Second, because the Chief wanted to see what became of his fellow Spartans.

Meanwhile, back at Earth, U.N.S.C. High Command Facility Bravo-6 in Sydney, the military learned of the destruction of Reach and concluded that they cannot try to retake the planet and must prepare for the final defense of Earth. All Spartans and vessels are assumed destroyed, though they do know that the Pillar of Autumn escaped destruction. Also revealed here is that Colonel James Ackerson, who was supposedly reassigned after the events of the Fall of Reach due to the actions of Cortana, has escaped reassignment and is serving on the UNSC Security Council.

Section 2: Defense of Castle Base
The narrative then returns to Reach where Kelly and Fred after destroying the Covenant ship, crash-landed their Banshees into a pair of Hunters, confusing one and disabling the others gun. They then steal a pair of Wraith tanks, and blasted their way into Castle Base under Menachite Mountain. There, they met up with the surviving Spartans of Delta team, the injured Spartans, including Isaac-039, Vinh-030 and Will-043. They met up with Doctor Halsey, who treats their injuries, and sends them to retrieve some new weapons - the BR55 Battle Rifle and the M6C/SOCOM magnum sidearm.

At the lab, Dr. Halsey discovered Colonel Ackerson's plans, which were extensive lists on "Her Spartans", a star chart reference, and a third file labeled "King Under the Mountain". Before she could access these, however, a UNSC AI appeared and attempted to stop her by threatening to kill one of the Spartans. She destroyed it using a bypass code she herself had programmed, but caused some concern with her personal AI. The Covenant then invaded the base, and the Spartans and Doctor Halsey escaped to the old Titanium mines beneath Castle Base, right before it's destruction, which destroyed their only exit. Having no other alternatives, the Spartans and Dr Halsey venture deep into the tunnels.

In the tunnels, the Spartans received armor upgrades and Fred discovers several symbols which ultimately led to a huge tunnel that led into an even larger room. In the center of the room, they find a crystal. The Spartans and Halsey found that if they walked straight towards it, it would bend the space around them and, if brought to Slipspace, would allow them to travel further using the same amount of energy used in the same vessel. They retrieved the crystal, but the Covenant found them due to emission of radiation from the crystal. They landed forces inside the giant room using reversed gravity lifts, forcing the humans to retreat. Fred ordered Isaac and Vinh to stay behind to form a rearguard action, but they were overwhelmed and killed. The remaining Spartans and Dr. Halsey continued to flee through the tunnels, but as the Covenant followed them, they ran into a dead end.

Section 3: Rescue
Meanwhile, out in space, Master Chief and Cortana, along with the last survivors of Installation 04 including Sergeant Johnson, find out that one of the cryotubes that Master Chief found contains Linda-058. The others had contained marines, but they had died due to cryotube malfunction. While in the Longsword the Master Chief strips off some pieces from the craft, to reinforce a Covenant dropship they are going to use. As they walk into the hanger of the Ascendant Justice, Master Chief and Sgt. Johnson witness Polaski practicing how to drive a Covenant dropship. As they enter Epsilon Eridani, they see what has happened to Reach after the Covenant glassed the planet. They move the flagship closer as they notice that, during the glassing of Reach the Covenant "missed" a spot. The small fleet - consisting of a dozen cruisers, two assault carriers, and three squadrons of seraphs - ask why a flagship is at Reach. While on the ship, the survivors hear a UNSC E-band transmission (the E-band transmission is 5 notes "Oly Oly Oxen Free"). No one on the bridge recognizes it - except the Master Chief. The section then returns to July 14, 2523 as a memory reviews the time when the Spartans played capture the flag against Tango Company. The teenage Spartans win the "game"- despite Tango Company's usage of live-fire rounds- and capture the flag. While hiding from Tango Company Marines searching for the flag, John uses the "Oly Oly Oxen Free" signal to tell his teammates that all is clear.

