6 Halo stories better than what the Paramount show gave us

4. First Strike

Halo: First Strike is a novel by  Eric Nylund that bridges the first and second games in the series. It would make a great season of TV.

Floating in space over the destroyed ring, John insists that Cortana keep scanning the area to see if anyone survived Halo’s destruction. She eventually finds seven Covenant ships and three cryo-chambers that the Pillar of Autumn jettisoned before crashing on Halo. While recovering the tubes, they also find a Pelican drop ship nearby containing Sergeant Johnson and a handful of human survivors. When John was investigating the swamp, he found a video recording from Private Jenkins’ helmet showing Johnson and his crew getting infected by the Flood. Thinking Johnson is infected, John slams him into a wall, points a gun at his head and demands to know why he is alive. Johnson snarkily replies that he must not have tasted good to the Flood. Cortana confirms he is clean. Johnson’s enhanced physical and mental abilities obtained during the Spartan I program were the reason for his survival.

The group decides to commandeer the Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice. Cortana is able to kill most of the crew after plugging into the vessel’s controls and flies the ship to the nearby gas giant Threshold to avoid the rest of the fleet. After a dispute about where the group should fly the ship, John convinces them that they should return to Reach because they cannot fly to Earth due to the Cole protocol. John secretly wants to see if any other Spartan IIs survived. Johnson also discovers that one of the recovered cryo-tubes contains the injured Spartan Linda.

Meanwhile, the UNSC high command is informed about Reach’s destruction and that they must prepare for the final defense of humanity on Earth. 343 Guilty Spark survived the destruction of Halo and makes his way to a mining facility on Threshold. There he finds a group of Covenant and begins to tell their leader Sesa Refumee about the Flood and the true nature of Halo. Sesa is eventually convinced that his entire faith is based on lies and renounces his affiliation with the Covenant.

John and his crew arrive back on Reach and Cortana moves the ship closer to the surface where the Covenant “missed a spot.” There they hear a UNSC communication from the surface that consists of a six-note tune, “Oly Oly Oxen Free.” Nobody knows what it means except John, who remembers that he used the same tune to signal the other Spartans that the coast was clear during a game of capture the flag nearly 20 years ago. They take a dropship down to the surface where they find more Spartan IIs named Anton, Grace, and Li as well as Admiral Danforth Whitcomb. He explains that he was working to arm NOVA bombs, which can destroy planets, and that Red team is trapped underground.

During the Covenant invasion, Kelly and Fred were able to fight their way into Castle Base, which is located underneath a mountain. There they find Dr. Halsey and the surviving Spartans of Delta team: Isaac, Vinh and Will. The Covenant begin invading the base and the group is forced to travel deeper into the mountain through abandoned titanium mines. There they find a Forerunner crystal that inadvertently alerts the Covenant to their location. Issac and Vihn die trying to defend the rest of the group’s escape. They eventually find a dead end but John and his group show up to get them out just in time.

They all return to the Ascendant Justice, which has been combined with the UNSC Gettysburg. According to Cortana, the Covenant have learned the location of Earth and are sending a massive invasion fleet. Cortana makes a slip space jump and Halsey notices that the crystal she found is changing shape and emitting radiation. Inside slipspace, a group of Covenant ships starts attacking the Ascendent Justice. The ship takes some damage and the Spartans have to go outside to repair it. Anton, Li and Polaski are killed by errant plasma.

The team regroups and decides to travel to the insurrectionist base that the Spartan IIs infiltrated on their very first mission decades ago. Halsey reveals that Johnson has a condition called Boren’s syndrome that makes his nervous system more immune to Flood infection. She then urges John to inform ONI of Johnson’s condition, and to give them a data disk so they can experiment on him and save future humans from being infected. Halsey then prepares to perform surgery on Linda. Halsey later flees with Kelly to the secret planet of Onyx, which is the home of the Spartan III program.

Eventually, Johnson points out that the group has a unique opportunity to strike a blow against the Covenant, as this is the first time they know where the aliens will be. The plan involves the five remaining Spartans dropping out of slipspace in a small ship to detonate the invasion force’s flagship while the rest of the team heads to Earth. The Spartans are successful in infiltrating the space station Unyielding Hierophant and setting the reactors to blow, which will destroy the adjacent fleet as well.

While they leave on another small dropship, the team is hailed by Admiral Whitcomb, who explains that blowing up the Unyielding Hierophant would not be enough. He then proceeds to fly the Ascendant Justice into the fleet to multiply the explosion, destroying the vast majority of the 500-ship fleet. Before this dramatic sacrifice, the UNSC Gettysburg was detached from Ascendant Justice. Johnson and Cortana are still on board. Along with the remaining Spartans, they return to Earth to report all the events from Halo and operation First Strike. John also decides to destroy the data disk and spare Johnson’s life.