A/N: Continued thanks to visitor for being such an amazing beta!
Tim spent the next few days in a daze as he processed the latest news. The realization that his parents were most likely dead was devastating enough, but the implications of the glassing only got worse the more he thought about it. Reach wasn't just any world, it was a fortress; humanity's last great bastion, second only to Earth itself in importance. In the worst-case scenario, it'd been meant to hold out under siege for months; buying time for Earth and the other remaining colonies to evacuate and flee beyond the reach of the Covenant.
And the Covenant had steamrolled over it like it was nothing.
The implication was clear: if the Covenant could beat the UNSC at Reach, they could beat them anywhere. Not that humanity had many worlds left or much to defend them with. With Reach's glassing, any remaining hope of a conventional military victory over the Covenant was as dead as the world's 700 million inhabitants; even just fighting the aliens to a stalemate seemed like an impossible pipe dream. The one silver lining was that the Covenant seemed to be under the misapprehension that Reach had been humanity's homeworld, but even that only promised a brief reprieve. Soon, they would discover Earth, and it would surely fall as easily as Reach had.
Just thinking about it made a deep pit in Tim's stomach. In ordinary circumstances, he'd have steeled himself along with his fellow marines and resolved to go down fighting, to at least take as many of the alien bastards with him as possible before his—and humanity's—inevitable end. Instead, he was one of those alien bastards, or at least pretending to be. The irony did not escape him that he might live on if humanity perished, an extinction that he was actively helping to facilitate as part of maintaining his cover. It was not a terribly comforting thought.
In his darker moments, a gnawing doubt made him wonder if there was any point to his mission anymore. If there would even be anything left to go back to. He dearly hoped that his unique situation helped ONI somehow pull a miracle out of their asses. More than anything, he needed to believe his sacrifice, everything that he'd endured, was worth it.
In the meantime, he had to keep up appearances with his Sangheili comrades. The mood of the crew on the Great Inspiration could be best described as jubilant. Any feelings about the glassing of Reach, be they either revelry over the victory or disappointment that they'd missed the battle, were far overshadowed by the sheer exultation over the discovery of the Sacred Ring. With everything else weighing on his mind, Tim had not spared much thought as to the Sacred Rings before, but now it was an inescapable subject. The seven Sacred Rings were at the foundation of the Covenant religion; the very object of their quixotic holy crusade. He supposed if humanity had been searching for these things for three millennia, he'd be pretty excited too. Even so, feigning outward elation while he inwardly grieved tore Tim up inside.
Tim had previously been privately dismissive of the Rings, and he remained skeptical of the vague claim that these derelict Forerunner ringworlds could somehow catalyze the apotheosis of the Covenant faithful, their so-called "Great Journey." However, it was becoming clear that the Covenant knew more than he'd given them credit for. Religious fanatics though they might be, these weren't stupid people, and it would seem that not everything they believed was superstitious nonsense. No sooner had he started coming to grips with that realization than the ship arrived at their destination, with all Sangheili crew and personnel called to the observation deck... only to be greeted by the sight of a mangled, lifeless, still-burning shattered ruin of a Sacred Ring.
The atmosphere aboard the Great Inspiration changed in an instant at the sight of the remains of their supposed salvation. Shock, confusion, disbelief. For a moment, the others had difficulty accepting just what they were seeing, an initial reaction that soon gave way to outrage as the reality of the situation sunk in. For his part, Tim was relieved to drop the joyful mask he'd been wearing and openly display the very real despair he'd been bottling up inside. He wasn't sure exactly what had happened here, but he suspected that it didn't portend anything good. After all, this was a forerunner installation of incomprehensible complexity and age; even ONI would likely have had a fit at the thought of destroying something like that without a damn good reason. Normally he'd consider anything which thwarted the Covenant's ambitions to be a good omen, but their naked fury at this act of supreme sacrilege was not encouraging. They wanted to know who was responsible for this catastrophe, and they were out for blood.
From what he'd overheard, they were investigating one of their own for what essentially amounted to "sacrilege by failure", with a trial to be held soon. A brief leave for respite would be granted to all Sangheili at SpecOps rank and above, but evidently the destruction of the ring reflected poorly on the spiritual well-being of the entire Covenant, as the Prophets dictated a certain number of mandatory "penance prayer" sessions across all layers of their society until the trial date.
Tim's musing was interrupted as a massive object exited slipspace to join them overlooking the sundered ring; half moon, half space station. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. They were called to join High Charity, weren't they? Was this it? The Covenant's elusive capital, their holy city? The thought instantly brought Tim back down to reality. This was the Covenant's seat of power; if there was anything that he could learn that might still help humanity, then surely this is where he'd find it. The prospect that his mission might not be a wasted effort after all gave him renewed resolve.
