INTERCEPT: 1251 HOURS, 21 JUN 2551
SIGNAL: GENERAL DISTRESS
ORIGIN: LOCAL
SIGNATURE: MILITARY
I
1547 HOURS
POS. 4, CHARIOT
HARBINGER'S CANYON
A WAXING CARNELIAN MOON HANGING low in an umber sky shaded sandstone crags and dissolved into blackness. The wind howled past Matt's helmet as he rested his feet against the Mongoose's footrests and gazed into the chasm. He gulped and clutched the handlebar. That's a long way to fall.
"Static," Sam said. Her rich accent was imperceptible above the wind. "Just static… who could have sent that distress call? There hasn't even been any UNSC activity since we first went groundside."
Matt cast a sideways glance. "That was a long time ago." He switched on his night vision, bathing his view in a grainy, yellow-green. Flecks of noise outlined the nicks and scratches in the bulbous visor of Sam's SPI armor, but he could still make out her slender features. "You'd think they'd be more concerned with the Covies at their doorstep than whether the military found their outpost."
Sam holstered her Battle Rifle "It's been six years," she reminded him, gripping the rear hand bar and pulling herself up to the passenger platform. "Anyway, what can you expect? They're rebels. Besides, I'm more interested in finding whatever the Covenant was after."
"Oh?" Matt kick-started the engine, and the ATV rumbled to life.
"Yes, this is supposed to be a sacred place. They believe those lost in battle wander the desert… I'm not sure of the translation, but the meaning is the same: 'looking for a way home to their loved ones.' Their colorful orbs can be seen at nightfall, floating deep in the heart of the canyon."
"You mean, like, ghosts?" He snickered. "Okay, I just got elected leader of the morons back at base. Do you think it has anything to do with the symbol we intercepted in their last transmission?"
"I don't know, but let's focus on our objectives for now. Pinpoint the location of that signal and search the canyon for signs of a firefight. We'll worry about the details later once we actually find something."
"I'm counting on it," Matt agreed and gunned the engine. "This just might be our ticket out of that hellhole."
The moon dipped out of sight as they sped north through the desert, the Mongoose's small headlights carving a rocky path leading deep into the canyon.
"Stop," Sam yelled some time later. "Do you hear that?"
Matt clenched the handbrake, and the vehicle skidded to stop beside a pile of stones. He shut off the engine, and waited, staring at the shadowy desert beyond the triangle of halogen light, but only the intermittent kink of the Mongoose's frame and the whistle of wind interrupted the quiet.
"I don't hear—"
"Listen," she insisted, hopping down from the ATV.
An earsplitting howl rent the quiet and diminished into the night.
Matt felt the hairs prickle along the nape of his neck. "What was that?"
Sam looked through the scope of her Battle Rifle and shook her head dismissively. "Bane, probably. Kill the lights; we don't want to attract attention, indigenous or otherwise."
"Bane?" Matt switched off the headlights and dropped down next to Sam.
"'Bane' is the Covenant translation, but the rebels call it 'Lobo de los Muertos', a ghostly creature that feeds on the souls of the dead. It's probably just a scavenger, but things have been on edge since the last reconnaissance team never returned."
"'Radio silence', my foot… so, Vasquez sent us to do his dirty work?"
"Spartans never die, remember?" Sam motioned left with her thumb. "Let's split up. Search the north end, and we'll meet back here."
II
Tracks obscured by dust and withered vegetation guided Matt into the cliffs, tapering off three kilometers northeast of where he started. Rocks embedded in the sand, twigs and scuffed stones brought him to the delta of a dry riverbed. He kept one hand close to his sidearm, shifting weight to his insteps as pebbles slid away from plants clinging to the sloping bank. Thick layers of shale defined the channel, narrowing farther upstream. No tracks led beyond the river's mouth, and only boulders and scraggly plants dotted the east riverfront.
Matt cut night vision and turned on his headlight. Silver-blue bunch grass lay trampled near the west riverbank. He crossed the delta, sand scrunching beneath his boots as he walked over the flattened area. Beyond the tall grass, shrubs, cacti and boulders sat on a hillcrest before an opaque backdrop.
He brushed loose stems from his shoulders, and turned as a black shape darted past in the corner of his eye. "I've got movement, Sam. Was that you?"
"No, but, I traced the signal south of the wreckage of a downed Covenant Seraph to the cave we scanned from orbit. Maybe a survivor escaped into the cave, but the entrance is blocked, and I'm detecting traces of military-grade explosives. It looks like they were trying to keep something out."
"Or in," he offered.
"I'll need your help to clear the debris. I'm tracing your signal now."
A loud snap, like the sound of a twig breaking, came from far side of the hill.
