Greg walked slowly back into the generator shed and found Izzy on the floor, hard at work bringing the auxiliary generator online.
"Hey, what happened?" she asked without looking up.
"Uh...we're using this as our base of operations, I named it Armitage Station, and I got promoted to Sergeant," he replied.
She looked up immediately. "What? Seriously?"
"Yeah. Gibson felt it appropriate, given that Task Force Reaper needs a leader. And we're allowed to conscript people into our task force," he replied.
"Holy shit, that's awesome." She stood up suddenly. "Wait, why did you get a promotion? Wasn't he raving about what a great duo you and I are?"
"I guess...he didn't think about it? It seemed kind of sudden," he replied with a shrug.
"Okay, hold on." She activated her radio and, apparently, called up Gibson. "Yeah, it's Serrano, Gibson. Why didn't I get promoted?" She paused, listened. Greg wondered if he should tune into the conversation, but then wondered if that might annoy her. "Yeah, I think so. I mean, you said it yourself: we both kicked ass on Polaris." Another pause. Suddenly, she grinned. "Yeah, that works. Yeah, I know, I don't care about that. Okay, thanks...okay." Her grin grew as she looked at him again. "You are now looking at Sergeant Izzy," she said.
"Holy crap, really?"
"Yep!"
"That's awesome. Well, you certainly earned it."
"He also said that you still have operational discretion. So you're still in control. Which I don't care about, honestly. You've done well so far."
"Thanks." His helmet chimed as he received a data packet and he checked it out. It was a map of the local area, with routes to those two structures Gibson had indicated. He sighed softly.
"What?" Izzy asked.
"We've got our next objective, which is bringing this place back online. Which, at the moment, means raiding a pair of structures for resources to fix the generator, and anything else we can find. How long will it take you to get that auxiliary generator back online?" he asked.
"Ten minutes, tops," she replied.
"Okay, get on it. I'm going to go update the others."
"On it," she said, and set back to work.
Greg turned and began jogging around to the front entrance again, his mind working furiously as he considered the situation at large. This was a bit of a task ahead of him, but, well, he had operational discretion. It sounded like he was going to get his wish after all and be left to get the job done how he saw fit. Time to see how good he actually was at leading a squad of people in the middle of an exceptionally dangerous combat zone.
He found Larsen still on guard duty. "With me," he said, walking past him. Larsen fell in step behind him and they walked into the infirmary, where Ellis had just finished hooking an IV into the still-unconscious Laney.
"Is he okay?" Greg asked.
"Probably," Ellis replied. "His vitals are stable. His wounds are cleaned. I'm giving him a transfusion for the blood he's lost, and I've also given him a healthy dose of antibiotics, antivirals, and whatever else I can think of, given how much contact he's had with the Flood, and how filthy they are. What's happening?"
"This place is to be our base of operations as Task Force Reaper. Its designation is Armitage Station. Any forces we come across, we are now allowed to conscript into Task Force Reaper. Gibson just promoted Izzy and I in-field to Sergeants, and I'm officially to head up the task force. Right now, our primary responsibility is to bring this place back up to operational status. Izzy is bringing the auxiliary generator back online, once that's done, she and I are going to take the Warthog and leave. We have two other outposts to investigate for survivors and supplies. While we're gone, I want the two of you to get all the Flood bodies out and onto the landing pad. Don't mess them up otherwise, as they might be needed for research.
"Once you complete that objective, seal up the dead in bodybags and secure them in one of the storage sheds out back. When that's done, I need the two of you to begin sterilizing this place, mop up any and all blood and other biologicals you find. If you manage to finish that up before we get back, straighten up, and start performing an inventory of our supplies. Larsen, are we secure?" he asked, looking at the man.
"Yes, we are," he replied. "Back entrance is locked down tight, all the broken windows are sealed with shutters."
Greg frowned, considering something. "For now, seal every single window with a shutter. And lock down any rooms we aren't using after cleaning them up."
"Understood," Larsen replied.
"When Laney wakes up, bring him up to speed and, if he can manage it, put him to work. We're going to need all hands on deck for this one. But if not, keep him down. I don't need him hurting himself," Greg said.
