Chapter 21: An Old Enemy Returns

Unknown Location
Codenamed "Epitaph"

In the space of an eye blink, Lynn realized that she was not in the Keyship anymore. As she looked around, she realized that she was standing in the midst of a massive, beautiful cathedral. She had archive photos of such structures, and had seen at least one while she was exploring that abandoned city on Earth. However, the architecture was undoubtedly Forerunner, and the massive shimmering windows were flowing lines of blue text instead of stained glass, but that did not make it any less spectacular. Distracted by the magnificence of the building around her, Lynn temporarily forgot about her predicament.

That is, until the buzzing sound returned.

Unknown Location
Codenamed "Narrows"

"Where the heck are we?" Sanah blinked, looking around.

"I thought you would know." John remarked. "You're the android with all the electronic goodies built in."

"Well, there's nothing for me to compare our relative position to." Sanah explained, panic starting to creep into her artificial voice modulator. "The best I can say is that we're somewhere on the Ark."

"It's nothing I haven't dealt with before." John glanced out across their position. They were located in the midst of a massive, multi-tiered bridge that bridged what seemed like a bottomless crevice. The whole thing reminded John about his time on that Halo ring. He knew it happened at least two centuries ago, but it felt as if it were literally yesterday that he was fighting for his life in the hellish Forerunner complexes dotting the ring.

"Amazing." Sanah's eyes clicked as she recorded everything she saw. "I knew that the Forerunner were masters of engineering, but I've never seen anything on this scale. They've literally built an artificial planet in what's effectively the middle of nowhere."

"Trust me, it'll get old fast." John armed his rifle.

"Expecting trouble?" Sanah asked.

"I always do, and I'm usually never disappointed." John said sagely.

"Uh oh." Sanah's eyes lit up. "My sensors are detecting movement."

"And that would be our trouble." John sighed.

Keyship

"What do you mean you can't find them?!" Kyle yelled at Silent Caretaker for the millionth time.

"Like I said before, I had been locked out of the teleport functions in the duration your companion had been operating it. I have been and currently am not able to retrieve the exact coordinates your compatriots were transported to."

"And we have no time to go look for them." Ackerson stepped forward. "If you haven't forgotten already, our fleets are currently openly engaged with the Covenant. If we don't seize control of the Forerunner defense network now, all this would have been for nothing."

Kyle seethed but stayed silent. He knew that this one time, Ackerson was right. There was no way they could waste time looking for Lynn or the others, but part of him refused to believe that.

"Kyle…" Kay put a hand on Kyle's shoulder. "You've got to calm down."

"I know, I know." Kyle sighed and glared at Ackerson. "Alright, we'll come along with you."

"I'm sure you will." Ackerson said. "You may not believe me, but I am genuinely worried about Lynn's safety as well."

"Bullshit." Kyle snapped.

"Sergeant Fokker, make sure that the Monitor takes us to the Ark's control center." Ackerson said, glaring at Kyle. "It appears that I must have a few words in private with Mr. Carter here."

Narrows

With the unknown contacts still coming ever closer, both John and Sanah decided it would be a good time to get off the bridge. It was an incredibly long span, but the android and SPARTAN both had more than enough stamina to cover the distance. As they neared the north end of the bridge, they noticed something odd jutting out from the side. John and Sanah moved closer to investigate.

"It looks like a ship." John observed. "A human ship."

"That can't be right!" Sanah gasped, taking a closer look. "There's no way that-"

But the ship was definitely made by humans. The hard, straight surfaces and rough exterior of the ship's remains clashed violently with the smooth and graceful lines of the Forerunner architecture surrounding it. It looked as if the ship had crashed into the north side of the crevice, plowing through the rock and earth and straight into the bridge. Unfortunately, the ship was at least the size of a small corvette, so its massive bulk blocked the northern end of the bridge.

"It looks like we'll have to go the other way." John remarked.

"Wait." Sanah's eyes clicked as they zoomed in on the remains of the ship. "There's something about this wreck…"

Sanah used her enhanced servos to leap onto the top of the wreck and carefully examined the hull. The ship had fallen over onto its side, and Sanah was hoping to find some kind of distinguishing marker, a serial number, or even better, a name. However, the hull was scorched and torn up from the rigors of atmospheric reentry. Unable to find what she wanted, she ran to the nearest access hatch and tore it open with her enhanced strength.

