CHAPTER 27
1616 Hours, August 15, 2553 (Military Calendar)/ Engine Core of the UNSC battle cruiser Pillar of Winter, also known as the Heart of the Winter
The Commander could not explain what happened next. He had been expecting such a reaction from the core when a strange being came into contact with it. Shields instantly dropped, and then his health began to deplete, one bar from his HUD for every ten seconds he was in contact with the core.
On the flip side, one of the most pleasant reactions occurred. Pink energy of the core exploded outward, spreading through the ship and bouncing from the metal walls, however not going through the sheet metal plating. When it reached the Flood, they screamed and howled in pain, popping almost instantly. The waves and sheets of rolling pink energy bounced through the ship, but stopped before they reached the control room as James pried himself away from the core.
Every single Flood form had been obliterated from the Winter, but James had stopped the flow deliberately. Zaran was much too valuable to lose, and with a single touch of the power, he would die.
The Commander collapsed onto the deckplates, panting and gasping for breath. He was on all-fours as he struggled to collect himself and see the world around him. On his HUD, the display showed no shields and one bar of health left. He was on his last limb here, but he was not one to give up so easily. His HUD was bright white and nearly opaque. Now that he had obliterated the entirety of the Flood, he had to win the war. Slowly and painfully, he arrived in the medical room as his HUD cleared.
"Are you sure that was a good idea? You came near death, Commander," came Darkel's voice, full of concern for his new partner.
"It worked, didn't it?" James replied tersely. Darkel hadn't spoken in a while. Perhaps he had just been watching the action.
"But what if it hadn't? I might have fallen into the wrong hands?" Darkel pressed.
"Let it go," James mumbled.
Over in a corner of the nursing room, the Spartan located a suspended spinning device designed to recover his shield and health instantly. Switching it on, James stood under it as the metal arms swung around and around. Almost seconds later, James felt better as his health bars regained themselves and his shields jumped back to full. Minutes later, he was in the weapons room, restocking his ammo, and then down in the docking bay, locating a Warthog for the trip to the last outpost. He couldn't fly this tub, her core was gone and she wouldn't be able to fly until the core recharged itself.
James slung his ammo and weapons of choice—an M6D pistol and a shotgun—into the passenger's seat. Then, he started the engine with the push of a button and pressed lightly on the accelerator. The Warthog eased from its parking space, separated from other spaces by large metal pipes, and James slowly turned to the right. He drove down a ramp and turned left, then waited patiently as the docking bay door hissed open. A ramp slid down to meet the ground, and James slammed on the accelerator and shot down it, heading west in the direction of the last outpost and his captured friends.
Alex fell to his knees in front of an Elite wearing golden armor named Gashean 'Fronolee, with sheet metal ringing as he collapsed onto his hands and knees, his helmet broken in three places. On the left wall of the room, Farr 'Tenglannee was chained by his wrist, ankles, waist and neck, held up by the strong links and plasma-bands around his limbs, preventing him from moving.
The courageous Elite rebel had been tortured for several minutes beforehand, but no information had been gotten from him about the whereabouts of Commander James Carser, the Pillar of Winter, or the battle cruiser Constitution, which was hidden from view just above the atmosphere where it was hiding in wait for the Spartans to return from their moon trekking.
"Talk to me human!" Gashean growled, hoisting Alex to his feet and dangling him about the ground. "Tell me where your Commander is, filth!" he spat, shaking the Spartan violently.
"I don't know!"
"Then where is the battleship above the atmosphere?"
"I don't know!"
"Do you take me for a fool?" Gashean roared, slamming the General against the wall of the outpost, rocking the entire floor and causing onlooking Grunts, Jackals, and Elites to cringe. "That a member of the crew doesn't know where his ship is located at all times?"
"I'm not a member of the crew!" Alex growled and Gashean tossed him to the floor. Alex tried to roll up to his feet but Gashean pressed his claw on top of Alex's back and slammed him into the metal floor.
"Not a member?" Gashean repeated, aiming a plasma pistol at Alex's head. "Elaborate, cyborg. Tell me what you mean!"
Alex struggled to choke out, "They came to help us!" A Grunt jumped forward howling about calling Gashean 'Excellency' and aiming a gun at his head. Gashean himself knocked the Grunt off his feet with his own gun and sent the unfortunate being sprawling backwards, laying spread-eagled on the floor, unconscious.
"Then do you really think I believe the fact that you don't know where your Commander is or where the Winter is? What a pack of lies, cyborg!" Gashean spat, a hint of a growl in his voice.
"I don't know!"
Gashean punched Alex hard in the stomach and let him fall to the floor, gasping for breath. Alex rolled onto his back and Gashean pushed his talon cruelly into Alex's stomach. "If you know nothing, then my time with you has come to an end."
As two Jackals moved over with weapons in their hands, Alex jumped up and kicked the nearest in his shin. He grabbed the weapon as it flew into the air and shot one of Farr's bonds. He then spun and shot the second Jackal down, then fired at two more of the bolts. Both of Farr's legs and his right arm were released. Farr grabbed a nearby Grunt and hoisted him from the ground, strangling him.
Alex spun to fire at Gashean, but the Elite General was one step ahead of him. Before Alex could raise his weapon and fire, Gashean knocked him backwards and pointed a plasma rifle at his chest. "Don't move, or you die, cyborg."
Just then, a Grunt came running up, panic in his voice. "Excellency!" he cried, addressing Gashean. "Approaching human vehicle coming in fast, firing guns at the outpost!"
"What are you doing about it?!" Gashean roared.
