CH25
XXXXX
The Crossing…
XXXXX
Date: 2560/3/22
Tristan Anchor Cluster- Everest Prime- Capital: Joto Rev
Aaron fired the intruder by a foot, his shooting was definitely off, being dulled on alcohol and lack of practice did tend to do that to someone who'd been in service for the ONI for a long time. The intruder ran across to the other side of the room as he fired again, this time he sobered up on adrenaline and hit the person.
To his surprise he watched as the figure dissipated into thin air, he knew then that he was in trouble, before he could turn around he was smashed in the jaw by the armoured fist of a helldiver, he hit the wooden floor of his room and felt blood drip off his bloodied lips. He spat on the ground and then before he could recover he was lifted up by the armoured figure.
"Well, well, well… look how the mighty have fallen…" The deep filtered voice of the helldiver stated duly.
He could see the face of the helldiver, the triangular face scratched with the face of a skull, it was intimidating for those who don't understand about what the UCAF Special Forces were. Ackerson laughed, at least in Aaron's part of his mind.
"You damn took your time…" He grinned.
The helldiver grabbed him by the throat and smashed him into the nearby holo-screen of his room, he coughed out and stated again.
"You didn't know and I didn't know, isn't that right? We were just pawns, just cards out for play."
But the helldiver growled out.
"Like the death of my uncle? You full fucking knew that Adrian got too close."
The tightening grip was making it hard for him to breath. He felt his lungs conserving oxygen, thank the UCAF for bio upgrades, he coughed out.
"Face… facts, you knew… about it before I-I could…"
"What do you mean?" Daniel grilled.
He coughed out a response; Daniel lessened the grip on his neck and received the response.
"Aaron is dead, he died years ago."
"You are Aaron, why the hell are you talking as if you don't know." He stated.
"Well that's what I'm trying to tell you, Aaron died in 2525, in the earliest days of the war, he was struck from records, and for me I can't recall any of his memories, only his stone dead personality." He replied.
"But how the hell did ONI remove his memories, only three organisations in the entire structure of the UCAF know how to do that and all of them haven't agreed with any joint operations with ONI, and they haven't intended to since the war." The helldiver perplexed.
"That's because they don't, the ONI have their own way of getting things cleared up, what the hell do you think Aaron was? He wasn't just an AI of a dead man, he was me cleared of any and all memories, that's why the UCAF gave him to the quarians, to monitor them unconsciously. He didn't know anything anymore, as for me; I'm just a clone, a worthless sack of meat that they made to substitute their last agent. You think they value me? Hell no, and none of them will ever need me again." He spat out in anger. "What the hell would you get out of me…Daniel?"
"I need answers." He replied.
"Answers? Ha what a fucking joke, you know as well as I do now, that there's no way I can answer you, those answers you're looking for don't exist in my head anymore, ONI removed them and shifted them over to a command cortex back at HIGH COM, there's no way either of us will get them now." Ackerson expressed.
"How about another way?" He asked.
"What?" Ackerson perplexed.
"If I could offer you a means to access old memories again, will you be willing to help us?" Daniel offered.
"You, have a means to access sealed memories? Ha, that's rich…" He stated sarcastically.
"Dammit Aaron snap the fuck out of your damned stupor and think what's your best chance? You've never wanted to be a hero or a champion of shit, yet you still get thrown in, what's the risk for you to take a personal chance?" Daniel asked.
Aaron did exactly as Daniel asked, even though he didn't want to his years of military training kicked in and with his ONI psych training he could tell that Daniel was right, what else would the great commander Shepard risk everything for? What could Daniel want, he wasn't a dishonest man, and he had his war and the commander was going to give him what he wanted…
"Fuck it all, fine." He shook his head.
"Good, also we need to get going, I'm sure ONI will have our heads soon enough." Daniel stated.
"I don't think that would be a safe assumption considering that ONI doesn't need me anymore, and I've said it before the neural card's been removed, they have no need for a person like me. And I do know that in the time we've been talking, another party has just joined." He stated in his normal tone.
"What?" Daniel stated in surprise.
"There's a third party not just you." He replied.
There was an explosion below that rocked the building. It was obvious that other party had just made their entrance, Daniel swore, his time had just run out, if what Aaron or Acker had just stated was right, then 'they' had just come. Daniel had heard the rumours of another organisation out in the galaxy just as dangerous as the ONI, but he never suspected that they'd try something on a UCAF world.
He grabbed Aaron and dragged him to a window while shouting orders.
"Daniel to Normandy, I've got the HVT, I need emergency extraction. We've got company on the ground." He shouted.
"Acknowledged commander, I'll send around the Wasp, you're going to have to join us though, our friends have started a panic in the streets below and the UCAF PDF had just been alerted along with every marine unit in range, you've got 5 minutes." Reona replied over the coms.
"Wait… how do you intend to get out?" Aaron asked.
"How do you think?" Shepard pointed his pistol at the window.
"Wait I've gotten a fear of open spaces for crying out loud." Aaron protested.
"Well if it's not fair I don't fucking care." Shepard mockingly smiled as he blasted the window open.
The air blasted into the apartment and they soon found themselves looking into the evening skies, outside thousands of massive sky scrapers and vast expanding facilities across the city that made up Joto Rev, in the background the vast mountain ranges and the various forts and ancient landmarks strewn across the landscape.
"Damn I knew I shouldn't have chosen this fucking place." Aaron shouted.
The high pitched whine of plasma cutters came from the front door to the apartment, thankfully the light rumble of the incoming getaway vehicle approached, Aaron was about to sigh in relief that they were soon to escape until he saw what came around. A sleek black jet bike sharp nosed in the front triangular curves and shapes that were designed to funnel attacks away from the driver and passenger, but the back wasn't plated it had 6 engines and a ton of heavy looking components that drove the monster of a bike.
