The game opens with the torture of an alien, the leader of the Elites. He is being tortured by the covenant because he failed to stop Master Chief destroying the first Halo in the original game. The Elite commander is branded by the leader of the Brutes, another part of the Covenant. The player then takes control of Master Chief, on board a spacecraft orbiting the Earth when the massive Covenant fleet arrives. The Covenant have come to take the portal that will allow them to get to the new Halo so they can fire it. The Covenant board the ship the player is aboard, and attempt to plant bombs to disable it and the other ships in the human fleet. The player must fight through Covenant forces to disable the bombs. Once this is complete the human ship heads off, following the Covenant flagship that just flew past. Meanwhile, in the cutscene we see the former elite commander being made into a religious warrior known as "the Arbiter" to make up for his failure to stop Master Chief in the original Halo. 