Matt halted in his tracks. "Hang on, Eagle-Eyes, I heard something."
"Stay put until..."
"I'll be back." He muted the COMM and wandered uphill, holding his sidearm eye level.
When he reached the crest, he leaned against a boulder and edged out, leading with the pistol, half-afraid some wolfish fiend would leap out at any moment. Along the northwest end, sparse shrubbery swayed in the easterly wind. Granite boulders and cacti lay to the southwest. Hold on a minute. Matt looked back to the right. A periwinkle orb flashed above a clump of grass, and a second flashed beneath the first. He counted two seconds, a third flash, two seconds, and a fourth. A fist-sized ball of light circled and made a beeline for his face. He jumped back and swatted at the sphere, striking a shield-shaped beetle with spindly leg. The dazed insect sputtered angrily and retreated, zigzagging through the air.
Matt shook his head and lowered the pistol. "Bugs. That figures."
An orb hovering next to him dove past his arm. He glanced down to see what the bug was after.
"Aw, man, that's sick!" he exclaimed, shrinking away in revulsion.
A desiccated Grunt corpse lay face down in the dirt. The tubes connecting its environmental suit hung loose where insects had picked at the body, and fat, white larvae crawled out of ragged holes in the mottled, graying skin. He bumped the head with his foot, and a mouth full of canines grinned at him from behind a dusty mask. Tiny maggots wriggled out of an eye socket and plopped onto the ground. Tasting bile in his mouth, Matt forced himself to swallow. What killed it? He considered turning the body over, but the sight of the maggots deterred him. Forget it, there have to be other clues. His search brought him to a set of boot prints, which he followed into the shrubbery until stepped on a hard lump in the sand and moved foot to investigate. Copper gleamed under his light. Bullet casing. He ran his thumb from the hollow, tapered end to the flat of the metal tube. The military was here, so why is there only one set of remotely human prints? Unless… He brushed away more sand, exposing a handful of spent casings. No, they wouldn't send your average Joe alone on mission like this. They'd at least send in a mop-up crew, or better yet, someone they wouldn't need to clean up after. No way, that's too much like coincidence.
Glancing at the twinkling of feasting insects, he searched, though weather and local fauna appeared to have destroyed what little of the battle remained. Eventually, he turned up an empty assault rifle magazine among a few dozen shells, a depleted plasma pistol near the rocks and a scorch mark on one cactus, and from these, he began to put the clues together. Someone had come from the east, killed the Grunt and flanked left, possibly taking out a few more enemies. An enemy misfired, discharging the plasma pistol as the attacker took cover behind the cactus. Matt looked around, hoping to find another clue when he saw a bloody smear on one of the rocks. A handprint. The streaks hinted at where the attacker's fingers might have clenched. He was injured, but he didn't stop here. He circled the boulder, running an idle hand over the smooth granite. When he looked back toward the grass, he noticed the lightning bugs were no longer twinkling. He heard heavy footsteps crunching sand and jumped up.
"Sam?" he called out, half in earnest.
A black figure blew by, bounding west past his line of sight. Brutes? Here? Known for dropping to all fours and charging enemies in berserk fits of rage, the hairy, apelike aliens lacked subterfuge but dwarfed their Elite cohorts in size and strength. But, they're not that fast. Maybe it's the… Nah, you don't believe in that superstitious bullshit. A figure leaped past him, vanishing into a cluster of tall grass. He contemplated going back and glanced over his shoulder. This is insane. I'm lost chasing a ghost halfway through the desert. He secured his index finger across the pistol trigger and kept moving.
The moon's zenith shone above the crags, illuminating a cleft in the rock over the waterless vestige of a pool where tangled roots and sediment fanned out across the desert pavement. The bright red orb dipped behind the cliffs, and only the stars, oblique points of light veiled by atmospheric dust, winked down at him. As he passed his light over stone and tangled brush into the black beyond, a pair of iridescent eyes met his.
"…The hell?" Matt fumbled, almost dropping his pistol, and sighted in.
His unseen quarry looked away and ambled into bunch grass at the bottom of the canyon. The Bane. The creature sprang from the grass, landed in the dirt nearby and hunkered down, haunches rippling. Thinking back to the maggot-ridden corpse by the river, Matt let his cross hairs pass over the lithe shape and the now-obscured area in which he had seen the insects. This could be the last clue, but that thing isn't just going to let me barge in. He had guessed where the creature's head should be and took aim when someone grabbed him from behind. Squirming in his effort to wrest free, he looked down at the familiar olive green plating of his partner's gauntlet.
"Shh, it's me!" she whispered.
