Nialla glanced out the window of the dropship. Other Turian dropships were already heading down to the surface, while the Armigers were kept in reserve for the time being. She glanced at her current mission orders as displayed by her HUD, and as expected, they had remained the same.

Stand ready for deployment.

"I think I've forgotten what my home felt like," Kelnara said as the dropship descended into the atmosphere. The once vibrant and energetic Turian sulked in her seat, clutching the hilt of a ceremonial knife on her belt. "Deployment after deployment. Slaughter after slaughter. Spirits, what I wouldn't do for a glass of brandy and a few gigolos to lick it from."

Nialla burst out laughing at the insight into Kelnara's curious perception of reality. "I'm sure you can find some young recruits who'd let you do that to them, Kelnara. Maybe the twins will do it if you ask nicely."

Gervod and Gelnis, the near-mute twins of the squad turned to Kelnara, a rare look of disturbed horror flashing over their faces. Gervod shook his head and leaned into his seat.

"We'd rather not-" Gervod muttered, then glanced for his brother.

Gelnis finished. "Be subjected to that."Before giving his brother a claw-bump.

There was a scraping sound from the corner of the dropship as Pallonis continued to sharpen his own blade. It was a large serrated shortsword that the General had been carving for himself out of a chunk of Wraith armor for a while now. His Omni-tooled hand moved over and around the edges of the blade, carefully trimming and sharpening the weapon. The former general glanced up at the attention he was getting. "Don't mind me." The Turian muttered. "You younglings just keep talking about sex and addictive substances. Spirits know you lot need it."

Yeltis leaned forward, straining the bars that kept him seated in the dropship. "Are you ever going to drop the 'disgraced general' act? You know you just need to send a PM to the higher-ups and you'll get your rank back."

Pallonis glared at the sniper, finished sharpening his blade, and slid it back into the holster. "Will you shut up? If I want my previous Citizenship Tier back, I will decide myself. Unlike you, I don't sit in the same tier for all my life, while refusing to rise to the position I deserve."

She received a ping to her HUD. Orders were coming in. "Cut the chatter." Nialla commanded sternly. She began reading the orders. "We're being dropped to disperse a large group of rebels that are attacking the local power broker who promised fealty to the Hierarchy. Prepare for an extreme pacification campaign. This whole city is devolving into a maelstrom of violence, and we're going to stop it. Assume extreme hostility."

The jovial and friendly atmosphere from before faded away, replaced by grim determination. The M-32 Telkis dropship angled itself downwards and blasted off towards the planet.

Nialla felt the ship shaking as the extreme acceleration that should have turned the occupants into a red paste, was dampened into merely a minor vibration that ran through the craft Nialla's HUD lit up as the turian BATTLENET integrated her suit's VI.

BATTLENET ONLINE

REQUESTING SECURITY KEY
SECURITY KEY ACCEPTED

WELCOME, T. NIALLA, S/N VN080-5401TU-5037107
RANK: SERGEANT
CLEARANCE LEVEL: SQUAD
.
-
BOOTING UP COMMAND-LEVEL BATTLENET: NO ACCESS GRANTED

BOOTING UP COMPANY-LEVEL BATTLENET: NO ACCESS GRANTED

BOOTING UP SQUAD-LEVEL BATTLENET: ACCESS GRANTED
TACNET: ACTIVE: ACCESS: SQUAD LEVEL
TACMAP: ACTIVE: ACCESS: SQUAD LEVEL
SQUAD VI: ACTIVE: STORED IN HARDSUIT
SQUAD TACNET: ACTIVE: ACCESS: FULL
SUIT VI: ACTIVE
COMMUNICATIONS: ACTIVE

COMMUNICATIONS STATUS:
MESSENGER DRONES: IN RANGE
CABLE TERMINALS: N/A
SUIT TRANSMITTER: ONLINE, COMMAND UPLINK ESTABLISHED
NO JAMMING DETECTED
LONG-RANGE COMMUNICATIONS ONLINE

The dropship's side hatch opened up, and Nialla leapt out, engaging her suit's thruster packs and flying off towards the marker LZ, her squad moving behind her in close formation.

