Parisa cursed like a sailor as she worked on the firebombs as fast as she could. She didn't have time to properly work on them, so they would be more along the lines of jury-rigging than 100% effective bombs. By the time she ran out of materials, she had developed 4 fire bombs and 2 nail bombs. That left her with less than 8 minutes to make a move. Strapping them to her belt with some cabling, she moved up to the growth and threw one of the firebombs.

It hit the growth and detonated and incinerated the growth. Pops and what seemed to be yells of pain echoed in her ears as she ran and jumped through the fire. Her mind focused as she tapped into her pathfinder training so she could find a way out. Instincts told her she was three levels down from the surface. She needed to make it up to the surface and find a space-capable ship and get out within less than 5 minutes.

Inwardly she sighed in annoyance running through all the options as to why Lord Hood was doing this, but as she calculated there was only one real possibility that came to mind. The flood had fully infected Earth. The only way to solve that was by dropping Shiva nukes all across the planet. Killion billions to have trillions. That was the only possibility that came to mind.

The UNSC didn't have the tech like the Covenant or Forerunners. Even then, both of them had to resort to major actions like planet glassing or wiping all life in the galaxy. Neither of which they had. So, the only way to stop the parasite was to sacrifice the homeworld for others.

In truth, she never really thought about it, but losing the homeworld almost caused her to stop. Before she joined up, one of the things she did was go to anti-UNSC rallies and debates. All of them talked about how evil Earth and the UNSC were. But that was when she was young, now… now she began to realise the importance of Earth in more ways than one. It wasn't just the birthplace of humanity or the main planet in control. It was a symbol. An icon of what humanity is capable of. Both the good and the bad.

If the earth was lost, then it could spell the end for humanity as a whole. Morale would be the first to go, then hope and finally a purpose. Earth was like a grounding rod for humanity. If that was lost… she didn't know what to think as she moved as fast as she could up even more levels. A plan began to form in her mind or at least part one. It may be impossible, but a part of her knew what she needed to do once she was out of the sewer.

She neared the entrance and found it blocked and out of makeshift bombs. A curse exited her lips as she double-checked her timer before she saw something that may work. Time had run out, either way as she approached the fire axe on the wall and pulled it off with one hand as flood forms began to hatch from the mass. She swung the axe a couple of times getting a feel for the weight and mass of the weapon.

Once she felt like she had got it, she turned to the flood forms and with a roar charged. The first tried to swing out at her, she rewarded it by removing its appendage. She then spun using the momentum of the axe to cleave it almost in half. It staggered back allowing her to finish it off before another tentacle grabbed onto her and pulled her close to another form. She turned to face it and slammed the end of the axe into its 'head' before punching through it.

In general, flood forms were weak. Their decayed flesh made it easy for them to be taken down. Their main strengths were due to numbers and abilities to infect others fast. Some may be tougher than others, due to the host's strength. But anger and rage were their strengths.

Once she put her arm through she pulled it to the side ripping the beast into little more than chunks. The third managed to jump on her back and she knew what it was trying to do as its tendrils tried to find a hole in her soft armour. Her teeth gritted as she pushed herself backwards and slammed into the wall. The force of it forced it to let go allowing Parisa to grab her knife and swung the axe at its middle before moving fast with the knife and cutting it up.

She turned to face the mass but her eyes widened as she turned and ran. The timer had hit zero.

Parisa made it to the second level before the shakes started. She wasn't worried about the radiation, or heat. She was worried about the vibrations and the following earthquakes and how that would affect the facility. As she made it to the third floor; she found a good stable room. She dived in as the nukes finally hit.

1 year later.

A fleet of 12 ships appeared near Earth. The fleet itself wasn't solely made out of military ships. There 5 military ships and 7 civilian ships within the fleet. The biggest ones being a Vanguard-class battleship by the name of 'Axes edge' and two Mariner-class cargo ships by the names of Nova and Atlas. But the capital of the fleet was the Dire-wolf frigate which wasn't at the front but was more to the centre of the 12-ship fleet.

As they arrived in the system, Six looked with her heart falling, at the blackened and nuclear-scarred earth. She had wanted to come here ever since she had heard about what happened. Several others also wanted the same, but the resources needed and the news coming from earth… wasn't good. Ever since Lord Hood sacrificed himself and unleashed nuclear Armageddon on the Earth to stop the Flood, the Sol system had been embroiled in a civil war between different Admirals and Governors on the different settlements and planets in the Sol system.

Mars, being the second biggest industrial and mining planet, was the main favourite to establish control. But had its internal problems with the different competing factions. For any Nomad group, like Six's, areas with major fighting were to be avoided as their safety couldn't be guaranteed.

