UNSC Spirit of Fire reporting. It's been a while gents, however my plans for this story have finally come through. Here are the details: I thought it would be cool if my close friend Noble Scotsman and I worked in tandem on this story. He has recently moved back from out of state, and I was finally able to work out the final details of this story to the end. He will publish events from the viewpoint of his Spartan III Headhunters, and I will publish events from the viewpoint of Recon Squad Delta. That being said, this story's pieces will be coming out in short order now (and will all be quite awesome, if I do say so myself). In addition, you all should read Noble Scotsman's "Halo: Headhunters" story, as well as his other publications. They're simply excellent. But, I digress. Chapter 8 is now on the front line.

Enjoy!

ONI Sloop Winter Walker

Combat Operations Deck - Bridge

Spartan Recon Group Delta: S45 Jai "Boomer", S79 Remy "Psycho", S24 Jackson "Blade", S107 Tom "Boss"

Current Objective: Bring Engines and Communication Systems back online

Secondary Objective: Destroy/Disable Covenant Shipyards in orbit over Scion 4a

ONI Secrets; Part 3

Spartan Recon Squad Delta; Deck B-2, Engineering Section 2 – M.A.C. Systems

The gun lights lit up the entire hall as their boots thudded across the lifeless and eerily silent walks of Deck B-2. Dents in the bulkheads, blood on the floor, emergency lighting turning the space all the more red. They crept through the halls, turning into every open door, ready to shred whatever they found.

Blade stepped in front of a door. A sudden noise, a loud crack, and the sound of a body crumpling to the ground. He swept the room with his rifle and moved back into formation.

Tom switched to his squad's private line.

"3, what'd you just shoot?" he asked.

"A standard Flood form missing his right arm." he responded, a sense of boredom hidden in his voice.

Careful what you wish for, 3. Tom thought as he cleared someone's quarters.

Time lulled past, and the assault group moved as silently as they could.

It's so damn quiet. I really don't like this… Tom thought. He checked the waypoint on his HUD. 87 meters to destination. He checked his comms connections. The connection Phoenix was still offline.

I'll reference our location when we get to the medical bay.

He saw a sign on the wall. It read, "ADVANCED MEDICAL AND TRAUMA CENTER, 50 METERS". There was an arrow pointing them further down the hall. The group moved around a corner, down a small hallway, and passed through a functional double door, 2.5 by 3 meters, where they stopped and stood facing into an open area used to hold patients during combat. Hooks in the ceiling for IV bags, powered slots in the ground for medical equipment. Rectangles that served as resting areas for field beds raised up out of the ground 5 centimeters, with spaces of 2 meters between them, enough for foot traffic and equipment to pass through without disturbing the patients. The space they were in was a large rectangle, 50 meters long, 30 meters wide, and 4.5 meters tall. Another double door, 5 by 4 meters tall, stood open in the center of the left wall, leading to the Medical Bay. On the far side of the room, directly across from them, stood another double door like the one they were standing in front of. The area they were standing in was referred to by medical staff as "the Pavilion".

Since the space was in the center of the ship, there were no windows, and it was one of the most secure places in the entire vessel from assault on the exterior. However, the fight had already reached this place. Dismembered bodies, blood, empty rifle, pistol, and shotgun shells. Lights were shot out, weapons and armor strewn about the room. The place looked like anything but an advanced medical bay. Despite the wreckage, the remaining active LEDs lit the room up quite nicely. Tom noticed that his gun light was no longer active. However, as his eyes adjusted to the overwhelming and as yet un-encountered brightness of the room and as his brain processed what he saw, he noticed something.

Some of this damage looks older, and some looks more recent. Tom wondered. The door on the far side of the room had been smashed apart, however the damage was not dealt from the outside to break in; no the door had been smashed out, as if something was trying to escape and had succeeded. He looked to his left and made eye contact with Boomer, and to his right he made contact with Blade, both of whom nodded to him. Psycho's green light flashed once, indicating he knew exactly what they were thinking.

Was this the origin point of the Flood?

"Weapons hot. Unknowns are hostile. Secure the Pavilion. Move." the words were quick, monotone; the voice of a soldier who didn't trust the environment around him.

