The tunnel leading into the ONI base was wide enough for two Scorpion Tanks to roll through side by side, with enough room to march four men abreast on the side of each vehicle. John hadn't noticed it before, but now realized that the intent wasn't to make it easier to march into Zone 67, but to unleash the army that was being created inside.

John heard a distant noise from up ahead, and he had to strain himself to properly make it out. The sound of bare feet running across metal floors, metal scraping against walls, and mechanical screeches suddenly filled the hall. It sounded just like the footage Ackerson had shown of the outbreak on Far Isle. He immediately went to the memorized mental images he'd made, and began to quickly dole out the tactics he'd formulated.

Fifty meters ahead of the Spartans, there was a narrow corner that he'd memorized as leading into the underground city via an elevator, as well as through two emergency staircases on each side of the elevator.

John held up a hand to order the advancing Spartans to stop. They spread out into a thin line throughout the tunnel, aiming their weapons straight ahead. "Incoming enemy. Designation; Husk. Prepare to receive a wave assault." He ordered, both using hand signals for his spartans, and speaking for Zaeed's squad.

"Their internal organs are redundant. Take out their locomotion, or avenues of attack." John said calmly across SQUADCOM. "Grey, take out any husks that appear differently from the others, as well as potential ONI handlers. Gold and Green, prepare underslung launchers. Aim for legs. Intermittent ten second volleys." Grey's battle rifles while Gold and Green's assault rifles aimed down towards the sound of the oncoming noise.

It was starting to get closer. John could hear something else in the noise, but could not make it out.

"Zaeed, your team will provide fire support. Focus on slowing down enemy movement and speed." Zaeed spun up his chaingun, while Sergeant Johnson lit the pilot-light of his flamethrower. Samara spread her hands, biotic power flowing around her body as she tensed up with power. Kirrahe lit the omni-tool on his left arm, while his cybernetic right arm reconfigured itself into a weapon John had not seen before.

The sound of mechanical screaming was now loud enough to make John feel a profound discomfort in his body, although not in his mind. He surmised the noise was modulated precisely to cause this sort of distraction in the opponent.

"Noble, disable heat-limiters and aim for pelvis areas with IN, CR, AP loads." John disabled the heat limiter on his assault rifle, and prepared to fire the weapon on automatic. He'd need the punching power. His rifle was set to first fire an incendiary round, followed by a cryogenic round, and finally an armor-piercing round. The rest of Noble Team prepared their weapons, taking aim in utter silence.

There was a soft blue glow from the other side of the tunnel, just around the corner, the same baleful blue light of all the technology the Slipspace Entities harnessed. It was quickly becoming brighter. As were the horrific screeching noises of the husks as they charged to attack.
"Hold." John said, aiming his weapon around hip-height. "On my command."

The first Husks were rounding the corner, their flesh still pink in places, and parts of their faces still recognizable. Just a few dozen at first, although the blue light was becoming increasingly bright as the rest of the Husks approached. "Grey Team." John commanded, making a hand signal. Neutralize

Battle rifles rang out, quick three round bursts taking out the Husks that ranged ahead of the rests with calm methodical precision. The sound and glow of the projectiles indicated Grey team was firing without overheating their thermal clips.

Then the rest of the Husks rounded the corner, a tidal wave of dried flesh, pink skin, blue cybernetics, and black metal. Each of the Husks was slightly different than the other, some equipped with integrated claws, others with longer legs that let them make massive strides. Others were crawling or running along the ceilings or walls using either magnetics, or anti-gravity.

There were massive hulking creatures consisting of multiple people stitched together, their bodies fitted with massive weapons that pulsed menacingly. Flying beasts whose gaping jaws revealed dozens of husked heads, and who were fitted with a bewildering array of integrated weaponry.

And then there were the creatures that did not follow any design in particular. There were tank-sized arthropods that looked to be running on hundreds of fused human legs, while tendrils on their backs lashed out, snapping for the Spartans. They had large claws which looked big enough to crush a man whole. It had been created from what looked like a hundred humans, intertwined into a single massive monster.

When the Husks were within fifty meters, John gave the order. "Fire!"

