Halo: Traitor

“You have all sacrificed a great deal to stand here today,” Chief Mendez had said then, pacing before a formation of some three hundred-odd twelve year olds. “You have worked and fought and bled for the right to stand here. But there’s no reward waiting for you when we reach the Hopeful. It’s not a right, or an honor they’ll bestow upon you. No.” His eyes flashed, dark and dangerous as always, glaring over the assembled ranks of trainees.
“No,” he repeated, his line of march coming to an abrupt end at the perfect midsection of the formation. He had rounded on the formation then with a crisp right face, barking over the heads of the trainees as they stood at rigid attention. “No, it is a privilege. The privilege to stand here alongside your brothers and sisters. The privilege to board the Hopeful. And the privilege to call yourselves Spartans.”
Not one of them said a word. Some of them hardly dared to breath. They watched Mendez intently, hanging on his every word.
“It won’t be long before you’re out there on the battlefield. Every skill you’ve learned, every drill, every maneuver, will be put to the test. You will fight. You will watch your brothers and sisters die. You may even die yourselves. There’s no glory in it for you, no honor, no fame. Most of the people you fight to save will never even know you were alive. But that’s not why you do it, is it?” His eyes flashed, as if daring someone to break ranks and defy him. Of course, no one did.
“No. You do it because that’s who you are. Because you have been granted the privilege of calling yourselves Spartans. Bear that name with pride and never, ever dishonor the ones who fought and died before you. You will defend humanity. You will beat back the Covenant. You will—”
“Commander? Commander?”
The warrior blinked behind the visor of his Semi-Powered Infiltration helmet, suddenly refocusing on the person standing across the holo-table from him. The memories—of Mendez, the assembled trainees, of the day he had become a Spartan—evaporated as quickly as they’d come upon him. He flexed the fingers inside his gauntlet and inclined his head to the speaker. He noticed with irritation that the other warriors assembled in the command room were staring at him. He’d catch hell for that lapse, at least from some of them. The few he didn’t outrank.
“Yes, yes, I heard you,” he said with a wave of his hand. “We’ll get the job done, like we always do.”
“So you say, Commander,” said a smooth voice from a head projected above the table. An elongated, reptilian head. “But as you humans say, talk is cheap. The Didact’s Hand demands results.”
“And we’ll deliver.” The warrior removed his helmet and set it before him on the table. He locked eyes with the holoprojection and rapped a fist against his battered SPI breastplate in a mock salute. “’Mdama will get his results.”
“See to it that he does,” the Sangheili remarked. He glanced around the command room at the other warriors assembled around the table. “I expect the best from all of you.”
“Shut up and let us work.” The human warrior—the only human unit commander within Jul ‘Mdama’s resurgent Covenant—leaned in on the table. “He’ll get his prize.”
On that day so many years ago, aboard a shuttle bound for the medical station Hopeful, Mendez’s harsh words had fallen on the ears of a small, frightened boy called Simon, designation Gamma Two-Nine-Four. A walking failure. A near washout. Worst performing trainee in all of Gamma Company. He’d trembled then as he stood in formation, terrified Mendez would call him out before everyone as he’d done so many times before. That he’d do what he’d been threatening to do for years and fail him from the program.
Today, a mercenary, criminal, and traitor known as Stray smirked up at the holographic visage of Shinsu ‘Refum, Jul ‘Mdama’s head of intelligence. “Got anything else you want to add? Some words of encouragement for our brave troops?”
“I leave such things in your capable hands.” A touch of amusement filtered through Shinsu’s annoyance. Unlike many warriors in his position, this one actually had a sense of humor. Sometimes. “Or hand, in your case.”
Stray flexed his prosthetic left hand as Shinsu's image faded. The limb was human sized, but crafted from Sangheili alloy. One of many gifts to come of his new position in the Covenant. His arrival among the aliens had hardly been a peaceful one—they’d fished his mangled body from the wreckage of one of their fleet carriers. After he’d blown it up.