"That's a MKIII jet bike, the decommissioned series of Wasp Assault VTOL Units, these were decommissioned over 20 years ago, why the hell do you have one?" Aaron exclaimed.
"Because I'm commander fucking Shepard, now get the hell on it!" Shepard using his augmented strength picked up and tossed Aaron over to the bike nearly making him fly over the jet bike.
At that moment the doors exploded as the third party came to find them, Shepard drew his M5D pistol and his M7V Sumiyaka; he hoped that the translation of the gun was right because he spent 250 credits having it engraved in iridium on the side of it. The M5 kicked back as it fired the 1 ounce projectile, his M7V followed up sending a torrent of precision 1.5 grams of ionised copper.
The first one he caught was a black suited turian; it wasn't mistakeable from the flipping helmet or the fact that the damned turians were skinnier at the waist and limbs, he could figure that this turian had come along when the UCAF granted travel, the damned council can't even screen whoever the hell they allow into the UCAF.
The next people to come through was another turian followed up by a salarian in full tech armour, his M7V spray didn't penetrate well, but it wounded the salarian and forced him to take cover while his buddy tried to blind fire. Shepard knew that he was running out of time, he tossed and grenade and jumped out the window.
He landed on his jet bike and kicked in the engines, he felt Aaron shout something but he couldn't hear as they accelerated forwards into the reddening skies. The apartment behind them exploded in a vibrant clash of gold and green, the UCAFs own plasma grenades were slowly in production and thank the engineers who made them. The grenades did some serious damage, as archaic as they were; they were still a vast improvement in UCAF technology.
As the jet bike weaved around the bustling traffic of the night, Aaron watched unable to break from his acute fear of open spaces of the oncoming traffic, but what scared him more than just a ride through traffic in the open skies of Joto Rev was the fact that a stream of gunfire narrowly missed them.
Aaron could see non-human vehicles pursuing them; he predicted about 6 on the back of the transports, 2 non-marked shuttles pursuing them as well, he could tell that the ones in the shuttles were better armed than the ones sitting on the back of the transport rigs, their heavy weapons were pretty good indicators to the danger that they presented.
Daniel banked the bike downwards into a corkscrew, the winds whipped by rather more than Aaron would have liked, which was none at all. He felt the gees on his face pulling the flesh back as they dived through multiple layers of oncoming traffic, they narrowly dodged 3 other vehicles as they dived, as for their pursuers, 1 of their transport rigs smashed into the oncoming traffic and exploded.
The jet bike ploughed through traffic, Aaron was cussing about what the hell they were doing, Shepard couldn't really reply as to what he was shouting about considering that the winds whipping around them cut off anything he was saying. As they took a sharp turn they swung into a traffic tunnel.
There were cars below and shuttles moving above, this complex of traffic made it rather difficult for anything larger than a bike to move around, thankfully theirs was the size of a bike, as they entered, their pursuers were caught in the tight traffic lanes, trying anything in here would undoubtedly cause an accident.
As they passed into the express tunnel, Daniel went on his coms.
"Normandy we're nearing extraction point, pick us up at the Taos Solar Dome!"
It was then that they heard a number of beeps and the sounds of crashing metal, as they approached the mess ahead; they found that somehow their tailer had found a short cut, and decided to play demolition derby with the large tanker that was supposed to be exiting. As the incoming vehicle smashed and splintered vehicles, Shepard turned the bike at maximum and flew them above the mess.
Then they came under fire once more, the time from a group stationed at an exit. These bastards were damned determined to kill them, and that was for sure. They twisted to avoid the spray of rounds and exited out of the express tunnel, back in the open air they found the Taos Dome, it was the largest sporting arena around and it was a monument to the city's sporting heritage.
When the sped towards the dome, Aaron noticed their pursuers had picked up the trail once more and were busy trying to catch up with them. Aaron asked over the hail of fire.
"Where the fuck is our pick up?"
"She's right here." Shepard replied.
In moments a shimmer distorting light appeared and dispersed before revealing a fully armed corvette, it was a UCAF Blackguard, it was a new line of stealth warships designed for UCAF scouting and recon missions and more specifically designed to strike out against the slavers in the surrounding regions of the UCAF designated colonies.
The corvette opened up laying down a hail of rail gun fire and lasers, the pursuing vehicles were ripped to metal shreds in seconds and Shepard flew the bike towards the open maw of the ship's hangar. Aaron was blinded as they entered the well-lit interior of the grey and black ship. The inside hangar was amazing completely covered in fresh platinum plating and iridium, just as he had read in the reports, the Blackguard was made for some comforts such as better lighting as well which really did help without having to squint half the time.
But aside from creature comforts the ship was still a warship and an advanced one at that, the commander dropped them onto a platform roughly the size of a tank; it was on an extended arm that reached over the main floor. As they got off, Aaron noticed a welcoming committee coming from a large lift on one side of the level they had landed on.
He could spot a few members of those who fought with him at the start, including the cyborg named Aegis, Eric Cear, Mitchel Sanders and Lazoroski, they were all here, and he did notice a few other members of the UCAF Helldivers that Shepard served with, Carol, Mikael, Leon, and Captain Matthew King. He couldn't imagine why Shepard would gather all members of the UCAF who were known war heroes here.
"Aaron I'd like you to meet my crew, and my crew I'm sure you've all been acquainted with our old friend here." Shepard asked.
There was a murmur of acknowledgements, Reona called over the coms.
"Shepard, please hurry up and get the former lieutenant to the science lab as soon as possible, I'd like to begin the neural recognition process before we hook him up to the quantum diffusion drives."
"Right up Reona, Aaron we've got little time, but I'm sure you'll be able to see plenty of people from here later, besides there's something we need to do before we get your memories back." Shepard explained to him as they headed to the lifts.