The Grunt's reply was rushed and worried. "Sniper Elites are firing at it, and we've got Shades shooting—" Gashean knocked him to the ground and lifted Alex to face him. "If this is your Commander," he hissed, "you can consider him dead." With that, he hurled Alex to the ground and stalked from the room.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
"Don't worry about it, Darkel," Commander James Carser said as he floored the pedal of the Warthog. Steering carefully with one hand, the Commander raised his M6D pistol to his eye and flipped on the 2X scope. Looking carefully through it, James fired three times, killing a Sniper Elite and causing him to tumble from the roof. "It's under control," came his gruff voice again. He sounded much like the Master Chief.
Three more pistol shots rang out, and caused a chain reaction James had not expected when he made the shot. The Grunt fell from his ledge and landed on top of the gunner at the end of a line of Shades. The turret flipped around in the confusion of the two Grunts and accidentally fired on its neighbors. Plasma bolts from the middle turret blasted upwards, shattering the metal platform and sending the Sniper Elites careening to the level below. In six shots, James had eliminated the entire threat of Snipers and Shades.
"What if that hadn't worked?" Darkel asked in an irritated tone.
"Just be grateful it did," James muttered under his breath. Within moments, they had zipped past the defenses and reached the closed docking bay doors. James slammed his boot down on the pedal, but suddenly he saw a flash of green to his left. Before he knew what was happening, the Warthog flipped toward the right and threw James roughly to the ground. He landed with a hard thump! and saw two Hunters advancing on him from the left. Drawing his pistol and reloading it with three quick movements (unlocking the chamber, clicking out the cartridge, and slamming in a fresh one), James aimed the M6D towards the Hunters and watched as their spines flexed on their backs.
"Now you've done it!" Darkel thundered.
A Hunter on the left aimed his fuel rod cannon towards the Spartan and watched as the green energy sizzled on the tip. "Move!" Darkel commanded.
"Shut up!" James roared as the bolt whizzed by his head. Enraged now, the Hunter ducked low, extended its spiny back to the full three feet, placed its shield out in front, and charged. The Commander sidestepped to the left, circled around, and placed a single 12.7mm bullet in the Hunter's back. With a roar, the mighty monster collapsed, dead. Follwing suit, the second Hunter fired its fuel rod cannon, but this one fired twice; James ducked under the first and sidestepped the second. Then, he ran forward, ducked around a charge, and put the Hunter to rest.
"See?" James said to Darkel as he pried the docking doors open with his Spartan armor. "Easy as pie."
"Whatever you say," Darkel grumbled from somewhere in James's head.
The Spartan raised his shotgun and hurled two grenades at the door. When it blew inward and collapsed, two Grunts came to meet him, so he fired at one. The bullets knocked into the first Grunt's body, went through, killing him instantly, and stuck into the chest of the second. Both of them collapsed as James aimed at a charging Elite. "Grobyc mucs!" The Elite roared in the garbled language they often spoke.
"Say goodnight!" James roared and squeezed the trigger. The Elite's shield failed with the first shot, and he collapsed with the second. The Commander sprinted over to the lift and reloaded his shotgun, opening the barrel and stuffing the chamber full of rounds. As he worked, he pressed the button for the lift and waited as the platform started to rise. Shadows passed longingly over the lift's bottom as the Spartan vanished from sight.
When the lift halted again, James silently sprinted from it and spun off to the left, hiding around a corner. He peeked his head around the side and saw six simianlike Grunts roaming the halls, along with four Jackals and a pair of red-clad Elites. James switched to his M6D and fired twice, aiming for two headshots. Two Grunts dropped like bricks, and the rest jumped at the sound. Another shot rang, and a Jackal fell in a pool of his own blood, dead instantly from a shot to the head.
Moving with the grace of a cat, James rolled across the floor with the tiniest of sounds and ducked underneath a computer console. Two Grunts hurried by, flanked by one of the Elites. James raised the muzzle of his shotgun and fired upwards from the low overhang of the console—the Elite dropped to the ground from a shot to his unprotected head and the Grunts spun around, only to be shot in the chest by a shotgun...one round for each.
The remaining two Grunts, three Jackals and Elite searched the room wildly for the one causing all this mayhem, the one being they could not see. Realizing he still had the Cammo Belt from the Spec Ops Elites on his waist, James twisted the controls and vanished instantly. He calmly stepped from under cover and rolled a frag grenade into the small group.
Several minutes later, James took off his damaged belt and set it aside. It had gotten caught in the shrapnel of the explosion minutes before and been damaged beyond repair. After setting it aside, he noticed he could hear movement on the floor above him. Sounded like two forms being roughly pushed around...probably his friends got themselves captured. James moved over to a large rack—containing stolen human weaponry—and selected a large M19 SSM Jackhammer Launcher and pulled several rounds of ammo, as many as he could carry, from the racks. With that, he slung them over his back and moved to the window. Several well-placed shots from his pitol shattered the glass, and he was free to scale the outer wall...
"You'll learn to despise the day you meddled in my affairs, cyborg!" Gashean growled, forcing his men to shove Alex to his knees before him. He turned to his Grunt henchman and asked quietly, "What of the Commander? Have you caught him?"
The Grunt was afraid to report failure, but he went against his natural gut instinct and answered with full honesty. "We lost him. He obliterated the docking bay and ammo room defens—aaaaaaahhhhh!" The Grunt found himself on the floor with a plasma wound on his chest, laying in his own blood, dead.
"Idiot, if only I—" Just then, the glass behind the Elite General shattered. Master Commander James Carser balanced on the edge and wielded a large Jackhammer launcher.