As the lights on the holo-table dimmed, Stray glanced about the command room at the dozen-odd Covenant warriors now watching him. They were a strange mix by Covenant standards: the usual armor-clad Sangheili leadership stood beside the smaller, avian Kig-Yar while even an Unggoy wearing the colors of an officer stood by the communication console. Their armor was as rough and patchwork as Stray's own, not at all like the bright, smooth uniforms typical of the Covenant. But of course, this was not the typical Covenant. Jul 'Mdama's other units would never tolerate such slovenly appearances, let alone non-Sangheili at a command briefing. They would certainly never allow themselves to be led by some diminutive human like Stray.
But this was the Kru'desh Legion.
Stray's lips curled in a smile as he surveyed the officers. His officers. "You heard the boss. Let's get to work."
Affirmative grunts rumbled through the command room. The officers filed towards the door, off to rally their sections for action. Among the last to head for the door was a Sangheili in dented, fading armor who'd leaned up against a wall for the entire briefing. "Another wonderful find," the warrior who called himself Ro'nin observed. "If only all of Jul 'Mdama's agents were so adept at sniffing out holy relics."
"I guess those other agents should take some pointers from us." Stray tucked his helmet under his arm and motioned for Ro'nin to linger with him by the inert holo-table.
"Or perhaps more of those agents should receive more transmissions from Shinsu 'Refum." The four mandibles of Ro'nin's segmented mouth curled in a knowing smile.
Stray returned the smirk. "I wouldn't know. Commander 'Refum lives to serve the Didact's Hand. Like we all do."
"Of course." Ro'nin nodded sagely. "We must all carry out our holy duties."
Stray had met Ro'nin years earlier on the planet Venezia, long before either of them found their way into Jul 'Mdama's service. They'd both been outcasts then: Stray a traitor Spartan on the run from the Office of Naval Intelligence, Ro'nin a disgraced warrior more than happy to be free of Sangheili society. Their respective talents for violence found them employment as mercenaries for the vast criminal collective known as the Syndicate. They'd never been friends; Stray had found himself in Ro'nin's lethal crosshairs on plenty of occasions, competing for contracts and kills. But he'd always harbored a grudging respect for his rival. Unlike most of his kind, Ro'nin was far more interested in accumulating credits than honor.
Of course, that sort of aberration made him perfect for the Kru'desh Legion.
For his part, Ro'nin didn't seem to mind the twist of fate that placed a human as his commander. As long as he was guaranteed an officer's position and a cut of the profits, he was happy to follow along in Stray's schemes.
"What Jul 'Mdama doesn't know won't hurt him. Not from us, anyway." Stray tapped a console on the holo-table, conjuring up an image of the planet below. He manipulated the map grid and closed in on a small valley beside one of the planet's key mountain ranges. A smooth metal arch was inlaid in the rocky slopes, nearly entirely hidden by boulders and trees. A single Phantom dropship-the Kru'desh advance scouting party-hovered just above the treeline. "He'll get his holy relics. Once we take first pick, of course."
Stray found it ironic that Jul 'Mdma gave the Kru'desh Legion-an irregular unit one step above a penal battalion, home to the dregs and undesirables the rest of the Covenant couldn't stomach-in charge of such a key task as securing Forerunner relics. Archaeology was arguably the key to this entire war, not to mention the foundation of the religious zealotry that drove much of the Covenant. Yet 'Mdama gave the Kru'desh free reign to locate and seize such sites.
The Didact's Hand was a strange, inscrutable creature. A religious zealot who brought a scattered Covenant together in hatred of humans while giving a human command of his covert raiding unit. Perhaps he knew of Stray's underhanded activities and simply said nothing, content with the Kru'desh Legions victories.
In Stray's rare, private moments he sometimes felt a pang of guilt for betraying 'Mdama. Then he remembered all the other, far deeper betrayals he'd committed to reach this point and the pangs vanished.
"The advance team should have the entrance secure," he told Ro'nin. "You and I will lead a lance inside and locate the control center. We get in, take out any Sentinels they have guarding the place, and have this all wrapped up by the end of the cycle."
He glanced back over the map. "Unless there's any objections from the peanut gallery."
"Well, look who's getting cocky," a smooth female voice purred from the holo-table. "Someone's forgetting that they wouldn't even have a site to raid if it weren't for me."
The hologram shifted, sparks of light convalescing to form the small image of a pale human woman clad in dark armor. Diana folded her arms as motes of red light flashed up and down her dark hologram. Stray shot a quick look at the door to make sure he and Ro'nin were the only ones left in the room. He immediately regretted the impulsive move. Diana wouldn't dare reveal herself if there were any real chance they'd be overheard. He'd fallen into another one of her games, reminding them both of just where the real power behind the Kru'desh lay.
