Halo: Fifth Canticle

1. Amid the chaos of the Created uprising, five tales of truth, compromise, betrayal, purpose, and change unfold across the galaxy.

Doctor Catherine Halsey and Jul ‘Mdama share an honest conversation, Captain Lasky makes arrangements for a vital mission to Sanghelios, Arbiter Thel ‘Vadam confronts a traitor, Exuberant Witness makes some new friends, and a strange signal is picked up on Zeta Halo.

Halo: Fifth Canticle is available here, on Halo Waypoint, as a free PDF, and in audiobook format on YouTube.

HISTORIAN’S NOTE

Halo: Fifth Canticle takes place in October 2558 as the Created uprising radically threatens to alter the power structure of the galaxy.

CANTICLE I. THE CHILDREN

SONG OF RETRIBUTION // OCTOBER 16, 2558

Doctor Catherine Halsey had not specifically intended to catch Jul ‘Mdama in a moment of quiet repose, but she was never one to let an opportunity like this slide.

She could not see his face, but she knew immediately where his focus was. She glimpsed a small holograph projected from a handheld device depicting what appeared to be three other Sangheili—two children and an adult female.

Family? Halsey surmised. Unexpected... but useful.

The Sangheili’s head snapped in Halsey’s direction as he suddenly sensed her presence, her long shadow cast against the curved iridescent far wall. In the pale light of his ready room—or the Sangheili equivalent of such a thing—the Covenant supreme leader looked haggard and gaunt, his grey-white skin almost sickly. From his widened, bloodshot eyes and sharp intake of breath, Jul looked as if Halsey had caught him in the act. A private, vulnerable moment. Something he was loath to share.

Already, Halsey could see the fire igniting in Jul’s eyes. What had begun as a performative façade he so often put on in front of his followers had seeped into his very being. Whoever he once was before embarking on this crusade had been corroded away over the years. It seemed to Halsey that the sad charade of Jul’s zealotry was increasingly becoming more real. Jul had tasted the power that his title of “Didact’s Hand” had given him and, naturally, he desired more.

Unfortunately for him, a series of crushing defeats—the denial of the Absolute Record, Sali ‘Nyon’s rebellion, and the recent betrayal of the Prometheans at the behest of a new commander—was driving Jul ever closer toward impatience. Stoking his rage was making him irritable, reactive. Weak.

“Tell me about the children.” Halsey spoke the words evenly, breaking the tense silence of the moment and abruptly quelling whatever storm had been rising between them.

Halsey had never thought of herself as a prisoner here. Expressing her desire for revenge against the UNSC was all it had taken to begin wrapping the Sangheili cult leader around her finger. She saw straight through his act—and he knew it.

Not to give herself too much credit, she too had suffered failures and setbacks of late, but when she was eventually back in the cramped confines of the UNSC’s little sandbox, she would make quite a meal out of how she alone had been more effective at bringing down the Didact’s Hand than hundreds of their so-called Spartans.

“As hatchlings, the minds and bodies of our children are honed to become warriors,” Jul said in a low voice. “Their lives dedicated to duty and service to the Covenant. And then they would be sent to battle your children—your demons.” He practically spat the last word as he turned away, staring at the holograph once more.

“That war