Master Chief locates this bomb, takes it with him to a hangar bay, and free falls through space with it, guiding it into a Covenant ship before safely hard-landing on the hull of In Amber Clad. While battling the Covenant boarders, Cortana reveals to you that the Covenant have placed a bomb on board, apparently planning to destroy the orbital stations and their deadly MAC guns to make it safe for the approach of a larger fleet.

Lord Hood orders Commander Keyes to get aboard her ship, In Amber Clad and orders the Master Chief to repel the station's boarders. The Cairo, as well as other orbital defense stations, such as the Malta, are boarded by Covenant forces. The Master Chief and Sergeant Johnson are decorated for their service on board the orbital defense station Cairo, but the ceremony is interrupted by a relatively small Covenant fleet led by the Prophet of Regret. A more recent addition to the Covenant, they seem less sophisticated and less honorable than the Elites, although no less brutal and fearsome. These scenes also reintroduce us to the massive, hairy, apelike Brute race, first seen in the E3 2003 realtime demo. He is stripped of his rank and armor, and tortured by the white-mohawked Brute, Tartarus.

The Arbiter blames this on the Flood parasite and his inability to predict the Chief's actions.

The Arbiter is blamed for allowing the Pillar of Autumn to escape from Reach to Halo, as well as for the Master Chief's destruction of that ring. The opening cutscene shows the two major plot threads that will progress through Halo 2: the fate of Master Chief, Sergeant Johnson, and the rest of the human forces, which includes Commander Miranda Keyes, the daughter of the late Captain Jacob Keyes, and Lord Hood, apparently a ranking official in UNSC and the fate of an unnamed gold Covenant Elite we come to know as The Arbiter, who was in command of the Covenant forces at Halo installation 04 and is consequently disgraced, accused of heresy, and then secretly sent on a special mission by the three Prophet Hierarchs of the Covenant: Truth, Mercy, and Regret.

Halo 2 missions