Still, as he looked upon the enormous city-station, he couldn't help but feel that he was forgetting about something...
His musings were interrupted by a voice from behind him. "A most bittersweet homecoming, is it not?"
Tim spun around to see N'Tho approaching with a sympathetic look; a few moments passed where his need to retain his humanity wrestled with his need for comfort from an ally, the latter coming out on top. "I... yes, you could say that. The destruction of the ring—"
"I was referring to your family, brother Tam," N'tho interjected.
Damn. That's what I forgot. 'Tam' was born here. "Ah... well, to be perfectly honest... I do not believe I can properly face the rest of my House just yet. I may have regained some of my lost honor, but 'Valarm is not a name that is accustomed to association with captivity, nor that easily forgives such embarrassment. I am doubtful I would even be welcome among my own kin." Even if they were alive, Tim added mentally.
With that, N'tho placed a claw on Tim's shoulder, patting it gently. "You are as valiant a warrior as I have met. When you are ready, I am certain they will welcome you home. Until then, you are free to join me and the rest of our squad for what little shore leave we may have once the prayer is out of the way."
As it turned out, there wasn't much time at all for shore leave. The mandatory prayer sessions were extensive, lasting most of the first day, with more the following two days. By the time it was all done, the day of the big trial over the one responsible for the destruction of the ring had arrived, and as with the prayer sessions, attendance was mandatory. As much as Tim had been curious about what shore leave would entail for an off-duty Sangheili on High Charity, he couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn more about the current circumstances.
Unfortunately, as with seemingly everything in Covenant society, the trial was an obvious sham. The explanation of the events leading up to the destruction of the ring as given by the accused—none other than Thel 'Vadamee, one of the highest ranking Sangheili admirals in the entire Covenant armada—were not only perfectly logical, but completely understandable. Though the details on exactly what the "parasite" was were limited, from the general description of things, said parasite was a truly horrifying threat. From Tim's perspective, fleeing the ring and letting it be destroyed was absolutely the correct decision. But in the eyes of the Covenant, logic—and the lives of who-knows-how-many soldiers—meant nothing when weighed against the whims of the Prophets. Any UNSC admiral in the same circumstances would have had medals practically dumped on them by the bucketful; the only reward given to 'Vadamee for ensuring the survival of what few soldiers under his command he had left was to be stripped naked and publicly tortured for hours as the very society he'd bled for jeered at him.
Well, most of that society. The Elites—at least, much of the crew of the Inspiration that were within visible range—seemed torn, though they put on a convincing enough performance with their jeering.
It's wrong, and they know it's wrong. But the indoctrination is still there, and there are too many other people watching to risk speaking out.
As things progressed, Tim felt himself torn as well, but for a decidedly different reason; he wanted to hate Thel 'Vadamee. After all, Thel was the one in command of the fleet that glassed Reach and countless other human colonies. Tim's parents were likely dead, brutally murdered by soldiers under the direct command of 'Vadamee with the full support and knowledge of their commander. Thel had more blood on his hands than all the worst war criminals in human history combined and doubled. No other member of the Covenant had such a track record, as far as Tim knew. By all rights, Tim should have been more than happy to see Thel suffer.
But he wasn't. There was no catharsis, no relief at justice being done, no satisfaction of revenge, however unintentional. Tim couldn't hate Thel, no matter how much his head and heart told him he ought to. The cognitive dissonance didn't end there; somehow, the realization that serious cracks were showing in the Sangheili commitment to the Covenant cause gave him even more mixed feelings. Potential unrest in the enemy camp should have been a good thing—and the fact that there were still Spartans in the fight even more so—but Tim couldn't bring himself to celebrate even in the privacy of his own mind. The gulf between what Tim was feeling and what he knew he should be feeling had grown so wide, and it frightened him. But what frightened him most was that he didn't know why.
At last, the sham trial-slash-brutal torture session came to an end, with the disgraced former Fleetmaster being dragged away to an unknown fate. Not long after that, new orders came in for the Inspiration—a Covenant outpost in the region they had been patrolling went silent, with confused reports of some form of human activity making it through just before all contact was lost. With no fanfare whatsoever, Tim boarded the ship with the rest of its crew and immediately went to his quarters, his mind still roiling with the inner conflict that had plagued him since the trial, the details of their new assignment only adding to the dilemma. Was this it? Was he about to go into combat against the UNSC for the first time? Would he be able to?
He couldn't forget. No matter what, he couldn't forget why he was doing this. He couldn't forget who he was. As he lay down in his bunk, he began to softly and quietly repeat the only thing he had left to him that wasn't a lie:
"My name is not Tam 'Valarmee. My name is Tim Newman. I am not Sangheili, I am a human. I serve the UNSC, not the Covenant. My name is not Tam 'Valarmee. My name is Tim Newman..."