The assault group split into tag teams, groups of 2, and moved down the room, an even spread between them, one staggered row 4 meters ahead of another staggered row; a standard practice for securing large, open spaces with clear lines of sight. They swept the room, every corner of it. They checked bodies, weapons, holes in the walls, anything and everything.

"Room clear. 2, on me.; secure this exit. 3 and 4, seal the far exit. Dragon, secure the Medical Bay entrance. Move." Tom ordered.

Boots thundered as the group separated and moved to their objectives. Tom turned to Boomer in time to see her dragging pieces of door wreckage inside the room from the hall. Her shotgun was up against the wall, her right hand holding the piece of metal, and her left hand holding a Claymore Anti-Personnel Mine. He locked his SMG to his right leg in time for the mine in her hand to come flying to him. He caught it and began to search for a place to hide it.

These particular mines had been around for centuries, which made sense because they worked with few incidents of failure. The only difference between the mine in Tom's hands and the older variants was that this mine didn't rely on a physical tripwire or something of that sort. Instead, it functioned a lot like the sentry turrets; the mine had an advanced motion tracking system and, because the mine directed the explosion in a certain direction, it only had to optically confirm targets standing directly in front of it. As far as anyone knew, these mines had never been the cause of a friendly fire incident. In addition, older variants had to be placed in areas where they could be driven into the ground or stabilized in some way; these mines could be attached to any surface. On the back of the mine, there was an adhesive much like the substance on C4 charges, with one major difference. This adhesive was "flexible", and once it came into contact with a surface and began to stick, it would allow the operator 5 seconds to angle the mine in any direction up to 45 degrees. The adhesive would simply stretch between the mine and the attachment surface and solidify in a way that allowed the mine to remain in the desired position almost perfectly.

We can't seal this door, so we can at least have a deterrent. These are our alarm and our way of slowing down whatever comes in.

Tom rigged his mine about half a meter back from the left side of the door, armed it, and turned around in time to see another mine flying to him. He caught it without fail, and saw Boomer pointing up at the left corner of the door, near the ceiling. He saw she had already rigged both of her mines and armed them, one hidden behind the wreckage directly behind in front of the door facing into the hall, and the other directly above the door facing straight down. He quickly turned, attached the mine to the ceiling on the left side of the door, angled it down towards the center, and armed it. Though it still faced most of the way into the room, it would certainly surprise anything that walked in front of it. He stepped back, looked at Boomer, who nodded, and they ran to Medical Bay entrance.

The rest of the group had stacked up in a breach formation, with Delta on the right side of the door and Dragon on the left. Something broke the door from the inside out.

Just like the other entrance…

"Dragon, breach left. Delta, breach right." Tom ordered as his right shoulder slammed up against the bulk head, his SMG in his hands. He checked the counter in the top right of his HUD; it showed a full magazine. 3 green lights flashed twice. Hammer nodded.

"Breaching!" Tom called as he ran through the door, rifle ready. He ran 2 meters into the room and stopped, clearing his lane of fire as Delta and Dragon filed in, forming a semi-circle inside the entrance of the Medical Bay.

The Medical Bay had 4 zones: Trauma/Operations, Storage, Scanning Rooms, and Research Laboratories, all arranged in their own grid system; each section dominated a 37x25x3 meter tall area. The Pavilion could now be classified as the Stabilization/Recovery area. Trauma/Operations and Scanning Rooms took the left half of the bay, and Storage and Research Labs took the right half. The entire space took up a 75x60x3 meter tall area of the ship.

The place they stood in looked down a hallway that spanned the entire Bay, 10 meters wide. There were 8 doors total, 2 per zone, built like the doors in the Pavilion. The doors of each zone that stood closest to the primary entrance were marked with the words ENTER, and those farther away were marked EXIT.

The place was brightly lit; the whole ceiling looked like it was giving off light. The dull white LEDs lit up a scene of yet more carnage: blood, bodies and various parts, spent casings, half empty rifles.

"Clear!" Hammer called.

"Clear!" Dragon 4 called.

"Clear!" 3 called.

