Disclaimer: I can't believe that this still has to be said, but Halo is all 343 Industry's. Any attempts to sue the author will net you at most one of my doomsday devices (Go ahead and take one, I have more!)
A/N: This chapter is the first since the intro to bring in a Covenant perspective. To deal with some potential confusion, keep the following in mind: R'tas Vadumee (Spec Ops Commando from Halo 2 & 3, otherwise known as Half-Jaw) and Thel Vadamee (the Arbiter from canon).
Also Warning: there is some fair amount of drug use in this chapter.
Second to last, advance apologies to Bioware and Mass Effect 3 as well as the Simpsons. You'll see.
And finally, offer your sacrifices to Tikigod, Mercenaryhmster, and my new beta Animus of Masada so they may continue to beta my fic. Sandwiches will be just fine.
"An Army is maintained for a thousand days to be used in one." - Sun Tzu, the Art of War.
Ninth Age of Reclamation, Step of Silence \ Covenant Holy City "High Charity," Citadel of the Council of Masters.
There existed many nerve centers in the holy city of High Charity, each facilitating the glory of the Covenant Empire. The most obvious being the mighty Forerunner vessel nestled at the very heart of the city, from which the majority of the mobile station's power and network control originate. Then there were the political and religious centers, which, for the Covenant, were one and the same. There was also the Inner Sanctum of the Hierarchs, along with the Outer Sanctum of the High Council, which formed the heart of the Covenant's governing body. A few kilometers away, separated by urban sprawl, was the Sacred Valley where the Writ of Union— the founding event of the Covenant—was first signed by the Sangheili and San'Shyuum a great many ages ago. This valley of small rolling hills, groves, and streams are preserved as it was at the very moment of signing and remained the holiest site for rituals. Finally, there was the Citadel of the Council of Masters, where the fleetmasters convened to direct the righteous fury of the Covenant's massive armadas.
Any pilgrims visiting the Holy City at the time, though, would be temporarily disappointed. With the Anniversary of the Founding mere days away, most government officials were already gone on holiday. The only major government body still functioning at full splendor was the Citadel of the Council of Masters. Formerly the seat of power for the Sangheili Grand Council before the formation of the Covenant, the massive structure was lifted wholesale from its grounds on Sangheilos and placed on High Charity. Its foundation was a sizable plateau that raised the entire structure high above the rest of the cityscape. It was designed to be both fully defensible while also serving as an artistic tribute to the past glories of ancient times. With high walls and steep cliffs, the only viable way to enter the Citadel was through its heavily defended front entrance. The approaching rampart was smooth, but it also formed a massive funnel for any attackers, whom would be under fire from a series of heavily reinforced keeps. Even if the invaders breached the outer wall, the inner bastion formed a fortress within a fortress that, with its open spaces and keeps, made it even more defensible than the outer wall. It was a monument to Sangheili military culture: elegance with brutal lethality.
Of course, all of this was made moot by the fact that the fortress had no conceivable foes to defend against, and that the bulk of the security force's weaponry was small arms and sensors meant to detect plainly dressed assassins and spies rather than lumbering armies. The central courtyard that was originally meant to be a killing ground had since been repurposed as the Citadel's central commons, with appropriate splendor. The only heavy weapons still in place in the Citadel were a series of anti-air needle batteries that only pointed outward and skyward and a plasma shield surrounding the inner bastion. These were put in place during the Age of Conversion after Councilor Quiolmee's infamous plot to assassinate the entire Council of Masters with airborne sharpshooters, which came perilously close to success.
Sited just past the Mausoleum of the Arbiters, the main chamber housed the Council of Masters in a series of benches that formed a rough arc with its concave facing the entrance. The stage below featured a fairly large dais, forming a theater-like stage for the council members. This setup was by design, as it harkened back to the days of bloody tanistry when the majority of Sangheili promotions through the ranks were by officially sanctioned duels to the death.
Beside the architectural marvel that is the Citadel, though, visitors would also be able to witness the political drama unfolding in the main chamber.
"This is unprecedented! Unacceptable!"
The esteemed members of the Council of Masters growled in agreement to the speaker, a single Sangheili ultra standing in the middle of the chamber hall. However, there were a few dissidents that kept their silence.
Opposite the Ultra, the Prophet of Truth raised his hand to silence the audience. A single Jiralhanae, a chieftain with a gray coat of fur and the mighty Fist of Rukt, stood to his side, chuckling to himself in mild amusement. Gracefully, the prophet's throne glided over towards the ultra.
"It is merely a parade, Commander Vadamee," the prophet offered.
Vadamee swiped his arms at the comment. "Yes, Prophet. It is indeed a parade, but only for the honored escorts of Your Holiness on the Great Journey. Only the Sangheilis have ever marched before the Sacred Valley on the Day of Union. Since the very founding of the Covenant, it has been so."
Truth folded his hands in a show of patience, a patience that was wearing very thin beneath his veneer of calm. "And the Sangheili shall remain as such. There is no reason for the Council's anger."
"Is there?" Vadamee retorted, suspicion clearly evident in his tone.
Finally, Tartarus erupted in laughter before sneering at Vadamee. "What's wrong? Can't handle at little competition?"
The ultra stretched his mandibles, growling a challenge that, unfortunately, everyone knew Tartarus would not be permitted to accept.
Not satisfied with his first slight, Tartarus pushed on. "Perhaps if you focused more on your jobs rather than useless formalities, the war against the vermin would have already been won."
Before the exchange between the two warriors could turn lethal, the chamber doors opened once more to admit two new guests. The august and revered Prophet of Mercy ushered into the chamber with another detachment of Sangheili honor guards. Beside him was a Sangheili fleetmaster donned in gold and black armor.