Back on Ascendant Justice, the human crew debate whether they should go down to Reach in the reinforced Covenant dropship. Cortana looks around to see a spot which can be a extraction site to pick up the people going down to Reach. On the way down, cruisers start to surround them in their dropship. The humans find a canyon with some movement in it. Before landing Master Chief says the code for "Oly Oly Oxen Free" and says to land them in a safe spot where the survivors would find them. The Chief wanders out alone to see if there is a trap. Haverson backs him up. At the bottom of the ramp Chief senses a single signal. The friend-or-foe tag indicating who it belonged to, so the chief proceeded with caution. The Chief drew his pistol only to lower it discovering that it was Anton-044 who had disabled his FoF tag so the Covenant wouldn't discover his location. He led the Master Chief to the entrance of a cavern, where two Spartans, Grace-093 and Li-008 were, both operating chainguns that were bolted to the sides of two boulders. Master Chief and Anton, followed by Grace, went into the cavern. Inside, Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb was standing at foldout card table, which was the headquarters for Camp Independence.

Admiral Whitcomb asked why the Chief was here, instead of the mission with Captain Keyes deep in Covenant territory. The Chief told him about the events that happened on Halo, and while he was telling the story, Haverson and the others from the dropship arrived. Haverson asked Whitcomb how he was alive, and the Admiral told Haverson that while everyone was evacuating, he had stay behind because the U.N.S.C. was working on a new bomb called a NOVA. Whitcomb armed the NOVAs with fail safe tampering detonators and a countdown timer. Whitcomb had a team of Marines, Charlie Company, to help arm the NOVAs, but they were wiped out, but he then saw Red Team on coded COM and 'asked' to borrow a few Spartans, who armed the NOVAs and give the Covenant trouble with hit-and-run exercises.

The rest of the Red Team was trapped underground in the tunnels beneath the mountain in the CASTLE facility. The Chief's group used the Covenant dropship to rescue the remaining Red Team. They entered a huge cavern filled with Covenant forces - a few Elites, Jackals, and mostly Grunts that were clearing a cave-in. They landed the dropship a half a kilometer away from the Covenant forces. They manage to destroy the Covenant forces and three Spartans, Kelly, Fred, and Will, emerged from cover. Whitcomb asked if that was everyone and Fred replied that there was one more. That person turned out to be Dr. Halsey who was holding the fist-sized crystal. They were about to leave when they detected Covenant forces. They were surrounded by thousands of Covenant forces on each of the 12 levels of the gallery, and crowding the balconies were Grunts, Jackals, Elites and several pairs of Hunters. They all prepared to open fire on them, when a Hunter pair roared with rage and fired their weapons at the Master Chief and his team; the rest of the Covenant forces opened fire a split second later.

Back in space, the Ascendant Justice emerged from Slipspace into a frozen Oort cloud to hide from the Covenant forces because they knew that the Ascendant Justice wasn't one of theirs. Cortana eavesdropped on the data streams of the Covenant, using the dissected Covenant AI to help. Cortana discovered that the Covenant forces were heading to Earth.

Section 4: Gambit
As it turned out, the Covenant forces weren't shooting at the group, but rather the Hunters as they were under orders to take the crystal intact. The Covenant then proceeded toward the group. Whitcomb signaled for Polaski to pick them up; they got whisked out in the nick of time. However, while going up the grav lift, the Covenant begin to use it to push them back down. When Li-008 opens the door to fire Jackhammer rockets up the shaft, Dr. Halsey's crystal changes shape and completely disables the Grav Lift. Once they exit the tunnel, the crystal returns to normal.

In the Ascendant Justice, Cortana had used Engineers to combine the Covenant ship with another ship - the UNSC Gettysburg. She needed two reactors for her maneuver. She jumped into Slipspace, and jumped out right in the middle of the Covenant fleet, at the rendezvous point. The Chief's men got into the Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice (G.A.J.). However, when Cortana jumped back into Slipspace, they didn't go into normal Slipspace, and they dragged the Covenant fleet with them. The fleet opened fire, but the plasma behaved erratically - doing loops, curving, teleporting, etc. During the fight, Elites that had survived the purge of the Ascendant Justice blew a small hole in its hull. The Spartans and Polaski went out to repair it, but ran into the Elites. They fought, but Polaski, Li, and Anton were killed and Kelly was mortally wounded. Desperate to escape, Cortana attempted to jump back into normal space. She succeeded, leaving the Covenant stranded in Slipspace, destroyed by sudden decompression of the extended slipspace field created by the crystal.

