The novel is an ensemble piece, with the action being narrated from human and alien Covenant viewpoints.[4] After noticing the disappearances of ships around the remote agricultural colony Harvest, The United Nations Space Command sends Staff Sergeants Avery Johnson and Nolan Byrne to Harvest to raise a militia. The disappearances are revealed to be alien Kig-Yar vessels intercepting the ships in their search for relics left by the Forerunners, an ancient race sacred to the Kig-Yar and other members of the Covenant. Members of the vessel are shocked to discover that their instruments indicates hundreds of thousands of Forerunner relics on Harvest.