"Understood," Ellis said.
"All right. Good luck. Get on the team frequency if anything at all happens, I want to stay up to date," he replied.
They both replied with an affirmative, and Greg let them work. He headed back outside and rejoined Izzy. As he did, he found her fitting the panel back into place. "Done," she said with a happy grin.
"Excellent work. Let's study up on the base and then go there," Greg replied.
They began to head for the Warthog.
The Marine Outpost wasn't all that far away.
Honestly, the most irritating part had been having to get the Warthog in through the main gate and driven around to the back of the medical facility, to access the road that ultimately would take them there. As they'd driven out there, Greg had largely been lost in his own thoughts. Mainly about this new responsibility that was laid at his feet. He actually liked the thought of running his own task force and being out in the wilderness, investigating derelict outposts, setting up a base of operations, and rescuing lost Marines and civilians. On the other hand, that was a lot of responsibility, and there were a lot of ways for things to go wrong.
But eventually, he noticed that Izzy wasn't saying anything.
"You doing okay? I thought you'd be hyped about your promotion," he asked.
"I am. I mean, you know, as much as I can be. I actually didn't care all that much about the rank, to be honest. But...I guess I'm a little worried," she replied.
"About?"
"Everything." She laughed softly. "It's so dangerous here. I guess I just keep coming back to the question of: how long can our luck hold strong?"
"We don't just have luck backing us up. We've got skill, strength, experience, training..."
"I know. And we've made it this far. And technically we can keep going strong. But luck can be a real wrench in the gears, you know? Bad luck, I mean. The Flood...they aren't like anything else we've had to fight before. They aren't like other humans or the Covenant or alien wildlife. They're...I mean, they're as close as we've ever gotten to like wild-ass sci-fi horror monsters. Like space zombies. I mean, they're nightmare stuff."
"Yeah, they sure are," Greg muttered. "I know how you feel."
"Don't mistake this as me thinking you aren't going to do a good job. Honestly, out of everyone on the team so far, you seem like the best choice to lead. Obviously not Larsen, and I don't want to lead, and I think Ellis feels the same way. No idea about Laney."
"Well, I sure hope I can manage it," Greg replied. He shifted in his seat, sitting up a bit more as they came around a wall of rock and ice. "There it is."
They both became silent as he slowed the Warthog down. At the end of a little canyon they'd gotten themselves into sat the military outpost. It looked about the same size as the one back on Polaris that they'd set up shop in briefly, maybe a little bigger. It was surrounded by a simple chainlink fence, and it was obvious that the Flood had been here, though he didn't see any along the exterior. No live ones, anyway. There was another snow Warthog parked in front of the base, and the tracks looked recent. It seemed to be in terrible condition, however.
Greg parked a few meters away from it and they both stood up in their seats, surveying the situation.
A cold wind blew across the forsaken desolation of the canyon.
"Maybe we shoulda brought Larsen," Izzy muttered.
"You really want him along?" Greg asked.
"At this point, yeah. This place is creepy."
"Maybe," he said. "But I didn't want to leave Ellis alone. We can handle this. I mean, we handled the weather station."
"We survived the weather station," she shot back. "Barely."
He just grunted, then activated his radio on a general shortwave. "This is Corporal-" He hesitated, cleared his throat. "This is Sergeant Walker of the UNSC Marine Corps, does anyone read? Over." He paused, waited, listened. Nothing. He repeated his message once, then sighed and switched back over to the team channel, though left the shortwave on receive.
"Forgot, huh?" Izzy asked as they hopped out onto the ground.
"Yeah. Gonna take a bit to get used to that," Greg replied.
They began walking over to the Warthog.
"You don't like Larsen?" she asked.
"What?" Greg replied. "He's fine. I guess I shouldn't rag on him. There's something about him...I guess maybe he seems too much like a rook, you know? Maybe it's his enthusiasm. I don't generally bag on rookies but you know how damned baked-in that shit is into the Corps."
She sighed. "Yeah, catch myself doing it every now and then...damn, what happened?"