"Covenant reign of terror on this moon is over!" he thundered and raised the rocket launcher. Quickly, he squeezed the trigger, aiming for the floor beneath Gashean's feet. With this blast, the Elite General was tossed high into the air, and he landed across the room, his arm and leg strangely missing. Two Grunts and a Jackal landed near him, followed by two more Elites as James fired again. "Covenant filth!" he spat as he reloaded and fired again. Monitors and consoles sizzled and fried as James spent his last shell on each and every one of them. Then, he hopped to the floor and tossed the Jackhammer as he hauled Farr and Alex to their feet. "Are you two okay?" he asked.
They nodded, shaking violently.
"Where is Bryce?" James asked, his stomach knotting in his chest.
Alex looked out the window and pointed to the roof. "Some Elites are having fun with him up on the roof."
"I think it's time we put an end to their fun," James said, and the three of them scaled the edge of the outpost, leaving a room full of dead Covenant warriors behind. Not a single one remained alive. The Covies were almost gone from Orean, the only ones left being those on the roof...
1658 Hours, August 13, 2553 (Military Calendar)/ Roof of the final Covenant outpost on Orean, moon of planet Raiek
Bryce was bolted by plasma-made chains to three metal weights, being held down from moving. Six Elites were moving around him, unarmed, but having fun taking turns beating him in as many creative ways as they could. They had already kicked him, stepped on him, saw how long he could hold his breath, tried to rip off his limbs, and even threw him from the roof once.
What the Elites didn't know was that they were the last remaining Covenant forces on the moon, and that their enemies were lying in wait just below the rim of the roof. The Spartans wasted no time in getting started. Alex pulled the pin of a fragmentation grenade and rolled it across the roof. When it exploded, two Elites were tossed from the roof, leaving only four left, one with a lowered shield.
"What was that?" a familiar voice asked.
James raised himself onto the roof, distracting the Elites from Alex and Farr, who stood behind them, prepping MA5B assault rifles.
"Zaran 'Gangolee," James growled. "How did you get here?"
"Not long after you left," Zaran began, "I was picked up by my own forces and brought back here. They healed me and restored my shield generator. I'm just as dangerous as I ever was, cyborg."
"We'll see about that."
The MA5B assault rifles cracked from behind Zaran, and the three Elites on either side of him dropped before they even had time to turn around. The golden Elite seemed impressed, but he tried not to show it. "So what now, Spartan?" Zaran asked, his eyes moving wildly between the Spartan and his friends. "What happens now?"
James held up a tiny device with a single button. "I got this from the ammo level just before I saved my friends. Now, you say that the Covenant here healed you, but it was plain to see that the Covenant hate you and your ways, and want you dead. It only seems natural that you would be implanted with a fail-safe device during your momentary operation."
"What are you talking about?" Zaran asked, a quizzical look on his normally hard face. He was obviously very changed after the episode in the Winter. "What kind of fail-safe device?"
"A fail-safe like this," James said, and pressed the button. Instantly, Zaran's entire body surged with electric energy. He howled aloud in pain and clutched his chest, collapsing to the ground. His shield was gone, and it was obvious his health was draining fast. "They implanted a way to easily get rid of you, Zaran. I read about it when I logged into their computers and revealed their plans. Just in case anything—you know—went wrong."
"Filth!" Zaran spat, slowly bringing himself to his knees as James released the button. "I'll...kill...you!"
"I don't think you'll be doing any killing today, Zaran. The battle for Raiek and Orean is over, and you lose." The Commander looked skyward as dropship Foehammer circled down from the skies. "Right on time," he muttered as the rear boarding doors hissed open. A large, burly officer appeared and smiled to the Spartan. "You came!" James called, laughing.
"Aye, just hoist him up here!" the officer called as James lifted Zaran's limp form and tossed him up into the docking bay. "We'll handle him!"
"I've got to go back and reclaim the Winter!" James called as he hopped in after Zaran. Bryce, Alex and Farr followed suit after Bryce had been freed from his bonds. "Can you drop us off?" The officer called up to the pilot and then swiveled his head back to look at the towering Spartans and Elite, nodding. "Good!" James said, giving a thumbs-up. The dropship wheeled itself in mid-flight and headed back in the direction of the fallen Winter as the pilot fed the engines fuel. Trees and all kinds of foliage zipped by below them as they flew towards the battle cruiser settled on the ground. In less then three minutes, the towering leviathon of a ship came into view. However, as the Spartans and Elite jumped down and landed in the ship, another being clinging to the bottom dropped with them, plotting his revenge strike.
"Activate the engines, Alex!" James called as he leaned back in the Captain's chair. Alex's fingers flew over the console and the ship started to rumble. Slowly, the cruiser's engines powered and rattled, and then it kicked up off the ground. "We need to get higher!" Suddenly, the entire ship jolted, and then froze in mid-air. It slowly started to fall towards the ground. "What happened?" James demanded.
"Analyzing," came Darkel's terse reply.
Just then, a wave of static blasted over the intercom. James pressed a button and then talked again. "Say again!" he literally screamed into the mic.
Another wave of static and interrupted messages came through when James released the button, but this time, they could hear the distinct voice of Captain Hank Moores coming through the intercom. "Get........planet......Covenant......EMP......surface!"
"I heard something about EMP, sir!" Bryce called as he gripped the radar controls. "I say we haul butt faster!"
"You heard the Chief, General!" James called as Alex kicked the engines into overdrive.
"I've got it!" Darkel almost yelled in James's ear.
"What is it?"
