No Charity on High Charity
Somehow, they had stayed alive.
Blackman and his squad had no idea what had happened to the rest of the Marines, but the "Flood" was on the ship. Somehow, they had kept the hordes of the hellish beasts off them. They had gone to their HEV (Human Entry Vehicle) pods, after gathering some food to eat. The past few hours, they had just talked over the COM and waited.
"I'm tired of this. Where are we?" said Orique.
"Like any of us know. We're probably about to crash-land in the middle of some Covenant op. And die."
Of course, Corporal Miguel Lopez had no idea how right he was.
The In Amber Clad thundered down towards the surface. It looked like it would crash straight down into the Covenant metropolis, but in a sudden nosed up violently and rocketed over two gleaming, purple towers. In the next few seconds it had bounced off another tall structure, leaving a gaping hole and fire, and carved into a skyscraper. It continued on shakily and headlong smashed into a smooth, polished tower. Any surviving Flood waddled, scuttled and leaped out of the wreck onto the strange new world to infest.
"OK, everyone out." The squad climbed out of the pods. "Anyone hurt?" Planter's leg had a gash from the bottom of the shin to the middle of his calf. The HEV pods were pretty rickety – some burned up in drops. So, some had crumpled or bent in the crash, injuring Blackman's men. Madigan had his left arm bent at a strange angle, and Orique was a mess. His pod was such a wreck, the men had to pry it open. His back was cut from one side to the other, there was a bleeding cut from his forehead to his ear and his ribs were badly broken, so he was coughing up blood. He took two short, ragged breaths and his head drooped down. Steeler checked for a pulse – it barely showed. The men worked Orique out of the pod, and laid him down. For the first time Steeler noticed Orique's skull was fractured, and since his ribs had cut his lungs and possibly his heart, it didn't look like he had much of a chance.
"What do I do, Joe?" questioned Steeler.
"Is that man alive?" answered Blackman.
"Yes, sir."
"Does he have much longer to live?"
"Well, no, I don't think so. Can we get to the medical bay? That would be helpful."
"Where is it? How do we get there safely?"
"Joe, are you asking me whether or not this man's life is worth the effort?"
"Well, realistically, can we get there without taking more casualties than we already have?"
"No, probably not. It's just, he might have a chance if -…"
"Do any of us really have a chance right now?" interjected Planter.
"Alright, point taken. Still, are we just going to let this man die?" countered Steeler.
"Sitting around and talking about isn't going to change anything, guys," said Dale, one of the corporals.
"Sure, let's just walk out of here like we're going for a Sunday stroll," replied Stockholm, Lopez's PFC.
"Feeling a little acid, ya limey?"
"Did you enjoy screwing the commander last night? I heard you had quite a time."
"Shut up. Dale's right. Stockholm's right. I suppose it's up to you guys," growled Blackman, thinking, I wonder if I'll regret this.
"Are you men willing to risk your lives to see if we can save this man's?"
"Oh, Blackman, forget it. The poor man is dead," moaned Steeler.
What now? thought Blackman. He felt insensitive and sick when the answer came to him so quickly and obviously. He pointed at an emergency launch button on the exterior of the pod.
Steeler launched Orique in his pod down the tube. There was a muted explosion.
"At least those Flood freaks won't be able to use his body," Watson, a private in Dale's fire team, said.
"And he's probably in a better place than us right now," added Jeffrey, Lopez's only private.
Steeler turned away slowly. He morosely straightened Madigan's arm and cleaned up Planter's cut and bandaged both. "You can move that arm a little bit. Planter, stay off your leg as much as possible. The muscle is torn."
Blackman spoke up, carefully. "OK, first fire team with me on point. Dale, you cover Steeler and our patients. Lopez, you're on our six." The squad obeyed and fell in behind their Sergeant. Blackman assessed James. The corporal was young, twenty-five. Gregg looked alert, but depressed. Down on his luck, he had joined up at nineteen and hoped to earn some money for prep school after dropping out of high school his last year. Right now, it didn't seem like he'd be able to get his next paycheck. Thompson, James' PFC, was even younger at twenty. He was academic, yes, but he couldn't get a scholarship and his widow mother couldn't pay for college. Commack, the private, was just a tough guy from a working class family in Chicago. Dale and Watson were best friends out of high school. They don't know why they joined, they just did. They hadn't come up with a reason for the two years they had been in the military. The whole ODST thing was to impress the ladies back home.
