The Return

The Return is the 12th short story in Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe. Written by Kevin Grace, this story follows a Sangheili Ship Master as he travels back to the human colony world Kholo. This story takes place after the events of Halo 3 in which the Sangheili are no longer serving the San 'Shyuum.

Plot
Set six years after the end of The Human-Covenant War, a Sangheili Shipmaster returns to the glassed colony of Kholo in order to find forgiveness for his sins. He lonely ventures through the remains of the colony occasionally remembering the glorious days of when he interrogated a human pilot and glassed the colony and the sadder days of the Covenant Civil War.

He experiences flashbacks where he showed his loyalty to the Prophet of Conviction by glassing Kholo. During his glassing, the Shipmaster successfully drew a symbol on the surface of the planet. Interestingly, the planet that was shown at the end of Halo 3 also has a strange symbol on its surface, making it vaguely possible that these may both be the same planet. Years later, when the Jiralhanae betrayed the Sangheili over High Charity, the Shipmaster confronted the ever-ready Conviction, and successfully disarmed him. The Shipmaster exposed the Prophet's deception and killed him all in front of his crew.

Present day, after several days of searching, he discovers Jackal pirates fighting human survivors. After killing the Jackals he finds a lone Human survivor. Realizing the survivor would soon be dead, the Shipmaster leaves him and continues looking around the base. Soon, he finds photos of humans pestering with Forerunner technology. Realizing this could be what he was looking for, he returns to the human survivor and calls for help.

Trivia

 * The Return follows a unique writing style in which as the Shipmaster recalls past experiences, the text turns to italics to indicate a shift to a previous time period.
 * The Return was adapted into a motion comic series, in the same vein as Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian, with Part One released on April 3, 2010.