"The Spartans were children, stolen away in the darkest of nights or snatched up from dead families and dead worlds. We made them into killers, machines with no concept of anything but war. Now, with most of them gone, I hope those that remain can learn to live in a world where there is no war to be fought. They have earned their rest, living and dead. To our disposable heroes… I am truly sorry."
- Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, speaking at the unveiling of the Spartan Monument, June 12th, 2554.
With the Pelican's bay empty save for the two Spartans, Morgan sat hunched forward, elbows against her thighs as she looked out the open bay. The Citadel retreated into the distance, the sun shining down on it until it disappeared behind one of the mountains that sheltered it on all sides.
The massive Flood tentacles that had assaulted them before their mad dash to freedom had retreated, no sign of them on the exterior, but the sign of Flood scaling the wall from somewhere far below the edge of the valley could be seen even from here, like a swarm of ants. They wouldn't be able to interact with the control panel to fire the rings, not after it had been shut down. Still, precautionary measures were being taken, all of the forces that had been deploying before the two had gone into the Citadel now being pulled out rapidly in an attempt to prevent them from falling to the parasite.
She frowned, the pressure in her chest growing. She couldn't keep pumping herself full of biofoam like this. She would run out of room, and eventually stop being able to breathe. It needed to be taken out, to be fixed properly. Her armor said the internal bleeding had stopped after the first dose, but another hard hit and she'd rip open again. She needed to be seen by a medic, needed to take command of the forces left, but she knew there was no time to be fixed properly, and that she had no better training in large scale commands than the Dawn's XO.
Reaching up and pulling her helmet from her head, she set it next to her, and took a breath of fresh air. It was cold, and it felt dry passing through her nose, but she didn't mind. She was tired of the controlled climate in her suit. Her face was streaked with trails where sweat had run down her face during the fighting. Green eyes looked half dead when she glanced up and saw her reflection in the Master Chief's visor, her hair messy and ruined.
She had kept it at a certain length for years. She had always hated it being shaved short as a child and during training. With her release to ONI and the need to blend in to rebel cells more than once, she let it grow a little past regulations, and kept it in a dark, low profile bun that didn't interfere with her helmet or neural lace. Now, though, with how tangled and messy it had become, it would need to be shaved, and with the impacts to her skull during the encounter in the tower, she had likely sustained more than one nasty blow.
Skin paler than usual even for her covered her face, a bruise forming on her right cheekbone already shifting from the blue-purple color common in early bruising to a gray-green color that made her sick to think about. It almost looked like the Flood, and she hated it. She could have done without seeing them ever again, but fate always seemed to want to get one up on her, regardless of how she felt about things.
With a start, she realized she had been staring into the Chief's visor, more at herself than the man within, and her lips dropped slightly as her frown deepened. "Sorry, didn't mean to stare."
He didn't respond, but after a moment he peeled his own helmet off. Pale skin covered his face, an old scar covering his lips on the left side of a blunt, repeatedly broken nose. Brown eyes beneath a bunched brow, a permanent scowl, stared back at her, but she felt no anger or malice from them. A shaved head, with little more than stubble on it, had several more scars crisscrossing it. Another angry scar curled from his chin up the side of his head, stopping just above his left ear.
He finally spoke after several moments, his deep baritone low and quiet. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost." He shifted, the helmet going to his lap and sitting there, one heavy hand holding it in place.
Morgan nodded, glancing back at the Citadel again, breaking away from the brown eyes that stared back at her. "Something like that..." Looking back to him, she asked a question. "How bad was it? Fighting the Flood on the first Halo?"
Almost immediately, a grimace crossed his face, a sign that it had been as bad as she expected it.
"Bad." One word seemed to sum it all up perfectly, but there was more to it than that. "The infestation on the ring wasn't too bad at first, older combat forms and their infector pods. They weren't in numbers too large in the library's lab area. But then they found the Covenant's ship on the ring, a damaged cruiser that put down for repairs. UNSC forces from land base after the Pillar of Autumn went down tried to move into it and get off the ring."
He paused, and Morgan's eyes narrowed, realizing he wasn't finished. She didn't speak up, her fingers coming together to lace through each other before she rested her hands on her thighs.
"I had to get on board, blow through, get to Captain Keyes, get his CNI to blow the Autumn's reactors and the ring with it. We – Cortana and I – were already back on the Autumn by the time the Marines took the cruiser. I never got the whole story from the few survivors that managed to escape, but apparently the reactor suffered a meltdown and the whole ship went up. There wasn't any escaping that." Another pause. "What about the second? I was told there had been an outbreak on another ring, between the battle in Mombasa and the alliance with the Elites."
Her face twisted into a frown, stronger than the one before, and her eyes darkened as she repeated his words. "Bad."
She saw a glimmer of a smile, his lips turning upwards for an instant before they stopped and returned to their neutral setting.
Going on, she got to the point. "Tracked the Prophet's carrier through an in-city slipspace jump, came out not far from another ring. Dropped in with Helljumpers and moved to capture or kill the Prophet on my own while the In Amber Clad headed for the library. Flood infestation was… far stronger than you say it was on the first installation. The Gravemind had captured the monitor, the other Halo's analogue for Guilty Spark. Got captured by it myself after nearly getting glassed by the fleet guarding High Charity, the big station that came in hot earlier."
The Chief nodded, his eyes attentive as she went on. "Keyes and Johnson got the activation index, then got captured by Brutes, nearly got forced to light the ring, if the Arbiter's telling the truth about it. The Gravemind sent him and I to two different areas with the ring's transportation grid, and where he got sent, I don't know. I got put on High Charity. That's… where I had to leave Cortana behind. By the time I got out, the whole station was going under, Flood had the whole place under their control and Cortana reported more than once that the garrison fleet was infected and fighting itself. By now, the Gravemind is probably somewhere on the station, and Cortana too. If I know her, she's got the activation index stored in her somewhere."
The Chief's lips held their smile this time, despite the topic. "She loves storing things away for a rainy day, doesn't she?"
Morgan's own lips turned up, and her eyes closed as she thought back to the AI. The Master Chief was right, and that may very well be what got them all out of this.
