Différences entre les versions de « Halo : Les Mondes de verre »

• Livre: 400 pages
• Editeur: Peut-être Milady pour la France - Tor Books aux USA
• Editeur audio: Macmillan Audio
• Sortie le 25 Octobre 2011
• Langue: Anglais

• Une version audio comptant 7 cd semble être disponible à la sortie du livre à 39,99 dollars.

Présentation

Premier roman écrit par Karen Traviss. Halo: Glasslands continue l'histoire de Halo: Ghosts of Onyx dans le sillage des événements de Halo 3. En plus de continuer l'histoire des personnages de Ghosts of Onyx , le roman va également introduire son propre ensemble de nouveaux personnages.

Prologue (VF) :

<toggledisplay hidetext=[Masquer]>PROLOGUE VF

Novembre 2552, emplacement non défini. DERNIER LIEU SOUS-ESPACE VERIFIE: LE COEUR DE LA PLANÈTE ONYX.

C'est une belle journée ensoleillée. Les branches de chêne se balancent doucement dans la brise et l'air a un parfum de fleur inconnue.

Et nous sommes pris au piège.

N’avez-vous jamais couru et ne vous êtes-vous jamais caché comme un gamin? Toujours claquer la porte du placard derrière vous, rire parce que vous étiez sûr que l’on ne vous retrouverait jamais, puis réaliser que vous vous étiez enfermée? Avez-vous paniqué ou bien poussé un soupir de soulagement ? Je suppose que tout dépend de ce dont vous vous cachiez.

Nous nous sommes cachés de la fin du monde.

Pour ce que nous en savons, c'est déjà arrivé. Il n’y a personne qui sait que nous sommes ici. Nous pourrions être les derniers êtres vivants de la galaxie - moi, l’Adjudant-Chef Mendez, et un détachement de Spartans. Correction: trois de mes Spartans - Fred, Kelly et Linda- et cinq autres qui sont tout autre chose, cinq autres dont je ne savais même pas qu’il existaient jusqu'à il y a une semaine, et s'il y a une chose que je ne peux pas supporter, c'est ne pas savoir.

Vous vous me l’'expliquerez, chef. J'ai tout le temps aujourd'hui. J'ai plus de temps que je ne sais quoi en faire.

Mendez sort quelque chose de sa poche de pantalon et le regarde fixement comme un pèlerin regarde une sainte relique avant de l’y remettre.

"Vous pouvez lire le Forerunner,n'est ce pas Dr Halsey ?" dit-il, impassible. Nous ignorons encore ce qui pèse sur nous en ce moment, aucun de nous ne dit ce qu’il pense vraiment. Il a ses secrets, et j'ai les miens. "Connaissez-vous le symbole de garde-manger? Ce serait bon à savoir. " Il a les yeux fixés sur un soleil qui ne saurait être là, installé dans un ciel artificiel qui du bleu d'été en pleine journée à un ciel sombre et sans étoiles durant la nuit. Nous ne sommes pas sur Onyx, ni dans cette dimension, de toute façon «Adjudant-Chef, c'est le bunker le plus avancé jamais construit." Je ne suis pas sûr de qui je suis en train de rassurer, lui ou moi. "Une civilisation suffisamment avancée pour construire une bombe capable de vider une galaxie de ses habitants ne pourrait pas oublier la nourriture. " C'est une journée magnifique à l’intérieur de cette sphère de Dyson, et au-delà de ses murs . . . eh bien en fait, je ne sais pas. Nous étions à Onyx. Maintenant, nous sommes quelque part dans le Sous espace. Chaque fois que je pense que j’ai compris la technologie Forerunner, quelque chose d'autre surgit et me surprend. Ils doivent avoir partagé notre sens de la beauté ou nous ont légué le leur, parce qu'ils ont fait de cet environnement un paradis rural; les arbres, l'herbe, les rivières, tout est reproduit presqu’à la perfection . Mendez tapote sa poche, comme pour vérifier s’il est toujours là. «Mieux vaut espérer qu'ils ont prévu le ravitaillement. Ou nous devrons vivre de la terre. " "Nous avons de l'eau à volonté. C'est déjà ça. " Mendez m’a connu il y a de ça très longtemps. Au cours des années, il a perfectionné cette expression qui ressemble presque à de la déférence. Presque. Il s'agit en fait de dégoût. Je le sais maintenant. Je peux le voir. Mais tu n'es pas en mesure de me donner des leçons d’éthique, n’est-ce pas ? Je sais ce que tu as fait. La preuve est en face de moi, ici. Je le lis sur leurs figures. Mendez s'éloigne dans la direction des deux équipes de reconnaissances qui attendent sous les chênes. Les Spartans II, mes protégés et le projet d’Ackerson, ces Spartans III qui ont l’air impatient de faire quelque chose d'utile. Ils ne gèrent pas bien l'oisiveté. Nous avons fait de la guerre le seul objectif de leur vie. Maintenant, nous ne savons pas s’il y a encore la guerre à l'extérieur, ou même des gens à combattre dans la galaxie tout entière. Mais ce n'est pas grave. Mes Spartans sont en sécurité ici. C'est tout ce qui compte. Protégés de toutes choses et même du pouvoir destructeur du halo Je ne sais pas si c'est le paradis ici mais ça y ressemble. Un paradis qui a peut-être déjà eu des locataires. Nous allons trouver le moyen de nous sortir d’ici.

Soudain Mendez dit. «D'accord, les Spartans, le camp est sécurisé, nous allons donc secouer et voir ce qu'il y a dans le coin." Mendez sort son fusil et se penche sur Fred. "Conservez les rations jusqu'à ce que nous saurons s'il y a quelque chose à becqueter dans le coin. " « Dans quelle direction monsieur ? » «Tout droit. Contrôle radio régulier. " "Les priorités sont dans cet ordre de sécuriser la zone, trouver un approvisionnement alimentaire, et trouver un moyen de faire revivre l'équipe Katana et les autres." Fred-104, a été nommé lieutenant à 41 ans par le Spartan Kurt-051 juste avant que ce dernier meurt, empêchant les Covenants d’atteindre le noyau d’Onyx. Combien de Spartan-III Ackerson a-t-il donc bien pu créer ? Cinq sont déjà en suspension ici, avec trois autres hommes que nous ne pouvons pas identifier, mais nous n’avons encore aucune idée de comment ouvrir leurs caissons Forerunners de Sous-Espace. Ils vont avoir une sacrée histoire à raconter lorsque nous réussirons à les en sortir. Fred prit la parole. "Considérez cela comme une connaissance. Nous les Spartans-II devons apprendre à nous familiariser avec vous les Spartan-III de sorte que lorsque nous sortirons d'ici, nous serons prêts à combattre efficacement ensemble. Kelly, Dr Halsey, Tom et Olivia-vous êtes avec Mendez. Linda, Lucy, Mark, Ash avec moi. On y va. " Comme Fred se tourne pour partir, je capte son regard. Il n'a jamais été très doué pour cacher ses sentiments, mais il ne peut pas me les cacher à moi de toute façon. Je suis ce qui se rapproche le plus d’une mère pour mes Spartans – et ils le savent. Il ferme les yeux comme s'il pouvait bloquer ne serait-ce qu’une fraction de seconde, la douleur qu’il supporte. Nous avons enterré nos morts ici. Deux de ces Spartan-III, encore dans l'adolescence, encore des enfants . . . et Kurt qui ne s'est jamais rendu dans la sphère. Je pensais que vous étiez déjà mort, Kurt. Maintenant, je vous ai perdu deux fois.

Fred tape sur l'épaule de Lucy. "Tu vas bien, Spartan?" Elle lui donne un clin d'œil distrait. Elle parait inquiétante, engoncée dans son armure SPI qui trouble sa silhouette –mi humaine, - mi ombre et trop traumatisée pour parler. Mendez a formé ces enfants. Il savait. Il savait ce qu’Ackerson faisait avec mes recherches. Il faisait partie de ce plan depuis le début : échanger des vies contre du temps. Ah quel gâchis ! Et je n’oublierai jamais cela Adjudant, jamais.

Kelly ralentit et se met à marcher à côté de moi. Je n’ai plus vingt ans et je n'ai certainement pas la foulée d'un Spartan de deux mètres, ou même d’un Spartan III de « seulement» un mètre quatre-vingts. Mon Dieu, ils sont trop petits. Comment peuvent-ils être déjà des Spartans ? «Vous êtes encore tombé sur votre pied, Dr Halsey», dit Kelly. "Peut-être un terrier de lapin. Saviez-vous ce que c'est que cet endroit ? " «Tu devrais essayer d’arrêter de me regarder comme si je savais tout." "Vous pensez que nous allons perdre cette guerre. Mais je sais que nous pouvons gagner. " «Je me forge mon opinion à partir de ce que j’ai déjà vu. Mais cela ne me dérangerai pas d'avoir tort pour une fois. "