"Entrance clear! Secure the Medical Bay! Move!" Tom ordered. Boots thundered as Tom moved to clear the right side of the hall, Delta in close behind.

Both teams stacked up on the first doors they encountered, Delta on the entrance to Trauma and Dragon on the entrance to Storage. The doors faced each other on opposite ends of the hall. Dragon's door was wide open and Delta's door had been broken open from the inside.

"Sweep and clear. 5 minutes; RV in the hall outside the exits." Tom called. Hammer nodded and began to file into the Storage area. Tom switched back to his squad's channel.

"Breaching!" He called as he brought his SMG to his shoulder and moved through the door.

The lights, half active, shined upon destruction the likes of which could only be caused by a massive application of force. Dents in the wall, a dismembered arm on the floor, the rifle it once held buried in the lights directly above, the ammo counter shuddering with the electricity. He breached forward, his rifle clearing the 25 meter long hallway he faced. 9 meters from the exit, an entrance to another hallway appeared on the right.

He moved forward 3 meters and dropped to one knee, Boomer to his right, who also dropped to one knee. As soon as they went down, Blade's rifle appeared over Boomer's head, just to the right, and Psycho's machine gun appeared over Tom.

"Hallway clear. 3 and 4, peel off and secure the near hall. 2, on me." Tom ordered.

Green lights.

"Shotgun up front." Tom ordered. Boomer moved at a 45 degree angle to a position in front of him, allowing Blade and Psycho to walk past to the nearest hallway entrance. They stacked up, Blade on point, before quickly disappearing into the entrance.

"Clear!" Blade called.

"Copy." Remy stated.

"Copy. Boomer, you're up." She stood and began her movement forward, shotgun on her shoulder, clearing the hallway. Tom stood with her, and turned to face backward, covering their six, watching her movement on the tracker out of the corner of his eye. Her boots crunched on something; it sounded like shattered glass. Her marker disappeared, indicating she had stopped. He stood still, clearing the 22 meters of hallway behind them, listening for anything odd.

"Boss, stack up."

He flashed her a green light before spinning around and taking position directly behind her, shoulder against the wall. He flashed his light again. Precisely 3 seconds later, she surged forward and around the bend. He pursued.

As he rounded the bend, he found her on one knee over what was once the edge of a massive window into one of the trauma rooms. She had it covered. He continued down the hall, 2 meters from her position.

"Hallway clear."

"Room clear."

She stood back up and moved to point. When she was in front of him, he stood and turned to cover their six.

Boots crunched on glass.

"2, secure this room. I'll move to the next. Leapfrog. Meet you at the bend."

Her light flashed green as she moved through what once contained a window to secure the room. He spun around and moved down the hall. He stopped 18 meters down the hall, the halfway point, at the corner of the third of four trauma rooms. The lights from here forward were out. He surged into the room, infrared overlay on his HUD active. The bodies of the trauma crew were strewn about, along with their instruments. There were 2 rifles on the ground, over half spent, shells everywhere.

They must've gone wide with their shots. Tom thought. Through the cracked window on the other side of the 10 meter space he saw Blade finish clearing the third and final room in the other hall, and heard Boomer moving behind him to the other room as Psycho came into view, walking down the hall. As he turned to walk out of the room, he looked at the slots in the walls and floor of the room that contained the windows.

These rooms were outfitted with 8cm thick ballistic windows. But they're shattered. What the hell is going on?

The windows were known for being practically indestructible by conventional means; shooting them just wasted ammunition since they all would be stopped inside the glass. And breaking them was near impossible. Whatever broke them could generate a lot of force with very little space and, consequently, could do it very quickly.

Tom moved to the last room in his hall, surprised to find that this window wasn't shattered; it was just cracked. Boomer was waiting for him at the bend.

"Area clear." He stated.

"Copy." Came her terse response.

"Move to the exit."

She moved around the corner, Tom behind her, covering their rear. When they passed the secondary hall, he saw Blade and Psycho with their backs to him, clearing the hall. When Boomer reached the exit, her light flashed 3 times, and 3 and 4 came out of the hall and took the rear. Tom spun to relieve Boomer and take point before moving out into the hall right as Dragon squad came out.

