Halo: The Thursday War

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Halo: The Thursday War
Attribution information
Author(s):	Karen Traviss
Publication information
Publisher:	Tor Books
Publication date:	October 2, 2012
Media type:	Print (Paperback, hardcover), Audiobook

Halo: The Thursday War is the second novel in the Kilo-Five Trilogy by Karen Traviss, and a direct follow-up to Halo: Glasslands. It was released on October 2, 2012.

Summary

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The book begins with a brief recounting of events of the previous book, as narrated by Admiral Parangosky. On Sanghelios, Phillips recovers from an attack orchestrated by the Jiralhanae. Avu Med 'Telcam decides to gather the keeps under his command and launch his assault on Vadam, using the Brute attack as a distraction.

Evan Phillips is given permission to wander the temple. The fragment of BB residing in his radio has been damaged by a piece of shrapnel, saving Phillip's life, but causing the fragment to delete much of its potentially dangerous data. Phillips begins to explore the ruins, recording the engravings on the walls as he goes. After a long while of trying to translate Forerunner glyphs, Phillips unwittingly activates a teleporter, and is sent through. Meanwhile, Parangosky travels to the UNSC Infinity, and meets with Terrence Hood, Captain Andrew Del Rio, and his XO Thomas Lasky. They discuss the possibility of taking the ship to Sanghelios to test its capabilities. On the UNSC Port Stanley, Osman extracts the members of Kilo-Five that had gone to ground in Venezia. They reluctantly reveal their discovery that Naomi-010's father, Steffan Sentzke, is a known terrorist. The Stanley travels to Sanghelios of rendezvous with the Infinity.

On ONI Research Facility Trevalyn, Dr. Irena Magnusson tries to talk Jul 'Mdama into giving her information. She also uses him as a test subject for a new strain of Sangheili grain that is being developed by the Humans. The grain has been engineered to be indigestible and to overtake native plants, thus driving Sanghelios to famine. Jul is eventually given permission to roam relatively free outside his cell, though he is fitted with the same sort of explosive harness that the Covenant fitted to Huragok. Prone to Drift is ordered to accompany him. As he explores, Jul asks Prone about what the Forerunners were like, and is told of a figure known for his hatred of Humans, The Didact. Slowly, Jul attempts to learn what he can, and find a way to escape the shield world.

The Infinity arrives at Sanghelios after a relatively short jump. Using the technology procured from the Forerunners, the ship jumps into its expected place within a kilometer, a first for Human ships. The Infinity is also equipped with systems that will let it communicate while in Slipspace. The Port Stanley arrives shortly after, and Parangosky uses the opportunity to visit Osman. Lord Hood also attempts to gain permission from the Arbiter to allow a team to land on the planet to rescue Phillips. After finally being allowed to land, Kilo-Five is sent on Devereaux’s pelican, the UNSC Tart-Cart to Ontom to find Phillips.

They arrive in the city to find the Temple under attack by Jiralhanae. After killing them, Kilo-Five gain entrance to the Temple, and begin their search for Phillips. With BB using Naomi’s helmet filters and sensors to “smell” Phillips’ trail, the group tracks him until his scent mysteriously stops. They find their way outside, confronted by an increasingly rowdy and dangerous crowd of Sangheili. The Humans managed to get through the crowd and escape the city. BB manages to locate Phillips who has been sent to Acroli, a small rural state some 60 kilometers from Ontom, and also discover that Avu is headed to the same place. The Humans rush to Acroli, hoping to get there before Avu can.

Raia, Jul 'Mdama's wife, is fed up with her husband’s lack of communication, and goes off to find him, dragging a reluctant Forze along. They join Avu Med 'Telcam in an assault on Vadam Keep, but their ship is shot down. Raia, Forze, and Avu manage to make it out of the sinking wreckage alive, and join the rest of the attacking force on the coast.

Phillips has appeared in another Forerunner structure in a farmer’s field. He is found by some Unggoy laborers, and they comply with Phillip’s request to take him to their masters. Phillips meets with the keep’s masters, who are a group of female Sangheili. Phillips tries to convince them to allow him to call his people, but they tell him that they are expecting an attack from rival keeps that plan to use the civil war as a backdrop to forcibly take their land. Phillips and the Sangheili manage to drive off the first wave of attackers, and the women call Avu to tell him that the human he wanted found is with them.

The Tart-Cart arrives at the embattled keep, and manage to drive off the Sangheili besieging it. However, one of the pelican’s engines is damaged in the attempt. Avu, Raia, and Forze arrive soon after, but are soon convinced to allow Phillips to leave with the Humans. Raia and Forze help perform some hasty repairs to the Tart-Cart, and the Humans leave the planet, traveling to the Infinity for proper repairs.