Jusqu'à quel endroit devais-je aller mesure pour sauver mes Spartans ? Cet endroit. Je les ai attirés vers Onyx, l'endroit le plus sur auquel je pouvais penser, parce que je savais qu'ils n'auraient jamais abandonné leur poste autrement. Je leur ai menti pour les sauver. J'ai fait des choses terribles, monstrueuses, des choses criminelles, qui étaient nécessaires, mais je l'ai fait pour eux. Je les ai enlevés alors qu’ils n’étaient que des enfants. J’ai mené des expériences sur leurs corps jeunes et vierges d’enfants en vue de leur donner force, endurance et intelligence. Pour qu’ils survivent. La moitié d'entre eux furent tués. J’ai fait d'eux des soldats mécaniques, sans vie, obéissants sans discuter aux ordres les plus fous et les plus dangereux de l’Amirauté . Ce qui a du être fait a été fait mais je regrette aujourd’hui. Il n'y a pas de dieu nous attendait pour nous juger quand nous mourons. Il n’y a ni paradis ni enfer, seulement la douleur ou les bons souvenirs que nous laissons derrière nous. Mais je ne veux pas le pardon de la société, ou de Mendez, ou même le mien. Je veux juste faire ce qui est bon pour ces hommes et ces femmes, dont la vie a été gâchée par moi. Seul leur pardon peut me donner l'absolution. Je commence à oublier que nous sommes pris au piège dans une sphère dans les plis d'une autre dimension, parce que mon cerveau commence à s'habituer à dire des mensonges bénins. Je regarde à travers une mer d'arbres deux élégantes structures saillantes couleur d’or au-dessus de la canopée à quelques kilomètres. "C'est très impressionnant, docteur," dit-elle. "Hé, chef, vous pensez que c’est quoi ?" "Mieux vaudrait que ce soit la cantine." Mendez garde un œil sur les arbres comme s'ils étaient remplis d’ennemis. "Ou un moyen de sortir d'ici. N’oubliez pas que c’est encore l’enfer à l’extérieur !. "

Il a raison. Gagnée ou perdue, les guerres ne s’arrêtent jamais. Je pense que nous avons déjà perdu. Si l’Alliance n’a pas encore envahie la galaxie alors cette forme de vie qu'ils appellent les Parasites l’a déjà fait, ou encore les gigantesques Halos ont fait feu et ontdébarraser la galaxie de tout ses habitants. Mais si nous gagnons … Même si nous gagnons, la galaxie sera toujours pleine de dangers inconnus. Je me demande où John est maintenant. Et Cortana. Et. . . Miranda. Miranda? Je ne l'ai pas oubliée. N’est-ce pas ?</toggledisplay>

Chapitre 1 (VF) :

<toggledisplay hidetext=[Masquer]>CHAPITRE UN - Traduction par Forerunner343i

Un Dieu qui crée des instruments est toujours un Dieu. Nous ne pouvons pas imposer de qualification a ce qui est divin ni prétendre deviner ses intentions.

(Ancien Maréchal Avu Med ‘Telcam du Neru Pe’Odosima – Serviteurs de la Vérité Constante– à propos des révélations de la nature des Forerunners)

EX-COLONIE NOUVELLE LLANELLI, SYSTEME BRUNEL : JANVIER 2553.

C’était un immonde bâtard, et la tentation de l’abattre à l’endroit où il se tenait était presque plus forte que ce que Serin Osman pouvait supporter.

C’était également un acte plutôt dérangeant. Ses bras gesticulaient comme s’il était engagé dans un discours emphatique sur la politique ou la religion ou quoi que ce soit qu’ils jouaient à la place du football, ses mâchoires en forme de feuille de trèfle successivement claquant, successivement ouvertes puis fermées, comme un piège à gin. Osman l’observait depuis la baie de chargement de la navette, son fusil posé sur le panneau de contrôle. Les affaires pouvaient devenir incontrôlables avec un extra-terrestre de deux mètres cinquante bien avant que vous ne le sachiez. Elle était prête à supprimer la chose avant qu’elle n’écrase Philippe.

Il pouvait en effet parler leur langue, même si certains sons défiaient de simples mâchoires humaines. Elle se demandait à quoi cela ressemblait pour eux. Il rendait des signes au Sangheili, et bien qu’elle ne put entendre la conversation celle-ci avait l’air de fonctionner. L’extra-terrestre fit ce truc bizarre avec ses mandibules inférieures, pressant les deux côtés ensemble pour imiter une mâchoire humaine et essayant de produire des sons mieux articulés.

Ainsi la tête à charnières imitait également. C’était bon signe. Un bon signe dans un mauvais marché. Non, pas un mauvais marché : un sale marché. Osman descendit de la baie, soucieuse de garder son fusil à proximité de sa jambe afin qu’elle ait l’air prête mais pas menaçante. Philippe lui jeta un regard par-dessus son épaule, semblant inconscient du risque.

Je ne quitterai jamais cette chose là des yeux. Mon Dieu, qu’apprennent-ils à ces académiciens à propos de la sécurité personnelle ?

Elle s’appuya contre le montant de la porte et attendit, jetant un œil à sa montre pour contrôler l’heure de Sydney. Autour d’elle, les ruines de Nouvelle Llanelli avaient l’air d’une réprimande. Les morts la frappaient sur son épaule, horrifiés : Et vous êtes en train de parler à ces bâtards, maintenant ? Sur nos tombes ?

Un rayon de soleil transperça les nuages et fit apparaître un reflet lumineux sur un lac au loin. Non… ce n’est pas un lac. Son cerveau avait fait le lien et fait la mauvaise supposition. Elle sortit son datapad de la poche de sa veste d’une main, et vérifia. Il n’y avait pas une goutte d’eau à des centaines de kilomètres sur le Factbook de l’aac1. La surface réflective était un sol sablonneux vitrifié, poli comme un miroir, des hectares de ce qui avait une fois été du seigle et des pommes de terre.

Lorsque les Covenants vitrifiaient une planète, ils ne faisaient vraiment que ça.

Philips fit un geste à son attention et la divertit de cette pensée inconfortable que la planète lui faisait un reproche. Il fit de grandes enjambées jusqu’à la navette, apparemment content de lui.

« Le Prêtre veut vous parler », dit-il. « Je lui ai dit que vous étiez le boss. Son Anglais est assez bon, alors allez droit au but. Et ne l’appelez pas un ‘Elite’. Utilisez le nom correct. C’est important pour eux.»

Osman se releva de la cloison avec sa hanche. « Un Prêtre ? »

« N’en tenez pas rigueur. » Philippe – Le Professeur Evan Philippe, un autre académicien respectable qui avait été enrôlé par l’ONI – retrouva son air sérieux. « Ils m’ont dit qu’il était dévot, mais je n’avais pas réalisé à quel point il l’était. »

« Ça risque de poser problème ? »

« Ça pourrait être un bonus. »

«Oui, ils ont tendance à respecter un plan. »

« Je voulais dire qu’il s’agit d’un fondamentaliste. La Vérité Eternelle. Une très, très vieille conception de la foi. »

« Soufflez-moi. Je ne suis pas anthropologiste. »

« On dit qu’ils ont amassé des reliques Forerunners originales depuis l’époque de leur premier contact. Leur équivalent des ‘doigts de saint’.

« Génial, ça doit être mon anniversaire. » Osman ne savait pas vraiment quand c’était. Aujourd’hui semblait être un jour aussi bon qu’un autre. « Peut être qu’ils ont quelques schémas dans un tiroir poussiéreux ou un truc du genre. »

« Venez, ne le faites pas attendre. »

« Comment se comporte-t-il avec les femmes ? Je ne me rappelle pas avoir jamais vu une femelle Sangheili. Est-ce qu’ils les gardent enfermées ou quelque chose comme ça ? »

« C’est loin d’être aussi simple. » Philippe lui fit signe de le suivre. « Les femmes exercent un grand pouvoir politique sur les enjeux de la lignée. Quand vous aurez quelques heures à tuer, je vous expliquerai. »

Elle n’en avait pas, et cela pouvait attendre. Elle marcha en direction du Sangheili, se préparant mentalement à ne pas l’appeler ‘Elite’ ni ‘bâtard de tête à charnières meurtrière’.

Osman était plus grande que la moyenne, et à un mètre quatre-vingt-dix[1] elle n’était pas habituée à devoir lever la tête pour parler à quelqu’un. Mais le Prêtre la dominait d’un mètre, comme un monument dans son armure dorée. Pendant quelques instants elle se retrouva en train de faire face à un visage d’un manque de traits inquiétant, avant de fixer son regard sur les yeux noirs et les petits naseaux évasés juste en dessous. Le Prêtre reniflait son odeur. Troublant qu’il n’essaye même pas de le cacher.

« Capitaine Osman », dit Philippe avec prudence, tournant la tête d’arrière en avant entre elle et le Sangheili. « Laissez-moi vous présenter à Avu Med ‘Telcam, émissaire des Serviteurs de la Vérité Eternelle. Il était autrefois Maréchal mais il a… renoncé à emprunter la voie des infidèles et lavé son nom, car ils ont apporté honte et misère sur la nation Sangheili… et ils méritent d’être empalés. » Il semblait citer avec beaucoup de précautions, jetant des coups d’œil réguliers au Sangheili, comme s’il lui demandait confirmation. Il lança à Osman un regard lui intimant de ne pas dire de bêtises. « Il pense par là à l’Arbiter. »

‘Telcam renifla à nouveau. Osman pouvait le sentir également. Une odeur légèrement tannée, comme les sièges d’une voiture neuve. Ce n’était pas désagréable.

« Osman, capitaine de vaisseau. ‘Telcam comprendrait. « Ainsi vous savez que je tiens ma parole. On peut discuter ? » Elle adressa à Philippe un regard signifiant ‘fous-le-camp’. Il n’avait pas à entendre ce qu’elle avait à dire, et cela autant pour son propre bien que pour celui de la Terre. « Pouvez-vous nous laisser dix minutes, Professeur ? »

Philippe acquiesça et s’éloigna. C’était pour cette raison qu’Osman n’aimait pas la coopération des spécialistes. S’il avait su ce qu’elle allait faire, il lui aurait probablement tenu un discours sur la morale.

Je peux être en train de le sous-estimer, bien sûr. Mais son travail est terminé. Ce n’est plus son problème désormais.

‘Telcam pencha sa tête d’un côté. Osman devait faire un effort pour comprendre, mais ce n’était pas plus dur que de se concentrer sur un signal radio brouillé. En réalité la créature parlait très bien l’Anglais.

