Chapter 3: Recon
The blunt nosed dropship was still smoking as it plummeted through the atmosphere, the underside glowing red from the reentry. Two long wings slowly extended away from the narrow body, the hunched forward cockpit making the ship appear menacing from the front with the barrels of it's two cannons sticking up off of the silver hull. Catching the air, the ship regained control of itself and began to maneuver itself through the turbulent skies filled with spores and gases. Inside of the dropship, four armored soldiers sat in complete darkness, the only light coming from their blue visors and a few smaller lights all over their bodies. Shifting slightly, they remained silent as the hull creaked and moaned from the stresses.
"ETA one minute, get ready." The pilot's voice was tinny as it played through the compartment's speakers. They all stood up almost at once and moved towards the center of the ship, a small blue disc glowing faintly in the darkness. Feeling the ship decelerate and change it's angle of attack, they prepared to drop down as the disintegrated into a million tiny pieces and a gravity lift appeared. The ground was invisible in the blinding sunlight and it lit up the interior of the ship as dirt and other debris blew around below them. One of the four stepped forward and glided down towards the ground, his head swinging back and forth. The other soldiers followed behind and stepped into the dust storm around them, kneeling down as the dropship powered up it's engines and flew off, leaving an even larger cloud of dust behind. In a small circle, the four of them scanned their surroundings without uttering a word. Their armor was one of the most advanced sets in the Forerunner arsenal, incorporating camouflaging technology that allowed the skin of the armor to assume the color of the surroundings, and in conjunction with the angular armor pieces all over their body, they were almost completely invisible to the naked eye. Their helmets were the most notable aspects of the armor and were the most easily recognizable. Instead of using what amounted to a larger silhouette of the soldier's head, the recon team had their face framed by two pointed "bills" that came together above and below the now gold visor. Not visible by just looking at the armor was the skills each soldier brought with them. All of them were among the most elite soldiers in the Forerunner military, outclassing the rest in terms of shooting, speed, and every other skill group that they were measured in.
"Quadrant clear," they chimed in one at a time, speaking to each other through their team communications channel. The four soldiers were arranged in a tight circle, their long plasma rifles nestled into their shoulders as they scanned back and forth slowly.
"Let's move, I don't want to be down here longer than we have to." The squad leader was terse and the order was masked by his almost conversation like demeanor. All of them felt the same way, they had almost no information about the situation but they knew that at any moment they could be attacked by the parasite. Spreading out into a diamond formation, they began to walk slowly across the dying grass in the open field, only a few patches of green remaining.
"I'm bringing the transmission on, be on your best behavior, you're Specters." A few seconds passed in silence and then the leader spoke again. "This is Lieutenant Hall, commander of Specter Squad Echo. We are proceeding with survey of landing zone two."
"The visibility is horrible, switching to combi-view now," one of the soldiers stated. His voice was quieter and it almost sounded as if he was thinking out loud and hadn't meant for the rest of his time to hear him. On his display, though, he was able to see the outline of the surroundings as small radar bursts cut through the haze and drew contrasting lines on the land and large objects.
"Muron, check over there" Hall replied and pointed out to the squad's left. Nodding, he headed out towards a small grouping of trees that could be seen on his HUD, rifle at the ready while he crouched down a little. "Janus, other direction."
"Yes sir," he responded heavily, his deep voice losing some of it's bass from the microphones and speakers as he headed towards the right.
"Tauer, I want you to stay here. If anything happens, bring the transport back in and deploy cover."
"Affirmative, sir." Tauer swung his back pack off of his shoulders and removed a fist sized metallic cylinder, it's ends tapering as small strips of blue energy rippled from end to end. Hooking it to his leg, he took a knee and began to scan the surroundings for any sign of life.
"Trees are clear, looks like there's some of these pustules growing on them though. Looks like they may also be the source of this change in the atmosphere as one of them just sent out a huge puff of green gas and some of these little spores."
"I'm seeing the same thing on some rocks over here," Janus replied to Muron. "They're all over them. Lemme just...ugh...that's disgusting." He dropped off the radio for a second and then came back on with a grunt. "It looks like these things are alive cause some green blood or fluid came out after I popped one."