Samara unleashed her biotic power, throwing it forward like a shockwave that went through the tunnel, mangling anything it touched as the warp fields twisted and tore through armor, popped flesh like wet balloons, and turned one of the flying Husks into a pile of shrapnel that fell down, crushing several more husks.

Kirrahe aimed his Omni-tool forward, flash-fabricating and deploying two turrets that opened fire upon the husks, laying down suppressing fire, while his cybernetic arm sent out a blast of Bose-Einstein condensate that splashed across the ground in front of the Husks, freezing legs, and slowing the rest down. But the husks swarmed over their frozen kind, only mildly slowed down.

Another five meters, and the Husks were losing momentum, crashing into and over each other in an attempt to get into close combat with the Spartans. Some of the larger Husks which were made from multiple bodies fused together, opened fire with integrated weaponry, forcing Spartans to dodge, and return fire.

With the heat-limiters disabled, and the weapons automatically overclocked to levels only a Spartan could withstand, each of the assault rifles was easily as strong as a traditional gunpowder LMG. The rate of firepower made it looks like the Spartans were wielding energy weapons, firing streams of red, white, and yellow in a rainbow of colors. The advanced of the husks slowed down, as their front ranks were blown apart with well-aimed firepower.

The underslung grenade launchers of the Spartans fired, bouncing grenades across the ground and into the midst of the husks, blowing apart dozens each, and wounding or disabling many more. Their underslung launchers spent, they continued to fire with their assault rifles as the launchers began flash-fabricating another projectile. The stream of fire dropped several of the larger monstrosities that charged, their bodies mangled and torn, but still attacking with any components that remained. They were now thirty-five meters from the Spartans.

The husks fired their integrated weaponry, even as Grey Team began to shoot any of the Husks that possessed ranged weaponry, focusing on shooting off the weapons and leaving the mopup to the other Spartans. The firepower into the bulk of the horde began to lessen, and the hulks pressed on further. They were now within thirty meters.

Zaeed and Jorge spun up their chainguns, their guns sweeping low as they cut through the legs of dozens of husks each second, reducing them to crawlers that nevertheless bounded forward with a suicidal ferocity.

Sergeant Johnson sent out a stream of napalm, aiming it in front of the charging Husks, so the ones still partially frozen from Kirrahe's attack began to crack and break as the heat caused their frozen cybernetics to crack and explode in bursts of steam.

John and Noble team joined him, their rifles aiming anywhere in the charging mass of Husks that the enemy was starting to win ground, carefully sweeping back and forth, expertly providing supporting fire that ensured the enemy didn't make any progress.

Grey Team opened fire into the jaw of one of the flying husks, their fire popping the heads inside, until the creature collapsed, to the ground, crushing into the path of Johnson's flamer, who turned up the flow of napalm, spreading it across the burning husk so it lit any of its kind that tried climbing over it.

The husks were now twenty meters from the Spartans, and their advance had completely stalled. Their bodies began to pile up, forming a growing pile of corpses that the husks behind them had to climb over. The wall of bodies grew at a rapid rate, quickly filling up the tunnel until it looked like a solid wall of cybernetic corpses was blocking the path of the Spartans.

"Samara. Push them back." John commanded. "Prepare to fire and advance."

Samara stepped forward, flexing her hands and concentrating her power. She pushed with all her power, and threw back the blockade of corpses and half-dead husks, clearing the firing lanes for the rest of them. The Spartans moved forward, firing another volley of underslung grenades at the Husks, blasting more of them back.

"Empty!" Johnson yelled, dropping the flamethrower and switching to a Shotgun slung on his lower back, which unfolded to its full size. He hammered the slide, firing solid slug rounds into the husks. When the weapon overheated, He pulled out a satchel charge and threw it forward. "Samara, Throw!" Before taking out a thermal clip and tossing it into the air. He opened the receiving port on his shotgun, and caught the tip of the clip inside, slamming it down with his fist.

The Justicar enveloped the charge in a field of blue energies, and propelled it forward into the husks, where it detonated in a blinding flash that threw the enemy back further. It left an opening in the formation of the husks.

