Fractures

by Various

  The Prelate fully woke, his ears ringing with the insistent wail of an alarm that told him his cruiser had successfully made a slipspace exit.

  Tem lay on his back upon his cabin’s narrow pallet, his black tunic wet with sweat and plastered to his skin. As his heart pounded in his chest, keeping time with the alarm, he felt a Flood tendril slither along his neck. He reached to grab it . . . but of course there was nothing there.

  Balling his fists into his eyes and closing his mouth to mute his rage, the Prelate screamed. He had gone deeper into the nightmare than he ever had before, but at the end, there it was: Shadow of Intent. There was no hope of saving his family, not even in his dreams.

  The Half-Jaw had robbed him even of that.

  Tem smashed a fist into his cabin’s metal wall, again and again, until he left a dent in the glossy turquoise panel and his hand was throbbing. You fool! It never mattered anyway. It was always just a dream!

  For the reality was the Prelate hadn’t been inside High Charity when it fell. He had not seen his wife or his newborn child consumed by the Flood. Not with his own eyes.

  Instead he had been at the helm of his cruiser, locked in combat with Sangheili warships in the space around the holy city. This fight was the culmination of his long years of training, the climax of the Schism. The Sangheili hadn’t expected such a vast and well-prepared mutiny, and in the moments before the human frigate infested with the Flood slipped into the dome, the Prelates and their Jiralhanae crews were winning. But then, one by one, the Prelate-controlled warships had peeled away from the battle to evacuate High Charity’s San’Shyuum.

  What had been a perfectly executed surprise attack became a defensive scramble as the Prelates switched from trying to defeat the Sangheili warships to merely keeping them at bay while the San’Shyuum filled their own ships and slipped away. At first, the Sangheili let these vessels go. Then, as the threat of the Flood spreading beyond High Charity increased—as the Flood spilled down from the dome to the stalk where the rescue vessels had been docking—the Sangheili sent a message in the clear: ALL SHIPS ATTEMPTING TO LEAVE THIS SECTOR WILL BE DESTROYED.

  The Flood had almost doomed the galaxy once before, and the Sangheili weren’t willing to let that happen again.

  Shadow of Intent was the linchpin of this grim quarantine, and the Prelates had no ships that could match it one-on-one. The plan had been to overwhelm the carrier with multiple cruisers after the Sangheili fleet’s lesser vessels had been dispatched. But by then the San’Shyuum fleet had dwindled. And while Tem’Bhetek was still in the fight, his focus had shifted from how to destroy Shadow of Intent to how to save his family. When Tem received the Minister of Preparation’s desperate call for rescue, he quickly disengaged and hastened to the stalk.

  As soon as the Prelate was docked and had a hard line to the city’s communication network, he had attempted to call Yalar. But the network had either been down or overloaded, and he couldn’t reach her. Waiting on the boarding gantry for the Minister to arrive, he had thought of abandoning his post, flying up into the dome. And he had just made up his mind to do it when the Minister’s Jiralhanae honor guard hustled him through the gantry airlock. Even though the shaggy warriors’ panic-stricken reek told him volumes about what had happened in the dome above, the Prelate asked the Minister: “My family. Can they be saved?”

  Boru’a’Neem had leaned forward in his throne and grasped the Prelate’s arm. “The Sacred Promissory is lost!” His eyes were filled with a wild and consuming fear. “Nothing lives inside the city now except the Flood!”

  This had been too much to take. The Prelate had shrugged off the Minister’s grip and staggered toward the airlock.

  “They’re gone, Prelate!” the Minister shouted after him. “There is nothing you can do!”

  Tem’Bhetek’s knees had buckled under the weight of this pronouncement. And the only thing that had brought him back to his feet—the only thing that kept him from kneeling there in the gantry until the Flood spilled down the stalk and devoured him as it had his wife and child—was the Minister’s solemn promise:

  “Help me escape this place, and I swear, we will make the Sangheili pay for what they’ve done!”

