After initiating a jump into slip space, Human Prospect Explorer, a civilian craft housing four Mk.4 Spartans and an A.I dubbed Iona, they are instead teleported to a location that is not encrypted by the UNSC. The rest of the ship’s crew has perished somehow in the jump. Another ship remarkably facing the same fate, the Covenant ship, Clarity of Faith, an assault carrier with two Sangheli brothers as its commander also find themselves stranded on this unknown world, and they too have lost all but a few. As though fate has brought them to meet they end up meeting each other, and of course battle breaks out between the two. However a third party, an unknown goes with this confrontation and members of both the Covenant, and UNSC forces are taken by a mysterious automaton into a large facility. The Spartans are able to make it in the facility through the use of their A.I. But the Clarity of Faith and their remaining crew are not so lucky. Eventually, both forces are able to infiltrate the facility; they decide it is best that they join forces in order to generate the best chance of survival. An exchange in weaponry is made, and now they find themselves battling alongside each other against levitating automatons armed with sentinel beams to rescue their captured comrades. At the main focus of the facility, another A.I, one not of UNSC or Covenant origin controls the facility, and the planet which it rests on. This Artificial Intelligence is known as a monitor, or more specifically known as 6-8-6 Ebullient Prism. His aims in taking the covenant and human forces are witnessed to those who were captured, first hand. The captured are to be used as specimens; they will be biologically broken up into many different parts, leaving a bloody heap of what they once were. The monitor has also infiltrated the mind of Iona, trying to reinvent her digital algorithms into something less of a cyber-threat. A multi-tasker not to be reckoned with, the monitor has additionally been tampering with the minds of the military forces, ending their alliance with trickery and mirage. This results in casualties on both sides. After the abrupt end to their truce, they eventually end up finding themselves miles deep into the core of the facility, the control room. There, the specimens have escaped, and now both forces have been reunited with their lost comrades, again having to stop battling with their major opposing forces, they must fend off against the Monitor, and his army of sentinels. A betrayal in the Covenant force during the battle with the monitor has ended up in the whole Covenant forces demise leaving only the Spartans and Iona left. Through a few magazines of ammunition, the Spartans defeat the monitor, but are now faced with a whole Covenant brigade that have come in response to a distress call from the now deceased Clarity of Face forces. The story ends here with the band of Spartans charging into battle, guns a blazing.

This was a very interesting novel. It was an exception because there has been no record in the Halo archives that lists an event such as this. Thought this is only speculation, or mere theory written down on paper by the mind of a HALO enthusiast, it pays great attention to detail in names that were given, all credible compared to the names of actual characters. What I liked most was how the human A.I, Iona, mistakenly invaded the mind of the Spartan leader, being able to witness the memories of each Spartan as they grew up in the barracks. It states that they were sort of like a family, living and thriving off each other in the harsh, rigorous environment of the training camp. However, family wounds can be severed and mended, but there is always still scar that leaves itself. The memories shown in the Spartans mind is compared to the real-time in the novel, showing visual and situational similarity between it. In the minds of the Spartans, the severed bond they had still live on in one of their minds, jealousy can turn out to be influential, even in a family. With the twist of the monitor causing the Spartans to shoot at another through mirage, it gives them all the idea that they were trying to get back at one another, which really brings a dramatic effect into the story. It is very enthralling read, however I suggest that a younger age group should not invest their time in this particular book. ( )