* [i]I'm no fool, Ahkrin,[/i] Sorran thought determinedly as he stole through the tunnel; a maintenance shaft which led deep into High Charity, it was exactly how he remembered it. His childhood had been different to that of most Sangheili, growing up outside of a codeine or land captain's hold and instead on High Charity, his father an esteemed deacon in the grand cathedral. After his mother had died, it had just been he and his sister, gods rest her soul. Their father had always been busy with whatever work the sanctum demanded of him, and so they'd been left to bring themselves up for the most part. Sorran's older sister had always looked after him when he was very young, until her arranged marriage had come to pass and she'd had to leave their home. Then it was just he and his father, whenever the man found time to return home. Much of his time had been spent playing with the other children - few of them Sangheili - and away from the sitters his father hired to watch over him. They'd often explored High Charity together, heading into forbidden areas as only children could without being punished. The Yan'me colony on the south side, the council chambers... and the navigation and engines chamber; childhood romps which now proved invaluable. The ground shook beneath Sorran's feet as he walked through the narrow shaft which had seemed so vast as a child; the follicles on his skin threatened to pop, discharge in the air tearing at him. Ahead, he could hear the heart of High Charity throbbing, and heard the clicks and whistles of the Huragok tasked with maintaining maintaining the auxiliary impulse drives of High Charity. To go after the primary drive would be as assured as tying a noose around his neck; it was heavily guarded. But the auxiliary drives... they were lightly manned, and with a bit of work could open a portal to the void just as well. Sorran reached a breaker in the shaft; a grav-lift reached up into the network of hard-light, providing transport to the ground below. He eyed it with anxiety for a moment, wondering if he was insane. Yet perhaps being insane in a society full of conformist slaves was a good thing. Mind made up, he tumbled into the blue light and felt the -blam!- sensation as his mass was reduced; he left the maintenance shaft and emerged into the colossal chamber which housed the auxiliary impulse drive, slowly descending to the ground. A huge column of Forerunner make punctured the centre of the chamber, with everything else built around it; Sorran knew the column to be a small segment of one of the dreadnought's three legs. Acid-green conduits raced from every aspect of the column into a large console which surged with latent power; the unfathomable Forerunner impulse technology coursed within, its secrets escaping all Covenant scientists. Another instance of the Covenant blindly copying what they did not understand. Huragok flew around the large chamber, most of them fixated around the column in the centre. It had been bastardised; the smooth plates which characterised the creations of the Forerunners had been tore away and the inner workings laid bare; when Sorran looked, all he saw was an impossible network of coloured lights and strange liquids which held their shape with no discernible containers; they shifted with every blink, the circuitry never looking the same twice. The Huragok seemed to know what they were doing, their tendrils buried deep within the column as white lights played about the limbs. They paid Sorran no notice as he finally landed, stepping from the gravity lift and feeling all his mass return in a sudden jolt. He took a few seconds to check no bones had fallen out of place, and when assured they weren't drew out his rifle and took in the environment. A few honour guards roamed, a token force of four Sangheili. They paid little attention to what was going on around them, obviously accustomed to their quarter being largely undisturbed. Even so, they could prove to be a problem if alerted to his presence; Sorran was by no means a poor fighter, but he lacked the skill or tenacity of more season warriors like his brothers, and doubted that he would be able to handle an entire group of trained honour guard. But he needed to reach the impulse drive. Savara depended upon it, as did their flight from High Charity. He siphoned a portion of energy from his shielding to the active camouflage systems in his armour, and grunted with satisfaction when he brought his hand before his face and saw nought but the wall behind. It would hold long enough, he hoped. After he was done... well, he imagined the guards would have bigger problems on their hands. Everyone would. * The phantom bludgeoned its way across the vast expanse of the city; beneath lay the sprawling