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A grumble echoed within the oration chamber. These words were the grossest sacrilege. Today, however, they could be the truth.
Xytan held up a hand and the dissent quelled.
"You must now decide to surrender to fate—or resist and strive to persist. Myself, I choose to fight." He outstretched both hands to his audience. "I call upon you all to join me. Let the old ways fade and battle by my side. Together we can forge a new, better union—a new Covenant among the stars."
The Sangheili Ship Masters roared their approval.
It was an inspired oration, but the Prophets had used words to trick them all before, too. Ship Master Tano had let words, and their more dangerous by-product, beliefs, cloud his reason.
Words alone would not help them. Voro crossed his arms over his chest.
Amazingly, Xytan saw this gesture and turned to face him, locking gazes.
"You disagree. Ship Master?"
A tomblike silence smothered the stadium. Voro felt all eyes upon him.
"Speak, then, hero of the battle for the Second Ring of the Gods, and de facto commander of the Second Fleet of Homogeneous Clarity." Xytan waved him forward and offered him the center pulpit, an unprecedented and generous step for one so high.
It stunned Voro to hear such honorifics attached to his name. Xytan knew what had happened? Who he was? Of course, his intelligence network was legion. And what better way to silence questions than with compliments?
Voro, however, had not survived treachery and war and the sundering of an Age to be silenced now. He willed himself to step forward. The urge to supplicate before Xytan was overwhelming, but he resisted.
It took all of Voro's strength to cross that distance with all watching.
He stepped upon the center stage and his image appeared holographically magnified, a titan towering over the crowd.
"I agree with what you say," Voro declared. "We must destroy the Jiralhanae, unquestioningly, and all who ally with them. But victory may mean nothing if the disease upon the holy ring escapes. It must be cleansed from the galaxy if we are to survive."
A murmur of assent passed through his fellows.
Xytan nodded as well, and then made a slight gesture with his hand, indicating Voro step down.
He gave a short bow to the Imperial Admiral and withdrew. Voro made it to his seat without betraying how he shook inside, without revealing to the others how stunned he was that he had survived.
Xytan reappeared upon the stage.
"Your words are Wisdom, Ship Master Voro. Which is why I have summoned Jiralhanae Alpha leadership under a banner of truce to this world."
An outcry rose from the gathered Ship Masters.
"I have no illusions that they come with false offers of peace," Xytan said. "So we shall stage our own ambush—here, where we are strong. After we have dealt a decapitating blow to the Jiralhanae Alpha Tribes, we will be free to eradicate the infection that threatens to spread from the most holy ring.
"As for how to accomplish this," Xytan said, "I call upon Oracle Master Parala Ahrmonro to report on a new opportunity."