XXXXX
[The memory…]
Derek felt the wind knocked out of him as he landed into the melted snow behind the ramparts, the first line had already been penetrated and more of these covenant fuckers were dropping in all around him, the Spartans were the only ones holding the line now, and the covenant seemed to be slowing in reserves, but that didn't mean that the fight wasn't over yet.
He heard the sharp echo of further explosions as he tried to pick himself up, he only noticed that the melted snow wasn't just water, he fell into a ditch where a couple of poor bastards had been shredded by enemy plasma fire and had been blown to pieces. Their blood melted the snow that was around them.
It was then that he heard over the coms.
"The Titan rises, repeat all units prepare for emergency extraction, the Titan has arisen!"
Derek sure as hell didn't like the sound of the name that they had given for whatever it was that they were going to unleash, but it wasn't hard to miss the streak in the sky. Derek pulled himself to his feet and watched as the large object landed a hundred meters away. It crashed into the snow and sent everything flying in all directions, the covenant nearby stopped to see what had arrived, unfortunately for them that would be the last thing that they'd ever see.
The object stepped forwards from the crash point and groaned as all its joints moved the immense frame to face the enemy, it had one eye a golden visor and had black plates with yellow marked on certain pieces of its armour. It was a titan alright, one that was about to tip the scale of the battle. But what Derek noticed on its armour was the No-256, on the other side of it spelt REY.
He could tell that this was the Rey Project now fully functional, he couldn't believe that Haley would bring them into this fight. But the suit responded and opened up, in one swing of its arm it activated a large high calibre barrel and pointed it at the covenant, the covenant were about to respond, but they never got the chance.
The barrels span faster than they could aim, and then in a deafening sound the 30mm mini-gun released death from afar. The rippling light shot forwards in a gold coloured stream and spewed death at the covenant troops, a number of them were just obliterated there leaving a fine mist of blood in their place.
Derek was impressed the Rey units had done some serious damage, even with just one of them, but he was still rather unnerved that the doctor would ever begin using the Rey units especially when the units were so young. Derek however didn't have much of a choice to continue the fight; he received a broad communications call.
"All units fall back, Echo and Prima have been ordered to fall back and provide covering fire for all units, the MVF will provide cover for our retreat, and all Spartans have been ordered to withstand the next wave!" A call from the command ship stated.
Derek was surprised; the UCAF had ordered a recall of the forces? He was sure that the battle was theirs, but now that he thought about it, the security of the base was compromised along with probably the information that it held, the covenant would surely send someone to come and crack the ONIs knowledge.
But if that meant an evacuation, then there was a high chance that the plan was to scuttle the facility with Rey… He decided to turn away from the sacrificial soldier, he would not be missed. As he turned his attention he heard the sounds of a flight of gunships heading to pick up the marines on the ground, he activated his beacon and called over a pelican.
He soon found himself in a gunship with a group of marines, and a couple of medics, he seated himself next to the marines.
"Pilot where's the 22nd fleet?"
"The 22nd? The fleet's been scrapped, half of them have been scattered and the others have been gutted, there's nothing left of them." The pelican pilot replied over the intercom.
"Then where are we going?" Derek asked.
"The Levity, the ship's the only functioning frigate from the ONI that was left here, from what I've heard it's not supposed to be taking on evacuation duties, but the command made them go ahead with it before Admiral Howe kicked the shit out of their commander." The pilot cracked.
"That's good to know." He replied.
As they zipped through the field of debris now scattering the orbit of the planet, Derek hadn't noticed a single flash of light below on the surface of the world, it brightened for a moment before vanishing from sight. As the gunship flew towards the Levity the ships in the region began to disperse, the covenant vessels included.
The Pelican landed in the hangar bay of the Levity without much hassle, a few wounded were dragged off to the infirmary as they landed, and Derek was greeted by the sight of the recovering ONI personnel.
"All hands prepare for immediate slip-space transition, all personnel take positions."
Derek watched as the personnel did as ordered, except the engineers, they had a ton of equipment to fix up, and there was still another pelican which had just landed that they had to tend to, and from that pelican 'he' strode out. Derek couldn't believe this, Aaron was here, and of all the available ships that were around for the evacuation it was the Levity that he had boarded.
ONI of course wasn't going to let a recovery agent be forgotten, but why he ended up here was still baffling to him, Derek wasn't very common to paranoia but he felt that there was something ominous about this sudden arrival of the agent, if Aaron was here then where was this ship headed to? Was it really heading towards UCAF space?
His answers would soon be answered, when they arrived at Warden…
XXXXX
Aaron stepped forwards into the science bay, he found it rather clean unlike most UCAF ships along with ONI vessels with years of use that he spent most of his time on for the wars, rarely did he find himself in such a place that he could define as clean. He found that there was a table with surgical tools and a chair with a neural interface infusion cable; he found that odd considering that this wasn't a medical operations room.
And of course then he figured it out once an Adept stepped from his table behind the chair.
"Ah, so you've arrived."
Shepard introduced him to the doctor.
"This is Doctor Iren of the UCAF special medical and technical division, he was assigned initially to the UCAF Angel's Flight, but we managed to work him over to us."
"You mean offer me the chance to perform one very risky operation that no normal man has attempted before?" Iren panned the question quaintly.
"Well yeah, that's the relative idea, but I wouldn't say that we didn't experiment beforehand." Shepard offered.
"Of course not, but those dummies didn't exactly fair too well when I tried, at least it got better after half a dozen units. But we're short on time. Agent Aaron, if you may, simply sit down on the surgical chair, I've got to ensure that all remaining memories are still in place and stable, and then we can begin." Iren stated as he put on some rather blue looking medical gloves.
"Is this going to hurt?" Aaron asked.
