Halo: Ghosts of Onyx

Halo: Ghosts of Onyx is the title of the newest Halo book by Eric Nylund. Published by Tor, it was 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, this is part of the contract with Tor. One, Halo: Contact Harvest has already been announced.

Plot
Spoiler warning: Plot and ending details follow.

The 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 Spartan team is wiped out. The only survivors, Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091, are revealed to be only twelve years old, and Lucy is traumatized and rendered mute.

The novel then cuts to a raid by the SPARTAN-II Blue Team on a rebel base at planet Victoria to recover stolen 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 are gathered from worlds destroyed by the Covenant and trained by the SPARTAN-IIs' original trainer, Chief Petty Officer Mendez. To assist in this endeavor, Ackerson forcibly recruits and fakes the death of 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 system named "Onyx," which is the site of a major archaeological survey also being conducted by ONI.

The first S-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 regimen 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 S-IIIs, which will harden their minds and bodies against pain and shock to better allow them to survive.

On October 31, 2552, the top three teams of the S-III Gamma Company, Teams Saber, Katana, and Gladius, conduct a training exercise near a restricted area on the planet, 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 simply asks for the best the UNSC can put forth asking for the high Command to send Spartans. 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, 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 restricted area of Onyx after shaking Sentinel pursuit.

Meanwhile, a Grunt named Kwassass is aboard a Covenant Fleet carrier 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 pulls out the box from the nuke, and is attacked by Huragok. The Engineers manage to put it back in 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.''

While this is going on, the Sangheili leader Xytan 'Jar Wattinree rallies the Elites together, and prepares to send them to Onyx. A battle group 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 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 churned out literally hundreds of thousands of drones every 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.

From outside Onyx, the surviving UNSC prowler 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 have survived the activation of the Halos, but find themselves alone in the vast habitat.

Characters

 * Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-II John-117 (mention only in revised records)
 * 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)
 * SPARTAN-III Shane-A???
 * SPARTAN-III Robert-A???
 * SPARTAN-III Jane-A???
 * SPARTAN-III Tom-B292
 * SPARTAN-III Lucy-B091
 * SPARTAN-III Adam-B004
 * SPARTAN-III Min-B174
 * SPARTAN-III Ash-G099
 * SPARTAN-III Holly-G003
 * SPARTAN-III Olivia-G???
 * SPARTAN-III Mark-G???
 * 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 (Lekgolo are the Covenant Name for Hunters)
 * Waruna Xido Yotno Lekgolo Pair (Lekgolo are the Covenant Name for Hunters)
 * Kwassass Unggoy
 * Xytan 'Jar Wattinree [Imperial Admiral and Regent Command of the Combined Fleet of Righteous Purpose]

Trivia
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.
 * The cover features an MA5B and two new rifles, which are revealed in the book to be MA5K carbines.
 * The Spartans on the cover show the various armor types: Mark V and Mark VI MJOLNIR Armor and the SPI Mark II armor.
 * 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 name was "Ghost of Coral". This raised much speculation about the I Love Bees involvement in the Halo series.
 * In the paperback version of the book on pages 260 (chapter 29) and 367 (chapter 39), MA5B is misspelled as MAB5.
 * 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.
 * On pages 51 and 314, UNSC is mispelled into USNC
 * On page 320, Holly is misspelled as Holy.