Halo: Ghosts of Onyx

Halo: Ghosts of Onyx is the title of the fourth novel in the Halo series. The book is by Eric Nylund and published by Tor. It was officially released on October 31st, 2006.

In addition, the announcement of the title also included a confirmation that Ghosts of Onyx is not the last planned Halo book. At least two more novels are planned to follow it as part of a contract with Tor (The first of these two books, Halo: Contact Harvest, was released October 30th, 2007. The second, Halo: The Cole Protocol has been announced on Bungie.net).

Plot
This novel begins with a group of SPARTAN-IIIs belonging to Beta Company deploying to a Covenant fleet refueling depot on Pegasi Delta. They proceed to destroy the facility, but due to unexpectedly heavy Covenant resistance, all but two of the three hundred Spartans sent to Pegasi Delta are wiped out by the Covenant. The only survivors, Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091, are revealed to be only twelve years old, and Lucy is traumatized and rendered mute (This is assumed to be Post Traumatic Vocal disarticulation).

The novel then cuts to a raid by the SPARTAN-II Blue Team on a rebel base at the planet Victoria to recover stolen FENRIS nuclear warheads. The team is nearly captured by a rebel ambush, but is saved by the timely, intuitive intervention of Kurt-051. Shortly afterward, the novel cuts to a meeting between Colonel James Ackerson of Section Three of the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the top leadership of ONI. In this meeting, they agree that the SPARTAN-II program is prohibitively expensive and that a more streamlined, "disposable" breed of Spartans must be trained for high-risk operations. This becomes the SPARTAN-III program, in which young recruits, orphaned volunteers aged 4 to 6, are gathered from worlds destroyed by the Covenant and trained by the SPARTAN-IIs' original trainer, Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez, formerly ranked as Chief Petty Officer Mendez. To assist in this endeavor, Ackerson forcibly fakes the death of and recruits Kurt-051, and promotes him to Lieutenant, Junior Grade, before placing him in command of the S-III program and granting him the surname of "Ambrose". The operation is based on a secret planet named "Onyx", which is the site of a major archaeological survey also being conducted by ONI.

The first SPARTAN-III company, Alpha Company, proves to be a startling success, but is wiped out when deployed to target a major Covenant shipyard in a mission codenamed Operation PROMETHEUS. Shaken by the images of the battle and massacre of his troops, Kurt proceeds to improve the training regiment for his next batch of recruits, only to watch them fall by the hundreds at Pegasi Delta during Operation TORPEDO. He then institutes an illegal medical procedure in the third group of SPARTANS-IIIs, which will harden their minds and bodies against pain and shock to better allow them to survive the Covenant onslaught. On October 31, 2552, the top three teams of the SPARTAN-III Gamma Company, Teams Saber, Katana, and Gladius, conduct a training exercise near a restricted area on the planet deemed Zone 67, only to find themselves and other UNSC personnel under attack by an unidentified class of alien drone, that are later identified as Sentinels. Very quickly, the few humans on the planet are either wiped out or struggling to survive against this new, unexpected threat. At this point, Doctor Catherine Halsey and Kelly-087 arrive to investigate the mysterious planet, but are attacked by more of the Sentinels and crash land. Once on the planet, they meet up with the human survivors of the attacks, including S-III Team Saber, Kurt, and Chief Mendez. Halsey identifies the drones as Sentinels from the information she reviewed from SPARTAN-117's logs on Halo, and proceeds to call for reinforcements, piggybacking her transmission on, ironically, another transmission made by Cortana at the end of Halo 2. On the message she calls out for caution about the danger coming from the forerunner ship that includes [SPARTAN-117] and the flood, which is trying to escape from Delta Halo. The action switches to Earth, two weeks after the First Battle of Earth, where the planet is under siege by Covenant forces. UNSC and Covenant forces battle in space and on the ground, and Fred-104, Will-043, and Linda-058 are pulled out of the line of fire by Fleet Admiral Hood, who responds to Halsey's call for reinforcements by dispatching the Spartans to Onyx. After hijacking a Covenant destroyer called Bloodied Spirit and killing all Covenant on board by suffocation, the Spartans head for Onyx, only to be caught in the middle of a battle between Brute and Elite ships on the way. Barely escaping, the Spartans arrive at Onyx and are shot down by more of the Sentinels. They crash land and link up with the other human survivors, and then make their way toward the Zone 67 of Onyx after shaking off Sentinel pursuit.