They came to stand by the Warthog. It had obviously been through hell. A few streamers of smoke were rising from beneath the hood. The hull was dented and splattered with blood. Mostly it looked like it came from the Flood creatures, but some was definitely human. The front windshield was shattered and one of the tires was deflated.
"I don't think this thing is going anywhere," Izzy murmured.
"Might be survivors, come on," Greg said, and set off towards the outpost.
Greg listened as he readjusted his grip on his battle rifle. He could hear the cold wind blowing, he could hear their boots crunching in the snow, and…
Nothing else.
There were a handful of Combat Form corpses scattered across the inside of the fenced interior. The outpost looked to be a single structure. The main entrance looked firmly closed, and he actually saw a bloody handprint across it.
He and Izzy exchanged glances as they approached it.
"It's not even frozen yet," Izzy muttered.
"Someone's definitely here," Greg replied. He tried opening the door and got what was surely the exact same response whoever had tried to get in earlier had: a sharp buzz. "Locked."
"Want me to try and crack it?" she asked.
"No, they found another way in," Greg said, pointing.
There was a blood trail, he realized, in the snow. They followed it along the front of the structure, along the weather-chewed, frigid metal exterior around to a closed garage door, then around a corner and to the side of the outpost, where the trail terminated in a side door. It was closed and there was more blood smeared on the panel, but this one wasn't locked.
"Get ready," Greg murmured.
"Check," Izzy replied. She took a step back, raising her battle rifle, covering him.
Greg opened the door.
"Clear," she said softly.
"You got left," he said.
She nodded, shifting closer to the door. Greg stepped in with her immediately behind him, each of them sweeping their section of the room. The light was good enough to show a motorpool empty of vehicles, populated sparsely by crates, tables, and shelves littered with oily tools and spare parts. The blood trail continued across the garage, to a door across it that was still open. The pair quickly cleared the garage and then moved through the door beyond. It led to a darkened corridor. Greg switched to his pistol and turned on the flashlight, as did Izzy. He motioned to her: the blood trail continued down the right side of the hall.
Greg listened closely as they eased down the passageway. Now that the winds had fallen away, reduced to a distant, mournful howl beyond the titanium plating, it was easier to hear things. For the first few moments as they moved down the hallway, checking the doors that were open, he heard only the wind and the movements he and Izzy made. It was obvious that power had died here some time ago. There was frost covering a lot of stuff and everything was dark, dead, and cold. They passed a derelict office, an abandoned barracks, a forsaken storage room. And then, as they reached the end of the hallway, where it turned to the left, he heard something. Izzy froze at the same time he did, so she'd heard it too.
It was a very slight sound, almost like a footstep, and it had come from behind them.
They both turned, shining their lights back down the length of the corridor. There were signs of battle: some shell casings on the floor, a bit of blood on the wall, and a lonely Combat Form corpse, but otherwise he could see nothing out of place. There were several doors, though.
"Watch our six," he muttered finally.
"Yep," Izzy replied softly, and they kept going.
Greg stepped out, shining his light and pistol down the next length of corridor. The blood trail extended a little ways down it and terminated in a closed door in the left wall. They moved carefully up to it, and as Greg motioned to Izzy to get into position, the door suddenly opened up and a snow camo-clad figure stepped out.
"Ah!"
"Identify yourself!" Greg snapped, more out of surprise and automatic reaction than anything else.
"P-Private Coretti," the young Marine standing before him stammered. He lowered his pistol. "Oh thank God, I thought I was the only one left," he whispered.
Greg let his breath out slowly as he lowered his own pistol. "Are you hurt?"
"No. I..." He looked past Greg and Izzy, back the way they'd come, then over his shoulder, down the other length of corridor. "I thought you were it."
"It?" Izzy asked.
"The...thing, I don't know what it is. It's in the base."
"Are you sure?" Greg asked, looking around.
"Yes. I saw movement when I was first coming in here..."
"Great. Fall back," he replied, pointing to the door the man had appeared through. The young Marine nodded gratefully and did just that. He and Izzy followed. As Greg looked around the small infirmary that they'd come to, Izzy secured the door behind them. He saw a pale man, also fairly young looking, laid out on an exam table.
