Shadow of Intent (HALO)

by Joseph Staten

  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 weapon 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 head. “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.”

  The Half-Jaw stared hard at the Prelate as he rose from the bench. “I’ve already set a course for the hidden sector. Before we arrive, you might want to reconsider who has told you the truth and who has not.”

  The Prelate watched in mute fury as the Half-Jaw stepped to the cell’s energy field. The barrier shimmered a lighter shade of blue, and the Sangheili walked through it and out of sight.

  “I hope your investigations went better than mine,” Rtas said to the Blademaster and the Unggoy, who were waiting in the guardroom outside the cell. Both still wore their battle armor. Vul ‘Soran was nervously fingering the twin hilts of his energy swords. Stolt was calmly holding his breath while he cleaned his mask. He toggled a valve with one of his thick thumbs, heard a satisfying hiss of methane, and then clipped the mask back into place.

  “Well, the good news first, then,” the Blademaster said. “The Jiralhanae didn’t cause any damage to the reactors. Strange, I know. But none of those hairy curs is alive to tell us what they were thinking, so let’s just be thankful that we still have enough power for the slipspace drive.”

  “And the bad news?” the Half-Jaw asked.

  “All forward plasma cannons offline. Most lasers down, too,” Stolt said. “This ship might look tough from far away. But it can’t fight.”

  Rtas nodded his head, only half listening to his two lieutenants. His mind was churning over a new puzzle, courtesy of the Prelate: Why would the Minister of Preparation, one of the San’Shyuum’s most brilliant Forerunner technologists, send the last living Prelate to capture my ship? The Half-Jaw had no idea. But he had a strong suspicion that the answer he sought was waiting for him in the hidden sector.

  Rtas fought the urge to rub the gash in his shoulder. The pain from the wound was intense, worse than he would ever let the Prelate or his own warriors know. And yet, once again, here he was, barely recovered from one battle and off to fight another. I don’t know if I have the strength for this. . . . And in this moment of weakness he went one step further: If the Minister wants this old, worthless ship so badly? Fine. He can have it!

  This idea was, of course, ridiculous, self-indulgent, and a betrayal of the Sangheili warrior code. But instead of feeling a rush of embarrassment and regret, Rtas was oddly energized. The pain in his shoulder suddenly fell away as the Half-Jaw realized: he had been so busy staring at his enemies’ puzzl
es that he failed to notice that he held—had always held—the most important piece.

  “I need volunteers,” the Half-Jaw said to Stolt. “Enough to manage a slipspace jump, but no more than we can fit into two Phantoms. Get the wounded and everyone else off of Shadow of Intent and down to Duraan’s surface.”

  The Unggoy’s beady eyes crinkled with questions. But content in the knowledge that he’d just placed his own name at the top of the list of volunteers, Stolt grumbled his assent and trotted out of the guardroom, methane tank rattling on his back.

  “The ballad of Kel ‘Darsam. . . . Haven’t heard that one sung in years.” The Blademaster glanced at the Prelate, brooding on the other side of the cell’s energy-field door. “Which do you think it was—spear in the front or in the back?”

  “I don’t know,” Rtas said. “But we’re about to find out.”

  Shadow of Intent slid forward, its hull reflecting the yellow, pink, and sapphire clouds of a nearby nebula that nearly filled the black horizon. As Rtas watched the colors shift across the carrier’s glossy hull, he was reminded of the sea predators that prowled the tidelands near his childhood home, a keep on the edge of one of Sanghelios’s warm equatorial oceans.

  The carrier was headed for a dark world without a star—a rogue planet spun out from an unknown cataclysm long ago, which was now content to carve its own stubborn path across the galactic disk, ignoring the feeble tugs of distant suns.

  Orbiting this planet was something that looked uncannily like a sea urchin, one of the clusters of needle-sharp spines that had bedeviled Rtas’s explorations of his keep’s shoreline at low tide.

  Once, when Rtas was barely out of his first decade, stripped to nothing but his loincloth and scampering on rocks close to shore, looking for small fish to spear, the sea had pulled quickly back, exposing a previously unseen world of limestone ridges and valleys, shaped and sharpened by ages upon ages of crashing waves. In fact, the water had receded so fast that countless sea creatures Rtas had only ever seen bulging from the deep-water nets of the keep’s fishing fleet were now caught unaware, trapped and splashing in rocky puddles much too shallow for their bulk.