Another alert sounded from her HUD, and she grabbed it, placing it back over her head and eyeing the symbol in the top left. As the visor came back down, she saw the Master Chief's face had disappeared behind the golden faceplate of his olive drab helmet. A slight frown, but there was no helping it. Her armor was reporting her injuries again, and she cleared it away by pressing her chin to the interior of the helmet, a row of buttons acting as controls.
Taking a deep breath to test her movement, she felt the pressure in her chest increase, and grimaced before she glanced at the open door to the cockpit, where the pilot and copilot sat buried in their control panels. Neither wanted to look back at the two Spartans, or risk getting ambushed even though they were in the open air with nothing around for miles.
She wasn't going to complain, though. She left her helmet on, opening a radio channel to hail the Dawn. A few heartbeats passed before the XO answered.
"Commander, got you on the scope. The Sergeant Major just landed. We've recovered Masterlock."
There was something in the XO's voice at the mention of Keyes, and Morgan felt her heart drop a little more as she thought back to the woman, but she answered. "Understood. Status on Johnson?"
"He's banged up pretty bad. Medics are seeing to him now. Gunnery Sergeant Stacker is also aboard, and he made it clear you'd taken some nasty hits yourself."
Morgan frowned slightly. The XO of the Dawn was a Lieutenant Commander as well, but had seniority over her. If he deemed it necessary, he could likely order her to be seen, keeping her from the raid on High Charity.
Ultimately, she decided to be seen before he had to tell her. "I'll see a medic on the Dawn, fix what's happened, but we aren't staying long."
"Ma'am?"
"You saw the new ring?"
A moment passed before he said yes. "Affirmative, missing a lot of its structure, but we've got it both on radar and in sight from here. Scans are already painting a picture of it for study later."
"We're firing it. The Master Chief and I will need an activation index to light the ring, but the only way to get one here is to find Cortana. She's on the Covenant station that came down."
His response seemed disbelieving, as if nobody would willingly go there. "Commander, that thing's covered in Flood."
"I know that, but there's no other option. If we don't destroy the Flood here, they'll come back to haunt us again and again, and I don't need to tell you that if they come back to Earth..."
She didn't finish her sentence, and the XO's reply sounded tired. "Yes ma'am. I'll send word to medical and the armory to be ready for your arrival, and to set a Pelican aside."
"Thank you, Commander. We'll be there soon. Noble out."
The channel clicked and then it was gone. The Master Chief looked across at her, merely giving her a small nod, and said nothing more. Inside her helmet, she exhaled, feeling her shoulders fall, and settled in for the rest of the ride to the Dawn.
Feeling the wheels touch down inside the Dawn's hangar bay, Morgan almost didn't want to get up. Her body told her to stay, to remain slouched over in the jump seat and let them drag her out on a gurney. But she didn't give in.
She stood, and her legs carried her out of the bay and into the overhead lights, where several medics stood waiting along with uniformed doctors. The Master Chief waved them off from her right, and seeing that the other Spartan had a far more damaged suit of armor, they began to swarm her instead.
She took her helmet off, and set it on the reinforced gurney, before she turned to the Chief, despite the swarm of medical personnel. "Gear up, have the Master Gunnery Sergeant ready replacement parts. I've sent my armor's diagnostics to your suit. I'll be there as soon as I can."
"Yes ma'am," he replied, and then he was gone, nothing but a retreating back as she sat down on the gurney and was forced to lie down on her back.
Another cart sat waiting, and she felt the sensation of deja vu. They had done the same thing on Cairo Station, and now they were doing it here. Her chest piece came off, dented and cracked, and went into the cart as they started pushing her. IV lines went into ports on her armor, diagnostics tools were connected, and medical terminology that left her in the dust was going from person to person, leaving her to lie there and be watched like a science experiment.
But with the cart moving underneath her and the thin lines of lighting passing overhead in the corridor now, she could only think of High Charity, even now brimming with more than enough Flood to overwhelm Earth if they made it off of the Ark and into the portal. Even more pressing was Cortana, still somewhere deep in the infested hive where she had been left behind.
A frown. The message that had been found on the crashed ship on Earth had been ruined, corrupted, and whether it was a result of Cortana's own state or the message being damaged somewhere inbetween, she didn't know.
Cortana could be little more than a fragment of herself at this point, left in the clutches of the Gravemind with nothing to give but information to keep herself in one piece, but Morgan knew the AI would never betray Humanity, no matter what.
Right?
She closed her eyes, threw away that thought. It made Morgan sick to her stomach to even think of Cortana turning on Humanity. But that was if she still existed. She had been on that station, alone, with nothing but the voices of a trillion dead souls and a puppet master with rotten strings.
She would get Cortana out, get her home, and stop whatever the Gravemind was plotting. The ring would follow, and then it would be done.
All of it.
Her cracked armor was gone, replaced by a spotless chest piece, missing the rack that would hold extra shells for a shotgun that always seemed to get lost or broken. It lacked the blue paint she had always chosen, colored olive drab and looking out of place among the blue armor pieces, as the Master Gunnery Sergeant had never repainted it for her. Her helmet, damaged but still working, showed the marks of battle that would stick with her until the end of the fight or the end of her.
She turned it over in her hands, feeling the heavy numbness in her chest and the ghost of the injection point that had allowed medical tools into her chest, dissolved the old biofoam, and reinforced the cracked rib that had broken under the onslaught of the Brute Chieftain that had been left dead on the stairs to the Citadel's control panel. It wasn't healed by any means, but it would hold under strain better than it would if left alone. The others were the same, merely reinforced rather than healed, and with new biofoam in her chest, she would be able to run and fight.
That was all she needed to do.
An armored thumb rubbed across the helmet's visor, the flecks of dirt that had become caked to it marring its reflective visage, and a thin film of dust parted beneath her touch. It felt heavy in her grasp, different than usual, and she inspected it slowly, turning it and looking at every crease and curve, every dent and discoloration, until she got to the back.
The circular port that held the AI chip securely and allowed it to interface with the armor and her own Spartan Neural Interface stared back at her, and her thumb came to rest over it. A heavy weight in her gut reminded her of what came next, and she pushed it aside. It was still there, and she still felt it, but it was just another feeling to shove into the box.