So then Hood offers the Arbiter help and Andrew Del Rio fires a MAC shot at the Abiding Truth's ship that's presenting imminent danger to the Arbiter. It also attacks more Servant's forces. The Tart-Cart gets repaired and Parangosky visits Osman and brings Adj and Leaks Repaired with her to get on the Port Stanley and begin upgrading the ship's drives and communications. Tart-Cart has new upgrades and is repaired. They go pick up Avu as they need him and force him to get on the Tart-Cart. Naomi does it. The Tart-Cart then uses its mounted slipspace drive to travel to New Llanelli. So the Servant's forces Retreat to New Llanelli. The fact that there were ODSTs and a Spartan in the temple gave support to Avu from the other keeps. So BB destroys three of the Arbiter's ships to help Avu's forces from escaping by making it seem it was a Kig-Yar's ship who did it; a female shipmaster with stolen UNSC nukes. But one ship goes down, Raia and Forze are killed in the crash.

The Arbiter is thankful for the help. The Infinity hangs around. Port Stanley goes to New Llanelli to get Tart-Cart back, Avu gets deposited quickly before his troops arrive. They go to Trevelyan pay Jul a visit, Phillips does. So then Jul has learnt a lot, there are portals on Trevelyan but are malfunctioning. The Didact is locked on Requiem and hates humans. Evans has a small chat and checks out what they've discovered and how Avu has symbols he put on his belt. Didact, Requiem, Etc. Evans has to return and goes back to Port Stanley. They go to the Infinity and Margaret tells Phillips to see if they can get Halsey to integrate BB's damaged part to his full self. Halsey is in the Infinity and she often cries herself at night thinking of Miranda. BB "stalks" her a bit. Halsey can't help so BB gets on it himself. They try to learn what the information and symbols they gathered from the Sangheili Servants' Temple means. Phillips and BB get on it. Port Stanley receives a Mantis Mech and either Mal or Vaz steps in it. They prepare to go back to Venezia now that the "Thursday war" is over.

But then Jul goes to one of the portal stations where communication with Magnusson is cut off from Jul and Prone. And then he threatens that he'll remove the explosive harness if Prone doesn't take it off and help him with the portal. So Prone to Drift's primary purpose is to keep the Forerunner facility without damage so after trying out a couple of not-working portals, Jul finds a working portal and the harness is removed. Earlier, when Jul tried to do something with the portal, Prone to Drift threw Jul backwards a few meters. So then Jul escapes into the portal. The portals don't work well because they're not maintained well and all so Jul gets lucky.

After 14 to 19 hours, Doctor Magnusson contacts Parangosky who asks Hood if she can drop her off at Trevelyan. Maggie goes to Trevelyan and gets brief up on what has happened and how they could not find him and she was mad that Magnusson took so long to contact her. Magnusson gets arrested and her authority is stripped away. She is, removed from utility. Someone gets promoted. They try to search for Jul. But they got a benefit, they got the infected grains and beats the Sangheili eat. It grows in a bubble that accelerates time so they can grow the crops in days.

So then Kilo-Five goes to Trevelyan. Mike Spenser knows what's going on; Mal and Naomi have landed with Tart-Cart has new stealth upgrades. Their cover is UNSC deserters. They go back to Mike's house, then get updated. Naomi gets to see what her father looks like. Steffan has been out of the planet for a few days. The Pious Inquisitor has been captured by Kig-Yar. So they go sell some UNSC weapons to get some money, all tagged of course, and the salesman says something about Naomi looking familiar. Then they stumble upon Staffan and the Skirmisher, Sav Fel who took the Pious Inquisitor, in a truck/van near them.

Jul has been teleported on Kelekos, on Hesduros, a Sangheili colony, where he encounters a group of Sangheili young. They saw the markings on his belt, and hadn't had a lot of contact with Sangheilios long enough to not know a lot about the war's end and all very well. They are all attentive and due to what he has done and what he told them and the Didact thing, those Sangheili are positive about Jul. Jul asks to contact his keep and so they allow him to and he finds out Raia and Forze died. Jul gets some time alone and he's not happy. A Sangheili young shows him the second "holy gate", and it has missing symbols, the symbols Jul has on his belt are the missing symbols. Coordinates and other things. So then he tells the young to get the other Sangheili. They talk about the Didact a bit and how the Didact is the holy warrior who will return and save them. They agree Jul to help find the Didact and Requiem as well as avenge the death of Raia.

Spoilers end here.

Trivia

• A Thursday War is a colloquial name given in the Royal Navy for weekly war-fighting and damage control exercises that are held during Flag Officer Sea Training (FOST), so named because they are usually held on a Thursday.
• The title of the novel is foreshadowed in Chapter 17 of Halo: Glasslands, where the A.I. Black-Box tells Captain Serin Osman that "We might even get you on a Thursday war."
• The cover art depicts the Template:UNSCship among a group of Marathon-class cruisers and frigates.
• The release date for the novel is exactly 343 days after the release date of Halo: Glasslands.
• An excerpt of the novel's prologue first chapter was released in September 3, 2012 on Amazon.com.
• Red vs Blue references were made again, similar to Glasslands, a running-gag of Sangheili mispronouncing the name "Phillips" as "Phyllis", which is the phonetic pronunciation of the AI F.I.L.L.S
• The cover art of the novel shows a Spartan standing over a "glass" floor with a view of the Infinity below. This is depicted in Chapter 14 where Vaz can see the Infinity through part of Port Stanley's hull which was converted into transparent metal by Leaks Repaired.