Intent

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Sonev ‘Verun sat atop an observation platform, watching the expansive, cavernous hangar bay below. Human ships, human vehicles, and humans themselves littered the floor of the hangar bay below, exercising, running, or even merely conversing with one another.

Sonev watched them, for a time. He admired their tenacity, their rigid discipline, and their tenacity, even now, to ensure they were prepared for battle at all times. The Sangheili shifted in place when he felt the door to the observation platform behind him open, and someone else stepped out onto it.

He turned, taking stock of the interloper to his rumination, and found a stoic figure watching him. Sonev turned back to look out over the hangar bay once again when he saw who it was.

“Greetings, Teral,” he said. “I trust you have a reason to be here, beyond intruding on my solitude.”

Teral made a noise in the back of his throat and stepped over to the edge of the platform, placing his weapon down and taking a seat. “I came to keep you company,” he said.

“Ah,” Sonev huffed in mirth. “So you were merely seeking to intrude.”

Teral said nothing, merely watched down below. His eyes caught the movement of a line of human soldiers, clad in black armour and running what they called ‘drills’ around the hangar. They made a lap of the cyclopean bay, then came back around to do it again.

He tilted his head, studying them from afar and took a breath. “Did you ever imagine it would come to this?”

Sonev knew what he meant. He watched the humans run, as well. He watched some move crates, some repaired vehicles, and there, in the middle of it all, was it. Sonev clenched his fists and bit his mandibles together at the sight of green armour, an imposing figure even by Sangheili standards, and a reflective gold visor, making the thing below seem to all outsiders as a faceless demon.

Sonev turned his eyes away and shook his head/ “No,” he said. “To think that we should live in such confusing times.”

“Our religion was false,” Teral spat. “Our gods abandoned, and our enemies became allies. In how many cycles?”

Sonev turned to Teral and gawked. Such a brazen display of blasphemy would have seen him executed on the spot before, but now? Now, Sonev could only gawk, for he didn’t know what counted as Blasphemy anymore.

“How many Humans perished defending their kind from a false crusade?” Teral continued, pointing down at them below.

Sonev furrowed his brow and shook his head. “I know not.”

“How did they continue to fight us? After they lost so much?” Teral leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. It appeared he wasn’t looking for answers, anymore.

“Do you remember the first world to fall?” he asked Sonev. “They called it ‘Harvest’.”

“Yes,” Sonev replied. “The Prophets thought it to be their homeworld, at the time.”

Teral scoffed. “I find it ironic.”

Sonev turned to face him and tilted his head to one side. “What?”

“The Prophets considered the Humans to be a threat to the Covenant,” he said, pointing down at the scurrying figures below. “Look at them. Them,” he shook his head. “Threats to us? Preposterous.” Shaking his head, he let his arms fall to his thighs.

“That the existence of them would rip us apart,” he went on. “We burnt a world we thought to be their home, to keep that from happening. Then,” he started laughing, “then, when we finally find their true homeworld.” He pointed down at the diminutive Human ship and scoffed. “Look how the Prophet’s prediction has come to pass.”

Sonev said nothing, ruminating on his companion’s words for a time. He watched the Human soldiers make another lap of the hangar bay, idly fidgeting in place. A question burnt through his mandibles quicker than his brain could shut it down.

“Do you hate them?” he asked.

Teral growled; a contemplative sound deep in the recesses of his throat. He considered the question for a time, rolled his head to one side as he studied the humans some more.

“After decades of them being the embodiment of everything our religion taught us to fear, and revile?” He averted his eyes from the marching, armoured soldiers down below, and his eyes fixed themselves on his own weapon, still in his hands. Shaking his head, he turned to Sonev and set his mandibles in a taut line.

“No,” he said.

Nothing more passed between the pair, as they sat on the edge of the observation platform, and watched the Humans below.

“There he goes again,” Brian said. “God I can’t believe him.”

Lucy looked up from her datapad, teeth half-embedded in a dehydrated apple slice. She bit the bit off and swallowed, studying Brian’s twisted, angry face. “Who?” she asked.

Brian motioned somewhere off into the Hangar. “The Chief.”

Lucy turned, seeing the behemoth of a man standing there, alongside an Elite clad in ornate, silver armour, inlaid with decorative swirls and embellished creases. Lucy furrowed her brow, watching the two of them converse. Next to the Sangheili, the Chief seemed so small, even though he himself stood a full seven foot.

“What about him?” Lucy asked, one brow arched in confusion.

Scoffing, Brian turned to face his companion and shook his head. “Really?” he asked.

Lucy shrugged, and took another crunch of dehydrated apple.

Brian motioned towards the pair of figures. “He’s being all buddy-buddy with the enemy! That’s what!”