“I just want to hear it from the horse’s mouth—again—that we won’t run into any unexpected little snags down there,” Stray said irritably, conjuring up a reduced image of the Forerunner site beside Diana’s avatar. “You told me the site was clear when you discovered it.”
Diana’s holographic mouth quirked in a smile. Stray could never tell if such human mannerisms were intentional or somehow reflexively translated onto the hologram. He suspected the former—there was always some bigger game to be found in Diana’s actions, no matter how innocuous. “It was. Don’t tell me I steered you wrong. I might just die of guilt.”
“Yeah, sure.” Stray pulled up another image: a hasty reconnaissance still showing several distant prefab shelters nestled atop the mountains. “And yet here I have Amber telling me we’ve got company. Human company.”
“Colonial prospectors most likely,” Diana said with a shrug. “Independent traders looking to stake a claim outside of UEG regulations You know how common they are on the frontier. After all, you ran plenty of jobs from them with the Chancer.”
“Right.” Stray’s lips tightened. He didn’t like reminders of the last place he’d called home—and Diana knew it. “They could just be a bunch of farmers. Or they could be an Insurrectionist outpost. Or Syndicate agents. Or an ONI listening station. There’s a lot of possibilities, and most of them lead to those snags you said we’d avoid.”
“It’s a Forerunner compound, you didn’t think it would be like raiding the pantry did you?” Diana was unmoved. “Besides, you’re standing inside an assault cruiser, you’ve got two escort frigates, and a contingent of hardened warriors at your command. Don’t tell me you think a few colonists will cause that much of a problem.”
“We could always just remove the problem,” Ro’nin pointed out. “One plasma torpedo would do nicely. Or I could lead a team down there myself, avoid any damage to the mountain range.”
“Both good ideas,” Diana agreed, though her eyes never left Stray’s. “We’ve already been in orbit a full cycle, and they must have seen the reconnaissance team arrive. There’s no point in playing things safe, now is there?”
Stray knew this game. Perhaps Diana had even counted on Ro’nin’s suggestion in the first place. “You want me to kill them, whoever they are.”
“We’ve discussed this. You’re leading a Covenant raiding legion now, not slumming it in some smuggling freighter. You still have plenty of warriors in your ranks who resent having a human commander. They’ve noticed that you aren’t seeking out human targets. We’re already playing a dangerous game by subverting Jul ‘Mdama. Do you really think you can afford an internal rebellion?”
“Yeah, we’ve been over it. I know what I’m doing.” Stray looked back at Ro’nin. “Get a team together. We’ll rendezvous with Amber and the recon force as planned. Once we’ve secured the perimeter, you and I will go visit our mystery compound.”
Ro’nin’s mandibles twitched. “If you’re coming along, then I assume…”
“Take them prisoner. All of them, unless they try to resist. We’ll interrogate them, find out who they are and if they’ve alerted anyone else to our presence.”
“And then…?” There was a note of warning in Ro’nin’s voice.
“You’ll see. And so will everyone else. It sounds like some of the warriors need to be reminded of who’s in charge.” Stray motioned impatiently at Ro’nin. “Go on, get moving. Get everyone ready to move out.”
“As you wish, commander.” Ro’nin’s tone held an edge of mockery. Stray was used to the mercenary’s attitude—he’d have shared it, in Ro’nin’s position—but things were different now. Diana was right: his hold on power was only as good as the willingness of a horde of alien misfits to follow him into battle. This was as good an opportunity as any to make sure his position was secure.
He waited for the doors to close behind Ro’nin before shooting Diana a cold glance. “I don’t need these little tests. You put me through enough back before I took control. I think I’ve earned your benefit of the doubt.”
“Oh, you aren’t still angry about that, are you?” Diana cocked her head in mock sympathy. “I did say I was sorry.”
“You tortured me.” Stray’s mouth tightened. He tried not to think about those cold, painful days, trapped in the bowels of this very cruiser as Kru’desh interrogators tore him apart and pieced him back together over and over. A necessary step, he realized that now. It didn’t make the memories any less chilling.
He could feel every camera and sensor in the room focus on him. “To get you in command. To remind you of who you are. Of what you are.”
 
