Halo: Contact Harvest (14 page)

But soon enough, he was shooting nice tight groups into fifty-meter targets and swapping magazines with absolute precision. Jenkins and Forsell ran out of ammo long before the Captain. But they waited patiently for him to finish, safe his weapon, and check their scores on the range’s computer’s display.

“Recruit, that’s a Sharpshooter performance.”

Jenkins felt his lean cheeks flush. “Thank you, sir.” Then, he worked up the courage to speak freely. “When I get out of school, I’d like to join the Marines—get a chance to shoot for real…” Jenkins trailed off, his eager smile fading before the Captain’s stony stare. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“No. That’s good spirit,” Ponder said, resisting the urge to glance skyward—toward the new threat he knew had come. “You want to shoot, you’ll get your chance.” He didn’t have the heart to add:
a whole lot sooner than you think.

PART II

CHAPTER

NINE

COVENANT HOLY CITY,
HIGH CHARITY,
23RD AGE OF DOUBT

The Minister of Fortitude had smoked too much. He rarely partook in stimulants—the powerful hookah tobaccos favored by his senior staff. But the previous night’s conclave had dragged on and on, and he’d needed something to keep himself awake during the statistic-heavy discussion. Now the Minister’s head was seized with a terrible, retributive ache.
Never again,
he vowed, narrowing his heavy-lidded eyes and massaging his long, lateral neck.
If only the cleric would hurry up and finish his remedy….

Like most Covenant technology, the San’Shyuum cleric’s herbal synthesizer was hidden behind a natural facade, in this case the polished onyx walls of his cell. The mottled stonework shone in the light of a single hologram high above: a canopy of diamond-shaped leaves that rustled in a simulated breeze. A zinc counter stretched across the cell, and was built high enough to accommodate the fact that both San’Shyuum—like every other mature member of their species—sat in anti-gravity chairs high above the floor.

“It is done,” the cleric said, removing an agate-colored sphere from the synthesizer’s delivery tube. Cupping the sphere in his long, thin fingers, he turned his stone chair back toward the counter, placed the sphere in a black marble mortar, and tapped it with a matching pestle. The sphere shattered, giving off a whiff of peppermint and exposing a collection of leaves and small berries. As the cleric started grinding, Fortitude sat a little straighter in his silver chair’s plump crimson cushions and breathed in the medicinal smell.

The older San’Shyuum’s withered arms twisted inside his woolen shift as he worked the ingredients into a rough powder—an effort that shook the sparse white hairs that hung from his pale neck like the mane of an old, bedraggled horse. The Minister’s light brown skin was, by comparison, completely denuded; the only hair on his body curled from a darker wattle beneath his salamandrine lips. But even those hairs were closely trimmed.

This careful grooming, combined with bright red robes that flowed over the Minister’s knees to his gnarled feet, was evidence he did not share the cleric’s asceticism: a style of worship that advocated extreme humility in the presence of Forerunner technology, such as the synthesizer.

And yet,
the Minister mused, already starting to feel some relief just from the remedy’s scent,
when the Great Journey begins, we will all walk The Path together.

This direct quote from Covenant scripture summarized the faith’s core promise: those who showed appropriate reverence for the Forerunners and their sacred creations would inevitably share a moment of transcendence—would journey beyond the boundaries of the known universe just as the Forerunners had, many ages ago.

Promised godhood was a message with broad appeal, and all were welcome to join the Covenant so long as they accepted the San’Shyuum’s sole authority to investigate and distribute holy relics.

Although the Covenant was focused on the hereafter, its member species still had mortal desires for wealth, power, and prestige—all of which the right Forerunner technology could provide. It was the Ministry of Fortitude’s responsibility to balance all these competing wants—to decide, simply put, who got what. And it was the latest round in this ongoing effort that had left its leader with such a terrific headache.

Just as the noise of the pestle started to grate on the tympanic slits in the back of Fortitude’s skull, the cleric emptied his mortar onto a square of white cloth spread on the counter. “Let it steep as long as you like. The longer the better, of course.” The cleric tied the prescription into a sachet and pushed it gently across the counter. “Blessings on your day, Minister,” he said with a sympathetic smile.