« Capitaine, mon peuple a été puni car ils n’avaient pas la foi », dit-il. Un fin filet de salive se formait sur son visage à chaque fois qu’il utilisait un son sifflant ou un F. ça n’avait pas l’air facile d’articuler avec cette quadruple mâchoire. « Le traître Tel ‘Vadam et ses semblables affirment désormais que les Dieux sont des menteurs, et qu’à ce titre ils doivent mourir. Nous avons été sous l’emprise de races bâtardes assez longtemps. Nous avons laissé les faux prophètes des San’Shyuum corrompre notre pure relation avec les divinités. Maintenant nous devons faire pénitence et ramener la nation Sangheili sur la bonne voie. Alors que pouvez-vous bien désirer de nous ? Souhaitez-vous convenir d’une trêve ?

« Comment aviez vous prévu d’éliminer ‘Vadam et les autres… traîtres ? »

«Il nous reste peu de vaisseaux actuellement. Peu d’armes également. Mais nous possédons notre dévotion. Nous trouverons un moyen. »

Osman remarqua l’épée énergétique accrochée à sa ceinture. On en a un bien ici. Un maniaque lourdement armé, soucieux du respect de ses Dieux. Merveilleux. Je peux conclure un marché avec ça. Elle essaya de trouver un véritable terrain d’entente, au cas où il sente de la peur ou de la tromperie en elle. Une once de vérité dans un tissu de mensonges fait des merveilles.

« Qu’en pensez-vous si nous vous fournissons des armes ? »

Il recula brutalement sa tête. « Et pourquoi feriez-vous cela ? Le traître se range du côté des humains contre ses propres frères. »

« Les humains jouent avec le hasard. Je parie que votre camp va gagner. Les amis morts ne sont d’aucune utilité. »

« Ah. » ‘Telcam émit un faible son, ressemblant à cheval soufflant entre ses lèvres. Une fine pluie tomba sur elle et elle se retint de s’essuyer. Elle sentit un relent ou quelque chose ressemblant beaucoup trop à de la nourriture pour chien. « Faiseur de roi. C’est notre politique. Vous nous aidez à prendre le contrôle de façon à connaître votre ennemi et pensez que vous pourrez ensuite nous contrôler. »

« Vous voyez, nous ne serons jamais amis, Maréchal. Mais nous pouvons nous accorder à rester hors du chemin de l’autre et à mener une existence séparée. Trop de vies ont été perdues. Cela doit cesser. »

‘Telcam se pencha encore, comme s’il faisait une inspection de l’uniforme. « Vous avez des colonies par ici. Cela fait partie de la guerre. C’est la cause de notre rivalité. »

« Certaines de nos colonies ne nous aiment pas beaucoup non plus. Les humains tuent également les humains. »

« Comme vos vies sont embrouillées. »

« Ma foi, vous parler très bien Anglais »

« J’étais traducteur autrefois. J’interprétais vos communications pour mon vieux capitaine. Je parle de nombreuses langues humaines. »

Bon, ça expliquait un sacré nombre de choses. Philippe ne le savait visiblement pas, en tout cas il ne l’avait pas dit, mais Osman décida de ne pas lui en parler car sa tâche consistait en une seule chose : obtenir une audience avec le chef des dissidents Sangheili, qui semblaient vouloir déchirer tout traité de paix. Il avait eu de la chance d’aller aussi loin sans se faire arracher la tête.

« Bien, Maréchal, je pense que nous pouvons nous aider l’un l’autre à garder nos factions instables dans le droit chemin. » Osman se tourna légèrement pour garder Philippe dans son champ de vision, juste au cas où il se rapproche et en entende trop. « Ca demandera sûrement une certaine discrétion, car nous ne pouvons pas être vus comme vos alliés. Mais un empire Sangheili instable ne nous est d’aucune utilité, et un empire humain instable représente une menace pour vous. Compris ? »

« Et certains de mes frères pourraient ne pas comprendre ma volonté de parler aux infidèles. Ainsi nous nous accordons des faveurs, vous et moi. »

« En effet. Pour le plus grand bien. » Osman s’arrêta le temps d’un battement et s’assura qu’elle ne clignait pas des yeux. Les Sangheilis avaient un sens militaire de l’honneur, et la vérité qu’elle s’apprêtait à annoncer au milieu des mensonges allait dans un certain sens vers sa propre satisfaction. « Si je pensais que ‘Vadam survivrait en tant que meneur, je traiterai avec lui à la place. »

Elle n’était pas sur que les Sangheili sachent sourire. S’ils savaient, elle ne savait pas à quoi cela pouvait bien ressembler, pas avec cette quadruple mâchoire. Mais l’expression de ‘Telcam changea légèrement. Les muscles de sa tête reptilienne se relâchèrent un instant.

« J’ai une condition », dit-il.

« Je pensais bien. »

« Vous blasphémez à propos des Dieux. Vous répandez de vils mensonges à leur sujet. Cela doit cesser. »

« Nous vous avons simplement montré ce qu’étaient les Halos. » Et merde. Allez, réfléchit. Il y a moyen de s’en sortir. « Nous n’avions pas l’intention de dénigrer vos croyances. »

« Donc les Halos sont des machines de destruction. Ainsi vous dites que les Dieux eux-mêmes ont été tués par ceux-ci. » ‘Telcam se pencha au dessus d’elle, presque nez-à-nez. Il était si près qu’elle ne pouvait pas focaliser son regard sur ces dents semblables à des canines. Elles voyaient simplement des formes floues dans des gencives violacées. « Votre Dieu a choisi de mourir pour vous et c’est précisément pour cela que vous le vénérez, n’est-ce pas ? Et c’est pour la même raison que vous dites qu’il vit. Cette soi-disant preuve à propos des Halos ne signifie rien. Pas même pour vous. »

Et il utilise le pluriel. Les Halos.

Osman supposait qu’il souhaitait la mettre d’accord avec lui, afin de le rassurer sur le fait que les Dieux pouvaient être à la fois morts et éternels, comme un chat de Schrödinger[2], afin de ramener des certitudes dans sa vie. Elle connaissait cette sensation, mais la dernière chose qu’elle souhaitait était de faire un débat théologique avec un extraterrestre lourdement armé pesant cinq ou six fois sa masse. Elle se retint de dire que son nom était Osman et qu’il pensait à la religion de quelqu’un d’autre.

« Nous avons eu des scientifiques qui clamaient avoir réfuté l’existence de Dieu, et d’autres qui affirmaient qu’on ne pouvait rien prouver », dit-elle prudemment. « Mais cela n’a fait aucune différence pour quelque religion que ce soit. La foi est quelque chose d’indépendant. »

« Donc vous comprenez. » ‘Telcam se recula. « Si vous nous armez… si vous restez loin de nos mondes… alors lorsque nous prendrons le pouvoir et rétablirons le droit chemin, nous vous laisserons seuls. »

« C’est d’accord », dit-elle. Elle tendit presque sa main pour valider cet accord mais se ravisa. « Je vous contacterai bientôt. »

Le Sangheili se retourna et se rendit vers son vaisseau sans rien ajouter. Il était facile de les regarder en ne voyant que des animaux disgracieux avec des jambes étrangement bovines, et non une force supérieure qui avait presque mis la Terre à genoux. Philippe s’approcha d’elle en marchant mais ne demanda pas ce qui s’était passé. Son expression indiquait qu’il était sur le point de le découvrir.

« En avons-nous fini ? »

Osman acquiesça. « C’est un ennemi que nous n’aurons pas à combattre avant un moment. » Elle lui donna une tape amicale. « Bon travail. Je n’aurai jamais pensé que l’on puisse parler avec l’un d’eux, encore moins que l’on parvienne à un accord. On vous le doit bien. »

« J’admets que c’est satisfaisant de mettre la théorie en pratique. Et merveilleux d’avoir un accès unique à l’espace Sangheili tout frais payés, bien sûr. Bon vieil ONI. Mes impôts, bien dépensés.

Osman retourna à la navette, soudain consciente des petits fragments de verre craquant sous ses chaussures. Bordel, ce ne sont pas des bouteilles cassées. C’est de la vitrification. « Vous ne pensez donc pas que vos crédits académiques ont été souillés en vous associant avec nous, sales petits agents secrets. »

« Bien sûr que non. Je ne suis pas naïf à ce point. Je sais ce que vous préparez. Ne me le dites pas, c’est tout. Je dois être capable de nier avec un visage impassible.

Donc il n’était certainement pas stupide, et l’ONI n’était pas en train de faire quoi que ce soit que d’innombrables gouvernements aient fait au fil des siècles, pour leur propre intérêt. Elle aurait dû s’attendre à ce qu’il comprenne. « Et que sommes nous en train de faire, exactement ? »

« Oh, je pensais que je vous aidais à établir des voies diplomatiques avec la démographie difficile à atteindre des Sangheilis… »

« Vous m’avez demandé de ne pas vous le dire. »

« C’est vrai, je l’ai donc fait moi-même. » Il lui adressa un clin d’œil. « Bien, vous avez mis une selle sur le dos de cette bête. Maintenant vous avez intérêt à vous assurer de ne pas en tomber. »

Ils s’installèrent dans leur siège et elle vérifia les voyants du panneau de contrôle avant de passer la main à l’IA. Phillips sifflait, le bruit caché par sa respiration, comme s’il était heureux d’être encore en vie. Osman pensait qu’il serait réticent à rentrer mais il avait visiblement obtenu ce qu’il voulait – un article scientifique éblouissant, une recherche méritant récompense, peut-être même un livre bien rentable – que personne d’autre parmi ses connaissances n’avait, et cela semblait lui suffire.

Il ne reviendrait pas ici. Il le savait certainement. L’ONI le considérait comme un atout à usage unique.

