Yamn 'Zealonf

"I’m… sorry. I couldn’t let you die for me… risk your honour on me. Instead, I regained my own, by fighting for myself… Dilg, wait for me…"

- Last words of Fleet Mistress Yamn ‘Zealonf

Fleet Mistress Yamn ‘Zealonf is a high ranking and marginally respected member of the ISE military. She rose to prominence during the 1st Age of Realization in the early days of the Empire. Although usually a female Sangheili does not serve in the military, largely because of Sangheili tradition, the incumbent Imperial Admiral, an old friend of her father Dtar 'Zealonf pushed for reform in the military structure to allow females to take officer positions.

Life
Yamn’s early life is a tale of mischief and danger, mixed with adventure and fear and just a dash of sexual innuendo. That last part however, shall not be mentioned in this article.

Childhood
When she was young, she attempted to follow her father on a mission that his Fleet was participating in one the former human planet Coral, sneaking aboard her father’s Supercarrier the Adamant Wisdom with the help of several Unggoy. During the mission, she stowed away on one of the three Phantoms that descended to the planets surface, and was subsequently attacked by Flood forms, who chased her through a dense forest of Eversio Inferi. Fortunately the Flood-eating plants were able to subdue and absorb the Flood forms before they were able to kill the young Sangheili, who ran on ahead into her father’s landing party.

Following a continuous string of Flood assaults, the party retreated into the Forerunner structure at the centre of the forest, encountering humans that had taken residency there since the Covenant glassing of the most of the planet’s surface. Yamn was told to hide under her father’s cloak by clinging to his back while around the humans, however disobeyed when she say human children, and decided to observe them. Her discovery by the humans sparked several near conflicts between the landing party and the humans before a truce was called during the landing party’s 2 day occupation there, when the Monitor of the facility, 1051 Propound Assertion, brought to their attention a significant number of Flood forms storming the building.

After a brief panic among the human civilians, the landing party managed to rally the inhabitants of the structure, and with the help of the Monitor, were able to find a previous unknown route out of the building.

Eventually reaching outside after several ambushes, the group accompanied by the Monitor and several of his sentinels found that a section of the Forest had been blown up, the Eversio Inferi frantically flailing vainly towards the hordes of Flood piling in through the carnage. As all seemed lost, Yamn spotted the CCS-cruiser that was to pick them up. Suddenly inspired, she told her father to order the Cruiser to use its Gravity lift over the horde.

With the Monitor using his sentinels to keep the hordes back, the Cruiser flew low and unleashed its gravity lift on the frontal part of the horde, lowering a pair of Mgalekgolo afterwards to help fend off the remaining chunk of Flood still bounding towards them. The group managed to enter the lift and ascend into the cruiser, leaving the remainder of the Flood to deal with the self-repairing and vengeful forest and the Monitor’s Sentinels.

The New Empire
After the Great Schism, the Sangheili people began to organize their new independence around a single government, which in 2555CE took the form of the Imperium of the Sangheili Empire. Her father stayed on as a Supreme Commander, and his friend V’thi became the new Imperial Admiral of the Imperial Sangheili Armed forces.

V’thi, now V’thi ‘Gin Raman, used his influence as head of the military to start a series of political movements resulting in the Military Reform Act, that allowed female Sangheili into the military as officers. During the same year, Yamn enlisted in the War College of Iruiru, progressing through the appointed female classes with top marks, even her Swordsmanship excelled beyond some of the male students. Despite the ridicule of her fellow classmates, both male and female for her Tom-Boyish behavior, she earned several friends within the college, one of whom named Dilg ‘Jashum would later become her lover and mate.

The Remnant Wars – Battle of Felicitous Practice


During the First Remnant Wars, which broke out in the 2560’s and early 2570’s, she had graduated from the War college and took her position as a Major in the Imperial Navy, under the Fleet Master Sizr ‘Tinnem. Her time in the Fleet of Incorruptible Vengeance was somewhat short; during an assault on the Remnant planet Felicitous Practice, she became stranded with the rest of the army attacking there when a Remnant battle group managed to ambush and cripple the army’s carrier Sublime Unity. With the army stranded and the Fleet Master out of contact, Yamn took the initiative and ordered the forces to set up a defencive position while a technician team try to come back into contact with the Fleet Master. It took six hours for contact to be made, during which time several waves of Remnant forces attempted to batter themselves against the entrenched army. Fortunately the Remnant space forces were occupied above the planet, and were unable to simply bombard them. During the battle, a group of Jiralhanae were able to bypass the main defences as another wave occupied the front line, and attempted to assassinate Yamn at her command centre. Ambushing and murdering her three guards, Yamn was left to face the five Jiralhanae alone. After several taunts from the arrogant beasts, she managed to reach for her Plasma Rifle that was upon the table behind her, and shot a number of bolts into the leader’s head, knocking off his helmet and seemingly blinding him. The other Jiralhanae charged at her, taking up their spikers they attempted to shoot and then slash at her with the bayonets. Yamn cast aside her rifle and thrust out her Energy Sword, slashing an uppercut and killing the closest one. Enraging the remaining assassins, she decapitated another as it tried to stab her, but as she did so, the other two managed to grasp at her arms and hold her down.

