Classified communique from Admiral Harold Stanforth to

Captain Preston Cole \ June 13, 2503 (Military Calendar)

UNITEDNATIONSSPACECOMMANDTRANSMISSION 08871D-00

ENCRYPTIONCODE: RED

PUBLICKEY: FILE /ALBATROSS-SEVEN-LUCIFER-ZENO /

FROM: ADMIRALHAROLDSTANFORTH, COMMANDINGOFFICER,

UNSC L EVIATHAN / USNC SECTORTHREECOMMANDER/

(UNSC SERVICENUMBER: 00834-19223-HS)

TO: CAPTAINPRESTONCOLE, COMMANDINGOFFICER, UNSC

G ORGON(UNSC SERVICENUMBER: 00814-13094-BQ)

SUBJECT: TROUBLE

CLASSIFICATION: EYES-ONLY (BGA DIRECTIVE)

This is bad, Preston. Sit down if you‘re standing.

There are new orders coming down from CENTCOM, and you‘re not going to like them: You‘re

going to Reach.

Let me start with the hardest thing.

The woman you‘ve been having a relationship with for the last seventeen months, one Lyrenne Castilla, is part of the insurgency. Hell, she‘s not a part of it; she‘s a high-ranking member—we think commanding one of their ships.

ONI has all the details. I‘ve seen their intelligence reports, and I believe those

usually-lying-through-their-teeth SOBs. They‘ve been tracking her insurgent alter ego for a long time and just discovered her civilian identity.

It‘s simple: She‘s been playing you, Preston.

ONI is going to come after you, too, claiming that she‘s been pumping you for classified ship patrol routes and technical information.

So here‘s how it‘s going to play out:

1. New orders are being transmitted in three hours from Reach CENTCOM.

2. You will be confined to quarters on the Gorgon with no access to communications until the Prowler Edge of Umbra arrives in system.

3. The Umbra will then transport you to Reach where ONI will put you through the debriefing of your life.

4. After that—what happens is anyone‘s guess. I‘ll wager ONI can‘t court-martial unless they can prove you willingly collaborated, because they built you into a military genius superstar back home.

But whatever they‘re going to do—it ain‘t going to be pretty.

I‘m breaking regs and telling you this because I don‘t believe for a hot second you would have gotten yourself deliberately involved in this—or that you‘d be stupid enough to divulge ship locations or technical secrets to some pretty girl.

You‘ve got three hours. Find Lyrenne before ONI gets her. Bring her in yourself. That‘ll go a long way toward clearing your name and ending this.

Good luck.

Harold

Personal letter from Captain Preston Cole to his brother,

Michael James Cole, July 6, 2503 (Military Calendar)

. . . to follow up on that last quick note, Michael. I need to let you know, in case things end up going badly.

Everything Stanforth said was true.

I got to the bar on Roost and Lyra was gone. Everything she owned in our room had been

taken—except one paper she left. It was a printout from a text-only exchange between the Gorgon and the captain of the Bellicose —something that happened two years ago. Lyra should have never known about it.

One part of that exchange she circled in red: ― We’re a good match. If you ever retire from the UNSC, you might consider working for the good guys."

It was a souvenir. She was the captain of the Bellicose , Michael.

All this time. Right under my nose.

Was she using me for information? That doesn‘t make sense. I never leaked any classified data.

And the more I think of it—the insurgent fighting almost died out in the sector since we met.

So is Lyra a spy? Or someone like me? A ship captain who fell in love and wanted more than a life of fighting?

I have to find out, Michael. I have to find her. —P

{Excerpt} UNSC After-Action Report: Battle Group Tango

AI-enhanced battle summation and casuality reports attached

PRELIMINARY:Battle Group Tango, comprising four heavy UNSC destroyers, engaged one insurgent-controlled frigate in the Theta Ursae Majoris system January 2, 2504 (Military Calendar).