Wriggling out of her iron grip, Matt retorted, "Real funny, Sam." He crossed his arms, eyeing his would-be assailant. "You scared the crap out of me."
"I've been up on the south ridge for the last twenty minutes," she gestured downwind with the muzzle of her rifle, "tracking that Bane to your position. Do you have any idea what you're doing?"
"What are you talking about?"
Sam chucked her Battle Rifle at him. "See for yourself."
Catching the gun in one hand, he lifted it to eye level and holstered his sidearm. Darkness filled the scope, and Matt saw nothing in the cross hairs. He breathed methodically, in and out, the distance readout on his HUD drifting between one hundred ninety-five and two hundred meters, and switched on his night vision. Horizontal interference lines rolled upward as the yellow-green glow permeated his display. At one hundred ninety-eight meters, he caught sight of the beast and gasped. Larger and taller than any wolf he had ever seen, the creature had no tail, and in place of ears, two tendril-like appendages extended past its midsection. Spiked ridges started at the tip of its forehead and ran along the spine, and chitinous plating covered the Bane's massive form. He could see the nostrils flaring as the Bane lifted its snout and sniffed the air. It looks hungry.
"See that body armor?" Sam remarked coolly. "You'd be lucky if all shooting did was piss that thing off."
The Bane turned, disappearing into the darkness.
Matt exhaled sharply. "What the heck, man? How does something like that even exist?"
"Evolution," she said, taking the Battle Rifle from him. "The Empyrean star is a red giant that's been expanding outward for thousands of years. Life here either adapts or dies, like anywhere else. Desert animals are best suited to scavenging and foraging in a climate like this."
He patrolled in a tight semicircle, keeping a wary eye as Sam looked through the scope of her gun. "Easy to see why no one else wants to live out here. It's like we're on permanent shore leave, except we're stuck in the boonies… perfect place for an Innie hideout. Those fuckers have it made."
"Yeah, but sooner or later, someone will find them, and I seriously doubt the military is going to blow funds and risk their tails coming all the way out here to quell an insurrection… Hey, check this out." Sam gave Matt the rifle again. "There, about two o' clock. Do you see that?"
Matt zoomed in, letting his gaze wander unfocused. His eyes came to rest on a cluster of jutting shapes on the ground just past the two hundred meter mark.
"If I didn't know any better," she declared, "I'd say that's not part of the scenery. Let's check it out."
He handed the rifle back to her. "And if we run into more of those things?"
She gripped his shoulder and gave him a hearty shake. "Ha! A big man like you can blow the head point-blank off a charging Brute, but you won't play with the nice doggy?
"Yeah, I like my limbs right where they are, thanks."
They trekked deep into the canyon where only their headlights lanced the darkness, casting spectral beams of incandescent light across the rugged terrain. As they neared their objective, dark shapes in their cross beams resembling half-buried carcasses took on a teal hue. Surveying the weatherworn metal, Matt saw long, prominent spikes protruding from hollow armored-plating.
"Hunter," Sam voiced his thought first.
Matt prodded one of the spikes sticking out of the dirt. "This thing is huge."
She walked along, sizing up the armor that once housed the Lekgolo, symbiotic worms that formed the giant alien better known as a 'Hunter'. "Three and a half meters, give or take," she estimated. "Size of a shipboard sentry… probably came off the corvette that passed through the other day."
He looked up, confused. "I thought Hunters fought in pairs. Do you think the other one survived?"
She shrugged. "Who knows?"
They continued searching, their footsteps the only sound as they set out for opposite sides of the canyon. Close to giving up, Matt gave one last look and found a steel-gray bump protruding from the sand. Brushing away the surrounding dirt, he saw a sliver of chrome and started digging around the metal with his fingers. He dug out more dirt and wrapped his fingers around the slender black handgrip of an M6D handgun.
"Sam, forget about the Hunter," he told her, turning the pistol over in one hand. He set the gun down and began scooping handfuls of dirt out of the dig site. Loose granules slid away from the bump in the sand exposing a patch of braded metal. "You're going to want to see this."
Sam scarce believed her eyes watching him wrest the battered, gray helmet free of a dusty grave. She had expected to find equipment, even bodies of marines, but her heart throbbed as Matt shone his light over a hole in the visor that looked as if an artisan had knifed in the edges in a paroxysm of fury. One helmet, in the midst of this turmoil. She thought back to the fateful July day when the demolition of a Covenant refinery cost almost three hundred Spartans their lives. They were more than Spartans; they were my teammates, my friends.
Matt examined the helmet at length. "The visual feed is shot," he concluded. "Can you salvage anything from the databank?"
