The specimens are watching me, as I walk across the solid steel bridge above their cages in the ground, the armour-glass preventing their escape as much as the walls prevent mine. The first rooms contain Sangheili, some shouting in my language, some in theirs, their jaws working furiously. I can hear them faintly, the feeds dulled. No-body leaves the listening stations on loud here, on the ground floor. The monitors listen from their rooms above, to the sounds from the listening devices in each sound proof cage. One even makes offers of wealth, power. I wonder if he knows it is hopeless. Some of them claim to be the Storm, the vanguard of the Sacred Journey. Now they are stripped bare in small prison cells, watched by my kin. They think they`ll be found and saved, unaware how very far from home they are. There is no help coming, least of all for them. Seeing them stripped like this reminds me of reviewing the files from High Charity Cortana left us, recovered in the ruined data banks of the Dawn; watching Thel be stripped off and marked. This would be worse in a way, for a time.
The centre cells to the left contain Jiralhanae, Brutes, chieftains stripped of rank and armour and left enraged, stewing in their own fury. They still struggle against their walls even now, even after failure after failure proves they will never escape. Not the slightest mark has been scratched into the walls, just sweat marks from their dirt ridden bodies. They are not important, simply another brand of shock trooper. We have better, we`ve broke better. And these specimens seem troublesome, unnecessarily so. But to leave a foe in the universe is highest sin, and if these beasts take a bullet for a better man… The right contain Prometheans, their teleportation blocked and communications crippled. They`ve been the easiest to start converting, their coding easily intruded upon with the disconnection from their mainframe on Requiem. Reprogramming however, is proving more problematic. The knights all respond in the same way, intimidation tactics with their blades. who knows; It could even make one technician abit wary.
The next specimens are parasites, The Flood. They simply stand and stare dully, gazing up at me with empty gazes. I can see my own kin in some of them, twisted nearly beyond recognition. They are disgusting creatures of rotting, mutated flesh. Each one of their cells is unclean, small spores floating off them and ooze on the walls and floor from their initial lashing and struggling. Bringing them here was controversial, but we all had dealt with them before and we know they are vital, learning their minds and habits, domesticating and controlling them may be the only way to stop them destroying us all, one by one. They never made us any friends with the UNSC, influence and power however blinded them enough to stop us losing them as allies.
Each of these specimens are contained in single cells, with soundproof glass and walls and a small vent for air (closed, in the case of the Flood specimens) and secondary vents for releasing gasses into the chamber. They cannot see each other, unable to see the flat walkway. The walkway`s grey steel has no protrusions until the control panels are raised, which they rarely are. I could walk on the glass, just stroll across and place feet upon their ceiling. Only the movement of my head as it looks into other cells lets them know they are not alone. They`d be less comforted if they knew their neighbours.
They'd kill each other before we did if they ever managed to break out.
But then the ramp slopes down to the next floor, and the corridor stretches for two hundred meters, each side about sixteen meters deep with an eight foot high ceiling. The floor here is glass as well as the walls, allowing me to see the second floor of the ratway, as the chambers are called. Here forty-two recruits live and socialise. Each third of the population here is different, one third female human, another male human and the last male Sangheili. The recruits here were not abducted like the specimens. A few wave, smiling. One salutes. They have clothes here, rooms that are reasonably private and during authorised hours have training areas they can go to. It`s late, at the moment, curfew time but the number of recruits visible is still only just two dozen, some already asleep. They will be our next generation of soldiers, supporting our operations. They are oblivious to the specimens only twenty meters of modern steel away. I get a flicker of a smile from that, remembering the tests. Six Scorpions, four Wraiths, five Hornets and two gauss Warthog`s once fired at five meters of the same material for four full hours. They stripped the paint and made around a half a meter deep crater in the surface. By the time I`d done reminiscing I am walking out the door to the primary warehouses, onto the catwalks covering the higher reaches. Here the weapons and ammo, pre-fabricated structures, building materials, generators, boost modules, armour and vehicles are being processed for deployment. The process will take another few days, perhaps a week. I look at the new Gungooses being taken apart and processed, wondering how these new armaments will advance us.
By the time I reach the staff compartment of Idlehope station and manage to find my bed my mind is spinning, the thoughts of my deployment tugging at my mind. I have hours now, measurable on one hand's fingers. And this war is only just starting, the battle front widening and widening. We know we shall never know total victory, not in our existence. But perhaps the next will have better luck if we can just persevere longer, hold out until the end is undeniable. If we can just hold out.
I lay back, my head hitting the pillow and close my eyes, wondering how long my thoughts would torment me tonight, with broken shards of false ideals long abandoned, a pile of skulls staring out from the glass case nearby.