« Rappelez-vous seulement que l’ennemi de mon ennemi n’est pas mon ami, Professeur », dit-elle, ouvrant une liaison comm’ sécurisée. « Il est mon ennemi qui est simplement confronté un obstacle. »

Phillips éclata de rire. « Que de douceur, innocente petite fleur. Vous n’avez jamais travaillé à l’académie, n’est-ce pas ? Sentimentaux comme un prédateur à la préhistoire. Des querelles, des complots, de la vengeance. La routine. »

« J’imagine. » Le voyant de communication sécurisée clignota et Osman baissa la voix. « Osman, m’dame. Le Professeur Phillips et moi sommes de retour. »

« Merci de me le faire savoir, Capitaine. » L’Amiral Margaret Parangosky n’élevait jamais la voix, et elle n’avait jamais besoin de le faire. « Je suppose que les affaires ont marché. »

Osman pouvait traduire ces tournures de phrase à la Parangosky assez facilement. Avez-vous mis en place l’insurrection Sangheili ? Voila ce qu’elle signifiait. Peu de gens en dehors de la Navy et des échelons supérieurs du gouvernement savait qui était Parangosky, et à plus forte raison ne savaient la craindre. Osman suspectait qu’elle était la seule personne dans l’entourage de l’Amiral qui se ferait toujours pardonner même si elle échouait. Mais elle n’était pas pressée de le vérifier.

« Tout va bien, m’dame », dit-elle.

« Remerciez le Professeur Phillips pour moi. Faites bon vol. »

Osman se déconnecta et l’IA reprit le contrôle. La navette trembla sur ses amortisseurs alors que les moteurs atteignaient leur puissance maximale. Dans quelques heures, ils devraient être au rendez-vous avec le Battle of Minden et se diriger vers la Terre, où la mission s’arrêterait pour Phillips mais ne ferait que commencer pour elle.

Jusqu’ici tout va bien.

« Est-ce que j‘aurais une médaille d’or ? », demanda-t-il ?

« Peut être un cookie en plus. »

« Où est le meilleur restaurant Turc à Sydney ? »

« Je ne sais pas. »

« Oh, vraiment ? Désolé. »

Ça la prenait toujours de court. Elle n’avait jamais dit qu’elle avait des racines Turques, et – surprenant pour une femme si habituée à mentir pour gagner sa vie – elle ne pouvait pas se résoudre à monter une histoire de couverture pour elle-même. Elle autorisait simplement chacun à faire des suppositions basées sur son nom et son teint Méditerranéen. Son vrai nom n’avait pas été Osman, du moins d’après ce qu’elle en savait, et elle n’avait pas l’intention d’utiliser son accès aux fichiers classifiés de l’ONI pour découvrir qui elle était vraiment. Elle pouvait seulement être qui elle était maintenant.

Phillips l’aurait traitée de manière totalement différente s’il était écrit Spartan-019 sur son badge d’identification. C’était mieux si personne ne savait ce qu’elle était, et ce qu’elle n’était pas.

« Oui, j’ai été absente pendant trop longtemps », reprit-elle, à regret. « Mais je peux sentir un bon imam bayildi à une dizaine de mètres.

Tout le monde pouvait le faire. Ce n’était pas vraiment un mensonge. Phillips se frotta les mains, mimant le délice à la pensée de nourriture qui ne provenait pas d’un pack de rationnement. La navette s’éleva encore, faisant progressivement disparaître New-Llanelli de leur vue, et Osman jeta un dernier regard sur le moniteur, en direction de ce lac de sable vitrifié.

C’est pour cette raison que j’ai le droit de briser les règles. Pour être sûr que cela ne se reproduira jamais.

Osman était certaine d’avoir entendu cet argument auparavant, au moins trente ans plus tôt, mais elle ne pouvait pas se rappeler si c’était avant ou après avoir rencontré le Dr Halsey.

« L’Académie », dit-elle. « Oui, c’est un monde cruel et ancestral, n’est-ce pas ? »

• [1] Un mètre nonante pour les Suisses ;D
• [2] Expérience philosophique selon laquelle le chat est à la fois mort dans une dimension, et vivant dans une autre.</toggledisplay>

Chapitre 2 (VO) :

<toggledisplay hidetext=[Masquer]> CHAPTER TWO

HUMANITY CAN NOW BREATHE AGAIN.

THE COVENANT HAS FINALLY BEEN DRIVEN BACK. THE COST IN LIVES—OUR TROOPS AND OUR CITIZENS—HAS BEEN ENORMOUS.

BUT FREEDOM NEVER COMES CHEAPLY, AND NOW, WE REBUILD.

I PROMISE THIS TO EVERY MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD ON EARTH AND IN ITS COLONIES. WHILE WE WILL CONTINUE TO STRIVE FOR A PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE WITH OTHER SPECIES, HUMANITY WILL NEVER AGAIN ALLOW ITSELF TO BE THE VICTIM OF AGGRESSION. THIS IS THE MOMENT WE START TO RECLAIM OUR RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE.

(INAUGURAL SPEECH OF DR. RUTH CHARET, NEW PRESIDENT OF THE UNIFIED EARTH GOVERNMENT: JANUARY 2553)

CORE 5, OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE, BRAVO-6 FACILITY: JANUARY 26, 2553.

Don’t mind me. BB settled down to watch and learn. I’m no trouble at all. I’ll stay out of your way. I’m just observing.

And he was observing a man who seemed to think his time had come, the idiot. Didn’t he realize the war was anything but over? David Agnoli, Minister for the Colonies, sat on the low oak bookcase with his back to Parangosky’s office. He still didn’t seem to have the measure of UNSC yet.

“Do you think the old bat’s ever going to die, Captain?”

Agnoli reached down between his legs to pull out a volume at random, but BB was pretty sure he was keeping an eye on the office door via the reflection in the glass panel opposite. “Or will she transmogrify into her true basilisk form, and vanish in a puff of sulfur? I’d pay good money to see that.”

He started leafing through the book, a faded and ancient copy of The Admiralty Manual of Seamanship Vol. II. Captain Osman glanced at him with faint contempt.

“The Admiral speaks very highly of you, too, David,” she said sourly. “I think the word was weasel. Well, it began with a W, anyway.”

“Come on, you’re the anointed one. You can get me in to see her, can’t you?”

“If she’d known you were coming, I’m sure she would have made time for you. But she’s got a lot of souls to digest.” She gave him a look of faint disgust as he riffled through the yellowing pages. “Look, do you know how many centuries old that book is? Admiral Hood gave it to me. Don’t get greasy fingerprints all over it.”

Agnoli turned to look over his shoulder as Parangosky’s door opened. Her flag lieutenant, Dorsey, hovered with his hands braced on the door frame as if he didn’t dare cross the threshold.

“The Admiral will see you now, Captain.” Dorsey made a polite show of noticing Agnoli. “Oh, hello, Minister. Will we be seeing you at Dr. Charet’s reception later?”

“Possibly.” Agnoli closed the ancient book with exaggerated care and stood up to put it back on the shelf. He nodded at Osman as Dorsey vanished. “I’ll show myself out, then. Perhaps the lieutenant can make an appointment for me.”

Osman watched him until he was out of sight—but not out of BB’s—then reached out to pick up some files from her desk. BB decided it was time to introduce himself. He projected his three-dimensional holographic image into the doorway and waited for her to react.

How else was an AI supposed to shake hands?

Osman stopped in her tracks and stared at him. “And whose little pet are you?” She cocked her head a fraction as if she suddenly wasn’t quite sure what he was. “You are fully sentient, aren’t you?”

“I’m Black-Box,” he said. “I thought I’d introduce myself before we see the Admiral.”

Osman looked him over with no change in her expression whatsoever. BB’s holographic avatar was a cube, a featureless box picked out in blue light, because he saw no point in masquerading as something other than what he was—pure intellect, his intricate thought processes a closed book to organic life. He couldn’t bear the theatrics of manifesting as flesh and blood.

Faces are for wannabes. I’m not a surrogate human.

“You didn’t answer my question, Black-Box,” Osman said, waiting until he moved aside. “Whose AI are you?”

He followed her for a few meters as she walked down the corridor, as far as he could project himself using her desk terminal. “I report to the Admiral. And she calls me BB. You might like to as well.”

Osman looked over her shoulder to say something, but he’d run out of range and had to switch to another terminal. It took him a fraction of a second to reroute himself through the fire alarm system and the mainframe to project from Parangosky’s terminal and pop up again in front of Osman. She was in the process of turning around again to look for him. Judging by the way she flinched, he’d actually managed to startle her.

“Apologies, Captain,” he said. “As I was saying, I work for Parangosky.”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Whatever she wants,” BB said.

Look after Osman. Trust her. I’ve kept her under wraps for years, hidden her even from Halsey. She has a job to do. The Admiral thought the sun shone out of Osman’s backside, and even a dolt like Agnoli could see that she’d take over when Parangosky decided to call it a day, even if he didn’t know why.

And if it was good enough for Parangosky, then it was good enough for BB.

Ah . . . Hogarth. An alert rippled through BB, detected by extensions of his program that he’d distributed throughout the communications and security systems in key government buildings. There he goes. He’s on the prowl. Even if Captain Hogarth hadn’t put a private appointment with the UEG in his diary, his comms handset made his movements trackable, and each secure door that he passed through betrayed his identity. He was moving around the president’s suite of offices. So you’re off to do some lobbying, are you? You really do fancy your chances as head of ONI. Shame that you’ve backed the wrong horse. What possible deal could the civilian government offer you?

In the time it took BB to run all his monitoring systems and check intelligence reports from fifty ships, Osman had only just begun her instant reply.

“I never knew she had an AI,” Osman said, walking straight through BB’s hologram into Parangosky’s office. Humans didn’t usually do that to AIs. They’d walk around them. He wasn’t sure how to take it. “Well, nice to meet you, BB.”