"Let me take a look." Sam took the helmet and felt along the inside for the slot containing the data chip all service members wore. She located the slot and pinched the chip to extract it. "What about that pistol?"
"Standard-issue M6D… four bullets missing from the chamber. Nothing special, except for the twelve-round extended clip usually carried by a captain or an XO."
"We didn't even find any escape pods in the wreckage the rebels found. What's a commanding officer doing alone on a high-risk operation?"
Matt stood and began pacing the area. "I don't know, but I can guess."
She slipped the data chip into the slot behind her helmet. "Try me."
"Well, you said yourself the military won't just send their rank and files to the middle of nowhere, and the Spartan-II's are too pricey to pop out every time ONI wants something done. If you want my opinion, they knew the Covenant was looking for something and sent one of ours to try and get here first."
Sam's HUD automatically opened the system log stored on the data chip. Random letters and digits cluttered her transparent screen, and she skimmed the lines, trying to make sense of them. She located a string of comprehensible characters and isolated them.
SECLOG/11.01.2551.0705/OUTBOUND/VIA:NAVCOM
WITCHESCAULDRONAPALEHORSE
PR1CLASS: AESK-128
"Hey, I think I've got something," she said.
Matt quit pacing and faced her. "What is it?"
"A priority-one classified message with an Advanced Encryption Standard one twenty-eight bit key… a little outdated."
He just laughed, and remarked, "A little? You said AES went out in the twenty-first century."
"Publicly, yes, but the military still uses it to keep intelligence from leaking into the wrong hands. Covenant tech can't crack it, and no one else would look twice, but without an actual computer, I don't have the software to auto-decrypt. I can do it manually, though it'll take a few minutes. In the meantime, keep looking. That helmet can't be the only thing lying around."
Sam scanned the data stored on the chip and located corrupted audio and video files, most of which had been partially erased or rendered unreadable, and a damaged encryption key stored in the system log. She plugged the known characters into her HUD's built-in software, generating a list of possible permutations, and located four matches. She reviewed each one, chose three keys and input her first choice into the entry box.
ACCESS DENIED
ATTEMPTS LEFT: 2
She entered the second key with the same result.
ATTEMPTS LEFT: 1
WARNING: LOCKOUT IMMINENT
If she botched her final attempt, she would lose the chance to decrypt the message. She reviewed the third and fourth string and compared them to the original key. The placement of like characters in all three codes lined up except one. She selected the fourth match.
ACCESS GRANTED
DECRYPTION IN PROGRESS…
Sam looked up and furrowed her brows when she saw Matt crouched on the ground. "What's up?" He sifted dirt through his fingers, staring at something he had picked up, and his hand started to tremble. "Matt?"
"Oh… Jesus!" he cried, hurling the object at the ground.
She jogged over and bent to retrieve what he dropped. Clasping a thin, broken chain from which hung a small piece of metal, she rose to meet his gaze. His steel-blue eyes were wide and his face stark with shock.
"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost." Sam glanced down; in her hand, a rectangular stainless steel identification tag hung from a breakaway ball chain worn by all members of the armed forces. Her jaw dropped when she read the engraving.
CDR CONNOR JAIDEN L
BETA CO 112 UNSC N
Sam let the service tag dangle precariously from the broken end of the chain. "Oh my god," she managed to mouth the first three words. "It… It's Spooks."
Matt held the tag under his light, fingers splayed as the chain fell across his palm.
Sam heard a beep, but overlooked the notification that her HUD had finished decrypting the message, instead noting the chain's short length in comparison to hers. Military regulations required soldiers to wear a set of two carbon copy 'dog-tags', with the second chain suspended from the first. Upon the wearer's death, a fellow soldier collected the second tag, leaving the first on the body, or, if captured, POW's could track days spent captive up to one year by biting or breaking off a ball from the long chain, and in turn, one from the shorter chain each week. Maybe she pulled it off… but Covies don't take prisoners. Looking to Matt, she could see the same question ablaze in his stare. How?
He glanced to either side as if the desert might yield a final clue to their burgeoning mystery, but Sam knew they had arrived at the end of this trail.
"Matt," her voice brought his attention back to her, his gaze evincing an intensity she had not remembered seeing in six years. "Matty." She reached for his free hand, but he pulled away. "I know what you're thinking. We both know that's impossible. She'd have killed herself before letting those bastards get their claws on her. Any of us would've… should have done the same."
His hand trembled so violently the chain quivered like a serpent's tail. "Goddammit," he said through his teeth. "She was right here. Right here, Sam. There isn't even a body. If we'd just gotten here sooner…"
"We might've had something left to bury." Sam put the rest of the chain into his hand and closed his fingers. "We're lucky we found this."