Shepard wasn't too keen on lying to the lieutenant, but he wasn't so sure that Aaron would like the idea of being subjugated to the intense treatment that he was about to receive, he tried to be honest.
"I'll tell you what, the surgery isn't going to take long, and it will reveal some memory fragments, critical ones, but that should be it."
Aaron didn't like the sound of Shepard's words of reassurance. But he hadn't much choice in the matter. Iren locked the restraints into position over his limbs and began the process.
"Let's practice SCIENCE!"
Iren hit the activation to the neural interface.
XXXXX
Derek had been as suspicious as to the involvement of the ONI vessel and Aaron, the crew had received orders that an outpost was in danger over at the Warden Systems, the outpost known as Forlorn Reach, it was a large scale research station into the virus that plagued the region, of course there had been little activity in its history since its creation over 50 years ago, it was still a bio-tech and medical research facility that came up with many advancements.
Now the question was, is the covenant going to take the facility before they get there or after? The agent of course was rather sketchy on the details provided as to what was about to happen. Aaron was seated across the table simply just telling them about the initial plan of the rescue and who'd be involved.
"We'll require one team to find the doctors, they're most likely inside the secure safe room on the station, it'll be located on the second level and in the nearest section to the core of the facility, please keep yourselves on guard we don't need contamination of personnel to any escaped pathogens or microbes, keep yourselves away from the primary labs and stay on guard for the mission." Aaron broke to catch a breath.
"The next team will be locating the primary ONI databanks of the facility it stores all crucial ONI data and UCAF star maps, the covenant cannot be allowed to take the intelligence, if the data falls into their hands the covenant will surely have an upper hand into the UCAFs defensive grid."
"What about the actual storage section? The place holds dozens of test samples and piece of research into years of medical advances; we can't possibly abandon all of that information." One marine stated.
"Of course we can't, which is why I and one small fire team will enter into the depths to recover the data from the facility, that data is just as critical. But the problem with that is the area is heavily enclosed and sealed under enough defensive programs not even a mouse can crawl through." He stated.
Derek had a feeling that he'd be trying that security soon.
"I'll volunteer for the mission along with anyone else." He stated accepting the duty of escorting the lieutenant.
Derek found that Aaron was starting at him rather intently, Aaron knew that there was something else that Derek knew, but he simply waited as 3 other marines offered their help to join the fight.
"Well then its settled Derek and 3 marines will be heading along with you to the primary storage and retrieve the data from the primary core."
The group was dismissed from the briefing room, and Derek went off to load up his gear. Aaron vanished from view which did make Derek suspicious as to how intention. There had to be a connection to the actions to what Aaron was doing, the research base and the Warden station was two locations that the ONI had hidden and both worked in some part of each other, but they also contained critical data of the UCAF and other facilities.
So if there was a connection, what was Aaron going after specifically? That was the big question here, and why was the ONI so desperate to cover this information up? He needed to get to the source of this and that meant going along with the mission, at least until they reached their objective, if anything happened then he'd have to end Aaron then and there.
XXXXX
It didn't take long for the transition to Warden it was located on the border of the Verge and the colonies so it was a pretty short trip. But as they exited, the alarms began to blare, and it was time for the fun to begin. The UCAF marines bolted to their gunships and shuttles hoping to get out by the time the covenant began to rain death upon them.
Forlorn Reach was sitting in the shadow of the gas giant it orbited; of course there was a lot of glimmering lights of enemy vessels also in orbit. The Levity let loose a wave of missiles and rail battery fire before it released its compliment of fighters and drones. The gunships couldn't be released until they reached the minimal safe distance of the entrance to the hangars and then they'd enter.
Of course who'd leave the front door unguarded? There was a whole detachment of covenant troops and temporary emplacements waiting for the oncoming UCAF teams, the whole area looked about as hot as a firestorm; this was going to be a battle for the bold. As the marines loaded and prepped to leave, Derek shouldered a few extra pieces of armour. He felt that he was going to need the extra protection as well as additional pockets for ammo.
As he loaded himself with ammo, he felt the ship shake from impact, and heard the faint calls from the coms about enemy fire. As he finished the gunship began its dust off, the marines inside of the gunship consisted of 15 marines in full EVA gear and him and the lieutenant, the lieutenant was in EVA, but light engineering EVA suit.
It didn't seem appropriate for the ONI agent, but Derek had a feeling that the suit had a lot more features than just being a metal skin with plates and a battery pack. Gravity kicked in as they departed from the ship, and they suddenly felt very vulnerable to enemy fire. The ship rocked a few times as plasma streaked around them, but that didn't mean they should be concerned, only the landing was the problem, if they get decompression and blow to pieces, well they can't care, they're dead.
They approached the landing point, in which the pilot shouted over the coms.
"We're here boys, happy hunting."
The marines made their war cry before they exited the gunship into the now hot LZ, hundreds of covenant troopers on all sides were busy firing at the gunships as they landed. The ones near Derek's pelican seemed to consist primarily of just regulars and a few minors; there was no presence of any high ranking covenant commanders.
Aaron stood behind him and noticed the difference of the covenant troop displacement.
"I guess we just arrived, their troops have no capable officers, probably here to guard the rear lines, or secure them from whatever's inside."
"What do you mean by that?" Derek stated hefting out a HMG-75.
"Covenant protocols, we caught them talking about secure and containment of course we gave up trying to understand what they attempt to contain but we know that it's valuable to them." Aaron stated whipping out his M5D and fired off half a dozen shots before ducking on the side of the pelican.
Derek threw in his opinion of the situation.
"Or it might be something that they fear." He added.
"It could be that as well." Aaron concurred.
Derek and the marines of their team quickly wiped the deck with the covenant troopers; they weren't much of a fight. But that didn't mean that they dropped their guard, there was still the distance between them and the storage was and where the data was located, this was not going to be an easy trip through the station.
