Ruby racked the bolt back of her assault rifle to check the inner workings. The guns' insides were some of the best she's ever seen and no doubt that it wouldn't jam even if it was packed with dirt or carbon. But cleaning her rifle was mainly a distraction from what happened hours before, something that a few of the Marines she saved have opted to do to. If only to pass the time and keep their minds off the living nightmare that is space zombies were real.
Echo419's Pelican was heading back to the control room. The pilot had radioed Alpha base about Chief disappearance and was on their way to the control room for Cortona for info. In return, they got multiple sightings of this new parasite that was spreading. She lets out a sigh then.
"Well...this job is gonna get interesting." The pilot said to herself as she takes back control of her bird from her co-pilot and checks her location. They were nearing the opening in the canyon to where the control room was at.
"Alright, people!" She said over the ship's intercom. "We're almost to our destination. Prepare to disembark!"
The Marines heard this and did any last-minute checks. They had changed out of their swamp covers and into cold-weather gear. Having been inform ahead of time of the snow and cold in this region of the ring.
Ruby entered the cockpit as they approached, clad in full body armor with an addition of a black bodysuit. She had her signature sniper rifle on her back as well as her pistol on her leg holster, and assault rifle hanging loosely to her side. She was ready to go, "Thank you, Foehammer, for taking me back here." She said with a smile.
Foehammer returned it. "Your welcome Rose, just find Cortona and find out just what the hell these things are."
"Will you be alright out here by yourselves?"
"Don't worry about us, little lady. We'll be fine," the co-pilot answered. "But be warned we need to head back to Alpha base soon for fuel. We've been flying for a good eight hours and will need to head back, or we will fall right out of the sky."
Ruby nodded. "Just stay safe. I wouldn't have anyone else fly me and around then you guys." She went and hugged Foehammer and doing the same with the co-pilot and the crew chief before leaving.
Foehammer watched as she left with a smile. "She really is a good kid."
"Damn, now we gotta come back. Otherwise, I'd feel like absolute shit if we left." The Co-pilot said when the door closed behind Ruby.
As Ruby rejoined the marines in the troop bay. She saw they were all ready to deploy. "Thanks, guys, for coming with me."
"Hey, you save us back there. This is the least we can do," the Corporal that was with them said.
"If it means going back to fighting the Covent rather then undead space zombies. That's fine by me." A PFC said, getting nods or voices of agreement from everyone there.
One Marnie opened the troop bay doors, letting in the cold and snow. Ruby shivered at the initial contact but steeled herself and readied her sniper rifle. Looking out, they could see the pyramid below where the control center is at.
The six exited the Pelican and quickly secured the area. The dropship then hovered back up and flew away.
"Troops deployed," Foehammer said over the radio. "Stay safe down their Marines. Echo 419 remaining on station, Foehammer out."
"Roger that," The Corporal said before turning to Ruby. "Rose! You've been here before, you've got the point. Lead us where we need to go."
"Got it." Ruby moved forward with the Marines following behind. The team past several frozen corpses of dead Covanet along the way, all dead from human weapons fire. Likely from when the Master Chief went through here last time. The Control Room and Cortana location was just ahead.
Ruby spotted some covenant still alive over at the big doors, a team of Grunts and two Elites. One Elite was there at the control panel trying to break in. The firefight was quick as the team quickly dealt with the Grunts while Ruby and the Corporal took care of the Elites. Ruby ran up to the big doors before going over to the control panel. The Huntress looked over the thing and became slightly frustrated. "How does Chief do this?"
Ruby stuck her hand in the middle and pushed some kind of button on the screen. The panel lit up in several colors, and the doors opened, revealing a large, hangar-like space. Ruby and turn to the marines that stopped back at the entrance.
"You guys coming?" Ruby asked them.
"We'll secure the perimeter out here, kid. Keep an eye on things if anymore Covanet that show up." The Corporal of the Marines replied with a smirk which Ruby returned.
"Okay, be careful. Don't start any fights without me!" She said before she entered the complex, jogging in before stopping in front of another set of doors and pressing the switch.
She entered a vast room, where the actual walls were shaped like a sphere, except the top and bottom led to a hole that seemed to go on forever. The door led straight onto a large platform, its only connection to anything being the path to the door. Ruby could actually look down through the transparent glass/steel but then immediately regretted it, seeing as she could only see an endless abyss. What caught her eye next was the gigantic hologram of Halo slowly rotating around a circular walkway in the middle of the area. At the start of the circular walkway was a larger holographic panel than any of the ones Ruby had seen previously. Seeing the large holo board, Ruby instantly assume that was where Cortana was.
"Cortana? Cortana, are you here?" Cortana's avatar suddenly appeared over the panel, her color shifted from blue to red, then back again.
