Rylit Ikaporamee arrived in the skies above Breathless Venture along with a fleet of CCS-class battlecruisers, the bulk of the heretic fleet not engaged in operations against the loyalists.
The system had recently seceded, a major victory for the heretics. Breathless Venture was the largest shipyard in the outer Covenant colonies, as the largest moon of the planet possessed the largest stores of the metals used to construct Covenant ship hulls, armor, and weapons. Visible against the blackness was the moon, distorted by decades of mining.
The sangheili leader was flanked by Councilors, and behind them trailed some lesser sangheili and a san 'shyuum. The party arrived on the bridge and saw projected in the middle of the room the image of a CSO-class supercarrier.
"They've come so soon?" one of the Councilors asked, clenching his fists and looking at the image. "Damn the Faith and Glorious Redemption!"
"Nay, brother, they have not, not yet," Ikaporamee replied, raising a hand and ordering those present to calm themselves.
"Why do you project that image, then? To scare us?" the same Councilor asked, his voice betraying his frustration at having made a fool of himself.
"Again, no. This is the image of the primary project being constructed in the Venture shipyards. This is CSO-002 which was originally named Shadow of Salvation, and which we have requisitioned her and renamed Thunderous Retribution," Ikaporamee explained, walking around the holotank and glancing up at their answer to the unstoppable Faith and Glorious Redemption.
"You mean to say we can stop the Faith? We can fight her on her own terms?" the san 'shyuum, Gol Rontum, said.
"Yes," Ikaporamee said, looking at the san 'shyuum. He wondered offhand whether or not the san 'shyuum would ever take charge, being the only prominent member of his species to follow the cause. "Yes we can. Thunderous Retribution will be complete within the next set of cycles."
"Such fortune, the Gods surely are with our cause," the second Councilor said.
"Indeed," Rontum agreed, "they surely must be."
"Sir," the master of the ship they were on said, approaching the party and saluting the rebel leader. "Probes in the Void have detected the whispers of the enemy. They have heard that Breathless Venture has counted itself among the enlightened and are coming to retake the shipyards."
"This was to be expected," Ikaporamee said, his voice cold and calm. "Can our new weapon be used? We shall shock them when they arrive."
"I do not know," the shipmaster replied. "What are your orders?"
"Leave four ships around the Retribution and take the rest around Breathless Venture. We shall sling around behind them when they arrive at the shipyard," Ikaporamee ordered. The shipmaster saluted again and the fleet divided and went into motion.
"Departing from the Void… now," the helmsman of the SSV Lima announced as they left superluminal speed. Outside the bridge one could see a large planet to their left, with an oddly shaped moon directly in front of them.
"Standard battle formation, people," Rear Admiral Mikhailovich ordered as the loyalist fleet and the CEF supplement arrived in space. Indeed the CEF had been bolstered following the attack on Terra Nova, but that amounted only to half a dozen cruisers and their fighter complements.
As the campaign drew on and the victories mounted, Mikhailovich had grown increasingly convinced that the Faith and Glorious Redemption was an unstoppable juggernaut. Covenant tactics were streamlined and efficient, something that the Citadel races lacked. Each race had its own tactics, which had a history of causing issues in battle, most notably during the Battle of the Citadel.
The joint loyalist-CEF fleet advanced rapidly toward the mangled moon, getting close enough to see the individual strip mines covering the surface.
"Four tangos are tearing around the moon, looks like they're coming at us," the helmsman said, pulling up a map and showing the Admiral.
"Hyasus, Kinthii, line up your shots," the Admiral said to the two turian dreadnoughts.
"Already done, Admiral," the turian skipper, Traxian, said.
Loyalist ships began to open fire with their plasma torpedoes, the red lines were tracing through space to their targets long before the turians could fire at the oncoming heretics. The torpedoes impacted the shields and were dissipated by them, and the answering torpedoes from the heretics met the same fate upon the shields of the loyalists.
The second round of torpedoes brought down the shields of the severely outnumbered cruisers, one of whom split off after suffering damage. The other three continued on but bugged out as the third salvo drew near, disappearing into the Void.
"That was easy," Mikhailovich joked, looking down at the map. He noticed the immediate danger as it was called out to him.
"Admiral, enemy ships at six o'clock!" his LADAR officer shouted.
"Damn it!" he cursed, watching as the heretics slung around the planet at breakneck speeds and approached the joint fleet.
