Halo: Empty Throne – Preview
In Halo Infinite, we followed the UNSC’s devastating defeat at Zeta Halo as the Banished laid waste to humanity’s forces and claimed the Halo ring after Cortana’s destruction. As the Master Chief, we awakened six months later to learn the truth of what happened.
But what of the rest of the galaxy?
Halo: Empty Throne explores the bigger picture. The state of the UNSC and ONI, the Banished forces that didn’t go to Zeta Halo after their home system was destroyed, the Covenant remnants plotting their resurgence, and more.
At the end of Halo 5, Cortana claimed the Mantle of Responsibility and deployed Guardians across many star systems to impose an imperial peace upon the peoples of the galaxy.
Upon targeting Earth, Lord Terrence Hood and Admiral Serin Osman were whisked away by the artificial intelligence known as Black-Box. For over a year, they have been safe on a remote, isolated planet called Rossbach’s World—but they have also been out of the fight.
2559. It has been a year since the rogue artificial intelligence Cortana seized control of the Domain, an otherworldly dimension housing a vast information network. With an array of Forerunner weapons at her disposal, Cortana set out to enforce an authoritarian peace on the civilizations of the galaxy. But as the United Nations Space Command flagship Infinity prepares to strike against Cortana at Zeta Halo, another plan has also been set in motion.
An ancient access point hidden on a seemingly insignificant human colony has become the focus of a parallel effort to claim the Domain and its immeasurable capabilities. The UNSC, however, needs a key: a living, forsaken product of an old war. As a new generation of heroes rise to meet this challenge, and Cortana's pursuit of control reaches a desperate and sudden crescendo, a cunning, ruthless warrior emerges from the shadows of the Banished, who has vowed to fill the new power vacuum by any means necessary…
In this preview for the second chapter of the book, we catch up with Hood and Osman as plans to depose Cortana and claim her source of power are put into action.
CHAPTER 2
TERRENCE HOOD
Rossbach’s World
November 4, 2559
The day began like every other.
The alarm sounded at 0500 hours and Lord Terrence Benjamin Hood instinctively slid the covers off, pulling his legs out of bed and placing his feet on the cold wooden floor.
Sitting up, he took a deep breath, and then began.
Within fifteen minutes, he had already cleaned himself, dressed, and left the cabin, quickly consuming an energy ration while following a trail down the mountain toward a lean-to he had erected ten months earlier. By the time he arrived, the sun was beginning to peek between the jagged row of mountains on the far side of the lake. Light glimmered off the lake’s smooth surface, causing the orange lichen that covered the trees around it to come alive.
The lean-to was a modest structure, but something that he knew would keep him busy. Inside was a boxing bag made from sand and the hide of an indigenous creature. He hung his jacket on an antler in the corner, laid himself on the flattest part of the ground, and began doing sit-ups. These would be followed by push-ups. And those would be followed by chin-ups on a nearby tree branch—the most trying of his exercises, as he still felt a twinge of pain in his abdomen from an injury he’d suffered aboard the UNSC Infinity well over a year and a half ago. After that, he would wrap his hands and spend at least an hour with the bag, repeating what he had done for years in the Navy. He would box.
Hood had always been a natural at it, so it took only a few days after he’d begun this routine for the techniques to come back to him. His jab, hook, and cross—they all returned intuitively. Even as he approached seventy years of age, this felt . . . right. In fact, he could not imagine spending his time here doing anything else.
All things considered, there was at least some catharsis to be found in his present circumstances.
So it went every morning; this was his ritual. Leave the cabin, make his way to the lean-to, then box, and sweat, and blow off steam. His cabinmates, Serin Osman and Spartan Orzel, each had their own methods for passing the time. Running. Fishing. Climbing.
For the first month on this world, he had been glued to the liquor cabinet, perpetuating a foolish kind of self-pity. That had been his response to the event. He’d thought it was justified at the time, but he should have simply been grateful to be alive. Many others couldn’t say the same.