Two UNSC destroyers heavily damaged. Insurgent vessel known as the Bellicose (aka the UNSC Bellerophon ) lost control, was caught in a gravitational pull of the gas giant (ref ID: XDU-OI-(1)), and lost with all hands.

ANALYSIS

History looks upon this time as an unfortunate (and perhaps inevitable?) misunderstanding between Earth and her colonies, but those of us fighting for the last decade also realize that it was the most amazing piece of blind fortune the human race has ever stumbled upon. Had we not been armed and learning how to fight in space . . . what would have happened in the years that followed, when we faced an enemy a hundred times worse?

Oblivion, no doubt.

For Preston Cole it was a time when he tempered his brilliance and flexibility into an implacable

―do whatever it takes" fighting style, a time of ascendancy when his deeds propelled him (with the help of ONI‘s glorification campaign) into one of the most beloved public figures of our generation.

On a personal level, however, Cole lost the woman he loved, suffered, found a second chance at love—and lost it all again.

At the debriefing ONI officers read him the After-Action Report concerning the Bellicose . I can only believe they thought Cole actually colluded with her and this tactic was designed to break his spirit.

( Note to self: find these fool interrogators and transfer them to Kelvin Research Station on Pluto.) And it did break Cole, but not in the way the debriefing officers expected. For any other man would‘ve given up everything because the lady in question was dead. For Cole, however, Lyra‘s honor had to now be preserved at all costs. Cole remained stoic and silent and utterly stubborn, just as he had when he was a cadet at the Academy at Mare Nubium. Even though he faced a

court-martial for treason—even execution—he did the noble thing and kept his mouth shut.

Because of immense pressure from Admiral Stanforth and from Cole‘s admiring public, he was

released (no charges filed), but given strict orders that the entire affair was classified.

So, the greatest hero of the age was sent back to Earth—to sit at a desk.

Cole would have stayed there for the rest of his life if the burgeoning civil war between Earth and her colonies had not been rendered irrelevant by the appearance of the Covenant.

SECTION SIX: THE COVENANT WAR: THE COLE

CAMPAIGNS (2525–2532 CE)

Cole was promoted to rear admiral. He agitated for a reassignment that got him back to space (all requests were denied). He proposed new policies to make the UNSC fighting forces more effective against the insurgency (all ignored). After eight months at his desk job, he was quietly offered early retirement with an honorary skip promotion to vice admiral (which he accepted).

In the years that followed, Cole’s star dimmed in the public eye, resurfacing for his highly publicized marriages to much younger women (each of which ended in even more spectacularly publicized divorces).

Cole’s liver failed from cirrhosis on May 11, 2525, and was subsequently replaced—as were his damaged heart and worn endocrine system—by flash-cloned transplants.

Shortly thereafter the Covenant encountered the human colony world Harvest. Only a handful of farmers managed to escape to warn the authorities. The Colonial Military Administration (CMA) sent a battle group to respond to the alien threat. They survived less than fourteen seconds before two of the three destroyers in the group were obliterated, and the remaining destroyer, the Heracles, was forced to retreat.

The Heracles sensor logs showed an enemy with an overwhelming technological superiority. The CMA was placed under NavCOM for the duration of the conflict and effectively absorbed into the UNSC. Central Command scrambled a fleet of more than forty ships of the line to respond . . . but they needed someone to lead that force.

Why did they pick Cole?

In hindsight, this was a masterful choice. Preston Cole was a hero and a tactical genius and would be the only person to ever consistently win against Covenant during the long war that followed.

Many claim that without Cole, the Covenant would have carved a path through the Outer Colonies and conquered Earth within three years, and humanity would be a memory today. Others say that any person with the same military assets at their disposal had could have done the job, and perhaps done it better.

Cole was one thing our collection of “brilliant” admirals were not, however—a fallen hero who womanized and drank too much. If CENTCOM’s plan to repel the aliens failed, he would have made an easy scapegoat.

I believe this last point is too convenient an explanation, however.