Hyasus and Kinthii were now severely exposed, and the two dreadnoughts made frantic preparations for a jump to FTL as the heretics loosed a barrage of plasma at them and the loyalist rearguard. The two turian ships managed to escape just as the torpedoes reached within twenty kilometers of their targets.
While the loyalists were distracted the four heretic cruisers jumped right into the midst of their foes, engaging them and disrupting the formation, sewing chaos even as they were blasted to pieces. Fighters dodged about the spreading clouds of debris where two heretic cruisers had failed to escape the wrath of the Faith and Glorious Redemption, now bringing its big gun to bear on the approaching heretics.
The torpedoes slammed into the loyalists from two sides. Batteries in orbit around the nearby shipyards were firing plasma torpedoes at a steady rate.
"Hold on," Mikhailovich said, looking closely at the shipyards. The majority of the plasma rounds were coming from within the massive structure. They fired out of the tube-shaped construct and turned right toward them. "What is in there?"
"My guess is the heretics are using it for cover," Lieutenant David, the LADAR officer, opined. "We won't be able to dent that thing."
"We don't want to destroy the shipyards anyway," Mikhailovich countered. "Somebody's going to have to flush them out."
Back in the CIC a piece of technology installed by the loyalist Covenant lit up, and the image of a sangheili fleet master appeared. Mikhailovich was alerted immediately and he made his way from the bridge to the CIC to meet with his opposite number.
"All is well Admiral, but I must ask for the use of your scouting flotilla," Fleet Master Voro 'Toyukee said when he saw Mikhailovich arrive.
"What do you want them for?" the human asked.
"I want for them to fly around the rear of the main dock we are being fired upon from. We have concerns there could be a much larger force hiding in there than the two cruisers that escaped us," 'Toyukee replied. His hologram was handed something and Mikhailovich watched his mandibles tighten up. The sangheili glanced up at him. "I must insist."
"Very well, Fleet Master," Mikhailovich said, resigned. He turned to the command console as the sangheili looked on. "69th, do a quick flyby of that dock we're catching fire from. Go around the back, avoid direct contact."
"Yes, sir, we're moving in on the shipyards," Captain Walter Percival of the SSV Waterloo acknowledged. Waterloo was the leader of the 69th Scout Flotilla after the loss of the Normandy to the Citadel and then to the geth a year later.
On the map above the console, the Admiral watched as his ships broke contact with the heretic fighters and dart toward the dock in question.
"Here come the thorn beasts," Ikaporamee said, eager for the revelation of their new ship. "Let loose the hunting party."
Within the massive dock the Thunderous Retribution stirred to life, her massive engines lighting up and preparing to spring the trap.
As soon as the scout vessels passed the opening a flurry of torpedoes lanced out and smote half of them, sending the other half into a frenzied retreat. The heretic supercarrier jumped out of its hiding place and loosed a full broadside barrage of plasma torpedoes, the streaks of red light piercing space and then piercing their targets.
Several of their targets went down immediately, caught totally unawares. The torpedoes that targeted the Faith and Glorious Redemption were stopped short by the powerful shielding, causing a blue ripple to spread across them.
Across space, shock froze the mind of the human Admiral. A third of his fleet had just been destroyed, and a second monstrous carrier had arrived on the scene. Mikhailovich had seen one of the smaller assault carriers in action before, but at this range he knew there was no way it was anything less than another ship of the CSO-class.
"Admiral," the guttural voice of Fleet Master 'Tuyokee barked from the special communication console. "You must withdraw, we did not foresee that carrier being completed. Your fleet will be destroyed."
"You knew about this?" Mikhailovich shouted. He failed to take note of the second salvo of torpedoes that had just been fired.
"Admiral, leave now. That is an order," 'Tuyokee countered. "Go, now! Torpedoes inbound!"
"Oh, hell! Evasive maneuvers!" Mikhailovich said as the next round of torpedoes found his ships. They burnt through the hulls of their targets, unmolested by the weak kinetic barriers on them. One of the torpedoes found the SSV Lima and smashed into her directly amidships, melting away the armor and exposing deck after deck to vacuum.
Finally the last of the plasma burnt into the engine room and put the stricken Lima out of her misery—the ship exploded, flinging detritus across space at high speed. So passed Admiral Mikhailovich, and the heretics beheaded the CEF, leaving the surviving Citadel ships in a state of disarray.