Just as she reached terminal velocity, she shifted her body and aimed the thrusters downwards for an emergency deceleration burn. She felt the G forces in her cybernetic guts, even as she hurtled off towards the ground. Ravager Squad was heading directly down towards the front gate of the Keep, and the mass of rebels heading there as well. Around her squad, other Armigers were flying in, heading towards other landing beacons nearby.

Nialla slammed down onto the pavement, throwing up a cloud of dust. She immediately got to her feet and took aim at the Covenant warriors.

The Helmets of the Turians all linked together and began to broadcast a message at the same time.

"We are here to the request of the Regent. Stand down, and leave the area! Any adult brandishing a weapon will be opened fire upon. Cease and disperse immediately!"

The raging crowd of Covenant stopped their advance for a moment, evidently taken by surprise by the sudden appearance of the Armigers. There was a brief pause before the leading Elite raised his energy sword and charged. But as he did so, a stream of plasma fire from the wall behind Nialla impacted him. She glanced up and saw what looked like an Elite child operating a plasma turret.

"Lethal force is now authorized. This was your final warning." The helmets all said in unison, as a message appeared over the HUD of every Turian. "Aggressive pacification doctrine authorized."

The Armigers opened fire on fully automatic, pumping a stream of mass accelerator round into the advancing mob, breaking its momentum and inflicting a horrific body count. There was a great creaking noise, as the gate behind the Armigers opened up, and a mass of Elite warriors with energy swords and plasma rifles charged out of the gate, shouting battle cries and swearing oaths.

For a moment, the absurdity of fighting alongside Elites was almost too much for Nialla. But this ended quickly when an overcharged plasma bolt flew past her. She immediately took aim at the shooter and riddled the Grunt with a spray of explosive rounds.

Plasma grenades and crude explosives were thrown back and forth, as warriors on both sides charged into the fray. The defenders were outnumbered, but the Armigers had heavier firepower and the element of surprise.

Other dropships were starting to land, deploying squads of Turians in advantageous positions. Rooftops, plazas, nature parks. Across the city, the Turians were deploying and giving out their only warning before commencing the pacification.

The glimpses Nialla gave the TACMAP showed her the full extent of the carnage across the city, and it shocked her, even though she had little to no empathy for the Covenant.

The Sangheili of both sides had drawn energy swords and were engaged in a swirling melee in the streets. Purple and blue armor meeting the silver and gold of the rebels in brutal hand to hand fighting. Mandibles were torn off, claws lashed out at exposed flesh, while energy swords and plasma swords filled the air with the sound of sizzling flesh, and the smell of plasma burns.

The Armigers began to advance, moving forward with ruthless and aggressive pushes, moving from cover to cover as they drove back the rebels and provided covering fire to the Elites that were, ostensibly, their allies for now. As the Armigers followed their BATTLENET-assigned beacons, they got their first sign of just what the Covenant had done to each other.

Youth and elderly on both sides were charging through the streets in disorganized packs, led by individual leaders, each looking for enemies to vent their frustrations upon. The burned bodies of Jackals were hanging from lines in the streets, arranged in a sickening parody of poultry in a shop stall.

Nialla caught a glimpse of patches of yolk lying on the ground and immediately felt sick to her core. She couldn't even imagine what had driven any sapient being into such murderous rage. But even as she thought this, she was interested in how both sides had singled out the avian aliens for venting their anger. She immediately wanted to know just what these aliens had done to attract so much attention. Were they a ruling class, or an oppressed underclass? Why had they been unable to rise up and defend themselves?

With their helmets blaring, the Turians continued to advance into the streets, even as more dropships landed behind them to disgorge additional Turian infantry. But where the Elites charged into the fray and sought to cut down the attacking rebels, the Turians merely fired with cold calculating precision, all the while spreading out for optimal coverage.

Nialla began to walk forwards in a line with her comrades, firing precision at anyone or anything that looked to be a threat. An Elite in silver armor charged towards her, only for his head to disappear in a cloud of blue mist when Yeltis's rifle barked.

She glanced at the tactical map, seeing the snipers and marksmen among the Armigers flying from building to building, hopping from vantage point to vantage point as they sought to neutralize the leaders of the mob. The drones were marking out the slightest showing of silver armor, which made terminating them as simple as aiming at the pre-calculated location and letting the integrated VI of the shooter make the final corrections.

