Chapter 34: Kel
Kel had stood still the entire time the battle played out. He watched the massive Covenant battleship rip apart the Fleet of the Perilous Dawn, and then watched the battleship itself get ripped apart.
Despite the few intense battles that Kel had been in, the closest thing he'd seen to a proper naval battle was the Blade of Ages getting shot at by the Jiralhanae corvette above Kars. And everything he had learned about naval combat was something he'd learned decades ago, so distant that he couldn't remember a thing.
Everything he had just watched was completely new to him, he had no idea what he was looking at. But the battle played out regardless of what he thought. What he assumed was going to be a guaranteed loss turned out to be a victory, though it wasn't a total victory.
There was a point where Kel stopped paying attention, though he couldn't tell when that was. The only thing that brought him back to the real world was a mention of his name.
"I need to see Kel 'Dauram," said Raku 'Sol, the Hidden blade. "In person."
Kel wondered what that could be about. He felt the eyes of the ship's crew burning into him as if he should know what it was about. He almost felt embarrassed when he realised it was most likely something to do with the Assembly, which was really the only reason he was there with the fleet.
That is all you're good for, he told himself. To his surprise it wasn't the voice in his head speaking to him then; he hadn't heard it at all since he left Kars, though he couldn't tell why.
"I can fly myself there," Kel said, not wanting to steal Jors 'Cinat from the crew.
His departure was met with silence as the crew still recovered from the chaos that had just ended. The walk through the halls was just as uneventful as any other walk he had taken. Even when he passed the other Sangheili that had joined their crew, he was met with more silence and strange looks.
Kel understood why everyone thought he was so strange, though he would never be able to tell them why. The most anyone knew was that he heard a voice in his head, and that he only told to Fural and Raku. If he told anyone else, they would think he was a madman.
Kel's skin still burned as he moved, and his muscles felt much weaker than they should have. He hadn't yet fully recovered from his stunt in the vacuum of space, but he was sure he would eventually; though it wasn't like he had done it before and had any idea how long it would actually take to recover.
The only phantom in the hangar deck was the Undiminishing Conviction, which belonged to Jors 'Cinat, but it was his only way to the Sacred Provenance. He hoped Jors wouldn't be too mad as he boared it and took the controls. The control scheme of the Conviction was strange, nothing like the other phantoms he had flown. It didn't take him long to figure out how to use it, but he wondered why Jors had the controls changed at all.
There was hardly any room aboard either of the Sacred Provenance's hangar decks. He had to leave the phantom hovering in the air and use the gravity lift to slowly float down to the floor, and even then he had to avoid getting any of the crates and weapons caught in the lift.
Luckily for him, the ship was mostly empty now. Most of the warriors that were once aboard the ship were now stowed away aboard the corvettes. He didn't have to worry about any of the strange looks now when he waited for Raku 'Sol.
When the assassin did arrive, he was there with another Sangheili in tow. He wore what looked like a standard combat harness, though it was a dark shade of pink in colour, and his helmet wrapped around his whole head in a similar way to Raku's. Kel couldn't tell the expressions of either Sangheili, which made him just a little uncomfortable.
"You are alone?" Raku asked.
"Yes," Kel said, his voice betraying his confusion. "I am alone."
"Good. This is something I wish to discuss with you in private."
Raku's words only caused Kel's confusion to grow. Before Kel could ask what this was about, the assassin attacked him. Raku stomped his heel onto Kel's foot, and grabbed his neck with a hand. When Kel tried to fight back with his other hand, Raku held it back. Despite the assassin being smaller and slimmer than him, his strength was impressive.
"What are you doing?" Kel choked his words out through Raku's grasp.
"Did you lead the Covenant here?" Raku asked, his voice unsettlingly calm.
"No..? Why would-"
"Because I know who you are, Kel 'Dauramee," Raku interrupted him. "I know what you've done."
Kel's blood turned to ice. This is exactly what he feared, what he had been afraid of since the day he landed on Kars.