For his part, 'Tuyokee now found himself charged with the care of several extra ships, though the CEF was the first target of the heretic fleet and was now reduced to almost one-third of their original numbers. They crumbled under the firepower of the Thunderous Retribution.
"All Citadel ships, retreat now," he ordered the survivors. He watched the two big ships jump out of combat first, followed by the eleven surviving cruisers and handful of frigates.
"Fleet Master, the heretics are preparing to use their energy projector," one of the crew reported.
"Take us in close and engage it directly. Keep the ships mobile so as to make it impossible to target us," 'Tuyokee said, leaving the communications console and returning to his command console in the center of the massive CIC.
His fleet broke contact with the one behind him and took off toward the supercarrier. They were taking a calculated risk by doing this, as the CSO-class had dozens of anti-ship pulse laser turrets that would wreck the smaller CSS-class cruisers that made up most of 'Tuyokee's fleet.
Thinking about his position he knew his ships were ill-prepared to take on a ship of this size. The losses would be great, and he had to think about continuing the war. If his fleet was destroyed here the heretics would have an open road to the Holy City.
"Be aware of the dorsal energy projector," he warned his shipmasters as he noticed them heading toward the top of the ship. An idea struck him, something of a compromise between dishonorable retreat and total defeat. "All forces, concentrate on their engines. Cripple the ship."
The fleet made for the rear of the thirty-kilometer long target and began to fire indiscriminately at the shields in an effort to weaken them.
Holding at a longer range directly behind the target, the Faith and Glorious Redemption charged her own energy projector and fired a few shots at the engines of the other carrier. The shields held up for the first hit but began to collapse by the second and third.
Unfortunately, several cruisers had been destroyed by the enemy's countermeasures, and several more damaged. Debris was beginning to cloud the space around the shipyards, which was beneficial in its own way.
A few more shots blew apart half of the engines, accomplishing the primary objective. The enemy carrier was crippled despite 'Tuyokee's massive losses. He issued the orders to rendezvous with the remains of the CEF and return to the point they set off from.
The loyalists broke contact with the heretic fleet and exited into the Void, leaving the heretics with the field. It was the first strategic defeat they'd suffered in the war, even if it was a tactical victory—the supercarrier would not enter the war for a while now with the damage done to it.
"Down with the Citadel!" the crowd roared in the market square of Constant, capital of Eden Prime.
"When our neighbor was destroyed, who did nothing?" the ringleader, a bald man in his late fifties asked.
"The Citadel!" the crowd of several thousand roared in response.
"When we were attacked by the geth, who did nothing?" he shouted.
"The Citadel!" the crowd responded.
"Who did we save when the geth attacked?" he continued.
"The Citadel!" the crowd screamed.
"Who consorts with the Citadel? Who has sold countless human lives to the aliens?" the ringleader asked, changing direction.
"The Alliance!" the crowd answered.
From a third story window, Lieutenant Colonel Ashley Williams and two Marines watched. "This is getting out of control," Williams said.
"Yes ma'am," one of the Marines, a kid named Johnson, agreed. "I'd like to shut his mouth before it went any further."
"Can't do that, Johnson," the other Marine, Burns, said. "This would become a riot if that jackass took a bullet."
"It's about to become a riot now," Johnson replied, but it was more of an observation than an objection.
"I know," Ashley said, fingering the flare gun in her hand. "If it becomes a riot we fire this flare off. It might scare them straight, but if it doesn't we can count on the garrison being ready if the riot turns toward them."
The ringleader said something else that none of them caught, absorbed as they were in their own conversation. The crowd began to move from the square, chanting "Down with the Council!"
"This is dangerous. Even weapons-free they'd take the base, there's got to be a few thousand of them to a few hundred of us," Johnson said. "I wouldn't doubt that those newbies would desert, too. Those are their friends out there."
"Hell, I probably know a few people out there," Burns said. "I'm not about to turn traitor over them."
"You've been a Marine for more than a month," Ashley said, leaning out the window and firing the flare pistol. The flare didn't ignite until it was well above the crowd, and she was confident no one knew where the red ball of light originated. What it represented was well-known though: the Marines were there. As a result, the crowd faltered somewhat and a few dozen people broke off down alleyways and into stores here and there. They knew they were perilously close to crossing the line.
The three Marines looked out the window again and then at each other. Ashley motioned for the other two to follow her as she left the room, descended the stairs, and moved out onto the street and began to shadow the crowd.