Section 5: Massacre at Eridanus Secundus
In the G.A.J., Halsey told the Chief that Linda would live. She then talked to him about Johnson and his survival against the Flood. She revealed that Johnson has Boren's Syndrome, the only known defense against the Flood. After he left, Halsey and Cortana discussed the crystal and found that it can warp space, gravity, and even time. When her group had found the crystal, the Chief and his group were transported back in time.

For repairs, the group headed to the Eridanus Secundus asteroid belt, home of a rebel resistance. During not-too-friendly negotiations, a Covenant ship dropped out of Slipspace that had found them because of the radiation the crystal emits upon exiting from Slipspace. Despite malfunctioning plasma turrets, the crew of the G.A.J. decided to engage it. When Cortana informed them that the magnetic coils used to shape the plasma aren't working, the Chief came up with the idea to use the magnetic coils of the Gettysburg's MAC gun to shape it. During the fight, Halsey sedates Kelly and takes her away to the location she had recorded from Ackerson's logs on Reach. Before she leaves she gives Locklear the crystal and orders him to do whatever is necessary to ensure the Covenant do not retrieve the crystal. Locklear, devastated by the loss of his love, Polaski, takes the crystal down to a small bay and sets it up with C-7 he blows the crystal up, accidentally killing himself in the process.

Section 6: Operation: FIRST STRIKE
"Don't look like any 'uneven elephant' to me-more like two squids kissing. Whatever it is, damned glad its going to blow up. Nice job-almost as good as if we sent in the marines."

- Sergeant Johnson

While the crew of the G.A.J. were able to retrieve a few shards of the crystal, they had more important things on mind: the Covenant invasion of Earth. Cortana knew that they were gathering at a battle station called the Unyielding Hierophant. The Chief came up with a daring plan to blow up the station and put a sizable dent in the fleet: he and the Spartans will go to the station in a modified dropship, infiltrate the station, and blow up the reactors, with help from a copy of Cortana's subroutines.

The Spartans made it to the station without incident, but were forced to take a detour through a temple complex. There, they encountered Brutes for the first time. The Chief grappled with a Brute, and barely made it out alive. Grace was killed by Brute shots and her suit's fail safe system was activated, killing many Covenant in the process. They still managed to make it to the reactors, and they were successfully rigged to explode. The remaining Spartans exited the station, but only saw the Gettysburg when they made it back to the G.A.J.. The crew had taken the Ascendant Justice's Slip space engine and installed it on the Gettysburg, while Whitcomb and Haverson had taken the Covenant ship. They broadcasted a message to the fleet that if they wanted the crystal's shards (which they had for proof), all they had to do was come and get them from the Ascendant Justice - which they had impaled into the central section of the Unyielding Hierophant. When the Unyielding Hierophant exploded, it destroyed some five hundred ships of the Covenant invasion force leaving about a dozen ships to attack Earth. The five human survivors of the operation, John-117, Frederic-104, Linda-058, William-043, Sergent Avery J. Johnson and Cortana proceeded to a random location under Cole Protocol and then return to Earth.

Section 7: Harbinger
In the epilogue, Tartarus gives shards of the Forerunner crystal to the High Prophet of Truth. The Prophet gives Tartarus orders to reward the survivors, then execute them, and punish the incompetent who lost Unyielding Hierophant; "make sure his fate matches the magnitude of his failure."

