A/N: The following story contains characters and events that have had prior appearances in other works of the Chaos Chronicles. Characters may have had experiences explored in other stories, so they will be explained as best as they can be. Questions are appreciated and I will be glad to answer.

Contagion

CRV

March 15, 3240, 1140 hours
Castle Acorn
Kingdom of Acorn, Mobius
EUS-0

Though the sun was out and the sky was clear that morning, the chill of winter had not begun to recede. Stubborn patches of snow still sat on the ground, gathering up to their greatest concentrations generally located within the lees of rocks, trees, and buildings. The trees were still bare, gently oscillating in the wind and refused to bear buds that were fated to become verdant leaves. However, despite the grey visage, birds had begun to sing again. The most daring of these species have returned to the area from the gulf to the south to begin their lives in the warmth once again. It was all part of the great circle of life that had eternally been spinning and would continue to spin long into eternity.

Sally Acorn watched the barest hints of clouds twist in the sky from her bedroom. Through the glass, she could see this slow metamorphosis as band became wisp and from there scattered in the azure late morning blue. In her hands was a steaming cup of coffee. She nursed it between her hands, and even within the castle, she felt cold. She realized that this was not always because of the weather. It was because of the bigger picture and the part she had in it. It was perhaps a small nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach that there was something on the horizon coming that she wasn't ready for.

She took a sip of the coffee and immediately closed her eyes in appreciation. She had brewed it perfectly. She did not like the instant cartridges that many people used to make this liquid. She had always been brought up to appreciate the drink. As such, she brewed it manually, just as it had been done in the old days. Sure, perhaps it took longer to bring to a boil, but she swore that there was in fact a notable difference in quality. That was all she needed to hear, and she took another small pull on the mug.

She sighed. It was perfect. It could not have been better.

No. That was a lie. It could be better.

Her hand had slowly moved down to her abdomen. She was barely aware of the motion as she did so. Her hand came to rest and even though she couldn't feel it under her clothing, she imagined the thin but otherwise invisible scar only four months old. She closed her eyes and brought the memory back into her mind. She thought of that night and she thought of the ray of joy in her life that came in the form of her little Frederic. It was when she held him for the first time that she realized that life was beautiful once more. When she opened her eyes, it was as if her little one was with her, and she felt calm, collected, and happy.

However, Frederic was not with her, but with a trusted handmaiden who would raise him in her stead. It had been a hard decision to make, to have another woman be in her little one's life, but it was something that she had made a final decision on. She needed to do this. She needed to be out there. She needed to see this final mission through to the end. To leave it would be to leave her world and countless others to its fate, to the fate of an unknowable thing out there that thought nothing for Existence and all who simply were within. Some would call her decision selfish. She thought it would be selfish not to fight.

She spent time to think about it. She thought about the Prisoner; the first time in two weeks that her mind had wandered to that thing. Thoughts formed in her mind over the possibilities of its existence. Though in thinking about this, she thought about her Human.

She set the cup down on the windowsill a bit quicker than she had intended. The porcelain cup clicked loudly off the marble. No. This was not what she wanted. Nine months. It had been nine months since she had lost her Human. The one she decided to name her mate, and what was more, was the father of her child. But she couldn't let the loss keep creeping into her head. He deserved better. She had to try and move on.

So she looked back out the window, attempting to lose herself in the buildings that made up Knothole to the south of the castle. She imagined people going to work, driving on the cobbled streets laid down centuries before, singing and laughing in the squares. All of these were good thoughts. Good thoughts indeed. After a few minutes she could swear she could even hear people talking in happy conversation and just living their lives. And why wouldn't they? They were free from the shadow of Julian Kintobor ever returning again.

There was a knock at her door as she was about to take another sip. She rose from the chair she had been sitting in and made her way across the room, gently running her hands across a counter-top which had photographs of all her friends in fittings and frames. She glanced at them and a smile flickered across her face. She reached the door, unlocked it, and pulled it open. Outside was a simple porter of the castle, an older canine with grey hairs flecking his muzzle.

"Highness, I'm sorry to disturb you." the man's low and gravelly voice said.

"Not at all Winston. What's up? What can I help you with?"

"I would pass a message along to you, your grace. You have a visitor that wishes an audience."

"Oh?" Sally asked, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. She crossed her arms and subconsciously began to tap her foot. "And who would that be?"