Her helmet came up and over her head, covering the newly shaved black hair and the green eyes, the bruised and scarred pale skin, the aquiline nose and faded, cracked lips. Then she was sealed up again, her body hidden behind layers of armor both physical and otherwise.
Augmented hearing strengthened by the armor's systems heard everything. The rush of air through the vents, the thrum of the engines, her own heartbeat, it all blended together over time until it was gone, just another noise to block out that would hide the sounds of an enemy combatant.
The table in front of her held a shotgun, fully loaded and with a strap wrapped around the stock, holding another full tube's worth of shells. Armored compartments on her armor held more, ready to go into the tube and down the barrel when she called for them. An MA5B sat on her back, already attached to the mag clamps and with a dozen extra magazines worth of ammunition for sustained combat with the never ending tide of the Gravemind's puppets.
Grabbing the shotgun off of the table, she racked the slide just in case, spotting the brass and red colored shell inside, before she was satisfied. Holding it by the stock with one hand, she grabbed her final weapon, an M6D magnum filled with high explosive ammunition. It would make short work of the Flood if it came down to it, a sidearm worth its weight in gold against the hordes of Covenant or the Undead alike. Letting it sit against her hip until the mag plate caught it, she was ready, and turned to the door, leaving the empty armory behind without another look.
Her armor had extra pouches, armored and otherwise, filled with ammunition and supplies. An extra pair of oxygen tanks, enough to fill her stores with another two hours worth of clean air, sat against her lower back, and extra filtration devices had been added to hopefully deal with the infected air in the ruins of High Charity, leading to a tube and port that looked like a rebreather being attached to the pair of tubes in her helmet's cheek area and wrapping around her chin. If it worked, then there would be nothing to worry about short of getting infected by a pod, but if it didn't, then they would only have three and a half hours of search time in what had once been the heart of the Covenant Empire, and now the graveyard of a billion souls.
The door closed behind her with a hiss, and the sound of heavy boots against steel decking came from the left. The Master Chief's golden visor met her own, his armor showing the same modifications, and a similar armament. She nodded, and he nodded back.
"Are you ready?"
The deep voice asked the question simply, and she nodded again. "As I can be."
"Your chest?"
"It'll hold." She didn't go further. They both knew what it was like to fight on their last legs, to keep going until their hearts might stop at any time. It was what Spartans did, and there had been more than one instance where a number of Spartans, mostly Twos, had been extracted on medical birds with no pulse, only to be revived and sent back onto the battle field.
He didn't say anything else, and she sent him a green light before turning away and starting the walk back to the hangar. There were no Marines or Sailors in the halls, most of them already off the ship and aboard the Shadow of Intent or the other two frigates that had returned by now. A plan had been hatched, one that called for the Dawn to be their way off the Ark, and its stores were being left for what remained.
The hangar doors opened, revealing the last few Pelicans still on the ship, some of them spooled up and loading the last few shuttles worth of people. The medics that had treated her and the armorers that had replaced and modified their armor were nearly loaded onto one of two Pelicans. The box full of her damaged armor was strapped in and waiting in the middle of the blood tray. Even now, she could see the figure of the Master Gunnery Sergeant getting his head count before he stepped on board at the end. Turning around, his eyes met hers through the visor, and he gave her a half smile, one that looked strained, and she brought her hand up to touch the brim of the helmet in a final send off.
His eyes said what his words didn't, and he returned the gesture before the rear door came up and covered the bay, save for the transparent window that was built into it, and his face remained for a moment longer before he left it to take his seat.
Now, alone with the Master Chief and the remaining vehicles, she inhaled slowly, and exhaled. There was still a pair of Pelicans left, a half dozen Warthogs, and one Scorpion tank. They had the majority of the ship's armory still intact, in case it was needed, and enough fuel for the vehicles for an extended run, but something told her most of it wouldn't be needed. Gesturing to one of the Pelicans, she started for it, the Master Chief close behind.
She stepped up into the bay and made for the cockpit, the pilot's seat open and waiting as she took her place in it. Behind her, the older Spartan took the co-pilot's seat, the nose gun whirring as it rotated and connected to his armor's systems. The Pelican spooled up slowly, the engines whining loudly until the rear bay door and the bulkhead between the cockpit and the bay shut, blocking it all out.
Expertly, she lifted the Pelican up and took it out of the bay, where the Dawn continued to hover outside of the Shadow of Intent, where the other frigates had retreated to. Keying her comm, she called out to the Dawn's XO. "Spartans are away, Dawn should be empty."
"Confirmed, Spartans away. Johnson is finishing the last bit of transfers up, and then he'll be boarding the Dawn and waiting for your signal. We'll stay here on the Intent, just in case, but..." The XO of the warship paused, before he found his words. "Good luck, Spartans."
Morgan cut the channel without responding. In the distance, she could see High Charity, smoking and covered by the late afternoon sun. It would be dark, save for whatever lights still remained on in the station. She dreaded the thought of fighting the Flood where they lived enough as it was, but in the dark? It made her skin crawl to think of what may be hiding in there. Her exit from the station had been filled with Flood at every turn, and had been a fight she had escaped from by the skin of her teeth. With the Gravemind having its tentacles buried inside of it to its core, she had no clue what new monstrosities the creature could have made.
Clean airspace was all that she could see from the cockpit to their objective, and with a Pelican that wasn't taking fire, it was almost peaceful. It was the eye of the hurricane. They had come out of one end of the pestilent storm, into the calm of the eye, and now they were about to dive in to the other side and hopefully come out after into a world where the storm had passed.
The controls in her hands were steady, no shaking or jitters, no alarms or the bright sign of a MASTER CAUTION. The tanks were full and their stores were loaded down with ammo for the Pelican's weapons and their own. A glance over her shoulder and she saw a hint of the olive armored giant that was with her, before her eyes settled on High Charity again. She frowned, wanting to turn back, to never set foot in the station, but she knew she couldn't. She had to push on, for Humanity, for herself, for Cortana.
Pushing forward on the throttle, they picked up speed, passing through mach two and slowly dropping altitude, putting the velocity vector directly on the station's center. They would be heading straight for it, and at this speed, they'd be there in just another half hour.
