Master Chief

Seated in the room that was given to him, Chief sat on a chair near the weapons locker as he cleaned his assault rifle and pistol. He had spoke with Cortana telling her about the conversation he had with Rachel and what had went on in the lab. Cocking the pistol he aimed it in front of him making sure it lined up properly.

" If what she says is true Chief, then we need to get down there and get the documents to prove it." Cortana said, putting on hand on her hip looking at him.

Chief nodded his head. " See what you can do about the firewalls. In the morning I'll check to see if she's ready to go down there." he said turning to leave.

Cortana raised a holographic eyebrow. " Waiting until she's ready, Chief?" Cortana questioned knowing full well that at something this important would have to be taken care of right away not when someone was ' ready ' for it, emotionally or mentally.

"She knows this place better than us, she'd be able to navigate it better." he said quickly explaining why he was waiting on her, and without another word exited the room.

Placing his pistol on the table he thought back to the look in Rachel's eyes when she spoke about the experiment's and what had gone on int he lab's. Chief could tell that it pained her to talk about it and relive those memories. Losing an entire team to something horrible such as experiments was unthinkable. Not to mention losing someone very important to you without having the chance to save them.

Chief knew what it was like, he understood. He had lost his entire time and he had lost her...

Kelly...

Standing in the mess hall, Chief was examining his weapons one last time before fastening them securely on his body. He had already put Cortana inside of his helmet and T.I.M was hovering in front of him oddly, not saying anything. It was quite annoying.

When Rachel entered the room Chief looked up to see her. Dressed in a regulation marine outfit she had a pistol at her hip an a battle rifle in her hands. They were still unsure of what remained down there and if there was the off chance that they were met with any resistance they would be prepared to fully defend themselves.

With a quick nod Rachel turned and headed down towards the lab, Chief following her slightly. As they walked through the long fluorescent hallway, Chief could feel themselves heading lower into the facility. He remembered that it was no easy feat to try and convince her to do this.

"No." she answered quickly staring at him.

Chief expected that. " We need to retrieve the information and the data on what happened on what they did." he tried to explain in his monotone voice.

"I don't care. You can go down there but I'm not going." she said crossing her arms.

"We need you down there, you know this place better than us and you can help us identify fallen soldier's." he said making a valid point.

"I'm not going back down there.." she said as she turned away from him, her hand hanging slightly. " I can't." she said finally, almost a whisper.

Chief understood, he knew why she wouldn't go. The last thing she wanted to see was her cut up teammates again and the piles of body pieces. He couldn't blame her. Stepping forward Chief placed a hand on her shoulder and was silent for a moment.

" It's not going to be easy but, don't you think you would be able to rest better knowing that your teammates, your fellow Spartans, receive a proper burial and recognition for their greatness and their strength rather then just rot away in some lab." he said trying to convince her. " You need to go down there, one last time. You need to make peace with it, with yourself. It will get rid of the nightmares, I promise." he said as his hand slid from her shoulder.

Her head turned quickly as she looked at him, her eyes narrowed. " How did you know I had nightmares?" she asked curiously.

" Because I went through the same thing once." he stated simply. " So, will you come?" he asked her.

Nodding her head slowly Chief returned it with a nod of his own and exited her room, glad that he finally convinced her.

Standing in front of the lab doors, Rachel approached the terminal in front of it. " I can get us access but I put up the fail safe firewalls and sealed it so that it wouldn't be open again." she explained.

"I've already taken care of the firewalls. Once you input the proper code it should allow us access." Cortana informed them.

Rachel nodded and turned back to the terminal. Inputting the correct codes the screen flashed green and the gears shifted. Finally, the metal door opened and Chief readied his pistol. Stepping in first he made sure the path was clear as she followed alongside him. The entryway was a long hallway and on either sides were windows that looked in on several different rooms that had different medical and scientific stations where research was conducted. Dry blood lined the walls as dead scientists littered the floor of the rooms and some in the hallway. No doubt from when Rachel and her comrade made their exit the last time she was here.

Pushing onwards, the hallway split off into different directions, but they kept to the middle one following Rachel's lead. Her steps were hesitant and Chief picked up on it, but as long as she didn't turn and leave he didn't mind taking it slow. Besides, it didn't look like there would be any kind of resistance.

The long hall finally opened up into a large room. Stopping suddenly when Rachel remained at the entrance Chief looked at her slowly. Her eyes were focused on the ground and she remained silent. Moving more into the room Chief took note of the tubes that lined the walls that had bodies in them, with missing limbs and parts on several of them. In the middle of the room was the body of another scientist, and by the looks of the bullet holes in her head it was the head scientist and the one that Rachel had killed. Luckily, Chief's suit had a ventilation system that filtered his air and he didn't go through the unpleasant experience of the smell that lingered in the room.

"There." Cortana said as Chief looked at a computer terminal beside the tubes. Walking over to it, he removed the chip from his helmet and placed it into the terminal. Cortana's holo appeared and she was silent as she sifted through the data banks and history of what happened here.

Chief took note of the piles of different body parts and the tables with different species that were hacked apart. It was as Rachel described. It was a grizzly sight to come upon and he was surprised at how mentally stable Rachel was after having gone through all this considering it affected her directly since it was her teammates who endured it all right under her nose.