"The Covenant have planted an EMP generator in the core to prevent ultraviolet rays, and radiation from the red giant that could go nova in any year in case it fell to human hands. There is too much knowledge on this planet and computers contain too much information that could be decoded and read to find information of future Covenant strikes. The planet was hot before, and when they deactivate the EMP devices, the planet will be almost instantly fried," Darkel responded flatly. Despite the recent terrifying news, he sounded rather bored to the Commander.
"We've gotta get off this rock," Bryce muttered.
"What would they do with the generator?" James asked, a tone of panic hinting vaguely in his bass voice. "How much harm could they do."
"They could turn it off," Darkel responded without enthusiasum. He was bored.
"What will that do?"
Alex pointed towards the window. Swirling purple clouds were tracing across the sky. According to the General, they had just started and were increasing in intensity. "That!" he breathed. "Just like the aurora borealis back on Earth. I used to pay attention in school years ago, and now all that is paying off. The Covenant have deactivated the EMP generator that protected the moon and now we're in big trouble."
"You're right about one thing!" Jason, the mutant Flood demonlike being, launched himself from a ceiling hatch and sent the Spartans flying towards the door. Farr immediately jumped up and grabbed Jason, trying to wrestle with him and destroy him quickly, even though he was unarmed.
"Get going!" Farr growled as Jason tossed him across the room. "I'll handle him!"
Reluctantly, the three remaining Spartans took off at a run down the corridor, Bryce accidently dropping his gun as he ran. James sent a distress beacon as he ran, hoping Foehammer would respond in time to pick them up at the back of the ship. It would be a long run.
Back in the control room, Farr leaped nimbly aside and landed on all- fours on the floor, several feet away from Jason. As a tentacle lashed out, Farr duck-leaned and used his claws to support his body, and then leaped backwards as another tentacle came his way. He was acrobatic all right, but would it be enough to finish this monster?
Farr jumped from a computer console as a tendril smashed it to pieces and landed on the floor, rolling to a crouch. He leaped to his talons and whirled around, snatching Bryce's dropped shotgun, firing it. Jason wasn't fast enough to move, and the bullets sent him careening into the far wall. As Farr dropped the weapon and sprinted for the door, he was caught in mid- flight and thrown against the bulkhead, grunting in pain. Jason's tentacle slid from his ankle and Farr slumped to the floor, weakened and discouraged. To the Flood mutant, he looked dead, so Jason shot off after the Spartans.
"We received your distress call, Commander!" a voice spoke loudly through James's mic. "We're on our way! Over."
"Affirmative!" James said back solemnly. "Over and out," he finished, closing the link and hurrying after his teammates. "Foehammer will be here soon," he reported. His stomach began to knot together as the air around them started to sizzle with heat. Alex told them that the device couldn't be immediately shut off and that it would have to be powered down over the course of half-an-hour to two hours. That was roughly how long they had to get off the moon and survive.
The remaining three Spartans thundered down the hallway and created such a ruckus that it was not hard for Jason to track them and keep on their trail from unseen areas of the ship, always moving only when they did, stopping when they did to unlock doors, and matching their footsteps exactly. Panic and worry was beginning to settle in over the three of them, but finally they reached the back area of the ship. It was a long catwalklike walkway that extended over a deep chasm, where the bottom of the ship was hardly visible in the dim light. Twenty meters away was the back exit, just to the side of the unlit engines. The exit was, literally, a door, used to evac soldiers in this kind of emergency.
Back in the control room, Farr slowly pulled himself up, howling with pain from the impact. He figured it best to get the ship off the ground, because the EMP device was slowly turning itself off, and they didn't have much time. He crawled across the bridge, grunting now, and slammed his claw down on the ignition button.
The Spartans halted when they reached the back room, and steadied themselves as the engines burned into overdrive. The ship quickly launched itself from the ground and shot like a bullet towards the atmosphere above. Moments later, the ship slammed to a halt again. The engines had malfunctioned. It was then that disaster struck yet again. Jason himself dropped from the ceiling panels and wrapped a tentacle around the Commander, knocking him to the ground. Behind the three of them, a panel sprung loose on the bulkhead, and an officer waiting in dropship Foehammer called to them. "We don't have much time!" he yelled, cupping his hands. They had already dropped Zaran off back at the Constitution and returned for the Spartans.
James rolled across the ground and used his boots to knock Jason into a standing position. He and Bryce took off at a run, Alex behind them all, for the dropship. Then, Jason snared Alex with a tentacle and dragged him backwards with surprising. "No!" James cried as Jason whipped him over the edge. He screamed as he fell, and it was then that Jason knocked a button with another tentacle that caused the bulkhead below them to explode at the edges and drop away. This was used for quick deployment. A large planet of green was shown below, and the bulkhead halves slammed hard into the ground, creating a fiery landing for Alex, who jerked to a stop as the tentacle whipped down.
"Surrender yourselves to me, or your comrade dies!" Jason hissed. "If I know anything about humans, it's that you won't sacrifice your friend!" He growled the word 'friend', and James knew then that the Flood inside Jason was talking, not the human himself.
"Fight it!" James cried, desperate to help his friend. "You're not an enemy, you're one of my best friends in the world," he said quietly.
Alex dropped further; Jason's hold was slacking. Alex screamed as he fell two more meters and then jolted to a halt. He was breathing too hard for it to be considered normal. Alex was terrified for his life. If James could pull this off, he'd never disobey that man again.