"We don't have much time." John growled, climbing up to the hatch.

"This won't take long." Sanah said, her memory banks whining as she tried to dig up a piece of long forgotten data. If her suspicions were correct…

"We've got five minutes at the most." John warned.

Sanah nodded and leapt into the hatch. Inside, since the ship was on its side, everything was thrown and tossed around in a huge mess. A normal person would have been incredibly disoriented and confused at the unfamiliar layout, but Sanah was quickly able to adjust her movements and compensated. She deftly maneuvered her way towards the ship's bridge. Since the ship's reactor had long since gone cold, she didn't even bother trying to hack any of the closed doors. She merely pulled them off their frames and continued onwards. All the while, she was scanning the ship's superstructure as she passed, checking it against her stored memories. As each picture began to match, her suspicions soon began to slowly confirm themselves.

However, Sanah never even needed to reach the bridge to reach her conclusion. Thirty meters into the wreck, and she found one little piece of evidence that definitively solved the mystery of the identity of the anonymous ship. She knelt down and picked up a small holoprojector. The image it projected flickered and had terrible resolution due to age and its fading battery, but one look at the photo and a quick comparison to the archived ones stored in Sanah's memory told the android all she needed to know. The ship she was standing in was the long lost Weatherlight. The proof Sanah needed was the ancient photograph. There was no denying it. Her facial recognition programs were showing a near perfect match.

The picture was of a baby Lynn and her parents.

"But… how?" Sanah asked herself, trying to connect the dots.

"Sanah!" John yelled. "We have to go, now!"

Epitaph

Lynn clutched her head in pain as the buzzing grew louder to the point of severe discomfort. She suddenly realized that the buzzing wasn't just something wrong with her. Rather, it was someone, or something, trying to probe her mind. Furious that somebody had been trying to manipulate her this entire time, she retaliated with her own psychic probe, but instantly regretted it.

Most other beings she met had relatively simple minds. Reading them was like reading book; they were all different, with varying sizes, complexity, and depth. However, this mind was unlike anything Lynn had experienced before. It was simply massive, beyond all comprehension. Lynn couldn't even begin to describe in words the terrible things she saw and felt and instinctively trembled in fear, falling to her knees. Tears rolled down her face as the entire weight of this malevolent consciousness began to press down her like an ocean wave crashing down on the shore. What made it worse was when the consciousness finally noticed her.

"I. See. You."

Panicking, Lynn withdrew her psychic probe and shut her mind in an attempt to hide her presence from the unseen horror. She successfully managed to lock the creature out, but she knew it was still there, prowling the edges of her mind, quietly whispering to her in its hellish voice.

"Foolish creature of flesh and bone. What do you hope to achieve against a being of perfection?"

"W-what are you?" Lynn whispered. Terrified at the thought that she was no longer in control of the unseen realm she had been born in.

"I? I am a monument to all your sins." The voice chuckled.

Lynn realized that Gravemind, she didn't know how she knew its name, was attempting to distract her. She whipped around to see a mass of small, fleshy creatures swarming from the walls of the cathedral.

"Join us." Gravemind said soothingly. "We are peace. We are stability. We are… perfection."

Narrows

By the time Sanah clambered out of Weatherlight's hatch John was already firing at an unseen enemy. Sanah scanned the bridge ahead and saw it was infested with the same Flood creatures they had encountered on the Pillar of Autumn. There was literally almost a sea of them swarming across, and both Sanah and John knew that just the two of them would never be able to hold off such a massive wave.

"Is there any way out of here?" Sanah asked, adding her fire to John's.

"Only one." John pointed to the other side of the bridge.

"H-how are we supposed to get all the way over there?" Sanah gasped. "We've got all those things in between."

"We use that." John pointed to the lower level, where there was a glowing fountain of blue energy flowing outward towards the other end of the crevice.

"What is it?"

"A teleporter, hopefully." John shrugged. "Looks similar to the ones I've seen on Halo."

"Better than nothing." Sanah jumped down, spraying the oncoming hordes of Flood forms with her rail rifle. Quite a number of them managed to cling onto her and unsuccessfully attempted to infect her. Fortunately, being an android, she was immune to such attacks and merely brushed them off.