Strength rose in Kel's muscles from a place of fear. He overpowered Raku's hold on him, and threw the assassin off. The pink-harnessed Sangheili aimed a carbine at him as Raku got onto his feet. If Kel was armed, he was certain he could take out the one he didn't know, but he knew he wouldn't stand a chance against Raku. That was if he even wanted to fight them in the first place.
Kel raised his hands, to show that he did not intend any arm. The unknown Sangheili kept his gun aimed, and Raku stood tall in an attempt to stare Raku down.
"I have never lied to you," Kel said. "But I never told the whole truth."
"Then what is the whole truth?" Raku asked, taking a single step forward but not moving beyond that.
"I betrayed the Covenant, not the Sangheili. I believed we were slaves to the idea of the Forerunners, and that they were never truly real."
"You killed several Sangheili," Raku growled. "Minors who never got to experience truly being a warrior, a major who had done nothing but serve his people with pride, and a general who brought honour to our people. You stole his harness, and wear it every day like it was something you've earned. And the pilot, whose vessel you stole after mutilating him."
"Because I wanted to send a message to the Prophets!" Kel exclaimed. "They were necessary deaths in the goal I had believed in at the time. A goal that I don't believe in anymore."
"Because you claim to hear voices in your head?"
"No, because I learned they were real. I learned of their feats, and their power. I learned that I made a mistake, one that I will never make again."
Kel explained everything as best as he could, yet he couldn't tell if these two were listening to him or not. Their helmets told him nothing of what they were thinking, and they stood so still that he couldn't even read their body language.
"I killed them because I had to," Kel continued. "If you don't think I ever regretted that decision, just know that I spent the last years painting this harness with my own blood. I even still have the general's weapon that I've cared for over the years since, and I held onto the pilot's phantom for as long as I could."
The silence that fell between them at least told him that they were considering his words. He hoped they would listen well, for their sakes and his. He didn't want to die, and they couldn't reach the Assembly without him.
"I hear the truth to your words," Raku said, his voice taking on a defeated tone. "You are right. You have never lied to us."
"I did what I did because I wanted the best for our people," Kel said. "And though my views have changed, that is still what I want. Whether or not you choose to continue trusting me, just know that."
Kel felt the tension in the room and in himself relax significantly. He lowered his hands back to his sides, and stood in silence as he waited for one of the others to speak next. Raku raised his wrist to his face and stared at Kel as he spoke into it.
"Did you get that?" Raku asked.
"I heard," the voice of Fural 'Nasamai came from Raku's communicator.
"Fural, I-" Kel started, only to be interrupted by his shipmaster.
"I knew you weren't telling the whole truth. Since the moment we first met, you've been strange to me. But like you said, you have never lied. Not to me or to Raku."
Kel bowed with his head, showing Fural and the others his respect for them still accepting him. This wasn't how he had wanted the truth to come out, but he didn't even know how he'd wanted it to come out in the first place. It wasn't something he ever planned on telling anyone.
But now that it was out, he didn't have to worry about it anymore. Kars 'Chelamee and the others could finally lay in rest.
"Knowing what we know now, I'd say you were right to betray the Covenant," the pink-harnessed Sangheili said. "If anyone else saw what was coming, they would do the same thing too. Maybe not by killing fellow Sangheili, however."
"You are lucky for that," Raku said, his tone indicating that he wasn't as accepting as Fural or the pink one.
Kel responded with a nod, he didn't know what else to say. But when he turned to leave, he was stopped by Raku, who approached him once more.
"You're not free to go just yet. I am confining you to the Sacred Provenance for now," Raku said. "Your armour needs to be repaired, and I am still trying to gauge how much I can trust you."
"I agree," Fural said. "You should still be in the medical bay. You are not fit for another battle yet, not this one anyway."
Fural may have been right, but Kel still wanted to object. He felt now that he had to prove his worth more than ever, so being told to sit out of a fight stung. Even if his body had recovered from being exposed to the vacuum of space, his armour was still heavily damaged. It wasn't going to hold up in another fight.