"Pull him up!" James tried again as Jason fell to his knees. He was struggling to remember who he was, who he used to be, and bring all those memories back. Then, the memories poured into his brain. He remembered everything about his childhood, growing up on Earth with his parents, and best friends, James and Alex. He remembered Alex giving him a present for his sixth birthday, and when it broke, the young Alex hugged him and dried Jason's tears, promising to buy him another one. It was then that a bad memory, one of a Spartan, looking just like Alex, leaving him behind as enemies covered his body, leaving him to pain and sorrow. The Flood infection form living inside him fueled this anger and he roared in fury. "You did this to me!"
Without warning, Jason hauled Alex up, used two tentacles to hold him upright, and rammed a tentacle through his chest. Alex gasped as the tantacle pierced his body, and blood began to spill onto the deckplates. "Nooooo!" James and Bryce shouted, but neither one of them moved. Alex's head lolled back, and he repeatedly gasped for breath. He was dying, and they all knew it. Jason was enjoying it; the tentacle had taken him through his right lung, and had barely missed his heart. A perfect kill, one that would not destroy the victim until he suffered greatly and suffocated to death.
Alex brought up a hand from his side, revealing a fragmentation grenade, and scowled under his helmet. He spoke for the last time, "You son of a bitch," and then silently pulled the pin from the slot. In this moment, all that could be heard was the pin as it dropped to the catwalk, and in Jason's not-too-intelligent mind, the realization of what Alex had just done flooded his senses. He screamed in fury.
The grenade went off just as Alex died, and hurled the two of them off the platform before Jason could remove himself from Alex's corpse. Jason's body was ripped open after the loud whump! and fire from the grenade, also torn by flying shrapnel. The two of them fell from the ship, through the open hatch, and sank away towards the shrinking surface. They were both lost forever.
A swirl of emotions flashed through James's head, and he was vaguely aware of the fact that he had just lost the two people in his life that meant the most to him. Two people he would do anything for, move Heaven and Earth themselves if it were possible for them, end his own life for them, and now they were gone. Lost forever to the jungle far below. James sank to his knees and removed his helmet. The ghost-white face, masked for too long under a helmet and protected from sunlight, was covered in flowing, clear tears that formed rivulets down his cheek and onto his chin. Even after years of training against emotion, this was too much. He was barely aware of Bryce hauling him upright, and backwards into dropship Foehammer. He was also hardly aware of them turning from the now-falling battleship and leaving the moon behind.
Jason and Alex, the friends he had known—loved, even—nearly from birth, were gone from his life, never to be seen again, both taken from him by the ones he hated more than the Covenant...the Flood. He swore to himself then that he would make the nasty parasites pay for what they did to his friends. James realized then that the Covenant had not taken any of his team...Brent had died due to being infested, Jason had killed Alex and Jarrett because of being infested, and Alex had killed Jason because the Colonel was infested. This whole mess wasn't the fault of the Covenant, it was the Flood who were responsible. It was the Flood he swore he would make pay in the end.
Several minutes after dropship Foehammer cleared the atmosphere, the entire moon lit up like a ball of fire. The EMP device was off, and dangerous radiation had torched the planet. When the flaming gouts of fire cleared, all that was left was a desolate, barren wasteland of a moon, information of bygone species lost forever to its mysterious past. James intended to solve those mysteries and end his questions for good. Everything that was James and Bryce's past, their friends, was lost to them forever.
Bryce turned to face his Commander, tears flowing freely down his now- exposed face (his helmet sitting at his side) and said only one thing the whole trip back, one thing that made James feel so much better, "They will be avenged."
1616 Hours, August 15, 2553 (Military Calendar)/ Engine Core of the UNSC battle cruiser Pillar of Winter, also known as the Heart of the Winter
The Commander could not explain what happened next. He had been expecting such a reaction from the core when a strange being came into contact with it. Shields instantly dropped, and then his health began to deplete, one bar from his HUD for every ten seconds he was in contact with the core.
On the flip side, one of the most pleasant reactions occurred. Pink energy of the core exploded outward, spreading through the ship and bouncing from the metal walls, however not going through the sheet metal plating. When it reached the Flood, they screamed and howled in pain, popping almost instantly. The waves and sheets of rolling pink energy bounced through the ship, but stopped before they reached the control room as James pried himself away from the core.
Every single Flood form had been obliterated from the Winter, but James had stopped the flow deliberately. Zaran was much too valuable to lose, and with a single touch of the power, he would die.
The Commander collapsed onto the deckplates, panting and gasping for breath. He was on all-fours as he struggled to collect himself and see the world around him. On his HUD, the display showed no shields and one bar of health left. He was on his last limb here, but he was not one to give up so easily. His HUD was bright white and nearly opaque. Now that he had obliterated the entirety of the Flood, he had to win the war. Slowly and painfully, he arrived in the medical room as his HUD cleared.
"Are you sure that was a good idea? You came near death, Commander," came Darkel's voice, full of concern for his new partner.
"It worked, didn't it?" James replied tersely. Darkel hadn't spoken in a while. Perhaps he had just been watching the action.
"But what if it hadn't? I might have fallen into the wrong hands?" Darkel pressed.
"Let it go," James mumbled.
Over in a corner of the nursing room, the Spartan located a suspended spinning device designed to recover his shield and health instantly. Switching it on, James stood under it as the metal arms swung around and around. Almost seconds later, James felt better as his health bars regained themselves and his shields jumped back to full. Minutes later, he was in the weapons room, restocking his ammo, and then down in the docking bay, locating a Warthog for the trip to the last outpost. He couldn't fly this tub, her core was gone and she wouldn't be able to fly until the core recharged itself.