John, on the other hand, was a different matter. Though his shields and armor provided superior protection, he was still vulnerable due to being an organic being. He was more wary of infection forms that attempted to swarm him and made liberal use of the frag grenades he had. It wasn't long before they managed to wade their way through the forms and to the teleporter.

"Wait." Sanah narrowed her eyes. "Something tells me this isn't a teleporter…"

To test her theory, she grabbed an infection form that was crawling around on her shoulder and tossed it onto the blue energy stream. The infection form was literally catapulted across the length of the crevice, landing on the other end of the bridge.

"What. The. Hell." Sanah blinked. Why in the world would the Forerunner engineer such a hairbrained transportation system?

"Better than nothing." John said, echoing Sanah's previous sentiment. He dropped a frag grenade into the energy catapult, which flung the explosive to the far side of the bridge, temporarily clearing the opposite end of infection forms. He then promptly leapt onto the catapult himself. Suddenly, John felt weightless as he was flung through the air. He resisted the urge to look down and prepped for landing, performing a perfect roll to absorb the shock. He instantly recovered and began pouring fire into the flood forms around him.

"Why me…" Sanah sighed and followed suit. Her landing was a bit harder due to her sheer weight, but her superb engineering made up for this fact.

"Almost there." John pushed through the nearest wave of infection forms and was nearly at the door when he saw larger figures shambling toward him. Flood combat forms charged forward, swinging their arms wildly. John backed off mowing down several combat forms. One managed to get close enough for melee range and bashed its arms against John's chest. His shields and armor took the brunt of the force. John then grabbed the combat form by the head and tossed it into the catapult, sending it flying through the air.

Sanah contributed John's hail of gunfire with her own. However, she looked over and saw a small group of abnormally bulbous combat forms waddling their way towards John's flank. Her rifle clip was empty, and with quick calculation, she realized that she wouldn't have time to reload.

"Watch out!" Sanah sprinted forward toward the combat forms. She clenched her mechanical fist and literally punched the head off one of the combat forms.

"Wait, no!" John yelled, but it was too late.

The shock of Sanah's blow as enough to trigger the volatile chemicals and explosives stored inside the Flood carrier form. The resulting explosion triggered a violent chain reaction with the other carrier forms, creating enough force to knock John down and clear the entire deck of Flood. When he got up and looked around, he couldn't find Sanah, at least any intact part of her.

"Well, this is… inconvenient."

John looked over to see Sanah, or at least what was left of her, lying on the ground. The force of the blast had literally sheared her mechanical body in half, leaving only the top half, her head, and her right arm still attached together and in recognizable form. Cables, hydraulic lines, and circuit boards jutted out from the parts of her body that were torn open and exposed. However, her head, and by extension, her memory core was still intact, which was really all that mattered.

"Well, how are we going to get out of here now?" John asked. He could hear the Flood coming, since they would have regrouped by now. He glanced at the remains of Sanah's body and figured that he would be able to carry it, but it would be too heavy and cumbersome to outrun the Flood.

"Um, I'm an android, remember?" Sanah pointed to the back of her neck with her remaining arm. "There's a switch back there that ejects my emergency preservation pack. It should be compatible with your armor."

John reached down and pulled the data crystal out of Sanah's neck. Almost instantly, her eyes went blank and her body went limp. John then inserted the crystal into the back of his neck, straight into his brain implants that allowed him to directly interface with Cortana all those years ago.

"Huh, it's much roomier in here than I thought it was." Sanah mused, her voice bouncing around in John's head. It actually felt soothing, and very familiar, as if Cortana was back in his head. However, Sanah, like all AI, was still very much different. She lacked Cortana's self-confidence and seemed to be more cautious when probing around John's head.

"Don't worry." John said. "I don't bite. Much."

"Sorry." Sanah said, slightly embarrassed. "I never really did directly interface with a person before. It's very… enlightening."

The sounds of inhuman shrieking and screaming reminded John that this area was no longer safe.

"Sensors are picking up contacts. A lot of contacts." Sanah warned.

"Just tell me where to go." John said, his spirits now higher than they were a few minutes ago.