"I, I…" Matt's voice broke. He swallowed hard and handed it back. "You should have it."
Holding the service tag close to her heart, she put a hand on Matt's shoulder and urged him forward. "Come on, we've still got work to do."
2100 HOURS
Sam threw another rock onto the pile beside the Mongoose and leaned against the wall.
Holding a rock in his arms, Matt looked sideways at her. "Are you alright?"
Glum since they began their excavation, neither she nor Matt had spoken, but she was grateful for their silence. She had spent the time monitoring network traffic on multiple frequencies though negligible COMM chatter found her wanting distraction from the somber mood.
She nodded, "Just catching my breath."
The message recorded on the chip had been broken and unclear, but she recognized two crucial phrases. Emergency Order: Cole Protocol, enacted in 2535, mandated personnel randomize Slipspace coordinates upon retreat and/or destroy relevant technology and intelligence when faced with impending capture to prevent the Covenant from acquiring navigational data leading to human colonies. She had never heard of Code: Salem, but 'Salem' referred to an earth town infamous since the late seventeenth century for trials and executions of ill, insane or eccentric people accused of witchery. Townspeople persecuted and drowned victims or set them afire whilst onlookers cried out, Burn the Witch! Whatever she pictured her best friend enduring unto death, that phrase alone hinted at a much worse fate. What were you doing here, Spooks? What happened to you? Unable to shake the images from her mind, she resumed toiling away at the debris and turned her thoughts inward, recalling a memory of Jaiden three weeks before their last mission.
"Hey there, Spooks."
Jaiden canted her head, those viridian eyes sparkling like emeralds in the sunset, but her usually enigmatic gaze seemed pensive. "Samara…"
Sam sat next to her and wrapped an arm around her. "You okay?"
The girl bit her lip and sat forward, folding her hands in her lap. "I've been thinking a lot. I mean, do you ever just wake up and wonder what we're doing here?"
"Puh! You mean, besides that 'good of humanity' crap?"
"Yeah."
"Every day."
Jaiden leaned against her, sharing warmth as the yellow sun dipped below the trees. "What if… what if the universe is just one giant web connecting everything and all you have to do is tug on a thread to find out where it goes?"
Sam thought the question over for a few seconds and giggled, hugging her friend tightly. "I don't know, Spooks. If there's a giant spider sitting at the other end, you can count me out!"
A cloud of dust settled over them, and a faint, fetid odor curled into Matt's nostrils.
"Big place," he commented, staring up at the ceiling ten meters above them.
Sam led the way, her headlight sweeping wall to wall and occasionally aiming straight into the dark tunnel. "'Big' is a gross understatement. Our preliminary scans picked up an entire network of unmapped tunnels."
He followed, leaving behind the starlight and fully risen moon to examine the strata and substrata eroded over millions of years. "If this is where the distress call originated, whoever sent it is probably dead if not disoriented."
Sam lowered her Battle Rifle, and turned to face him. "It's hard to say, considering I just lost our signal."
Matt tilted his head forward and looked her straight in the eye. "So, what you're telling me is we're up Shit Creek without a paddle."
"More or less."
"I love it when you talk dirty to me."
The first tunnel led them into yawning caverns where the walls resonated with the steady drip, drip of water from stalactites looming above into shallow pools around stalagmites at their feet. As they ventured further into the darkness, musty air enveloped them in the stench of decay.
Matt stifled his breath. "Ugh, it reeks like something keeled over in here."
Sam splashed through a puddle, kicking a stone across the cavern. "This place is pretty cool. I think this is where I'll take my next shore leave."
"I'll bet the acoustics are great, too." He tested his theory, shouting, "Hello?" Hello, his echo replied. "Halloo!" Halloo.
"Shut up," she chided. "You're loud enough to wake the dead."
Matt slapped her on the back. "Aw, what are you afraid of? Don't you remember how the old marching tune goes?" He broke into a singsong, his voice reverberating off the walls. "When I die, please bury me deep, place an MA5 down by my feet! Don't cry for me, don't shed no tear-"
"Real mature, Matty*"
"Just pack my box with PT gear! Come on, don't be a spoilsport."
"Oh, alright, fine," she conceded. "'Cuz early morning 'bout zero-five, the ground will rumble; there'll be lightning in the sky."
"Don't you worry, don't come undone," he sang, and they finished together, "It's just my ghost on a PT run!"
They both cracked up, guffawing as they rounded a bend into another cavern.
"Been a long time since we've had fun together," Matt said when they grew quiet. "All three of us, I mean."
"I know what you mean."
Walking side by side, neither of them spoke until they reached a fork in the tunnel.
"I've got a signal… weak, but it's there." Sam pointed to their left. "Coming from the southeast."