Severely angered, the still living leader, now blind in one eye took up his Grenade Launcher with the intent of stabbing her with its blade. After ordering the two other Jiralhanae to rough her up, which they did rather savagely, he took hold of her helmet and moved her head back, only to be stricken from behind by Dilg ‘Jashum, who proceeded to then shower plasma bolts at the other two with his plasma rifles, disabling their armour.

Summoning up her remaining strength, she thrust the surprised Jiralhanae on her left to the ground as Dilg charged forward and smashed the second against the nearby wall, grasping a shard of the brute’s armour and slitting its throat.

During the assault Yamn suffered a usually fatal attack while she was being restrained, however she was quickly hospitalized and tended to. The result of her time in the hospital was her having one of her hearts replaced with a prosthetic heart, a type of part organic/part mechanical that is capable of replacing one of a Sangheili's two hearts.

Promotion – Shipmistress
Three years later, Yamn was promoted by her Fleet Master to Shipmistress of the CCS-Class Battlecruiser Divine Clarity. On the Fleet’s next mission, they were to help defend the human controlled world, Platform, during which two Fleets of the Remnant exited Slipspace around the well defended fortress of a planet.

The battle went particularly well, until three of the enemy cruisers attempted to ram at the Sangheili ships. Narrowly dodging one of them, the Divine Clarity was immediately boarded by the vessel, that launched its escape pods directly into the hangar bay. Ordering the hangar to be sealed off, Yamn continued to try and destroy the opposing ship. In no less than half an hour, a team of Jiralhanae and Kig-yar mercenaries had made their way through the ship and up to the bridge, attempting to blast their way through the door.

Taking up their weapons, Yamn and her body guards, who now included her lower Dilg readied for the assault. As the door blew forward across the room, Dilg unleashed a volley of Fuel Rod shots, obliterating the vanguard. Out of shots however, he threw the weapon aside and went for his carbine as Yamn and her other guards took up their plasma rifles. In the ensuing battle, two of her guards lay dead as the boarders were driven off.

The Fleet master announced the battle a success, though Yamn could not get over the fact that her being forbidden to fight simply got people killed, namely her bodyguards, and now that Dilg was one of them, she feared for his life.

End of the First Wars – Unexpected pleasure
By the end of the First Remnant Wars that came about in the human year of 2590CE, she had been promoted to Fleet Mistress. Near the end of the war, Yamn had been excused from service several months prior. The reason for this was because after being married for 8 years, Yamn had finally become pregnant. (It should be noted that since Sangheili live longer than humans do, Yamn is now in what is considered in “the prime of life” as it were). Of course during this time, the Marionettes had been hovering around the Sol System for two years while the Remnant was being finished off.

In 2592CE, merely a month before the Accidental War was to begin, Yamn would suffer painfully. After giving birth to her clutch of eggs, she was informed that not one of them had survived the birthing process for unknown reasons. She became understandably depressed, and refused to leave the hospital for several days, mourning her unborn children, even Dilg was unable to console her.

Loss – The Accidental War


Her depression persisted for several weeks, no one, not even her father or husband could bring her out of it. Finally, after the first few weeks of the Accidental War’s beginning, she was visited by Imperial Admiral V’thi ‘Gin Raman who eventually managed to do something to break her depression. After burying her eggs with her husband at a private funeral, she returned to active duty. To her surprise, she was placed as Fleet Mistress of a familiar fleet, her father’s former Fleet of Decisive Judgment.

As ordered by the Imperial Admiral, her first engagement in the War was in 2595 at the Third Battle of Earth, during which time she participated her fleet in the salvation of the Earth from the invading Vincicitum Invasionary Task Force Fleet of Vengeful Justice.

She would later go on to participate in both the First Battle of Te and The Battle/Destruction of Installation 02, and briefly afterwards participated in several of the diplomatic meetings that took place after the war.

The Second Remnant Wars
Shortly after the Accidental War, the Covenant Remnant that had been marginally unaffected by the war apart from one large scale skirmish, had actively been building up their armies and navies again. This had been occurring since the War with the Marionettes, however reports that build up was continuing after the war made the UNSC and ISE quite wary. Yamn knew full well that the Remnant may well win if the allies didn’t buffer up their post-war militaries, they would be a supreme disadvantage, as therefore pushed for the mutual build up of allied forces, to which the ISE military heartily agreed.