Immediately, Mercy spoke with both authority and plea in his raspy voice. "Peace! We are all travelers on the Great Journey. The only possible manner of which we may fail our inevitable destiny is for us to splinter from within."
The chamber quickly settled down. Vadamee immediately bowed before the newly arrived Sangheili.
"Fleetmaster Vadamee. You grace us with your presence." The Sangheili commando greeted.
The commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice returned the gesture before glaring at Tartarus. "Why is that mongrel here?"
"The Prophet of Truth and Tartarus have come to announce that it is the High Council's decision that a detachment of Jiralhanae be allowed to march with you during the parade on the Day of Union."
Vadamee narrowed his eyes before marching in front of Tartarus' face. "You are trying to go above your station, Chieftain." Vadamee spoke with both respect and hostility, as was due for a powerful potential foe in the eyes of the Sangheili.
"Not for long, Fleetmaster," Tartarus replied with a conspiratorial grin before turning to Council of Master once more. "Regardless of whatever delicate feelings that you might harbor, the High Council has spoken. Do you dare to defy the voice of the Covenant?"
A long silence hung in the air until Tartarus spoke once more. "I thought not."
"Then we shall boycott the ceremony!" the fleetmaster answered.
Within seconds, the council erupted in agreement.
Vadamee tuned to Tartarus again. Though he spoke softly, his words carried the weight of an honor-bound protest of the highest level. "The Council of Masters have spoken. You want the parade? It's yours. But there shall be no legion of honor beside you."
"That suits me just fine," Tartarus spat back.
"No!" Truth shouted. "The Anniversary of the Founding shall not be disrupted by these trivialities!"
Vadamee interjected himself once more. "The Council of Masters is not the leashed Unngoy of the High Council. The Writ of Union is explicit in our autonomy in matters of ceremony."
"Enough!" Mercy declared, silencing the room. "The High Council's commands shall be done. However, the commander is correct. If the Council of Masters wishes to boycott the ceremony, it is well within their right to do so. So say the Writ of Union!"
With some hesitation, all the participants nodded in acquiescence.
As the commotion died down, Mercy nodded towards Truth, and the two prophets quickly departed the council chambers. Passing through to the citadel's courtyard, Mercy turned towards the Jiralhanae chieftain and the honor guards. "Leave us."
The underlings quickly faded away, leaving the two prophets to the serenity of the courtyard's stone works and shrubbery.
"It was fortunate that the Fleetmaster arrived early," Truth began. "Vadamee is far more sensible than the rest of the—"
"Do you not listen?" Mercy interrupted. "Or perhaps you do not remember our station?"
"I remember, old friend," Truth replied, his tone betraying his slight exasperation and familiarity for the subject. "For the Covenant."
"Yes, for the Covenant, though I might be convinced otherwise by your actions."
"You are overreacting," Truth replied. "The Council of Masters is overreacting. The High Council is in agreement with me. Change is inevitable."
"You mean the High Council that approved your plan with the smallest of majority?" Mercy challenged.
"A slim majority is still a majority," Truth argued.
The elder hierarch sighed before turning towards the younger. "You are making this far more difficult an enterprise than it need be. Between you and Regret, the destruction of the humans will be for nothing if you two tear the Covenant apart from the inside out. He will not be happy to hear what you have done in his absence."
Truth scoffed at the comment. Regret was the real firebrand, not him. The youngest hierarch was both the most religiously fanatical of the three and the most reliable hierarch for the Sangheilis. Between Regret's immoveable stance on the status of the Sangheilis and Mercy's political moderation, it had proved nigh impossible to prosecute his efforts to increase the standing of the Jiralhanae before the eyes of the Covenant masses. Regret's absence on his archeological expedition made things far easier.
"It was a mistake to include him in the first place, old friend," Truth said.
"One could say the same for you," Mercy remarked. "Regardless, the deed is done. This crisis is over."
The elder hierarch turned his throne and began to float away. Suddenly, he turned back towards Truth and spoke. "I am getting too old for this, Ord. I shall not be around forever, keeping the peace between the two of you. I pray to the Forerunners that the two of you would finally stop your agitations. If not, then before my passing I shall weep for our sacred Covenant."
0500 Hours, November 10th, 2552 (Military Calendar) / 1st Spartan Combat Group, Captured Covenant Cargo Ship, X-3279 System, Sector 357.
So this was it.
Once again on the bridge of the captured cargo ship, Spartan-117 looked out at the ship's destination. Outside the holy city, over 700 ships of High Charity's defense fleet loitered about, taking their time to inspect every ship, civilian and military, bound for the mobile station. The local airspace was crowded with literally thousands of ships of all sorts waiting in line. Unsurprisingly, the line moved forward only ever so slowly.
It seemed that red tape was truly a universal phenomenon.
John had to fight down a sense of dread. The beginning of most missions tended to be the time when the entire thing could go to hell. Case in point, every single one of the 700-plus warships in the defense fleet was at high alert, their plasma torpedo turrets glowing white hot. To top it all off, the computers confirmed that at least two destroyers already had targeting solutions on their little ship.
Just then, the computer console in front of Kat chirped.
"Oh, that's not good for them," she commented. "And they missed the window by just a tenth of a second."
On cue, a couple of frigates fired off a volley of plasma torpedoes and point defense laser beams towards the one of the transports at the front of the line. The transport instantly disintegrated, though frigates kept firing until no chunks bigger than a person's fist were left.
That was not at all the first Covenant ship that the Spartans had seen blown up by their own fleet. And it wasn't just civilian ships, either, as shown by the assault carrier that met its end about an hour ago. For a moment, the commander wondered how many more ships the UNDFSC would have had to face in battle if it weren't for High Charity's overly paranoid defenses.