Keyship

"We have arrived at the control center." Silent Caretaker announced. "It's directly below us."

"Good." Ackerson nodded. "Can you teleport us down there?"

"Yes, I have repaired the teleportation systems." Silent Caretaker's eye flickered. "That's odd, I seem to be receiving no communication from any units in the control center."

"Can it be there's nothing there?" Kyle asked.

"Impossible." Silent Caretaker snapped. "There should always be at least one Monitor and force of Sentinels present at any one time. Also, there appears to be some form of interference that is rendering the teleportation grid inoperable. I cannot teleport you directly inside, so you'll have to make your way in from the outside.

"That'll do." Ackerson armed his rail rifle. "I want four squads with me!."

"Got room for one more?" Kyle stepped forward.

"That depends. Are you here, soldier?" Ackerson said, eyeing Kyle carefully.

"Last I checked."

"Good, because if you break down in the middle of a firefight and I'll be the first to put a round in your head." Ackerson growled.

"And I'd gladly return the favor." Kyle retorted.

"Perhaps… this wasn't such a good idea after all." Silent Caretaker observed.

"Shut up!" Kyle and Ackerson said at the same time.

Control Center

The control center seemed like a cold and forbidding structure, towering above the surrounding landscape like the keep of an ancient medieval castle. The small strike team could only stare in awe at the majesty of the structure until Ackerson snapped them all out of it.

"Minds on the mission, people." Ackerson reminded them.

It wasn't long before they entered the tower itself. Kyle noted that it was eerily quiet, except for the distant hum of Forerunner machinery. In front of them lay what seemed like an overly-long walkway, suspended over what seemed like an endless abyss that led to an elaborate looking control console at the very end, illuminated by a massive window.

"That's the target." Ackerson pointed. "Let's move forward. Squad Four will hold position and secure the door."

The Marines pushed forward, making their way across the walkway with ease. However, most of them were nervous. Here they were, at the heart of the entire Ark, yet they did not run into even a single security measure. Where did everything go?

Then they were quickly answered.

The first clue that something was wrong was when one of the Marines at the rear of the formation yelled in surprise and started firing wildly, accompanied with a frenzied warning from Squad Four. The entire assault team turned around, and half of them wished they hadn't. Behind them, crawling up the walls and onto the walkway were countless small, fleshy creatures. Though they were small, there were easily thousands of them swarming around.

"Weapons free to fire!" Ackerson yelled, arming his rail rifle. "Fire at will!"

The Marine's didn't need orders to fire. They unloaded the full fury of their automatic weapons, and if the number of casualties decided battles, they most assuredly would have won that battle several times over. However, the Flood had little concern over losses. Their single-minded drive to assimilate and evolve effectively made them immune to low morale. Plus their numbers were so great that you could easily kill a hundred of them with a single clip of a rail rifle, and the gap in their numbers would instantly be refilled in the time it took to reload.

"Ackerson! There's no way we can hold this position!" Kyle yelled.

Ackerson didn't like it, but he knew that Kyle was right. He was both intrigued and frightened by this new threat, but his self-preservation instincts prevailed and he activated his radio. "All troops, fall back!"

"Caretaker!" Kyle yelled through his radio. "We need extraction! Right now!"

"Like before, you must be outside the structure in order to do so, due to the interference." Caretaker explained. "The stress levels in your voice suggest a massive threat. May I ask what it is?"

Kyle activated the battle recorder in his helmet and transmitted the feed directly to Caretaker.

"Oh my." Caretaker gasped. "Oh my."

"It's bad, isn't it?"

"Beyond all comprehension. Quarantine has been broken, and now even the Ark is compromised." Caretaker sighed. "Drastic measures must be taken."

"We'll worry about that later!" At this point, what was left of the strike force had made it to the door. "Get us out of here!"

With a sudden flash, the Marines found themselves back on the deck of the Keyship.

"Get us a headcount!" Ackerson yelled.

After a quick roll call, Ackerson realized that eight men didn't answer. He cursed and turned to Kyle.

"What the hell were those things?"

"I have no idea either." Kyle shrugged, content with the half-truth he told Ackerson.

"This is an incredibly serious matter." Silent Caretaker said as he floated in, followed by Kay and a team of medics. "I'm afraid you must all submit to thorough bio-scans, in order to confirm none of you are carrying the infection."