As their leadership began to falter, the mob nevertheless continued to attack relentlessly. Crudely made plasma bombs and grenades were thrown at the advancing Turians from open windows or alleyways. But the advance continued, the only delay being Turians stepping around their fallen comrades while Squad medics got to work.

The Elites were wavering as the Turians continued to advance. Anyone who tried to charge or attack was immediately fired at with pinpoint shots. Nialla grimaced as she went about fighting priority targets. She halted for a moment as a mob of Elites with makeshift weapons and crude plasma tools charged from the rear of the mob, holding flags with Jackals crucified on them.

Nialla put an armored boot on the chest of a dead Elite and took aim at the onrushing crowd. She aimed in their direction. Tuned into the BATTLENET, her squad's TACNET acted quickly to calculate optimal firing modes for their weapons. Nialla opened fire, and as she did, her cybernetic body and Hardsuit made minute twitches and movements as the VI's coordinated.

Two in the chest, one in the head. She thought coldly as she went about her work. There was no banter or camaraderie in this amongst the Turians. Only cold calculated killing.

The charge lost momentum in the face of the Turian firing line, even as the Turians began taking losses from Covenant snipers and the few amongst the attackers who weren't gunned down before they could use their weapons. A larger Elite, this one clad in makeshift silver armor, weathered the hail of gunfire and charged towards Nialla with what looked like a massive industrial-looking mace that gave off gravitic fluctuations.

Analyze the attack. Calculate optimal blows. She quickly thought, ordering her cybernetics into action.

The way the weapon was being swung, the size and the projectile mass, and the speed of the blow, were all quickly calculated by the VI of her hardsuit. The optimal trajectory for her omni-blade to quickly defeat her opponent appeared. Thinking as fast as her cybernetically enhanced body and nervous system allowed, she lit the Omni-Bayonet on her Phaeston rifle and slashed through the air in such a way, the blade cut through the handle of the gravity mace, at its thinnest point, before she quickly shifted the weapon to put the barrel beneath the elite's chin. A quick burst of incendiary rounds put an end to the attacker.

She caught a glimpse of Pallonis tackling a charging Elite with a burst of his jump-pack and ramming his blade into the attacker's neck with a sickening crunch.

Target markers lit up on the TACMAP, as the first orbital strikes were called in, and quickly delivered. There was a loud crack as the first fiery spear shot down through the sky, and slammed into the ground, vaporizing buildings and throwing up great clouds of dust and debris that spread through the city. Hardsuits closed up and activated internal air supplies as the thick layer of dust and debris exceeded safe limits.

Gervod and Gelnis threw incendiary grenades up into buildings that the Turians were being fired upon, each throw going in without fail, and sending out a blast of flame from the open entrances, followed by burn-scarred rebels.

But still, the advance continued. Across the TACMAP more and more Turian forces were starting to land, and more and more began to enforce the strict pacification protocols practised by the Turian Hierarchy.

The Turians had learned long ago during their secessionist wars shortly after achieving FTL capability, that war was a horrific thing, which should be ended as quickly and effectively as possible.

The first lesson Nialla had ever received on pacification campaigns was the most important: Better a single day of slaughter, than a month of drawn-out campaigning. If the Turians let the Covenant dig in for but a single day, it could take weeks to fully dig out the defenders. Better to strike quickly and with excessive force and get the conflict over with. Then the Turians could begin sending down food, medical, and hygienic supplies to clean up the carnage.

Any window that was fired from was immediately targeted by the missiles of a Jiris IFV, sending their incendiary payload through the building. Burning civilians and rebels ran from the building, with the ones who could no longer be saved quickly shot down, while the ones with minor wounds were sprayed down with Cryo-sprays, set to a safe temperature.

The advance was carefully coordinated by drones flying overheads, which guided the Turians through the city, guaranteeing a complete sweep. Any Covenant that brandished a weapon and wasn't running away from them, was immediately gunned down with mechanical precision. Young or old. Male or female. Any Elite holding a weapon was immediately gunned down if they didn't throw down said weapon, threw themselves to their knees, or ran away.

The TACMAP changed to mark vast swathes of the city as 'enemy strongholds', and showed the projected distance of debris caused by orbital bombardment. Nialla saw a large domed structure from which fuel rod cannons were being fired. Her HUD marked it as having projectiles en-route.