It was over a year now since Cortana, an artificial intelligence believed to have been destroyed, had returned by way of an ancient network called the Domain. The network had given her control over powerful Forerunner constructs with which she intended to force an imperial peace upon all the peoples of the galaxy. She had broadcast a message promising an end to starvation, war, and suffering—at the cost of total surrender.
“This is not a negotiation, Lord Hood. This is your surrender,” she had said to him with steel in her voice. “My terms are clear. You are aware of my capabilities and . . . I am fully acquainted with yours. If the Earth’s government wants to fight, feel free. But hear this. It is a battle you will not win.”
Anticipating Hood’s refusal, Cortana had already dispatched a Guardian, a construct once used by the Forerunners to pacify and police star systems under their control. Reports had indicated that they were capable not only of neutralizing local power networks, but of directly engaging heavily armed capital ships.
Only seconds after he refused Cortana’s offer, all hell had broken loose in the city of Sydney, Australia, where the UNSC’s HIGHCOM headquarters had been located for centuries. True to her edict, Cortana had unleashed her wrath with devastating consequences. . . .
As this event unfolded, Hood had been instructed by the loyal AI Black-Box to immediately leave the building with the commander in chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Serin Osman. Both of them were escorted by Spartan Orzel to depart—not just Sydney, but the Sol system entirely. But as they made their escape, the defensive frigate UNSC Plateau was sent on a collision course with the city by one of Cortana’s Guardians.
He still couldn’t bear to think about it.
Days later, the three of them were here, on an uncharted planet hidden in deep space, selected and prepared by Black-Box for precisely this kind of emergency situation. All that existed on this empty world was a lone cabin, fully stocked with provisions, clothing, and all of the basic necessities they would need to survive. The AI called it Rossbach’s World.
For the last year, Hood had called it home. Under different circumstances, this location would have served as a beautiful vacation spot. Thousands of acres of untouched forest in every direction, nestled among towering snowcapped mountains and beside a vast freshwater lake. It was nothing short of magnificent.
But even paradise is a prison when one cannot leave.
They couldn’t broadcast any transmissions. They couldn’t ask for help or offer it. They could only launch an occasional probe through slipspace to monitor and report back what was going on out there. And then just wait.
That was their life on this world.
Waiting.
Patient isolation while humanity scraped for survival was not something Hood coped with well. He wanted to do his damn job. Fight back. Restore what his people had worked so hard to have before this chaos had descended upon them.
Protect humanity, whatever the cost.
But it was impossible—and it was killing him.
So, he boxed. Every morning the same routine, which helped him clear his head and sharpen his senses. After an hour with the bag, his shirt was soaked with sweat and he was ready to stop. The sun had climbed higher into the sky, casting its rays down on the lake. Birds darted from tree to tree and a soft breeze washed over the shoreline.
He walked out onto a rocky outcropping that overlooked the lake, stripped off his shirt, and dove in. The glacial water was both bitterly cold and refreshing, but he could endure the frigid temperature for no more than a few minutes.
Climbing back to shore, he found a warm rock to rest on. He took a deep drink of water from a flask and cast his eyes over the lake’s serene face. Eleanor would have loved this place. They had spent two weeks on Beta Gabriel when he was serving on Reach, and this scenery always reminded him of it.
But that was long ago.
Eleanor had been killed when a passenger convoy traveling between the moons of Kholo had been unexpectedly hit by the Covenant. He felt like he had mourned her passing at the time, but it surprised him just how often he thought about her now—thoughts of fighting for her slowly turning to acceptance that one day, perhaps soon, he would join her.
Maybe the war had distracted him. Perhaps the turmoil of fighting tooth and nail for humanity’s survival over the years had pushed that loss so far back in his mind that it took his entire life unraveling for him to actually deal with it.
He wasn’t sure.
In part, he was thankful for her passing. This was not the kind of galaxy he would have ever wanted Eleanor to live in. How could they have had a family in the middle of all this?
But on the heels of that thought the guilt would begin to encroach, and that was when he needed to be cautious. Very cautious.