He wasn't moving.
"Is he dead?" Greg asked softly.
Coretti sighed heavily. "Yes. He died maybe ten minutes ago. I didn't even realize he was dead. I thought he was just unconscious..."
"Is it just you?"
"Yeah."
"Why don't you tell me how you got here?" Greg asked. He began moving around the infirmary, checking it out for medical supplies. "Izzy, pack up whatever you can find. We can use this stuff over at Armitage."
"Yep," she replied, and set to work.
"I, um, I was stationed at another place a few dozen miles from here. The power outage and the weird green lights hit and for a few days we just stayed at the outpost, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. Comms were down, sensors were down, we didn't even have power for two days. I thought we'd freeze to death...and then they came."
"The Flood?" Greg asked.
"Yeah. One of the guys stationed there had heard of them before. He knew what they were, sort of, at least. They attacked us by the dozens. We fought for days trying to hold them off. Finally, me and a squad were sent out to a comms relay to try and fix it so we could get a call for help out. We went out there, found the place totally trashed, broken beyond repair, and lost two people in the process. The Flood were around, and so were some of the damned vargs. We got back to base and found it totally overrun. We tried to mount a rescue, but in the end it was just me and Mickey there and another guy, Paulson, who got away in the Warthog. We started heading to the Regional HQ, ran into a lot of trouble on the way there…"
He sighed and shook his head, then popped his neck. "Paulson got killed on the way over, and Mickey got gutted by one of the bastards. We found out there was an outpost here, I drove up the mountain, trying to get him to the infirmary in time. Dragged his ass in after killing some of the things out front, he was bleeding all over the place...like I said, I didn't realize he was dead until I finally got him to the infirmary and started trying to put him back together more than I managed in the field. And now it's just me…"
"I'm sorry," Greg said. "You sure you aren't hurt?"
"No, I'm fine. Dead on my feet, but I managed to make it out okay...who are you?"
"I'm Sergeant Walker. That's Sergeant Serrano. We're part of Task Force Reaper."
"Sounds serious," Coretti replied.
"Yes. We've been assembled to establish a research operation on the Flood."
"Oh...that sounds important."
"It is. I'm in charge and I've been given conscription rights. So, as of this moment, Private Coretti, you are part of Task Force Reaper."
"Well...wow, okay. Although I gotta be honest, I'm not sure how much I can do. I've only been a Marine for six months..."
"To be honest, we've just begun, and we're so short-handed that even having someone to drive a Warthog or shift some crates or stand guard duty would be immensely helpful."
"I can do that," he said, sounding a little relieved.
"Good. Now, you said something was in the base with us. You think it's a Flood?"
"I honestly don't know. I mean, all the Flood things I've seen so far have just run at me screaming. Whatever it was seems like it might be hiding, so maybe it's some kind of animal? Or maybe another survivor, I don't know," he replied.
Greg considered it, and sized Coretti up. He looked young and green, but the fact that he'd made it this far must mean something. His uniform and armor were torn, dented, and bloodstained, and he was armed with a pistol and a shotgun. His helmet looked like it had taken some damage. "Did you hear my message over the comms?"
"No, my radio took a bad hit," Coretti replied.
"Figured as much. Our primary goal here is to search for survivors and recover crucial components from the base's generator. Though first I think we should hunt down this mystery guest haunting the base," Greg said.
"Okay. I'm ready, I guess," Coretti replied.
"Izzy?"
"Done packing," she replied. "I'm ready."
"Let's go."
They left the infirmary and stepped back out into the corridor. It was as vacant as ever, but now Greg felt like he was being watched. Was that paranoia now that he knew someone or something else was in the base with them?
"I don't suppose you have any idea where it might be?" Greg asked quietly.
"No," Coretti replied.
"Okay. Stick close. We'll sweep the base."
They set off down the corridor, taking care this time around to check every single door, opening up the ones that were closed. The base at least seemed to have very minimal power left. The next ten minutes passed by in tense silence. Every time he opened a new door or stepped up to an open doorway, Greg tensed, expecting an attack. But it never came. Each time he opened a new door and cleared another room, the tension ratcheted up a notch. And with each passing moment, the feeling of being watched, of being hunted, swelled.