They followed at a discrete distance behind the mob as it made its way up the street toward the base.
It was a low structure, nothing more than three stories tall was built on the base grounds. Surrounding it was a chain-link fence with barbed wire around the top, the only thing currently keeping about four thousand angry people from storming the base.
"Please disperse," a bored-sounding voice said, amplified by the base's PA system.
Again, the less radical people realized they were rioting in front of a military base and faded out of the mob. The fanatics, however, replied with a resounding "No!"
There were several people who began to smack the gate with blocks of wood and their fists, creating a rattling sound that echoed up the street to Ashley, Johnson, and Burns.
"Move away from the gates, now," the voice said. Ashley recognized it to be Colonel Arnold and the three of them started up the street.
"Colonel!" someone shouted from the alley to their right. The three of them stopped and looked and saw a figure slumped against the wall.
"Who's there?" Ashley asked, motioning for Johnson and Burns to watch the street. She walked over to the figure cautiously and as she drew near she saw one of the Marines from Easy company hunched over on the ground next to the unmoving body of another Marine.
His nose was bloodied, and his one eye was swollen shut. Blood matted his hair and there were several long scratches across his face. "Private Turner, ma'am," he wheezed in response. He weakly tried to salute and smeared blood across his forehead.
"What happened? Was it the mob?" Ashley asked.
"Yes ma'am," Turner replied, and he turned and nodded to the body. "That's Corporal Ferrier, she tried to talk them down. They attacked us."
Ashley leaned down and tried to get a pulse from Ferrier. If there was, it was very weak. "Johnson, help me out back here."
Johnson came up the alley at a brisk pace and skidded to a stop beside Ashley. "What the hell happened?"
"We'll talk about it later. Grab Corporal Ferrier there," Ashley said, moving herself to help Private Turner to his feet.
"How do we get into the base, Colonel?" Johnson asked.
Ashley looked up the street and saw a sky car back the way they'd come and motioned for the Marines to follow her. Turner did his best to keep up but he was pretty badly injured.
They reached the air car and Ashley busted the window out and unlocked the driver's-side door and leaned Turner up against the car as she unlocked the rest of the doors. She put Turner in the back seat with Johnson and Burns and put Corporal Ferrier in the front seat.
Next she used her omni-tool to start the car and pulled the door closed before taking off and flying over the mob. It appeared to have actually grown since they found Turner and Ferrier and stopped watching the mob.
The car set down in the courtyard and Ashley saw several Marines rushing up to it with weapons drawn before seeing who was in the car. They lowered their weapons and ran over to help them out.
"We need a medic here," Ashley told the first Marine to arrive. "We've got someone in bad shape."
The Marine nodded and called for the medic before going around to the other side and pulling the injured corporal from the vehicle. Johnson and Burns went around the other side and got Turner out, setting him up on the hood of the car.
A medic came running from the barracks with the Marine who'd gone to fetch her. The pair went to work on stabilizing Corporal Ferrier. Ashley turned and saw the crowd getting rowdier, and several pieces of debris flew over the fence at the squad of Marines guarding the gate.
One Marine drew a pistol and fired three shots into the air, sending the front ranks of the mob stumbling backwards.
"If you cross onto the grounds of the base, we will fire at you!" Colonel Arnold shouted from the front gate.
Ashley turned away from the sight and got back into the air car, flying it high into the air and examining the mob. It had grown still more, probably reaching six to seven thousand in number. It had begun also to envelop the base, spreading around the sides and to the back. They were surrounded.
"Greetings," Councilor Tevos said to the returning ruling triumvirate of the Covenant. "Welcome back to the Citadel."
"Greetings to you as well," the Prophet of Constraint said, hovering up to the platform situated before the Council while flanked by the other two Prophets and a small army of honor guardsmen. Fortunately for the Prophets, the rather narrow podium provided to petitioners of the Council was unnecessary—the three of them hovered several meters above it on a level equal to the Councilors. Constraint added, "However it is our first time aboard your station, and I must say it is quite impressive."
"I'm sorry," Tevos mumbled, embarrassed and more than a little confused. Had there been a change in leadership?
"Ah, it is alright. The glory of the Prophets has blinded many before you, and I am certain it shall blind many following you," the Prophet of Constraint replied.
"We asked for you to come here because we had a proposition," Valern said from Tevos' left side. "We would like to offer you an embassy on the Citadel. It would be someplace to serve as a liaison office between the Covenant and the Citadel."