"Grenades high." John said, moving forward, crushing the skull of a wounded Husk as he pulled out a grenade with his left arm, putting the pin to a magnetic lock on his armor to pull the pin, before throwing the grenade over the Husks and into the rear of their advance, quickly followed by two dozen more as his Spartans joined in. The barrage of grenades reduced the vanguard of the enemy into a handful of survivors.

The Spartans moved forward as one, switching from firing at the horde of Husks ahead of them, to wounded crawling husks that attempted to strike from within the knee-high carpet of cybernetic remnants.

One of the tank-sized arthropod-esque creatures was absorbing most of the fire it received, flashing with the telltale sign of an integrated energy shield. John rushed forward, pulling out a satchel charge and jumping forward beneath the creature, barely dodging its jaws. He slid under it on a tide of moving cybernetic and blood, and stuck the satchel charge beneath it. John rolled out from beneath it through a gap where its legs had been blown off, and using the momentum of his roll, leapt to his feet to slam a Husk equipped with an integrated rifle into a wall, grabbing it by its head, and swinging it around him to drive off a pair of husks that tried to get close to him. Until the head popped free, and the body flew off.

He barreled back towards the spartans, barreling through several husks and crushing them in his stride. The satchel charge exploded, the blast contained inside the shield of the arthropod. It was torn in half, and went silent.

The husks were retreating, flooding back into the facility.

Gold team slowly approached the corpse of the Arthropod that John had destroyed, weapons trained upon it, looking for any sign of life. There was a brief stirring of its head, which was interrupted by James-005 putting a long burst of armour-piercing rounds through the skull.

James-005 gave John a quick hand signal. *Well done..*

John nodded.

Suddenly the rear section of the torn corpse lashed out, stabbing James through the back with its spiked tail, lifting him up as the Spartan struggled and yelled, pulling out a combat knife and trying to cut himself free.

The Spartans opened fire, ripping through the remnants of the creature, tearing off chunks as they brought it down. James fell down, pulling himself free from the spike, hands holding the torn wound in his chest.

Grace reached for her medical kit, taking out a can of Biofoam to patch up the wound. She approached James, putting a hand on his side as she put the biofoam canister to the wound. "Wait. What's this stuff?" She asked, examining something between her armored fingers.

John's head snapped to the scene, ignoring the rest of the Spartans confirming every Husk was completely dead. He walked up to James, and his heart sank as he saw the wound, where instead of blood, an ominous black and blue liquid was seeping. John glanced at the spike, whose tip was dripping with the same liquid. It looked like the same blood that all the Husks had inside of them, but much more concentrated.

Kirrahe had noticed the commotion and walked up, Omni-tool at the ready. He scanned the wound, and cursed in his own language when the return came in. "Nanotech and synthetic adrenaline equivalent. It's spreading through your system. I'm sorry but I can't remove it."

James looked taken aback, grabbing the wound and taking out some of the liquid, looking at it in shock. Then he fell on his knees, punching the ground in frustration, as his body began to painfully spasm. He looked to be in incredible pain, too agonized to speak. He looked up at John expectantly, drawing a line on his throat and signing with his other hand. Quick. Please.

John had never thought he'd face a situation like this. He had expected to fight Spartans whose bodies had been turned into Husks. But one of his own asking him to shoot them? The idea he'd even have to do this had never come over him before. But there was no choice here. The Leviathan's infection could not be allowed to spread. He reached for his Carnifex, put it against James' faceplate and fired.

The Warp round went through James's head and out the back of his helmet, his body slumping to the ground. The other Spartans in the midst of finishing off the wounded Husks turned to look at him. John took charge of the situation immediately. He had to keep them focused on the mission. "I expect any of you to do the same for me. Classify the Arthropods as: Infecters. Kill them on sight, and do not get close. Treat any component of these things as combat effective until proven otherwise."

Joshua-029 nodded at John, but then shook his head at James' body. "This is messed up." He moved to begin scavenging James' body for grenades and thermal clips.

When Joshua was done, John knelt down to turn the body over. He removed the panel on the back of his Mjolnir, and began to enter the self-destruct code. It would destroy James, and anything within twenty meters of the blast. He set it to detonate the moment there were no friendlies within range of its motion tracker. The other Spartans observed the ritual solemnly, before immediately getting back to work.