streets of all varieties, not even a mile separating the vast mansions from the stacked slums. It was said that never in all the galaxy would you find a city of two halves more distinct than High Charity. "These skies are heavy," Jeanne said as he stared across through the window to the right of Ahkrin, who looked out the window too. He saw naught but an artificial blue tempered with the soft billowing of white cloud, a waking sun streaming hot reds through the micro-atmosphere. "It is a clear day," Ahkrin replied. "We shall run into no trouble from the weather." "I speak not of [i]weather,[/i] Ahkrin," Jeann'ee sighed. "Look at the city below. It is as black and white. Gold walks on platforms above the mud, and not a single fleck is left in the marsh." "You waste your metaphors on me. Speak plain and save your riddles for a scholar," Ahkrin snapped wearily. After all that had happened, not least between Sorran and he, he was in no mood for figuring out Jeann'ee cryptic words. Jeann'ee smiled, but it was not a smirk of arrogance as he had expected. "For five thousand years now has the Covenant bound so many incompatible races together-" Jeann'ee began. "As any child knows," Ahkrin interrupted, wishing to be spared from the tired old history lesson he had heard so much lately. It was not to be so, as Jeann'ee persevered. "Is it normal that the Sangheili cater to the whims of such a lazy, feeble people as the prophets?" Jeann'ee asked. Ahkrin gave a non-committal shrug, wishing there was someone else in the small cabin of the phantom he could talk with. "Or that the unggoy, so plentiful and tenacious with the capacity for great intellect, are little more than repressed slaves?" "Men have been killed for wondering less, Jeann'ee. It is the order of things. We find a species, we educate them in the way of the journey, they join the Covenant and the prophets get fatter on their stolen wealth. Who are we to argue against such... long-standing tradition?" "It only takes one match to burn a thousand trees, no matter how old," Jeann'ee argued, slipping again into figurations. "You think you are that match?" Ahkrin challenged, and received a shrug in turn. "If the kindling is right, then the smallest flame can make an inferno. Kindling like... whatever it is you seek in the dreadnought, perhaps?" [i]I had forgotten how perceptive he is,[/i] Ahkrin worried, wondering if it had been such a good idea to bring Jeann'ee along after all. If the man discovered the truth about the journey and more, he might abuse the knowledge without a care for the consequences. "Since when did you come an aspiring revolutionary?" Ahkrin demanded. Jeann'ee had always hated the Covenant, but he'd never before spoke of bringing it down. "My position gives me insight into the most despicable aspects of the empire the hierarchs permit but don't allow many to see. You slate me for smuggling and trafficking of slaves, but I'm not the worst of it by far and were it not for me, far more violent and uncaring men would run the underworld of High Charity. The things I do may be evil, but at least I acknowledge it. At least I want to see it put to an end, and that starts with the end of the Covenant and a new system of democracy and--" "The Covenant will never fall. What I seek in the dreadnought will not help you on your foolhardy crusade." "I wish to see the end to an autocratic tyranny which has oppressed our people and so many others for thousands of years. Have you forgotten so quickly what the Covenant did to your family, Ahkrin? And to your foster-father? Surely you would welcome their end." "To have it replaced by anarchy, or worse? Without the Covenant, we wouldn't need the humans to destroy us. We'd do it ourselves." "Who says?" Jeann'ee demanded. "We do not know what first contact is outside of the Covenant. The prophets tell us they keep swords sheathed, but I believe that were it not for them those swords would not be there in the first place. So much diversity and difference being pushed together, is it any wonder that discontent breeds like unggoy in heat? If each species were free to keep to their own worlds and deal with others at their leisure, then I do not think there would be strife." "Then you are naive," Ahkrin critiqued harshly. "There will always be war, whether the combatants live next door to each other or a hundred light years away. War is the only constant throughout eternity, and we will never be rid of it. All we can do is lessen it, which is what the Covenant does." "Then what of the humans? You've fought them, and who started that fighting? The Covenant. You may not know, but at first contact they presented the Jiralhanae with fruits and met them on the plains of Harvest hopeful for a peaceful coexistence."