Meanwhile, a Grunt named Kwassass is aboard a Covenant Supercarrier named the Sublime Transcendence. The Engineers are busy checking out what turns out to be one of Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb's Nova bombs. Kwassass activates a box from the nuke which had been presumably detached from the nuke by the engineers, rendering the NOVA momentarily harmless. A garbled message is emitted from the box. This prompts the grunt to activate it again and again, trying to comprehend the message. Eventually the remaining power in the box dies which alerts the nearby huragok. The grunt is quickly attacked by the Engineers, who were compelled to repair damaged technology. The Engineers manage to relieve the grunt of the box, putting it back in it's former place on the NOVA which restored the activation pad to full power and a clear transmission comes forth: ''This is the prototype NOVA bomb, nine fusion warheads encased in lithium triterade armor. When detonated it compresses its fusion material to a neutron-star density, boosting the thermonuclear yield a hundredfold. I am Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, temporarily in command of the UNSC military base Reach. To the Covenant uglies that might be listening, you have a few seconds to pray to your damned heathen gods. You all have a nice day in hell.'' The grunt having fully recognized the danger, tried to pull out the wires connecting the pad to the bomb at the last second. He failed, leading to the catastrophe that decimated the nearby fleet. While this is going on, the Sangheili leader Xytan 'Jar Wattinree rallies the Elites together to have a meeting on the treachery of the Brutes and Prophets. Ship Master Voro 'Mantakree speaks to his fellow ship masters and suggests that they go to Onyx. He is promoted to the rank of Fleet Master and is given command of a fleet of eighteen destroyers, two cruisers and one carrier prepare to go to Onyx, and retrieve the Forerunner technology. A split-second after they jump to Slipspace, the Nova bomb goes off, destroying every ship not on the dark side of the planet Joyous Exultation. A quarter of the world is scorched, Malhiem is destroyed, and the three hundred-kilometer-per-hour winds obliterate cities. A large Covenant fleet and a UNSC reinforcement fleet arrive at Onyx, where they encounter one another and the stubborn Sentinel defenders of the planet, which attack anything approaching the system. In the ensuing battle, the entire UNSC fleet is destroyed save for one prowler-class vessel, which stays hidden and observes events unfolding.

The human forces on Onyx discover an ancient Forerunner city, and are guided into a massive dome by Halsey, who determines that the entire planet is a "shield world" referred to by the Forerunners as The Sharpened Shield. Fighting off determined Covenant pursuers, they press on into the heart of the planet to find its secrets, but not before the ONI AI communicates to Doctor Halsey the importance of shutting down a Forerunner "factory located at the "tip" of the plant that manufactures a new Sentinel every six seconds, or 600 per hour. Disabling the factory, they press on to the planet's core, where they discover a Slipspace rift that shunts those that pass through it to a miniaturized Dyson Sphere that is separated from normal space-time by advanced Forerunner Slipspace technology. Will falls fighting off the Covenant, and Kurt remains behind to ensure that the Covenant do not plunder Onyx's secrets, giving his life to prevent them from reopening the rift by waiting for the core doors to fully close and protect Dr. Halsey and the remaining Spartans, then detonating the FENRIS warheads that the team had taken with them, ending his life, along with a vast Covenant strike force, and causing the now-gutted planet of Onyx to disassemble (at least its outer layers), into the myriads of Sentinels that it is made of due to the shock waves of the detonations below. In the end however Kurt did get to die the death all spartans want to die, by taking all of the enemy forces with them. He ends his life responding to the Elite Fleet Master, "Die? Didn't you know? Spartans never die," Just before detonating the nukes.

From outside Onyx, the surviving UNSC prowler Dusk watches on as the planet's surface rips apart, to reveal that the entire world is constructed of literally trillions of Sentinels, all connected together to provide an impenetrable defense around the Dyson Sphere at the heart of the planet. Within this sphere, which features terrain similar to that of Earth, the surviving humans discover that the planet is literally a massive bomb shelter for the Forerunner to survive the activation of the Halos, a pod that suspends the user inside a Slip-space field, the user is extruded into an alternate set of spacial co-ordinates excluded from time and nothing can harm them, because technically they are not there. 5 of the remaining Spartans, known as Team Katana, are trapped in a Slip-space field each. But in the end the remaining Spartans find themselves alone in the vast habitat. The story ends with Kelly welcoming the new Spartan III's to the Blue Team.

Characters

 * Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-II John-117 (appears briefly in Chapter 1)
 * Senior Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-II Fred-104 (Presently Lieutenant, Junior Grade)
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Kelly-087
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Linda-058
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-II Will-043
 * Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose (Formerly SPARTAN-II Kurt-051)
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-III Shane-A
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-III Robert-A
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-III Jane-A
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-III Tom-B292
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-III Lucy-B091
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-III Adam-B004
 * Petty Officer Second Class SPARTAN-III Min-B174
 * Private SPARTAN-III Ash-G099
 * Petty Officer Third Class SPARTAN-III Holly-G003
 * Petty Officer Third Class SPARTAN-III Olivia-G
 * Petty Officer Third Class SPARTAN-III Mark-G
 * Petty Officer Third Class SPARTAN-III Dante-G188
 * General Howard Graves (Leader of the United Rebel Front)
 * Dr. Catherine Halsey
 * Senior Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez
 * Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree
 * Paruna Xido Konna Lekgolo Pair
 * Waruna Xido Yotno Lekgolo Pair
 * Kwassass Unggoy
 * Xytan 'Jar Wattinree (Imperial Admiral and Regent Command of the Combined Fleet of Righteous Purpose).