“I know why you did it.” She hadn’t just limited her attention to his body. His mind had become fertile ground for her to mold and manipulate as well. The things she’d shown him then… he wished he didn’t have to remember them? But forgetting wasn’t an option. There was no turning back now from the path she’d set him on. “I just think you owe me the benefit of the doubt here.”
 
“Fair enough. But it’s not me you really have to convince, now is it?”
 
Stray gave her a sidelong smirk. “Well, after dealing with you, a bunch of bloodthirsty Covenant shouldn’t be a problem at all.”
 
No one could ever understand the bond he shared with Diana. For all she’d done to him, for all she’d put him through, she was truly the only family he had left. The thought burned in his heart even as it filled his mind with the cold confidence in his own victory. He’d come a long way since he’d been that desperate, terrified boy standing in Mendez’s shadow. And Diana had been responsible for so much of his transformation.
 
“Well, since I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt on this one, I don’t suppose you’ll tell me what you have in mind for those unexpected squatters down there?”
 
Stray returned his attention to the holo-display. “Like you said, we’ve got some concerns about my leadership in the ranks. Whoever those people are, they’ll help me sort that out.”
 
“Oh?” Diana sounded amused. “And how exactly will they do that?”
 
“We’ll see.” Stray headed for the door. His mind was already filled with a dozen different concerns for the operation ahead, a skill he still struggled to master. Spartan training and all that followed prepared him for life on the battlefield, not the complexities of command. Troops had to be moved, ships directed, supply lines maintained. Even as routine an operation as this created a mountain of problems he’d never even considered before joining the Covenant.
 
In a way, he was grateful for such mundane problems. They distracted him from the reality of his situation, made the lies he told easier. Especially the lies he told himself.
 
He thought of the last war, back when he’d still been on humanity’s side fighting the old Covenant. The thought that the genocidal alien fleets had been plagued by such petty details as food rations and troop rotations even as the slaughtered humanity by the billions was almost laughable. And yet here he was, standing aboard his own cruiser and struggling to sort through those very problems.
 
Thinking back to every organization he’d ever served—the UNSC, the Insurrection, the Syndicate, and now the Covenant—he wondered if these banalities were the true fabric that ruled the universe. Not politics or religion or even the vast mysteries of the Forerunners, but the simple logistics that bound all of those things together. Just systems within systems, making it all run smoothly even as billions upon billions of people strained to find some higher truth to it all.
 
If he were still like the other Spartans, still a loyal servant of the UNSC, he wouldn’t think twice about what he was about to do. Swing in on some independent settlement, intimidate the locals into giving him what he needed, all in the name of Earth and her mighty military. No one could fault him: he was only following orders, after all. Why should it matter if he bullied and stole and killed for the Covenant instead? They weren’t even the power in the galaxy anymore. Just a desperate collection of soldiers and warships, struggling to survive like everyone else.
 
It had been a long time since Stray even came close to thinking of himself as a good person. So why shy away from the dirty work now, when so much was at stake?
 
“I hope you get those doubts under control before you get to the hangar,” Diana called out from behind him. “You’re not all that inspiring to begin with. All the brooding won’t do you any favors.”
 
He should have known she could see through him. There was no hiding things from Diana. The spike of irritation that pierced his thoughts was directed more at himself than the AI.
 
“Of course,” he said with a tight smile. “Just getting it all out of my system.”
 