"You knew what we were dealing with, didn't you?" Ackerson asked suspiciously.

"The existence of the Flood is no secret." Silent Caretaker retorted. "But their existence on the Ark itself is a disturbing revelation."

"I saw the recorder footage." Kay whispered to Kyle. "Aren't those the same things that infested the Autumn?"

"The exact same things." Kyle confirmed.

"What the hell did we get ourselves into?" Kay sighed.

Kyle had no answers to that question.

Epitaph

Lynn couldn't remember a time where she had to fight while suppressing her own powers at the same time. However, it was a grim necessity to keep that terrible horror known a Gravemind from noticing her. She wasn't at all sure how the thing could even notice such a small, insignificant speck such as her, but she was determined to keep out of its sight, because words could not describe the feeling of dread and terror when it focused its attention on her.

This could not have happened at a worse time. Lynn was surrounded by those terrible little flood infection forms that had so terrified her on Pillar of Autumn. In hindsight, it seemed like a silly and petty fear. The infection forms' need to feed and evolve paled in comparison to the sheer absolute terror of Gravemind's will. However, the self-imposed restraint on the use of her own powers meant Lynn was fighting at a disadvantage. For a telepath like herself to fight without psychic powers as like a sniper trying to shoot blindfolded, or a swordsman trying to swing a sword without arms. Lynn felt half blind and deaf, and there so many Flood forms around her.

"Stay away!" Lynn squealed. She instinctively reached out with her mind and shoved the Flood forms away. Unfortunately, she realized too late that this was exactly what Gravemind wanted. With her mind opened again, Lynn felt the full weight of Gravemind's consciousness bearing down on her, an experience that would make any living being go mad, Lynn included.

"I am a timeless chorus." Gravemind whispered into her mind. "Join your voice with mine, and sing victory everlasting."

The sheer weight and power behind Gravemind's words almost compelled Lynn to give in to the temptation. For one brief second, Lynn became part of the Gravemind, and marveled at its majesty and scale. However, a small piece inside her reacted with unimaginable revulsion and instinctively rejected Gravemind for everything it was. It was enough for Lynn to come back to her sense and cut the link again. However, before everything fell silent, Gravemind managed to utter a final line.

"Now the gate has been unlatched, headstones pushed aside, corpses shift and offer room; a fate you must abide!"The terrible being cackled.

Lynn suddenly felt tired and collapsed to her knees. To the side of the room, she caught sight of a massive, brutish combat form lumbering its way toward her. Lynn didn't do anything. She was too tired.

The combat form grabbed Lynn's throat with its massive arm and lifted her up from the ground, forcing her to look into its eyeless and mouthless face. The creature had more than enough strength to instantly snap Lynn's neck with a flick of its wrist, but that wasn't its objective. Instead, it slowly tightened its grip, squeezing the life out of Lynn little by little in an attempt to force her to use her powers again, but Lynn wasn't going to play by Gravemind's rules. She would rather die than be controlled by that horrid monstrosity. Her lungs burned and her brain screamed at her to try and breathe, but Lynn merely closed her eyes calmly. She could hear Gravemind's distant roars and screams of frustration and anger at the idea of its puppet refusing to bend to its will.

Suddenly, the combat form's head exploded, showering Lynn with a mixture of blood, pus, and ichor. The arm around her throat relaxed and she fell to the ground, coughing as air rushed back into her lungs. She looked up to see a pair of figures standing over her. They were clad in magnificent power armor, more graceful and advanced than anything she had ever seen and made her own armor look like a set of clunky medieval knight's in comparison. She couldn't tell who they were or what they wanted, but she knew that they were definitely not Exiles, but were definitely Human.

"This isn't a place for people like you to be playing around in." The lead figure said, helping Lynn to her feet. From the old, tired tone of his voice, Lynn could tell that he was an aged man who had seen far more than any single living being should have.

"Sorry, I'm just a little… lost…" Lynn sighed as she lost consciousness.

"What do we do with her, sir?" One of the other armored figures asked, his Sentinel laser armed in case the Flood decided to show up again.

"She's a lost soul, just like us." The leader mused. "Prep the teleport matrix. We're going to Valhalla."