"Oh, relax," Cortana spoke up as her holographic avatar flashed to life nearby. "I got this. A simple exterior inspection and electronic confirmation is not going to stop little-old-me."
The commander didn't reply. There was no need to. Everyone knew that Cortana's capability wasn't the issue here. Of course he trusted Cortana to get them past the electronic inspections. However, this was just the first layer of many to come of High Charity's defenses. Despite the incredible stroke of luck with the intelligence provided by this Medicant Bias fellow and the subsequent plans to deal with the station's defenses, all Spartans took to heart the-age old nugget of wisdom from Baron von Clausewitz: 'No plan survives first contact with the enemy.'
As if fate itself wished to confirm John's fears, the sensors beeped again, moments before yet another Covenant civilian ship in front of them exploded under fire from the defense fleet.
Resigning himself to at least a couple more hours of waiting in line, the commander decided that it was time to make his final inspection of what would be the most critical aspect of the coming battle: the distraction.
"I'll be back," John stated simply before leaving the bridge for the elevators.
For the coming battle, everything rode the ability of Spearhead Team's capacity to draw the attention of the entire High Charity ground defense force. To that end, the commander did something that he'd never imagine that he'd do: giving Spearhead carte blanche to do whatever they wanted.
Once the elevator stopped in the second deck, the Spartan braced himself for what was he certain to be an unpleasant sight.
His fears were not unjustified.
Immediately, the commander's senses were assaulted with the acrid scent of cannabis and tobacco combined with the pungent smell of ammonium nitrate and hydrazine. As the smoke literally billowed out the door, he could finally see the interior.
From Cortana, John knew that four of the five Spearheads were present with Wa absent as always. Almost right away, the commander's attention was captivated the origins of the smoke: a very inebriated Steven-666, who was lying on a mattress with his armor on, sans helmet. The Spearhead sharpshooter was groggily singing to himself with what looked to be a glass vase in hand.
Upon further inspection, it turned out that it wasn't a vase.
"I'll be ranging and a-scoping while I'm a-puffing and a-smoking
Exhaling from my lungs
I'll be dealing out head trauma while I'm floating in Nirvana.
If I only had a bong."
It took an incalculable amount of restraint for John to not crack down on this right away. Loathed as he was to admit it, letting Spearhead run amok, even now, was part of his plan for the operation for one very important reason: it would keep them occupied and out of trouble until the proper time.
As always, Jonathan was sitting on the floor, self-made explosives packing the space surrounding him as he continued assembling more, muttering inanely to himself through that ever-present crooked smile of his. While John could see Nicole coming to attention, he could not seem to find the whereabouts of Spearhead-4.
Then, from the corner of his eye, the commander spotted something moving at him faster than he could possibly make out or react to. The blur smacked him right in the back and shoulder before coming to a stop.
"Hhheeeeyyy! Commander! It's sssssooooo nice of you to join us," Richard slurred as he rested the weight of his body and armor against the incredulous officer, one arm slung over his CO's shoulders while the other was holding some sort of bottled beverage. "I mean, I've been meaning to talk with you and all. Listen, man. You and us Spearheads, we started off on the wrong foot."
"Damn it, Rich. Get off of the commander!" Nicole shouted at her teammate as she moved to pry him off of John. Despite his obviously inebriated state, however, Richard was still too fast and agile for Nicole. The Spearhead assault specialist spun around John, dodging Nicole at every turn while still maintaining his lean on the commander.
While John was once again stunned still, this time by the sight of a piss-drunk Spartan, and Richard took the opportunity to take another huge swig of his drink. This time, John finally got a good look at the label. It was an entire liter of Everclear, a 190-proof spirit that John knew was not meant for direct consumption. The Spartan learned of it during his training when then-CPO Mendez trained his students on possible materials for IEDs that one could find in the field. The 95 percent alcohol solution was distilled to the point that any further distillation would get impractically diminishing returns. Needless to say, direct ingestion of anything more than small amounts of Everclear, usually mixed with a much larger volume of some other drink as a solvent, was tantamount to suicide by alcohol poisoning. By all rights, Richard shouldn't have been standing—a non-Spartan would have already been dead. But given both his seemingly still perfect self-coordination and the fact that most of his bottle was by this point empty, the Spearhead assault specialist attested otherwise.
For the moment, John was glad that no one else aside from the Spearheads and himself was here to witness the scene: a Spartan sans his helmet dodging another Spartan chasing him while chugging down a bottle of Everclear, even as he leaned on a third Spartan.
"Just give me one minute, Nicole. I mean I swear, that's all I need," Richard offered before turning his attention back to John. "Now where was I? Ah, yes. I mean, you might not want to admit it, but you're just like us! I mean, just look at this crazy ass plan of yours. Listen, I like this plan. It's silly!"
As Richard took another swig, Nicole finally gave up and resigned herself to looking embarrassed.
"Also, I know that first impressions last for a long time, and we got off on the wrong foot. Oh, wait, I said that already. Eh, whatever. But the point is that I'm not this angry little man that you think I am. Really, I'm a pacifist. It's just...it's just that I really enjoy shooting people! And lighting them on fire; I like that ttttttooo. In fact, did you know that when you translate 'Richard' into old Hebrew, it means 'man who puts bullets in people before lighting them on fire'? You didn't know that, did you? Hahaha!"
As Richard finished off the bottle, the Spearhead's knees finally buckled under and he slid onto the ground, seemingly passed out as drool pooled beneath his face.
Slowly, John turned his gaze back up towards Nicole.
"Is he going to be alright?" the commander deadpanned.