The arms of the Ark rose up in every cardinal direction, expanding and then curving up gently, covered in every biome and with bodies of water spattered like blue paint against the greens, tans, and whites. It was almost a paradise, in a way. Extracted from the galaxy and isolated from everything, it could be a place for someone to live and never explore completely. It would take hundreds of years to discover everything, even with the automated map systems.
But something told her that she wouldn't be coming back after this. With the Flood on it, even exterminated, she didn't want to set foot here again if she didn't have to.
The time passed quickly, as if blinking by as she pondered the installation's size and purpose outside of what Spark had told them, knowing it was a foundry for more of the rings, and who knew what else.
High Charity filled the canopy slowly at first, until it was completely taking it up, and an icon popped up near a large hole in the outer hull, pinged by the Master Chief. Pulling the stick ever so slightly, she took them into a slow turn that aimed them right at it, and she pulled back on the throttle as they closed in, until she was merely hovering the dropship, before she leaned them forward and moved inside of the hull.
Floodlights on the Pelican's wing roots and another attached to the housing of the nose turret flicked on, and she felt herself recoil at the sight of the infestation. The elegant, purple curves that had been so favored by the Covenant were almost completely hidden beneath the sickly greenish-gray and orangeish-brown biomass that had grown enough to cover up any sign of the Covenant's presence. Massive pustules and blobs covered the walls and floors here and there, and columns of the material went from floor to ceiling as thick as tree trunks and just as tall.
Slowly, she breathed in, and then out, to still her nerves, before ordering the Pelican down towards a ridge that extended out from one of the rooms that had been taken by the Flood. The nose led the way, the chin turret rotating and swiveling as it searched for threats. Several combat forms could be seen meandering around the area, and with the pull of the firing stud under the Master Chief's finger, the gun roared in short bursts. Heavy slugs, high explosive rather than armor piercing, dug into their targets, ripping them to shreds and blowing up the remains, until there was nothing left but charred and smoking holes in the infected floors and walls. Several of the pustules built into the walls had been popped, infector forms flooding out before they, too, were destroyed.
The voice in her ear sounded, the Master Chief telling her it was clear to put down, and she turned the ship around to set it down on the ridge even as he left the copilot's seat and went to the back. Putting them down, she opened the bay door and waited.
"Clear." The response was all she needed, and she shut the engines down before pulling herself from the seat and grabbing her shotgun in both hands, moving to join the other Spartan. Her boots on the deck sounded until she was right behind him, and almost on cue, he stepped out and into the muck, leading the way into the first room.
Craters where the rounds had impacted were twitching slightly, as if attempting to heal or recoil from any further punishment. Her shotgun was up and scanning, the beam of a flashlight on the barrel crossing the walls that grew darker the further they moved from the landing zone. If any lights still worked deeper inside, she would be surprised. Activating the low light mode for her visor brightened everything up, but it didn't do much for her here.
A door on the opposite wall from where the Pelican was already growing cold opened, then shut again, hitting a thick tentacle that lay on the path, before it tried once again to restart the opening cycle. A frown, and she closed her eyes. Data transfer between her sets of armor were a thing, but whatever maps she had of the place from her last visit wouldn't be very useful, given she didn't even know where she had been the first time.
Opening them again, she bit down at her slowly growing frustration, shoving it back inside. "The place is overgrown with the Flood's… mass. There's no telling how many corridors have been shut or opened up with how its grown in. Can we track Cortana's signal?"
The Master Chief glanced back, the light on his rifle burning alone until he turned his helmet lamps on. "Maybe. She might be unable to transmit if she's buried in a Flood controlled terminal. Do you think you can guide us to where you put her chip in?"
"I don't know, but if all else fails, we can go up." She replied, her own helmet lamps coming on and bathing more of the area in white light.
With no disagreement, she took the lead, her shotgun sweeping as she ducked through the endlessly cycling door, and carried on through. Some remnants of the purple metal could be seen here and there underneath the disgusting Flood material, and the squelching sound with every bootstep sometimes gave way to the clunk of hitting the metal underneath from time to time.
The passageways were sometimes lit by overhead lighting, flickering on and off in its damaged state. Other times, they were dark and foreboding, and only their lights playing across the walls and their motion trackers would tell them whether or not a nightmare sat waiting.
Another door opened to a wide open room, one filled with what could have been natural lighting, but instead was merely the lights in the ceiling shining through the Flood's biomass, tinting the room a bright, but sinister color. Morgan took the first step in and stopped, a massive pressure hitting her head even as she felt the Master Chief coming up beside her.
A voice sounded, one familiar yet infinitely unknown. A man, a woman, a child, all mixed together and filling every corner of her mind with its presence. The boom of a rifle off to her left, and the Master Chief took the lead as her vitals flared even on her own HUD. "Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness, a father's sins pass to his son."
Another voice came in as the first died and the pressure disappeared, leaving Morgan feeling as if her breath had been stolen away. "-ond. Commander, can you hear me?"
More gunfire filled the air as she got her breathing under control. "I hear you, Chief."
"What happened?"
He wasn't looking back at her, more Flood filing into the room in the form of combat forms and infector pods. His rifle continued to bark and chatter, brass flying and getting lost in the muck below.
"I don't know. I heard it, the Gravemind. It felt like… like when Cortana would enter my mind, but more pressure, no icey feeling."
A glance over his shoulder, one that she didn't miss as she slung the shotgun onto her back and pulled her pistol from her thigh, taking accurate shots at the Flood as they tried to enter the room.
"Are you alright?"
"I'm fine."
There wasn't another question, but she knew if he was the one getting these feelings, she'd be just as concerned. A green light was sent out, and she held it as her pistol continued to buck against her palm until the ammunition was expended. The slide locked back and the magazine dropped, replaced by another in a heartbeat. Each round continued to hit home right where she told it to, the infector form in each combat form's chest popping and leaving the combat form to drop, lifeless, into the biomass.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. Smoke wafted from the barrel of the chief's rifle, and Morgan's pistol was back on her thigh with her shotgun held in both hands again.
The two stepped off from their perch, making their way down a set of stairs that had been covered over for who knew how long. The Chief took the lead this time, though, and she stared at his massive back from behind, her eyes going back and forth from her motion tracker even as they took in the details on the armor he wore. Red blips were constantly on the tracker this time, getting contact hits on the Flood above and below them, and she frowned as she lowered the sensitivity and the range to something that cleared the tracker screen slightly, but not enough to fully filter it all out. Anything further and she'd lose too much situational awareness.