We had to win at Harvest. We were not going to pick someone solely for the sake of convenient explanations later.

No, there was something dark about Cole that appealed to our leaders. He had a proven stomach for carnage. Suicidal? Nothing so dramatic—but he did have a willingness to stare into the face of death, to sacrifice himself and any number of men and women and ships—and do so without flinching.

And that was precisely what we needed.

{Excerpt} Field Report ZZ-DE-009-856-841 Office of Naval

Intelligence

Reporting Agent: Lieutenant Commander Jack Hopper

(UNSC Service Number: 01283-94321-KQ) \ November 2,

2525 (Military Calendar)

As ordered, Lieutenant Demos and I went to offer Vice Admiral Cole reinstatement to active duty and the job command of the fleet to retake Harvest.

The admiral‘s general state when we arrived on his doorstep was one of indifference. He answered the doorbell in his bathrobe and did not bother to return our salutes. He looked much older than I thought he would. His hair was silver and gray as was his complexion. Gone was the spark in his eyes that I had seen in videos of this legendary man when I was a child. It was as if I‘d found the ghost of Admiral Cole, and not the man.

He did, however, read the situation report with interest, not flinching when he got to the part about the Heracles and how easily the enemy destroyed her counterparts.

Demos suspects he was drunk—a supposition supported by several empty bottles of Finnish black vodka in his living room.

I believe Cole‘s mind is as sharp as ever, though. Everywhere on the premises there were stacks of books (real paper books) on military histories and naval battles and the biographies of Xerxes, Grant, and Patton—and theoretical mathematical monographs on slipstream space and other

mathematical esoterica that frankly I had a difficult time even understanding the titles of (like Reunification Matrices of Hilbert Fields Within Spiral Unbounded Singularities ).

After reading the situation report twice, the admiral poured himself a drink, and offered one to Demos and myself. For politeness‘s sake we took them.

Cole then said, ―Three divorces, a cloned liver, two heart attacks—not much left of me, boys . . .

Like anyone can help with this slice of Armageddon. But okay. I‘m in."

He set aside his drink, untouched, and added, ―I think you need me as much as I need this." He got up to get dressed.

When he emerged from his bedroom he was in uniform and clean shaven—transformed from the

shade of a man we had seen before. He seemed taller somehow, and tougher.

By reflex, I suppose, Demos and I stood at attention and saluted.

Cole took command—issuing orders, asking what capital ships were available, rattling off the specifics of the staff he wanted, AIs that he would need, and then requested all the intelligence reports ONI was holding back.

Just like you said he would.

Vice Admiral’s Log (written) \ 1215 Hours November 15,

2525 (Military Calendar) \ UNSC cruiser Everest in

slipstream space en route to REACH

I‘ve digested the data from Heracles and the Chi Ceti Incident report.

The enemy has directed plasma weapons and a dissipative energy shield technology, the theoretical underpinnings of which our brightest can only guess at. The MAC rounds fired from

destroyers Arabia and Vostok at Harvest had no effect. They didn‘t have time to launch nukes . . . so their use against these energy shields remains unknown.

My assessment: trouble.

I see the situation as if we are a horde of Homo neanderthalensis rushing toward a medieval castle.

We will throw our sticks and stones against their unassailable fortifications—and they will rain hot death upon us with crossbow and boiling oil.

Will that analogy hold? Can I find a way to tunnel under those walls? Get inside and slaughter the enemy at close quarters?

I have to.

This first encounter with the aliens is a test—for them and us. So far we have failed that test. We have to show them that we cannot be so easily defeated. We have to win no matter the cost.

The super-heavy cruiser they have given me, Everest , is a supremely fine ship (although I already see a dozen modifications I wish to make to her). The crew is battle tested and razor sharp.

They believe in me.

God—I can see it in their eyes. They believe that the Admiral Cole is leading them into victory.

Maybe . . . but regardless, the truth of the matter is I will also be leading them straight into hell.