26 July 2553, aboard the UNSC Vicksburg, entering the Tala system
The feeling of a new world never gets old for anybody. Every captain or shipmaster was immediately riveted with the sight, noticing the orbital periods of planets, the local direction of posigrade movement, belts, gas giants, what drones, stations, platforms, and debris were floating in and around the L points. A ground pounder would call it the "lay of the land," but that simplified the complex and constantly moving dance of gravity any solar system had.
Captain Mifune had seen quite a few before, but never under such circumstances. He was a newly-made lieutenant at Psi Serpentis, where Admiral Cole stemmed the arterial bleed of the war so far. He'd been a department commander of various small ships, ferrying marines to worlds he hadn't heard of before. The Cole Protocol and its necessity of random slipspace jumps had brought him to some odd places, jumping from the empty void to the nearest possible world. But nothing had ever brought him to a genuine Covenant world.
Balaho was the homeland of the Unggoy, the Grunts, a cold, miserable rock, a lot like Titan back in the Sol system. Mifune didn't know much about Unggoy history, frankly, he didn't know there was much to learn in the first place. But the month in slipspace with a "xenocultural attaché" read- ONI agent had taught him that the Grunts had been oppressed within the Covenant, which they had been forced to join hundreds of years back. Interestingly enough, forced to join almost exactly at the same time the Koslovics and Friedens were duking it out for control of the Solar System before slipspace travel was invented.
At dinner the day before, The Covenant, to Mifune's surprise, had not been good to the Unggoy. The marine captain -technically a temporary major while aboard Vicksburg a woman named Litvak, was less surprised. She had been present at the Battle for Earth, when the Brutes turned on the Elites, and she said it was pretty common for Grunts to just bolt it when the fighting started. "I never actually saw it happen," she continued, "but I heard some marines say that one time, when they had encircled a bunch of Covies in the tail-end of the fight for Earth, once they'd cleared through, they found that the Brutes had eaten Grunts when they ran out of supplies."
The ONI supervisor, or to be politic, attaché, a "professor" from a university he had never heard of named Heinemann, said that story was probably true. A few Covenant species didn't oppose eating sentients, but Kig-Yar, Jackals, only did it out of extreme hunger. Only Jiralhanae, Brutes, also did it to intimidate enemies. Jiralhanae took a special relish out of abusing Unggoy, since the Jiralhanae converted to the Covenant religion after the Unggoy Rebellion.
The conversation in the wardroom became quiet, this was something the UNSC officers hadn't heard of before. Garcia, the Vicksburg's Executive Officer, asked what the Unggoy Rebellion was. Heinemann smiled and leaned back in his seat.
"The Unggoy were the only species, well I guess technically the first species, who had ever been forced to convert to the Covenant religion. In practice, the entire species was just taken as slaves." He paused to drink some water, then continued "this started three centuries of abuse and neglect. The San'Shyuum liked the Unggoy because they were as disposable as the Yanme'e or Lekgolo but were easier to deal with and better at following instructions."
Mifune felt puzzled, "didn't all the Covenant members value each other as members of a shared religion?"
"Sort of," said Heinemann, wobbling his hand to signify 'so-so.' "Technically speaking, at this point in Covenant history, on paper, the Covenant religion was still only Prophets and Elites. For the overwhelming majority of Covenant history, almost two thousand years, the Covenant was just the Prophets, Elites, and Hunters. And Hunters, well, you know how they are. It was hard enough to find common ground on an understanding of sapience, let alone a shared religious identity. The Covenant and Lekgolo shared…" he tapped on the wardrooms table while he looked for the right word, "a symbiotic relationship. Each needed the other, but they weren't the same. The Yanme'e and Kig-Yar 'joined' the Covenant in a very similar way, and pretty close to each other historically, during our Middle Ages. While there are some true believers, and some not, these species interfaced with the Covenant, they never joined the religion wholesale."
