by Various
Instantly, the Jiralhanae unleashed a volley of fragmentation grenades from their heavy, belt-fed launchers. As the grenades’ orange-and-blue explosions filled the enemy’s position with shrapnel, the Prelate sprinted toward the same ramp the rangers had used to enter the bay. But as he accelerated, the Prelate saw from the corner of his eye that the Unggoy and the red-armored Sangheili female were breaking cover to try to cut him off. As much as it galled him to avoid a fight, the Prelate would not stop to engage them. His primary objective was the command deck—and the only enemy that really mattered was the Half-Jaw.
A clang of armor behind the Prelate told him his rear guard had tangled with his two pursuers. As the Prelate topped the ramp and sped into the passage beyond, he checked the motion tracker in his visor and noted seven Jiralhanae charging close behind him. These were all the troops he’d have to help him take the command deck, and as the Prelate felt a dizziness creeping up the back of his skull—his enhanced nervous system’s first warning of excessive exertion—he throttled his speed and let the Jiralhanae catch up.
Tem’Bhetek didn’t need a map to the command deck. In his mind’s eye, he saw Shadow of Intent’s passages spread out before him. He knew the carrier so well that he often found sleep by making phantom sprints through its warrens of anodized, deep-purple corridors. If he was fortunate, these waking dreams would carry with him into slumber, replacing his usual nightmarish journey through High Charity.
But quite often, the two dreams would bleed together.
Tem would see Yalar walking Shadow of Intent’s twisting trapezoidal halls, her thin yellow gown billowing behind her, only to disappear around the bend of a passage or whisk up a gravity lift before he could reach her. Sometimes Yalar would be waiting for him on the command deck, sitting in the Half-Jaw’s empty chair, staring at him with sad eyes, cradling their crying child. . . .
The Prelate shook his head, forcing himself to breathe. He was nearing Shadow of Intent’s gravity lift, which was halfway to the command deck. Muscles aching with spent fury, the Prelate knew he had just a few more bursts of hyperlethal speed before his body completely seized. With his Jiralhanae panting behind him, the Prelate raced through a four-way intersection into a high-ceilinged muster bay, slowed as he passed through one of the bay’s sally ports, and then came to a full stop on the wide platform that ringed the gravity lift beyond.
Shadow of Intent had been the bane of other ships, human and Covenant alike. But it was also a prodigious troop carrier that had played a key role in the invasions of many human worlds, and the lift at the center of this large, arched chamber was the fastest way to deploy its armored infantry. Hovering low above the surface of a planet, Shadow of Intent could send hundreds of troops per minute down the lift—or pull them back up, depending on the direction of the anti-grav field, which was produced by a machine of Forerunner design suspended from the roof. When active, this chandelier of crystalline tines projected its field down a circular shaft through the carrier’s hull, more than a hundred meters wide and at least that many deep. At the bottom of the shaft was a ponderous armored platform that was always the first item down the lift. Once the platform was placed firmly on the ground, it served as the receiving end of the anti-grav field and a temporary firebase for the descending troops.
All of this was familiar to the Prelate from his study of the ship, and while the Jiralhanae that came up behind him were momentarily dazzled by the prismatic light of the gravity lift’s Forerunner machinery, the Prelate’s eyes immediately focused on the two Sangheili moving fast toward his position. He knew them by their armor: the Half-Jaw and his Blademaster, running opposite ways around the lift’s yawning shaft.
Tem had always imagined he’d kill the Half-Jaw on the command deck. It seemed a fitting stage for the fight that would determine who controlled the mighty ship.
No matter. I will gut him here and watch his blood spill down the lift.
The Prelate willed his body again to its full potential. . . .
But before he could unleash it, he felt three sharp slaps between his shoulders, and he staggered forward onto a knee. The Prelate’s shields had kept the carbine’s radioactive slugs from penetrating his armor, and the chemicals in his bloodstream had dulled the pain. But craning his long neck around to zero in on the shooter, the Prelate was shocked to see that the Unggoy, as well as the red-armored Sangheili female and four rangers, had already caught up to his Jiralhanae rear guard—and was shooting past them. Tem cursed his decision to slow his pace as he turned to meet his pursuers.