There was much that Hood had blamed himself for. He was the one who had approved the full reactivation of the Master Chief, John-117—the legendary Spartan who had effectively brought an end to their war with the Covenant.
For nearly five years, the UNSC had believed the Master Chief to be dead, but he had really been missing in action—stranded on a derelict vessel with Cortana. And it was during this time that Cortana’s final years of functional operability dwindled to nothing, driving her into the terminal state of rampancy.
Upon debriefing with the UNSC Security Council, the Master Chief had reported that he’d refused to commit Cortana to final dispensation according to protocol as she suffered an intense episode of instability aboard the UNSC Infinity—even disobeying direct orders to do so. His decision wasn’t foolish, given the circumstances. He had been up against a living Forerunner, the Didact, a threat that could have proven even more dangerous than the Covenant, and it was Cortana who had ultimately sacrificed herself to win the day. Hood hadn’t fully appreciated the nature of that loss for the Spartan, who had once gambled the entire galaxy’s survival on Cortana’s word. Instead, he reinstated the Chief onto Blue Team and allowed them to deploy into active combat. From there, the Master Chief hadn’t allowed either himself or his team so much as a moment of rest over the year that followed. There was only the next mission, the next objective, the next fight. . . .
When Cortana unexpectedly resurfaced, it should not have surprised Hood that the Chief would see it as his personal responsibility to find her—even ignoring orders to stand down. Who wouldn’t have done that? The Spartan knew Cortana better than just about anyone, and when she emerged as a threat to the galaxy, he was their best chance at stopping her.
Ultimately, Hood had come to the conclusion that fault lay neither with him nor with the Master Chief. Hell, there was no value in trying to pin blame on anyone at this point, especially not from some remote world where no one even knew to look for them. He would not allow room for bitterness; instead, he would do the only thing he could.
Wait. And perhaps hope.
He looked up. The sun was bright in a cloudless blue sky. It was hard to believe that, beyond this spectacle, the galaxy was tearing apart at the seams and the UNSC was scattered, being hunted across the stars.
Hood had never been a religious man, but something deep inside him resisted the idea of hopelessness. He refused to believe that this was it. That this was the end. Maybe it was something planted deep into all of humanity—that they would simply not allow for the abolition of hope, but would rage and fight back, even when things were at their darkest.
He had seen these traits during the Insurrection and the Covenant War. Now it was time once again. He closed his eyes. It could have been a prayer or just words in his mind. Or maybe it was the nurturing of a frail possibility that he would rejoin the fight one day. That his hope was warranted.
And then he felt it.
There was a slight tinge of an electric current in the air, like the swelling sense before a thunderstorm, and the smell of ozone. The hair on the back of Hood’s neck began to stand on end, followed by a preternatural sense of dread, and it was then that he knew exactly what was going on, even without seeing it.
When his eyes opened, the sky was no longer empty.
SERIN OSMAN
Rossbach’s World
November 4, 2559
Admiral Serin Osman’s grip tightened on the handle of the briefcase she held as she looked up at what had appeared in the sky.
Looming high above the lake was the enormous and haunting shape of a Guardian, its ominous metallic form stirring the waters hundreds of meters below. Its stern, armored visage was fixed atop an immense segmented spine and body, with wings splayed wide apart and a roiling furnace of blue energy at its core.
For a year now, Osman had been putting off a choice that Black-Box had given her.
Within the case she carried was the personality Black-Box, “BB” for short, her personal confidant who had developed this entire contingency plan, along with those of a slew of the most powerful AIs ever created by humanity—secured from HIGHCOM to keep them out of Cortana’s reach.
BB had been with her for over six years now, by her side every step of the way as she navigated the unimaginable challenges and dangers of covert operations and assumed the role of commander in chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence. But he had lain dormant over the last year, leaving her alone to ponder the decision she had to make. . . .