"How long," asked Garcia, "until the Grunts joined the Covenant?" "About another thousand years we think," replied Heinemann. "But they were absorbed entirely, not just converting the leaders like the Yanme'e or making economic treaties and saving spiritual questions for later like the Kig-Yar. But anyways," he said, shaking his head to stay focused, "the big problem with how the Unggoy were treated before the rebellion was their role in the Covenant militaries. They were unarmed cannon fodder, massacred by the millions. The Covenant also strip-mined a lot of the Tala system for resources. They never had any housing on High Charity, just living in the dark and sharing with the next-lowest species on the Covenant ladder, the Kig-Yar."
Litvak grunted affirmatively "so Grunts and Jackals have always hated each other?" Heinemann nodded, then continued, "their use as cannon fodder and destruction of Balaho's moons were the real reasons for the revolt, but they weren't the inciting incident, that was the discovery of a plot by some Kig-Yar gangsters to sterilize a bunch of Unggoy by putting chemicals in some recreational narcotics the High Charity Unggoy community liked to use. It was the San'Shyuum saying they wouldn't look into it that actually caused the rebellion. We don't actually know how long it lasted, because the Covenant measures time differently, but it lasted for some years."
Notes of respect filled Heinemann's voice, "the Hierarchs had to appoint an Arbiter to deal with it, and he said he'd glass Balaho until the rebellion ceased. The Grunts stopped fighting just a few hours after this, and in acknowledgement of their bravery, the Sangheili allowed the grunts to carry weapons from then on,"
Litvak nodded approvingly, Garcia gazed on enraptured by the story, but Mifune didn't know how to feel exactly. Allowed to carry weapons in battle, but still forced to fight? Not that much of an improvement. "So why did the Brutes pick on the Grunts so much?" He asked Heinemann. "Ah," replied the "attaché, "even thought technically the Grunts were in the Covenant for longer, they were still never formally integrated as a species. Individual Unggoy could convert on a personal level, but aside from these isolated individuals, Jiralhanae ranked above all other Unggoy. The Jiralhanae had converted as a whole species, but being the junior most members, they could only pick on the unconverted Grunts. They felt like the Unggoy would never fight back."
Reminiscing on the conversation, Mifune found it easier -a little easier- to stay objective about the situation ahead of him. It would be a long cruise, -his first as captain- and probably a boring one, he'd been happy to have a conversationalist like Heinemann aboard. His XO, Garcia, struggled to keep a conversation going about anything other than orbital mechanics and the newest ships being built on Mars, he would probably never make commander or captain his own ship.
The reason for the frigate's presence at the Grunt home planet was quite straightforward. In the dissolution of the Covenant, and the retreat of the Sangheili back to Sanghelios a few months ago to fight their civil war, Balaho was totally undefended. Apparently, any would-be Covie warlord worth his salt started his career by landing a ship on Balaho, forcing a few dozen Unggoy in at gunpoint, dumping them on a methane moon or planet for a few years, and then coming back to pick up his ready-made army after a couple generations. Really sordid stuff by human standards, but slavery had always been a common occurrence on the fringe of Covenant space, only becoming more common with the death of the hierarchs.
There was already a political solution to this, the Joint Occupation Zones between the UNSC and Swords of Sanghelios, but including another species home world in the JO Zones would harm the Arbiter's position in the civil war, adding fuel to his enemy's accusations of setting himself up as an emperor. So, the Balaho planetary government, just a few weeks old, had invited the allies to help protect it. Mifune's opposite number from the Swords, Kesh 'Vadam, shipmaster of the Sword of Unity, had arrived before him, judging from the Sangheili ship's presence in a teardrop orbit at the Balaho-Padpad L3 point.
"Communications," ordered Mifune from his command chair in the Vicksburg's bridge, "let's make a call on our friend the shipmaster." "Aye, captain," replied the signals officer. "Sword of Unity, this is Vicksburg." Mifune began to feel uneasy. He had actually never seen any Covenant in person before. During the Battle for Earth, his ship had never been boarded, his career so far had been in massive fleet engagements, not prolonged terrestrial support operations. He had never heard their voices before.
