Halo: Shadow of Intent by Joseph Staten;

Author:Joseph Staten;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2015-12-07T00:00:00+00:00

The escape pod blasted out of its mooring socket, and Tem’Bhetek slammed backward into his harness. A reactive gel layer inside his armor protected him from the punishing acceleration as the pod sped across the narrow gap of space between the two capital ships. The pod’s viewport blast shields were down, and it was running dark. But through the low-light optics in his visor, the Prelate could see the sharp outlines of five Jiralhanae crammed into harnesses around him, each one fully enclosed in deep blue, vacuum-rated armor that glimmered with reflections of the pod’s flashing status lights.

Behind the Prelate’s pod, nine more were launching, each with five Jiralhanae inside. These fifty warriors—the entirety of Spear of Light’s remaining crew—knew they had just punched a one-way ticket, that there was no turning back. But whatever nervousness the Brutes might have felt when they were near the miniature Halo was absent now. Hurtling toward an enemy, weapons in hand, these ruthless creatures were in their element. Tem felt a surge of confidence. We are going to make it inside that carrier and tear the Sangheili apart!

It had been an audacious plan. A single light cruiser against an assault carrier. Outmatched in arms and armor, the Prelate had known one thing for certain: Spear of Light would never survive the fight. But the genius of his strategy was accepting the inevitable destruction of his ship and turning it to his advantage.

The Prelate had visited Duraan’s system once before, on one of the many training missions that had kept him far from home. Back then he and his inexperienced Jiralhanae crew had been surprised at just how rapidly Duraan’s red dwarf star had degraded their cruiser’s shields. But the Prelate had filed away this miscalculation, as he did with all his missteps, as a tool for self-improvement. Years later, when he had wracked his brain for the best place to spring a trap, his memories of the red dwarf’s powerful storms, as well as Duraan’s small, poorly armed settlements, quickly sorted this planet to the top of the list.

Like most plans, this one had variables the Prelate couldn’t control, the biggest of which was the Half-Jaw himself. The red dwarf could only do so much to degrade Shadow of Intent’s defenses. For the Prelate’s gambit to work, he needed the Half-Jaw to throw everything he had at Spear of Light—to so desperately want to kill the Prelate here and now before he could do any more harm that he would be willing to expend Shadow of Intent’s many advantages in a single devastating blow.

The Half-Jaw had swung hard, but the Prelate was still standing. And now the odds were no longer in the Sangheili shipmaster’s favor. In a close-up fight, the Prelate knew his Jiralhanae could match any Sangheili. And as for the Half-Jaw? Tem’Bhetek fingered the hardlight shield projector and plasma rifle attached to his anti-grav belt. I will deal with him myself.

Five seconds out of the socket, and Shadow of Intent’s point lasers still hadn’t fired on his pod.

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