As they exited into the station they found themselves taking a route that went through the lower cargo hold of the facility and then to the primary conduits running along the water and plasma piping, this would then give them access to the lower section of the labs where they'd navigate to the core and then extract the data before they exit.
Of course this sounded rather easy, but in truth it wasn't, the section of the conduits was hot, plasma and particle projection run through at incredible speeds and sometimes cause intense heat, of course the heating vents are down there as well, but the temperature can rise up to 90'C it was the last place you'd want to be crawling inside.
As they entered into the lower section of the facility they found that there was no sign of any covenant, aside from ONI personnel corpses and a few grunts and elites. The area seemed relatively empty. There was a faint chittering noise that they could hear from vents, but thought it was just some roaches or other pest that the internal cleaners hadn't managed to remove.
As they located the entrance into the lower holds they noticed that the lights were now on emergency lighting, it made their navigation a lot harder. As they began to crawl into the cargo space below, Aaron seemed to change his attitude as if he was suspecting something to pop out. Derek honestly doubted a covenant elite could fit inside the cargo crawl space.
As they went along the primary crawl space they noticed that sections had lost lighting, and the sounds of fighting above had dulled. And near silence was now present, aside from the marine's armour clanking slightly on the metal mesh they were crawling through. Then they heard something on their coms.
The team heading the search through the first labs called in to report.
"This is Bravo, we've reached an intersection where the covenant had been defending, we've secured our route through the labs, but we're having trouble with getting the doors open, the powers been cut, has anyone reported similar?" The sergeant of the squad called in.
"This is Omicron, we've found something similar, power across this section to the secure hold's been severed, and it doesn't look like the personnel here did it through, the marks look like the elite in charge did it, why they did this is fucking weird, aside from that we're moving ahead. We'll be using thermal charges on the door and blow it open." Omicron reported.
And then Aaron reported in.
"This is Echo, we've made progress, lighting down here is at minimal and there does seem to be significant damage to the primary power conduits at least down where we're proceeding, advise heavy precaution to other teams to be on the lookout for anything unusual." Aaron warned.
One marine Derek huffed.
"What the fuck does he mean by unusual? This whole fucking mission's a fucking twist of bullshit, what else could possibly be here that we can't just kill?"
His fellow marines shared the sentiment but didn't voice them at Aaron. They just continued through the crawl space until they reached the primary plasma conduits and venting sections, then it became a rather tenuous run, they crawled through 7 junctions before receiving another report from the other teams.
"This is Omicron we've arrived at the secure location, the door to the primary holding vault is sealed, it's strange, they've burned a mark into it, a bloody print in the middle and something else, I can't read it, but whatever it says, it seems like a warning. The doors been blasted sealed, a lot of effort went into sealing this thing." The leader of Omicron stated.
"This is Bravo, we've been stopped by constant barricades, whoever made these were damned sure not to let anyone get in that's for sure." Bravo's leader stated.
"We're half way into the vent's we'll be reaching the next section soon." Aaron reported.
It was then that Omicron blasted the doors into the safe house that they started to report their findings.
"This is Omicron; we've managed to blast a hole into the main vault, but we've found a HVT, he's dead alright, probably dead for the past 9 hours, I'm not sure of what to make of it, it seemed like he put a bullet in his own head… 'Searching' this is Doctor Klein Baxter, ONI SEC: IV, he's been part of the biological and development department. That's it."
"Is there any sight of other bodies?" Aaron asked.
"Yeah a few, they're in the coolant tanks, what the hell is the safe house doing next to the coolant tanks?" Omicron's leader asked.
"That doesn't concern you sergeant, you've got your orders, mark his name off your search list and get those bodies out of the water, if they're part of the science team here, then mark their names off." Aaron ordered.
There was a certain air of danger now in Aaron as if he was split into two halves, he calmed down and then proceeded. Meanwhile Omicron did as they were ordered before continuing their mission. They finally reached the near end of the trip when they heard Bravo call in.
"This is Bravo, under enemy fire, we've exited from the minimal security labs when the drones came online, they don't recognise UCAF armour or ONI by the looks of the bodies. What the fuck is going on here?" Bravo asked.
"Those drones have a level 4 security program in case of hostile intrusion, it wasn't properly encoded with UCAF transponders so they may have a hostile approach to anyone in the vicinity." He replied.
"Well that's fucking great and all, how the fuck do you expect us to reach our objective with all these fuckers trying to smear us over the whole fucking corridor?" The marine asked.
"Improvise sergeant, they're not invincible." Aaron replied coldly.
They continued onwards with occasional sounds of profanity coming over their coms as Bravo fought their way to the next section. As they exited into a cooling tank that had been drained, they noticed something was wrong. The coolant was drained, as if there was a hole, and then they waded through the water till they found the source of the drainage, there was a large hole exactly in the tank that bled into the depths of the facility, the flood gates sealed the sections though and saved the remaining coolant, but this wasn't good.
"Our routes been severed, it was meant to cut through the coolant tanks to the other side and then we emerge inside of the secure sections between E-45 and F-10, if we exit now we'll be right in the containment sector, and that's the last place we need to be." Aaron stated to himself.
"So what? There's a few bugs, I'm sure using the suit's we'll filter the viruses out from us." A marine offered.
"You moron, that won't work on the things that the ONI was researching here, these things are much more dangerous and your filters wouldn't be able to stop what's up there!" Aaron exclaimed.
This was definitely something that Derek hadn't seen. Aaron wasn't acting himself now, and it seemed as if he was thinking to himself, or a part of him, it reminded him of the creation of the Nautilus Program, the creation of Aine and the Nautilus AI, Argo, there was something that was speaking to him.
But before Derek could interrogate the Lieutenant, the screams of something came over the coms.