After a heavy sigh that Nicole had performed way too many times before, Spearhead-1 finally responded. "Eh, it's not the first time Richard plastered himself before a big fight, and it won't be the last. But with his metabolism and the armor's blood filters, just give him half an hour and he'll be fine."
As if on queue, Richard's head suddenly lifted off the ground as he grabbed John's foot to get the commander's attention.
"Aaannnddd I know you're having trouble understanding us Spearheads, Commander. Hell, I don't blame ya. But the thing you have to understand about us Spearheads is that there are five of us. I mean, there's Nicole, Steven, Kablaammo Steven, that giant shaved gorilla that hardly ever speaks, and the Short Guy! Oohhh, how I loath him!"
After that, Richard passed out once more, hopefully for good this time.
"I'm sorry, commander," Nicole said as she brought her armor-clad hands to rub her forehead. "They're like this every time Serena sends them something to try out."
At the mention of that name, John felt a shiver down his spine. In his defense, though, it was a shiver well deserved. Even a Spartan had the right to be nervous at the prospect of Spearhead receiving something from someone that was effectively a mad scientist, someone so crazy that not even Colonel Yang was willing to augment.
"What did Serena send?" John nervously probed.
Nicole promptly led him over to the crates that Steven was currently vegetating next to. From them, she produced what looked to be a machete of some sort. It was clearly similar to the Arc Blade design, with the curved cutting edge laterally bisected with electrodes running down to create a localized plasma arc. Essentially, John surmised, it was a much larger version of the CK-21 arc blade combat knife that Colonel Yang handed out about a few days ago.
"Serena made this Arc Machete for Rich after Colonel Yang and Doctor Halsey finalized the CK-21 design." Nicole gripped the machete's hilt and activated the blade, sparking a blue aura around the edge as well as a slight hum. "Well, Rich did say that he wanted something a little more 'hands on'." Nicole chuckled before putting the blade away. From another much larger crate, she pulled out a Brute gravity hammer.
John hated those things. Every Spartan had seen these hammers in action. On impact, they could release a concussive blast that crushed almost anything, and they could even wreck a Scorpion main-battle tank with enough hits. Though they were useless at range, the Brutes that used them were always heavily armored and charged forward at frightening speeds.
Upon closer inspection of the specimen at hand, John spotted power couplers built into the hammer's grip. The staff-handle had also been massively reinforced with Titanium-B/C layers as well as an outer coating of tungsten manganese steel.
"This one is for Wa," Nicole explained. "A while back, Steven said that there was nothing that Serena could do to make Wa even more frightening in close combat. Apparently, she took it as a challenge and made this. Well, as long as he doesn't break this one like all those hammers we got for him before..."
After putting the hammer away, Nicole went fumbling around the pile of crates, looking for something. After thirty seconds, she stood back up, perplexed. "Jonathan! You have your package from Serena, don't you?"
"Of course!" the Spearhead explosive expert shouted back from across the room. "Professor Bomberg and Mr. Blaskowitz wanted me to start on them right away. The explodium charges are coming along great, but the flux compression generators are gonna take a while longer"
There was just something about the word 'explodium' that turned John's head. There were at least seven devices, each slightly larger than a softball, with the label 'explodium' on it, that Jonathan was fiddling around with.
"Explodium?" the commander queried. He was almost afraid to ask.
"Well, it's not the official name for it, but Serena is lobbying hard for it to be. I believe that Colonel Yang wants to name it Halsium," Nicole answered. "In any case, it's the same stuff in Covenant plasma charges and in our Firestorm missiles that use induced gamma emissions and a depleted uranium tamper to release some fairly massive amounts of energy. Those there are the shrunken down versions of Colonel Yang's MAYHEM-class warheads."
Nicole turned to Jonathan. "What's the yield on those, anyway?"
Jonathan's smile turned absolutely manic as he became too excited to retain anything resembling composure. "Hehehe, if Mr. Blaskowitz's calculations are right, then at least 14 tons of TNT each in the palm of my hands!" he shouted, waving his arms around grandiosely before breaking out into giggles.
"And what about the flux compression generators?" Nicole asked.
With some visible efforts to reign in his giggles, Jonathan brought up a modified version of his infamous stick grenade. It was slightly bigger, with a chrome shell around the top charge. Almost appropriately, there was a small lightening bolt painted on the charge.
The commander hadn't seen FCG ordinances in the field for a very long time. Explosively pumped flux compression generators were a simple technology to create an EMP without a nuclear explosive. Using a simple short circuit and chemical explosives, it converted kinetic energy from the explosion into electromagnetic energy. FCG ordinance was fairly prevalent in the early days of the colonial insurrection, often used in ambushes to prevent the victims from calling in back up. But like all weapon systems, countermeasures were developed. Virtually all military grade technology nowadays was properly grounded and shielded so that the effects of FCGs were limited to either a temporary electronic distortion or a quick system restart. This was fortuitous, as Covenant plasma weapons-fire carried an ionic charge and could short out unprotected systems very easily. FCG ordinance could still be used to hamper Covenant systems—and shields especially—but its efficiency was low enough that one would be better off to just bring more conventional explosives instead.
"Serena sent those capacitors that I've been wanting," Jonathan said through his crooked grin. "The bombs are going to draw power from the suit and oversaturate the capacitors. That means more space for more explosives!"
"Just make sure that you throw them far enough, Johnny," Nicole deadpanned before turning pointing to Steven. John found his respect for her rising several notches: the way she managed her team into anything approaching sanity and coherency took incredible patience and skill. The Spearhead marksman, on the other hand, was barely lucid enough to stroke his Eargesplitten Loudenboomer Mk IVas he continued to sing to himself.
