Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
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| Author | Eric Nylund |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Halo |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Tor |
| Released | October 31, 2006 (US, UK), January 2007 (Australia) |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 384 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-7653-1568-8 |
| Preceded by | Halo: First Strike |
| Followed by | TBD |
Ghosts of Onyx is a novel by Eric Nylund, set in the world of the Halo video game series, released on October 31, 2006. The book's working title was Ghosts of Coral. It ties up many of the plots that were started in the other Halo novels, as well as revealing the fate of some of their major characters.
Bungie announced a series of two more novels following Ghosts of Onyx.
[edit] Plot
The novel begins with a group of SPARTAN-IIIs of Beta Company being deployed 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-III's are wiped out. The only survivors, Tom-B292 and Lucy-B091, are revealed to be only twelve years old, with Lucy being traumatized and rendered mute.
The novel then cuts to a raid by the SPARTAN-II Blue Team on a human 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 the SPARTAN-II Kurt-051. Shortly afterward, the novel cuts to a meeting between UNSC Marine Corps Colonel James Ackerson of Section Three of the Office of Naval Intelligence (O.N.I.), and the top leadership of O.N.I. 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 proposal becomes the SPARTAN-III program, in which young recruits are gathered from human colony worlds destroyed by the Covenant and co-trained by the SPARTAN-IIs' original trainer, Senior Chief Petty Officer Mendez. To assist in this endeavor, Ackerson forcibly recruits and fakes the death of Kurt-051, and promotes him to the naval rank of Lieutenant (Junior Grade) before placing him in command of the S-III program and granting him the surname of "Ambrose." The project is based on the secret O.N.I.-administered planet codenamed Onyx in the Zeta Doradus System. Onyx also happens to be the site of a major archeological survey on Forerunner ruins being conducted by O.N.I.'s Section Three that is restricted to all non-authorized personnel, including the SPARTAN-III's and their trainers.
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 Ambrose proceeds to improve the training regimen for his next batch of recruits, only to watch them fall by the hundreds at Pegasi Delta. 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. Very quickly, the few humans on the planet are either wiped out or struggling to survive against this new, unexpected threat. The only humans left are Lieutenant Kurt Ambrose, Chief Mendez, and Team Saber. Team Gladius is wiped out by the Sentinels and Team Katana goes missing.
At this point, Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, the founder of the SPARTAN-II program and the SPARTAN-II Kelly-087 she had abducted, arrive on Onyx to investigate the mysterious planet, but are attacked by more of the unidentified drones and crash land. Once on the planet, they meet up with the human survivors of the attacks, including the S-III Team Saber, Kurt Ambrose, and Senior Chief Mendez. Dr. Halsey identifies the drones as Forerunner Sentinels from the information she reviewed from the A.I. Cortana's logs on Halo Alpha, and proceeds to send out a call for UNSC reinforcements to deal with the Forerunner drones on Onyx, piggybacking her transmission on, ironically, another transmission made by Cortana near the end of Halo 2. The action switches to Earth, approximately two weeks after the destruction of the East African city of New Mombasa in Halo 2, where the planet is still under siege by Covenant forces. UNSC and Covenant forces battle in space and on the ground, and the SPARTAN-II's Fred-104, Linda-058, and Will-043 are pulled out of the line of fire by Fleet Admiral Hood, who responds to Dr. Halsey's call for reinforcements by dispatching these SPARTAN-II's to Onyx. Hijacking a Covenant destroyer, the SPARTANS head for Onyx, only to be caught in the middle of a battle between loyalist Brute and separatist Elite starships as part of the Covenant Civil War on the way. Barely escaping, the SPARTAN-II's arrive at Onyx and are attacked by the Sentinels. They escape using a Covenant Dropship and link up with the other human survivors, and then make their way toward the restricted area of Onyx after shaking Sentinel pursuit.
Meanwhile, at Delta Halo, the loyalist Covenant fleet stationed there is in the midst of the Covenant Civil War. The Covenant are forced to fight each other as well as ensure that the Flood imprisoned on Delta Halo do not escape. After the battle, separatist Covenant forces intercept Dr. Halsey's distress signal and learn of the existence of Onyx and its Forerunner technology. From the Covenant-held planet Joyous Exultation, the surviving Covenant separatist forces send a large fleet to Onyx in order to plunder its technology and keep it out of the hands of the humans. Unknown to most of the Covenant on the super assault carrier Sublime Transcendence, Vice Admiral Whitcomb's Nova thermonuclear mine, mentioned in First Strike, sits on the carrier's deck being examined by the Covenant Engineers (called Huragok among the Covenant) who unknowingly arm it after a Grunt named Kwassass examines the arming device. Shortly after a portion of the separatist Covenant fleet departs for Onyx, the Nova mine explodes, scorching Joyous Exultation and producing winds in excess of over 300 km per hour, shattering its nearby moon, Malhiem, into a billion fragments, and disintegrating the Covenant armada, as well as severely devastating the surface of the planet.
The elements of the separatist Covenant fleet and a UNSC Navy reinforcement fleet arrive at Onyx, where they encounter one another and the Forerunner Sentinel defenders of the planet, who attack anything approaching the system. In the ensuing battle the UNSC manage to reduce the Covenant fleet of over twenty starships to two, but additional separatist Covenant reinforcements, starships that had escaped Vice Admiral Whitcomb's Nova mine at Joyous Exultation, arrive. The entire UNSC fleet at Onyx is destroyed by the ensuing battle, save for one prowler-type reconaissance vessel, the Dusk, which stays hidden and observes the unfolding events. The human forces on Onyx discover an ancient Forerunner city being rapidly uncovered by the Sentinel drones, and are guided into a massive sphere by Dr. Halsey, who determines that the entire planet is actually a "shield world" constructed by the Forerunners. Fighting off determined Covenant pursuers, they press on into the heart of the planet to find its secrets. To their shock, they find the SPARTAN-III Team Katana in the city, locked away in a form of suspended animation and shunted into an alternate dimension in Slipspace. Then, they go to a vast Sentinel factory that is churning out literally hundreds of thousands of the Forerunner drones. Disabling the factory, they press on to the planet's core, where they discover that a Slipspace rift exists that shunts those that pass through it into a miniaturized Dyson Sphere that is separated off from the normal space-time continuum by advanced Forerunner Slipspace manipulation technology. Will-043 and the SPARTAN-III's Dante and Holly fall fighting off the Covenant, and Lieutenant (J.G.) Kurt Ambrose remains behind to ensure that the Covenant do not plunder Onyx's secrets by detonating two large Fenris nuclear warheads. Kurt gives his life to prevent the Covenant from reopening the Slipspace rift.
Hiding at a distance from Onyx, the surviving UNSC prowler starship watches 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. The Sentinels annihilate the Covenant fleet orbiting the planet and the Dusk is forced to retreat. Within this sphere, which features terrain and a climate 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 seven Halo installations, but find themselves alone in the vast habitat; for some reason, the Forerunners never entered this structure when the Halos were first activated about 100,000 Earth years before. The human survivors then attend a funeral ceremony for Kurt Ambrose, Will, Dante, and Holly. Fred-104, who was given a field commission of Lieutenant (J.G.) by Kurt, takes command and orders everyone to move out and search for a way to free Team Katana and escape the Dyson Sphere. Fred and Kelly then officially welcome the surviving SPARTAN-III's to the SPARTAN-II Blue Team.
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