“I shall step forward.” Fortitude grimaced.
Though today a bit more delicately than usual.

As the Minister swept the prescription into his lap, he made a mental note to scan it before brewing. Given the controversial nature of his work, assassination was always a possibility and unremitting caution a requirement of office.

Fortitude drummed his fingers against panels of orange-on-blue holographic switches built into his throne’s rounded arms, giving the device a new destination. The throne pivoted smartly away from the counter, and accelerated through the cell’s triangular entry hall. Running lights winking in the darkly mirrored stone, the chair turned a quick series of corners and exited into High Charity’s majestic interior.

Viewed from a distance, the Covenant capital city was reminiscent of a jellyfish adrift in a midnight sea. Its single large dome topped a massive chunk of rock honeycombed with hangar bays and carefully shielded weapons platforms. Long, semirigid umbilicals trailed behind the rocky base, where countless ships were docked like so many stunned fish; commercial vessels mainly, but also the enormous cruisers and carriers of High Charity’s defensive fleet. Despite their size, dozens of the warships could have fit inside the dome, which was so spacious it was difficult to see from one side to the other—especially in the early hours of a cycle when the air was thick with cyan banks of fog.

In addition to serving as the Covenant’s space-faring capital, High Charity was also home to large populations of each of its species. All rubbed shoulders here, and this concentration of physiologies created a cosmopolitan atmosphere unique among the Covenant’s other habitats. The airspace inside the dome was thick with creatures coming and going from their employment; a twice daily commute triggered by the brightening and dimming of a luminous disk set into the apex of the dome—the city’s artificial star.

Fortitude squinted as the disk slowly maximized its intensity, revealing a ring of towers stretching around the dome. Each of the twisting spires was held aloft by anti-grav units that were many orders of magnitude more powerful than the one in the Minister of Fortitude’s chair. Although some towers were more subdued (such as the one that held the cleric’s cell), all of them shared the same basic structure: spikes of volcanic rock from the city’s base shot through with metal supports and covered with plates of decorative alloy.

Now that morning had come, it was easier to pick out individuals in the commuting swarm: Unggoy packed together on hulking barges; San’Shyuum in chairs similar to Fortitude’s; and here and there, strapped into sleek anti-grav backpacks, tall and muscular Sangheili. These blue-skinned, shark-eyed warriors were the San’Shyuum’s protectors—though this had not always been so.

Both the San’Shyuum and Sangheili had evolved on planets rich in Forerunner relics. Both species believed these highly advanced pieces of technology were deserving of their worship—clear evidence of the Forerunner’s divine powers. But only the San’Shyuum had been bold enough to dismantle some of their relics and use them to make practical objects of their own design.

To the Sangheili, this was blasphemy. But the San’Shyuum believed there was no sin in searching for greater wisdom and, moreover, were convinced that such investigations were critical to discovering how to follow in their Gods’ footsteps. This fundamental difference in the practical application of religious ethics sparked a long and bloody war that began soon after the two species made contact on a disputed reliquary world inside a Sangheili-occupied system.

In terms of ships and soldiers, the Sangheili started the fight with a distinct numerical advantage. They were also better warriors—stronger, faster and more disciplined. In a straight-up infantry clash, one Sangheili was worth at least ten San’Shyuum. With most of the fighting taking place in space and ship-to-ship, however, the San’Shyuum had their own advantage: a single, semi-operable Forerunner Dreadnought that decimated the Sangheili fleets with hit-and-run attacks.

For a very long time, the Sangheili took their knocks, ignoring the obvious fact that victory would require committing the sins of their enemy—desecrating their own relics and using them to improve their warships, arms, and armor. Not surprisingly, millions of Sangheili had died before the proud and hidebound species decided abnegation was preferable to obliteration. With heavy hearts, their warrior priests began their work, eventually assembling a fleet capable of fighting the San’Shyuum and their Dreadnought to a standstill.