John got back to his feet. "The Husks have retreated further into the facility. They'll be trying to buy time for whatever it is ONI has planned. We continue the mission as planned. Joshua, you're in charge of Gold Team."

They advanced further through the tunnel, passing the fallen Husks whose wounds had caused them to collapse during the retreat. The Spartans switched on the limiters to their rifles, and began shooting the Husks one after the other, not slowing down the advance.

There was no resistance on the way to the elevator, which heightened tensions among the Spartans as they carefully made their way further into the base. ONI had abandoned a good defensive position, and although John now knew they were mad, he did not believe ONI was stupid. ONI was drawing the Spartans deeper into the base.

They approached the large elevator that led into the city, weapons at the ready. Nobody spoke as they got ready.

The elevator door was ripped to shreds as a line of ten automatic anti-material turrets opened fire. John felt his barriers flare and pop as they focused fire upon him. His armour pinged as round after round struck him before he could respond. Cal-141 gasped as a bullet went through the side of her neck, shooting out the back, while other Spartans dove for cover, opening fire all the while, destroying several turrets.

A field of blue energy appeared around him, protecting him from the onslaught. Samara shielded him with one hand, before using her biotics with her other hand, to twist one of the sentry guns into firing on another.

Kirrahe leapt towards the fallen Cal, and activated his Omni-tool, carefully beginning to treat her neck wound, as Jorge leapt between the two and the remaining turrets, covering them with his body as he let rip with his chaingun, sweeping it across the elevator and ripping the turrets apart one after the other. His heavy armour was covered with dents and scratches where rounds had hit him, and one had even embedded itself in the top of his helmet. Just a centimeter down, and it would have punched through the faceplate.

Cal-141 pushed herself back onto her feet, the hole in her neck armour was splattered with dark red blood, but the bleeding itself had stopped. She reached for a bio-foam canister on her belt, and shot a spurt of it into the gap in her armour she then used an omni-tool to flash fabricate a thin metal layer to cover the hole. "I'm fine. Just a neck wound."

John looked at the map of the facility. The Spartans would have to split here. Grey and Gold teams split off down the left stairwell, heading to cut off ONI's escape. John made a series of quick hand signals, ordering Noble, Green, and Zaeed's team to follow him down the other stairwell.

John kept an eye on his motion tracker as he moved down into the facility, weapon at the ready. A burst of mass-accelerator fire splashed across his barriers. He immediately opened fire on the source. It was a husk that had a large bore rifle built into an overgrown right arm, with a hideously stretched face that opened wide enough to swallow a child whole. There was blood and cybernetic residue around its mouth, and to John's surprise, had cybernetic organs trailing from its mouth, down to a legless Husk.

The return fire tore through the unshielded Husk, ripping through its chest. But by now, more guns were being fired up the stairwell as other armed husks got into positions. John leaned over the side, firing at any Husks he could see. "Green team. provide fire support. Zaeed, Noble, prepare for CQC."

Kirrahe's cybernetic arm reshaped itself into a large ombi-blade, while his omni-tooled organic hand gripped a compact SMG. He rushed forward, cutting his way down the staircase alongside Sergeant Johnson, who lit an omni-bayonets on his shotgun.

Jorge and Zaeed spun up their Chainguns, their heavy firepower ripping apart chunks of stair and pulping Husks. The overwhelming firepower of the husks was rendered moot as their cover was ripped apart from them.

Samara drew her blade, and rushed forward in a stream of blue light directly down two floors of stairs, appearing in the midst of a pack of simpler husks. She moved like lightning, each movement bringing into a position to either deliver a mortal blow with her sword, or a biotic punch that turned torsos or heads into expanding red mist.

John made a series of hand signals, ordering the rest of Noble Team to storm down the stairs. They charged down the stairwell, gunning down any husk that stood in their path, and quickly linking up with Samara and Kirrahe. John's barriers were dropping quickly in the face of the constant intermittent impacts.