"If you smell the Purple Urkel, then I can see you down my barrel.
And I'll be breaking out in songs.
Take a whiff of Northern Lights and you'll be zeroed in my sights.
But if I only have a bong."
"And you already know about Steven's 20mm helical rail cannon, Sir," Nicole finished.
John nodded in response. One thing, however, was caught on his mind about the situation. "What about you, ensign? What did you get?"
Nicole raised her left forearm, revealing her armored gauntlet that seemed to be of a new model. With a flash of light, something akin to the covenant jackal wrist shield, complete with a firing portal, sprung into existence.
"The Adaptive Combat Gauntlet. A little extra protection for when it counts," Nicole replied with a slight grin. "But that's not all that it can do."
The Spearhead CO turned to one of the busted Covenant anti-grav trollies that had been a casualty of the boarding action. As she drew her left arm back for a strike, her wrist shield morphed into a blade roughly a quarter of a meter in length. Nicole plunged her newly formed plasma blade into the slagged remains of the lift, cutting deep into the metal before she pulled the blade out and left a massive glowing gouge.
Admiring her handiwork, she delivered the rest of the details. "The wrist shield only lasts for about thirty seconds and takes almost a minute to recharge, but it's an extra layer of protection that doesn't compromise the rest of my shield's strength or recharge time. Plus there's that plasma blade you just saw. Again, it only lasts for about 7 seconds, but it's there when I need it."
The first thought that came to John's mind was that the Adaptive Combat Gauntlet was a very useful device. An extra layer of protection, even a short lived one, could make all the difference in a firefight. The blade was also a handy tool. The commander remembered the first time Covenant Elite spec-ops commandos almost got him with a similar weapon.
The second thought that came to mind was that the ACG was far too sensible and practical for a Spearhead, even Nicole. "Not to put this the wrong way," he said, "but this gauntlet doesn't seem like something that a mad scientist like Serena would make."
Suddenly, Nicole seemed to have a very awkward air about her.
"Uh…sir, that's because Serena didn't make this for me. The ACG was a prototype made by Colonel Yang a few months back. It wasn't part of the Mk.5 armor because Section III just couldn't get it working in time. Colonel Yang decided to simply delay the ACG to be deployed with the next generation of Mjolnir armor. Apparently, Serena decided to pick up the slack herself in the meantime."
"So why didn't she give you anything?" John probed. By this point, it was obvious that it was something personal.
Seemingly embarrassed by the story, Nicole turned away from John before continuing her tale. "That's because Serena and I don't really get along. She's convinced that, somehow, I…'stole'… Spearhead from her. Back when Serena was training the twins and Richard, she somehow got the idea in her head that she would lead them on the field despite Colonel Yang shooting that idea down every time it was brought up. When I got command of Spearhead...well, let's not talk about that."
Spartan-458 rummaged through the crates once more and produced a small case that was clearly marked as containing components of Mjolnir armor. After cracking it open, she presented its contents the commander: another Adaptive Combat Gauntlet.
"If you like it, sir, I do have a spare," Nicole offered.
For a moment, John paused with thought. After deciding it was worth the risk of using something that had the hands of a mad scientist in its creation, John accepted the ACG.
There were many things in life that Kelly wished that she had done, mistakes that only became apparent in hindsight. Standing back some distance behind Wa, in this all-but-empty room, as he chanted before a small, makeshift altar, Kelly really wished that she had taken the time to learn Chinese. Kneeling in front of the altar with his helmet off, Spartan-514 softly chanted to small, engraved wooden pieces as incense burned around him. From the tidbits that she did know, as well as the aspects of Chinese religious culture she had observed from civilians and UNDF personnel over the years, Kelly knew that it was some sort of ancestor worship ritual.
Still, it would have been much nicer to know what the hell he was chanting. Kelly was tempted to simply put her helmet on and use the translation software, but the Spartan felt that it would have been disrespectful at the moment.
After another minute or so, Wa bowed before the small engraved tablets once more and collected the pieces into a small pouch.
"That was nice," Kelly began softly. And she meant it. It was a willful example of who Wa really was; the orderly, quiet respect for the deceased was a fascinating antithesis to the berserk juggernaut he usually became in battle. "Who were you praying to?"
"My family."
"And those wooden tablets?"
"That's where they reside now, according to the old beliefs. It is the duty of the eldest living son to pay respect to the dead. Each of the three realms of existence must do their part to maintain the harmonious whole. If the realm of man does not perform its role, then the realms of heaven and the earth will inevitably fall into chaos."
Kelly smiled. It was these moments where Wa's humanity emerged that gave her hope that he was indeed a soul worth saving. "I think that wherever your family is right now, they would be proud to know that you're part of the effort to end this horrible war."
Wa shook his head, expression unchanged. "No, they're not. How could they be? They're dead and buried."
Kelly's eyebrow narrowed in confusion. How could he think that way when he was just praying to them?
"I've lost track of how many times I've been sent into the void only to be pulled back, Kelly. Believe me, there is nothing there. No heaven. No hell. Not even a purgatory. Only oblivion. Death truly is the end of all things."
Wa examined the pouch in his hands. "All of this is nothing but superstitious drivel from those afraid to confront the impermanence of their existence."
Kelly pondered Wa's words for a few moments before the full meaning sunk in.
Life had no meaning for Wa anymore.
She raised her hand to his shoulder, offering what consolation she could. "But then why bother with all this if you don't believe in it?"
For a moment, Kelly swore that Wa had a look of absolute despondence before his eerie calm returned.
"Because they'd want me to." His response, though calm, held a hint of something else. His eyes were on his wooden figurines, but his gaze went right through them.
"So you don't really care if you die, do you?" Kelly asked.