Matt took point. "What are we waiting for, then? Let's do it."
Twenty minutes later, the path in front of them ended at rubble piled so high the top touched the ceiling and chunks of rock had spilled out into the tunnel.
"We're below the entrance," Sam clarified. "That explosion must've triggered a cave-in."
He knelt and felt along the rubble for a weakness. "Is there any other way out?"
"Maybe through the tunnel back the way we came." She eyed the left wall. "According to the map, though, there should be another passage here leading into a set of caverns to the east."
Letting hand came to rest near the bottom of the heap, he gave the rocks a gentle shove. The largest pieces shifted, and loose stones skidded to the ground. "How much you willing to bet your passage is right behind this?" He wrapped his arms around a boulder.
"Would you like some help with that?" she simpered, one hand on her hip.
And look like a wimp in front of a girl? "No, no… I got this," he grunted, and wedged his fingers underneath and, sweat trickling down his face, lifted and heaved the heavy stone to the opposite side of the tunnel. He straightened, grinning, and wiped his hands together. "Now, that's how it's done."
She smirked. "That was highly erotic, thank you."
"Hey, what can I say? I'm a ladies' man."
"Keep dreaming, Wonder Boy."
They transferred debris, evening out the mound to prevent an avalanche, and cleared a hole in the left wall. Matt ducked, sticking his head in, but he could not get his shoulders past the opening, and as far as he saw, there seemed scarce enough room to crawl.
He backed out, shaking his head. "I doubt anyone can fit through there."
Crouching, she sized up the hole, running her fingers along the carved edges. "I can."
"What?"
She rose and turned to face him. "You heard me, I'm going in."
Sam shrugged off her shoulder pads and let the last pieces of armor clatter to the floor.
"I don't like you doing this alone," Matt said as she reached into the tactical hard case attached to her greaves and pulled out a strap and flashlight.
Using the strap, she rigged the flashlight to the barrel of her rifle. "You're certainly not going to fit, so relax, there's nothing to worry about." She lay across the ground and nosed her Battle Rifle into the passageway before glancing over her shoulder one last time. "It's probably just an automated distress beacon."
"Just don't leave me in the dark out here, er, so to speak."
"Don't worry, I've gotcha covered."
Eyes straight ahead and one hand on the barrel of her rifle, Sam wiggled into the confining darkness with only her body sheathing between her and the hard, uneven stone digging into her elbows and stomach. It's easy, just like PT, except you're meters below ground with no drill instructor to bark down your throat. She moved forward, focusing on the light projected from the rigged flashlight on her Battle Rifle, the waft of rotting flesh intensifying the further in she went. She became so nauseated she held her breath to keep from retching. Her temples throbbed and black shaded the corners of her eyes. She exhaled, dizzy and verging on fainting.
"There should be junction ahead of you," Matt's voice brought her head swimming back to her task. "Take the tunnel to your right."
Sam redoubled her efforts, crawling through narrow fissures and maneuvering through tight turns to where the passage diverged. The left tunnel led straight as far as her eyes could see, while the path to her right dropped off abruptly. Leaning over, she saw a shaft leading down into pitch black. Just like PT, hmm? Of course, there is always a catch. "Okay who votes I take the creepy tunnel into the hidden caverns?"
"Don't ask me," he answered. "You insisted on going in there."
Sam shrugged. "Well, here goes nothing." Setting the Battle Rifle in her lap, she eased down, supporting her weight with her hands and feet. "You know something? This is a lot easier when there isn't a bottomless pit underneath your butt."
"Guess they left that little detail out of Boot Camp, huh? The map ends at the shaft, though. Once you reach the bottom, you're on your own."
Sam climbed down the shaft, sweat running down her face, the muscles in her arms and legs burning with exertion. At last, she heard the muffled sound of rushing water. She pointed her rifle muzzle down, illuminating a patch of ground, and, bracing her back against the wall, dropped, bending both knees and landing with one palm down.
"I'm in." She took a deep breath, whiffing the rancid odor of decomposition, and cringed, needing no analysis. Just follow your nose. The smell emanated from a tunnel to her right. "You're right about the stink, Matty. That cave-in, now that I think about it, with no light, food or drinking water, who… or whatever, has probably been dead awhile."
"I'm more worried about how than why something died."
"If I don't find anything, I'm calling it quits."
"Just be careful."
"I'll be fine," she assured him, and took a deep breath before crossing the threshold.
The tunnel opened onto a plateau overlooking a waterlogged hollow littered with sediment deposits and piles of rock. Across the cavern, water gushed from a cavity in the rock, misting the air with a fine spray. The smell seemed to take on the dank consistency of the air and, certain she would find evidence of death, Sam sloshed into the fount, catching glints of feldspar and mica in rock formations as she descended.