Parangosky gave him a wink as he moved in behind Osman. “I see you two are getting to know each other,” she said, gesturing Osman to a seat. “That’s good. Don’t worry, Captain, you can trust BB with your life. Not a phrase I use lightly. Or figuratively.”

“And am I going to need to, ma’am?” Osman asked.

“Very possibly.” Parangosky leaned forward, slowly and painfully, to check the status panel on her desk. The office was secure, door seals shut and soundproofing activated. BB had his own defenses to keep unfriendly AIs out of the Admiral’s systems, but the benign dumb ones needed dissuasion too. He exploited them to spy and expected other AIs to do the same. “Which is why I decided that you needed your own AI. And why this conversation is strictly between you, me, and him.”

Osman looked BB over, chewing her lip. He couldn’t tell if she was pleased with the appointment or not, but she certainly seemed a little uneasy. Everything he could observe told him so. He could infiltrate any electronic system and ride its vectors, seeing, hearing, and sensing far more than a limited human—even a Spartan—ever could. From the minute feedback adjustments in the environmental controls, he could detect how much CO2 Osman was exhaling. The security cameras enabled him to see her in any wavelength, including infrared. She looked rather flushed in that spectrum, which mirrored her increased respiration.

Anxious, Captain?

“Are we talking about Kilo-Five or something else?” Osman asked.

“Something else.” Parangosky twisted a little in her seat as if she was trying to ease her arthritic hip. “I’ll come on to the squad later. But this is about Catherine Halsey.”

“You’ve found a body.”

“Oh, she’s still alive. I can feel it in my water. But, more to the point, Glamorgan’s ELINT has picked up something much more concrete.” Parangosky indicated the screen. “BB, do the honors, please.”

BB pulled up the files he’d collected from the ONI corvette. The holographic display unfolded itself just over the desk between the two women, showing a chart of the system that once contained Onyx before the artificial planet had deconstructed itself. Slightly irregular concentric rings radiated out from the Onyx coordinates. One forlorn blue light was set within the red lines, a pinprick that marked a signal from a Spartan armor transponder, the only KIA that had been confirmed—Lieutenant Ambrose.

BB had left a fragment of himself in Glamorgan’s system to alert him as soon as anything else was found. The corvette’s nav AI didn’t seem to mind the intrusion.

“Sifting for debris out there is a slow process.” Parangosky reached into the display and enlarged the detail. “You know what it’s like. Hard to spot anything smaller than a family car. It’ll take the rest of the year to complete a visual search, but Glamorgan’s picking up massive electromagnetic anomalies. Something’s still there, but we can’t see it. And unless every single sensor’s malfunctioning, it’s enormous, the size of a solar system. We knew there were areas underground that we couldn’t access, but now we know that Onyx was wholly artificial, it’s starting to support the theory that it was built as a citadel. A last-chance saloon.”

Osman was staring at the chart with a slightly openmouthed expression that told BB she was forming a theory. “That’s not any slipspace signature I’d recognize, but it looks a hell of a lot like it. Makes me wish I hadn’t sent a wreath.”

“You didn’t. You may yet get the chance, though.”

“Well, it was only a matter of time before she found enough pieces to put together. You can’t keep that much information completely quiet for that long. But are you sure?”

“Oh, I never assume anything where Halsey’s concerned, and she might well actually be dead, of course, planning or no planning. But there’s a logical progression.” Parangosky counted out on thin fingers, joints swollen despite her doctor’s best efforts.

“We have the Onyx battle reports from Dusk. We know she kidnapped Spartan-Zero-Eight-Seven. We know she persuaded Hood to deploy Spartans to Onyx. And we know damn well just how many Forerunner artifacts there were on that planet and what they might be. So she had her Spartans, and she had access to Forerunner technology. Now—your turn.”

“So she jumped ship,” Osman said. “She’s used something the Forerunners left behind.”

BB felt free to chip in with his own theories. “And after reading her journal, I think she’s cleansing her conscience by hiding her Spartans.”

“That’s big of her. Hiding them from us?”

“Who knows?” BB said. “The woman rewrites her own reality as she goes along.”

Parangosky sucked in a breath. “Osman, she’s effectively abducted some very scarce special forces personnel as well as Chief Mendez. She can steal all the paper clips she likes, but she does not get to stroll off with billions of dollars’ worth of UNSC resources in the middle of a battle. If she had a military rank, she’d have faced the death penalty for that. She still might.”

BB noted Osman nod involuntarily. There was no love lost there, and it wasn’t just because Osman had taken on her mentor’s loathing of Halsey.

“When did you last have contact with her, Captain?” BB asked.

“You already know that,” Osman said stiffly. “But if you don’t, then you ought to. When she discarded me as breakage from her program. That’s when.”

“Just testing for potency of venom, Captain. . . .”

“Savored cold and all that, BB. The best way.”

Parangosky turned to BB and gave him her don’t-be-a-naughty-boy look, a rueful half smile. He suspected that Parangosky had been the kind of little girl who kept pet scorpions and doted on them the way other children cooed over puppies.

“We don’t do pointless vengeance in ONI, BB,” Parangosky said gently. “We do vengeance with a pragmatic outcome in mind. Revenge might give you a warm feeling, but unless it delivers some lasting results you might as well have a nice cup of mocha instead.”

“So you want me to take Kilo-Five to Onyx,” Osman said, obviously in a hurry to move on from the personal stuff. “Or the gap where Onyx used to be. So who’s going to handle the Sangheili mission?”

“That’s still our top priority. We’ve got Elites to neutralize and the rest of the Halos to locate. Just stand by to divert to Glamorgan if and when we find something. Mendez and some of the Spartan-Threes could still be alive too, but don’t forget you’re going to have Spartan-Zero-One-Zero in your squad, and she thinks that Halsey walks on water. They all do. Hence my preference for this private briefing.”

“If you can’t trust a Spartan, then who can you trust?”

“I’m not saying they can’t be trusted. I just don’t want to put that loyalty to the test if we find Halsey, that’s all. I’m not briefing the ODSTs about it, either. Just so that we don’t have any slipups. We stick with our story. Halsey died a long way from Onyx, all suitably sacrificial and heroic. But that’s for the UNSC’s benefit, not hers.”

“You could have made her vanish a long time ago, ma’am,” Osman said. “There has to come a point where the irritant factor outweighs her usefulness.”

“She’s reached it now she’s compromised our ability to fight.” Parangosky turned her head slowly and glanced at the virtual window. The image it projected from above ground was a bright, sunny summer day. She looked almost wistful, as if she wanted to be outside for a change. Tomorrow’s a bonus, BB. She said that quite a lot these days. “So I want to find her alive. It’s keeping me going, believe me.”

BB had access to every record in the ONI archives, and in the six months since his creation Parangosky had answered every question he’d put to her. Even so, it was hard for an AI to extract as much data from a human as he needed, even from an articulate and succinct one like Parangosky. Flesh and blood was so very, very slow. The question that most fascinated him had still to be fully answered.

What made you dislike Halsey so much, Admiral? ONI has plenty of unpalatable, unlikable, dangerous people in its ranks, but you tolerate them. What did she do?

She had answered, in a way. Halsey had lied to her, she said.

But ONI was all about lies. They were now about to tell some more.

“So, on to today’s business.” Parangosky shut down the holoimage. “BB, are they all here now?”

“Yes, ma’am.” BB checked on the monitors in each separate waiting room, where the candidates sat isolated by specialty. “Staff Sergeant Malcolm Geffen, Corporal Vasily Beloi, Sergeant Lian Devereaux, Naomi-Zero-One-Zero, and Dr. Evan Phillips.”

Osman didn’t say a word for a moment. Sometimes Parangosky didn’t tell her everything. But then Phillips had been a last-minute change of mind on Parangosky’s part, and BB still wasn’t convinced that the professor understood what he’d agreed to in a matter of seconds. Phillips craves knowledge, like an AI. Can’t exist without it. Gorges on more and more every day. I think we’ll get on just fine. Phillips had rushed to Bravo-6 so fast that he was still repacking his holdall in the waiting room.

“I didn’t know he was coming,” Osman said at last.

Parangosky looked almost apologetic. She always took care not to offend Osman, but BB knew there were things she didn’t tell her for her own good. The time was approaching, though, when she would need to be told everything, and when the name Infinity would finally mean something to her.

“He’s a gamble I took two hours ago,” Parangosky said. “You might need his expertise, even with BB around. I’ll worry later about how I get him to keep his mouth shut.”

She eased herself up from the chair and reached for her cane. She needed it for the walk to the elevator down into the core of the HIGHCOM complex, but somehow she made it look like a weapon she had every intention of using.

“Time to put Kilo-Five together, then,” she said. “BB, you’re formally assigned to Captain Osman as of now. Lead on, Captain.”

PRIVATE QUARTERS OF FORMER SHIPMASTER JUL ‘MDAMA, BEKAN KEEP, MDAMA, SANGHELIOS: JANUARY 26, 2553 IN THE HUMAN CALENDAR.

Nothing had changed since the Covenant had fallen, just the deceptive surface of events, but Jul ‘Mdama despaired of making the Arbiter listen.

“They’ll be back,” he said, running a polishing cloth over his armor for the tenth time that morning. “They’re like the Flood. They expand to fill every available space. They devour everything in their path. Except they can plan and wait, and persuade our more gullible brothers with clever argument, which makes them even more dangerous.”

Raia didn’t say anything. She was still looking out of the window, jaws moving slightly as if she was talking to herself, and passing a stylus from hand to hand. The sound of youngsters squabbling in the courtyard below rose on the breeze as Great-Uncle Naxan waded in to restore order, yelling about discipline and dignity.