Plasma bolts splashed against her Kinetic barriers, and she immediately turned to face the shooter. She caught a glimpse of movement around an alley. She took out a grenade, cooked it, and threw it into the alley with a well-aimed throw. The grenade bounced from wall to wall before detonating in an incendiary blast that blasted out both ends of the alley. Burning Grunts and Jackals ran from the alley, having evidently hidden there.

Nialla's HUD marked those with mortal wounds and those without, and she quickly responded by shooting the mortally wounded Covenant in the head with precision bursts, as her squad switched to their Omni-tools and sprayed the burning civilians down with a flash-fabricated cooling solution.

A solitary spear of fire shot from the sky and struck the domed building right in the centre, bringing the roof crumbling down and throwing up a massive shockwave of dust and debris that was shot out of every window in the building, oftentimes throwing out the inhabitants of rooms.

Turian gunships flew overhead, speakers blaring loud enough to hurt anyone without protective equipment. They yelled out in multiple Covenant languages and dialects, every one which the Turians had been able to translate. They gave out a single warning.

"DESIST FROM YOUR AGGRESSION.

LEAVE YOUR BUILDINGS AND SIT DOWN BEFORE YOUR HOMES

ANYONE WHO FAILS TO DO THIS WILL BE SHOT.

ANYONE WHO BRANDISHES A WEAPON WILL BE SHOT.

ANYONE WHO APPROACHES WITH HOSTILE INTENT WILL BE SHOT."

The brutality shown by the Turians quickly began to pay off, as whole buildings emptied onto the streets, as civilians and rebels alike threw their weapons down, and knelt or sat down in front of their homes.

Whole buildings full of Grunts in hastily equipped rebreathers swarmed out of their self-contained methane buildings, throwing themselves down at the entrances of their homes.

Steely-eyed Turian soldiers passed them, glancing for any sign of resistance or ambush from the Covenant civilians. Gunshots rang out as Grunts with hidden weapons were quickly shot dead.

Kelnara's shotgun barked, and the Elite in civilian garb who had tried to rush her from an open doorway dropped to the ground with a large hole in his chest.

Following closely behind the advance, Hastatim began to flash-fabricate bindings around the wrists of any adults of fighting age, and march them away from the fighting. There was a gunshot as a Hastatim terminated an Elite who didn't immediately relinquish a ceremonial weapon.

Nialla saw a younger Elite with silver paint across his body, brandishing an energy sword, and concentrated fire upon him immediately, gunning the youth down as ruthlessly as if he had been a Brute chieftain. At the sight of this, a pack of scampering Grunts threw down their weapons and grovelled at her feet. She continued past them, kicking the weapons out of their reach.

The fighting was starting to die down, with most of the rebels now running off and retreating.

Nialla caught a glimpse of a medical transport flying down, flanked by two Asari transport ships. The sight helped put Nialla at ease, even as the dust from the orbital bombardment began to settle. The Hierarchy was brutal in war, but magnanimous in victory. None of the people of Zhoist would starve or suffer even a day longer than they needed.

Two hours after planetfall.

The smell of burning bodies reached even inside the heart of the Sangheili Citadel. It had been only two hours since the Turians had arrived upon the Covenant world and an hour and a half since they had shown the rebels just how the Turians dealt with city-wide race riots and revolts.

The rebels had been broken, and now the path to rebuilding Zhoist could begin. General Victus had already called for a relief fleet, as well as a Turian Engineering Corps deployment to assist in the reconstruction of the planet's infrastructure. The Asari contingents of the fleet had deployed to help garrison the planet, while the Salarians were bringing much of the infrastructure back online. Medical supplies were distributed liberally, while food and water were made available to all that needed it. He felt proud of the Hierarchy. There had been no weeks of privation and disease for the civilians of Zhoist. No gruelling sieges filled with starvation and suffering. Just a quick and effective seizing of power, followed by magnanimous victory.

Adrien Victus examined the large holographic table of the war room of the Sangheili citadel. He had learned the city was called, The First City of Edification. And it had once been the capital of this homeworld, before the Spartan attack, and now this confusing mess of a civil war. The Sangheili keep was beautifully crafted, a mixture of old feudalistic medieval designs, but constructed with advanced technology and materials. There were fantastic draped across every wall, while each stone seemed to have been carved with great care. The inhabitants of the keep, primarily children and females were respectful to the Citadel soldiers that had deployed inside the Keep. Although there was some distrust towards the Asari, the Salarians and Turians were treated well. He had already been invited on several hunting trips, as well as a victory feast. All of whom he'd had to decline for the time being.