The bodies on the stairs were starting to pile up, leaving John coated with cybernetic guts and gore up to his waist. There was something exciting about fighting such utterly lifeless husks. There was no screaming or running from them, nor any contemptible weakness. Just monsters to be destroyed. There was something righteous about what he was doing.

By the time the Spartans had descended the stairwell fully, the barrels of their guns were red hot, and they had to wade through bodies. Blood was running down the stairs in a blue tide, carrying off cybernetic chunks and partially converted internals.

They were now approaching one of the entrances to the underground city inside Zone 67, and the home of the many ONI personnel inside. John knew that the Spartans would have to kill every last one inside, and that would make any ONI members not fed into the 'Conversion Factories' fight all the harder. But after what he'd seen today, he was not feeling merciful in the slightest.

There were doorways leading to supply closets, fire escapes, and other empty unused rooms around the wide pathway towards the entrance of the city, providing the Spartans with a minimal amount of cover as they advanced. One squad laid down suppressive fire on the husks, while another two leapfrogged forward from cover to cover. John led from the front, at times firing a gun in one hand, and ripping Thermal clips from the guns of the fallen husks with another.

ONI shock troops began to block the advance of the Spartans, fortified behind a barricade inside the hallway that led into the entrance of the habitation quarter of the underground city, and the many labs and factories that were inside. As well as the location of the Slipspace COM launcher.

There were also two 'towers' on each side of the entrance, mounted with heavy machine guns and manned by the same ONI troops. They were humans with cybernetics, but who still moved with minds and wills of their own, wearing modified ODST Hardsuits with heavy barriers. They opened fire with beam rifles that sent burning needle-thin beams of orange-white light that burned down barriers and pockmarked Mjolnir Armour.

Jorge took a beam to the stomach, and nearly doubled over as a thin hole was punched through his whole body and out the back. The Spartan did not stop, merely getting into cover inside a hallway, and blindly firing the chaingun around the corner. His armour was pockmarked all over, and he'd lost two of his shield emitters, decreasing the total effectiveness of his defenses.

There was a horrid cybernetic screech, as a tide of lesser husks were unleashed from behind the ONI soldiers, who swarmed over the barricades to attack the Spartans. The Spartans opened fire, trying to duck back down before one of the particle beams shot overhead. More Spartans were starting to take hits, their barriers popping, followed by a thin line shooting through them.

Joshua ran up to the barricade John was taking cover behind, barely dodging one of the ONI particle beams. He held up a grenade, making a quick hand signal. Need covering fire.

John nodded and got out of cover, firing both his SMG's on full-automatic and forcing the ONI troopers inside the left tower to take cover. Joshua ran up, particle beams and mass accelerator rounds impacting behind him. The spartan threw the grenade through the firing slit on the tower, then slid forward beneath its firing arc. He ripped out his combat knife taking on the husks that tried to swarm him.

The grenade went off inside the tower, killing every shock trooper inside. John leapt over the barricade, dodging and weaving his way through the husks. He prepared a grenade of his own. He leapt over one of the husks, and used another bulkier one as a platform to jump from. He gripped the underside of the firing slit, hanging from the tower, then slipped the grenade inside. He let go, feeling the shockwave of the blast behind him.

There was a burst of static, and the ONI troops began to pull back, laying down covering fire. The Spartans moved up, gunning down a dozen of the retreating ONI soldiers.

Samara reached for one of the particle beams from a dead ONI soldier, pulling it towards her with a burst of biotics. She examined the weapon, holding it up for John to see. It was an organic-looking rifle, which from the glance had been painted black to match the colour of the ONI armour. "This is a Collector particle beam. A species from the Terminus Systems of great secrecy, and dangerous technology." She looked gravely concerned.

John quickly caught what was concerning the Asari. "If the Collectors are working with ONI, then they could make a move inside Citadel Space."

Samara nodded. "It would not surprise me if something as foul as the Leviathan has influence within Citadel Space. We should send a message to New Ghent and the Turian forces stationed there. They can prepare a blockade against the Collectors."

-

After half an hour of bloody fighting, the Spartans were finally at the COM Launcher. They had pushed through constant unrelenting resistance in the form of the constant stream of Husks as well as small squads of ONI Shock Troopers attempting to lay ambushes. But the Spartans pushed on regardless, pushing through the base.