"This is Omicron-n, there's something here, we've located the personnel, but… fucking –Oh- Shi… we- low on ammo, attempting to fall- out, repeat- the thing-g's are everywhere. They're coming out of-f… ARGH…" There was dead silence.
"This is Bravo, we've lost com link with Omicron, and we are just inside the containment zone and approaching objective now. Should be break off from mission to assist?" Bravo's commander asked.
"Negative, complete objective, and then fall out, that data must be purged now, that's your order!" Aaron replied.
There was a definite issue here. Before Derek could stop one of the marines, a young corporal crabbed Aaron by the scruff of his neck and hoisted him as he demanded.
"What the fuck is going on you bastard?"
Aaron strangled a reply.
"More than you need to know now put me down or you all die." He grunted.
A fellow marine tapped his fellow's shoulder, the corporal was spitting venom at Aaron, but he complied. Aaron dropped to the water again and he was met by Derek.
"This virus isn't a virus is it?"
Aaron looked at Derek for a moment and stared into each other's faces. Aaron admitted.
"No it isn't a normal virus, its something much more, but even we don't know what to categorise it as."
"This is something much more than we can handle." Aaron stated openly.
"Then we'll have to test that won't we?" Derek punctuated with his HMG.
Aaron through a look of doubt at Derek, but did not voice his opinion on their situation. Aaron then planned to cut a portion of the circuit breakers into the next level above, this was their only way to reach the objective, and they'd have to traverse through the labs themselves and into the core storage facility.
As they got to the landing above they found themselves in an ever closing space as they reached the top. The soon got to the exit point, and found it led into a janitor's closet. It wasn't exactly the nicest places to be stuck in, but better there than out in the open. It was apparent that there was something going on outside, calls from Bravo began to filter through.
"We've got something, multiple targets, human, not registering normal transponder frequencies; all have reports of flat lines, what the fuck?" A marine shouted.
There was sporadic gunfire and shouts over the coms as the marines fought against whatever had found them. Bravo put out a call for help.
"This is Bravo, requesting support, multiple hostiles are closing on our position… oh shit what the fuck is that!?"
Before there was any sort of additional chatter, the scream of something large pierced the com, and then there was just screams of fighting and panic as the marines of Bravo were brutally wiped out. The shouts sent shivers down their spines, it was horrendous, but it didn't seem to faze the lieutenant. He continued to work on the navigation of their squad through the facility.
They found themselves out in the corridors of the containment labs, and from what they could see it was too dark, all lighting had failed in this section. Thankfully life support was still functioning. They had to carefully navigate till they found the section of the containment that connected into the secure storage level.
As they worked their way there, they noted the number of decaying corpses around the area increasing, and it was starting to make them edgy. Derek's senses were going crazy, as if there was danger nearly present around every dark corner of his eye; he had reasons of course to be paranoid. The neural sensors in his head were telling him that there was an unknown amount of movement around him.
He could hear small amounts of chittering and a clutter of things and it seemed as if it was just loosened debris that might have fell, but no this was much more active. Malevolence was present and he could tell it was closing in around them. Their presence was like water on oil, and it wasn't going to last much longer.
It was then they came around the bend that they found themselves halting at the sight before them. The walls were lined with mucus not something he had ever seen, it looked alive, breathing, it was over the whole corridor ahead, and it seemed to be growing.
"What the fuck is this shit?" A marine asked as he flashed his light over the mucus.
"Don't touch it, it isn't something you want on your body, this stuff is part of the virus that ONIs been trying to cure, it looks like it got loose." Aaron panned.
"Yeah, no fucking kidding." The marine replied condescendingly.
"We're nearing the airlock into the secure storage; keep your eyes open, the area's littered with active consoles and moving mainframes, there's a lot of sensitive equipment as well, and the coolant that powers it, one shot could flood the chamber with liquid nitrogen and kill us all." Aaron warned.
The marines took note and followed onwards, as they entered the airlock they found it untouched, it was strange that this was the only place that was left unscathed by the fighting, or it was just that whatever was around hadn't noticed it yet. As they entered the chamber the coms came to life again.
"This is Levity, we've received confirmation that the covenant are pulling out to the other side of the planet, and it looks like they're regrouping for another attack. Teams Bravo through to Omicron has been lost and Echo and Gamma are the only active teams left. Be advised that hostiles are planning another attack, your objectives must be reached by the time the covenant return or we're going to contingency plan: Void."
"What the hell's Void?" One marine asked.
"Void's when we have a breach and the facility is lost, we need to scuttle the whole station, and that means anyone left behind is as good as dead." Aaron replied casually as he waited for the door to open.
"Okay, why do I feel like this is going to shit right away?" The Corporal of the squad asked.
The doors opened into a corridor of transparent metals, it was protected by insulated beams that emitted heating and lighting for the passage ahead. Of course this did nothing for the fact that it was starting to freeze their breaths, the temperature drop was noticeable, and it did nothing to lighten the mood.
As they strode forwards they could see the dozens of moving mainframes as they entered from their coolant tanks and surfaced to heat up before being dipped into the cold nitrogen again, the whole place was illuminated by faint blue lighting coming from the mainframes or the internal beam lighting.
As they continued on they entered into what they could see was the primary core containment, it was a suspended shield dome that had one walkway across and another airlock, but there was something not right with this, the shield dome seemed to encompass a pillar inside, Derek had excellent eye sight even in night, but his peripheral vision was being distorted by the field.
"Okay, now just the airlock and we should be done in short order." Aaron stated as he pulled out his Nova tool.
They got to the entry way to the walkway when they heard something…
"Get away! Stay back, this isn't-t yours!"
They saw someone there, a man in white lab coat inside the dome; he was on the console of the pillar busy shouting over the coms.
"We're recovery squad Echo; we've been called in to retrieve all ONI assets and personnel for evacuation." Aaron stated professionally.