"Something just can't spontaneously come to life," Tauer chimed in.
"Well what about the spores? I'm sure they're the source of these things," Janus replied back.
"Even if they are, they need some sort of food to grow. I can see them working on the trees but rocks..." Hall finally interjected. The silence seemed to confirm their confusion on the subject. "But that's not what we're here for. Have you found anything that wouldn't make this a viable landing zone?"
"No sir," they replied one after another.
"Okay, unless there's anything else we need to look at, I think we're-"
"Shit, contacts on my motion tracker. Heading North, towards you Lieutenant," Janus called out excitedly, but still obviously in control of himself.
"Affirmative, bring it back in. You know what these things can do so don't get any ideas." Backpedaling, Hall found himself back by Tauer and took a knee as he scanned the surroundings while the rest of his squad formed up around him. "This is Echo squad, we're requesting immediate evac now. Possible parasitic contact reported."
"Copy that Echo, transport inbound."
"Saw something, four legs, moving pretty quickly." Muron shifted as he watched whatever it was move in front of him.
"If it comes within range, light it up, I'm not taking any chances." A few seconds later one of their rifles whined loudly as lances of blue plasma sliced through the air and flew into the gas around them, glowing eerily as it moved away from them. There was an alien and convoluted scream off to their right, near where Janus had been inspecting the rocks.
"I think I got it," Janus said, standing up and heading towards the spot where he had shot, rifle at the ready. The others followed him and the creature's form slowly came into view, sprawled on the ground. It's basic frame seemed unchanged from the parasite as it's bones and muscles seemed to still be in the same places, but there was still a noticeable change as the head was only hanging onto the rest of the body by a few strands of tendons and muscles as well as the spinal cord. In the chest cavity and the exposed neck, small tentacles protruded out from the fur covered skin, hanging limp in the blowing wind and flowing dirt. Their rifles were leveled on the creature's body despite multiple holes perforating it's body and large burns all across it's skin.
"Tauer, do you have a research kit with you?" Hall asked, still staring at the corpse. His squad mate nodded and pulled out a small metallic box from his backpack and set it down on the dirt gently, withdrawing a small syringe from it's foam casing. Stepping forward, he pushed it into the flesh and withdrew a vial of dark green blood, examining it in the failing light around. Placing it back in the case, he pulled out a small metallic container, a glass vial in the center of it all. Pushing it up against the stomach of the creature, small blue lasers cut into the flesh, the small piece of glass sliding into the muscles and fat. Just as it was about to finish, Tauer stopped for a second and repositioned himself, setting his rifle onto the dirt next to his feet. Despite his incredible reflexes, he wasn't able to jump out of the way as the creature lurched back to life, gurgling and screaming in a sickening tone as it knocked the soldier to the ground, his hands grabbing the dirt for the grip of his rifle. The rest of the squad opened up with their weapons and cut holes through the creature as it tried to run around them, but it fell back to the ground after being pummeled by plasma. Continuing to shoot, they slowly walked forward as it jerked and shook with each consecutive shot. Tauer had gotten back to his feet and leveled his rifle, settling his rattled nerves and ignoring his adrenaline filled and shaking hands.
"You alright?" Hall asked, cocking his head to the right just enough so he could see over his shoulders.
"Yes sir, I'm fine." Off in the distance, the soft hum of the drop ship reached their ears and looking out in the direction of the sound, they could see the hunchbacked form of the craft, dropping down to the deck while kicking up a huge plume of dust in it's wake. Flaring it's small wings and adjustment thrusters, it hovered over them while the gravity lift opened up. Floating up into the dark interior, Tauer was the last one in as he secured the blood sample. Holding the small case in his hands, he fiddled with it nervously and had a slightly disappointed look behind his mask as he was unable to get the tissue sample that he wanted.
"Transmit all of the video back to Shi-Kai, they'll want to see these ASAP. I need to know what your assessments are of the landing zones, people back there are getting antsy and want to get going on all of this, they're tired of waiting." The Fleet Admiral was standing in front of a large holographic table, normally displaying the fleet it was now showing one of the three proposed landing zones. His salt and pepper hair seemed out of place on his almost smooth face, only a few wrinkles cutting across his face as well as a few stray hairs on his chin and cheeks that dodged the razor.