Given liberty to reorganize her fleet with new ships, she selected several vessels to be sent to a naval base for refit and repairs. She then replaced her capital ship, the Adamant Wisdom, and replaced it with a Imperator-Class Supercarrier, christening it with the same name, and added five Redemption-Class Battlecruisers, 4 destroyers, and a menagerie of lighter vessels. During the first year of the war in 2615CE, The Fleet of Decisive Judgment participated in several key assaults on strategic Remnant locations that hampered the Remnant war effort, only losing a few of her ships to unexpected Remnant presence over the planet Honoured Grave. Yamn’s blitzkrieg tactics in the war made her infamous among the Covenant Remnant, and many attempts on her life were made, leading her to lose more and more of her personal guard assigned to her by law. In 2619, her husband, Dilg ‘Jashum, too died defending her.

At the war’s ending in 2620CE, she had become a near shell of her former self, her warm personality had turned cold. It was no secret that she harboured bitter feelings towards the Remnant, though she did not participate in any of the subjugation efforts.

Death – Return to Happiness
In 2622CE, Yamn had been assigned to be the Fleet Mistress of a border Fleet for a year, seeing several minimal skirmishes by Remnant forces, and easily put them down.

Near the middle of the year, her body guard had noticed that she seemed happier than usual. During a raid by the Remnant, she ordered them to go and defend the main entrance to the control room. As they obeyed and exited the room, she locked the door behind them. Quite horrified at what she had done, the guard made their way around the long way to one of the other two entrances, only to find that the ship had been boarded. Successfully fighting through several hoards of Jiralhanae and Kig-yar pirates, the Guard burst into the Control room, finding a number of dead Jiralhanae, one dead Major, and Yamn mortally wounded, leaning against the railing of the upper dais, her energy sword deactivated beside her covered in blood.

Seeing there was no way to save her with such injuries, the guard could only listen to her last words


 * I’m… sorry. I couldn’t let you die for me… risk your honour on me. Instead, I regained my own, by fighting for myself… Dilg, wait for me…

Legacy
Yamn ‘Zealonf is known among the Sangheili people as a famous strategist and Fleet Mistress, however she is more well known for being one of the first female Sangheili to join and successfully participate in the military. Her name, like her father’s, V’thi ‘Gin Raman, the Arbiter, Rtas ‘Vadum, and Lord George Hood, is inscribed on the Step of Honour on Sanghelios as one of the pioneers of female participation in the military, and as a leader in the early wars of the ISE.

Personality
Up until the loss of her babies and her husband, Yamn had always been a positive individual. Not peppy in any way since joining the military, she has instead embraced a sort of inspiring confidence that her subordinates find encouraging and empowering. She also has a kind of wit and flirtatious manner in her younger years that people found to be enjoyable, even humans found her to be a pleasure to be around.

Not as tall or domineering as her father or the Imperial Admiral, Yamn relies more heavily on her capabilities and personality traits to establish her dominance over her inferiors.

After the loss of her husband, for the last two years of her life she became quieter and less prone to emotion. Many of her friends considered that it was merely a build up of her losses over her life, her babies, her father, and her husband had all died at times when she was under stress from war. Up until the eve of her death, she was never seen in a positive mood. In battle, she is quite, quite ferocious, many males are surprised by how well she fights, excelling in war college as a skilled swordsman and weapons user.

Capabilities


Yamn is extremely proficient in tactical maneuvers, having studied both Sangheili, human, and several known Forerunner strategies. She is most famous for being able to effectively mix the strategies together in a manner that works, which many tacticians find somewhat difficult without trial-and-error, which can be extremely costly in a war.

She is also a skilled sword wielder and weapons expert, however in combat she tends to become reckless under pressure, which she doesn’t initially see because she never feels that way when commanding ships or troops. Luckily most of her opponents are Jiralhanae, who in their own right are not very tactically proficient, preferring to charge in head first, in which case it comes down to the skill of the brute or Yamn’s skill. Up to her death, she has been able to take advantage of this, it is thought that when she was killed it was because of sheer numbers.

Trivia

 * Yamn is the first female Sangheili to reach the rank of Ship Mistress
 * Yamn has a father named Dtar 'Zealonf
 * The current Imperial Admiral, V'thi 'Gin Raman is a friend of her father, and knew her as a child
 * She is the third Fleet Commander to head The Fleet of Decisive Judgment, after her father, and N’tro ‘Giranellee before him.