If this Unggoy wants to die first? Very well. The Half-Jaw can wait.
And yet it was the female Sangheili who charged the fastest through the sally port, meeting the Prelate as he surged forward. She spun her lance, deflecting a burst from his plasma rifle, and then twirled sideways to avoid a slash from his hardlight shield. The Prelate slid past her in a crouch, swept a ranger off his feet, and then fired an arc of plasma that sent the other rangers and the Unggoy diving for cover. But the female Sangheili stood her ground, legs planted in a ready stance. She barely flinched as the last of the Prelate’s shots burned past her helmet.
“Where are they?” she demanded, her voice low and steady. “My father. My brothers.”
The Prelate considered her question for a moment, and then his earlier feelings of familiarity settled into fact. “Dead and gone,” he replied, remembering the three Sangheili he had captured on Rahnelo—the ones who had died on their knees before the miniature Halo. “I saw to that myself.”
Then she came at him, jaws wide in a high-pitched roar.
She was fast, to be sure, and the Prelate didn’t have much experience against a lance. For a few seconds, it took all his focus to deflect her attacks: deep thrusts and counterrotating slashes that she delivered with a dancer’s grace and a demon’s fury. But then he feigned an opening—dropping his shield and tempting her to overreach—and when she stabbed her lance toward his midsection, the Prelate stepped aside and grabbed the weapon on its shaft, right between her hands, and then pulled her close and smashed his helmet into hers. She staggered backward, dazed, and collapsed onto her side.
The Prelate spun the lance around his hand, altering his grip for a downward thrust to spike the female to the floor. But as he raised the weapon, the Prelate felt the vibration of heavy footfalls from behind, and he spun to meet them instead of making the kill. The lance’s energized tip stopped in midair, vibrating and crackling against the Half-Jaw’s energy blade.
“If you want my ship,” Rtas ‘Vadum growled, “you’ll need to be faster than that.”
The Prelate’s wide lips tightened into a sneer. “As you wish.”
At long last, he was facing the traitorous Sangheili who had allowed the Flood to invade High Charity—the one responsible for killing his wife and child.
Tem’Bhetek exhaled, released the last of his mental gates, and attacked the Half-Jaw with the full measure of his fury.
Shoving away his foe’s sword arm with the lance, the Prelate fired a point-blank burst with his rifle. But the Half-Jaw flowed with the lance and out of the line of fire, and then ducked under the Prelate’s arm and brought his blade around and down onto the Prelate’s armored neck. Tem’s shield flashed but held, and he shrugged the blade away, answering the Half-Jaw’s counterattack with a savage kick to the ribs.
Their duel was a blur until the Prelate found a hole in the Half-Jaw’s defenses and caught him in the shoulder with his hardlight shield—a cut that burned through Rtas’s armor and into flesh. The two combatants stepped away from each other, breathing heavily. All around them, the Sangheili rangers and Jiralhanae were locked in their own deadly dance.
“You will . . . not win this fight,” the Half-Jaw said through ragged breaths.
His own chest heaving, the Prelate flicked his eyes to: the Unggoy leaping onto a Jiralhanae’s back and choking it to the floor; and the Blademaster using one of his plasma swords to sever a Jiralhanae’s w
eapon arm and then sending its head flying with the other. Two more Brutes lay dead on the deck along with the rangers that had taken them down—which left only three of the Prelate’s warriors still standing, and he realized that the Half-Jaw just might be right.
Tem’s rapidly spinning mind recalled his primary objective: take Shadow of Intent and bring it to the Minister of Preparation.
A glance at a troop roster in his visor showed that the Jiralhanae squads in the hangar were still alive. If they secured the reactors, and if he made it to the command deck, they could execute a slipspace jump back to the Forerunner installation. . . .
The Prelate glared at the Half-Jaw through the cautionary pain wrapping around his brain.
I may not win this battle, but I can still bring you to your doom.
