Bloodstars

The Bloodstars were a Covenant Special Operations Kai'd, composed of Jiralhanae Stalkers and Special Operations Sangheili. In early 2526, they were commanded by First Blade Tel 'Szatulai of the Silent Shadow. During their missions to gather intelligence on the United Nations Space Command and later to hunt down the Spartans, the Bloodstars were organized into their own flotilla of intrusion corvettes.

Meeting with traitors
While First Blade Tel 'Szatulai and his squad were scouting the human colony of Amasa in early 2526, they were given a device by a human insurrectionist containing a message from General Harper Garvin of the United Rebel Front. He wished to meet with representatives of the Covenant in an ice quarry of Biko's moon of Seoba. His hope was that they could strike a deal for the survival of insurrectionist-controlled worlds in exchange for information on the United Nations Space Command. Taking this message to Fleetmaster Nizat 'Kvarosee of the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience, 'Szatulai was ordered to meet with the insurgents on Seoba, but to only appease them until their immediate usefulness ran out. The First Blade gathered the Bloodstar Flotilla and left for the Kolaqoa system aboard the Sacred Whisper.

When the flotilla arrived near Seoba on March 19, 2526, 'Szatulai witnessed human stealth craft rising into space to meet them, despite the corvette's instruments being unable to see these vessels. Unbeknownst to him, these were s of the UNSC's Task Force Yama, which had recently captured both the quarry and the rebel leaders that 'Szatulai was on his way to meet. Disturbed that the humans had stealth systems that were seemingly more advanced than the Covenant's own cloaking technology, he ordered the flotilla to fire on the quarry, hoping to take down one of the vessels so that it could be studied.

One of the plasma blasts happened to hit the, the flagship of Captain Halima Ascot. It crashed into the quarry and 'Szatulai deployed the Bloodstars to secure the crash site as one of the flotilla's intrusion corvettes moved in to pull the downed vessel into its cargo bay. In the ensuing battle, Task Force Yama managed to destroy two of the flotilla's corvettes while a third was destroyed when the Spartans activated the Starry Night ' s self-destruct as the corvette was pulling it in. However, the Sacred Whisper and another corvette survived due to Lieutenant Commander Hector Nyeto purposefully holding off his attack in an attempt to get the Spartans killed by the Covenant. At some point during this engagement or the subsequent Battle of Biko, the Bloodstars captured a squad of ODSTs and interrogated them for three days, learning of the rumor that the SPARTAN-II program had abducted children to use as their subjects.

Mighty Abundance
During Task Force Yama's assault on the Covenant's holy colony of Zhoist, 'Szatulai led his Bloodstars onto the Ring of Mighty Abundance after realizing that the Spartans were boarding it. However, 'Szatulai discovered too late that the Spartans had managed to sneak past them, resulting in a confrontation with them in one of the fabrication barns for the partially-construction supercarrier Hammer of Faith. As John-117 and Kelly-087 prepared to use the barn's gravity lifts to throw a pair of activated HAVOK tactical nuclear weapons onto the supercarrier, the Bloodstars' Sangheili forces began emerging from the lifts in pairs, ignoring the HAVOKs in favor of attacking Blue Team. Frederic-104 was able to kill several with an M41 SPNKR while Linda-058 took out more with an M99 Stanchion. As the battle raged between Blue Team and the Bloodstars, 'Szatulai attacked John in close quarters combat and nearly bested him. John eventually managed to overpower 'Szatulai and he was killed when Kelly blew off 'Szatulai's head with John's M90 shotgun.

Though the Sangheili Bloodstar forces on the Ring of Mighty Abundance were killed, Castor and Orsun didn't emerge from the gravity lifts until after everyone else was dead. Rather than engaging the fleeing Spartans, the two Jiralhanae fled in Banshees before the HAVOKs destroyed the Hammer of Faith. Castor and Orsun were able to reach a stable orbit around Zhoist before the detonation and were picked up by the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience where they reported the death of 'Szatulai and the failure to kill any of the Spartans.

Equipment
Like the Silent Shadow, the Bloodstars⁠—both Sangheili and Jiralhanae⁠—wore dark red armor.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Retribution
 * Halo: Silent Storm
 * Halo: Oblivion