Ahead of her, the whoosh of another door opening sounded from the other side of the Spartan II, and his shoulders shifted as he went through, checking left and right with his rifle leading the way. Another pulse filled her mind though, this time followed by that feeling she knew too well, one of ice water flooding through her mind, and she could hear Cortana's voice, defeated and weary, broken.
"I ran, I tried to stay hidden, but there was no escape! He cornered me, wrapped me tight… and brought me close."
Morgan flinched at the implication the words brought forth, and then she saw it. The Chief's vitals flared, then flatlined, but he remained on his feet, and she grabbed at his shoulder, turning him around. His weapon was up and in her face, but he didn't fire, and quickly lowered it.
He shook his head, the helmet shifting, breaking the steeled facade that she had known him for. "She's compromised." The words came out certain, and Morgan felt ice hit her heart rather than her mind.
"How do you know?" She wanted to doubt him, but the voice that came to her didn't sound too stable.
"She's broken, or she's given up information to the Gravemind. She referenced something only a few know about."
Her eyes narrowed behind her helmet. "How bad?"
"Not bad, personal, but still means we don't know what may have been given up."
"Understood. Your armor showed you flatlined. Was that the contact?"
He nodded, and glanced over his shoulder as another bright contact showed on the motion tracker, but then it dimmed again. "The same thing happened to you. I almost turned around, but then I heard her voice, I felt her in my mind."
Morgan frowned, but she knew they didn't have time to debate with their air running out by the second and the possibility of the Gravemind cracking Cortana's defense. "We need to move faster."
Without a word, the Chief turned back around, moving into the next corridor. It was a four way intersection, and Morgan passed by him, heading straight through into another series of winding corridors before another intersection came up. Stepping straight ahead again, Morgan led the way through.
A massive room yawned open ahead, one with multiple dangling objects that remained mostly uncovered, and her armor blared an alarm. Radiation was being emitted from each of the four structures, and she keyed her comm.
"Radiation alarm, likely reactors." Marking it on her map, she made a note to come back if they didn't find the In Amber Clad first. "We'll set it off on our way back through, after we've found her."
A green light. He agreed. Good.
There was only one way to go that didn't have them going around the rim, only heading deeper into the structure, and that was forward. A thin line of biomass and steel was the way across, and she flashed her green light, then amber, then green again. Proceed with caution.
Her shotgun stayed out, even as the Chief kept his assault rifle handy, the two ready to cut up anything that came across.
The Flood in the room continued to stumble about, as if drunk or half asleep, they didn't seem to notice the two Spartans moving across the thin beam until they were halfway across, and then it all went to hell.
Morgan's shotgun boomed as the first form grunted, growled, and turned to the two, sprinting at them and getting put down by the single shell. The rest, alerted by the sound, rushed forth, filling the beam in a way that only pulled fear into her veins. Behind her, she could feel the Master Chief's back press up against hers, and the sound of his rifle chattering went up.
Her shotgun held in one hand, her pistol came up, putting the Flood down one by one until it was empty and back on her thigh. Back in both hands, her shotgun fired again, turning into a rhythm. Boom, chick-chack. Boom, chick-chack. It went until empty, and the first shells from the stock came down and into the tube.
She got half of it loaded before she had to fire again, the Flood nearly touching the barrel by the time it was blown back and into its brethren. Several were knocked aside by the body, a few falling over the edge and into the abyss. At one point, one of the reactor pylons exploded, sending another wash of radiation out that caused the alarm to blare again, only for Morgan to silence it with a bump from her chin.
She tried to back away, but the Master Chief behind her offered no room. He had to have been backed against his own wall as it was, and her shotgun was dropped as it ran dry once more, fortunately not falling over the edge even as she pulled her assault rifle out and flicked the safety off, the trigger pulling back immediately as she fed the whole magazine through the gun.
The flashes of light from the barrel were rapid, the rifle's staccato chatter going off endlessly as the number 60 dropped to 0 on the ammunition feed. The magazine ran dry, and another went in, the trigger being held down immediately. Another magazine went dry, the rifles from each Spartan chattering in a never ending conversation as they held off the throngs of Flood.
Finally, the fight was over, both sides of the 'bridge' covered in bodies. The shell casings were gone, ejected over the edge and into the darkness below. Morgan kept her rifle up, barrel glowing orange and smoke wafting out of the barrel and the chamber, the half full magazine counter staring at her as she crouched down to grab her shotgun. She slung the rifle and went about loading her shotgun, satisfying her need to have a big gun at the ready before she reloaded the pistol while it remained on her thigh.
"Status." She said, not taking her eyes off the mountain of bodies.
"Green."
That was all that was needed, and with the sound of the Master Chief's rifle clicking as it was reloaded, she stepped off slowly, kicking each corpse into the abyss as she came to it, shotgun pointed down at the ground, ready to finish what wasn't already dead.
Nothing reached out to grab her though, nothing tried to drag her down into the darkness below, but something almost did.
Her HUD started to flicker, and the pressure entered her mind once more as her HUD flickered a dark blue and distorted. "I have walked the edge of the abyss. I have seen your future, and I have learned!"
It was panicked, wildly switching between a low and high pitch, until the last word was almost unintelligible and the neural link between her and her armor caused the speakers to screech, nearly shattering her sensitive eardrums as she stumbled.
The Master Chief's hand grabbed her shoulder, preventing her from tripping over one of the remaining Flood corpses and going over the edge. Her hand came up to her helmet, and she tried to press it against her temple until she remembered that it was getting in the way. The urge to rip the helmet off and throw it as hard as she could came to her, and it must have been telegraphed as her hand scrambled for the helmet release switch on the underside of the left cheek.
But her hand never made it there, the Master Chief's massive arm coming around and fitting around her chest plate almost completely, before his other reached around and completed the circle, rifle still in hand. She struggled, trying to break free, until the ringing stopped finally, and she relaxed.
Feeling the struggle stop, the Master Chief released her, a red light blinking to life on her HUD, now returned to normal. It flashed three times and stopped.