She stopped, knee-deep, in the middle and cast an eye over her perimeter. Passing her flashlight over the far side, she glimpsed a series of white markings on the wall behind the waterfall. That's definitely not part of the scenery. Sam waded through the pool, edging around a jagged slab of schist that appeared pounded flat by the deluge. The stench with which she had come to terms finally became so unbearable she began dry heaving with a hand on one knee, until finally she glanced down and discovered the source of putrefaction. Elite corpses lay partially submerged, one Major propped against the wall facing two that swayed in tandem with the rhythm of the cascading water, the luster of their cobalt armor unmarred. She pinched her nose, and mustered the resolve to get a better look. The two bodies had deep, ragged chest and abdomen wounds, and four gashes with chunks of flesh missing from each of their extremities. It's almost like something tore into them.
"I found three Elites: two Minors and a C/O," she told Matt. "They were mauled by something, but there are no signs of a struggle."
"Maybe, they were already dead."
Her gaze drifted upward toward the markings on the wall. On a closer inspection, she noted distinct triangular glyphs inscribed with chalk. Forgetting the smell, she let her fingers roam the rough surface.
"Hang on… I see some kind of writing here, probably Covenant." She had spent a decade studying the foreign dialects on hacked data pads and the primitive computers of enemy ships, but she had never seen them handwritten in such a crude fashion. Nonetheless, she could still discern the repetition and nuances in the ambiguous symbols. "The Elites were searching for something called a 'Tracker'," she paraphrased, "an artifact that supposedly unlocks the map to a lost paradise. I wonder if they view the Forerunners as more than just their galactic predecessors."
"Keep wondering, and next thing you know, you'll be taking one of those uglies out for fast food. Don't forget to ask him if he wants fries with that. Can you make out anything else?"
"Not really. It's as if the writer went crazy. The passage ends with, 'The way is shut'." Her voice fell to a murmur. "'The way is shut; the parasite will kill them all'."
"Creepy."
"You're telling me."
As Sam slogged through the watery grave, the pool eddying around her legs, she found herself gazing at the ceiling. The stalactites clustered above resembled pointed teeth. This is what it must be like inside a Bane's mouth, right before it devours you. Forcing the thought from her mind, she began picking through items left by the Elites: three plasma rifles, several hand grenades, a pistol and numerous frayed wires and scrap metal. Were they searching for something? Sam caught a flicker of movement in her peripherals. She jumped up with a start, whipping her rifle toward the wall where the third Elite sat, lifeless, the sweeping current tugging its gray, shriveled limbs and rippling around the body, making its chest arch as if rising and falling with breath. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. My mind must be playing tricks on me.
"Hurry up," Matt urged. "I'm not getting any younger here."
"I know, just hang tight. That beacon should be around here somewhere."
Turning back to the floating refuse, Sam spotted something black nestled in the crook of the corpse's left arm. She could not help but notice the Elite's split jaws with rows of canines matched the gashes on the other bodies. Did he attack the others? No, something had eaten away at their flesh and seeped into their chest cavities and intestines. The first Elite had less grievous wounds, indicating if he met the same death, he had likely sustained injury to internal organs by ingesting contaminated tissue. He was starving, so he tried to feed off his companions. Trapped inside the caverns for at most a week and a half, all three infected aliens eventually died.
Grasping the object with the pads of her fingers, she held up a cylindrical plastic casing, slick with wetness, that appeared to have been cracked open and the wires inside, blackened by plasma, crudely soldered to a green circuit board.
Bastards. "Matt, we have a problem," Sam announced, grimly. She wrenched open the case and bashed the circuitry with her fist. The board snapped in half, and she threw down the module and stomped it repeatedly until fragments lay scattered at her feet. "It looks like the Elites got hold of some damaged military tech and jury-rigged a module to generate the distress call."
"Tell me you have good news."
"That was the good news."
"And the—"
"Bad news is, we've been on the ground for almost ten hours. Anyone could have picked up that call. I destroyed the beacon; that might buy us some time, but we need to look for another way out."
"What about back at the junction?"
"It's worth a shot," she agreed, eyeing the leftover Covenant weaponry near the bodies. Some of that may come in handy. "Wait for me, I'm bringing extra guns. We'll radio Vasquez topside and set up a rendezvous."
"Understood."