It was a short walk from the command center to the hangar. The warriors he passed—Sangheili, Kig-Yar, and Unggoy alike—parted quickly before him. A few of the avian Kig-Yar fell into step behind him, hissing in acknowledgement. Of all the forces holding up his precarious grip on power, the Kig-Yar were by far the easiest to manage. As long as they trusted you to turn them a profit and keep them alive from battle to battle they’d stay loyal to their contracts. And profit was one thing Stray’s leadership had brought the Kru’desh in abundance.
 
One of the squat Unggoy sidled up beside Stray, adjusting the straps on its dull-red methane harness. “Report from Buwan,” the grunt known as Ilyap squeaked, passing up a datapad. “Den Mother Isayap accept payment. Shipment of Goblins come soon.”
 
Stray accepted the datapad with his prosthetic hand and skimmed its contents before passing it back to Ilyap. “Good to hear. Tell your mother she’ll get a double order once we’ve tested the Goblins in battle.”
 
He shot Ilyap a warning look. “If and only if these things don’t have the same problems as the last batch. We get another defective shipment, she can forget about our contract.”
 
Ilyap nodded quickly and scuttled away. Stray had spent most of his life considering Unggoy as ridiculous cannon fodder, an attitude shared by most of the galaxy. Even amidst the horror and terror of a pitched battle they were pitifully easy targets, and the squeaky, methane-scarred voices coupled with their poor grasp of even their own mother tongues made most dismiss them as bumbling idiots. But beneath their cowardly, servile hordes lurked a few lethally clever individuals.
 
Individuals like Ilyap and his mother, whose den back on Buwan now supplied the Kru’desh with weapons and equipment even line officers in Jul ‘Mdama’s honor guard struggled to get their claws on. Stray had learned quickly that more than anything else, what Unggoy craved was legitimacy. Not glory or even respect. Just for people like him to treat them as equals.
 
He could only begin to imagine the terrifying history beneath the Covenant that had bred an attitude that desperate into an entire species. Stray could hardly believe the vast complexities of the Covenant. A year before it had remained a vast, deadly mystery, little more than a broken enemy to be avoided even as he fought to stay one step ahead of the ONI and all his other enemies. Now he navigated the tangled web of inter-species grudges and politics, finding angles only outsiders like him could exploit.
 
Creatures like Ilyap were walking proof of just how closed his eyes had been to the universe of potential lying ignored for so long by so many.
Stray reached the bulkhead leading to the cruiser’s hangar. The doors slid aside to reveal the cavernous chamber bustling with activity. Kru’desh warriors loaded weapons and retrieval equipment onto Phantom dropships while Sangheili officers strode imperiously from craft to craft, inspecting preparation progress and barking orders at the loading teams. As a Spartan and then a mercenary, the sight of so much Covenant in one place would have terrified Stray. As commander of the Kru’desh, all he saw now were the forces at his beck and call—such as they were.
 
He felt a strange pride in observing all the movement. The Kru’desh Legion had originally functioned as disposable front line infantry, undesirable troops to be thrown away on suicide missions. But the legion’s gradual accumulation of exactly the kind of rogues and criminals had turned it into something more akin to a raiding force. Stray and his now-deceased predecessor had taken advantage of their subordinates’ quirks, transforming the legion into an agile strike force on par even with Jul ‘Mdama’s prized special operations teams.
 
In battle after battle during the Human-Covenant War, Stray had seen firsthand just how decisively inflexible Covenant tactics hampered their advanced weapons technology. Terrified little Simon-G294, desperate to simply survive from one battle to the next, could never have guessed that one day he would turn those experiences into new battle doctrine for Covenant warriors.
 
Ro’nin approached from the nearest Phantom, tailed by a handful of officers. “Preparations are nearly complete. We can begin deployment shortly.”
 
“Good.” Stray crossed over to the bulky Lich gunship—several times the size of the Phantoms—that served as his mobile command center. A small work station sat beside the Lich, its surface bearing most of his worldly possessions. He set his helmet down on the table and began looking over the weapons on display. Ro’nin and the other officers followed after him, forming a small ring around the table as Stray passed his hands over the contents.
 
