A/N: I just heard a story on the radio about fan fiction and copyright laws. I do hope that the site doesn't get shut down.
But I digress. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.
Ancillary Attaché
Quin heard. The sensation was completely new. It was . . . it was exquisite. There was nothing like it, for as the blind man describes sight, so too does the deaf man describe sound. It is completely new, and completely indescribable. The voice was nothing expected. It was cool as the rushing water, as vibrant as the autumn trees. The voice was alive.
A new voice intruded upon his ears. "And who are you?" Like the first, it was gentle, almost feminine, but the new voice was a little more weary, and held a certain tone of incredulity that the calm first voice had not. Quin saw Brady's green Venator helmet move in sync with the words.
The first voice responded from the shadows. How Quin knew it was from that area, he knew not, but as he peered into the shadows in the corner, Quin saw movement. It was an orb of burnished steel. It bobbed with the rhythm of its voice. "I am 862 Fractured Dream. I watched as [Lucifer fell from the heavens]. I have kept him chained [with a crown of thorns]. Sadly, my duty could not be completed, for [the meddlers] came and locked me away here so that they could unleash [a devil to fight a demon]."
Some of the words from the voice were distorted and pulled on strains of Quin's memory against his will, almost as though the orb had pulled the words from his head. As it floated closer, Quin recognised it as a Monitor, similar to 343 Guilty Spark, whom he had seen in multiple videos. The only differences that Quin could see were in the "eye". Fractured Dream's "eye" was light pink and ruddy orange and faint lilac all at once. Fractured Dream was the colour of dawn, while Guilty Spark's "eye" had only been blue. When Quin's Deadeye helmet zoomed in on Fractured Dream, Quin saw that the symbol was quite different. A line bisecting two concentric circles, equilateral triangle superimposing the centre.
A question filled Quin's mind, and for the first time, he heard his voice. His helmet barely distorted the cautious, gentle tones that reminded him of the first steps of an infant. "How . . . how am I hearing this?"
Fractured Dream responded, "I have hacked into the [wetware] embedded in your armour." Quin felt that abrasive tugging on his mind again as Fractured Dream continued, "I understand that you do not wish to hear, but I am afraid that I cannot use your hand signals, Reclaimer. It is a curious method of communication. I am not quite sure why you would not wish to be able to hear all of the time.
"But I am but a lowly Monitor. It is not my duty to question Reclaimers such as yourselves. Now come. We must escape my prison, for time is short, and the duties of controlling [Requiem] are many."
Yet another voice impeded upon Quin's senses. This one was deep, gruff, not like the softer voices of Fractured Dream and Brady or the cautious tone his own voice used. Kahn's E.O.D. helmet bobbed as he said, "When you hacked my armour in the airlock, you promised that you would tell us if Glassman was taken here."
"He was not. This research station became my prison. [The meddlers] have a far loftier goal for your doctor. They are brutes, but they are cunning. They would not simply chain one so useful as a Reclaimer. No. He will work for them . . . or he will be executed."
Fractured Dream then turned and floated down the hall from which the SPARTANs had come. The halls were still clear because, "No one wishes to guard [an ancilla] that is segregated from its installation. With the uncertainties of the ocean keeping me from being found by Reclaimers, a [skeleton crew] was all that [the meddlers] needed."
Once at the airlock, Fractured Dream shot a blue bolt of light at the door. It unlocked and Fractured Dream immediately floated into the water. Quin hoped it was waterproof. Kahn leapt after it, landing feet-first in the water. The others followed suit and began swimming through the water and out of the airlock. Fractured Dream went forward until it was well out of the well-lit Forerunner research station. Five SPARTANs followed closely behind.
After leaving the brilliance of the underwater prison, Fractured Dream floated directly up. Although their armour was heavy, the SPARTANs followed. Eventually, light began to filter through to the inky water surrounding the group.
They broke the surface, and Brady extricated the disk from the carry case on her leg. She depressed the button and a red blinking light appeared. A voice crackled on, sounding horribly staticky, even to Quin. The transmitter was probably of a very poor quality, but it got the message across. "Hello Nebula! This is Roland, and I will be your captain for today. Please, sit back and enjoy the-"
Another voice interrupted Roland's. "Piss off, Roland. I'm captain, and Nebula's not done yet. I don't know what they did down there, but a gun encampment just . . . appeared while they were down there looking for Glassman."
Kahn nearly shouted in that really gruff voice of his to be heard over Captain Lasky and the crashing of breakers. "Whom we didn't find!"
Lasky continued through the static. "So I will need you to destroy the encampment before I can have you picked up."
Roland finished the conversation. "The energy readings match Forerunner anti-air units, so be careful. Good luck."
The transmitter fell silent and Brady put it away before asking, "So, does anyone know where this gun encampment is?"
Fractured Dream turned and responded, "Energy readings suggest that it is in this direction. Please, follow me."
Three minutes. That was how long it took to get to a small island with a tower standing proudly in the centre. Five metal structures with empty lateral lines floated around the top of the tower, each one the point of a star. The structures pulled back and then sprung forward, bright orange hard-light bolts pulsing along the middle and firing into the empty air, probably at the Infinity.
"Only Promethean Knights and Reclaimers may enable or disable [Requiem's] defences. Each one must be turned off using a control panel connected to the gun. There will certainly be defences around the guns that must be turned off. I will aid in what way I can."
