Halo Lighting System First Strike Games - Manual (Page 342)

EPILOGUE
Ninth Age of Reclamation, Step of Silence \ Covenant Holy City
"High Charity," Sanctum of the Hierarchs.
A hundred thousand probes darted and scanned with winking
electronic eyes across the void of tangled nonspaces enveloping
the Covenant inner empire. They gathered data and emerged into
the cold vacuum, where they were recovered by the hundreds of
supercarriers and cruisers in station-keeping positions around
the massive, bulbous planetoid that dominated the heavens.
Not a single rock larger than a centimeter could enter this
space without being identified, targeted, and vaporized. Autho-
rization codes were updated hourly, and if any incoming vessel
hesitated for a millisecond with the proper response, it, too, met
unyielding destruction.
The High Charity drifted beneath this impervious network, il-
luminated by the glow from scores of warship engines.
Deep within, protected by legions of crack Covenant soldiers,
the Sanctum of the Heirarchs was an island of calm. The walls,
floor, and ceiling of the chamber were ornamented with mirrored
shards made from the fused glass of countless worlds conquered
by the Covenant Hegemony. They reflected the whispered thoughts
of the one who sat in the center of this room—mirrored them
back, so they might consider the glory of its domain, and learn
from its wisdom... because there was no higher source of intel-
lect, will, and truth alive in the galaxy.
In the middle of the chamber, hovering a meter off the floor
upon its imperial dais, sat the Covenant High Prophet of Truth.
Its body was barely discernible, covered as it was with a wide
red cloak, and upon its head sat a glowing headpiece with sensor