  At that moment, the Prelate had no real understanding of what the Minister meant. It would be many days before his mind could process anything but grief and he learned the full extent of the Sangheili’s betrayal. How they had failed to contain the Flood on the sacred Halo ring. How the Arbiter had turned on the Covenant by forging an alliance with the Flood’s Gravemind as well as with their human foes. By that time, the Prelate’s cruiser had joined a flotilla of San’Shyuum ships that had managed to escape High Charity. This brief rendezvous was joyous for some as they were reunited with loved ones thought lost.

  But there was no news of Yalar or his child, and by the time the Prelate and the Minister had broken away from the flotilla and set their course for the secret Forerunner installation, all the Prelate’s hope had turned to vengeance.

  There was a heavy knock on the cabin door, and the Prelate admitted his first officer, a thick-browed Jiralhanae with grizzled fur and one shoulder that stooped lower than the other. As the officer confirmed their arrival in a second Sangheili colony system and relayed the details of their latest scans of the system’s star, the Prelate silently donned his battle armor.

  The deep black plates were light but strong, the finest creation of the Minister of Preparation’s foundries. Self-repair systems had removed all the damage the armor had sustained on Rahnelo. The Prelate smoothed the armor’s interlocking bands around his neck, removed a plasma rifle from his weapons locker, and holstered it in the small of his back. He removed his helmet from its stand and paused to look at his own reflection in the glazed surface of its chevron visor. Would you know me now, Yalar? Would you walk this path with me?

  “The settlements have seen us,” the Jiralhanae said. “They are broadcasting distress signals on all channels. Do you want us to jam them?”

  “No. Let the signals through.” The Prelate tucked his helmet under his arm and marched past the Jiralhanae toward the command deck.

  Let the Half-Jaw hear them scream.

  Shadow of Intent exited slipspace near the colony world Duraan, third planet of five in close orbit around its system’s red dwarf star.

  Like its neighboring worlds, Duraan was gravity locked. One side of the mottled, orange-and-brown, arid planet was bathed in constant starlight, the other in perpetual dark. But even half-habitable worlds were rare, and Duraan’s wide-open spaces appealed to minor Sangheili families whose ambitions were constrained by the limited real estate on the crowded worlds closer to Sanghelios. Here there was ample room to lay the foundations of new keeps, and three generations ago, thousands of Sangheili had begun settling the shores of the spidery seas that spattered Duraan’s light side like ink blown on parchment. Far from the front lines of the human war, these settlements had enjoyed a quiet existence . . . until now.

  It had taken the Half-Jaw three days to journey from Rahnelo to Duraan. While Shadow of Intent was tunneling through slipspace, the carrier had been unable to receive any communications. Now, with its titanic maneuvering engines pulsing with just enough power to stay two hundred thousand kilometers ahead of Duraan on its path around the red dwarf star, Shadow of Intent’s command deck rang with frantic transmissions from the planet’s many small settlements, all begging for assistance.

  “Target in sight!” the Blademaster said. The old Sangheili’s fists were wrapped around the scuffed bronze railing of the command deck’s central holo-tank. He leaned forward and cocked an eye at the real-time image of Duraan that filled the charged air above the tank’s petaled projector. “He’s firing!” Icons blossomed around a glowing representation of the Prelate’s cruiser as it unleashed a volley of plasma. A few moments later, the loudest of the settlements fell silent.

  “Intercept course calculated!” a Sangheili officer shouted from his post, one of many
dimly lit alcoves spaced between thick beams that ribbed the command deck’s walls.

  “All weapons locked and tracking!” another officer said.

  The Blademaster tightened his grip on the railing, making his armored knuckles creak. “Shipmaster, I recommend an immediate attack!”

  Rtas ‘Vadum sat in his command chair, the only seat on an elevated platform above and behind the holo-tank. Throughout Shadow of Intent’s exit from slipspace and the flurry of activity that followed, the Half-Jaw had been silent. Elbows bent on his chair’s worn metal arms, his ruined chin resting in the valley of his fists, Rtas stared hard at the holo-tank. When he finally spoke, it was quiet, almost to himself: “He could have glassed every settlement and been long gone before we arrived.” More silence, and then: “Why is he still here?”

  “He miscalculated.” The Blademaster turned to face the Half-Jaw. “We killed plenty of Prelates at High Charity. They aren’t perfect.”