"Vice Admiral Gerome Tyler Andsworth."

Sally caught herself, dropped her arms, and said, "I'll be down there in ten minutes. Let him know for me, would you Winston?"

"Naturally, Highness. I'll do it right away."

"Thanks, Winston!" Sally said, closing the door behind her.

When Sally walked into the Great Hall to meet the man who stood in the middle of the court, she had changed her dress completely. Before, she had been swathed in a turtleneck and loose-fitting woolen pants. Now, she had donned a pair of jeans, sky blue T-shirt, hardened leather boots, and an equally azure-colored vest.

Andsworth stood facing away from her and looking at the architecture of the castle, constantly impressed by the Gothic style the ancient builders of this place threw together the Dark Age of the Kingdom's history. He heard her approaching eventually though and turned around. Gerome Andsworth was as immaculate as ever in his pressed-off-white uniform, ribbons glistening on his heart-side breast, shoes shining with polish, and cap held firmly in his hands. He was and always would be to her, a man who took his job seriously, but never threw aside the minutia of actually having a soul. The Human spoke, letting his sonorous Texan accent fill the hall, his baritone fitting his form.

"Ah, good afternoon, Highness."

"Admiral." Sally nodded, smiling warmly. She was genuinely happy to see Andsworth; she always was. "How are you doing?"

"Excellent. Just excellent." he nodded. "Being at the bridge of a ship suits me just fine. No more rinky-dink assignments from those we would rather be rid of."

He spoke of course, of Troy Marshall, a man who had come to power in the UEG as an act of revenge, to steer the Human government towards a goal that only he could see the end of. He had lied, cheated, and killed to stay in power. He had killed many, and some she cared very deeply about, either by his own hand or by proxy. It had been nine months since he had been removed by a joint effort between the UNSC, private military contractors, and an RAF unit, the STARs.

"Sometimes we need to forget about people like that." She advised.

"You're talking sense, of course." Andsworth nodded. "However, I don't think you expected me to only talk about how the Indomitable's cruising. We're scheduled for a four week peacekeeping run of the Alpha Centauri system. Getting reports of insurrectionist activity in the area. This isn't what I wanted to talk to you about though. Do you have time?"

"Plenty." Sally said. "Would you like to sit down somewhere?"

"Let me just ask you right before we get to anything else. How do you feel about getting back out there again?"

Sally froze for a few seconds. Was Andsworth offering her work? To suit up again after everything that had happened?

"Not interested." she said bluntly. "I'm fine where I am right now."

"Highness, will you just let me talk about it before you go shutting an old man down?"

Sally pressed her lips together, explosively sighed, and waved a hand. "Sure, no problem; go ahead."

Andsworth nodded. "Alright. This information is maybe only eight or ten hours old, and it came to me first before anyone else. There's been word about a research team that has been looking at a brand new find of Forerunner ruins just buried in the rock. The scientists thought that it was research outpost for Forerunner Lifeworkers."

Lifeworker. She knew that term, and she knew it painfully well. These had been the Forerunners responsible for overseeing and sometimes guiding the evolution of beings across the galaxy. They had been headed by the Librarian, chief of the Lifeworkers, or Life-Shaper as she had been called. She knew all of this because it was the Librarian's "gift" that had mentally destroyed her precious Human. Her eyes narrowed at the mention of the Forerunner rate.

"Is that so?" she said in a low voice.

Andsworth sensed her anger, but continued, hesitating at first. "The, uh, the scientists that went in there - the Frontier Corps is still excavating the outer structure, but they're likely to be at it for years - and they were reporting finds and data for approximately a week or so, but on day nine, the researchers, plus one Dumb AI, went in, but didn't walk back out."

"Were they locked in?" Sally asked.

"No, not in the slightest; the door was wide open."

Sally's ear twitched and she shifted her weight. "What? What do you mean?"

"Security teams pushed into the structure, checked all of the available square footage that they had, but turned up empty. It was the damndest thing."

Sally's eyes darted around. "Maybe they touched something they weren't supposed to. Maybe they messed up and got vaporized or teleported somewhere."

"Equally possible, but the head site researcher put out a distress call regardless and it fell on my desk. I thought about sending a response in. How would you like to go on a trip, all expenses paid and that jazz?"

Sally thought about it, tapping the toe of one of her boots.

