Prologue THE RUBBLE, COVENANT OCCUPIED SYSTEM, 23 LIBRAE Ignatio Delgado ducked behind a bulkhead next to a set of cargo containers, the red paint peeling off their ribbed metal surfaces, just as a burst of plasma hit. The dull metal he hid behind glowed -- hot tiny molten gobs dripping then spitting as they hit the cold deck near his feet. "Melko?" he called out over the acrid sizzling. The answer came after a worrying pause: "Still here." His copilot made it behind the container. But that didn't change the problem coming right down their throats. The hold stretched up all around them -- the core of a mile-long asteroid, slowly spun up to provide gravity, and recently hollowed out. Delgado and Melko stood on the inside wall of the rocky cylinder. The cargo area's metal walls sunk into the rock and it was crammed with spare supplies from other asteroids. Delgado pulled out his pistol and pressed the heavily engraved and personalized grip up to his cheek. His uncle had replaced the weapon's stock with some very rare oak back on Madrigal, and created a piece of art out of this standard-issue M6. That was before the Covenant forces had glassed Madrigal. Before humans had fled to the safety of the asteroids trailing the gas giant Hesiod that the Insurrectionists