Jai spoke up over the COM. "We've got Kelly. Still in her stasis pod. She's had surgery done on her, but nothing was implanted as far as we can check. I've sent Adriana to carry her to the surface. There's a load of scientists who surrendered, and they don't look subverted."

"Confirm. You said they performed surgery on Kelly?" John asked, exchanging fire with a Shock Trooper. He didn't dare hope that Kelly was alright.

There was a pause before Jai answered. "They removed her ovaries, John. There's a room full of embryos in varying stages of development. I think ONI is cloning an army of Spartans." There was the sound of a glass container being moved. Jai transmitted a video feed of the room. It was a massive storage area, filled with glass vials each of which contained a frozen embryo that looked to be around its fifth month of development. "I'm scanning them. There have to be dozens of different types, each a different pairing of Spartan. These might be their templates. Only a few of these were made with Kelly's DNA. Most have a bit of you in them, apparently."

John immediately realized just where ONI had gotten the genetic material for their clone templates. "Take any data storage devices you can carry, execute the scientists, then turn off the life support for the embryos.." He ordered.

"Understood." There was a pause.

"Adrianna, switch on your limiter. You're wasting your thermal clip."

-

By the time the Spartans had reached the entrance to the Slipspace COM launcher, they were running short on thermal clips, even when scavenging as many from the dead as possible. Punctured armour was leaking blood where Biofoam hadn't been inserted yet. But there was no pause in the slightest. They couldn't stop. They had to warn the UNSC.

John personally tore open the door leading to the Command Center indicated on the map, charging through the metal door and opening fire on the guards inside at close range. He didn't differentiate from armoured guards, or the officers in uniform that were attempting to coordinate a defense against the Spartans. He opened fire, SMG's ripping through armour and tearing apart flesh. The resistance stopped quickly, leaving only cowering aides and wounded soldiers and officers. John ignored them and made his way to the control station, grabbing the hand of the dead officer behind it, and putting it on the scanner.

The command center as a large room filled with computer stations, a large holographic map at the centre of the room, and a series of monitors that would allow inhabitants to track any and all movement through the facility. A brief glance of the monitors confirmed that the Spartans hadn't even killed half the remaining ONI Personnel, and that more and more husks were still flooding up from the lower depths. He captured the images with his Mjolnir, and transmitted them to the other Spartans.

"Execute the survivors." John ordered Noble team as they entered, before glancing at Kirrahe who was patching himself into the system through his cybernetic arm. There were a series of gunshots as the Spartans finished off the last inhabitants of the room. "Can you get the COM Launcher operational?"

Bullets flew overhead, picking off John's barriers. Kurt and the rest of Green Team were being forced into the command center, taking particle beam hits from the ONI Shock Troopers that were flooding after the Spartans. Kurt collapsed next to the door, a particle beam having punched through his right kidney. He pulled the cap off his biofoam canister and stuck it into the wound, tensing up from the pain. Kurt gave an All Clear signal.

Kirrahe frowned as he worked, both typing on the keyboard of the command station, as well as the omni-tool that appeared around his cybernetic arm. "ONI has been using it, from the looks of things. Curious that they did not use the Comm Buoys. I'm counting at least twenty probes sent so far." He paused. "They were about to launch another probe. Let me play the information on it." Kirrahe turned on the speakers inside the room, and began to play the message ONI had been about to transmit. "There's a message for the planetary populations."

Gunfire shot into the room. Several squads of ONI Shock Troopers were converging upon the Command Center. Kat and Carter threw over a filing cabinet and formed a barricade at the door, while the rest of Noble and Green Team took up defensive positions behind the entrance the Spartans had used. Zaeed, Sergeant Johnson, and Samara were taking up firing positions at the other door into the Command Center.

It was Parangosky's voice.

"People of the UEG, I wish I came to you in better times. But I have grave news. Lord Hood has swayed the Spartans to his side, and is in the process of launching a coup against humanity to cement military autocracy. For the sake of humanity, we must act immediately.