"No! You don't understand, the ONI, the virus, Flood! It's all a lie, she told me!" The scientist frantically panned around the console.
"Who told you?" Aaron suddenly demanded.
"Stella-187, in the labs, she knew of it, she could see it, it was coming, and sh-she knew…" The man continued to scrabble at the controls.
"No, this is bad." Aaron muttered as he began to pull out his hacking gear.
"What the hell is this guy on about?" Derek asked.
"He knows about the Foundation, the secrets they hold are too dangerous, and even a person who knows what he's talking about knows that he can't do what he's doing right now." Aaron replied hastily as he pulled out a hacking node and began sawing away at the door lock.
"No you won't come in, it needs to be stopped!" The insane man yelled as he began to hit the console commands for the room.
The doors opened into the room and he shouted over the coms.
"The time has come, the end has begun! They will find this and they will know I have stopped it!"
The one thing that Derek had never heard of was the sounds of what was coming, at least not like over the com lines, but this was directed and it was unified. A howl that shuddered the whole facility… A scream of a thousand tormented souls calling for fulfilment it was earth shaking, but he reacted accordingly.
"Team set up a fire spread anything that comes through those doorways fire on it immediately!" He shouted.
The marines obeyed and took positions, Aaron was still cutting through.
"The bastard, he's drawing the bastards in with sounds." He grunted as he continued to cut.
"Madness, madness it's coming to here, the Harvest! The Harvest has come, and it will reap what it sows! HAHAHA…" The man screamed over the coms.
Derek couldn't understand what this man had seen, but whatever it was, it drove him insane alright. Aaron severed another node as he cut through the first lock, and then the wave came in. It was just a single being, a form of sickly green and yellow it looked mutilated, as if a human's head was attacked to some disfigured ragdoll, but it had a pair of red tendrils where part of the head had been and a maw that had a mouth twisted in the side.
"What the fuck?" The corporal yelled as he put a dozen rounds through the body.
Bodies soon began to pour out of the corridors into the chamber many were as similar to the first, mangled and mutilated forms, some had retained more human appearance while others seemed to be mutating at an alarming rate, Derek fired his HMG and blasted to pieces dozens at a time, but the more he dropped, the more they continued pouring into the chamber.
"Almost through." Aaron reported as he cut another lock.
It was then that one marine ran out of ammo, the PFC tried to grab his M6C but he was too slow to draw as an infected slammed its extended claw into his torso. The soldier had only moments before he was gutted out, and his fellow marine blasted the creature with a shotgun attachment.
"Shit, we're getting overwhelmed." The corporal shouted as he fired.
"No fucking way…" The other marine replied as he fired off another clip.
The doors finally came apart as Aaron unlocked them, he shouted.
"Go!"
They fell into the walkway to the other side, but they reached the second lock and this time they were now bottled inside a walkway that was hanging over a chasm of plasma and coolant, this was the last place anyone would want to be in a fight like this. Derek continued to pour out ammunition and drop another wave by himself, he was running low on ammo, and he was using his surplus now.
And then the smarter things came along, but by definition of smart, Derek noticed a start change in tactics, the beings had now gathered weapons and were using them against the squad. They carried plasma rifles and assault rifles, Derek's shields were being chipped away at an alarming rate. He had to keep up a whole wave until he ran dry and change his drums again, in which the others covered him as he did so.
Luck was running against them, as a new opponent appeared. A strange spider like being with what looked like a sack appeared and latched itself to the ground and unveiled a spindle of thorn like needles and began to fire at them. The impact were damn dangerous, the tips were chemical phosphorous and a mix of acid, it at away at their armour.
They dropped the thing, but when they did, another 3 more took its place and began to fire on them as well, Derek found this a pointless situation; they were running out of time and ammo. Derek slammed his second last drum mag into place when the last PFC was dropped by a needle through the neck, his shields finally gave out and it punctured his jugular.
"Fuck!" The remaining marine exclaimed as his team mate collapsed.
The doors finally gave way and Aaron led them in. Derek watched as the ONI agent drew his handgun and pointed it at the insane man who was now facing him.
"Some secrets are meant to be known." He stated.
"And the truth is the reality that is always known." The man grinned madly.
Aaron put a bullet in his head before Derek could stop him.
"What the hell was that for?" Derek demanded.
"He was compromised and dangerous." He replied as he shut the doors behind them.
The infected being slammed against the sealed doors to the room, after a few seconds of smashing themselves onto the doors, they proceeded to gather the corpses around the room. Aaron moved to get to the console, but not without the remaining marine demanding some answers.
"What the fuck is this all about, what the fuck was that and who the hell did you just shoot?"
"The mission is as I stated it before, critical data, things that only the ONI is allowed to know, and that there is one of the things that cannot get its hands on the knowledge in the core and the man I just shot was too dangerous to let live. He'd have stabbed you in the eye if he had a screwdriver or a pen." Aaron replied as he got to work.
The marine wasn't happy with the response, but he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the exits of the room. Derek was also keen o knowing how they were to get out of here.
"How are we expected to exit this place?"
"Easy, this isn't just the core containment it's a lift as well, the whole thing was rigged to get going in the event of an emergency, the ONI however left a failsafe, the removal of the core would initiate a primary core meltdown, which means everything in range of the facility will go up with it." Aaron replied autonomously.
"How is that supposed to be a good thing?" The marine asked.
"It isn't, but that's our only option, the suspension fields will collapse when we start moving, so if anything outside wants to get on, it's going to be a free for all." Aaron replied as he finalised the retrieval.
"You've gotta be fucking with me." The marine swore as he checked his gun.
"No I'm not; we're getting picked up on level G-31 that's the shortest way out of here." He replied.