Then Joe's train of thought was interrupted.
"What was that?" Stockholm piped up.
"Oh, man." Several other groans followed.
"They're back."
First, two of the balloon-like freaks skittered out from the corner. They popped into shreds of greenish-yellow flesh as the large rounds from Blackman's battle rifle tore through them.
"Fall back. We know the drill." The squad backed up quickly. Then two humanoids appeared. Their wrists snapped down as they lashed out with their deadly, whip-like tentacles. Rounds upon rounds tore through their flesh, and they fell to the ground in tatters and pieces. Green ooze leaked from the dismembered limbs. Commack's shotgun roared defiance at three more of the combatant forms of the Flood, blowing chunks out of their fleshy, gelatinous bodies. Then hundreds of more of the balloons came, and the squad fell into a full retreat. However, Planter was slowing them down and they couldn't leave him behind.
"Commack, Madigan! Get with me. We'll cover you, Planter. Everyone else run!" Blackman had also taken a shotgun from the armory before the crash, and he unslung it. Madigan had a modified MA5B, rigged to handle large 7.62 mm rounds in hundred-round bandoliers.
"Get behind us, Planter!" The twin shotgun blasts thundered out, the machine gun making a quick, low blatting noise. Planter limped along as fast as he could. The wave of infectious balloons came closer, and closer, until the little creeps were exploding at the end of Blackman's, Madigan's and Commack's barrels. The attacking humanoids lunged forward towards the four soldiers. Their bodies were cut to pieces by the powerful shotgun blasts and white-hot bullets. In a sudden, it stopped.
All four of the men sighed out loud. They ran down the hall towards a waypoint marking the rest of the squad. They rounded a corner and there was a discreet cracking sound above them. Planter, who had fallen behind, was suddenly whipped upside-down. A yellowish tentacle held him there.
"They're going to do it to me. They're –…" Commack shot three shells into the ceiling. The plate creaked, then crashed to the floor. On it was a combat freak. Some otherworldly thing caused the men to hesitate. The freak took the opportunity to turn over and show something akin to a smile. Blackman pulled the trigger on his shotgun. There was a dull click. He closed his eyes. The three ODSTs were frozen with fear. The Flood being reached for a sidearm and pointed it at Planter. Commack finally pulled the trigger on his gun – and Planter's head seeped blood, which mixed with the gangrenous "blood" of the Flood form that had splattered all over. Commack took his boot and ground it into what remained of the freak's face. It squelched into a pancake.
"There'll be more. Let's get off this ship before someone else dies," Blackman said.
"Sarge, this is Steeler. We just had another close encounter. Watson's got a bullet wound in his side, there's biofoam in it, but that won't last too long. I feel so terrible, man."
"We'll be there shortly, Steeler. I don't know what to say. I just want to get off this wreck." Joseph switched off the COM. "OK, guys, let's keep moving."
Joe returned to his previous thoughts. Lopez, well, he was Hispanic (as the saying would go). His father had been killed fighting at Sigma Octanus, so he had run away in the middle of the night to join. When he did, he had the ODSTs in mind. He called his mother later on, but to no avail. She was hysterical. He stayed. He got a letter from his old abuelo, his grandfather. He said that Lopez was insane, but he always figured his grandson was crazy, anyway. He was proud. Stockholm was from Earth. He was from England, who said he entered the Corps to "see how revolting the food was." Jeffrey was nimble and quick. He had grown up mostly on the streets to get away from his fighting parents and abusive and controlling older brother.
Blackman, Commack and Madigan reached the rest of the squad.
"Planter's dead. Hope I'm not next," Madigan said, looking at his arm. No one responded. What was there to say?
The men moved silently through the corridors. They were making their way to the forward lifeboat airlocks, where they hoped they'd be able to get out. Lights were out occasionally. There was a dank and dark feeling about the ship. Some corridors were blasted and blackened, and there were still gory, misshapen bodies of crew members around.
"If we get out of this – who wants to live any more, anyway? I mean, in this world?" asked Dale.