=Errors= On his blog, Eric Nylund has confirmed that there will be a reprint some time in the future, fixing many errors in the book. The time for this is not yet known.

List of Errors

 * On pages 51 and 314, UNSC is misspelled as USNC
 * On pages 56-57, the dates that they looked for Spartan 051-Kurt span 4 years. The year in the beginning of the chapter is November 7 2531. In the after action report it says that they looked for Kurt and were joined on 1/13/2335 at 1105 hours, by the UNSC frigate Tannenberg.
 * On page 67 the date given is December 27, 2531. It states Kurt had been developing a training regime for the Spartan IIIs for 6 months. However, according to page 57, he had become involved on December 14, 2531, a mere 13 days prior. In later editions, Chapter 6 begins on December 27, 2532, a year later.
 * On page 79 the date is listed as July 30, 2537 and states it has been 15 years since the indoctrination of the Alpha Company of Spartan IIIs, when in fact that would only be 5 years later.
 * On page 87, (Chapter 8), and page 224 (chapter 25), plasma bolts is misspelled as plasma blots.
 * On page 92 Senior Chief Mendez says that Tom and Lucy are 10 years old, but in the Prologue, which takes place 4 years later, they are only 12 years old.
 * On page 125, the date of the report is listed as October 22, 2511. However, it mentions Beta Company Spartans, which were not online until some 25-30 years later.
 * On page 209 a Brute Shot is described as an RPG, or rocket-propelled grenade (see rocket-propelled grenade on Wikipedia). The Brute Shots are type-25 grenade launchers and do not use rockets.
 * On pages 260 (chapter 29) and 367 (chapter 39), MA5B is misspelled as MAB5.
 * On page 371 Kurt-051 is listed as Lieutenant Commandeer, not Lieutenant Commander
 * On page 281 Sangheili is misspelled as Sangeili
 * On page 287, Commander Lash mentions a watch given to him by his father upon graduation of OSC, but it is likely that he graduated from OCS, or Officer Cadet School.
 * In the middle of the book, the A.I. Endless Summer says UESC instead of UNSC.
 * In the report that states that Kurt is missing, it labels his armor as a Mark V. However, this is impossible, since the Mark IV armor was still being used for another twenty-one years, until Reach is destroyed.

Trivia

 * The cover features an MA5B and two new rifles, which are revealed in the book to be MA5K carbines.
 * Ghosts of Onyx is supposedly derived from the song Ghosts of Reach on the Halo 2 Soundtrack.
 * Before the confirmation of the book itself, the book's placeholder and showcase online name was "Ghosts of Coral". This raised much speculation about the I Love Bees involvement in the Halo series.
 * The cover of the book displays the three primary armor types worn by the Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs. The figure in the left (Presumably Kelly-087, as she did not return to Earth to receive the upgraded armor as the other Spartans did) wears MJOLNIR Mark V armor. The Center figure (The book reveals this figure to be Fredric-104, Will-043, or Linda-058) wears the newer MJOLNIR Mark VI Armor. The figure on the right (revealed to be either Kurt-051 or one of the Spartan-IIIs) wears SPI Mark II armor.
 * During the stage that it was still called Ghosts of Coral, two chapters were cut from the novel for 'pacing reasons' though Nylund has expressed a desire to release these.
 * Teleporters are used and discovered deep inside of Onyx, hinting towards the background of the teleporters in the game being traditionally Forerunner.
 * It is theorized that a shield world like Onyx is seen in the Halo 3 Legendary ending. However, this is unlikely because the Onyx (and most likely the other shield worlds) broke apart after the passage to the Micro Dyson Sphere closed.  The Sphere itself is only a few meters wide on the outside, so it is unlikely that that is what is seen in the Legendary ending.
 * On Page 311 it says "In one hour seventeen minutes, the core entrance will shut. Forever." One hour seventeen minutes = 1:17. This might be a reference to John, Spartan 117 or it could simply be another reference to the number 7.
 * Chapter 37 begins on page 343, which is 7^3, and is also a reference to 343 Guilty Spark.
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx is the 4th book in the Halo book series.
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx was the first book in the series to not center around the Master Chief.
 * On the back cover, there's a Marathon Logo right next to the Tor's website.

REVIEW
A very gripping read worth buying extremely good book,