  “And they killed plenty of us,” Rtas replied. As Vul ‘Soran chewed on that, the Half-Jaw rose, stepped down a ramp to the command-deck floor, and joined the Blademaster at the holo-tank. “Show me the scan of that star.”

  With a few quick taps on a control panel embedded in the railing, the Blademaster shifted the image in the tank. Duraan shrunk to centimeter size, and the red dwarf became a giant. Shadow of Intent’s databases had grown stale during the human war, at least as far as Sangheili colonial scientific surveys were concerned. But Rtas had learned all he could about Duraan during their slipspace journey, and he knew the planet’s star was at its maximum, a period of extreme disturbance in its magnetic field resulting in frequent, violent stellar storms.

  One of these storms was raging now. Two overlapping arms of fire, each one millions of kilometers long, lashed out from a confluence of dark spots on the star’s crimson surface. Invisible to the naked eye, radiation from these hellish upheavals was now racing toward Duraan in the form of light-speed particle waves—and similar storm fronts had likely been hitting the planet for days. Duraan’s magnetosphere would have shielded the Sangheili settlers from the storm’s worst effects. But their star’s distemper was the least of their concerns.

  “He’s maneuvering. Heading for another settlement.” The Blademaster shook his head at the star. “Storm or not, we must attack!”

  At full capacity, Shadow of Intent’s energy shields could withstand a punishing amount of firepower, much more than the Prelate’s cruiser could mete out. But Shadow of Intent was no match for the turbulent star, and even now the carrier’s warning systems were flashing in the command deck’s empty engineering cocoons. The officers who would have been stationed there had the ship been at full capacity had moved nearer to the carrier’s reactors to manage the slipspace exit. The Half-Jaw, the Blademaster, and two officers responsible for Shadow of Intent’s navigation and weapons were the deck’s only crew.

  “His shields will be weak,” the Blademaster said.

  “Ours will be, too.”

  “We outgun him!”

  “A fact I’m sure he clearly understands.”

  The Blademaster lowered his voice from its usual roar. “I know you as well as I know my own sons, Rtas ‘Vadum. But by the time you puzzle out this Prelate’s plan, thousands more Sangheili will be dead.”

  The Half-Jaw knew his old comrade was right. But as much as his hearts ached for the Sangheili on Duraan, he knew the choices he made in the next few moments would also mean life or death for everyone on his ship. And if he chose poorly—if he and his warriors perished and Shadow of Intent was destroyed—who would stop the Prelate then? How many other worlds would he leave burning in his wake?

  Rtas took a deep breath and slowly rolled his armored shoulders. It’s not the battles you’ve fought that make you tired. It’s realizing you still have more to fight.

  “Accelerate to attack speed!” the Half-Jaw said, loud enough for the officers to hear. “Keep the shields up as long as you can. The storm coming off that star will harm every exposed system on this ship!”

  The Blademaster opened a ship-wide channel and relayed the Half-Jaw’s order to the rest of Shadow of Intent’s crew. Fully loaded, the carrier’s decks would have thundered with thousands of footfalls as those onboard rushed to their action stations. But now, except for the deep rumble of its maneuvering engines initiating a turn toward Duraan, Shadow of Intent was largely silent. It was a strange way to go into battle, Rtas thought, and the relative quiet only increased his unease.

  Having walked into plenty of traps over the years, the Half-Jaw knew one when he saw one. The reason he was still alive was, by this point, he usually had a pretty good idea of the terrible trick his opponent was about to play. But while the Half-Jaw didn’t yet fully understand the Prelate’s scheme, he now possessed a new and vital clue.

  He knew the cruiser’s name.

  As Shadow of Intent completed its turn, the Half-Jaw keyed a series of commands into the holo-tank’s controls so it displayed a view from the carrier’s prow. He then opened a secondary perspective that showed a zoomed image of the Prelate’s ship.

  “Kel ‘Darsam Silket . . .” Rtas said.

  The Blademaster nodded in agreement. “Spear of Light.”

  The cruiser’s name wasn’t painted on its prow like it would be on a human vessel. Instead the Half-Jaw and Blademaster had read the cruiser’s name in its distinctive shape, in the battle scars along its hull, for they had both seen the ship before.