Zhoist had been almost fully consumed by its civil war, with much of the planet except for the First City being destroyed in the fighting. There had been dozens of pockets of violent rebellion involving hundreds to thousands of Sangheili, all using makeshift and jury-rigged weaponry, with the leadership being the damnable silver-armored Elite Spec Ops and their antimatter bombs.

He caught movement from the regent and his advisors, who were on the other side of the great holographic table that the Keep used as the centrepiece of its War Room. They were conversing in hushed voices with a language that Victus's translators couldn't process yet. There were two guards in the room and a full squad of Turian soldiers waiting behind Adrien. The fact that the Elites could probably win a fight did not fill him with confidence.

"Suzerain." Grel 'Vramee, the Regent of the Keep stepped out of the collection of elders. "Your methods have been… dubious. But the results you have achieved are impressive. Your forces have suppressed the Xytanites in two hours. It would have taken my keep two weeks to suppress a rebellion like this"

Victus just glared at the strategic display. "They were unprepared. If they know what we fought like, it would have taken much longer. From here on out, it will take much longer." He rounded on the Regent, "I have fulfilled my side of our deal. Now I want to hear just what happened on this world, why there are rebels, and why you are at war with the humans."

The Regent nodded sternly. "You are straight to the point. Where do you want me to start?"

Adrien Victus activated the recording function of his helmet and looked straight at the Sangheili. He was going to record every microsecond of this conversation for the intelligence officer. "This world for starters. Then tell me about yourself."

Gral 'Vamee gave what to Victus sounded like the Sangheili equivalent of a sigh. "Zhoist is an old world for the Covenant. A holy world for most of its history, sparsely populated except for the people who maintained the artefacts found upon this world. We venerated the ancient Forerunner cities built upon its surface, and we gave praise to the gods for many generations. A hundred years ago, the Ministry of Fervent Intercession was granted a holy sanction to construct great assembly and forge complexes for maintaining the frontier and anti-piracy fleets of its ministry."

Victus held up a hand. "A Ministry. Is that a governmental organisation?" He was fascinated by the idea that the Covenant had an internal bureaucracy that sounded so very much steeped in mysticism. He had expected a more brutal and organized government for the Covenant. Not one that sounded almost primitive in composition.

The regent looked unsure, his mandibles twitching. "Normally I would be risking death at the executioner's blade to speak of such things to an outsider if I were to do so without the sanction of the Ministry of Conversion." The Sangheili muttered a curse. "But the MInistry of Conversion has been disbanded by Xytan, may the gods boil his blood in his veins, and therefore I can speak freely. A Ministry is an independent part of the Covenant, which fulfils a bureaucratic need in our society. Be it diplomacy, industrial planning, warfare, anti-piracy patrols, and the legal system. Each of these is a self-sustaining part of the Covenant, with its own leaders and internal rulings."

Victus tried to wrap his head around that. It was like having the Turian agricultural sector possessing a private government, army, fleet, and internal structure which was completely independent of the rest of the Hierarchy. Such a thing sounded like a recipe for utter madness and confusion. "I see." He said, not seeing it at all. "Then you must be a part of a ministry, then? Which one, if I might ask?"

The Sangheili shook his head. "No. I am the regent of this keep and the Guild Master of our branch of the Energy Blade Guild. I have contracts to the Ministry of Fervent Intercession as the latter, as well as minor dealings with other ministries. But I was appointed the regent of this keep by the previous Kaidon, who was killed by a Xytanite assassin. Therefore I represent the 'Mavamee bloodline until the Kaidon's sons grow of age, and can clash for the right to be Kaidon."

Again that Xytan. I'll ask him when we get there. Victus thought. "Then the Guilds are all disconnected from the Ministries? Then who owns the keeps?"

"This keep belongs to the 'Vramee bloodline. The Guilds have their own property, which at times includes keeps. But not this one."

Oh, spirits help me. This is confusing. Adrien Victus screamed inwardly. He hated when governments had small exceptions in regards to jurisdictions. But right now it sounded like the Covenant's government was made up of nothing but overlapping jurisdictions with conflicting rules and authorities.