The reply came through, a nasal, high-pitched, metallic alien voice, speaking English. "Vicksburg, this is Sword of Unity, please join us at the libration point, together we'll contact the Balaho government." The communications officer responded in the affirmative as the astrogation officer planned a burn to bring Vicksburg alongside the Sangheili frigate. The Paris-class frigate was fully fueled and even carried auxiliary propellant tanks for the long cruise, the maneuver would barely cost any delta-V, and would take two hours, leaving Mifune time to address the crew and confer with Major Litvak and Heinemann as he left the conn to the lieutenant of the watch.
The three gathered in the captain's office. They had become close over the monthslong cruise, each of their duties preventing them from using cryo sleep to make the journey feel shorter. Heinemann was an interesting fellow. He always denied that he was an ONI operative, obviously, but at the same time didn't really try to come up with a convincing backstory. His grey navy fatigues never bore any unit, branch, or name patches, a deader giveaway than any story, no matter how creative. He was an aging man, approaching fifty, with short dirty blonde hair going gray. His eyes were constantly scanning for anything he hadn't seen before, any place he hadn't been to before, and anybody he hadn't spoken to before, another dead giveaway of an ONI Section 1 operative.
Litvak, on the other hand, was nearer his own age, perhaps nearly thirty. Old, for a marine captain, but she was a mustang, promoted from the ranks during the Battle for Earth. Her experience was a great relief for Mifune. Antipiracy operations were complicated, frequently involved boarding actions, and Vicksburg was a Paris-class, without the facilities for a very large marine complement. But FLEETCOM had picked her perfectly. A junior officer, fitting for the small marine detachment, but an experienced and phlegmatic one. An almost-stereotypical UNSC marine, she kept her hair barely an inch long, was incapable of lying, and had yet to encounter a problem she couldn't solve with a gun.
"Heinemann," asked Mifune, "I presume you will be heading the detachment to Gedgow?" He nodded, "yes, I think the presence of military personnel ought to be kept to a minimum, we don't know what the mood on Balaho actually is among the common people."
Litvak cocked her head to the side, "I wouldn't be comfortable sending you down there with less than 6 marines." Heinemann, clearly excited to set foot on Balaho, waved his hand "sure, fine, anything, just as few as possible." Litvak smiled, used to his disinterest in logistics. "I'll make sure Gunny Torson is one of them." She said, referring to her second-in-command of the Vicksburg's marine detachment.
Mifune nodded, "good, I want you with me when we make our pleasantries with the shipmaster, once we've compared notes, I'm sure he'll want to send your opposite number" he said, pointing to Heinemann with a smile, "at the same time as you to do, you know, whatever it is diplomats do."
This was an old joke between them at this point. Litvak, grinning, asked "Captain, do the grunts have any defenses of their own to join us?" Mifune breathed in through his teeth. "'Vadam says that they have one fireship to protect the whole planet. If they do, it must be landside right now." "A fireship," interjected Heinemann, "is that, well, good?" "Fireships punch far above their weight," Mifune said with a resigned face, "but it's nowhere near enough to defend an entire planetary system."
The room went quiet. Balaho had been undefended for months, subject to the violent whims of anybody with any real firepower. "So the Unggoy have no real way to fight back," said Heinemann, thinking aloud, "I wonder why they waited so long to ask for our help." Mifune shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough."
After bringing the rest of the crew out of cryo sleep, Vicksburg came alongside Sword of Unity, just a few kilometers apart. As Mifune felt the stationkeeping thrusters fire to fly formation with Unity, he felt genuine awe, never having been anywhere remotely close to an alien vessel before.