All planetary governments are to declare martial law immediately and prepare to resist this seizure of power. Mobilize planetary militias and arm the people to resist the UNSC. Do not let freedom die.

John thought about what he heard. "You said they did not use the Comm Buoys to send this message?"

"They did not." Kirrahe said, continuing to type away. "I believe they do not fully trust a system created by Salarians. Smart on them. " Kirrahe continued. "There is a second message for a higher security clearance. I believe planetary leaders and military commanders.."

"We have been discovered. Plans must be expedited immediately. We will have to seize power by force. But the people shall be made to think the military is attempting to seize power by force. Close off all outside communications immediately.

Execute all political prisoners immediately.
Arrest and terminate all dissidents on your kill-lists.
Chemical weaponry is authorized for crowd-control in the event of resistance.
Begin deployment of loyalty implants.
Open the Conversion Camps and prepare to process all non-military and non-intellectual assets ASAP.

Only the chosen will transcend when the Reapers come."

"Probe ready. Please insert that hard-drive, John." Kirrahe said, pointing at a port on the console. "Anything besides this message you want to say specifically?" Kirrahe pushed a microphone in John's direction.

John inserted the hard-drive he'd taken from Parangosky's computer into the console. He spoke out loud for the microphone to hear. "Lord Hood. You must intervene immediately. ONI i-"

"I tried to hold it!" Kurt suddenly yelled, jumping up from where he'd been recovering from his wound.

John whirled around, reaching for his Carnifex. "Kirrahe. Launch!" He yelled, as he saw Kurt pull out his pistol and shoot Jorge in the back of the head, and then opening fire on Kat and Arthur, taking down the barriers of both Spartans, and shooting off Kat's arm.

"Traitor!" Solomon-069 yelled, opening fire on Kurt, ripping through his barriers at close range, and tearing open the Spartan's armour. Kurt went down, nearly screaming. "I couldn't fight it. I'm sorry Jorge. I'm sorry!" Solomon put a boot on Kurt's chest and pushed him down, shooting his former friend in the head. Solomon grabbed Kurt's body and hurled it down the hallway.

Carter gave Jorge's body one look, then reached for and grabbed the fallen Spartan's chaingun. He opened fire down the doorway, suppressing and tearing apart the ONI Shock Troops that were trying to break in.

There was a flash of incredible brightness as Kurt's armour went off, vaporizing the hallway, and causing the roof to partially collapse.

John opened fire down the same hallway Carter was shooting. He saw Jorge's lifesigns flatline. Each of his shots was a carefully aimed one, taking off the heads of four soldiers with just as many shots. He spoke into the microphone again. "We need EVAC and ground support on Onyx immediately. If you can't get us off this planet, you need to nuke it into the stone age."

The door Zaeed's squad was guarding suddenly tore open, revealing a Spartan holding a large combat knife, and who moved with terrifying speed. Zaeed would have been beheaded, were it not for Samara throwing Zaeed back with a blast of Biotic force. She unleashed a warp field on the Husk, tearing away at its Mjolnir armour.

The husk screamed and screeched so loudly that John's Mjolnir had to block it out, reporting it as a sonic assault. But Zaeed's squad only wore regular hardsuit helmets. Samara looked shaky, a pained look on her face. But unlike Zaeed and Johnson, she didn't attempt to block out the noise with her hands. She blocked a series of blows by the Spartan that could have torn her apart easily.

John opened fire on the Husk, his Carnifex burning through the Barrier before shooting the Spartan in the helmet, shooting the faceplate and shattering it. He then hit the husk in the hand, sending its weapon flying. John prepared to fire a kill-shot, when he caught a glimpse off the weapon the attacker had dropped.

It was a Kukri. John looked up, seeing familiar blue eyes through the cracked visor. Eyes filled with pain and regret. John felt himself tense up. He couldn't bring himself to shoot.

Samara lunged forward, stabbing Emile through the chest, and ripping it free in an explosion of red blood and blue cybernetic fluids. John was shaken from his shock and opened fire, shooting the husk in the chest several times. Samara sidestepped a strike from Emile, and prepared to deliver a killing blow.