James slung his ammo and weapons of choice—an M6D pistol and a shotgun—into the passenger's seat. Then, he started the engine with the push of a button and pressed lightly on the accelerator. The Warthog eased from its parking space, separated from other spaces by large metal pipes, and James slowly turned to the right. He drove down a ramp and turned left, then waited patiently as the docking bay door hissed open. A ramp slid down to meet the ground, and James slammed on the accelerator and shot down it, heading west in the direction of the last outpost and his captured friends.
Alex fell to his knees in front of an Elite wearing golden armor named Gashean 'Fronolee, with sheet metal ringing as he collapsed onto his hands and knees, his helmet broken in three places. On the left wall of the room, Farr 'Tenglannee was chained by his wrist, ankles, waist and neck, held up by the strong links and plasma-bands around his limbs, preventing him from moving.
The courageous Elite rebel had been tortured for several minutes beforehand, but no information had been gotten from him about the whereabouts of Commander James Carser, the Pillar of Winter, or the battle cruiser Constitution, which was hidden from view just above the atmosphere where it was hiding in wait for the Spartans to return from their moon trekking.
"Talk to me human!" Gashean growled, hoisting Alex to his feet and dangling him about the ground. "Tell me where your Commander is, filth!" he spat, shaking the Spartan violently.
"I don't know!"
"Then where is the battleship above the atmosphere?"
"I don't know!"
"Do you take me for a fool?" Gashean roared, slamming the General against the wall of the outpost, rocking the entire floor and causing onlooking Grunts, Jackals, and Elites to cringe. "That a member of the crew doesn't know where his ship is located at all times?"
"I'm not a member of the crew!" Alex growled and Gashean tossed him to the floor. Alex tried to roll up to his feet but Gashean pressed his claw on top of Alex's back and slammed him into the metal floor.
"Not a member?" Gashean repeated, aiming a plasma pistol at Alex's head. "Elaborate, cyborg. Tell me what you mean!"
Alex struggled to choke out, "They came to help us!" A Grunt jumped forward howling about calling Gashean 'Excellency' and aiming a gun at his head. Gashean himself knocked the Grunt off his feet with his own gun and sent the unfortunate being sprawling backwards, laying spread-eagled on the floor, unconscious.
"Then do you really think I believe the fact that you don't know where your Commander is or where the Winter is? What a pack of lies, cyborg!" Gashean spat, a hint of a growl in his voice.
"I don't know!"
Gashean punched Alex hard in the stomach and let him fall to the floor, gasping for breath. Alex rolled onto his back and Gashean pushed his talon cruelly into Alex's stomach. "If you know nothing, then my time with you has come to an end."
As two Jackals moved over with weapons in their hands, Alex jumped up and kicked the nearest in his shin. He grabbed the weapon as it flew into the air and shot one of Farr's bonds. He then spun and shot the second Jackal down, then fired at two more of the bolts. Both of Farr's legs and his right arm were released. Farr grabbed a nearby Grunt and hoisted him from the ground, strangling him.
Alex spun to fire at Gashean, but the Elite General was one step ahead of him. Before Alex could raise his weapon and fire, Gashean knocked him backwards and pointed a plasma rifle at his chest. "Don't move, or you die, cyborg."
Just then, a Grunt came running up, panic in his voice. "Excellency!" he cried, addressing Gashean. "Approaching human vehicle coming in fast, firing guns at the outpost!"
"What are you doing about it?!" Gashean roared.
The Grunt's reply was rushed and worried. "Sniper Elites are firing at it, and we've got Shades shooting—" Gashean knocked him to the ground and lifted Alex to face him. "If this is your Commander," he hissed, "you can consider him dead." With that, he hurled Alex to the ground and stalked from the room.
"I hope you know what you're doing."
"Don't worry about it, Darkel," Commander James Carser said as he floored the pedal of the Warthog. Steering carefully with one hand, the Commander raised his M6D pistol to his eye and flipped on the 2X scope. Looking carefully through it, James fired three times, killing a Sniper Elite and causing him to tumble from the roof. "It's under control," came his gruff voice again. He sounded much like the Master Chief.
Three more pistol shots rang out, and caused a chain reaction James had not expected when he made the shot. The Grunt fell from his ledge and landed on top of the gunner at the end of a line of Shades. The turret flipped around in the confusion of the two Grunts and accidentally fired on its neighbors. Plasma bolts from the middle turret blasted upwards, shattering the metal platform and sending the Sniper Elites careening to the level below. In six shots, James had eliminated the entire threat of Snipers and Shades.
"What if that hadn't worked?" Darkel asked in an irritated tone.
"Just be grateful it did," James muttered under his breath. Within moments, they had zipped past the defenses and reached the closed docking bay doors. James slammed his boot down on the pedal, but suddenly he saw a flash of green to his left. Before he knew what was happening, the Warthog flipped toward the right and threw James roughly to the ground. He landed with a hard thump! and saw two Hunters advancing on him from the left. Drawing his pistol and reloading it with three quick movements (unlocking the chamber, clicking out the cartridge, and slamming in a fresh one), James aimed the M6D towards the Hunters and watched as their spines flexed on their backs.
"Now you've done it!" Darkel thundered.
A Hunter on the left aimed his fuel rod cannon towards the Spartan and watched as the green energy sizzled on the tip. "Move!" Darkel commanded.
"Shut up!" James roared as the bolt whizzed by his head. Enraged now, the Hunter ducked low, extended its spiny back to the full three feet, placed its shield out in front, and charged. The Commander sidestepped to the left, circled around, and placed a single 12.7mm bullet in the Hunter's back. With a roar, the mighty monster collapsed, dead. Follwing suit, the second Hunter fired its fuel rod cannon, but this one fired twice; James ducked under the first and sidestepped the second. Then, he ran forward, ducked around a charge, and put the Hunter to rest.
