Mortal Dictata is the third of the Kilo-5 trilogy written by Karen Traviss. At just under 500 pages (soft cover edition), for most it’s not likely a one sitting read, though I do have a friend who did just that. Should out to PensHalo for attaining that achievement.
This is a long article and I did not put a TL;DR portion at the bottom. Honestly, that would have been doing a disservice to this well written book and fantastic story.
Mortal Dictata starts out with a prologue in which we learn more about Staffan Sentzke and his role as a terrorist, father and grandfather.
The first chapter is about the abduction of Spartan Naomi-010, from the viewpoint of Staffan Sentzke, father to Naomi. I quickly felt like I was in the midst of what was going on and felt sad for Staffan and had only just begun to realize what horrors parents face when their child is abducted. It’s fairly powerful reading. Fair warning, if you’ve been in this position in anyway, then you may be in for something emotional when reading the prologue.
After this we start to get into the main storyline. It’s the year 2553. Kilo-5 is orbiting Venezia aboard the ONI ship the UNSC Port Stanley. The players are all there. Mal, Vaz and Devereaux, Kilo-5’s ODSTs; Spartan Naomi-010, Captain Serin Ozman, commander of Kilo-5 and soon to be Admiral Ozman, CINCONI (that’s Commander in Chief, Office of Naval Intelligence); Evan “Phyllis” Phillips, Sangheli expert, and of course the smart A.I. Black Box, aka “BB” for which he’s known in the trilogy.
Their mission is to stop Staffan Sentzke from ever being a threat to Earth and the Inner Colonies. Sentzke is a known arms dealer, insurrectionist and would be terrorist. We find out that Sentzke is actually Naomi’s father and this complicates the mission in various degrees. Mal and Vaz meet up with a spy on Venezia who helps them be recruited by Staffan himself.
Now before I go any further, I have to say, the writing in this, the third book in the series, is the best of them, in my opinion. I really saw a progression of character growth in this one more than the other two books. In particular, we gain access to how the minds of ODSTs think in certain situations. There’s the usual raucous bar behavior, along with military plotting, knowing your squad mate and what they would saying, without them saying it, as well as how they deal with heavy handed interrogation.
We also get into the mind of a Spartan like we never have before. Through the book, we read how Naomi deals with the fact of Staffan being her father, as well as her new found feelings towards him and how that may endanger the mission. During one part of the book, Naomi finally reads the ONI file regarding her abduction. She comes to the full realization of what that meant, not only to Staffan, but her feelings and thoughts towards Catherine Halsey. To say the Naomi becomes complex is right on the mark. As a spartan, she was trained from an early age to obey orders and she did without questions. Now is the first time she’s beginning to question orders, at first in her mind, then outwardly. While she doesn’t sway far from orders on the whole, it’s clear she doesn’t want to kill her father, though he may be deemed an enemy of the UNSC.
Back to the story. Mal and Vaz are on the inside. They integrate nicely within Staffan’s group as they have a set of skills that Staffan needs. Now before this time in the book, Staffan has acquired a Covenant CCS battlecruiser, a two-kilometer long warship with a ventral beam capable of glassing planets. The mission of Mal and Vaz has become such that they need to find and take the ship if possible. If not, then destroy the ship. If Staffan gets caught in the crossfire, so be it. Mal and Vaz are brought aboard the Covenant ship Pious Inquisitor, now renamed Naomi for Staffan’s daughter, whom he still thinks is dead. The main reason Staffan has become an enemy is due to his belief that his daughter was taken, and did not die as a 6 year old child. He spent 35 years looking for her and never gave up. With the ship, he hopes to exact revenge on the UNSC for what he knows in his heart to be an abduction by them for reasons as yet unknown to him.
Aboard Naomi, Mal and Vaz figure out the coordinates for the ship’s location. They had hoped to plug BB into it so that the A.I. could seize the ship, however they didn’t have time to get a BB “fragment” to insert into the battlecruiser. Shortly after Mal, Vaz, and Staffan come back to Venezia, the two ODSTs try to infiltrate the ship with a BB fragment only to be denied by the onboard engineer, known as “Sometimes Sinks”. Sinks as it’s called is a malfuctioning Forerunner engineer, having been kept apart from any other engineer for sometime and is not capable of repairing himself. Sinks sends word to Staffan about the infiltration attempt and near immediately Mal and Vaz are suspected.