"Sure takes guts," responded Watson, who was cringing and bending over at his middle. No one realized it was supposed to be a pun in the darkness of the situation.
"We're not getting out of this one, Dale. We're probably all going to die. No, people only make it out of these things in the movies. We're not getting out. Not human, at least." What Thompson said made a shiver go down everyone's spine.
The squad was silent for a while. What was to be said?
They reached the lifeboat airlocks. They proceeded through, and jumped down into the pearly, purple and now destroyed Covenant hallway.
"It's good to be home," quipped Stockholm. Some of the guys chuckled.
"OK, men, lock and –…"
"Out of the frying pan, into the fire." The men all cracked up. Blackman fixed Stockholm with a gaze. "Sorry, sir. Couldn't help it."
"Jeez, sir, it was –…" Madigan said.
"My turn, John. I don't care. Let's get our act together, men! Like our quipster said. We're in the spotlight. If you want to live, you need to be at alert at all times. There are two rules now. Listen to me, and shoot anything that isn't human. That is all."
On queue, several grunts and an elite trotted out of a nearby doorway. The elite growled orders to the squealing grunts that opened up on the ODSTs. They backed up into the airlock. The hallway was skinny and there was no way to flank the enemy. It was going to have to be a head-to-head firefight.
"Return that favor, men. Dale, Steeler, cover Madigan and Watson. Lopez, watch our rear. James, you're with me." Thus ensued the frenzied fray.
Bullets and plasma bolts were traded down the hallway. Madigan sprayed searing rounds down the hallway. Blackman took a grenade and loaded it into the launcher on his battle rifle barrel. He fired off a burst and then pitched it down the hall. It exploded at a corner and dying grunts wailed as they faded away. The rest of the squad got the idea and tossed a grenade down the hall. The explosions were consecutive and laid waste to the enemy. A few last grunts died in flames when Madigan blew open their methane tanks.
The squad continued through the door from which their assailants had come. There was a wall in front of them, which they proceeded around to find they were on the lower end of an ascending hallway.
"Bad place to be, sir. Let's get to the other side," suggested James.
They trotted to the top. They continued through the door there and found themselves in a curving hallway, so they could not see the other end. Blackman signaled for Lopez's fire team to get up on a raised side of the passage and cover the squad's flank. The hall was vacant. As they reached the end, there was an explosion. Blue fire from overhead plasma conduits spindled out across the ceiling and from it came a blazing combat form. The fiery beast launched itself towards them. Another dozen followed. In a sudden the passage was alive with the melee.
"Cover Watson! Lopez, get them now!"
"One's on me! Get it off!"
"Help!"
"Oh, freak, I can't –"
"Get this thing off me!"
"Everyone! Fall back, break, run! Just get the crap out of here!"
"Sarge, I need help getting my team out!"
"Give Lopez some support, James! Steeler, get our wounded out of here!"
"They're gone, sir!" The remains of the squad sprinted out of the hall. That offered little respite. They got two seconds breathing time, and then the door burst in a blue explosion. They all fired their weapons as fast as they could. Soon, there was a pile of dead Flood on the floor.
One twitched. Commack shot it.
"Steeler, what's the deal?"
"Sir, Madigan and Watson are dead. Thompson is dead, and Jeffrey was infected. But we killed what he turned into. A better fate."
"I agree. Let's get away from here. We need a rest." Blackman finished.
"Sir, just how do you plan to get out of this?" asked Stockholm.
"I don't."
"They're all dead. Watson is dead. He's dead. I'm dead. I want to die. It'd be better than this. Why should I live? What's the point, now? They're dead."
The squad had moved up to a new room. Dale rambled every once and a while. Nothing had happened yet, but something was bound to happen. The Covenant was caught up with the Flood, so they shouldn't have cared about a squad of ODSTs anyway. The problem was sanity. Dale talked to himself, and the other guys just sat around, waiting for something to happen. What next? The squad had been sitting in that room for almost a day. Food was also a problem. They had gathered the remains of food from the mess hall, but it wasn't much. Blackman could see his men were hungry. He knew the Covenant used food nipples, but he wasn't sure what kind of crap they ate. The squad's only hope would've been to hijack some Covenant space vehicle and jump out of the system. But the odds of that were a million to one. So Blackman told his men to get up. The odds were in favor. They were Helljumpers.