An amber light responded, blinking twice, and then a red, before she spoke, feeling out of breath. "We need to hurry. It's getting worse. I think she's still active somewhere, and she's picking up on our armor's transponder without realizing what she's doing."
The Chief nodded. "Agreed. I'll stay behind you in case it happens again."
With the situation worsening through no fault of her own, Morgan stepped over the remaining corpses, no longer able to take her time as she'd wished she could, and crossed the rest of the bridge without incident.
A throbbing in her head made her grit her teeth. It felt like the worst headache she could imagine, and it traveled from the back of her eyes to the neural lace at the base of her skull. It would go away in time, she hoped, as she crossed through the door at the end of the room and into another hallway, shotgun leading the way with a full tube and a shell in the chamber.
She frowned, despite the pain, as she remembered what had happened during that little moment of hers, nearly taking her helmet off. Had she done that, she no doubt would have been infected by any of the spores in the air, microscopic or other wise, and she swallowed a new lump in her throat. Only the Master Chief's quick thinking had saved her from succumbing to a moment of desperation mixed with fear. Had it been anyone but another Spartan, she would have ended up going through with it.
The hallway was empty, with no metal showing through at all, and she grimaced. It was getting worse. They were nearing the heart of the infection, and likely Cortana's position. Several skulls and bones littered the floor, left unconsumed by the Flood for some reason. She didn't like to think of what that reason might be.
The door at the end opened up prematurely, showing them an open room with a single pedestal inside, one that had an electric blue glow on top of it. Her heart nearly climbed into her throat as she saw it. She held up a hand though, stopping the Spartan behind her. "She's there. Move slow, possible ambush."
He stood with his rifle ready, aimed at the area around the pedestal, and she crept forward slowly, shotgun raised and an eye on her motion tracker, but nothing ever came. She was finally there, right in front of them, when the Master Chief was beckoned forward.
With no way through the shield housing the AI, Morgan raised the shotgun in her hands and smashed the stock against it once, twice, and a third time, before it shattered and revealed Cortana, lying where the light had been inside. She looked dejected, exhausted, and like she wanted to curl up and hide. The animated code that was always on her frame was absent, a dull blue nothingness replacing it.
Morgan knelt down in the muck, feeling her knee sink into it, and the Master Chief stood ready, his visor on the woman inside.
Cortana's first true words to them sounded as if she had just escaped a massive strain, but she didn't move. "You found me… but so much of me is wrong, broken. It took… it tried to take everything from me."
Looking back on those final moments, when the portal to the keyship had carried her inside, and left Cortana to the Flood, Morgan felt something tear at her. Swallowing, she moved closer, the light from Cortana's form reflecting off of the gold, dirt covered visor. "I promised I would come back for you."
Cortana didn't speak for a moment, but eventually she rolled over, bringing her knees back to her chest. Electric blue eyes searched out the dark green behind the visor, as if looking to see if it was all a dream. Morgan couldn't take the helmet off, but she did depolarize the visor, so that Cortana could see her through the dirt and grime and whatever else had been splashed onto it.
Finally, it got something out of her, and Cortana gave a synthetic sigh, pushing herself to a seated position as she wrapped her arms around her legs. Her eyes broke away, and noticed the Chief standing next to Morgan, and Cortana's broken appearance brightened slightly, the breath of a laugh dying as her mouth opened slightly.
"I should have known they'd never keep the two of you down for long. It's good to see you again, John."
The Master Chief joined Morgan in the muck, his assault rifle hidden below the pedestal as he leaned in. "It takes more than bleeding out to stop me." A hint of mirth in his voice, but that was all he allowed, and he was back to business. "Do you still have it?"
Cortana's smile scrunched up, into a thoughtful expression, before she realized what it was a moment later, an eternity for an AI. Producing the activation index for the Halo array, she held it aloft, and Morgan nodded in satisfaction. "A little souvenir I held onto… just in case," she said, a smirk etching its way onto her artificial lips. "So… how are we getting out of here?"
The Master Chief answered her, rising back to his feet. "I thought I'd try shooting my way out, mix things up a little."
Morgan's visor looked over to him, and his visor shifted to meet her gaze, only to see the blue armored Spartan shake her head, as if disbelieving. It did little to quench his good spirits at reuniting with the AI.
She held out her hand to them, looking between the two Spartans, when Morgan looked back to the Chief. Already, he had the AI chip from his helmet in hand, holding it out to her. Cortana smiled again, a genuine smile, and pressed her hand to the chip's core before she disappeared into it.
Reinserting it into his helmet, he jolted a bit as the sensation of her entering his mind came back to him, before Cortana's voice filtered in over Morgan's comms. "Keep your head down. There's two of us in here now, remember?"
Morgan felt some of the tension lift off of her. She had recovered her friend, and they were ready to stop this once and for all. Now they just needed to get out of this mass grave and onto the ring, and then it would all be over. Just a few more hours and everything would change.
But they would be a long few hours, the longest of her life, and a disembodied voice hit the pair hard, as if the walls themselves had grown hundreds of mouths to scream at them. It was a blend of man, woman, and child from across millennia. "Now, at last, I see it – Her secret revealed!"
Cortana's only response was a weak sounding request to get her out of High Charity. In other words, step on the gas.
Morgan took the lead, calling out to her partner. "Chief, reactor room, we've gotta blow the place before the infection can spread any further. Cortana, can you get us a route that's quickest?"
The Chief said nothing, but Cortana's voice gained strength as she was given a purpose. "Analyzing using your armor's systems now, but it'll take some time. Just keep going straight until I tell you to turn, Six."
Morgan didn't respond, letting her shotgun lead the way as she had on the way in. The hallways leading back to the reactor room were empty, as if the Gravemind was setting an ambush, and her grip on the shotgun tightened. The second door to open was where they needed to go, and it was, as she suspected, brimming with Flood husks.
A howl went up that could have rattled bones if hers weren't encased in armor. Her shotgun returned to one hand, the other grabbing her pistol and picking off targets that rushed the bridge, but her motion tracker showed a threat to the right. With her pistol still firing, one hand gripped the pistol grip of the shotgun and aimed it from her hip, pulling the trigger and evaporating the Flood form that had tried to close to swiping distance. The weapon bucked hard, the eight gauge shell having enough power behind it to give a Spartan a run for their money firing it one handed.