Rose and Max soon joined Six to look at the Earth. Their hearts grew heavy at the sight of humanity's former homeworld.

"I never thought…" Rose muttered before looking away.

"Are we getting any signals?" Max asked.

The comm officer just shook her head. "Sorry sir, all I'm picking up is chatter from the warlords in the system. There is a signal coming from Earth, but it's weak and repeats on a loop,"

"Let's hear it," Lynch said looking for something to distract from the husk of Earth.

The officer hit a key and a musical tone chimed. It was a whistle with seven notes going both up and down. As she heard it, Six looked up there was something about it.

"It's on autocycle," Max said. "Tur…"

"Wait," the Spartan interrupted holding her hand up as she listened. "Triangulate that signal,"

The crew blinked at her. "Why?" Lynch asked.

"Olly Olly Oxen free," she said. "All out in the free, We're all free. It's an all-clear sign for the Spartan-IIs. We III's learned it from them in case they were in trouble. Talk about this with anyone other than a Spartan and I will kill you. It's a secret code,"

The crew looked to one another before the comms officer began to move to triangulate the signal. "Get a radiation-sealed pelican ready. I'm going to need a 4-man team ready to move in," Six continued.

OOOOO 3 hours later.

The pelican landed close to where the signal originated. It was close to an old mountain base that was made during the 21st century. The exact date was unknown, but it was built to last and repurposed by the UNSC as an outpost. Now it was home to a wasteland survivor. Whoever it was, knew that code, and they knew that they would be found.

Six and her four Spartans stepped out of the pelican and looked around at the blasted irradiated landscape.

"Remember the stories about the missile crisis," Jack, a Spartan III, muttered. "30 seconds Earth was faced with something with this," he sighed. "Now it was done though necessity,"

"Yeah," Niccia, another III, muttered.

"Let's move and see if that signal is due to autocycle," Six said as she led the way to the entrance.

The others nodded as they flowed her to the main entrance. Large steel doors stood before them with the words 'in here' painted on them. It wasn't fresh, but it was done recently. The five looked at each other before Six moved over to the keypad and hit it. The door opened and lead into a makeshift airlock and decontamination section. Nicca was the last one to enter, and as she did so the door behind her closed. An alarm went off and decontamination gasses and spray activated covering the Spartans in the stuff. Removing the radiation from their armour.

It didn't take long and the opened. A blue-black-haired woman walked out in Spartan amour with a smile on her face.

"Took you long enough," she said.

OOOOO

"Ahhh that tastes good," Parisa said as she leaned back in her chair on the Dire-wolf.

It didn't take long for Six's nomad fleet to get just over 200 radiation-sick people from the ground and back up to the fleet. They were sent directly to the medical frigate while Parisa was sent to the Dire-wolf to talk with the fleet's council. But what she had proposed, wasn't well-liked.

"You do understand that we have been on the move for the past few years, right?" Rose asked. "Why should we follow you? Or the authority of planets?"

"We are at war with ourselves," Parisa said. "What happens when that war ends? What happens when one of the factions takes over and begin to hunt all nomads down? Or locks you out of their territory? Unless you get a group, that favours you, you aren't going to survive. Not to mention the constant threat of the fractured Covenant," she sighed as she leaned forward. "If I get into power, I can promise you, that I will make sure that Nomad fleets are protected. Even yours,"

"What do you think Six?" Max asked.

"I never expected for us to remain nomads to be honest," the Spartan said. "I always thought that we would find out own planet and settle down. Build our civilisation," she laughed slightly. "But that's easier said than done," she looked to the others. "But Parisa is right, we need to think about the future, and how we can survive in the new era. Resources will wear thin, we'll be under constant attack, and we may not even survive. We don't even have the capacity to make Spartans,"

"We are low on food, medical supplies and ammo," one of the 12 captains said. "And we may not have enough supplies to replace parts,"

Rose nodded and sighed. "I've had similar reports," she muttered.

The other Captains nodded as they had similar problems. Max nodded as well and sighed. A constant need for resources was needed to keep the fleet going. Without those resources, they would die in one form or another.

"Do you have a plan?" Captain Fredrik, the Captain of the Nomad's only battleship, asked.

"Yeah," Parisa said. "I could use some refining, but I am aware of what has been happening in the system. Due to the ionisation, and low tech we couldn't contact anyone. But we could receive, but not send anything. In that time, I formed a plan as to how I could gain control of Mars,"

She then began to talk about her plan with the Captains listening in.