As devastating as this decision was to most Sangheili, the wisest of their leaders knew they hadn’t sinned so much as finally come to terms with their own desire for deeper understanding of the literal articles of their faith. And for their part, the San’Shyuum had to make their own painful admission: if there were other creatures as dangerous and dogged as the Sangheili in the galaxy, their chances of survival would be greatly increased if they allied with their enemy—had the Sangheili watch their backs while they went about their holy work.

Thus was the Covenant born. A union fraught with mutual suspicion, but given a good chance of success by a clear division of labor codified in the Writ of Union, the treaty that officially ended the conflict. Now the Covenant’s most important piece of scripture, the Writ began:

So full of hate were our eyes

That none of us could see Our war would yield countless dead

But never victory. So let us cast arms aside

And like discard our wrath. Thou, in faith, will keep us safe

Whilst we find The Path.

The treaty was formalized with the decommissioning of the Dreadnought. The ancient vessel was stripped of all its weapons (or at least all the San’Shyuum knew it possessed), and permanently installed at the center of High Charity’s then-partially constructed dome.

Fortitude was not as devout as other Prophets. He believed in the Great Journey, to be sure, but by vocation he was more technocrat than theologian. And yet, as the Minister rose through a pocket of less-crowded air, he couldn’t help but feel a rush of spiritual invigoration as the Dreadnought’s grand tripodal frame began to glimmer in the morning light.

More than any other piece of abandoned Forerunner technology, the ship typified its makers’ technological mastery. The Dreadnought’s engines, for example, were so efficient that even though the San’Shyuum had only ever managed to bring them partially online, they still generated more than enough power to sustain all of High Charity. Fortitude knew there were many more secrets hidden in the computational pathways that spread throughout the vessel’s hull. Soon, he hoped, the San’Shyuum priests responsible for the Dreadnought’s exploration would unlock them all.

For as preoccupied as Fortitude was with managing his Ministry’s vast bureaucracy, part of his mind was still gripped with the same questions as all other Covenant:
how exactly had the Forerunners accomplished their transcendence? And how might mere mortals do the same?

A sudden wail of anti-grav generators and subsequent shrill cries of protest drew the Minister’s gaze upward. One of the Unggoy barges had failed to give way to a San’Shyuum commuting ring, forcing its constituent chairs to break apart.

Similar rings were in motion all around the dome, ascending and descending the towers. Junior San’Shyuum rated the least powerful chairs and traveled in rings of twenty or more, packed arm-to-arm to maximize their ring’s anti-grav field. Senior Ministry staffers might manage rings as small as seven, and the sophistication of Vice Ministers’ chairs made it possible for them to commute in trios. But only full Ministers such as Fortitude rated units sufficiently powerful for individual flight.

For a moment, Fortitude thought he, too, might have to swerve to avoid the plummeting barge. But High Charity’s flight-control circuits had already corrected their mistake, properly identified the Minister’s rank and forced the barge to take evasive action. It dipped precipitously to one side, causing its Unggoy passengers to cling tightly to one another or risk plummeting to their deaths.

Soaring past without even the slightest bobble in his chair, Fortitude noticed the barge was so crowded that some of the Unggoy had been forced to sit with their stubby legs dangling over its low gunwales—a capacity violation to be sure. As the barge leveled off and continued its barely controlled fall to the still foggy, methane-rich districts on the dome’s floor, Fortitude wondered if the overcrowding was an isolated problem or an indication that the Unggoy were, once again, reproducing beyond legal limits.

Overpopulation was a constant concern for the Covenant given how many of its creatures lived on ships or other space-based habitats. The Unggoy were especially prodigious breeders, and while this benefited the Covenant military rolls, it was also the case that the only thing that put an appreciable dent in their numbers was war. In times of peace and without proper oversight, the Unggoy’s inherent lack of reproductive restraint had proven to be quite dangerous.

As a junior staffer in the Ministry of Concert (the institution tasked with the arbitration of inter-species disputes), Fortitude had handled a case that dealt directly with this issue—uncovered a scandal that resulted in the dismissal of that Ministry’s leadership, and taught him a valuable lesson about the fragility of the Covenant: how easy it was to grow complacent about various species’ petty squabbles, and how quickly this complacency might lead to disaster.