Shipmaster Elbaite Dolomat's eyes widened as he stared at the communiqué from the human ship, the UNSC Infinity.
No! They should not be there!
The sangheili captain quickly stood and exited his living quarters. He quickly walks down the long, winding blueish red interior of his ship For Everlasting Satisfaction towards the command deck.
He enters the deck, and is met with the gaze of his second-in-command Zoi Corundum.
"Sir!?" Corundum notes his captain's unexpected arrival with surprise. "I thought you just had me relieve you for the night–"
"Never you mind Corundum, something has come up." the shipmaster quickly walks to the sangheili manning the navigation controls. "I require your position."
"Of course sir!" The crewman steps aside, and Dolomat uses the controls to enter coordinates, then tells the crewman, "Depart for these coordinates immediately."
He steps away from the controls and moves to the front of the deck to stand next to Corundum. The sangheili commander looks at the shipmaster with slight confusion, but dares not question him directly.
"Send a communication to the human ship the UNSC Infinity immediately."Dolomat says to the comms station.
"Yes sir!"
The shipmaster turns to Corudum, "I will explain momentarily."
"Sir! The Infinity is out range for communications."
"I figured as much…very well then." He turns to address the entire command deck, "You are all dismissed to sleep, and that is an order!"
Dolomat turns to face Corudum. "There is much I must tell you."
Matt falls forward out of a cryotube. His face impacts the hard metal floor, and he wakes with a start.
He immediately coughs up a familiar, foul tasting substance in his throat, and he recognizes it as the nutrient fluid for cryostasis. In a daze, he tries to look around, but the bright lights in the room hurt his eyes, and his limbs are weak.
These were typical side effects for exiting cryogenic stasis, and Matt sits on the ground and calms himself as he realizes that he just needs to wait for the effects to subside.
Suddenly, it occurs to him that no one is helping him to his feet, or greeting him with, 'Good morning Commander Rhodes, did you sleep well?'
There was nothing. No voices, no shuffling of feet. Only silence.
He looks around, but his vision is blurry. He tries to stand, but his legs will not cooperate with him.
Matt calls out, "Hey, a little help here?"
He blinks a few times, waiting. After a moment, a strange, low, gurgling sound registers in Matt's brain, and he rapidly turns his head in the direction of the noise.
With his blurry vision he sees some being crouched down on the ground a short distance away from him. His eyes are useless and he can only see a faint outline of the person.
The being stands up, and appears to turn towards him. It starts to walk to him with a lumbering gait and quickly increases its pace.
Immediately, Matt realizes something is wrong. No human walks like that.
A louder, considerably deeper gurgling noise emanates from the being. The sound stops Matt cold, and locks his mind into combat mode. His breaths become labored and rapid, and adrenaline starts to surge through his blood.
This was not a human being that was moving towards him.
Knowing he cannot stand, Matt desperately slides his body on the ground away from the rapidly approaching being.
The adrenaline flowing through his veins starts to clear his vision, and he sees the full fierceness of the creature as it falls on top of him.
Instantly, some hideous humanoid creature has him pinned to the floor, repeatedly gnashing very sharp, bloody teeth a hair's width from Matt's face.
The creature looks just like a human flood form, but with massive teeth and without the decayed flesh.
Matt has his arms gripped tightly on the creature's shoulders, trying to push the horrific being away. His mind is filled with terror, and his heart rate surges.
Finally, he recovers enough strength and shoves the being off of him. The hideous creature falls on its back, and Matt does not wait for it to get back up.
He sits up and rises to his knees to turn around and run, but his legs are stiff and he collapses back onto his hands and knees.
"GOD DAM–"
He stops as his eyes lock on the lifeless body of a dead man lying sprawled on the ground directly in front of him, a technician that works in this room. Matt stares horrified at the man's chest, which has been ripped open and is devoid of most its organic contents.
He looks away, but something silver in one of the marine's hands catches his eye. A handgun. Matt reaches out and takes hold of the weapon. He could tell by the weight of the handgun as he held it that it was close to empty, but he did not plan on missing his target.
Spinning around, Matt aims his gun at the creature that is standing close to him and reaching out with clawed hands. He empties the gun of ammunition. The bullets all impact the creature, and the hideous being shrieks loudly, and falls over to the ground.
Matt continues to aim his gun at the creature's body, waiting to see if it is truly dead. After a few seconds, he lowers his hands onto the ground.
He feels a cold wet substance on his left hand, and he rapidly turns to see that it is just blood from the dead marine's body.
Matt shakes his head, trying to calm himself enough to think clearly. If the ship was infested by the flood there wasn't any time to waste.
"Our mission is to prevent the Infinity from unleashing the parasite."
Corundum looked shocked. "The–the parasite!? Why would the humans want to release the parasite?!"
"They do not mean to release it, but it may be unavoidable."
Corundum was not satisfied, and looked to ask another question, but Dolomat continued before he could.
"This parasite is of a unique construction. They are far more dangerous. I was at the ring when we first discovered it many years ago. I had been graced with the honor of commanding this ship shortly before that mission, and I was heavily dedicated to exploring the ring."
Dolomat tightens his hands into fists.
"The exploration led to nothing but ruin!" The captain smashes his fists against a wall.
Zoi stood slightly horrified next to him. "A special parasite? Who would create such a thing!?"
"I do not know, but if the humans manage to release it, they will be vastly unprepared as my ships were when we encountered them."
"Should we notify the humans?"
"No, this is the parasite, the less ships the better."
The shipmaster turned to walk towards the main window on the command deck. "The humans will be on their own till we can get there…"