"Fine, I will sit out," Kel said.
"'Rylan will show you to a place to stay," Raku said, gesturing to the pink-harnessed Sangheili, who was apparently the Mace 'Rylan that Raku had mentioned earlier.
'Rylan nodded, and motioned for Kel to follow him, which he did. He was led through the halls of the Sacred Provenance until they stopped at what looked like the crew quarters. The walls were lined with beds, which he was told he could pick any one to sleep in.
He shed his harness, leaving it on the floor until a Huragok could come take it away to repair it, and he laid on the bed. It was somehow less comfortable than the bed in the Blade of Ages's medical bay, but it was still more comfortable than the moss that he had slept on for the decades he'd spent on Kars.
Everything that had just happened, happened so quickly that Kel was certain he could write it off as a dream. But he couldn't pretend it didn't happen. At least it's over with now, he told himself.
The fleet was still recovering from the attack, but they were going to jump into slipspace soon. Kel might not be taking part in the battle, but he was still going to be in as much danger as everyone else. The Sacred Provenance's point defence system was still offline, and it was going to take more than just a few Huragok to fix it. The rest of Kel's life was now determined by how fast the teams boarding the Supreme Crusader were able to disable its weapons systems.
"All crew, prepare to jump into the slipstream," the shipmaster of the Sacred Provenance said over the intercom.
The ship's hull vibrated, and the sound of the slipspace drive's hum filled the halls. The last time Kel had been aboard a ship entering slipspace, he wasn't even conscious. And the last time before that was too long ago for him to remember. Even then he could tell how old the Sacred Provenance was just by how loud its slipspace drive was.
The only way Kel could tell that they had finally entered slipspace was that the sound became slightly quieter. There was no jolt of the ship, or some kind of wave of energy passing over him like he had expected.
He tried to close his eyes, and get as much sleep as he could before the battle started. He tried to listen for the voice that usually talked to him when he needed it to, but he just couldn't hear it.
Why? Kel asked himself. Where are you?
He wasn't expecting an answer, yet he was still disappointed when one didn't come. He then hoped that he would have another indecipherable dream, but he just couldn't fall asleep no matter how hard he tried.
Eventually a Huragok arrived in the crew quarters. He'd seen them on High Charity when he was last there, but he had forgotten what they had looked like. He almost jumped to his feet and beat the floating gas bag to death.
The thing didn't seem to notice him, it stopped above his harness that he had left on the floor and began collecting the pieces of it. Each piece of armour was heavy, but the Huragok carried them with surprising ease. How could a floating gas bag be so strong? He wondered.
His curiosity in the creature was the only thing he had to keep him busy, so he followed it out of the crew quarters and into what looked like an armoury.
No one else was in the room, just him and the Huragok. Weapon racks lined the walls that were mostly empty, though a few plasma rifles and carbines remained. The ceiling of the room was a window that looked out into space, despite Kel's better judgement telling him that the room was somewhere in the middle of the ship. They had to just be screens that displayed what the outside world looked like.
With the ship in slipspace, the outside world was just black. A field of endless darkness. There wasn't any sign of any of the fleet's other ships travelling with them, which Kel figured was because he just poorly understood slipspace.
Kel pulled up a small crate and sat on top of it while he watched the Huragok work. It inspected his gauntlet first, and took the communicator off of it. Kel could barely tell what it was doing as it watched its tentacles move. The only thing that was clear was that the Huragok was fixing it.
Eventually the Huragok set it down on the table, and turned its attention to the damaged torso piece. Kel slowly reached for the communicator and turned it on. The device sparked to life as if it had never been damaged, and it allowed him to connect to Fural and everyone else aboard the Blade of Ages.
"Kel? Your communicator is fixed?" Fural asked as soon as he answered.
"Yes," Kel said. "There is a Huragok here fixing my armour as we speak."
"I see. I would have had Easy to Drift repair it, had our ship not suffered damage. What is it you need?"
"I wanted to apologise for not telling you my full story. This is not how I wanted it to come out."