He passed another storage area, a mess hall, some offices, a bathroom, each of them either untouched or showing at least some signs of battle. In a few areas, people had obviously come in to make last stands or just to die. There were several corpses among the shadows revealed by the flashlight's beam. More bodies to check for supplies, more dead to bury, eventually. If anyone actually survived this godforsaken nightmare.
The three of them made almost a complete circuit of the outpost before they ran into a problem. As they continued checking out the abandoned outpost, he began to hear noises. At first it seemed like it could just be the wind or nerves, but as they neared the main entrance, where he and Izzy, and earlier Coretti and his dead friend, had originally tried to enter, they definitely heard something. And it was coming from behind them.
All three of them immediately turned back and aimed their flashlights through the open door. The room they'd come to was a simple reception lobby with three ways out and it was painted in blood. It looked like a lot of the fighting had gone on in here, although obviously someone had managed to seal the front door and windows at some point. They waited, their flashlights pointing at the open doorway, lighting it up.
Nothing happened for almost two minutes.
Finally, Greg sighed softly. "Whatever it is, I don't think it's going to come to us."
"Not unless we draw it out," Izzy muttered.
"I'm bait," Greg said as he considered and accepted the idea, and before Izzy could recommend otherwise.
"No," she replied immediately.
"I'm in charge here."
"I knew it was gonna go to your damned head," she muttered.
"I'll make it up to you later, but I'm pulling rank," he replied.
"We're the same rank now," she said. He stared at her. She sighed, more of a growl, but otherwise didn't argue.
"You don't think it can understand us, do you?" Coretti muttered.
"No, but if we linger too long maybe it will." He paused, then slowly and quietly began to make his way towards the front desk. It was set towards the back of the room, directly opposite the front door. He pointed to the right-hand door that would take them back to the initial corridor the garage had let out into. "Let's keep going," he said loudly.
"You got it, Sergeant," Izzy replied.
Greg turned off his light and dropped into a crouch beside the desk. He focused on being absolutely still. Izzy asked Coretti a question as they slowly walked into the corridor, their lights gradually disappearing. He responded and actually sounded pretty natural. It felt weird, acting for the benefit of what was probably a Flood creature, although surely if it was it was unlike anything else they had encountered so far.
Greg waited for almost thirty seconds, his eyes adjusting to the darkness.
And then he heard it.
Very, very soft footfalls, one after the other, surely more than two feet, none of them clad in boots. It entered from the way they initially had and drifted across the room, following after Izzy and Coretti. The darkness wasn't absolute, but he could hardly see anything at all and was largely going by his ears more than his eyes. His pistol was pointed towards the door, unwavering, his finger on the switch to hit the flashlight.
Just a few…
More…
Greg flipped on the flashlight and recoiled in shock at what it lit up. "What the hell!?" he screamed. The creature was low to the floor, down on four legs, and it was definitely a Flood. It shrieked wildly and began scurrying towards him, reaching at him with pincers as it came up onto two legs. He pulled the trigger three times and splattered greenish gore across the deckplates. The shrieking cut off and the thing collapsed into an unmoving heap.
"Greg?!" Izzy called. He heard running footsteps.
"I'm okay!" he called back, standing up, unable to take his eyes off of the creature.
Izzy appeared in the doorway and aimed her light at the body. "What is that?!" she demanded.
"No idea," Greg muttered, still covering it with his own pistol. "But this is definitely something new. A big discovery...we're gonna have to take it with us."
"Yeah," Izzy said.
"God, that thing was in here with me?" Coretti moaned.
"Yep. At least it's dead now."
"Is it dead?" Coretti asked.
Greg stepped forward and kicked at it a few times. It didn't react at all and it wasn't moving in the slightest, though he wasn't sure if Flood needed to breathe. He was tempted to shoot it several more times, but he imagined Gibson would want it as intact as possible.
"All right," he said, "let's secure this thing, then search the outpost for whatever supplies we can, and strip that generator for parts."
They all stared at the dead Flood for a second longer, then got to work.