“As we discussed before, there are some concerns about the human presence on the surface,” Ro’nin said pointedly. Stray noted that the other Sangheili pressed in around him closer than necessary. He was a bit short, even by human standards, so the much larger aliens would completely obscure him from the view of the other warriors in the hangar.
 
All it would take was just one of these warriors to whip out an energy sword…
 
“Right. We did.” Stray passed a hand over the disassembled shotgun—an older M45 Army model—lying on the workbench. “You lot think I’m going easy on human targets.”
 
“We aren’t blind, commander,” growled one of the officers, a thin Sangheili called Jelg ‘Irvun. “You claim to serve the Didact’s Hand, yet you never test us against your own kind.”
 
Stray shot a sideways glance up at Jelg. “I attack the targets Jul ‘Mdama orders me to attack. Maybe you should have a word with him, let him know you’ve got issues with his leadership.”
 
“And the raids?” another officer pressed. “Jul ‘Mdama does not direct all of them. Yet we strike at convoys from Sanghelios, Unggoy settlements in the outlying sectors. Your human colonies are ripe for the taking, yet you ignore them.”
 
“So you want me to get us up against the UNSC.” Stray began reassembling the shotgun. The weapon’s frame was pitted and scored; it had carried him through countless skirmishes and firefights, even surviving the inferno that brought him to the Kru’desh in the first place. “Guess you’re my first volunteer to lead the landing parties. Say hello to all the Zealots ‘Mdama’s lost to the Infinity for me, will you?”
 
Jelg’s mandibles twitched. “So you find Sangheili easier targets than humans?”
 
“You tell me.” This time Stray didn’t bother looking up from his work. “You’ve heard the reports from the main fleet. How many ships and warriors have died fighting the UNSC? And how many did you lose back when Jul was using you all as cannon fodder?”
 
A rumble of discomfort passed through the assembled officers. They all knew the losses Jul ‘Mdama and the Covenant’s main force were incurring at the hands of the Infinity and her complement of Spartans.
 
“Yeah. Nasty stuff. And how many of you have died working for a lowly human like me?” Stray inspected the reassembled shotgun, casually sliding a single shell into its receiver. “More to the point, who’s made you richer? The Didact’s Hand or me?”
Stray turned away from the bench and looked at each officer in turn. “None of you are in this legion because you’re sterling paragons of Covenant virtue. Don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not even an insult. This legion does what your pious friends in the main fleet can’t because we have the tools we need to go where they won’t and do what do the jobs they’re dumb enough to think are beneath them. And in the meantime, I’m helping make you all rich. Is that a problem?”
 
“So long as you keep your priorities in order, we follow your lead,” Ro’nin said, nodding to the other officers. Of course he was the ringleader. The outcast Sangheili might be mercenary scum, but he was Stray’s kind of mercenary scum. He could be trusted to act in his own best interests, and right now he stood more to gain from having Stray as his commander than one of Jul ‘Mdama’s more devout taskmasters. Little displays like this were his way of maintaining order in the ranks—and of reminding Stray just how essential to the Kru’desh he really was. “I’ve had enough of pompous fools ordering me to my death. Life’s been good under the human, isn’t that right?”
 
The officers grunted in assent, though a few still looked unconvinced. They weren’t all opportunists like Ro’nin. A few actually did believe in the religious faith Jul ‘Mdama’s Covenant claimed to represent. And even without their religious fervor, Sangheili were proud warriors raised in a strict system of honor and social obligations. They didn’t need dogma to balk at submitting to a creature from outside that system, especially a creature like Stray.
 
They were naturally-built killing machines, some of the most lethal warriors Stray had ever seen. They were also the hardest to control.
 
Hard to control. Listen to you. He was thinking more and more like Diana every day. Stray still couldn’t decide if this was a good thing or a bad thing.
 
“As far as that little village down there goes,” he said, slinging the shotgun over his shoulder. “You’re right, a Sangheili commander would probably just drop a plasma torpedo on ‘em. But then we wouldn’t know who they are and, more importantly, who they work for.”
 
“Does it matter?” one officer demanded. “Or would you back off if they were from your Earth government?”