At the sound of crinkling plastic, Chief brought his weapon up quick but soon lowered it when he saw Rachel standing beside a table in the corner. A light shone overhead as it revealed the decaying body of a man. There were many open pieces of his body and dried blood all around him. Another grueling sight that must have tore Rachel up inside.

Stopping himself, he mildly wondered why he was so concerned about what the Lieutenant was thinking or feeling at the moment. He never cared about others and their personal affairs so why now?

" Cheif," Cortana's voice rang pulling him from his own self assessment. " I've got access to all of the doctor's files. It says here that they were collecting different samples and using human test subjects to create the ultimate super soldier." she said summarizing the purpose of the experiments.

"Why create super soldier's when SPARTANS existed?" Chief questioned as he examined the pictures in front of him that Cortana pulled up on the screen.

"It says they were trying to create ones that couldn't die by modifying the DNA and body structure's of the SPARTAN III's. By modifying them they would already be dead but their brain would still function allowing them to fight and carry out orders, remaining husks that were technically dead but...still living." she said her voice trailing off.

Chief caught the hesitation in her words as he looked over at her. " Cortana?" he questioned. " How did they do this, what did they use?" he said slowly.

"They were using something alien, something deadly..a parasite." she said and Chief almost stiffened as he looked at her holo.

It was just the that there were sounds that seemed to echo around them. Chief held his weapon taught as he looked over at Rachel and motioned her over to him, checking the room carefully.

"What's wrong, what is it?" Rachel asked as she must've noticed his slow movements and how he had his weapon drawn.

"We need to get out of here, now!" he said anxiously as he looked at Rachel who held a confused look on her face. " There's no time explain, move!" he said in a commanding tone as she nodded. They both stopped suddenly as the scratching noise that he heard drew closer until finally a hatch broke and out poured small weird looking creatures that walked on many legs. "Shit." Chief said as he began shooting the popcorn looking parasite. Quickly grabbing the chip that was Cortana he inserted it back into his helemet.

One landed on the body of the Spartan who was on the table as it dug into its chest. Slowly, the body began to move and come to life. Standing with several open wounds and knives in its body it started towards them. Chief looked at it and glanced at Rachel who stood there frozen in shock.

"Kaiden..." he could hear her say as she took a step towards it. Chief quickly grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. " Let go of me!" she protested as she tried to break his grip.

"That's not the same person anymore, he's dead. " Chief tried to tell her as he pulled her back. " That's not him." he said more sternly as she looked up at him. He almost wanted to wince at the look in her eyes but she turned away, sadly accepting his words.

Raising his pistol he quickly fired off three shots to the head of the now abomination and it dropped to the ground. " Come on." he said as he pulled her to the exit and let go continuing to fire his weapon. He saw as she ran ahead and fired at the parasites as well. Some of the scientists seemingly came to life and he shot them dead, again. Pulling out whatever grenade's he had on his person he threw them into the various rooms as they ran down the long hallway. Sliding through the door at the end it sealed shut behind them just as the grenade's went off.

Rising to his feet he looked from the door to Rachel. She spared him one glance and then turned to walk away. Chief lowered his weapon as he looked back at the door. " Cortana?" he said.

"All of the lower chambers have been sealed off. There's no entryways to the upper levels. We're safe as long as we stay out of the lab or refrain from going into any of the lower levels." she informed him in which Chief just replied with a nod.

Standing in the comm room, Chief had his arms crossed over his chest as he examined the screens in front of him. Cortana had once again pulled up all the research documents and there were even some video's and pictures of the experiments. Chief hated seeing them but he needed to understand what happened here, why fine men and women were sacrificed.

" There's no way that a squad of SPARTANS could have been easily taken down by mere scientists." Chief said, confident in the strengths and abilities of his fellow SPARTANS.

" They had it all planned out. When the Spartan would enter the lab they would have someone inject them with a paralyzing agent that slowed the heart rate of the person and rendered their entire body useless for up to three hours. By the looks of the ingredients it was a very potent mixture." Cortana explained.

"These men and women were strong, skilled, smart.. how could they inject them so easily?" he wondered as he tried to place himself in that situation thinking of how he would react and how he wouldn't give them a single chance to do anything.

"Well there's mention of some causalities from those who lashed out but, as for how they did it well, they made them feel like they were safe, like they had nothing to worry about. Not to mention they weren't in their suits. They never saw it coming." Cortana said.

" They would never suspect an ally to do this, they were relaxed and unaware." Chief added, disgusted at what had happened. " And to top it all off they were experimenting with the flood." he said.

" There was a crashed ship that they found the parasite on. It was derelict according to their findings, dead. They brought it back here and did experiments on it. Brought it back to life, even mutated it." Cortana paused. " It's worse than any of the flood you've ever encountered...than I have." she said slowly allowing time for Chief to register just how serious a threat this was. " We have to destroy this base and more likely than not, this planet." she said seriously. " We can't let something like this get out, to either side. Rachel put a stop to it when she killed the scientists but all the data is still here and if someone else gets to it, or the mutated parasite get out... I don't think there will be anyway of stopping it." she said.

"Tell me what I need to do." Chief spoke finally, his arms lowered by his side. There was no way that he was going to let this get out. He saw what the Flood can do, what it causes. If they could end it here, he would do it.