As Quin climbed onto the island, a group of Crawlers materialised. Even as he moved to pull the Beam Rifle off of his back, plasma swarmed the Crawlers, decimating the entire pack. Pearlman, Reynolds, and Kahn moved forward to scavenge weapons off of the defeated A.I. Kahn came back with a suppressor, while Pearlman and Reynolds each dual-wielded boltshots.
Five SPARTANs and a Monitor made quick work of the Crawlers filling the first floor of the tower. The second floor, however, was far more challenging.
Quin swept the second story with his beam rifle as he led the way up the steps. A stark metal hallway and austere lighting. Suddenly, a blueish orb appeared, and a Knight warped out of it. The Knight wore a hard-light headdress, marking it as a Battlewagon. Quin leveled his gun and smoothly pulled the trigger. Blue light flared, but the Knight's shields didn't break. Instead, it bent down and opened its back. The flaps on its back shifted open and flipped open. Bloody orange light spilled out, and a Watcher with orange rings for wings rose out.
Quin watched with fascinated revulsion, unable to shoot. But as the Watcher began to fly toward the group, Quin realigned his beam rifle and plugged the Watcher like a clay pigeon. It broke before it could do any harm. Sadly, it also emptied Quin's beam rifle.
Luckily, Fractured Dream's eye laser was more than enough to kill the weakened Knight. Quin walked over and grabbed its scattershot. It would have to do for now.
The group moved forward, toward the steps at the far end of the hall. A group of Crawlers descended from shadowy alcoves, and a Knight Lancer accompanied them, teleporting in. Quin stood back and watched as Pearlman and Reynolds started pegging Crawlers. Suddenly, the Knight drew its sword arm back and bent down low, as though it was going to sprint towards the group.
It dashed zigzag towards Quin, almost teleporting from point to point. It swung, and Quin backpedalled, firing wildly. The Knight dissolved after two shots. Quin stepped over the body and blew a Crawler away, when, all of a sudden, a beam of hard-light bounced between his legs. Quin looked up in time to see Reynolds shoot the Crawler Snipe. Quin nodded his thanks, picked up the binary rifle, and tossed the scattershot to Reynolds. He caught it, turned, and shot, killing the Crawler Prime that was jumping at him.
Another few minutes of furiously fighting the Crawlers and occasional Knight led the group to the third floor. They were met by a group of Watchers, who proceeded to bring turrets online and summon Crawlers out of the ground. Kahn shouted, "I got this!" and tossed three grenades into the general area: one fragmentation grenade and two pulse grenades.
The lead Watcher caught the fragmentation grenade and was beaned by the first pulse grenade. This caused it to drop the fragmentation grenade into a pack of Crawlers. The pulse grenade detonated in midair, taking out a few Watchers and allowing the third grenade to sail into a turret surrounded by Crawlers. That grenade and the fragmentation grenade blew up, decimating quite a few enemies.
Brady jumped into the confusion and proceeded to stab several Crawlers to death with her combat knife. She even leapt into the air and jammed her knife into one of the few remaining Watchers before the rest of Nebula could come and help.
Quin stood back and let the others have their fun so that he could save precious ammunition. Once the hallway was clear, Reynolds led Brady, Pearlman, Kahn, Fractured Dream, and Kahn up their last set of stairs, onto the roof. It was empty except for a Forerunner console in the exact middle. The five guns floated several metres away from the roof, well out of arm's reach.
"Please, give me a minute. I will need to bypass the security so that you can turn the guns off." Fractured Dream floated over to the console and zapped it with a blue spark. The machinery hummed and floating buttons appeared on the edges of the building. Quin rushed to the nearest one and depressed it. The gun dissolved into drifting petals of hard-light. Quin saw the others pushing their own buttons and turning off their own anti-air guns.
A motion caught his eye. A Knight Battlewagon had just teleported in. Quin turned, aiming his binary rifle, but it was too late. The Knight's inineration cannon flashed and a globule of hard-light flew towards Fractured Dream, who was still floating over the central console, muttering, "Oh. That is not good. I had no idea that that was happening."
With a resounding boom, the incineration cannon's projectile detonated on Fractured Dream, sending smaller concussive blasts bouncing around. Fractured Dream whirled around, metal casing beginning to break. Its eye glowed, and a beam of energy shot out at the Knight. The Knight dodged left and Quin pulled the trigger on his binary rifle. It would have been a clean headshot if Knights had real heads. As it was, the Knight's shields broke and Quin was stuck reloading his binary rifle.
The Knight's incineration cannon finished cooling and it fired again just before Quin pegged it with his binary rifle. Even as the Knight Battlewagon disintegrated, Quin tracked the explosive hard light. It slammed into the already damaged Fractured Dream, who started to disintegrate into flakes of hard-light. Quin's hearing shut down and he was covered in blessed silence.
A minute later, a Pelican touched down on the roof with an open ramp. Quin watched as Reynolds signed, /Stephenson says, 'Excellent job, Nebula. It's a pity that Glassman wasn't there, but you can't help that. I'll see you on Infinity,\ to him.
As the Pelican lifted off and out of the fight, Edward was grateful that he couldn't hear anymore. It was wonderful, but it was too much, and the UNSC Infinity would be even louder.
A/N: Sorry for leaving everyone on a sort-of cliffhanger, but I had a bit of writer's block.
As always, please tell me how I am writing so that I can improve said writing.