5:00 minutes flat.

The squads stayed on their sides of the halls and moved to the next set of doors.

"Same plan." Tom called over the comm.

Dragon rushed into the third room, the Research Laboratories. Gun fire ensued; a handful of rounds were let free. They continued to move forward.

Delta stacked up on the entrance to the scanning rooms. The exit door on the far side had been blown out; the entrance Delta was next to had minor damages to the exterior going inward. It was a reinforced door, designed to keep whatever radiation managed to get free inside the room.

"Boomer! Rip this door!" Tom called.

When she moved to place the charge, Tom stepped back to fill her position. She slung her shotgun and pulled out a breaching charge, borders marked in yellow, indicating it to be a Directed Breaching Charge.

It slammed against the wall, she activated the charge's timer, and took position in front of Tom.

"Breaching!" she called.

The charge detonated, blasting the door out of its position and straight back into the room. She moved in, Tom close behind.

"Breach right!" she yelled.

She dropped to one knee 1 meter from the door, facing right from the entrance. Tom saw the wall of a scanning room directly in front of the entrance; the cause for the need to breach right. He took position 1 meter to her left and took a knee. 3 and 4 charged in and took positions behind them, weapons over their heads. They stared into a darkened room, with only a few scattered and malfunctioning lights to go by. Empty rifle cases, half a dead marine, a number of bloody piles, and a rifle broken in half. Their IR overlays came online, illuminating the room with a green hue.

"Clear!" Tom called.

Green lights.

"Split and secure the room! 5 minutes! Go!"

Each hall was 22 meters long, 2 meters wide, and had 2 scanning rooms connected to it on the left side. Each room was 11 meters long and 5.6 meters across, with the entrances being the doors closest to the entry of the hall, and the exits on the far side of each room.

Tom stormed the closest hall, bracing himself against the wall to the left of the hallway. He saw the rest of Delta move to the other halls. He moved around the corner, SMG to his shoulder, eyes down the sight. Something moved down the hall. He fired, the shredders in his SMG tearing the target to pieces. It fell without a sound, collapsing on the floor in a pile.

"Hall clear! Proceeding with operation!" He called out over the comm line.

The first entrance was a meter down the hall to his left. The door was closed, and surprisingly in one piece. He stacked himself against the wall to the left of the door, counted to three, moved to a position directly in front of the door, leveled his weapon at the entry, and hit the activation switch on the right of the door. It slid open with a creek, indicating that something was wrong with the door's systems. It slid to the right and jammed halfway open. The space beyond was near pitch dark.

It's thin. He thought. He raised his left knee up to his chest and brought his foot down on the door with all of his weight. The half that was exposed explosively broke free from its port, bending around the frame into the room. He ran through the opening and came to a standing halt 1 meter from the entrance just as his gun light came online. He swept the room with the bright white beam, exposing broken scanning and computer equipment, pieces of bodies and armor, shells from rifles and side-arms. One of the flood forms was slumped against the wall near the exit, but nothing stirred in that room.

Just then, shots rang out. Assault rifle fire from across the hall. Just as quickly as it started, it stopped. Hammer's voice came through the comm system.

"All clear! Situation under control!" He called.

A single loud blast, quickly followed by 2 more. Shotgun fire.

"Target neutralized! Moving on!" Boomer's voice came through.

Tom's room was clear. He moved to the exit door, moved through it, and encountered the body he'd shot earlier. A medic, badly injured through blunt trauma to critical areas of his body. He was stone dead.

Tom grabbed his tags and moved to the next door, sliding the tags into the pouch on his hip where the others were stored. Lights were on in this room, and the door was broken from the outside in, but this damage looked different. It almost looked like…

A breaching charge? Tom thought

He moved through the entrance, weapon ready. His IR overlay and gun light deactivated and his eyes instantly adjusted to the elevated light levels in the room. Nothing there. The scanners were smashed, and the computers damaged, like the other room. But somebody had repaired the interface systems for the computers.

What the hell? He thought to himself.

The screen was still activated, displaying results of the latest scans conducted in this room. He set a waypoint for his current location and began to move to the exit.