Vicksburg and Sword of Unity were each considered frigates by their respective species' criteria, being medium-sized multirole ships. However, "medium" got you a lot farther with the Covenant. Vicksburg was a Paris-class, 535 meters long, and while technically multirole, had been designed largely for fleet engagements. Sword of Unity, Heinemann had informed him, was an Ester-pattern, a full kilometer of red and white, "give or take a few meters, depending on the stability of the design seed." "The design what?" asked Mifune. "Don't worry about it," dismissed Heinemann, "Esters are a generally stable design, surprisingly little mutation among them given their prevalence."
The squeaky, metallic voice of Unity's communications officer sounded through the speakers on the bridge. "Human ship Vicksburg, Sword of Unity, our shipmaster requests permission to come aboard."
Mifune felt surprised, then looked at Heinemann with a cocked eyebrow, who nodded. "tell them we will receive them in…" The captain trailed off, then looked at Heinemann again, then said, sotto voce, "thirty minutes?" "one half unit." Heinemann replied quietly. "One half unit," repeated Mifune to the communications crewman, who relayed the message to Unity. The metallic voice replied "Copy Vicksburg, one half-unit. Unity out."
"Is their communications officer a grunt?" asked the navigations officer incredulously. "Probably," replied Heinemann. "Unggoy have a truly unique ability to learn languages extremely fast. Educated Unggoy have formed a class of professional translators in the Covenant ever since they were assimilated." "Huh," replied the lieutenant. "Go figure."
Mifune summoned Vicksburg's shipboard AI, Gerard, who took the form of a Napoleonic hussar. "Mon capitaine," said Gerard, standing at attention. "Gerard, tell the flight deck officer on watch to make room for an incoming shuttle." "Oui, mon capitaine," he said with a bow, and disappeared.
Mifune rapidly changed into his whites to receive the shipmaster, the ability to change clothing quickly drilled into him from the first days in the academy and appeared in the hangar with 15 minutes to spare. Major Litvak was assembling the marines, the deck officer of the watch was pulling some jerseys out of the flight line in order to render honors. We really don't want to fuck this up, it's day one. The pelican whose hangar had been borrowed for this operation had been winched up on the internal crane and moved directly above the pelican in the adjacent hangar.
Vicksburg, as a Paris-class, technically had twelve hangars, six port and six starboard. However, given her expanded marine detachment -a company of three platoons rather than the standard platoon- and the longer duration of the cruise, the entire starboard hangar deck had been converted to marine barracks and additional consumables stores. With a Pelican detachment of four taking up each one of the six remaining hangars, and equipment and stores taking up much of the others, there was very little marshalling space remaining. Antipiracy was tough. They were long, uneventful cruises, on cramped ships with expanded crews. Well, uneventful until now, that is.
The hangar door opened, but thanks to a new gadget added to Vicksburg as part of her postwar refit, the atmosphere stayed, protected by energy shielding. Not having to decompress and recompress hangars massively improved small craft turnaround time, which the Admiralty believed offset the loss of efficiency forced by packing in stores, munitions, and even setting up field barracks in half of the ship. Antipiracy was typically a 6-month cruise, but with resupply probable, they'd probably be here for a year until relieved by one of the new Stalwart-class frigates being built over Mars. Or a fleet of them, more likely.
And it was a really bad year to miss. Mifune was a good enough officer by now to realize how unhappy the crew coming out of cryo were to be there, taking care of flight operations and weapons maintenance. They had just barely learned that there would be a home to go back to, they had enlisted for the duration of the war plus one year, and the big green weenie had just interrupted their leave to tell them they really meant "plus one year."
And it wasn't a nice planet either, it was Balaho. Frozen, stinky, wet, full of Grunts. It was an active war zone with no transports coming through, no stations to relax at. Just the Vicksburg and a partnership with a vessel that had they encountered just 365 days ago, would not have hesitated to kill them on sight from 50 kilometers away.
Speaking of,
A Spirit dropship exited the frigate and burned directly towards them, he was informed by the flight bridge via Gerard. "Stay with us a while Gerard," asked Mifune. "We don't want to keep you a secret from our new allies." "Of course, mon capitaine," replied the AI, "Monsieur Heinemann has been educating me on their social practices." Major Litvak grinned, "has he now?" Heinemann flushed "well, he didn't stop me from telling him." "Well," asked Mifune, half-joking, "any last minute advice?"