Casting aside the energy lance, the Prelate increased power to his belt and suddenly soared over the Half-Jaw and into the gravity lift chamber. He was well past the breaking point; his enhanced nerves were frayed and his muscles were beginning to spasm. His vision was constricting but still focused on the only thing that mattered: an open passage on the far side of the shaft leading to the command deck. Without his Jiralhanae to slow him down, he could easily outpace his pursuers, lock himself inside the command deck, open the airlocks, and vent all the cursed Sangheili into space—
Then the Prelate saw Yalar, standing in the arched doorway to the passage.
Fearful of smashing directly into his beloved, the Prelate slowed his flight across the shaft, and in that moment one of the Blademaster’s hurled swords caught him between his shoulders, instantly depleting what remained of his shields and flipping him head over heels. The Prelate’s momentum carried him across the gap and onto the platform on the far side, where he landed hard and rolled to a stop, facedown on the burnished metal floor.
“Yalar . . . !” the Prelate groaned as his wife drifted away into the passage. At the same time he heard the staccato bursts of maneuvering jets, felt something land and plant its feet on either side of his waist. But all of these sensations were dull and far away.
“Please!” Tem said, reaching a hand toward the retreating ghost. “Don’t go!”
Yalar stopped, looked over her shoulder, and frowned.
This path, where does it lead . . . ?
Then the Unggoy smashed his hard, spiny fist into the side of the Prelate’s helmet, and his world went black.
When the Prelate woke, he was uncertain how much time had passed. It couldn’t have been that long, for his muscles still ached and his head throbbed from his exertions.
I’m alive, at least. That’s a start. . . .
He slowly opened his eyes and discovered he was in a holding cell—a small room with a scuffed metal floor and walls made of hexagonal bronze tiles. One of the cell’s walls was filled with a translucent blue energy field that served as its door. Tem’Bhetek was still in his armor, although someone had removed his helmet, and he was slumped at the base of the wall to the left of the cell door. Tem tried to reach up and massage an ache in his head where the Unggoy had applied his fist, only to find that his hands were bound to his ankles with heavy, magnetized manacles that kept him firmly rooted to the deck.
He was a prisoner. But he was not alone in his cell.
“Your Jiralhanae are all dead,” the Half-Jaw said. He was sitting opposite the Prelate on a bench protruding from the wall. The Half-Jaw’s silver armor was flecked with Jiralhanae blood. “We just cleaned the last of them out of the engineering decks.”
Unfortunate, if not unexpected, news. But the Prelate was glad to see a long, freshly cauterized gash across one of the Half-Jaw’s shoulder plates where his hardlight shield had left its mark.
“Did you offer them terms?” The Prelate did his best not to slur his words. But he could taste the residue of chemicals in his mouth, and he knew, after how far he had pushed himself, that he was lucky he could speak at all.
“Yes. They refused.”
“If they hadn’t, I would have killed them all myself.”
For a long time, the Half-Jaw and the Prelate simply stared at each other. Tem saw that his enemy was unarmed. This was almost certainly a diplomatic gesture, meant to put the San’Shyuum at ease. But it had the exact opposite effect. I hate him more than anything in the universe, and he hopes I will be content to sit here and talk?!
The Prelate shut his eyes and curled his long neck back against the wall. Its tiles were cool and damp, and he hoped this would slow the anger creeping up his spine.
“We’ve also captured Spear of Light,” the Half-Jaw said. “Most of its systems were beyond repair. But the navigational database was intact. We know everywhere you’ve traveled. Duraan, Rahnelo . . . as well as where you came from—the system you have been using as a base of operations.”
But nothing else, the Prelate thought. Or I would already be dead, and we wouldn’t be having such a pleasant chat.
“We know the system is in a hidden sector,” the Half-Jaw continued, knitting his long fingers together in his lap. “One of many the San’Shyuum kept for themselves.”
Now Tem couldn’t resist: “And you want to know what’s in it.”
“I’d like to know what the only Prelate to survive the fall of High Charity deems so important that he would be willing to murder thousands of innocent Sangheili in order to protect it.” The Half-Jaw clenched his fingers tight. “Yes. I would like to know that.”