Rolling her eyes, Lucy kicked her legs up off the crate she was sitting on, and planted them on the deck. “They’re not the enemy,” she said. She felt the thrum of antigravity technology deep in the decking under her boots, and pushed down the strange unfamiliarity that came with being on a Covenant ship.

Brian set his jaw and deadpanned at her. “For thirty two years,” he said, pointing down at the ground with pinched fingers, “they were the enemy.” He swept his hand over the hangar bay in a broad, sweeping motion. “That doesn’t just go away because suddenly they realised that the Covenant is full of shit!”

Lucy put her unmarked bag of apple slices down and sighed.

Brian stood up and held his arms up to the ceiling, laughing a mirthless laugh. “They didn’t even ally with us because they felt remorse,” he said, turning to face Lucy and setting his body in a contentious stance. “They did it because it was convenient!” he finished with a hiss.

Lucy folded her hands and put her datapad down, with a slow, and methodical approach to her actions. Clasping her hands together, she smiled up at him. “How many humans do you think the Arbiter killed?” she asked, pointing towards him.

Brian drew back in shock. “What?”

“How many,” she repeated. “How many worlds did his fleet burn, how many ships did he destroy? How many humans did he personally order killed?”

Brian’s face contorted into one of pure rage. “I don’t really care!” he shouted at her.

Lucy nodded. “You should.”

Brian chewed on his tongue while Lucy looked up at him. When it became clear that she wouldn’t say anymore unless he asked, he rolled his eyes and sighed.

“And why the hell should I?” he asked.

“When you sleep at night,” Lucy said, “when you bed down in the bunks, and close your eyes, whose faces do you see? Your friends? Your family?”

Brian gulped around a dry throat. “I don’t see anyone.”

“Come on.” Lucy put her head back and supported herself on the crate with her hands. “Everyone knows someone. Everyone had a world, everyone had a casualty here.”

“My…” Brian’s voice closed up, and he shut his eyes. “It's personal.”

“It always is,” Lucy said, but didn’t press for more information. “Does it stop you from going to sleep?”

“Of course it does!” Brain said, opening his eyes to look at her. “Why the hell wouldn’t it?”

“Imagine all your life, you’ve been told to believe something,” she said. “Not because you yourself believe it, but because your father did, and his father, and his father before him.” She rolled her wrist as she spoke. “Imagine all your life you’ve been told what’s right and wrong, what to do and think.”

Lucy took her turn to sweep her arms over the hangar, and all the Sangheili in it. “Imagine this, for an entire species, for an entire era.

“Now,” she held up a finger, “imagine an enemy comes along; an enemy so terrible, so awful that they deserve to be extinguished, forever. Imagine willingly committing genocide, on a species you’re told is nothing but dirt!” pursing her lips, she rolled her finger in the air. “Imagine doing this for years, and years, and years—decades—then, suddenly, you find out that it was all lies.”

She let it hang there for a while as Brian digested her speech.

“It was all nothing but bullshit,” Lucy continued. “And now your own species is being targeted for extermination. Imagine everything you thought you knew being wrong, and all your justifiable deeds are suddenly horrifying, because you found out that everything was a lie.” Lucy turned to look at the Arbiter. “How many faces does he see at night? How many worlds haunt him? How many screams do you think he hears when he dreams?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,2 Brian said, thinking about it for a moment and shaking his head. Then, he followed Lucy’s eyes, and saw the Arbiter and the Chief talking once more, and all the rage returned like a fissure in his chest opening. He balled his fists and resumed his combative stance, leaning towards Lucy with a sneer. “I don’t care!” he raised his voice to a yell.

Lucy looked at him in shock at the volume.

“I won’t let you defend a mass-murdering war criminal!” he yelled.

Lucy held up two hands. “Brian—”

He cut her off. “He doesn’t get to bear his noble cross, when he is still alive. He doesn’t get to walk around like some pariah—”

Lucy looked to the side, then to Brian with wide eyes. “Brian!”

He kept going, unabated by her reaction. “—when he’s the one who slaughtered millions, ordered the deaths of hundreds of millions more, and fucking burned Reach!”

The hangar went quiet, save for Brian’s angered breathing. Lucy’s eyes flashed between him, and something off to his side.

Brian turned to follow her gaze, and balked when he saw the Arbiter, and the Master Chief, staring at him. The Arbiter had some unreadable expression on his face, and the Chief’s golden visor betrayed nothing of his internal thoughts.

Brian huffed, relaxed his fists, and turned his back to them all. “I’m going back to the ship,” he said, sounding exhausted. “Before I do something stupid.”

Lucy sighed and rubbed her forehead with a hand. “I wish I just kept my mouth shut.”

“It’s all of them,” a voice said.

She looked up at the source. “What?”

The Arbiter blinked at her. “It’s all of them. At night, I hear all of them,” he said, before turning around and walking away.