“And even you don’t listen to me,” Jul said. He stopped short of seizing Raia’s shoulder to make her look at him. Within the family keep, her word was law. “Am I the only one who can see that the humans are just catching their breath? They won’t forget, and they won’t forgive. They certainly won’t stop their colonization.”

“Jul, we face far more immediate problems than humans,” Raia said. “I want you to look at something.”

She stepped back from the window and gestured to him with the kind of weary patience she reserved for small children. Jul humored her. From the third-story window, he had a good view of the landscaping that surrounded the keep. To the east, the hills were stepped with terraces of fruit vines, designed to catch the sun. Looking west, he could see fields in a neat mosaic of green and gray-blue on either side of the lake. Set against the gold midmorning sky, it looked exactly like every image he’d ever seen of this landscape; it hadn’t changed for centuries, and generations of his clan had worked hard to make sure it didn’t. He had every expectation that it would look that way to his sons’ children and their grandchildren too.

The Sangheili might have been betrayed and defeated—temporarily—and their faith upended, but Mdama never changed.

“I don’t have time for this,” Jul said. “I have to go to the kaidon’s assembly. The Arbiter’s going to be here soon.”

“Then you make time,” Raia snapped. “A world needs more than warriors to survive. The San’Shyuum knew how to make their servant races weak—they confined us to one skill.” Nobody called them the Prophets now. It was too painful, but it was also a hard habit to break. “And, of course, we lap that up, vain fools that we are. We all want to be warriors, nothing else. Now we have no engineers, no traders, and no scientists. How will we feed ourselves?”

“I leave the estate management to you and Naxan.” Jul hadn’t noticed any food shortages. It had only been half a season since the Arbiter had killed the last treacherous Prophet of the High Council and every certainty in life had evaporated, but there was still food on the table. “I know better than to interfere with my wife’s business.”

Raia drew back her arms, head thrust forward a little in that don’t-you-dare posture. He hadn’t seen her this angry for a long time. “That’s the problem!” She hissed. “Thousands of years doing the San’Shyuum’s bidding, each species made as dependent as children, and we never asked ourselves what would happen if it all fell apart. The San’Shyuum made us reliant on savages. Now we have to relearn their skills just to restore basic communications. We built starships, Jul. We were a spacefaring culture long before the San’Shyuum arrived and turned us into their personal army.”

Jul could still hear the youngsters in the courtyard. Sticks crashed against sticks. “No, not like that!” Naxan, Raia’s grandbrother, roared his head off, probably putting on the angry theatrics. “Control yourself! If that had been a blade, you would have taken your own arm off!”

Jul heard a loud thwack—followed by absolute silence—as if Naxan had rapped one of the children with his dummy weapon. There was no yelping or sniveling. It might even have been one of the girls; Naxan taught them all basic combat skills, the young females of the keep as well as the males. Daughters would probably never serve in the front line, but they had to be able to defend the keep if the worst happened.

Raia was right, as usual. Every Sangheili judged himself solely by his combat skills. Jul definitely couldn’t remember any of his brothers or cousins saying they wanted to be an administrator or a cook. The shame would have been unbearable, and yet keeps and assemblies had to be run and food had to be provided. Sangheili had stopped thinking about how the Covenant kept itself running a long time ago.

“It’s only been half a season,” Jul said. “The world hasn’t ground to a halt yet. We can import food if the crops fail. We can hire engineers.”

“No, we can’t,” Raia said. “We might find Kig-Yar traders willing to do business, but do you really think Jiralhanae can maintain our technology now the Huragok have fled? And even if you don’t give a damn about the domestic side of things, at least worry about your fleet. What happens when our ships and weapons need replacing? Think of that before you choose to carry on fighting the war.”

“We’ll discuss this later,” he said, picking his moment to escape. “I have to see the Arbiter.”

He heard her hiss irritably again as he made his way down the passage. It was a simple problem to fix. There were still a few loyal Unggoy and Jiralhanae around, weren’t there? They could easily learn to be farmers or factory workers. Or engineers. It was simply a matter of giving them clear instructions and making sure they didn’t drug themselves into a stupor or start too many fights.

But it was far easier to vaporize every living thing on a planet than reform an entire culture from scratch.

The humans don’t have this problem. Clever little vermin. Backward, small, and not the best at anything. But good enough at everything. Survivors.

That was all the more reason to make the Arbiter see sense and crush them before they started recolonizing.

Jul looked down over the windowsill on the stairwell to make sure that it wasn’t Dural or Asum who’d received the smack around the ear from Naxan for careless swordsmanship. No. It’s Gmal. Not my boys. They’re better than that. It was hard not to show his sons favor, but that would have told them who their father was, and no Sangheili male was allowed to know that. Jul’s sons had to make their own way in the world, judged solely on their merits and without any assumptions based on their bloodline.

But I still wish I’d known who my father was. I think we all do.

Sangheili mothers might not have been frontline fighters, but they certainly held the real power, the knowledge and selection of bloodlines. Being a Sangheili male could sometimes be lonely and uncertain.

Jul had to pass through the courtyard to get to his transport. The youngsters were still doing weapons drill, taking the wooden sticks very seriously as Naxan stalked up and down in front of them, tapping his baton against his palm as he watched the parries and thrusts. He gave Jul a nod and didn’t break his stride. None of the children looked Jul’s way, either. Focus. It had to be taught and reinforced from the crib.

Jul was almost at the gate when Naxan called out to him. “Tell the Arbiter to watch his back.”

Jul found that funny. He looked over his shoulder. “I don’t think he needs me to remind him of that.”

Jul’s young aide, Gusay, had been reduced to his personal driver now. Ships were in short supply and there were more crew than positions to be filled—and no tangible war to fight anyway. It was the first time in living memory that any Sangheili had to face the prospect of being idle and purposeless. Even the vehicles at the keep’s disposal were a painful reminder of the disarray and confusion the entire world seemed to find itself in. Gusay collected Jul in a Revenant that still had hastily repaired shell damage all over it, with a particularly spectacular gouge a hand-width deep running from the nose to the driver’s seat.

Jul wondered if the occupants had survived the attack that caused it. The plasma mortar was intact. He leaned over the open cockpit and stared at the seats, trying not to show his dismay.

“Did you raid the scrapyard? Making a virtue of frugality, are we?”

“Sorry, Shipmaster, but there are a great many Revenants around, and very little else.” Gusay always did his best. Jul tried to keep that in mind. “Better that you arrive to greet the Arbiter in a vehicle that’s seen action, though, yes?”

“Is the mortar operational?”

“I didn’t think it was going to be that sort of a gathering, my lord.”

Jul could never tell whether Gusay was being literal or trying to be funny. He decided to take the comment at face value. “I’m sure we’ll all listen reverently to what the Arbiter has to say.”

The Revenant swept north across land that was a lie in itself. Much of the landscape outside the cities looked like the neat agricultural terrain of an ancient Sanghelios long gone. Even the keeps—the regional assembly houses and the clan settlements—tried hard to at least nod to the old architecture. Jul had always thought of it as a splendid regard for tradition and lineage, but not now. We still pretend to be farmers, like we deluded ourselves that we were still warriors, when we were only cannon fodder for the San’Shyuum. Keeping up appearances wasn’t going to change anything. Sangheili needed to remember who they were long before the San’Shyuum came. They needed to reclaim their honor and independence.

Very well, Raia. You have a point.

“So we find ourselves like the humans,” Gusay said. “Licking our wounds and learning lessons.”

“We’re nothing like them,” Jul snapped. “Don’t let me hear you say that again.”

Gusay didn’t breathe another word for the rest of the journey. Jul settled back as best he could in his seat—the metal frame was buckled, he was certain—and inhaled the scents on the breeze, eyes shut. The smell of the ocean mingled with the sharp scent of roadside herbs bruised by the Revenant’s thrust. It was a fragrant and familiar mixture that he’d missed during his years at the front.

“The Arbiter’s drawn a good crowd, my lord.” Gusay slowed the Revenant to a halt and Jul opened his eyes. “I believe the humans would call that a full house.”

Every elder entitled to bear the ‘Mdama title seemed to be here already. An assortment of transports sat along the sweeping road up to the kaidon’s keep, mostly Revenants and Ghosts, but also a human vehicle, a hydrogen- powered thing of which he’d seen far too many: a Warthog. So somebody had brought home a battlefield trophy for his clan. Well, there was no edict against tasteless eccentricity. It might even have belonged to Kaidon Levu ‘Mdama himself. Whatever his reputation in combat, old Levu had such vulgar tendencies that it made Jul wonder if his mother had consorted with a Kig-Yar.

“Wait here,” Jul said, climbing out of the Revenant. “I doubt this will take long.”

Levu was a traditionalist, so Jul forgave him his undignified taste. The kaidon still had a huge tiered chamber at the heart of his keep, the kind that ancient Sangheili warlords had once held court in, albeit with the latest comforts and technologies provided by the San’Shyuum. The walls were an electric blue, almost painfully intense, and shiny with lacquer. Jul nodded at the clan elders he knew well and caught the eye of those he didn’t, then took his seat. The purplish-black upholstery was just as glossy and awful as the walls. He wondered if Levu was trying to emulate the leather cushions and lapis paneling of Old Rolam.

Someone leaned forward from the tier above and behind him to tap his shoulder. “So what are we going to do for a High Council now we’ve kicked out the San’Shyuum, Jul? An assembly of kaidons? We don’t even have a global capital to meet in. The keeps will argue about that until I grow a damn beak.”

It was Forze, another shipmaster without a ship. “Do we even need a council?” Jul asked. “All we need to worry about is holding an army and a fleet together. We can manage that.”

“Of course we need a council. The only reason we didn’t have one was because the San’Shyuum told us what to do, the—”

He was interrupted by a growing rumble of murmurs as the doors on the lower level opened. Jul looked down from his second-tier seat to see Levu usher in the Arbiter, Thel ‘Vadam.