"See?" James said to Darkel as he pried the docking doors open with his Spartan armor. "Easy as pie."
"Whatever you say," Darkel grumbled from somewhere in James's head.
The Spartan raised his shotgun and hurled two grenades at the door. When it blew inward and collapsed, two Grunts came to meet him, so he fired at one. The bullets knocked into the first Grunt's body, went through, killing him instantly, and stuck into the chest of the second. Both of them collapsed as James aimed at a charging Elite. "Grobyc mucs!" The Elite roared in the garbled language they often spoke.
"Say goodnight!" James roared and squeezed the trigger. The Elite's shield failed with the first shot, and he collapsed with the second. The Commander sprinted over to the lift and reloaded his shotgun, opening the barrel and stuffing the chamber full of rounds. As he worked, he pressed the button for the lift and waited as the platform started to rise. Shadows passed longingly over the lift's bottom as the Spartan vanished from sight.
When the lift halted again, James silently sprinted from it and spun off to the left, hiding around a corner. He peeked his head around the side and saw six simianlike Grunts roaming the halls, along with four Jackals and a pair of red-clad Elites. James switched to his M6D and fired twice, aiming for two headshots. Two Grunts dropped like bricks, and the rest jumped at the sound. Another shot rang, and a Jackal fell in a pool of his own blood, dead instantly from a shot to the head.
Moving with the grace of a cat, James rolled across the floor with the tiniest of sounds and ducked underneath a computer console. Two Grunts hurried by, flanked by one of the Elites. James raised the muzzle of his shotgun and fired upwards from the low overhang of the console—the Elite dropped to the ground from a shot to his unprotected head and the Grunts spun around, only to be shot in the chest by a shotgun...one round for each.
The remaining two Grunts, three Jackals and Elite searched the room wildly for the one causing all this mayhem, the one being they could not see. Realizing he still had the Cammo Belt from the Spec Ops Elites on his waist, James twisted the controls and vanished instantly. He calmly stepped from under cover and rolled a frag grenade into the small group.
Several minutes later, James took off his damaged belt and set it aside. It had gotten caught in the shrapnel of the explosion minutes before and been damaged beyond repair. After setting it aside, he noticed he could hear movement on the floor above him. Sounded like two forms being roughly pushed around...probably his friends got themselves captured. James moved over to a large rack—containing stolen human weaponry—and selected a large M19 SSM Jackhammer Launcher and pulled several rounds of ammo, as many as he could carry, from the racks. With that, he slung them over his back and moved to the window. Several well-placed shots from his pitol shattered the glass, and he was free to scale the outer wall...
"You'll learn to despise the day you meddled in my affairs, cyborg!" Gashean growled, forcing his men to shove Alex to his knees before him. He turned to his Grunt henchman and asked quietly, "What of the Commander? Have you caught him?"
The Grunt was afraid to report failure, but he went against his natural gut instinct and answered with full honesty. "We lost him. He obliterated the docking bay and ammo room defens—aaaaaaahhhhh!" The Grunt found himself on the floor with a plasma wound on his chest, laying in his own blood, dead.
"Idiot, if only I—" Just then, the glass behind the Elite General shattered. Master Commander James Carser balanced on the edge and wielded a large Jackhammer launcher.
"Covenant reign of terror on this moon is over!" he thundered and raised the rocket launcher. Quickly, he squeezed the trigger, aiming for the floor beneath Gashean's feet. With this blast, the Elite General was tossed high into the air, and he landed across the room, his arm and leg strangely missing. Two Grunts and a Jackal landed near him, followed by two more Elites as James fired again. "Covenant filth!" he spat as he reloaded and fired again. Monitors and consoles sizzled and fried as James spent his last shell on each and every one of them. Then, he hopped to the floor and tossed the Jackhammer as he hauled Farr and Alex to their feet. "Are you two okay?" he asked.
They nodded, shaking violently.
"Where is Bryce?" James asked, his stomach knotting in his chest.
Alex looked out the window and pointed to the roof. "Some Elites are having fun with him up on the roof."
"I think it's time we put an end to their fun," James said, and the three of them scaled the edge of the outpost, leaving a room full of dead Covenant warriors behind. Not a single one remained alive. The Covies were almost gone from Orean, the only ones left being those on the roof...
1658 Hours, August 13, 2553 (Military Calendar)/ Roof of the final Covenant outpost on Orean, moon of planet Raiek
Bryce was bolted by plasma-made chains to three metal weights, being held down from moving. Six Elites were moving around him, unarmed, but having fun taking turns beating him in as many creative ways as they could. They had already kicked him, stepped on him, saw how long he could hold his breath, tried to rip off his limbs, and even threw him from the roof once.
What the Elites didn't know was that they were the last remaining Covenant forces on the moon, and that their enemies were lying in wait just below the rim of the roof. The Spartans wasted no time in getting started. Alex pulled the pin of a fragmentation grenade and rolled it across the roof. When it exploded, two Elites were tossed from the roof, leaving only four left, one with a lowered shield.
"What was that?" a familiar voice asked.
James raised himself onto the roof, distracting the Elites from Alex and Farr, who stood behind them, prepping MA5B assault rifles.
"Zaran 'Gangolee," James growled. "How did you get here?"
"Not long after you left," Zaran began, "I was picked up by my own forces and brought back here. They healed me and restored my shield generator. I'm just as dangerous as I ever was, cyborg."
"We'll see about that."
