That's the story you'll read on the back of the box when ODST ships to stores on Sept. 22. But Bungie isn't exactly known for tying up loose ends, and like all Halo games, ODST just may end up raising more questions about the Haloverse than it answers. At PAX 2009, Bungie lead writer and ODST Creative Director Joe Staten made it clear that there's going to be more going on under the surface of the game than has been previously reported.

Remember the I love bees alternate reality game that surfaced as a marketing push for Halo 2? The company that made it, 42 Entertainment, spawned a splinter company called Fourth Wall Studios. And Bungie has been working with Fourth Wall on an entire sub-story that's buried within Halo 3: ODST. It's called Sadie's Story, and it follows the life of New Mombasa resident named Sadie during the final hours before everything goes to hell in the city during the events of Halo 2 (and subsequently ODST).

Staten showed a few fleeting images of Sadie's Story, which he co-wrote with Fourth Wall, in collaboration with renowned comic artist Ashley Wood. We saw concept art of Sadie on a commuter train, then an image that looked like a flash of violent red and black with multiple figures in silhouette... and then it was gone. Just a glimpse of what's to come.

Bungie didn't elaborate on how Sadie's Story will be presented in Halo 3: ODST, but we do know that adding it to the game doubled the amount of voice acting work the studio did for the overall project. And the story won't be told in a traditional action-and-cutscene format, but rather will be revealed in snippets as your character, the rookie, makes his way through the world, gathering clues about what went down in the city. Bungie says Sadie's Story ties in with the main ODST storyline and, consequently, the overall Halo meta-storyline.