I wonder if he’s missing his pet humans. Why does he think any of them are worth sparing?

‘Vadam wasn’t quite as tall as Jul had imagined. Somehow Jul had expected someone iconic, unreal, as befitted a fleet commander, but ‘Vadam simply held himself as if he were much bigger. He seemed to have slipped automatically into the role of pulling Sanghelios together whether it wanted him to or not.

“Brothers, it’s time to listen to what Thel ‘Vadam has to say to us,” Levu said. “So let’s be gracious while he speaks.”

“Has the human Admiral given you permission to talk to us, then?” someone jeered. “How generous of him.”

The Arbiter ignored the jibe, looking around the chamber as if he was settling on a target, but Levu brought his fist down on the balustrade with a crack. “Courtesy, brothers. Hear the Arbiter out. He has the floor.”

‘Vadam took a few circling, slow strides, picking his moment. “Arbiter is a title I would prefer to forget,” he said. “I’m simply a kaidon again. As such, I’ve come to appeal for unity. I know there are . . . misgivings about my recent cooperation with humankind, and strong opinions on both sides. But this is not the time for another civil war. We have to rediscover what unites us. And we have to repair the fabric that the San’Shyuum have left in tatters. We must learn to be an independent people again for the first time in millennia.”

It was hard to object to any of that. ‘Vadam was talking like a politician, bland and conciliatory, switching back and forth between the formal language of authority and a comradely, I’m-one-of-you informality. Jul waited. He was itching to make his challenge, but he also wanted to see if the elders from the larger, more powerful keeps would reveal their positions first.

A voice drifted down from one of the upper tiers. “Now, Kaidon ‘Vadam, tell us something we don’t know.”

“We think we’ve lost the gods, but we haven’t,” ‘Vadam said. “We’ve lost ourselves. Millions of our finest, our young males, have been killed—not fighting humans, but in the Great Schism. Are we insane? Our bloodlines have been weakened and our ships have been lost in a civil war, all because we were deceived into loyalty to the San’Shyuum. Brothers, we must consolidate what we have, whether flesh and blood or machine, before we can decide on a common purpose. But it will be our purpose. Not another empire’s.”

“Perhaps our purpose is just to survive without being exploited by false prophets,” Levu said.

The Arbiter made sense. There had been a time when the San’Shyuum had made sense, too. Jul wondered if he could actually speak up now, but the words formed and suddenly he could hear his own voice filling the chamber.

“What do you plan to do about the humans?” he asked. “Gods or no gods, they’ll return to their colonies and rebuild them, and they won’t forget what we did to them and how much they loathe us.”

“We’ll consider that if and when it happens.”

“Instead of finishing them off before they regain strength?” There. It was out in the open now. “We should regroup now, while their guard’s down, and exterminate the threat once and for all. Unless you’re too fond of them as pets, that is.”

The chamber was horribly silent now. Jul could suddenly hear the slow shuffling of boots as elders squirmed. He expected Thel ‘Vadam to round on him, but the Arbiter just snapped his jaws together a couple of times in amusement as if there was something he should have told Jul but chose not to.

“The humans say that a fool does the same thing twice and expects things to turn out differently.” ‘Vadam lowered his voice. “It might have escaped your notice that we never managed to defeat them, and we’re in worse shape now than we were a year ago.” Then his expression changed, as if he was steeling himself to break bad news. “We’ve stopped fighting. We need to stop because we can’t rebuild without stability. Therefore I plan to reach a peace agreement with the humans, to formalize what has already taken place. Both sides have finally run out of blood to shed, brother.”

“But you can’t do deals with humans. Have you forgotten already?” Jul was appalled. Not pressing home Sangheili superiority was one thing, but willingly giving in? That was close to treason. “They’re liars and thieves. All of them.”

‘Vadam walked over to the balustrade that separated the floor of the chamber from the first tier of seats to look up at Jul. It wasn’t a threatening gesture. It seemed more like curiosity to see what this upstart, this young elder of a small keep, looked like at closer quarters.

“There are honorable humans,” ‘Vadam said, resting his hands on the balustrade. “I’ve fought alongside them. None of us would be alive now if there weren’t. But I plan to agree to a treaty, not because I have any fondness for humans but because I love Sanghelios.” He pushed away from the balustrade and walked back into the center of the chamber, suddenly the charismatic leader again, the hero of the fleet. “The law is clear. If anyone disagrees, you have a remedy. You may attempt to assassinate me. That is your legal right.”

Jul sat there for some minutes after the address ended. The rest of the elders filed out and he found himself staring at the empty chamber floor with just Forze behind him. He could hear him fidgeting with his holster.

“I think we’re going to live to regret that,” Forze said.

We? Jul had felt like the lone voice of reason. “Challenging him? He seemed amused.”

“No. We’ll regret letting the humans off the hook.”

“So . . . are you with me, then?”

As soon as Jul said it, he realized he wasn’t even sure what with me meant. He just knew that whatever dismissive things he’d said about his enemy, humans were not all the same, Thel ‘Vadam’s honorable pets were the exception, and the rest would go back to doing what they’d always done as soon as they recovered their breath. Jul had to galvanize the Sangheili into stopping humankind while they still could.

“Yes, I’m with you,” said Forze. “What now?”

Jul got up and wondered how he would explain this to Raia.

“I’ll think of something,” he said.

THREAT ANALYSIS WING, BRAVO-6, SYDNEY: JANUARY 26, 2553.

Mal Geffen had never liked corridors, especially dimly lit ones.

It was a weird phobia for a man who was happy to freefall into the pitch-black unknown or drop from low orbit behind enemy lines in a glorified coffin. He’d given up trying to fathom it out. He just knew that he didn’t like what he could see, or couldn’t see in this case. The double doors at the end of the passage were picked out by emergency lighting, the kind you had to follow in the event of a fire.

“You still with me, Vaz?”

Vaz’s parade boots clicked behind him on the tiles. “I warned you that it’d make you go deaf. . . .”

“It’s the Wendy House.”

“What is?”

“This is where the fleet brass used to war-game and run tabletop exercises.” Mal’s voice echoed. He dropped to a whisper as they came to a halt in front of the doors. “Wendy House. You know. Where kids play at being grown-ups.”

They stared at the security panel. Vaz shrugged, still miserable as sin. It was going to take Mal some time to make him forget that useless tart who dumped him. He’d keep trying. The kid needed to get out more.

“Cheer up, it might be a stripper in a cake,” Mal said. He still had no idea why they were here. It wasn’t going to be a celebration, that was for sure. “Surprise party for the conquering heroes.”

Vaz put his palm on the entry panel, unmoved. “Yes. I tripped over all the rose petals on the red carpet.”

The security doors opened and Mal took a pace inside. The smell of cleaning fluid and musty carpet hit him. The room looked like it hadn’t been used in years, its walls lined with old chart display panels showing trouble spots that hadn’t been active for decades: Earth colonies in a dozen systems, human-on-human violence. War had been a lot simpler then, or so his grandad had told him. He walked around tables pushed together into a rectangle, wiping his finger across the unconvincing oak-effect surface but finding no dust at all.

“Are you here for the free sandwiches? ’Cause there aren’t any.”

It was a woman’s voice. Mal guessed Canada, northeast. She emerged from behind one of the tote boards where make-believe generals had once tallied imaginary KIAs in counterinsurgency battles that never happened; about thirty, Asian, and wearing a flight suit with a pilot’s brevet and sergeant’s stripes.

And an ODST 10th Battalion badge. One of us. Well, that’s something.

Her name tab said DEVEREAUX L. Either she hadn’t been told this was a number-threes occasion or she’d come straight from a sortie.

“You’re not a stripper,” Mal said.

“No. Are you? Because if you are, I want my money back.”

“We better keep our clothes on, then.” Mal held out his hand for shaking, seeing as formalities had fallen by the wayside. “Mal Geffen. And this is Vaz. Vasily Beloi. He isn’t a stripper either. Any idea why we’re here, Sergeant?”

“Lian Devereaux.” She looked Vaz over. Mal hoped she was just checking him out, because Mal was always ready to dive in and ask what the hell was so interesting. Civvies stared at scars. ODSTs knew better, and Vaz didn’t need reminding that he didn’t look as good as he used to. “No,” she said. “Not a clue.”

Mal stood there in silence for a moment, just looking around and evaluating the environment. It’s some psych test, isn’t it? Some study into how damaged we are and how they can save money putting us right. It didn’t take long for the bean counters to crawl out of their holes once the shooting was over.

Devereaux tilted her head on one side and gave Vaz a mock-wary look. Maybe she hadn’t even noticed the scar. “Weren’t you the guys who hijacked a Spirit to exfil from Imber?”

“The hinge-heads left the keys in the ignition,” Vaz said. “So we took it for a burn.”

“But where is it now?”

Mal winked. “That’s for us to know and the Corps to find out.”

The doors opened and cut short any more bragging about the Covenant dropship. That was the problem with most of the meeting rooms and offices in Bravo-6. They were soundproofed, and nobody could hear anyone coming until it was too late. The tallest, scariest woman Mal had ever seen stalked into the room.

Even without Mjolnir armor, it was obvious what she was. Mal had never seen a Spartan in the flesh before. She looked more unreal in her UNSCN uniform than she would have in armor, he decided. He cast an eye over her sleeve.

“Morning, Petty Officer.” He outranked her but he still had to tilt his head back to look her in the eye. Christ, she had to be over two meters tall, easy. “Good to see the Navy’s managed to drag itself out of its bunk before lunch.”

Mal expected to get a bit of abusive but friendly banter back from her. That was the way of interservice diplomacy, the custom of centuries. But the Spartan just looked down at him, unmoved. He couldn’t work out if she was very blond or completely gray.