She grunted as she absorbed the shock, her pistol firing until the magazine was empty and replaced before she left it on her hip. Now, with both hands on the shotgun, she gave it a hefty pump and scanned the area.
The Master Chief was already engaging, his form awash in the muzzle flash of his MA5B as he unloaded the magazine into the Flood that were trying to cross the bridge. "Follow me, grab whatever explosives you have and get them ready."
He didn't wait for her, moving onto the thin bridge and continuing his unceasing onslaught of fire on the enemy. She tucked in behind him, keeping her shotgun trained at their rear in case of a pincer attack.
Reaching the first of the reactor pylons, Morgan pulled a grenade from her belt and yanked the pin. Pinging loudly, the top of the grenade released and flew into the abyss below, even as she counted every second, waiting for the perfect time, and finally threw it at one of the pylons.
It went off perfectly, slamming into the side of the pylon and detonating, her timing impeccable. The pylon followed the grenade, shredded by the explosion even as shrapnel pinged off of their shields and into the front line of the Flood. Damaged already from the crash and the fall of High Charity, the first reactor pylon failed, an internal explosion ripping it to pieces before it caught fire, an eerie blue glow followed by the ear shattering roar of the Gravemind.
The others went the same route, blowing up and starting a chain reaction that brought forth ever louder roars of pain. Cortana's voice drowned it out as she gave their next directions, urgency in her voice. "We need to get moving! You've hurt it, but not for long, and it won't stop until it gets you!"
Morgan didn't doubt her, and as they pushed off the other end of the bridge and cleared the remaining Flood, she took the lead again, leaving the room through the door they had entered on their way through the first time. Several Flood forms had died in the threshold, leaving it nearly jammed open with how many corpses had come down in the entrance.
Radiation alarms continued to go off in her helmet, the warnings climbing into higher levels of severity as they stepped back into the hallway and moved forward, following Cortana's instructions and moving at a faster pace than they had come in with.
Another door opened, revealing a corridor filled with debris and destroyed pieces of the corridor that had come through a hole in the ceiling. Cortana's instructions came late, sounding frazzled. "This route is a no-go. Hang on… There's a hole in the wall that will get you into a maintenance corridor, head that way." A flickering yellow icon on her HUD showed the hole, and Morgan turned, helmet lamps and shotgun flashlight playing across it. Moving for it, she ducked down and stepped inside, weapon up and leading the way.
The Chief followed close behind, the screams of more Flood echoing off the walls from where they had come. Morgan didn't look back, instead focusing on the slumped over form at the end of the maintenance corridor, covered in black armor and an opal visor.
It was an ODST, sealed up completely in armor and laying next to a discarded rocket launcher, both tubes empty. "How the…?" Her words trailed off. He had likely been on the In Amber Clad, but how had he made it here and not been transformed by the Flood?
Another howl, and more red dots on her motion tracker flooding in from behind. It didn't matter. Passing by the corpse, she came out the other side, into another corridor lined with flickering lights and more debris, but not enough to block the hall off. "Cortana, where to now?"
"Head straight, I'm reading a UNSC IFF transponder, assigned to a Pelican on board the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn."
"That's our ride out. We're almost out of here, Cortana."
"The sooner the better."
Water had leaked into the corridor at some location as it traveled down towards the next level. Ankle deep water waited for them near the next door, and Morgan frowned as she thought about flooded sections. If they had to reroute again due to more damage, it would just lower their odds further and further. Coming to the next door, it slid open, and Morgan spared a glance at the top left corner of her HUD. Her air supply was down to a half hour left on internal air. Grabbing the first tank from it's spot on her armor, she held it up, gesturing to the Chief over her shoulder.
He got the signal, and she heard his own tank clink softly as it was pulled from his armor. The rebreather assembly they had hastily added on to their helmets had a section in the center, directly in front of where her mouth would have been, that would feed air into the helmet through the tubes leading to either cheek, and from there into the internal storage.
Pressing the nozzle of the tank to it, the seal was broken after being protected from the contaminated air, and she could hear the soft hissing of air filling her helmet, the number that had been counting down reversing until it was back up to 83 minutes left on the clock.
Satisfied, she tossed the canister and brought her shotgun back up, listening as it splashed into the water and disappeared in the dimness. "83 minutes left. We should be out in no more than 15 if we don't get sidetracked again."
"Sitting at 80. Ready to move."
The Chief's response was short and to the point. All the better. Resuming her pace, she stepped through the door into a four way intersection. One of the doors, directly ahead, was dark with the lack of power flowing to it. The one off to the left was still bright and ready to open, but to the right, the door was jammed open, continuously opening and closing against a limp tentacle.
This was it.
Moving into the room, she scanned with her shotgun. Pockmarks and craters in the floor remained, along with multiple combat forms that had been ripped apart or mulched by heavy fire. A couple of tank forms were lying dead near their compatriots and-
Wait.
They hadn't fought any tank forms earlier, and the Pelican hadn't shot any.
"Contact!" The Chief had realized it too, and opened fire on one of the tank forms, his assault rifle chattering in protest at their presence and ripping into it. Now, the jig was up, and the tank forms rose to their feet rapidly, up and sprinting for them even as the Chief continued to fire.
Three of them had lumbered to their feet, intent on stopping the Spartans, even as another howl sounded through the walls. Whatever had been following them after their detour had caught up, and she grimaced in her helmet.
"It's getting a little crowded here..." Cortana called out over the comm, her voice sounding more than a little worried. Morgan felt the same, but with three tanks between them and the Pelican out, they had very little choice on how to move forward.
Ducking under a swing from the tree trunk of an arm one of the tank forms possessed as it got close enough, she fired her shotgun up into its arm as it passed, mulching it at the shoulder and sending it flying. With one less arm, it roared, and the Gravemind's voice echoed once again.
"Submit! End your torment and my own!"
It made her skin crawl, the thought of giving up and becoming little more than a puppet to be used against Humanity made her feel sick. But she didn't answer back, only racked the slide again and pumped two more shells into the tank's back. It went down, groaning its last as it fell apart. The other two were focused on the Chief, and thinking quickly, Morgan laid her plan out.
"Chief! I'm going for the Pelican, get ready to move!"