At the mention of High Charity, Tem’Bhetek’s anger exploded at the base of his skull. But he gritted his teeth and held his tongue . . . until the Half-Jaw took one step too far.
“Tell me what is in that sector, and your death will be quick and painless.”
Tem almost choked on his hatred. “Where was your mercy?” He strained against his manacles, ignoring the needling chemical aftertaste that warned him to remain still. “When you incinerated my family and everyone else inside the holy city?!”
“I cleansed an infestation.”
“The Flood?” the Prelate shouted in disgust. “They were just an excuse!”
“An excuse?”
“For you and all the other shipmasters to commit your final act of betrayal!”
“You speak nonsense.”
“I speak the truth!”
“Ah. Just like the Prophet?” The Half-Jaw leaned forward and angled one eye and his ruined jaw at the Prelate. “I don’t know which one of us was the bigger fool—me for believing Truth’s lies, or you for ignoring them.”
“I am no fool, and the Minister of Preparation will—!” Tem snapped his mouth shut. Calm yourself, before you say too much!
“Preparation?” The Half-Jaw wrapped his hands around the edge of the bench. “I’m surprised he made it out alive. By the time we breached the stalk, the Sacred Promissory was teeming with Flood. And the dome’s lower districts . . .”
The Half-Jaw paused and looked past the Prelate at a spot far beyond the walls of the cell. When he spoke again, the Prelate was surprised by how tired and regretful the Sangheili sounded.
“There were still San’Shyuum alive in their towers. We heard their transmissions, saw some of them in the air, trying to reach us. But the parasite was thick around us then. We couldn’t hold our position, although many Sangheili died trying. When I realized there was nothing more we could do, only then did I give the order to burn the city.” The Half-Jaw met the Prelate’s angry gaze. “I am sorry for your family. Believe me when I tell you that I would have saved them if I could.”
The Prelate was stunned—not by the Half-Jaw’s apology but by his admission. There were still San’Shyuum alive in their towers. . . . As much as the Prelate wanted to remain silent—as strongly as he suspected the Half-Jaw’s sincerity was merely a ruse to get him to divulge more information—he couldn’t help the words that slipped past his trembling lips: “You lie. There was no one alive in the city when I left it.”
“Who told you that? The Minister of Preparation?” The Half-Jaw shook his hea
d. “I’m telling you what I saw with my own eyes.”
“My family. Is dead.”
“Alas, they are. But not by my hand.”
The Prelate did not—could not—believe anything the Half-Jaw said. Because if this Sangheili’s account of the fall of High Charity was true, there was a chance he might have been able to rescue Yalar and his child. A chance that their blood was on his hands.
In this moment of sickening possibility, Tem’Bhetek felt more anger than he ever had before. Not at the Half-Jaw, but at himself.
“What is in this hidden sector?” the Half-Jaw asked again.
The Prelate lashed out, desperate to redirect his rage. “Exactly what you deserve!”
The Half-Jaw leaned back against the wall. After a long silence, he said: “Your ship, Spear of Light . . . do you know the song behind that name?”
The Prelate remembered the proud voices of the Sangheili prisoners kneeling before the ring. But his mind was reeling, and for a moment he imagined the prisoners singing Yalar’s lullaby instead of their own, defiant tune.
Take my hand, walk with me . . .
Tem shuddered in his restraints. “Damn you. And damn your songs, Sangheili.”
“The ballad of Kel ‘Darsam is very old,” the Half-Jaw persisted. “Something I learned as a child. There is one verse . . .”
And then the Half-Jaw sang.
Despite his ragged jaws, the words that came out in his native tongue were melodious and sweet. The Half-Jaw sang beautifully, in fact, and it made the Prelate hate him more than ever.
When the Half-Jaw was done with the verse, he translated it into standard Covenant: “Kel ‘Darsam fell, spear in his back, down to the rocks where the waves did crack.” The shipmaster shrugged. “No one really knows who killed Kel ‘Darsam. Some believe his enemy threw the spear. Others think it was his uncle—that the spear was a betrayal even that great warrior could not see before it struck him in the back.”