Heinemann grinned, obviously hoping somebody would ask. "Don't look him in the eyes unless he does. If he bows, bow, if he wants to shake hands, shake his hand. Leave all weapons in holsters except for the honor guards. The Covenant don't have an equivalent to "sir", just call him shipmaster or whatever he asks you to. Oh!" Heinemann remembered, "under no circumstances ask him if he's related to the Arbiter. He almost certainly is, but do not mention it."
Mifune and Litvak nodded. "Is that offensive?" she asked. "No, there's a really strong tradition for Sangheili to not know who their fathers are-" "Why?" interrupted Litvak. Heinemann paused for a minute, struggling to think of a succinct answer, "mostly to prevent nepotism. It isn't necessarily insulting to make insinuations about somebody's father-" "But it just shows off the fact we don't know their culture," Mifune finished. "Exactly," confirmed Heinemann, "also, asking if he's Arbiter's kid specifically could possible insinuate nepotism for his appointment as shipmaster."
As he elaborated, Heinemann, unzipped a pocket on his fatigue jacket, and pulled out three patches. One, a name tape reading "SAVAGE," another, a tape reading "ARMY," and the third, the rank insignia of a major, and applied all three. So he is an ONI agent after all.
Mifune took a deep breath, trying to process all of the information as the Spirit dropship entered the hangar, extended it's fragile-looking landing rig, and touched down. Instead of the "arm" hatches opening and tilting down, like he had seen in so many vids, a ramp at the back lowered. emDidn't even know they could do that/em, he thought, as three tall Sangheili and a squat, wide Unggoy walked out of the ramp.
It was obvious which one was the shipmaster, identifiable by his gold combat harness, leading the group. The sinewy, lean alien slowly scanned the room around him, clearly evaluating his surroundings. Vicksburg was crowded, but clean. Her hangars were cramped, but orderly. Her crew was dispirited, but busy. 'Vadam didn't even try to conceal his approval. 'Vadam was short, by Sangheili standards that is, standing a "mere" 230 centimeters. The two Sangheili flanking him, one tall and very slender in red harness and the other muscled and scarred in white, simply stared directly forward.
'Vadam reached Mifune and extended his hand. Mifune took it, despite the size difference. The shipmaster's hand felt leathery, smelt leathery too, and clearly held a restrained strength that could easily rip Mifune's hand off.
"I am Commander Sessue Mifune, captain of the United Nations Space Command Frigate Vicksburg, very pleased to welcome you aboard my vessel." The Unggoy, almost exactly the same height as Major Litvak at 155 centimeters, presumably repeated this information to Kesh 'Vadam. This was not surprising. Despite the honest efforts of many Sangheili, they just didn't have the anatomy to make many crucial sounds in English. As far as Mifune knew, only the Arbiter had a reasonable command of the language. Unggoy mouths, however, unique among the Covenant species aside from the San'Shyuum, had no such disability.
Kesh 'Vadam pressed a hand to his chest, then spoke a phrase in Sangheili, then gestured to the Sangheili to his left and to his right, saying similar phrases, then to the Unggoy translator, [then does whatever Sangheili do instead of laughter] The Unggoy laughed its metallic laugh, then began, "this is Kesh 'Vadam, servant of the Arbiter and shipmaster of Sword of Unity. The tall Elite to his left is Nalo 'Kazar, Master of the Superiors, and strong and silent on the right is Fusho 'Sraom, our fieldmaster! I am Bipzam, Sword of Unity's translator. We are honored to begin a new chapter of our three peoples' history here today!"
Bipzam's narration carried a light, almost jocular tone that somewhat undercut his formal language. Mifune gestured to a folding table and chairs that been set up behind him, "please, sit with us." Bipzam translated, and the Elites followed, with Heinemann ensuring with pride that the special Sangheili seats were in position.