Snapping out of his reverie, he alternated between calmly meeting her eyes and looking elsewhere for the right words. "I'm not looking for death, if that's what you're asking. I would say that I'm merely...apathetic to the issue of continuing my existence. Death lost all meaning for me after the third time I died on that table. Although…the monster within me would prefer to live on for a while longer, if only to make sure that everything else dies before I do."
This was not how Kelly had expected their final conversation before the battle to go. Waxing philosophical about the purpose of life was not a skill Spartan usually developed. Still, she had spent enough time on the issue after Sam passed away. While Wa was hardly sagely, he had proven himself to be a fairly wise person. Perhaps it was time for her to share some of her own wisdom.
"You know, I use to think like that too," Kelly began.
That statement definitely got Wa's attention.
"After Sam died, I became convinced that my mission in life was to make the Covenant pay for his death. But then I saw how quick ONI paved over the casualties of the war. Almost overnight, all accessible records of Sam were gone, tossed into oblivion. It was like he never existed. But perhaps there is something between the absolutes of oblivion, or any afterlife, and life itself. Perhaps we exist as more than just ourselves. Perhaps it's possible to live through others. Sam still exists in my memories and those of the other IIs. With these memories, we gave him a last anchor to existence until our time comes. Only then will Sam truly be dead. And the same will be true of those who remember me…and you. Maybe a part of them can still live on, so long as you live."
For a moment, Wa paused in thought, his expression even more unreadable than normal. Finally coming to some kind of decision, the shock trooper donned his helmet. "Now that's something to think on." She could no longer see his face, but it was his words that interested her. For but a fleeting moment, Kelly was certain that the tone of Wa's words were not of monotonous apathy or murderous rage, but of hope.
The clinking on 12.7mm match-grade self-sharpening tungsten slugs were so gentle that even John could barely hear it, the sound being drowned out by his own preparations. Here in the makeshift armory of the captured Covenant freighter, Linda slipped one slug after another into her empty magazines until all ten were in before she started on the next. John himself was tugging at his new Adaptive Combat Gauntlet from Nicole, setting it in place before running his final suit diagnostics.
It was just him and Linda in here now. The others had already taken everything they needed for the coming fight. It was simply habit for John to be last person out of the armory, as he placed greater priority on making sure that everyone else got what they wanted first. For the crimson-maned sharpshooter near him, however, it was for a more personal reason. Linda took more time than any other Spartan to ready her weapons, though not for a lack of speed. Looking at her as she placed the final magazine onto her bandolier, it seemed to John as if Linda was still meditating.
058 looked up to her CO and gave him a nod as she finished loading her last magazine.
"You know, I do miss the smell of nitrocellulose on my rifle," Linda commented. "The ozone almost makes me think that the Covenant are right on top of me sometimes."
Underneath his helmet, John's lips curled into a slight smirk. "Would you rather have your old SR99 back?"
"No thanks. I think I'll stick to what I have here," Linda replied.
For his efforts, John was rewarded with a thin smile from her. Despite its restrained nature, the commander concluded that the sight was as rare and rewarding as spotting a member of an endangered species in the wild. "You should smile more. It looks good on you."
"I'll make you a deal. If we win this war, I'll smile all you want."
A light chuckle filled the room. Leave it to Linda to make him forget his burden, if only for a moment. Perhaps it was because they were both lone wolves, one by nature and one by duty. But inevitably, the real world came crashing back down on his reverie as John picked up his SCR.
So many times in the past, the Spartans had charged straight into the jaws of hell, but never like this: an operation to strike at the very heart of the Covenant. Never had the stakes been higher. Never had they had so much time to plan and prepare, so much time for their minds to grasp the simple fact before them: not everyone would make it back.
Hell, they'd be lucky beyond lucky for any of them to make it back.
Long ago, John had resigned himself to the inevitability of the empty space on the roster; he was prepared to lose some of his family. Now John had to accept the likelihood that he could very well lose his entire family.
"So this is it," he uttered somberly. With the Spartans assembled outside the armory, this might be the last time that he could look upon them all alive and well.
"Yes," Linda all but whispered as she came to a stand, placing a reassuring hand on John's shoulder. "And it's time for you to show everyone why you are the best of us all."
Seeing her comment draw a confused gaze from her commander, Linda continued on."I know that you've always wondered why you were chosen to be our captain. I've seen how you look on at Fred and me and wondered why it was you. You look at yourself and you don't see any great strength or unique attributes, like Fred at close range or me behind a rifle. But there is one thing that you have always left us all behind in. Do you know what it is?"
"That I have no weaknesses, or that I'm the bravest?" He used the same words that Dr. Halsey and Mendez told him a long time ago…words that never really held any meaning for him.
Linda shrugged at his response. "Well, there is that. But that's not what I have in mind."
It was obvious that John wasn't interested in guessing.
"Luck," Linda finally answered. The Spartan sniper took the time to enjoy the dumbfound look on her commander's face—they were even more rare than her smiles.
0500 Hours, November 10th, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNS Trafalgar, X-3279 System, Sector 357.
Halfway across the system from High Charity, two massive gas giants formed their own miniature planetary system, though one that would be short-lived in a cosmic sense: one of the gas giants, a "hot Jupiter", was in the process of swallowing the other gas giant, a "hot Saturn". While the former type of gas giant was common enough, the latter was truly a rare find. A hot-Saturn type gas giant was, at least to the untrained eye, an elliptical puff of yellow-white smoke floating in space; this rare feature had also led those same laymen to call them "puffy" gas giants, a name which unfortunately stuck. The perfect mixture of heat, mass, and the disruptive gravitational influence of the hot Jupiter had pulled the atmosphere far above its normal gravitational limit. Though the atmosphere would remain stable for another half-million years or so, the hot Saturn gas giant was ultimately doomed to be absorbed by the hot Jupiter, most likely forming a second star in the system.