Now there is another side story going on in the meantime. Staffan had bought the cruiser from a Kig Yar of the Skirmisher kind (also known as T’vaoan the correct term for the Skirmisher variant of Kig Yar). His name is Sav Fel. Another T’vaoan named Chol Von, a female Kig Yar wants the ship for herself. She wants to build a Kig Yar fleet, starting with the Pious Inquisitor. Chol goes looking for Sav, who himself had stolen the ship from Avu Med ‘Telcam, a Sangheili rebel who sides with Jul M’dama. Telcam puts out a bounty for Sav Fel, for which Chol Von accepts, even though she has her own plans for the ship. Chol finds Sav on Venezia and commands him to take her to Pious Inquisitor. Once there, with her ship the Paragon, a repurposed Covenant missionary ship, formerly known as Joyous Discovery they find the ship has been virtually locked down by the malfuctioning Sinks. The only way to take it, is for her crew to forcefully board it by cutting through the hull.
Now this part of the story is interesting as it gives us a deeper look into Kig Yar life, specifically Skirmishers and their hierarchy. Females of the Kig Yar race are higher in position than males and are most often the leaders of tribes and/or starships, as Chol Von is. I really like the way this was handled. I think Karen Traviss did an excellent job of explaining this facet of the Haloverse.
While Chol and her group are trying to board Pious Inquisitor/Naomi, Mal and Vaz have been taken forcibly by Staffan and his group. They’ve been beaten and thrust into holding rooms. It’s during this time that they are temporarily separated. Here is where we learn much more about ODSTs and in particular how Mal and Vaz each deal with what has happened to them. Through fights with their captors (of which I won’t reveal as it’s a juicy part of the story that shouldn’t be spoiled), they are put together. Vaz has let slip a very minute, yet very important part of the mystery of Naomi. Staffan realizes this and attempts to find out what the mystery is.
While all of this is going on, Admiral Ozman, Naomi, and ODST Deveraux hatch a plan to extricate both Mal and Vaz. The plan succeeds and in spectacular fashion. Again, something I won’t spoil for you… Staffan is with Vaz and is taken aboard Port Stanley. It is here where he fully learns what happened to his daughter. Naomi makes herself known to him. It’s a tearful reunion for Staffan who is grateful for her still being alive as well as the fact that his beliefs were not wrong all those many years.
There’s a bit more of this interaction between Naomi and Staffan before the next part of the mission takes place. With Kilo-5 all reunited, they head for Naomi the ship. Again their task being to board and take the ship, barring that destroying it. They come to find out about Chol Von and her plans. They also know the ship’s on lockdown. However, with a fragment of BB, they are able to take partial control of the ship. Immediately upon being inserted into the ship, BB copies all information about the ship and sends it back to Port Stanley. At the very least, the UNSC now has blueprints of a Covenant ship and more importantly a ventral beam. Through firefights, an attempt at diplomacy with Von and an eventual explosion of the ship, the boarding party from Kilo-5 make it out alive. As for what happens to Staffan, well, you’re just going to have to read that part. Again, that’s something I just can’t bring myself to spoil for you all.
Regarding the plot of the story, it’s easy to pick up on and predict what’s going to happen. However with ONI being involved, you never know if what you think is going to happen will. I am glad that Staffan got to know the truth, even if that seems a bit sappy to others. Every parent who has had a child taken from them should have some closure and he got that.
With the story winding down, Ozman finally decides to take a look at her own ONI record of her abduction. What she finds is heartbreak, yet with a small glimmer of hope. She makes orders for the Port Stanley to go to her homeworld. There the crew takes a much needed shore leave, while she seeks out a person from her past.
The story ends with an epilogue. It’s regarding the brain donor for BB. I had expected the donor to be someone we’ve known previously in the Haloverse. However, it’s not anyone we’ve heard of before. This in it’s own way is a small plot twist. Will it ever be written more about or left to just this little bit of writing? Who knows.
It took me longer than I wanted it to, to read this book to the end. Not because it wasn’t good. In part it’s because I can’t seem to read hundreds of pages in one sitting anymore, without my eyes growing tired. As well, when I read, I tend to imagine the setting in full detail. This makes my time reading much longer than the usual person as I often go off into tangents thinking about this or that of what might be happening in the story. It helps me become even more immersed with what is written and I feel I come to appreciate the story even more for it.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, Karen Traviss does an exceptional job at character development. The complexities of ODST and Spartan minds are revealed far more than they ever have been before. We the readers are privy to information the characters are not during the course of the story and it’s great to read how they come to deal with each situation.
Mortal Dictata is a story that could have been written about current day espionage (though of course without spaceships, engineers and spartans. But it has that REAL WORLD feeling to it and is very plausible. So in this respect it isn’t just a Halo tale. It’s a tale about trust, loyalty, enduring love and redemption. I HIGHLY recommend this book to anyone. Of course I’d recommend that you read the first two in the series first, but I find that it might not be necessary in this particular series. In any event, I quite enjoyed the Kilo-5 trilogy and look forward to Traviss penning another story in the future.
-Sal
