Chapter 8: Down Under

Six and his team moved under the cover of darkness. They had set out just before sundown and could still see the abandoned city glowing in the firelight after the plasma bombardment. They reached the Falcons parked at the airfield by nightfall, Covenant patrols were scattered around the ruins of the city and they had no wish to alert them to their presence lest they find out what they were doing. The Falcons took off without incident and flew towards the excavation site. No one spoke during the flight. Some of them were too tired to be bothered with idle talk but most were concentrating on the task ahead. When they arrived at the site, no one made a sound as they approached a sealed-off area of the compound. Inside, there was an elevator with an 'out of order' sign, several desks with notes scattered around on them and statistics written on a board on a wall. Six walked over and picked up a document. It read: Tests conclusive. Primary engagements successful, however, subjects do not respond to agent and are still hostile. Suggesting commence stage three.

Six didn't understand any of it but filed the information away for later. The rest of the marines had found similar documents scattered around. Wallace was searching the desk closest to the elevator and picked up a document, scanned it quickly and was about to put it back when he saw an imperfection in the otherwise flat desk. He ran his hand over it and all of a sudden the wall behind the desk slid open with a small "ding."

"Uh, boss, I think I found something." Said Wallace, a little dumbstruck

Six walked through and patted Wallace on the back as he passed into the corridor. At the end of the corridor stood yet another elevator, although this one looked as if it had been used recently.

"Sir, I don't think we're the only ones in this building." said Sherman, worried.

Six inspected the locking mechanism on the control panel.

"Springett." He called

"On it. Just a sec." she replied and began work on the keypad on the elevator. A few minutes later, they were all inside and heading downwards at an alarming rate. As they reached the bottom of the elevator shaft, the doors opened and Six and the marines were treated to a wondrous sight: a fallen alien spaceship, half-buried under molten rock with lava pouring over the aft section. Most of it was destroyed or hidden but of what remained the ship itself was a sight to behold. On the far side of the cavern was a small research station. Six thought that it would be a good place to start looking and headed towards it. As they approached, a group of hovering drones with fins on the side flew over and started firing. The marines scattered and hid behind multiple rocks and returned fire. The drones were agile but not very smart and it was easy for the marines to herd them into another's line of fire. Soon, all of them were disabled without any injuries sustained by the marines. They continued forwards to the station and stealthily took up positions around it. Six gave a signal and bashed the door open, gun up. Inside he saw a group of extremely surprised researchers who were frozen by the sight of a seven-foot tall armoured man with a gun pointed at them standing in the doorway. A few seconds later, the researchers gathered their wits and either fled down a hall or raised their hands rapidly. Six called his marines in and one of the researchers spoke

"Excuse me; are you here to kill us?"

"No, why?" asked Six

"Well, we were told that any military intervention was likely to be lethal."

"Um, could you put that in English please?" said Logan who had just walked in

"He meant that if any soldiers came down here it would be to kill these people, stupid." retorted Springett behind him.

"Anyway, no we're not here to kill you, but-" the researcher flinched slightly "we would like some answers if you wouldn't mind."

"Ok, what do you want to know?"

"First of all, what the hell are you guys doing down here?" said Sherman loudly

"My name is Professor Zimmerman. We are a team of researchers working on project: Inheritance. It involves the investigation of the alien technology that was found crashed here for what appears to be centuries, although the technology is extremely advanced. We managed to get some of it working but very little of it is compatible with our own technology, although Covenant technology seems to work very well with it. We re-programmed the Sentinels and set them on offensive patrol of the outside, those things you destroyed outside. You'd think we would be safe, hidden in an abandoned base, miles below the surface with Sentinels guarding it and yet you managed to get past all of it. I wonder what we could have missed."

"Did you have insurance?" asked Brandeis sarcastically, leaning on the doorframe.

"Is that it? I'll be sure to ask for insurance in our next report." He hurried off to find a pen and paper to write it down.

"Uh I was joking professor."

"Oh, hehe, of course."

"So what else have you found here?" queried Six

"Well, we do have a couple of other things you might be interested in looking at. If you'll come this way please."

Zimmerman led them down a long corridor and opened a door

"We call this the map room, we found a file in the downed ship and rigged it up to a holo-projector. This is what came up. It shows the location of all the planets in the known galaxy and beyond."

"This has the location of the Covenant home worlds?" asked Six, incredulous

"Yes it probably does but we don't know which ones they are. One thing we found particularly interesting was these ring-like objects scattered around all over the place. We can't work out what they are."

"Okay, can't help you there. What else have you got?" asked Six

"Come this way and I'll show you." Once again, he led them down a corridor and opened a door. Six stepped in and took one look and was shocked at what he saw.

"What the hell have we walked into here?"