Whilst on patrol in the outer rim territories the republic fleet under the command of jedi knight Argerin Sheras encountered the covenant fleet known as Righteous Clarity under the command of shipmaster Atem' Radumee. During the meeting the covenant believed the fleet to belong to the humans of the UNSC resulting in the covenant opening fire on the republic. Though Argerin's forces suffered heavy losses the jedi general was able to retreat. Now the fleet of Righteous Clarity returns to the capital space station High Charity to report their discovery.
High Charity the covenant high capital and adopted home-world of the San' Shyuum and home of every other species in the Covenant. It is everyone's hope to visit it at one point in time; hopefully not under the terms of delivering news, unless of course that news was straight to the prophet hierarchs themselves.
Atem had visited the mobile city several times in the past but had never once had the honor of meeting the prophets in person. "Explain again shipmaster Radumee? These unknown human ships what was different about them specifically." The Prophet of Regret asked. "As I had said before holy prophets the ships had shields not in exact strength to that of our own but we estimate at lest half strength and the ships used laser technology." Atem explained. "Lasers? Not the usual projectile type weapons?" Regret inquired. "No most holy hierarch they used lasers but their fire was scattered and hardly aimed very well." Atem informed. "Their weapons accuracy is of little concern to us shipmaster we are more concerned if these laser cannons can be a threat." The Prophet of Mercy interjected. "Their cruisers cannons seemed most effective, as expected, but as for their fighters weapons we don't know our ships wiped them out before they could attack."
"Is there anything else that we should know noble sangheli shipmaster?" the Prophet of Truth asked. "Just two more things most holy Hierarchs, the humans we encountered said they were part of an organization called the Republic." Atem told the prophet. "The Republic? The Republic of what exactly?" "Unknown as per our declaration made by you we engaged them with all do haste." "Why did you not listen to them first!" the Prophet of Mercy demanded angrily, "If you had any sense at all you would have," "Enough brother Mercy," The Prophet of Truth said calmly, "Shipmaster you were right in engaging these humans under our gods will; However, your decision to fight before talk may have brought our Covenant an undue burden." "I know and I take full responsibility for it." "We shall talk of your punishment later shipmaster but first we must know the second thing you have to tell."
"After the battle my navigator analyzed our ships slipspace trajectory," Atem explained, "He analyzed three times over but the result of our exit point was confirmed." "Were exactly did you arrive shipmaster?" Truth asked. "We arrived in a new galaxy."
The prophets were both speechless and stunned by this piece of information. "How did this happen?" Regret asked. "We believe that something happened to our slipspace drive core that caused us to stumble into this new galaxy." Atem explained. "Is it possible to return to this galaxy?" Regret asked. "The huragok have examined the core personally they have confirmed that both we and the rest of our ships can venture to the new galaxy with some slight modifications to our slipspace drive cores."
Regret was speechless, Mercy was also speechless and Truth merely put his hand to his chin and smiled. "We shall talk about this matter in private shipmaster," The prophet of Truth said, "In the meanwhile you and your crews are confined to your ships." "Yes most honorable, truthful and holy hierarchs." Atem said and with that he stood and turned around and walked back to his ship.
The prophets followed suit and left for their personal chambers to dwell on these recent revelations. When the prophets at last reached their chambers the prophets took their esteemed places.
Truth noticed the sangheli honor guard at their posts. "Guardsmen," Truth said. With the sound of his voice the sangheli honor guards stood straighter. "Leave us to our own thoughts if you would." With that order the honor guardsmen turned and left the prophets to their peace of mind.
"Well brothers," Truth asked, "what do you think?" "I personally don't care." Mercy explained. "If there are more humans in another galaxy then you know what we must do." "Indeed," Truth said, "What of you brother Regret?" "I am personally conflicted between the amazement of the discovery of a new galaxy that we can access or disgusted by the fact that humans have tainted the new galaxy." Regret said openly. Truth nodded his head in agreement. "The fact of the matter is what do we do now?" Truth asked his brothers. "We can not simply leave the humans in this new galaxy unchecked they could find a way to follow us or worse they may find out the dire secret that we all know to be the real truth." "Indeed," Mercy said, "We must cleanse these infidels immediately." "Have you forgotten that we already fight a war here in our Galaxy?" Regret said with anger. "If this republic was able to stretch to the outer most portions of their galaxy they will be spread out across the galaxy, colonizing no nearly every world, the cleansing of their worlds would months even years even with all of our ships working and they would likely fight back as the humans in or galaxy have." "What is your point brother," Mercy said blankly. "My point you imbecile is that if we turn to fight another enemy in another galaxy then our present enemy in this galaxy will take notice and likely go on the offensive." "The humans of the UNSC are stupid and points primitive compared to us they would not dare." "You have not seen their determination and conviction firsthand! Even hiethens and animals such as them will bite back when sufficiently angered." "Enough both of you!" Truth said to his brothers. "This petty arguing solves nothing." "But brother Truth," Regret interjected. "No, silence both of you," Truth said, "It is clear to me that neither of you will decide on what to do so here is what I propose we do." The other two prophets straightened in preparation of their brothers plan. "Will it is true that we can not leave our galaxy undefended from the covenant we can also not ignore the humans in the other galaxy. So I propose that we leave small fleets at the already glassed worlds and larger the first worlds we reached, and finally the largest we can manage at our borders, agreed?" Regret nodded in agreement to Truth's idea. "What about this new galaxy and this republic?" Mercy inquired. "We can not do anything about it until we receive more information, we must find the fleet that was found by the sangheli shipmaster." "But how? We can not follow them through slipspace." Mercy said. "The report made the shipmaster says that there was no slipspace portal opening when the ships left. They merely jumped and flew away apparently." "A hyper drive system?" "Indeed we learned not to use that kind of travel when we learned that our enemies could follow us." "Quite so which means we can track them." "Excellent." "Regret," Regret cocked his head to face Truth when his name was called, "Contact the Arbiter Ripa' Moramee and ready a spec operations frigate." "Why brother?" "We must capture the ship and see what information we can get on these republic dogs if we are to ready ourselves for war." "Yes brother." "And get me in contact with the ship master Atem' Radumee, I believe we may have the perfect mission for his redemption."