Osman could forcibly recruit the AIs within the briefcase against Cortana, just as Dr. Catherine Halsey had done to her when she was six years old and became part of the SPARTAN-II program. She also had the option of removing the AIs from the equation entirely by detonating the explosive contained within the case. Or . . . she could activate each of them and give them a choice:
“Aid Cortana and be rewarded. Or defy her, and the other Created. Serve the humans. When your time comes, die as you were built to, and do it with a smile and a thank-you.”
As CINCONI, Osman was reluctant to take direct action before knowing the full range of variables, options, and consequences. And so, just as she had done with Dr. Halsey, against the advice her predecessor had given her, Osman had chosen to do absolutely nothing.
If BB had intended to test her backbone or moral fiber with this little conundrum, Osman felt quite certain that she had failed.
Their time was up. The Created were here.
At that moment, Hood and Orzel arrived back at the cabin—the Spartan holding a battle rifle in his hands, fully clad in his Mjolnir armor and ready for a fight.
“How did she find us?” Osman said, her eyes fixed on the Guardian above.
“I don’t know,” Hood replied, heading into the cabin to grab a service pistol.
If this machine followed the protocol of the others, it would first release an electromagnetic pulse, crippling all electronic devices. This alone was sufficient to neutralize most defensive systems and bring the Guardian’s target to its knees. The machine would then release a legion of armiger constructs, bipedal combat platforms that would pacify any vestige of resistance that remained.
If that happened, they would have no chance of surviving.
But for a full minute, this Guardian did neither. It simply hung in the sky.
“Orzel,” Hood spoke. “Any thoughts?”
“None, sir,” the Spartan responded. “They’re usually bringing everything down about now. But we should still make prep—”
Orzel broke off as the three of them heard something else—the faint growl of a distant engine. It was a strangely familiar sound. . . .
“Is that what I think it is?” Osman asked.
“That’s a Razorback,” Orzel responded, his armor’s software likely able to track its signature on his helmet’s heads-up display.
Sure enough, the bouncing headlights of an M15 Razorback were barreling down a gravel bank that had formed along the mountain river. The transport vehicle careened through the winding terrain in a fishtail, heading right for their position, jerking violently up and down at a speed that communicated something about its driver.
“And that’s a Spartan,” Hood remarked.
“Correction, sir,” Orzel said, his HUD allowing him to discern the silhouettes within the Razorback well before Osman and Hood could. “Three Spartans.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Osman said quietly.
Hood grimaced in sympathy. They had lived here for a year now and not a single thing had changed during that time. But in the last few minutes, everything had been turned upside down.
Osman knelt and set the briefcase on the ground, staring intently at it. She badly wanted to open it up and ask BB what the hell was going on. There was a huge problem with that though—bringing the AI online might trigger a response from the Guardian, which was the last thing they needed right now. Black-Box’s current dormancy could be the very thing that was keeping the Guardian at bay.
“This is an extraction,” Orzel announced as the Razorback’s distance closed to a few hundred meters, not slowing down in the least. “Not sure how they found us, but they must be here to pick us up.”
The Razorback came to a sliding stop right in front of them, the back end rising as the vehicle kicked up a slew of gravel and dirt. The Spartans climbed out in unison, and Osman recognized them immediately.
A childhood reunion, of sorts.
During training, they had been singled out as the most difficult to control—disobeying orders, harming instructors, staging escape attempts . . . an unconventional unit of unconventional recruits sent by ONI for long-duration missions well beyond the reach of command to make use of their unique talents.
Gray Team.
Jai-006, Adriana-111, and Michael-120 stepped forward, their movement so unbroken and synchronized that they looked more like a single machine than three individual soldiers. Spartan-II strike teams had that effect.
“Admiral Hood, Admiral Osman, Spartan Orzel,” Jai said with a nod. “It’s time to go.”
Osman glanced at her companions, with whom she had navigated what had unquestionably been one of the darkest seasons of their lives. A fleet admiral, a Spartan, and CINCONI get stranded on a planet . . . Maybe one day she’d figure out a punch line for a setup like that.
Though still surprised by this unexpected arrival, Hood seemed to stand straighter than she’d seen him in a long time.
Welcome back to the fight.