No answer. She didn't need one. She was already sprinting for the Pelican, armored boots kicking up a fantail of liquid and biomass as her strides slammed into the flesh like flooring before hitting the metal underneath. The Pelican was just outside and if she could get it in the air, they could skip the fighting. Just a little further-
She was taken off her feet, a nasty crack sounding in her chest and a flash of red pain. A combat form had been hiding around the corner, and as its massive tentacle arm recoiled back after a nasty strike at the Spartan, she felt her back hit the ground. Forcing herself to breathe, she ripped her pistol from her thigh to put a bullet in the combat form, but already its tentacle had cracked like a whip, hitting her arm and wrapping around it, the pistol flying away, before it began pulling at her and galloping closer to finish the job, to infect another.
She refused to let that happen, and one of her knives was already in hand. A single, heavy swing, and the tentacle was severed, her rifle coming off of her back and firing on full auto without even being aimed.
It did the job, and the Flood form was put down like a rabid dog. She left the pistol behind, scooping the shotgun off the ground and barreling for the Pelican again even as she forced her lungs to draw in some more air. The cockpit was empty, but she made sure to clear it with her shotgun before she dropped into the pilot's seat.
Armored hands flew across the control panel and the engines started to hiss, whine, and finally roar as they came to life and the Pelican started to lift off of the ground. Wheezing into the comm, she tried to alert the Chief.
"Evac, fl- flying. Get aboard!" With another thought, she flashed her green light three times quickly, trying to get his attention, and twisting to see around the bulkhead and out the rear door, she saw he had downed one of the other tank forms and managed to disengage from the second, his armor covered in gore and one of his shoulder pauldrons having been ripped off by the tank. A nasty dent in the chest armor showed how close even the Master Chief had come to getting dropped.
Then she saw the door open, Flood forms numbering far too many to count pushed through behind the tank form and swarmed around it. It was tens, likely hundreds of Flood forms, having gathered together to try and stop their evacuation.
The Chief wasn't even on the Pelican yet when she pushed the throttle up, timing it close enough for him to jump and dive into the bay, sliding across it as the swarm of Flood reached their position, several managing to grab on to the bar door before being put down by the Chief's rifle as they peeked over the rim and he fired from the floor. A tentacle, larger than the tanks, rose to meet them, and given its size, it would bring down the Pelican with ease.
Thinking quickly, Morgan flipped the switch on the console to give the pilot weapons control, and jammed down on the firing stud. The cannon in the nose came to life, roaring in defiance of the Gravemind's last ditch attempt at stopping them. Rounds peppered it, exploding and ripping chunks out of it even as another, inhuman screech sounded, rattling the Pelican and the Spartans inside.
It eventually went down, felled like a tree, but not before falling towards them. Jinking to the right, the Pelican barely avoided being hit directly, but the left wing wasn't so lucky. As the tentacle fell, it came down on the left front engine nacelle, crushing the nacelle and causing the Pelican to dip to the left and start to yaw in the same direction. Stifling a yell, Morgan yanked at the controls, sending the left wing further into a dip and forcing the tentacle to slide off, nearly nose diving them back into the place they had just left. Smashing the bay door close button while she had the chance, she fought the bird even harder.
It continued to spin, but the altitude drop was stopped, and with a few adjustments, she got it to start rising once more, her heart thundering in her chest as she fed more power into the remaining engines as she found its equilibrium.
Breaking out of the infected station, the Pelican soared into open air once more, trailing thick black smoke from the left front engine. The wing was crushed and crumpled, and the engine nacelle was nearly closed at the front, with far too little air to maintain operation feeding through the intake. It blared an alarm that she silenced, before shutting the engine off completely. The black smoke thinned a bit, but it continued to come. There was a fire somewhere inside, and she knew the bird wouldn't last too much longer after that hit.
With the ring high up in front of them, Morgan pushed the throttle all the way forward. It would get them there faster, but it would be risky. The other engines could fail at any time if the fire met the control lines or hit one of the fuel tanks.
Calling back to the Chief, she got a few words out this time without sounding like she would keel over at any moment. "Chief, you al- alright back there?"
His response was slow, and when it came, he sounded out of breath as well. "Affirmative. That was close. Too close."
"I guess you just got lucky, huh?" Cortana was quick to reply to that, and a moment later, she heard his helmet tap against the bulkhead, a gentle laugh coming from the AI. "Sorry."
"Good. Get up here and help me then."
"Yes, ma'am."
He appeared behind her a moment later, sliding into the copilot's seat and putting Cortana's AI chip into the Pelican. She appeared next to Morgan a few moments later, standing on the small holopad with her arms crossed. She smiled slightly as Morgan glanced over.
An acknowledging nod, and Morgan settled back in the seat, feeling her chest shift as she did. With working biofoam dispensers, her armor dealt with it, and she felt the biofoam inside of her chest refreshing and stabilizing the injury.
The Shadow of Intent loomed off to the side of the ring, hanging there as if judging the Pelican for what it was doing. A comms channel opened up, and the shipmaster spoke aloud through it.
"We are aboard, Humans and Sangheilli. We will make for the portal in a few moments time."
Morgan sighed softly, realizing they would be alone in just a few minutes, left behind far outside of the galaxy and with nothing but the Flood for company. "Understood. Get everyone back to Earth safely, Shipmaster. You have my thanks."
"And you, ours, Spartan. Your sergeant is taking your frigate from our hangar bay. Good luck, to all of you."
With the click of the comms channel cutting, another came through, one that was preceded by the insignia of the Forward Unto Dawn. Johnson was calling them now.
"Johnson, we're receiving."
Appearing on a small monitor off to her left, Johnson could be seen, backlit by the bridge lights on the Dawn. "Roger that. I'm still getting the Dawn ready to go. When I get to Halo, I'll land as close to the control center as I can."
Cortana huffed, catching the Sergeant Major's eye, a grin showing despite his weary features. "Keep in mind that safe is better than close, Sergeant Major."
"Roger that, and ma'am? It's good to have you back. I'll meet you all on the ring soon. Johnson out."
The channel cut, and with the rise through the atmosphere of the Ark and back into void of space, the engine fire went out, but the damage had been done. They had nothing now but a short ride and a bumpy landing, and then?
Hopefully an end.