In the meantime, though, the dispersed atmosphere of the hot Saturn made for an incredibly useful planetary feature for artificial purposes. While the name "hot Saturn" would at first imply that it was a fairly unpleasant place to be, the opposite turned out to be true for at least the outer and middle atmosphere. Thermal convection and radiation, combined with the planet's relatively high albedo, made the exterior gas a very benign environment for starship hulls. As such, the hot Saturn had become both a massive deuterium/tritium fuel facility for the Covenant, as well as being a hot spot for starships wishing to load up on hydrogen propellant for their engines.
A little known feature of a hot Saturn for those who wished to exploit its unique features, however, is that its atmosphere was also an interstellar equivalent of a blinding blizzard. The combination of a strong magnetosphere, the gravity characteristics of any gas giant, and the atmosphere itself made sensors all but useless beyond short range. To make economic exploitation of the hot Saturn safer, the Covenant had placed atmospheric sensors and navigation buoys in geostationary orbits within the massive atmosphere to guide ships in and out safely. Such measures were obvious necessities, for it would be far too easy for one to get lost there.
Unless, of course, one did not wish to be found.
Over 200 UNSC ships now loitered hundreds of kilometers deep within the hot Saturn's atmosphere. After performing the first combat jump into a gravity-well in human history and being protected by the electromagnetic haze clogging up Covenant sensors, the ships of Battlegroup Stanforth were busy readying themselves for what would easily be the biggest battle in the war thus far. Initial scouts had first jumped in to scout out a suitable location for the battlegroup before placing navigation markers for the main body of the fleet. It took more than an hour for the full fleet to jump in and reform themselves into cruising formation.
In the CIC aboard the Trafalgar, the fleet's supreme commander made the final alterations to his plans for the coming onslaught. Though still hidden by the hot Saturn's atmosphere, Admiral Michael Stanforth was still receiving updates from Clarion spy drones and prowlers discreetly stationed throughout the system, their information constantly being transmitted through QEC data links aboard the prowler Dark Side of the Moon before being electronically relayed to the fleet. The entire system was laid out on the holomap projections before him. The dominant features of the coming battle would be the three significant planets of the system: the garden world that was currently being visited by High Charity and the two binary gas giants.
Standing beside the admiral, Lieutenant Haverson compiled the last of the binary gas giants' astrometric profiles and updated the holographic map. As the initial scans by the prowlers had shown, the binary gas giants had a fairly large number of moons, with features unique to the binary system. More than a few of the moons actually orbited into the hot Saturn's massive atmosphere, and a couple moons orbited both gas giants in rough figure-8 paths. One moon—the biggest one—dominated the admiral's attention. This particular moon was currently exiting the L1 Lagrangian point, orbiting towards High Charity. Though the station was millions of kilometers away, the coming position of the moon would be decisive.
With knowledge from years of both intensive study and costly field experience, Michael Standforth knew well that the key factor for a commander's success was Sun Tzu's greatest maxim: 'Know the enemy and know yourself, and in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.'
In Admiral Stanforth's experience, there were three main archetypes of commanders: the bureaucrat, the scientist, and the hero. The bureaucrat was the well trained master of established fields, but he placed a greater emphasis on the less dramatic aspects of war—such as logistical and tactical deployments—than on operational art, and were prone to attritional campaigns; a perfect example was the World War Two-era British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, whose usually cautious campaigns were as lacking in flair as they were irresistible in force. The scientist was a deviated from the bureaucrat by being very open to innovation and saw war as an almost Newtonian construct; a good example would be the American General Ulysses Grant or Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov, both of whose battle strategies were almost as mechanical as they were revolutionary. The hero was the most unique: the dashing artist of war the likes of Hannibal Barca, Robert E. Lee, and Erwin Rommel. Operating more on instinct than on hard knowledge, these inherent risk takers and improvisers could intuit that momentary crucible upon which entire battles and campaigns were determined, and seize it with a vengeance. Each archetype have their own strength and weaknesses. The hero is nigh invincible in any single battle almost irregardless of the odds, though their success would often turn into escalating rollings of the dice that inevitably ends in disaster. The scientist often carry the campaign by better planning, something the hero archetype commonly lack, but are not as adaptable to either great dangers or great opportunities. The bureaucrat's gamble on the old fashion ways of war often allowed him to lose battles, but still win the war by preventing his enemy from transforming battlefield victories into political coinage.
"The final Nova bombs are in position, Sir," Haverson announced, disrupting the admiral's chain of thoughts.
Stanforth simply nodded. "Excellent. How long do we have?"
"If Colonel Yang's calculations are correct, we have 87 hours left before the orbit of the bombs decay and fall into the planet's core."
"Eighty-seven hours is enough. If the Spartans don't make the call by then, we've already lost."
The ONI officer could only nod in response.
The admiral turned his attention back to the map. As per Sun Tzu, the admiral had learned to be quite self-critical over the years. Stanforth knew that he was a scientist. Intricate plans were easy for him to conjure, and the march of technology in this long and terrible war had made him adept at using anything that could give him an advantage. However, the spur-of-the-moment, artistic aspects of the hero eluded him. Stanforth was more than capable of adapting to changing tactical and operational situations, but he could never effectively feel the flow of the battle and seize the moment in a devastating manner.