They proceeded out opposite the way they had come. They traveled down hall after hall, all the while purple lights flashing, and displays burning red and showing fights between Flood and Covenant soldiers. The squad got lucky, though.
"Sir! Look, I think it's a map. Or some directions. Look, there's a route outlined on it. It leads to Phantoms. We'll take one of those, link up with anyone we can find… I don't know," said Steeler.
"Good eye. How do we remember the directions? Who has a pencil and paper? A portable pad?"
Steeler nodded and brought his out. He tapped in some commands, but the top end popped off and the screen cracked down the middle.
"OK. Each of us has one direction. At each junction, we will say our direction," instructed Blackman. He started with himself, then Steeler, and continued through to Stockholm. There were two extra. He assigned them again to himself and Steeler, so they both had two directions. They continued. They weaved their way wildly through the hallways for the first few minutes, and it seemed like they were getting nowhere. But Lopez was at his direction, so they had to be close. Logically. As they came to the next door, they heard a firefight beyond it. Blackman threw a plasma grenade he had acquired and it stuck to the door. It exploded and left a hole through which the squad could fire. Lances of bullets went through the air and hit anything they could. This was a mistake, though. The surviving Covenant was three Brutes. They detonated the door with their terrifying grenade launchers and bashed aside anything that was left.
"Send them to hell!" Blackman screamed. The squad went fully automatic. The brutes' grenades blasted back Stockholm and James. Dale launched himself forward screaming incoherently, his battle rifle blazing fire. The Brute that was under attack lashed out with the blade on the rear of his weapon. It caught Dale in the stomach, but he somehow had enough strength to stab the brute with his combat knife.
"Go to hell, freak." He primed a grenade and the three brutes were engulfed by the flames and died.
"Oh, God. Steeler, let's go," Blackman sobbed. They made it to the Phantoms, and found one last ship. The four men got in the alien craft. They flew it out. The ship shot unsuspectingly over the Covenant home world, oblivious to the fact that Humans had just stolen it and were flying it away. They saw a grav bridge, spanning across the gap between where they had just been and connecting to a giant structure lit white. They saw something in the bridge. It was green, and stretched out. It looked vaguely… familiar.
"What the…" Steeler said.
"Son of a…" said Commack.
"A Spartan."
"What is he doing?"
"He knows. Leave it to him. Just get us out of here." The Phantom rocketed towards the white structure in the center of the "city."
"Steeler, what are you doing? That's not the way out," McCracken inquired. Just then, the structure's base lit with blue and white fire.
"That's a ship, sir, not a building."
"Go for it." The Phantom punched out into space after the giant ship, and towards the second Halo. All around them, red and blue lit the sky. The Covenant fleet was destroying itself.
"What do you suppose is going on?" asked Lopez.
"It looks like they're killing each other. Civil war," said Commack.
The Phantom flew into Halo's atmosphere.
"Sarge, last I heard, Keyes was being taken to some control room of sorts. I bet it's on here," said Steeler. Sure enough, a red flag marked a spot on a map in the ship.
"Make best speed there, Steeler."
"Then where? Where would someone go to activate the other rings?"
"Why… The Ark, of course."
"And where, Oracle, is that?" asked the Arbiter.
"At Sol, of course." A map showed up, and showed the Solar System in place of the six remaining Halos.
"Come on, Tinkerbelle. Commander, it's time to get out of here," said Sergeant Johnson. The foursome walked (and floated) out of the Control Room of Delta Halo. They stood on the platform.
"Now what?" said Miranda Keyes. A Phantom appeared on the horizon. It flew closer in a hurry. Johnson leveled his sniper rifle.
"Hold your fire, Sergeant," said Keyes. The Phantom slowed as it closed in. A hatch opened and an ODST walked out, his corporal behind him.
"Officer on the deck!" he bellowed. The two stood straight and saluted.
"Thanks for the ride, Marine. We're going to need it," said Keyes.
"Ma'am, with all due respect, we need to get out of here. Sergeant Blackman, ma'am," said Blackman.
"Soldier, we need to get to Earth," the commander said.
"And how do propose to do that?"