"Ruby? You're here, where's the Chief?" Cortana asked as she noticed the spartan is not with her right now.
Ruby shrugged. "I'm not sure he vanished when we were trying to escape," Ruby explained what she knew.
Cortana didn't need to think about this and dove through Halo's systems. After being in the Halo's core systems for nearly ten hours, she's had an idea of where everything was at. "Alright, I'll try finding him through his neural implants with Halo's system. Give me a minute to get this set up, and I'll find the caveman.
Ruby chuckled at the caveman comment and decided to start a conversation with the UNSC AI. "So, Cortana...how much do you know about the Flood? You got to know about them since you were in the Halo's systems for a while."
Cortana actually looked a little afraid to talk about them. When she got info on them, it actually scared her, but Ruby and the rest of humanity needed to know about them. "There's a lot of testing data on them that would make the average UNSC scientist blush. From what I can gather, there a race of parasites life forms with the capacity of assimilating any other organic matter. Then overriding said matter on a genetic level, turning them into them more of them."
"So... space Zombies then, only their real and much more nightmarish?" Ruby replied, giving her opinion on them.
"You can say that." Cortana agreed that it was a fitting thing to call the Flood.
Ruby thinks about this. She was judging whether or not to tell Cortana about the Flood Spore coming to contact on her but didn't when it had the chance. She decided to ask something else. "So, think we can use Halo on them?"
Cortana was calmer now, so she was not panicked when she talked to Chief. "Yeah...using halo would not be the best idea."
Ruby raised an eyebrow at that. "Why not?"
"Halo is a weapon, yes. But it is not the kind of weapon we should ever need." Cortana began as she turned to Ruby, who looked at her in confusion.
"What do you mean? Can't we just direct at the enemy and shoot it?" Ruby asked innocently.
Cortona visibly put her hand to her face and mutter something in a small tone with her visible mouth covered. Ruby couldn't here but did catch the words 'daughter' and 'neanderthal' before the A.I. spoke again. "Okay, first off. Halo is nothing like a handheld firearm. You can't just point and shoot at a specific person and be done with it. It sends a pulse that kills and destroys everything organic in the galaxy, whether they be human or Covenant. We're all equal to food to the eyes of the Flood. And that's what Halo is designed to be, a weapon that kills us all to starve the Flood."
If one looked Ruby in the eyes, they would see fear. Halo, the weapon that they've been standing and fighting over, was not what they needed. Made to kill everything!? Just to beat these monsters? There dangerous she can tell but killing everyone just to stop them. This was maddening to think about, thinking something that held so much beauty could be so dangerous. Another thought that occurred made her wonder if the Covenant were aware of this?
"Oh my...that's...wow." Ruby said, putting a hand on her head. She needed time to take this all in.
Cortana wad about to ask if she will be ok; when she finally found Chief's signal. "Ah, there's the Chief," that seemed to lighten Ruby's mood. "And he's...oh crap..."
Hearing that ruby got a little worried. "What is it?"
"It seems Chief has been busy. He's in a structure on the called 'the Library.' It houses what is called the Index. It's what's essentially the firing key this giant death machine. From what I can gather here, he's been there for a few hours slowly inch towards it, knowing him he will get it." Cortana said.
When Cortana told her that the Huntress pretty much shouted. "What!? How'd is he there!?"
"It must have been the monitor of the ring." The UNSC A.I. said.
"Monitor? Is he one of those friendly floating laser-face robots that helped us fight the Flood?" Ruby asked.
Cortana shook her head no. "No, those are sentinels, the monitor looks like this." Cortana made a hologram image of him appear. "This is the Monitor. He goes by the destination, 343 Guilty Spark. He is also programmed to activate Halo if the Flood is ever freed from containment. He may not appear hostile to us like the Covenant, but he will do anything to activate Halo to stop the Flood from spreading."
Ruby looks at the sphere-shaped robot closely. Something told her that he's not an evil person, more like a guy doing his job, but he needs to be stopped regardless.
"Alright then, can you send me there somehow? I'll warn Chief about this when I reach him." Ruby was ready as she had her Sniper loaded ready.
"No, from what I got on his position, he'll have the Index soon, and the teleportation grid that Halo has isn't allowing me to teleport you near him. But, I got an idea, when the monitor comes hide as best you can." Cortana ordered.
Ruby was hesitant but sighed. "Fine... I hope whatever your plan you have will work for us." She said as she takes out one of her protein bars and eats one it. By the sound of things, the young Huntress wouldn't have time to prepare and looks around for a place to set up. She followed up by updating the Marine's outside of what's going on and expect a fight just in case. As for Cortana, she was waiting looked through more info on Halo and along with other mysteries the ring held.
Note: Well, hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I like to thank Helljumper206 for helping me edit.