"Our zone was poor. While the land is flat, it sits below the surrounding land and has very few vantage points to allow the camp to see if there's anything on the horizon. I would not recommend landing there." One of the Specter commanders had stepped out of the shadows and spoke to the Fleet Admiral, his armor lit eerily from the single light and with every movement his body made, the blue glow and hard shadows on his armor would change. Voices of agreement rose up from the shadows as the different officers each agreed with the assessments of their comrades.
"Did anyone find anything suitable?" the Admiral asked, annoyed at this turn of events.
"Yes sir," Hall said, stepping forward into the light. "Our zone had a three-hundred and sixty view of the plains and the soil and ground was suitable for construction." Their landing zone winked up in the air, showing the almost completely flat land they had been tasked with surveying.
"Then that's where we'll land. I'll give out the order. Dismissed."
A soft electronic tone chimed in a rhythmic beat, just barely filling the dark room it was whistling in. A few silent seconds passed before the tune played again, this time noticeably louder. Didact stirred in the soft bed, opening his eyes, it took a few seconds before his enhanced vision adjusted to the inky black around him.
"I'm awake," he whispered softly as the sound began to play again, stopping when he spoke. Sliding his right arm off of Tyro's bare back, he pulled the blankets off of him and quietly pushed himself to the edge of the bed, rolling off of his stomach and onto his back before swinging his legs over the edge. Grabbing a pair of long black night pants off of the floor, he pulled them over his tight boxers and tiptoed across the soft carpeting. Once he was out of the bedroom, the rest of their house slowly lit up with a soft golden light that tiptoed upwards as his eyes adjusted. In the living room, he turned on a small holo-projector and the lights immediately dimmed back down as the room was filled with bright blue light. A tall figure hovered in the air, dressed in full military garb. Looking around absentmindedly, Didact had to remind himself that all of the actions and emotions of the hologram were based strictly off of the tone of voice of the speaker, or other preprogrammed functions. In this case, he was waiting for the channel to connect and the projector was visually representing that.
"Colonel Volk, sir." The hologram snapped to attention and saluted as Didact waited. "The recon missions have returned and they've decided on a landing zone located about five miles away from the research lab. They're proceeding with building the permanent camp now."
"That was fast," Didact responded, pulling his hand through his hair in annoyance at their eagerness to land.
"There's something else," the Colonel said quietly, the image looking around nervously for eavesdroppers. "One of the recon squads encountered an indigenous life form that was infected by the parasite. They got a blood sample and it' been sent to one of the remote research tankers that they've set up in case of an outbreak. But the infected creature was highly aggressive and could take multiple shots that were normally mortal. Hopefully the blood samples can give us a better idea as to how these things work."
"We'll find out soon enough I suppose. Is that all?"
"Yes, sir."
"Thank you, if you have any more information, just have it waiting for me tomorrow morning." Closing the connection, he turned around to see Tyro standing in the hallway wearing dark blue short shorts, pulling a shirt down over her head.
"What was that about?" she asked, her voice still groggy with sleep.
"They've begun to land on the surface and set up shop."
"I heard something about a blood sample..." she said, slowly trailing her voice off as she walked over to kitchen and ruffled around in the refrigerator, tying her hair up behind her head in a messy bun.
"Yeah...one of the recon squads was attacked by an infected animal and they managed to get a blood sample from it. But it's not leaving the planet, they're going to keep it on a secure research tanker so there's no chance for you to get touchy feely with it," he responded with a quick laugh, Tyro responding with an unenthusiastic look.
"I'll have the data within a few hours," she finally responded as if sounding like it wasn't too important. Taking a few sips from a cup, leaning over the counter with her shoulders hunched up and her waist off to the side, she scrunched her face up. "I need to get some sleep. Don't stay up too late worrying about anything, they'll take care of any problems." Didact nodded and sat down on one of their couches and rested his head on his fist, letting out a long yawn.