UNSC

 * Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-II John-117
 * Senior Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-II Fred-104
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Kelly-087
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Linda-058
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Will-043
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Li-008
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Vinh-030
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Isaac-039
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Anton-044
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Grace-093
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Joshua-029
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II James
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Malcolm-059
 * Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey
 * Flight Officer Mitchell
 * Cortana
 * Lieutenant Jake Chapman
 * Lieutenant Buckman
 * Jacob Jiles
 * Lieutenant Wagner
 * Colonel James Ackerson
 * General Nicolas Strauss
 * Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb
 * Lieutenant Elias Haverson
 * Petty Officer Second Class Shiela Polaski
 * Staff Sergeant Avery J. Johnson
 * Corporal Locklear

Covenant

 * Grunts
 * Covenant AI
 * Elites
 * High Prophet of Truth
 * Chieftain Tartarus

Trivia

 * The original cover of the book had a graphic error on the Master Chief's head. The top part of his head was a little to the right of the bottom part, causing a split in his head. This was corrected in later versions.


 * At the beginning of the novel there is a line that says in Fred 104's Pelican "twenty-seven Spartans braced themselves", however in Halo: The Fall of Reach it is stated on page 240 that there were at Reach "two dozen Spartans" and Master Chief, with 3 other Spartans "engaged on fields of combat too distant to be easily recalled" therefore the pelican that Fred 104 takes to the surface should only have 22 Spartans since John 117 takes two Spartans with him in a separate Pelican for the space op. Eric Trautmann has implies that the discrepancy is being considered part of continuity and a potential future story hook.


 * On a separate note this means that the Pelican is overloaded since the compliment of a Pelican is 15 marines and in Halo: The Flood it is stated that this is pushing the limit. Yet in the novel it is carrying 'twenty seven' Spartans with apparent ease.


 * In the novel, an ODST wears a normal marine uniform instead of their regular space suit, this however could be the standard for ODSTs when not performing orbital insertions, since it would be easier to fight in. It is also mentioned in Halo: The Flood, that ODSTs accompany the Master Chief on his mission to the Truth and Reconciliation, yet there are no Marines in space suits, so they must be wearing Marine uniforms. Possibly, some ODSTs did not have a chance to suit up before the Pillar of Autumn was boarded, or some ODST suits were lost when the Autumn was hit by plasma fire during the Battle of Reach, or the space fight above Halo.


 * The Banshees are also frequently said to have "seats" where the pilot really lies on a pad to operate the controls


 * Except for the first and the seventh section, all the sections are numbered using Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.); the seventh section is numbered using Roman numerals: VII. This is probably just another reference to 7 like the ones throughout the Halo universe.


 * After the Unyielding Hierophant exploded, there were only a dozen Covenant ships left, give or take. These ships might have been the ones led by Regret that attacked Earth in the First Battle of Earth.


 * The Elite that SPARTAN-117 fought in Ascendant Justice was initially presumed to be the Arbiter, until it was realized that it was a Special Operations Elite, and not a Supreme Commander. Add to that the fact that the Arbiter's own ship was called the Seeker of Truth, not Ascendant Justice, and it becomes very unlikely that the two are the same character.


 * The Battle Rifle was first used canonically in Halo: Contact Harvest as a prototype, and is first introduced to the Spartans during Halo: First Strike in the tunnels beneath Reach, but it was introduced to gamers in Halo 2.


 * On page 56 it says, "... the Longsword spun 180 degrees." Later on it refers to it as a Pelican drop ship that was previously destroyed when they sent it ahead of them as a diversion to attack the Ascendant Justice.


 * On page 121, Vinh-030 is mistakenly listed as Vinh-029. Which is actually the service tag for Joshua.


 * After the successful capture of the Ascendant Justice, it is stated that no one has ever captured a Covenant ship before, however this is odd, since Major Silva commandeered the Truth and Reconciliation. This can easily be corrected by saying that they were not aware of that fact and that shortly afterward, the ship was destroyed by Melissa McKay.


 * Although the book states that John-117 carried two M7 submachine guns with silencers, he never used them.


 * Halo: The First Strike, along with Halo: The Fall of Reach, and Halo: The Flood can be purchased as part of a three book boxset.