  Despite its illustrious name, the Prelate’s cruiser was of an older design that predated the Human-Covenant Conflict. It had been one of a group of ships the Sangheili had given to Jiralhanae chieftains whose loyalty the San’Shyuum wanted to reward. These “gifts” were common in the scramble to meet the human threat. At that time, it had made good sense to have as many vessels as possible in the fight, even though most of these ships had been deliberately hobbled—their major weapons and other systems disabled—to keep the prideful and cantankerous Jiralhanae Chieftains from becoming too powerful. No self-respecting Sangheili shipmaster had wanted to give up the possibility of frontline glory to train the Jiralhanae in the operation of these underpowered, surplus ships. And that was where the Prelates had come in.

  They were considered purely technical advisors. Like all good lies, this was half true. But what the San’Shyuum left unsaid was that the Prelates, on the order of the Prophet of Truth, were secretly retrofitting the Jiralhanae’s ships and training them to attack the Sangheili. Contrary to what he preached, Truth knew only a blessed few could follow him on the Great Journey. And after the Sangheili committed the ultimate sin of losing the first Halo ring, they quickly fell out of favor. So the Prelates redoubled their clandestine preparations and, as much as Rtas hated to admit it, had the Flood not intervened in the battle for High Charity, the Prelates likely would have succeeded in carrying out Truth’s wishes.

  “Enemy cruiser initiating a burn!” the navigation officer said. “He’s heading for the dark side of the planet!”

  Three-dimensional space gave modern Sangheili shipmasters many more options for engaging their foes than when they clashed long ago on the seas of Sanghelios. But tactics still boiled down to the same age-old choice: hit your enemy head-on, or maneuver for advantage. Given Shadow of Intent’s dominant firepower, the Half-Jaw’s decision made perfect sense.

  “Plot an intercept course the opposite way around the planet,” Rtas told the navigation officer. “We’ll meet him nose-to-nose.” Then, to weapons: “Shield status?”

  “Eighty percent and falling, Shipmaster. Stellar particle count increasing.”

  “No way to avoid the storm,” Vul ‘Soran said, “but that blade cuts both ways.”

  The Half-Jaw nodded in agreement. “His reactors are weaker. His shields will drop before ours.” But he left unsaid: So why isn’t this Prelate running? Why isn’t he firing up his slipspace drive and avoiding a fight when the odds are so clearly in our favor?

  Hundreds
of capital ships had taken part in the brutal, close-quarters melee that was the battle for High Charity. In that fight, the Prelates had more total ships under their command than the Sangheili, but cruisers had been the largest vessels in the Prelates’ fleet. The Sangheili had Shadow of Intent and one other assault carrier, Eternal Reward, which should have tipped the balance in their favor. But in a surprise betrayal that began the battle, the three Prelate-controlled cruisers and five Jiralhanae destroyers tasked to support Eternal Reward opened fire at close range, damaging that carrier so badly that its surviving crew was forced to abandon ship. All the attacking vessels were annihilated save one: Spear of Light.

  Rtas assumed this was the same Prelate who had commanded Spear of Light that day . . . the one who had gone on to disable or destroy six more Sangheili ships at High Charity—two of which were cruisers of superior type—before retreating to participate in the evacuation of the city. This Prelate had kept Spear of Light docked to the stalk until the Flood overran it, and then shot his way through the Sangheili blockade that had halted dozens of other San’Shyuum ships.

  The Half-Jaw frowned, considering the puzzle of his opponent’s plan from a different angle. This Prelate is a fighter, and he clearly wants to go another round. . . . And then a vital, missing piece fell into place.

  Rahnelo and Duraan were bait.

  The Prelate had lured Shadow of Intent to these remote worlds just so he could isolate and destroy it—so he could finish the fight he started at High Charity. The Half-Jaw was now certain of this. He just couldn’t see how the Prelate planned to do it.

  As Spear of Light completed its orbit around Duraan, everyone on Shadow of Intent’s command deck fell silent. The Blademaster marched a nervous lap around the holo-tank, hands clasped behind his back. Rtas did his best to ignore a painful twinge in his missing jaws.