"I do not need your apologies. What you did happened in the past, it is of no concern anymore."
"Do you still trust me?" Kel asked. It was a question he was sure he didn't need to ask, but he still felt he needed the assurance.
"You have done enough to earn my trust. This is not an issue strong enough to break it."
"Okay," Kel sighed. "That is all I wanted to say."
"Before you go, I would like you to do something."
"And that is?"
"Find Rahg, he should be in the ship's medical bay. I want to know how he is doing."
"Will do, Blademaster," Kel said. "I will call you when I am there."
He stood up from the crate and closed the connection to Fural. The Huragok still didn't show any sign that it noticed him even as he left the room to search for the medical bay.
The internal layout of the Sacred Provenance was a complete mystery to Kel, and there wasn't anyone he could ask for directions. He could have asked the Huragok, but they could not speak, at least not in a manner Kel could understand. The only people he could ask were in the control room, and he didn't even know the way to that place.
It took so long to find the medical bay that Kel was afraid the fleet would exit slipspace before he could get to it. But finally he found it, as he entered a room and found Rahg sitting up on a bed. The Kig-Yar was awake for the first time since he was injured, and he eyed Kel suspiciously.
"Do I know you?" Rahg asked.
"Yes, it's Kel 'Dauram," Kel said.
"Ah yes, did not recognise you without big purple armour. Or without your smooth skin."
Rahg attempted to laugh, but started coughing so hard that Kel was afraid he might rupture a lung. He eventually stopped, and laid back down on the bed with his hands resting on the armoured brace across his torso.
Kel looked around the room for a mirror to see what Rahg was talking about. Without your smooth skin? What does that mean?
"Fural sent you, didn't he?" Rahg asked, changing the subject before Kel could ask about it.
"He did," Kel replied. "He wanted to know how you were doing."
Rahg laughed again and experienced another coughing fit, taking minutes to calm down.
"Blademaster loves me," Rahg said with a grin slowly creeping across his beak. It was an unsettling sight. "He just pretends he doesn't."
Kel hadn't spoken with Rahg enough before to form an opinion on him, but now he was starting to dislike him a little. The Kig-Yar didn't seem to take anything seriously, at least not when he wasn't fighting.
"I guess I will tell him you're alright," Kel sighed.
"Tell him whatever," Rahg said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'll be here for a while anyway."
Kel stepped outside of the room to call Fural. He didn't want the two to start having an endless conversation and leave him to sit there and listen the whole time.
"How is he?" Fural asked as soon as he answered.
"He's awake for now," Kel said. "And he's doing well, I think."
"Good. Perhaps I'll get a chance to speak with him after this battle."
"Speaking of the battle⦠you must act quickly. If the Sacred Provenance goes down you will lose both of us."
"I don't intend to let that happen," Fural said confidently. "You and Rahg are my crew, which means you're my family. I let my family down once, it's not going to happen again."
Kel didn't know what Fural was referring to, but it wasn't his place to ask.
"That is good to hear," Kel said. "I will see you when the battle is over. Good hunting, Blademaster."
The connection dropped, and Kel took a moment to look at his hands. They were covered in burns and boils, which he assumed was what his face looked like too. He let out a frustrated sigh as he realised what Rahg had been talking about.
He made his way back through the halls until he found the armoury again, which took a lot longer than he wanted to admit. He sat back down on the same crate, and watched the same Huragok that still didn't acknowledge his presence as it repaired his armour.
After what felt like hours, Kel felt the ship vibrate again. He looked up through the ceiling and watched the stars fade into view, while more slipspace portals opened in the distance and the rest of the fleet appeared.
The light of the system's sun shone on the ship, the screens were able to make an accurate representation of what it would look like had they been real windows with the sun shining through them, baking the whole room in a golden light.
That was how he was going to watch the battle to come. Through a screen in the ceiling. The battle that would either strengthen the fleet by a significant margin, or cause its destruction entirely. And either way the battle played out, Kel's life was still in danger.