That was why Preston Jeremiah Cole had to be rescued. Cole was something that came perhaps just once a century: the perfect commander. Balancing the aspects of the bureaucrat, the scientist, and the hero, Cole was able to meet the difficulties of the Outer Colonies campaign and still mostly hold the line. Operating far from his supply depots, Cole had to contend with an even greater technological disadvantage than Stanforth did now, as well as the still-raging colonial insurgency. And yet…the man still held the line. Though Cole was steadily driven back by the Covenant, the front never broke until after Psi Serpentis, his legendary and hugely successful last stand. It was no surprise that the onslaught of the Inner Colonies occurred after Cole disappeared.
With the total disposition of the coming battle decidedly against him, Stanforth knew he had to compensate with masterful use of terrain and technology. Most of his fleet still consisted of older Tribal-class destroyers and Charon- and Swift-class frigates, which were no match for their Covenant counterparts in an open clash never mind the greater numbers of covenant capital ships. Those lighter UNDFSC ships, while still running quite behind in the latest state of the art technologies, did have their armories improved with kinetic fusion shells and Firestorm missiles. The hasty weapons upgrade, however, did add a burden to those ships: it demanded slightly more force than a standard shot to reliably trigger detonation, requiring a longer cool-down time for their gun coils. The core of his battlegroup, however, laid in the thirty Hussar-class heavy destroyers, three Marathon-class cruisers, five Halcyon-class battlecruisers, and three carriers, which included his flagship, the supercarrier Trafalgar. Together, these ships had twice as much firepower as the rest of the ships combined.
Despite such discrepancies in the quality among his ships, Stanforth knew that he could neither save his best ships by letting the older ships take the brunt of the fire, nor the other way around. Every ship was worth their weight in gold. Therefore, terrain had to be used to make the best of his technological qualities. In a reversal of the ancient naval tactic of 'Crossing the T', Battlegroup Stanforth needed a head-on engagement. The Covenant flourished in a chaotic melee, with their omnidirectional plasma torpedoes and low moment of inertia hull design allowing them to maneuver hard and close in to prevent the UNDFSC ships from getting targeting solutions for their MACs. With his ships as the way they were now, going bow to bow against the Covenant, with a minimal need for maneuvering, would let him bring the maximum amount of fire to bear and would also give him the best coverage and density of point defenses and electronic countermeasures.
In this battle, those two gas giants would make sure that the confrontation would be head to head.
He knew there was one glaring flaw in this plan, of course. The only thing easier than to defend yourself once you're backed into a corner is for your enemy to keep you there. The admiral knew that he was placing his ships upon, in Sun Tzu's words, 'death ground', where one only has the options of victory or death. The admiral was counting on this, however, and not only for own captains to know this, but their Covenant counterparts as well. The Covenant fleet could trap the battlegroup in between the gas giants and slowly, if bloodily, bludgeon the UNDFSC ships into submission.
The admiral grinned in fond recollection. This was the one area that he always had the advantage over Preston Cole: the ability to lure his opponents into a trap. To contain the battlegroup, the Covenant would have to commit the majority of their defense fleet and concentrate them to have an effective blockade.
A blockade that would be a perfect target for a Nova bombardment.
On one the inspection lines for ships aiming to dock with High Charity, a situation was brewing. At what was essentially a giant hangar that served as the final inspection point where the ships would dock to receive Covenant inspectors, there was one ship that was declaring an emergency. Specifically, the ship broadcast that it was suffering a spontaneous reactor failure with imminent overload and breach. Radiation spikes confirmed this to all of the surrounding ships as they scrambled to escape the coming disaster zone, even as emergency responders were closing. The last message the freighter put out was that the crew intended to stay aboard and do what they could to contain the situation.
As the ship pushed off the docks, twenty-seven roughly-human-sized distortions leaped off the wounded freighter's hull. As the cloaked Spartans slowly floated down to the now-cleared hangar deck's artificial gravity, pieces of the outer hull began to fall off, and half melted bodies—procured from the initial boarding action—were displayed in their grotesque state. The burning hulk spun out of control before crashing into the hangar walls and sliding to the ground.
One by one, the Spartans landed. The touchdown of the first combatants of the coming battle went unnoticed as all Covenant personnel focused on keeping people away from the crash zone. With as much haste as stealth permitted, the Spartans made for their exits. Time was of the essence now, for there were effectively two timers counting down to the potential failure of the mission. The first was marked for around another 81 hours, the time before which the Nova bombs of Battlegroup Stanforth would be irretrievably lost to the gravitational pull of the gas giants. Without those 'big sticks', the odds that the Admiral could take on the massive fleet surrounding High Charity would be laughable at best.
Even more disturbingly, though, was the other timer, one that was not precise enough to merit an actual countdown. Rather, it was something that could blow up in their faces at any moment, for there were five very specific Spartans that were missing from the infiltration teams. At that moment, Spearhead team—the distraction the operation hinged upon—was still aboard the dying freighter, awaiting the moment to burst upon the scene and steal the spotlight. They were indeed prepared for that role: most of the many tons of cargo the Spartans had loaded onto the ship were the ordinance the Spearheads wanted for their crazy schemes, secured for the moment on an Albatross dropship buried deep within the ship's collapsed hull.
For now, the massive radiation and plasma leaks were keeping the Covenant from sticking their noses into the downed ship; in fact, the Covenant response crews were erecting plasma and radiation containment shields to isolate the thermal and radiation blasts. Of course, the potential flaws of the plan were painfully obvious. The subterfuge wouldn't last forever, despite Cortana's subtle electronic sabotage of the Covenant first-responder force. Of even greater risk, though, was that the commander was trusting Spearhead to stay in hiding long enough for the infiltration teams to get the job done.
Well, every operation has its unknowables.
Not that it was much consolation to John, as he listened to Cortana's instruction on how to crack the vent in front of them.