Adrien Victus held up a hand to silence the Sangheili. "Then tell me about the war. And why you would surrender to us, but now to the humans."

Grel spat on the ground and stomped an armored foot on the stone floor, cracking it. He glared at Adrien, causing the general's guards to tense up. "What sort of question is that? Humans are impure. The Hierarchs have said as such! I do not understand how a species with such a strong sense of honor and military duty as yourself is unable to see that!"

"Who are the Hierarchs? If I might ask."

"They are the leaders of the Covenant. The San'Shyuum who are chosen to lead us on the path to the Great Journey. Xytan captured them, and with his control of High Charity, he has made it impossible for them to be replaced. Anyone that would take on the mantle of Hierarch would do so while the true Hierarchs still live. And without the blessing of the Covenant High Council."

Victus suspected that the Hierarchs had been the ones spreading stories about the Humans, but that mattered little if they were all imprisoned by Xytan. He did find himself coming back to what the Regent had said about the humans being impure.

"...Have you ever seen a human, Regent?" Victus asked. "In the flesh, I mean."

"I was not there when the Demons came to this world, detonated our orbital ring, and flattened our cities. But I have seen the pictures from the front. Their filthy hides and lice-riddled hair!" The regent made a gagging sound. "Really. What do you see in them?"

Victus thought it over for but a moment, then activated his omni-tool and brought up an image he'd taken early on during the Orion Arm campaign. Of a helmetless ODST with a clean shave, well-kept hair, and a full suit of ODST armor. The Regent paused his rant about the impurity of the humans at the sight and waved over the other elders. They moved up to look at the picture, glancing back and forth.

"Where's the insect-filled beard? The dirt? Did you dress it in that armor?" The Regent said, his voice filled with growing confusion. "This is a human warrior?"

Adrien noted the great confusion among the Sangheili. They looked taken aback at a picture of a human that was clean and well-dressed. Adrien began to suspect something was greatly amiss.
"I took it shortly after arriving. That's just a normal human soldier. They pride themselves in cleanliness, and hair is subject to strict rules of hygiene. I have not seen a single human with lice or any other insects. Let alone one covered with mud."

The regent cursed and rounded on Adrien. "So you're telling me they are actually respectable and clean? That they aren't the rapidly-breeding savages that we were told they were?" The Elite's toothed mandibles were inches from Adrien's face, and the Turian got a good view of the long extendable tongue inside the Sangheili's throat. He stormed off, pushing aside one of the elders. "Ï do not believe it. I can't. That brings everything into question."

Victus leaned forward to put his arms on the holographic projector, staring at the regent. "So you were not told the full extent of this war?" A hint of concern crept into Victus's heart "Just some savages on the frontier to be wiped out by pirate-hunters?"

There was an awkward extended silence, and the regent moved towards the nearest window to look out over his city. He glanced over his shoulder at Victus. "Yes. That's what we were told. An utterly despicable and untrustworthy race. One that any sane species would exterminate. But your species, Turian. You may be small, but there is greatness in your species. You have the hearts of Sangheili warriors, even if your bodies are small and weak. " The Sangheili gave one final longing look out the window. "That, and you've got a respectable hide of iron and tough skin. Not that squishy mass of meat the humans have." The Elite made a sound that came across as disgust.

Victus ran through what he'd heard so far. The information was disturbing. The Covenant had apparently not been fully aware of the extent to which humanity had been under attack. And there had been propaganda made against humanity to make it easier to justify the xenocidal campaign being waged. That meant the Coalition might have not broken the Covenant fleet, just part of it. The prospects chilled Victus to the bone. His chain of thought was broken by the regent.

"I have seen your forces at work. You are disciplined to a fault. I refuse to believe a species as adept at war as yours can be impure. The humans will show their true nature to you eventually. But you wished to know about the 'war' we have been waging. There is little I can tell you that you wouldn't know already. We are a frontier world that was reduced to near-barbarism by the Demons. All we did was supply fuel and replacement parts for the anti-piracy fleets. Until Xytan, may the Parasite infest his brain, seized power over High Charity." The Regent glared angrily at Victus. "Which he only succeeded in, because much of High Charity's defensive fleet had been sent to aid in the battle with the Humans. It's because of you, that a monster arose in the heart of the Covenant."