She holstered the sticky grenades, and removing her flashlight from the top of her gun, used the strap to attach two plasma rifles to her utility belt. Laden with munitions, she took the flashlight in one hand and knelt to inspect the broken module. Going through the remains, she uncovered a data chip similar to the one they had found earlier, except this chip had additional prongs to interface with networks and navigational and communication systems, and an external microchip, a feature she had only seen on one prototype AI. Developed as tactical armament and introduced into the military in 2541, the android had never been on high-risk missions. Why here, why now? But, with little time to ponder, she slipped the unit into her pocket and picked up her Battle Rifle to leave when she heard a loud splash. Sam spun around, eyes scanning the darkness. Her light passed over the body propped against the wall, it's left arm bobbing like a child's toy ship on the water. She prodded the limb with the muzzle of her gun, and suddenly, the Elite's fingers clenched. She shrieked and stumbled backward, directing her flashlight across the darkness. A yellow, reptilian eye stared up at her.
"Oh my god," she whispered in disbelief. "He's still alive!"
"Is everything okay, what's going on?" Matt asked.
Unable to reply, Sam fixed her attention on the alien. His nictitating membranes made a papery sound as they fluttered open and closed. Guttural sounds issued from deep within his throat, and it took her a moment to realize he was muttering to himself. Unsure if she should shoot, or simply leave him alone, she started to turn, but a hand clamped around her wrist.
The Elite stared her straight in the eye, and demanded, in perfect English, "Kill. Me."
Sam jerked away, glaring. "You don't get to order me around pal!" She jabbed his chest with the end of her Battle Rifle. "Start talking, because you've got a long list of dirty laundry. What are you doing here and how did you get that beacon working?"
He choked. A mouthful of blood seeped through the gap between his jaws, and when he tried to speak, he burst into a fit of coughs until he gagged and retched up more blood. He's really going to kick the bucket this time. Lowering her Battle Rifle, Sam backed away, but to her surprise, he chortled.
"Fools," the Elite Major rasped, "The lot of you, blundering through the fog of your miserable existence, I have gazed into the void and seen the future…"
She patted her rifle and stared down at him over the tip of her nose. "Your future has a bullet right here with your name written all over it."
"Ah! We know nothing of the gods' design until we look upon fate unfettered… I believe one of your poets expressed it well: 'For in that sleep of death, what dreams might come, when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause'."
She rammed the barrel of her rifle into his open jaws. "You don't even care about our culture, what the hell do you know?"
He flexed his mandibles, ejecting the gun from his mouth. "I know… that your war is lost… but, even the Covenant my people swore to uphold will plummet into despair. Thus, the cycle continues." He shifted uncomfortably, and laid his right hand across his abdomen. "Judgment is upon us! When the parasite befalls us, none shall be spared."
The parasite. Sam looked over the visible wounds on the other bodies. Layers of flesh appeared to have melted away, revealing purplish sinew and muscle. The external lesions were consistent with widespread parasitic infection, and soon the exposed soft tissue would deteriorate and slough off, leaving behind putrefied skeletons. She looked back at the Major. His expressionless features and lack of lips made it hard to tell what was going through his head. He's not afraid of death, she reminded herself. Still, nobody wants to die alone in a place like this.
She stepped to one side and put her gun to his temple. "So, you tell me, Crap-for-Brains, since you're the expert… If no one is winning, why keep fighting?"
Seeming deep in consideration, the Elite exhaled with a shudder. I wonder if he knows I just insulted him.
At first, he closed his eyes, silent, perhaps steeling himself for the nihility waiting beyond the brink of unconsciousness, but then answered, simply, "Because, it is our fate."
"Fate," Sam said, shaking her head. "Fate took my family, my childhood, killed my best friend, and fate sure isn't on your side right now. You want to talk fate, fate can kiss my ass." She shouldered her rifle and turned to go.
"Human," the Elite called. She glanced over her shoulder, one eyebrow raised, and he nodded toward the top of the waterfall. "There were four of us. My last man… never returned."
Sam looked from the falls to the writing on the wall and back at the Elite, narrowing her eyes. Is there another passage up there? That signal had to reach the surface somehow. If this is a setup… but he's caused enough trouble already, I can't just leave him where someone else could find him. Besides, he could be useful. She stooped next to the alien and grabbed him by the arm. He did not resist as she pulled his hand away from his stomach to check the severity of his wounds. Yep, he might as well be dead, but I'll take what I can get.
She dropped the Elite's arm and stared him down. "I guess I was wrong… your future just saved a can of biofoam for your sorry hide."
The alien blinked, giving no indication that he understood, or cared.
"Sam?" she heard Matt ask again. "Sam, are you okay? Talk to me!"
She let her finger hover over the COMM button several seconds before pressing it. Well, Fate, here's to you. "I'm here, Matty. Change of plans; it looks like we just picked up some extra cargo."