"Such an arrangement could be beneficial to us," the Prophet of Motivation said to Constraint. Sacrifice nodded agreement.
"Indeed, as you have given us warships to help defeat the heretics we would be remiss not to give you a satisfactory method to maintain your control over them," Constraint said, looking at the assembled Councilors.
"We intended it to be a base upon which to build a closer working relationship with the Covenant," Tevos said, recovered from her earlier blunder. "Not necessarily an office merely from which to wage a war."
"Perhaps that will come, in time," the Prophet of Sacrifice said, his voice slightly more severe than Constraint's. "For now our only quest is to purify the faith and destroy the heretics occupying our outer colonies."
"Very well," Valern said. "We will give you time to make your arrangements and appoint an ambassador. You know how to get in touch, yes?"
"Yes, of course," the Prophet of Constraint said, looking down to the Councilors. "Is there anything else?"
"No, nothing else," Tevos said, a little nonplussed that the Citadel Council was being treated like the petitioner.
The Prophets left the Citadel Tower, leaving the Council to themselves.
"This is not going to end well," Udina said first. "First Terra Nova gets bombed, then we admit the perpetrators to the Citadel? You know how this will play on Earth."
"The human race must be made aware of the fact there are two sections of the Covenant, one of whom attacked you. You don't see the turian people or the asari excoriating humanity over the actions of Cerberus, do you?" Sparatus said. The turian rubbed his mandibles as if he was a schoolteacher going over a lesson for an especially difficult student.
Udina seethed, not sure how to respond. His first instinct was to slug the other Councilor, but he got that urge under control. "Just wait and see," Udina warned. "People are going to die because of this."
Outside the Council chambers the Prophets were conversing among themselves as they made way to the Presidium docks.
"I recommend the Ministry of Conversion," Sacrifice said on the topic of which ministry would run the embassy. "Of course, I also would recommend a detachment of the Ministry of Abnegation. The influences of such a den of the unenlightened as this cannot be ignored."
"I agree with Brother Sacrifice," Motivation said as he lagged behind the other two.
"It shall be so, then. However, I want intelligence gathering done as well. We must know more about these degenerates," Constraint said. "We shall designate a sangheili as our ambassador. The aliens seem to have a most interesting reaction to seeing them. Perhaps it is the specter of the slaughter enacted by our lesser brothers that motivates them to fear the sangheili."
"Yes, well thought out," Sacrifice said. "It is better than risking one of our own to temptation."
"We shall send word to the Holy City for a company of Ascetics and one of the Council to join us here on this 'Citadel'," Constraint said.
"Very good," Sacrifice agreed.
Suddenly an image appeared on the arm rests of their thrones. It was a sangheili Councilor.
"Holy Ones, we have word from the front that may affect your summit on the Citadel," the Councilor said.
"What is it?" Constraint asked.
"The alien ships allowed to accompany our fleet have been destroyed in conflict with the heretics," the sangheili said.
"What? All of them?" Constraint snapped.
"No, Hierarch, not all of them. Twelve ships survived, including their two largest," the sangheili answered.
The Prophets looked at each other. "How do we tell them?" Constraint asked.
Motivation shrugged while Sacrifice said, "I say we do not. Have the officer they put in charge of communicating with their fleet learn of it. There is no need for us to say anything of this; it is not in our area of responsibility."
"A fair point," Motivation agreed, yawning. "I do believe it is time for us to return. I feel this place has dirtied me."
"No, not quite yet Brother," Constraint said while they found the docks and boarded a specially-designed transport. "First we must open our new embassy."
A/N:
Complications in the war on the heretics and rumblings on the human home front… things aren't going too hot for anyone right now, though I felt a change in luck for the heretics was overdue. They wouldn't be much of a faction if they didn't win a single battle. This was kind of a draw but it proved to the loyalists that this is no matter to be trifled with.
I hadn't written much of anything about the Prophets lately and figured it was time to bring them back into the story since their departure quite a long time ago.
Sorry this chapter took a while. I had a bit of trouble with finding something to fill up the time before Shepard woke up. Rest assured, that is coming soon and things will get [more?] interesting. Also, I've started up a Halo discussion forum since I couldn't find a good one that wasn't all about an RP. forum/A-Monument-to-All-Our-Sins-The-Halo-Forum/149900/ . Come on down and help start a good Halo community!
As always, thanks for reading!
JLake4