Chapter 11: The Protector and The Rebel
Covenant Home World "Step of Silence", capital city "High Charity", Sanctum of the Hierarchs, Karok System
The Prophet of Truth slumped forward in his chair, drained from the mind takeover. He looked up with his eyes and saw his slave walk out of the Sanctum. He sent an impulse to the entire Covenant telling him that he was one of them, further draining his energy. The Imperial Elites rarely saw the Prophet use so much of his psychic energy in one meeting. But he quickly regained it and sat rigid again. His mind was solely on the Chief whose mind was now fully converted; he had no feelings for the Humans. The new "Military Commander" was actually going to be the Prophet's personal bodyguard. He'd been feeling anxiety over some kind of plot against the Covenant Hegemony and was assigning the strongest soldiers they could spare to them. He spun around called upon the holo-projectors to bring up an image of the Step of Silence home fleet. They were preparing to leave for another sweep of the humans. But there was a new weapon at their disposal, The Planet Killers. The three of them were the Covenant's assurance of victory. But in the unlikely case of failure they had a newly discovered Halo at their disposal also. Once all of the Covenant forces were out of the vicinity they would use it to eradicate the Humans. The Prophet of Truth turned around again and set his mind back to his anxiety. He could only do so much without cutting himself out of the picture, which wouldn't do much for the forces needing spiritual guidance at this time. But the thought kept coming back to him; The Humans aren't smart enough or strong enough to try an assault against us, but if that is true, why did we lose? He made his mind though; the Covenant would strike the Humans swiftly but not at their outer colonies, Earth itself. But he wanted to test his new protector in battle to see what would happen. But before he would tell him his new mission he would probe his mind to find any signs of "decontamination".
The Chief walked outside of the Sanctum and stood rigid. The only thing was, he wasn't in control of his body. He tried to just move a finger but they didn't respond. The hard part was he could still hear, smell, feel, taste, and even see his surroundings. He decided to fight his captor. His whole mind shifted to just trying to move a finger. It was excruciating but he though he felt the presence control him start to weaken ever so slightly. The sign of weakness gave him new hope and it seemed like the presence started to weaken even more. The Chief thought he was about to make it move when a whole new energy entered his mind and threw him back. It was familiar; he had felt this presence before.
"Human! Your attempts at freedom are futile. For that I am taking away what little freedom you did have!"
Suddenly the whole world that he knew disappeared and turned into a land of shadows. He had no contact with his senses anymore. His mind drifted away and fell into darkness.