When the husk suddenly grabbed Samara's blade mid-stroke and shattered it. He grabbed Samara around the throat with another hand and rose up. Arcing red light jumped around in the large gash through Emile's chest. He began to squeeze the life from the Justicar even as John's rounds didn't seem to phase him in the slightest.

It was like some dark force had seized the husk, slowly levitating it partially into the air. Raw power seemed to ooze off its form. "This form is feeble. But it will serve." The voice was deep and booming, somehow speaking in a language John had never heard before, but still being completely understandable. The husk raised its free hand, and prepared to strike Samara in the head. When suddenly a shotgun blast forced the husk back, making him drop Samara. Johnson had gotten to his feet, bleeding from his ears as he opened fire with his shotgun, firing it as fast as he could.

Johnson emphasized each word with a blast of his shotgun."Back. Off. Chief's. Totally. Platonic. Girlfriend."

Jai's furious voice suddenly sounded over the radio. "Naomi was subverted, she activated her armour's self-destruct to kill Joshua and Grace in a suicide attack. We're holding the path to the shuttle, but we're not gonna be able to sweep the base. Adrianna reached the surface with Kelly. But I only have Michael left." There was gunfire and yelling.

John felt something inside him snap. He had lost too many Spartans today to the Leviathan. And now it was wearing one he'd failed as a skinsuit.

He charged forward, pulling out his combat knife and ramming it into the skull of the husk that had been Emile. But it didn't stop moving. He tackled it to the ground, straddling it and keeping it pinned down as he punched it again and again, each strike of his fists impacting the helmet, cracking the faceplate further and further, bending and crushing solid Titanium A. He caught a glimpse of Emile's face. Or the disjointed cybernetics and glowing red eyes that were all that remained.

Everything went red as John struck the husk again and again, each punch leaving his fists bloodier than the last.

"Begone. Pest." The husk said, putting a hand on John's helmet, sending a stream of electricity into the Spartan and throwing him back. John felt like his teeth would explode inside his skull, and hit a wall hard enough to dent it. The Husk began to retreat, its body shuddering as Zaeed and Sergeant Johnson shot it again and again, tearing off pieces of its armour as it ran.

John was pulled to his feet by Carter. The Alpha Company Spartan sounded tense. "The Shock Troopers are dead. But we don't have much time before more of them arrive. We have to get out of here."

Zaeed's team were tired and worn from the fighting, and the Spartans had taken losses. Jorge's body was being stripped of thermal clips and grenades. Kat was holding her severed arm, clipped to her belt via a magnetic lock. Kirrahe was kneeling next to her, carefully cleaning and dressing the wound. She was looking dumbfounded at Jorge and Kurt's bodies.

John brought up a map of the facility. He had to think of a way to get his Spartans out of their current situation, and do so quickly. It was going to take

"John. We have a problem!" Kirrahe yelled, pointing at one of the screens. John's head snapped to the screen. It showed a massive room filled with almost a hundred cloning tanks, each of them containing what looked like a Spartan. "The Leviathan is accessing the systems. It just ordered those tanks to release their contents. ONI is unleashing every abomination and other creature it has on us."

"Can we reach the reactor before they wake up?" John was looking at the screen, and quickly learning the Spartans were far too outnumbered to fight so many clones.

Kirrahe shook his head. "It's three floors below the clone tanks. We'll never get through the cloned."

"Then we're leaving. Are there any spacecraft docked on the plant?" John asked.

Kirrahe's fingers flew over the keyboard. He then glanced at John. "How about Parangosky's personal yacht?" He tapped a few keys, bringing up a schematic of an arrowhead-shaped ship, Two hundred meters long, sleek black, fitted with experimental laser weapons, and a crew of four hundred. "Looks like she took the Slipspace Drive from that ship me and Zaeed stole and put it on some twenty-trillion credit personal transport."

The base began to shake. Kirrahe glanced at the controls, the screen, and his omni-tool.

"Unidentified airborne contacts just emerged from a crevice twenty kilometers north of here. They're converging on the Zone on attack vectors." Kirrahe brought up an image on his Omni-tool. It showed an image of a flying metal orb with a glowing red eye, surrounded by three metal booms that adjusted themselves as the drone flew.