“Naomi-Zero-One-Zero, Staff,” she said. “I believe we’re waiting for Admiral Parangosky.”

“That’s the idea.” Mal couldn’t read her at all. She’s a bloody Valkyrie. She really is. “Yeah, we are.”

Mal edged away to the tote boards and feigned intense interest in the list of unit acronyms scribbled beside actions on the incident timeline. Vaz and Devereaux sidled up to him. The three of them had already closed ranks without even thinking about it.

“Here we go,” Mal murmured. “They’re going to inject us full of crap and put bolts through our necks. Frankentroopers.”

“Ah, that’s just stories,” Devereaux said. She didn’t sound convinced, though. “But if it’s not, I’m sure as hell not volunteering.”

Naomi the Valkyrie interrupted. “Officer on deck.”

Mal turned and snapped to attention, the reflex of fifteen years, slipping instantly behind the facade of the stony-faced, unreadable ODST. He decided his guess about a psych test was right.

So this was Parangosky.

Admirals never retired, technically speaking, but Mal was sure nobody really expected the old salts to front up and earn it for real once they were past seventy. Parangosky walked in slowly with a cane for support, somehow managing to be both frail and terrifying at the same time, the crazy old woman who scared all the kids in the neighborhood. But she obviously wasn’t crazy. Mal met her eyes for a disturbing second and fully believed the rumors that she could erase anyone stupid enough to cross her.

“Stand easy,” she said. “My apologies for the location, but Strength through Paranoia is my motto. Meet Captain Osman and Professor Phillips. They already know all about you. Take a seat.”

Phillips was a bearded bloke in his thirties who had civvie hired help written all over him. Osman was tall, not Spartan tall, but conspicuous just the same. Parangosky settled down at the far corner of the tables and gestured to them to sit. The old girl handed six datapads to Osman, who passed them around. Mal didn’t get a chance to look to Vaz for a reaction before his screen flashed into life and told him the captain was Serin Osman, ONI, and Phillips was a Sangheili expert from Wheatley University.

Debrief, then. About what? The bloody Spirit? What was so special about that?

“I’ll get to the point,” Parangosky said. “You’re under no obligation to undertake this mission.”

That sealed the deal for Mal. ODSTs didn’t turn down tasking, any tasking. They’d automatically volunteered for everything and anything, now and forever, world-without-end-amen, on the day they’d turned up for the selection board. Being RTU’d—Returned to Unit, sent back to their original regiment or ship or squadron in whatever country because they didn’t make the grade as a Helljumper—was the worst thing that could happen to them. Death was a minor embarrassment by comparison.

Parangosky fixed Vaz with a watery but intimidating gaze. “Corporal, when’s the best time to kick a man?”

“When he’s down, ma’am,” Vaz said quietly. “And preferably in the nuts. Hard as you can.”

Mal could have sworn that Parangosky smiled. It was more like a twitch of the lips, but he was pretty sure Vaz had hit the target.

“A man after my own heart,” she said. “Very well, I’m asking you all to go and kick the Sangheili in their collective nuts in ways that might seem foreign to you. I want you to sow discontent and strife. They’re already infighting and I want to keep that going until we’re ready to finish the job. Anyone not keen on that? There’s no shame in refusing. I’ve seen your service records and you’ve all more than earned the right to say no.”

Yeah, Mal was pretty sure she knew every last thing about them, right down to how many sugars they took in their coffee. So she had to know the answer she’d get. It was still a decent gesture, though. Nobody said a word. Osman seemed to be keeping an eye on the Spartan, and the Spartan kept giving her a furtive glance as if something was bothering her. They were both roughly the same age, so maybe there was some weird alpha female power struggle going on. Mal made mental note to stay well clear.

“I’m up for it, ma’am,” Devereaux said. “But how foreign is this going to get? Because we’re fine with assassination and sabotage.”

“I know. I’m talking about arming Sangheili dissidents. Misinformation. All deniable.” Parangosky squinted at her datapad for a moment. “You’re going to have to think on your feet. Intel’s very patchy now and we’re not sure exactly where the fault lines are forming between the various factions, so you’ll be gathering information as you go. I wish I could prepare you more thoroughly.”

Mal knew that ONI were a law unto themselves, and the one question he’d learned never to ask was why. It was always how and when. He certainly didn’t plan to ask if every member of the UNSC security committee was on board with Parangosky’s op.

Devereaux didn’t seem to worry about all that. “We’ll manage, ma’am. So no peace treaty, then?”

“Admiral Hood believes it’s possible to reach a formal deal with the Arbiter,” Parangosky said. “But he’s going to be busy dealing with the colonies now that we need to bring our wayward sheep back into the fold.”

Mal thought she’d avoided the question until the answer sank in. Oh God. She’s even sidelining Hood now. Never mind. That’s so far above my pay grade that I’d need a telescope to see it. Had he been given a lawful order? Well, he hadn’t been given an unlawful one yet.

Phillips was still sitting there with the expression of a rabbit about to be hit by a truck that it just hadn’t seen coming. He hadn’t said a word yet. Vaz glanced at him.

“So what’s the professor’s status, ma’am?” Vaz asked. “We’re looking after him, yes?”

“No, he’ll be armed and he’ll take his chances, just like you.” Parangosky hovered on the edge of looking concerned. “You’ll have to forget the chain of command and make your own decisions out there. Our comms are a shambles, we’ve got relays down, our people out there are struggling to get word to us, and the colonies—well, where they’ve gone silent, we don’t know whether they’re a smoking heap of charcoal or if they’ve just decided to sever links with us.”

Mal wanted to ask why she’d picked them. He could understand the professor, the spook, and the Spartan, but there were still plenty of ODSTs around, and any of them could have done the job. It obviously wasn’t a lottery or else Vaz wouldn’t have been here too.

He’d find out sooner or later. It didn’t make any difference anyway. He was going.

“We’re shipping out in the morning,” Osman said. “If you want to do any drinking tonight, do it within the complex. Your personal effects are being brought over from the barracks. We’ll transfer to the ship at Midpoint—it’s Port Stanley. She’s got the latest Forerunner enhancements to her drives, so we can cover a lot of space fast. A corvette’s a big vessel for six, but we’ll have an AI to handle her.”

Parangosky laid her pad down like a winning hand of cards. “Come on, BB. Don’t be coy. Introduce yourself.”

Mal had never worked with smart AIs. A ship would drop him and his mates, and if they were lucky it would show up again and extract them when the job was done, but he didn’t get to play with any of the technology that ONI took for granted. He waited for the hologram to appear. When a blue cube materialized in the center of the tables, it was a bit of an anticlimax. He’d expected something a little more exotic. He’d heard all the hairy stories about the weird forms that AI avatars took.

“That’d be me,” the blue cube said in a news anchor’s tenor voice. “The taxi driver. Black-Box. Airport runs my specialty.”

Mal leaned back in his seat and caught Vaz’s eye for a second. He looked carefully blank, like he always did.

We don’t do psyop. We’ve never worked with Spartans before. And we’re definitely not trained for this spook stuff. But how hard can it be?

They were ODSTs. They could do anything. It was all about the right attitude—a commando’s state of mind.

“Hi, BB,” Mal said. “Take us to Hinge-head World, then.”</toggledisplay>

Infos officieuses

Évolueront dans le scénario :

• Vaz et Mal, des ODST.
• Serin Osman, une Spartan-II ayant échouée aux augmentations et une protégée de l'Amiral Margaret O. Parangosky
• Black Box, ou BB, une IA.
• Evan Phillips, un anthropologiste réputé pour dominer le langage des Sangheilis.
• L'Amiral Margaret O. Parangosky
• Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey
• L'Adjudant-chef Franklin Mendez
• Lucy-B091
• Une femelle Sangheili
• Un Huragok

Infos officielles

Scénario :

L'histoire se déroulera en 2553, après les événements de Halo 3 et après la Guerre Humain contre Covenant. Une équipe de Black Ops du CSNU dirigée par Sarah Osbun, une Spartan-II ayant échouée aux augmentations, composée des ODST Vaz et Mal et du civil Evan Phillips, qui est un des rares humains à parler le langage des Sangheilis, est envoyée pour une mission diplomatique sur Sanghelios. Durant leur périple, ils rencontreront les survivant de la Bataille d'Onyx. Ce roman traitera en profondeur l'implication morale du Service des Renseignements de la Navy et celui notamment du Dr. Catherine Elizabeth Halsey dans le programme SPARTAN-II. La culture des Sangheilis et l'impact de l'Alliance Covenant seront mis de l'avant. L'histoire aura aussi un lien avec le scénario de Halo 4.

Synopsis :

Avec la guerre Humain-Covenant terminée, l'univers est dans le chaos. L'ennemi qui donna à l'humanité un grand besoin d'entraînement et d'unité a été vaincu. Se relevant du traumatisme de ce long combat, de ce conflit dévastateur, le CSNU doit désormais se réclamer l'univers. Mais de nouveaux dangers, tant extraterrestres que humains, peuvent menacer toute chance de paix durable. Rejoignez un groupe d'anciens soldats et de nouveaux héros alors qu'ils commencent une mission pour pénétrer dans ce qui était autrefois le cœur de l'empire Covenant dans une tentative désespérée d'arrêter de vieux ennemis de se rébeller encore une fois.

Divers

• Black Box ne possède pas un avatar humain. Il apparait sous la forme d'une boîte noir d’où son nom.
• Des easters-egg concernant la série Red vs Blue seront présents dans le roman.
• Frank O'Connor affirme que l'histoire prendra une tout autre tournure et qu'on verra une nouvelle facette dans la série Halo.
• Eddie Smith est le dessinateur de la couverture.
• Probable Campagne virale - OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE//SECTION 3 - DATA DROP

• RESUME : par le site Halo Destiny