Antimatter charge

"Sir? Permission to leave the station."

- John 117

"For what purpose, Master Chief?"

- Lord Hood

"To give the Covenant back their bomb."

- John 117

The Antimatter Charge is a Covenant weapon utilising Antimatter as an explosive. Sizes and uses varied, with some being a counterpart to the UNSC's tactical nuclear weapons.

Mechanism
Little is known of the smaller variant used by Covenant troops to breach UNSC vessels, though the larger variant has been seen close-up.

The charge's appearance is that of a long bulbous shape with many spikes protruding from it. It has a central control hub located at the top of the bomb.

The bomb utilises the annihilation of matter and antimatter to create an explosive. Nearly one hundred percent of the energy in the matter is released in a massive explosion, in contrast to the mere seven percent released by a UNSC nuclear fusion warhead.

History
Cortana believed Covenant boarding parties used such a weapon to disable the 's MAC cannon during the opening of the Battle of Installation 04.

These weapons were used during the Battle of Earth to assault Earth's Orbital Defense Platforms. There were several boarding parties which consisted of many Elites, Grunts, and Drones. The Boarding parties delivered the ordnance and destroyed Athens Station and Malta Station. The bomb that was on Cairo Station was secured by John-117 and Cortana. The Spartan performed a micro-gravity maneuver to deliver the device to a Covenant Assault Carrier with shields down and a 'hole' created by a pair of Longswords. The Chief entered the hole and detonated the bomb in the core resulting the destruction of the assault carrier.

The bombs were also used by the Covenant during an op that was being conducted by the Spartan IIs. One of the Spartans, Solomon, was lured onto a Covenant Battlecruiser and subsequently killed when an anti-matter charge aboard was detonated.

Trivia

 * Jen Taylor, as Cortana, had trouble recording the Halo: Combat Evolved line, "It must have been one of their boarding parties, I'd guess an antimatter charge!", joking that "It sounds so weird!".
 * Jason Jones of Bungie referred to the bomb as the "Giant Covenant Space Pickle".
 * When the bomb is reactivated by John-117 it takes 7 seconds to explode.
 * It appears in Halo Zero, a fan-made 2D Halo game made for the PC.
 * The bomb's appearance looks like a present-day naval mine (sea mine).
 * The bomb was not originally going to be included in Halo 2, instead there would be a level were the Master Chief would board the Covenant Assault Carrier and destroy it from within, but due to deadlines, it was cut and Bungie decided to add the bomb.
 * The bomb may have been made easier to move by the boarding parties through anti-gravity fields presented by protrusions on the bottom of the bomb. Then, once the bomb had been sufficiently placed, these fields would have been permanently disabled, making the bomb all the more difficult to move.
 * It is not likely that the entire bomb was filled with antimatter as the explosion would be inconceivably large. it is more likely that the bomb is so bulky because the antimatter must be kept in a vacuum and kept from touching the walls via force field. Even with the Covenant's superior force field technology it is understandable that they would add as many fail safes as possible due to antimatter's volatile nature when in contact with real matter.

Internal

 * Antimatter

External

 * Final Cut Scene of Cairo Station, featuring the infamous Covenant Bomb.
 * Antimatter on Wikipedia
 * Antimatter Weapon on Wikipedia