Deep-space artifact
From Halopedia, the Halo wiki
Summary
Some kind of artifact was discovered by the UNSC Apocalypso in late 2552. It was on patrol deep in Covenant space.
The ship then headed back to Earth when Captain Greene feared that the Covenant had done something to their AI, Melissa. When they exited Slipspace the artifact shattered their AI into fragments, send them through Slipspace channels. One peice of the AI landed in Jersey Morelli's chatter, and the other was thrown back in time to the early 21st century. The artifact was taken to Chawla Base in Boston, MA, where it was discovered to be some kind of "magnetic field decay timer", like a countdown. So far, ONI thought it was a Covenant artifact, but it was later revealed to be Forerunner in origin.