He ignored the barbed remark from the Regent. "Who is this Xytan? You have mentioned him several times now."

"Xytan is- was, the greatest Admiral and warrior my species has known, Turian. The son of a minor Kaidon on Sangheilios, our homeworld. He was born blessed with the body and mind of a demigod, and the power and will to make use of it. He spent two decades crushing any resistance in his path as he rose from a ship captain to admiral. The fastest any Sangheili ever did so." The sheer awe and respect the regent had for Xytan seemed fiercely at odds with the disgust he had for him. "He was reassigned to a fleet on the frontiers and disappeared. Stories from High Charity said he had gone beyond our borders to bring more species into the fold. Instead, he came with an army and a fleet, and took High Charity in a coup."

"High Charity?" Adrian asked. "Is that another homeworld?"

One of the elders laughed, as did the guards. The Regent silenced them with a glare that could have cut through solid steel. "Its the capital of the Covenant. A space station the size of a small moon. With the firepower to destroy a world. The traitor seized control and turned the weapons on any ships that refused to accept his rule. No rebellion in the history of the Covenant ever defeated whoever held High Charity."

Spirits of Palavan. This is worse than the Supercarrier. The Coalition has to know. The sheer scale of just how much the dynamics of the war were changing was starting to dawn on Victus. The Coalition had fought itself to within an inch of its life and hadn't even seen the full might of the Covenant. And now someone that a race of warriors considered akin to a living demigod was in charge. "Continue." He muttered.

"Xytan took high Charity, and then went for Sangheilios. He used High Charity to conquer the homeworld. His fleets then captured a sphere of fifty light-years around the Homeworld, and then closed off all Slipspace routes inside. Loyalist forces have tried to fight back. But nearly the entire Covenant government was in High Charity. Our empire has been beheaded. Those leaders who should be fighting to free our Hierarchs are instead fighting each other for the right to do so. Sending their fleets at each other as they try to amass enough power to march on Xytan. The loyalists are keeping Xytan contained to some extent. But I don't know for how long."

Adrien's blood nearly turned to ice as the regent continued to talk, and he truly began to understand the scale of the Covenant. Fleets which the Coalition had only been able to defeat at great cost were running rampant in Covenant space. And a tyrant was gathering ships and industry for his own designs. A tyrant that only rose to power because the Coalition had weakened the Covenant enough to make it possible.

"Sangheilios has gone silent. Xytan, may his blood be thin and weak, seems content to let the rest of the Covenant fall apart into rival warlords and the few Ministries he didn't seize. He is building an army the likes of which the Covenant has never seen. Some refugees that arrived not long ago tell of him breaking the laws on technological advancement. He's built massive training fields spanning continents. Terrible weapons are being taken from long-sealed tombs. Executioner fleets are being seized from warlords, and the shipyards are running at full capacity."

Victus walked over to where the Elite stood, looking out the window at the ruined swathes of the city. "I take it Xytan incited a revolt here," Victus said, to which the Sangheili nodded.

"He has. Shortly after High Charity was taken, a fleet arrived here, seized nearly all our orbital infrastructure and warships, then glassed a continent to prove a point. Before they left, he deployed a force of saboteurs and raiders to make sure we were consumed by civil strife. lest we become a beacon of resistance."

"Just how much of the Covenant's might was not used against the Humans?" Victus asked, even as he dreaded the answer.

The Regent was silent for a moment, then grunted angrily. "The Covenant has had many civil wars and Ages of Conflict. Our Executioner fleets, dedicated fleets of heavy warships led by a Supercarrier each are kept in storage for use during wars. Many of our most horrific biological and radiological weapons were kept under lock and key to avoid us destroying each other. Just two Executioner fleets could come close to what the Ministry of Fervent Intercession fielded. And Xytan has seized multiple of them."

Adrien felt a sense of doom settle over his heart. If what the Regent said was true, then not even Palavan might be safe in this war. Just what kind of a monster had risen in the Covenant and taking control? He steeled himself and nodded firmly.

"The Turian Hierarchy will hear of this. We will do everything we can to be ready for Xytan."

"You won't be." The Regent said, shaking his head somberly. "None of us will be."

"Then we'll damn well try."