Editing Halo: Mortal Dictata

{{Status|RealWorld}}

'''''Halo: Mortal Dictata''''' is the third and last novel in the [[Kilo-Five Trilogy]] by [[Karen Traviss]], and a direct follow-up to ''[[Halo: The Thursday War]]''. The book was published on [[2014|January 21, 2014]].{{Ref/Reuse|amazon}}<ref name="tor">[http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/07/the-halo-kilo-five-trilogy-will-conclude-this-january '''Tor.com:''' ''The Halo Kilo-Five Trilogy Will Conclude This January'']</ref>

{{Article quote|Wars end. But hatred, guilt, and devotion can endure beyond the grave.

In the present, in [[2553#April|April 2553]], [[Malcolm Geffen|Mal Geffen]] and [[Vasily Beloi|Vaz Beloi]] of [[Kilo-Five]] are deployed on [[Venezia]] disguised as UNSC deserters to infiltrate into the local militia and find ''[[Pious Inquisitor]]'', a [[Ket-pattern battlecruiser|Covenant battlecruiser]] which Staffan Sentzke seeks to acquire. Sentzke plans to use the ship to threaten Earth with [[glassing]] in order to coerce the authorities into providing answers about his daughter's disappearance decades earlier. ''Pious Inquisitor'' is in the possession of the [[Kig-Yar]] [[Sav Fel]], who stole the ship from the Sangheili rebel faction known as the [[Servants of the Abiding Truth]]. [[Avu Med 'Telcam]], leader of the Abiding Truth, hires the Kig-Yar [[Shipmaster|Shipmistress]] [[Chol Von]] to hunt down Fel and ''Inquisitor'', but Von has plans of her own: she intends to keep the ship to herself as part of her effort to build a unified Kig-Yar navy.

Meanwhile, Chol Von's crew locate ''Pious Inquisitor'' and make their way inside. Sometimes Sinks, distrustful of the Kig-Yar and only compliant to Sentzke's orders, places the ship in complete lockdown and transitions it to coordinates previously designated by Sentzke. After Kilo-Five locate the ship, Sentzke convinces Sometimes Sinks to allow them to come onboard. However, it is revealed that Sentzke plans to escape, having surmised that ONI would never allow him to go free. Sentzke has Vaz promise to take care of Naomi, in turn giving his word to cease his aggression against Earth. Mal and Naomi board the ship in a different location; on their way to the bridge, they are forced into a firefight with members of the Kig-Yar crew. Chol Von, still adamant in her refusal to give up ''Pious Inquisitor'', finally sets the ship to explode and escapes with her remaining crew. While Kilo-Five escape to their dropships, Sentzke takes a [[Dextro Xur-pattern Spirit|Spirit]] from the [[shuttle bay]] but stays in range, seemingly at the risk of his own life, until he can ensure Naomi is safe. Vaz requests BB to give Sentzke the file on Naomi's kidnapping to prove him right to his doubting family; BB complies and sends the files to Sentzke's Spirit. BB confronts Sentzke, noting that while the Spirit's conventional engines would never allow him to make it to a safe distance of the explosion, Sometimes Sinks had secretly rigged the dropship with a miniature [[slipspace drive]] which would enable him to escape. However, Black-Box points out that ONI would never stop hunting Sentzke if they knew he was alive, but instead chooses to erase his own recollection of the incident, leaving Kilo-Five to conclude that Sentzke died in the explosion.

After a debriefing with [[Margaret Parangosky|Admiral Parangosky]], Osman finally chooses to look at her personal file and uncover the truth about her family after years of reluctance. She learns that her mother was a drug addict and prostitute who abandoned her in an early age and that the only one who cared about her was [[Alkmini Leandro|her schoolteacher]]. Osman goes to meet her teacher on her former homeworld of [[Cascade]] while the rest of the team take a short shore leave. Back on ''Port Stanley'', Vaz receives an anonymous package in the mail. Naomi and the others gather to inspect the contents, which are revealed to be a miniature chair for a doll's house Staffan was building for Naomi, and a [[planetarium lamp]] he had planned to give her on her sixth birthday. From this, Kilo-Five surmise that Sentzke is still alive, but they choose to quietly bury the matter.

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