Fleet of Retribution

"Brute ships! Staggered line! Ship Master, they outnumber us, three to one!" A Major Elite navigator advising the Ship Master. "Then it is an even fight. All cruisers fire at will. Burn their mongrel hides!"

- Rtas 'Vadum responding to the Elite

The Fleet of Retribution was a former Fleet serving under The Covenant. When the Great Schism began, this fleet was under Sangheili control. It is a smaller organization of the Sangheilian Armed Forces. Its flagship was the Shadow of Intent.

Notable members of the Fleet of Retribution's Special Warfare Group were the Elites N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham.

Background
This unit fought during the later part of the Second Battle of Earth, as well as the smaller engagement, the Battle of Voi. Remnants of the Second Fleet of Homogenous Clarity, the ships were reformed after its fragmentation during the Covenant Civil War into the Fleet of Retribution under newly-appointed Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum. Following the battle but prior to their engagement at Installation 00, Ship Master 'Vadum ordered the ships under his command to glass the immediate area surrounding Voi following a brief exposure to The Flood in which a Flood-controlled Covenant ship crash landed on Earth and the Flood began to spread. Much to the dismay of Lord Hood and the rest of the Humans, the glassing was the only option if the Flood were to be completely stopped from overwhelming Earth.



Subsequently, they confronted Truth's Fleet at Installation 00 during the Battle of the Ark. Confronted with an enemy which outnumbered them three to one, the Fleet of Retribution nevertheless succeeded in utterly destroying the Brutes' orbital forces, assisting the UNSC on the surface of the Ark. This Fleet was likely a collection of ships that survived the battle around High Charity that subsequently overcame both Covenant Loyalist and Flood forces in the skirmish. It is unknown how many ships survived the space battle against Truth's fleet, though only the Shadow of Intent is confirmed to have survived. It is possible that no others survived, or that Rtas 'Vadum may have sent all the other ships back to Earth following the destruction of the Brutes at the Ark.

Ships

 * Shadow of Intent - Assault Carrier - Flagship
 * s - Nine
 * Later, two UNSC Frigates and

Trivia

 * A possible note is that this fleet used modified plasma weaponry that was improved by the Humans, similar to what Cortana did in Operation: First Strike on the ship Ascendant Justice, making it even easier for the fleet to destroy the Brute forces in orbit around the Ark.
 * Once this minor fleet was surely one of many naval units compounding the Second Fleet of Homogenous Clarity. However, in Halo 3, Thel 'Vadam clearly says that the Sangheili had "a fleet of hundreds". possibly the majority of the fleet was destroyed in the battle around High Charity and the quarantine of Installation 05, though its more likely most of the fleet was sent to help defend the elite homeworld, Sanghelios.