"Look, I know you don't have a lot of love lost for the Forerunners right now, but you stay in your room for days on end, you aren't eating as much as you should, and you haven't seen... ah, your loved ones for a month now? Two?"

Her head snapped towards Andsworth. "Is there a reason for getting personal, Gerome?"

"Because there's also another angle. Your mother is worried about you. She thinks that you're losing your focus. How many times have you gone out to that gravestone?"

She didn't answer. She couldn't. The question had glanced off the bone and at once, she felt embarrassed that it had been brought up at all. She broke eye contact and looked over the Admiral's shoulder.

"How many, Sally?"

Her mouth struggled to form the phonetics required to convey some meaning, but her lungs wouldn't release the air, and her vocal chords wouldn't shape it into words. She blinked quickly, and after a moment, finally found the will to say, "Eight times." she said, pausing for a beat, "In three weeks."

Andsworth said nothing. Not at first. His eyebrows arched and his mouth disappeared behind his monumental mustache. "I'm offering to help you take your mind off things. I'm offering to get you back in the groove. Sally, say no to me if you want, but I know for a fact that you want to get out of this castle and do something to change the flow of things in this Existence. Hell, you could save lives."

She paced a distance down the hallway. Andsworth followed her. Alongside them were royal guards in red and azure regalia, golden epaulettes neat and ordered, bootstraps shining and free of even the faintest mote of dust. Not one reacted as the pair walked past them. Not one twitched. Sally herself had been on the receiving end of an inspection and was silently judging their every imperfection, even the slightest change in their center of gravity

"I'm going to put thoughts in your head right now: I think you're going to want to go. I think you want to be out there and not cooped up. You're not the type."

He was right. He was very right. Sally couldn't stand it. After everything, coming back here seemed almost like she was ignoring what happened the last five years; like she ignored what happened in New York. She did want to get out. Perhaps she was waiting for something like this to come across her door.

"If that doesn't work for you, I have another thing for you to think about. You have experience with Forerunner structures. I know about that little vacation on Installation 05, and the little speedbump you managed to get yourself into."

Sally winced. That had been close indeed.

"That's right I heard about what happened with Vohl Pelhot. If you can handle being on one of those rings, then a Lifeworker facility would be walk in the park for you. But that's not all. You managed to interface with Forerunner machinery. You do know what that means, right?"

"Yeah." Sally said softly. "That means I'm a Reclaimer. I don't know how considering I'm not Human."

"That doesn't matter to me." Andsworth said, pressing his point. "What matters is you have the ability. Not everybody can do that. Like it or not highness you're part of an exclusive club and your resume is looking better to me. Besides, given that stunt with Pelhot and the Index I know you can work well under pressure."

"Well, thanks." Sally said acknowledging the complement warmly, remembering just how close that came. What a terrifying experience that had been. "Would I be operating officially as an E-9?"

"I'll leave it to you this time, highness. You'll go with OMEGA's authority behind you; that is to say, my authority behind you. The UNSC won't give you any trouble here, I assure you. Technically - legally that is - you would be operating as a contractor."

The princess closed her eyes. Well, it was getting boring around here anyway.

"OK, Admiral. Give me the details."

Andsworth smiled. "I knew it. I knew you needed some air." he placed his hands behind his back and bounced on his heels. "You'd be sent in on a small ship; a corvette actually heading into the system anyway. We want a small team; something that won't cause any attention. You'd be able to pick who you want. OMEGA or otherwise. You give me the names; I'll put them together. Unless you feel you're alright to do this yourself."

"No." Sally said. "No, I'll put a team together I suppose. Missing scientists, Forerunner structure; I guess it's bigger than it looks from the outside, right?"

"You never know." Andsworth said.

Sally smiled. "Alright, alright you got me. Maybe I could use a little excursion after all."

The admiral spread his hands. "Well, alright, that's that then. You can have access to anything from the ship's armory before your ride gets here. I'll try to get who I can from my ship or someone else's."

"I'll get you some names." Sally said. "Transit time?"

"Nine days, maybe twelve. It depends on the scheduling. Everything goes as planned and you'll make landfall within two weeks." Andsworth extended his hand, and Sally took it, shaking it with vigor. "Welcome back to the outfit, Sergeant Major."

"Guess I couldn't stay away forever, huh?"