Aaron hit the commands and the lift began to ascend. It pushed through a gate above and exited into a long ascending tunnel, it was covered in coolant pipes and plasma conduits, and also the infected creatures.
"Here they come!" The marine shouted as he pulled his rifle up and began to fire.
The things dropped in all around them, Derek had to side step a human one and slam it in the head to drop it, but a covenant one appeared; it fired a bolt and smacked Derek's shields out before he could gut the thing with his HMG. He felt the fight begin to intensify around them, Aaron had pulled free his own guns and was now letting loose fire across the place.
The marine that remained had almost depleted his ammo, running low, he drew out a combat knife and a pistol and began to slice his way through the infected. His knife work was amazing, but his stamina was running low, they'd been on edge since they landed and now they were being grilled out by hostiles from all sides.
As they continued to ascend, they found that their enemies grew tougher to fight, it was as if the beings had organised a tactic of wear and tear. Derek ran dry and followed suite with the marine, and began to melee his way out of this fight. The lift ascended gradually to the next level above, this time it brought out a surprise for them.
As they levelled out with the gate, a pair of hulking figures appeared, Derek couldn't believe what was there, a pair of massive creatures, each had one massive arm thicker than his suit plating. This made for one hell of an opponent. He didn't have flexibility in his suit if he was hit even once, that would be it for his armour.
The two hulking figures began their attack by lashing out at him and the corporal, they narrowly managed to avoid being struck by the massive arms, Derek got on to the top of the console and baited the creature in. He planned out his tactic, he knew that it was still too large to move around fast. It reached the console and attempted to hit him, one swing and Derek jumped onto the back of the creature.
He was sort of surprised that it could support both his weight and its own, but he didn't waste time, he latched a grenade onto the back of the creature and dropped off as it attempted to pull him off. The creature didn't have much time to get at Derek as it suddenly exploded, sending half of its body into the air and the rest splattered onto the ground.
The corporal was going at it as well, he managed to stick a grenade under the thing as he slid below its legs, it blew in its face and sent the thing stumbling for the marine to tackle it off the edge of the platform and into the tunnel below. He got back to Derek and stated.
"This can't go on man."
Aaron then interjected.
"It won't we've arrived at our destination."
The lift jarred to a halt in a cargo access, the metal mesh doors opened and they found themselves looking into a straight access chute to the nearby cargo bay for supply ships, it was their way out. Of course they couldn't forget the infected, the creatures hadn't given up, and they rushed out of the front access as Aaron sealed them.
Aaron called over his coms.
"This is Echo, we've completed task, and primary core has been recovered, facility auto-self-destruct has already been initiated, and please tell Councilman Preston that the gears are turning, I repeat, the gears are in motion."
Derek didn't know what Aaron had said, but he knew of Preston, Preston was in charge of the UCAFs Western Segment in control of resources across the Seran Expanse, he had holdings on 5 expeditions out near there and a lot of money. Colonies were used for mineral mining and production of infusion engines were under his control, but also the strange amount of power he holds over military deployments as well as security.
There was something going on here, what was a member of the UCAFs mining guild, an incredibly powerful one, have anything to do with the UCAF? There was something wrong, very wrong, as they approached the final stretch, Derek reached a bend when he felt plasma hit him. The covenant strike force had finally arrived.
He felt some burns in his armour but he was still alive, his suit's protective layers however had been burnt out though. He sprinted alongside Aaron to take a route around the covenant. They were now just meters away from the docking bay, Aaron signalled by hitting his Nova tool. The marine corporal was right behind them as they arrived.
"This better be the last damned mission I take for you." The marine glared at Aaron.
"Don't worry I don't intend to take you along again." He retorted.
The gunship arrived just in time as well, they had 3 minutes left. They boarded the gunship and began their exit from the station as they heard the Levity call in.
"Lieutenant Aaron, Preston would like to meet with you as soon as you arrive, in person." The AI of Levity explained.
The gunship travelled rapidly to the Levity and soon exited the danger zone, the ship was already on a exit path out of the system as the station began to fall apart. They all got to see the collapse of the station and the subsequent blast wipe out the covenant when they exited into slip-space. Derek felt relieved that the ordeal of the station was over.
When they landed inside the hangar they found it void of personnel, only 3 figures, a shrewd looking man in grey uniform and with UCAF rank and insignia and his heavily armoured praetorian marines. The man congratulated them.
"You've done well Aaron, do you have the neural card?"
Aaron removed his interface and handed it over.
"The data's all on it, I made sure that there was no back up of the data, the Eta Installation is safe."
"Good, then we won't be needing you anymore." He finished as he pocketed the card and pulled out a pistol.
"Good bye Lieutenant Aaron, I'll see you soon." He pulled the trigger.
Aaron's head exploded and his body hit the ground with a wet smack, Derek and the marine were damned shocked, and before they knew it, 4 other guards arrived.
"Ah, my apologies, you have my thanks, but Aaron was the only one meant to return. I'm sorry to see such fine men lost, but the Foundation demands no witnesses."
Derek was about to pull his knife and slam it through Preston's skull, but he didn't get a chance to, he felt two shots impact him from snipers on a catwalk above. He dropped as the marine was dropped by the guards. Preston's last words to him were.
"For Auld Lang Syne old warrior."
XXXXX
2560/3/23
Aaron awoke, his head was spinning it felt as if he had been shot in the head repeatedly, actually that wasn't far from the truth, the ONI, Foundation, all of it, he had fragmented memories, but they revealed something, something clear, something dangerous.
"They're coming."
"I heard of it, what is it by them?" Daniel asked as he checked Aaron.
"The Harvest, Reap what you sow… at Eta Halo."
XXXXXX
(That's it for now, the biggest chapter yet, and this is almost done now, only one or two and that's the end of Daniel Shepard's arc!)
I'm too tired to do a full authors note as it is like 2am here.