Click

The noise was ever so slight, but Tom heard it. He spun around, ready for anything. But nothing was there. Everything was just as he'd remembered it.

Wait, that computer just shut down.

The screens in the room went dark. But no one was operating them.

That was done by an A.I. The thought was sudden, but something within him told him that it was true. There was an A.I. onboard; it was watching their every move. But it wasn't Phoenix. It couldn't be.

Or could it…?

No time. Gotta move. The thought rang out like a shot in his mind, and he turned and moved through the exit, back into the dark hallway back to his squad.

"You're late." Psycho said, a slight hint of mockery in his voice.

"I'll explain later. Move to the RV. WE'RE late." Came Tom's response.

They formed up around Psycho and moved out into the hall, where they found Dragon already practically making themselves at home.

"Never known Spartans to be late." Hammer teased.

A few crack-ups from the Marines.

"Delta, take Dragon's medic and find a way to fix our injured."

Green lights as they walked towards the Trauma/Operations section with Dragon's wounded and their medic, who still carried Tommy.

Tom turned back to Hammer.

"I assume the research labs are secure?" Tom asked.

"Affirmative, but something weird happened in there."

His interest piqued.

"Weird, how?"

"We encountered a single Flood form, blood, guts, and guns scattered around, but we also found a single active computer, with data displayed on it. It looked like some kind of DNA manipulation research or something. When I went to check it out, the computer just died. Not from damage though. It was like someone just turned the damn thing off when I got too close."

"Same thing happened with me. I found an active computer in one of the scanning rooms. When I set a waypoint and turned to leave, it shut off. From what I could tell, it looked like they were monitoring DNA mutations and calculating the physical effects of those mutations."

"Why would ONI be interested in DNA mutation?"

"Judging by the unusual size, strength, and seeming intelligence of the Flood, my squad and I suspect that ONI is manufacturing Flood forms with Spartan enhancements."

"What, you mean these Flood things are just bigger, badder, and more zombie-like versions of YOU guys?"

"You got it."

Hammer stood in shock.

"That's fucked up, man. Real fucked up." He mumbled.

"Shake it off trooper. We're still standing, and now we have some quiet. Let's patch our guys up and move to secure-"

He was cut off by screams. Flood screams. And lots of them.

"Doc, stay here and guard Tommy! The rest of you, on me! Hold this location!" Tom called over the comm.

Boots thundered as the assault group ran to the Pavilion, weapons hot. They ran out into the room and Tom threw up a fist. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks.

"What is it?" Hammer asked, voice full of anxiety.

"Silence on deck." Tom said. Everything went silent, and Tom's ears strained for any sign as to wear the danger was coming from. A scream from the halls on their right, through the functional door.

"Secure the hall! Move!" Tom ordered.

They stacked up on the door, weapons on their shoulders, Delta on the right and Dragon on the left.

"Breaching!" Tom yelled.

The door opened as they poured through into the hall, their gun lights active. Whatever was coming, it wasn't anywhere to be found.

What's that? Tom thought.

His light shone on something distorted. It looked like…

A Spartan?

"Targets sighted!" Dragon 3 yelled.

They raised their weapons to a pair of figures running down the hall. But they didn't show up on Tom's motion tracker.

What the hell are they?

While his tracker didn't pick up the figures, it did pick up the hoard of Flood behind them. Before he could fire, the 2 figures dived, rolled, and turned to engage the targets as 2 more of them appeared out of thin air as they moved around the corner. They opened fire, a whole array of weapons firing down the hall. The Flood began to fall.

Something exploded. A bulkhead down the hall. 2 more figures came flying out of the wall, one holding a knife, the other holding a Covenant Energy Sword.

The 4 in front stopped firing as the other 2 shredded the final few targets.

A short pause. The 4 in front reloaded and turned to face the assault group. One of the figures reached up to his helmet and twisted it to the right, breaking his armor's seal. He took it off and glanced over his shoulder at the others behind him, who followed suit. A redheaded boy stepped forward, crossing his arms and bearing a fierce smile, his eyes boring through Tom's visor.

"Oh, look. Spartan IIs. More pests. Great."