The MA5B assault rifles cracked from behind Zaran, and the three Elites on either side of him dropped before they even had time to turn around. The golden Elite seemed impressed, but he tried not to show it. "So what now, Spartan?" Zaran asked, his eyes moving wildly between the Spartan and his friends. "What happens now?"
James held up a tiny device with a single button. "I got this from the ammo level just before I saved my friends. Now, you say that the Covenant here healed you, but it was plain to see that the Covenant hate you and your ways, and want you dead. It only seems natural that you would be implanted with a fail-safe device during your momentary operation."
"What are you talking about?" Zaran asked, a quizzical look on his normally hard face. He was obviously very changed after the episode in the Winter. "What kind of fail-safe device?"
"A fail-safe like this," James said, and pressed the button. Instantly, Zaran's entire body surged with electric energy. He howled aloud in pain and clutched his chest, collapsing to the ground. His shield was gone, and it was obvious his health was draining fast. "They implanted a way to easily get rid of you, Zaran. I read about it when I logged into their computers and revealed their plans. Just in case anything—you know—went wrong."
"Filth!" Zaran spat, slowly bringing himself to his knees as James released the button. "I'll...kill...you!"
"I don't think you'll be doing any killing today, Zaran. The battle for Raiek and Orean is over, and you lose." The Commander looked skyward as dropship Foehammer circled down from the skies. "Right on time," he muttered as the rear boarding doors hissed open. A large, burly officer appeared and smiled to the Spartan. "You came!" James called, laughing.
"Aye, just hoist him up here!" the officer called as James lifted Zaran's limp form and tossed him up into the docking bay. "We'll handle him!"
"I've got to go back and reclaim the Winter!" James called as he hopped in after Zaran. Bryce, Alex and Farr followed suit after Bryce had been freed from his bonds. "Can you drop us off?" The officer called up to the pilot and then swiveled his head back to look at the towering Spartans and Elite, nodding. "Good!" James said, giving a thumbs-up. The dropship wheeled itself in mid-flight and headed back in the direction of the fallen Winter as the pilot fed the engines fuel. Trees and all kinds of foliage zipped by below them as they flew towards the battle cruiser settled on the ground. In less then three minutes, the towering leviathon of a ship came into view. However, as the Spartans and Elite jumped down and landed in the ship, another being clinging to the bottom dropped with them, plotting his revenge strike.
"Activate the engines, Alex!" James called as he leaned back in the Captain's chair. Alex's fingers flew over the console and the ship started to rumble. Slowly, the cruiser's engines powered and rattled, and then it kicked up off the ground. "We need to get higher!" Suddenly, the entire ship jolted, and then froze in mid-air. It slowly started to fall towards the ground. "What happened?" James demanded.
"Analyzing," came Darkel's terse reply.
Just then, a wave of static blasted over the intercom. James pressed a button and then talked again. "Say again!" he literally screamed into the mic.
Another wave of static and interrupted messages came through when James released the button, but this time, they could hear the distinct voice of Captain Hank Moores coming through the intercom. "Get........planet......Covenant......EMP......surface!"
"I heard something about EMP, sir!" Bryce called as he gripped the radar controls. "I say we haul butt faster!"
"You heard the Chief, General!" James called as Alex kicked the engines into overdrive.
"I've got it!" Darkel almost yelled in James's ear.
"What is it?"
"The Covenant have planted an EMP generator in the core to prevent ultraviolet rays, and radiation from the red giant that could go nova in any year in case it fell to human hands. There is too much knowledge on this planet and computers contain too much information that could be decoded and read to find information of future Covenant strikes. The planet was hot before, and when they deactivate the EMP devices, the planet will be almost instantly fried," Darkel responded flatly. Despite the recent terrifying news, he sounded rather bored to the Commander.
"We've gotta get off this rock," Bryce muttered.
"What would they do with the generator?" James asked, a tone of panic hinting vaguely in his bass voice. "How much harm could they do."
"They could turn it off," Darkel responded without enthusiasum. He was bored.
"What will that do?"
Alex pointed towards the window. Swirling purple clouds were tracing across the sky. According to the General, they had just started and were increasing in intensity. "That!" he breathed. "Just like the aurora borealis back on Earth. I used to pay attention in school years ago, and now all that is paying off. The Covenant have deactivated the EMP generator that protected the moon and now we're in big trouble."
"You're right about one thing!" Jason, the mutant Flood demonlike being, launched himself from a ceiling hatch and sent the Spartans flying towards the door. Farr immediately jumped up and grabbed Jason, trying to wrestle with him and destroy him quickly, even though he was unarmed.
"Get going!" Farr growled as Jason tossed him across the room. "I'll handle him!"
Reluctantly, the three remaining Spartans took off at a run down the corridor, Bryce accidently dropping his gun as he ran. James sent a distress beacon as he ran, hoping Foehammer would respond in time to pick them up at the back of the ship. It would be a long run.
Back in the control room, Farr leaped nimbly aside and landed on all- fours on the floor, several feet away from Jason. As a tentacle lashed out, Farr duck-leaned and used his claws to support his body, and then leaped backwards as another tentacle came his way. He was acrobatic all right, but would it be enough to finish this monster?
Farr jumped from a computer console as a tendril smashed it to pieces and landed on the floor, rolling to a crouch. He leaped to his talons and whirled around, snatching Bryce's dropped shotgun, firing it. Jason wasn't fast enough to move, and the bullets sent him careening into the far wall. As Farr dropped the weapon and sprinted for the door, he was caught in mid- flight and thrown against the bulkhead, grunting in pain. Jason's tentacle slid from his ankle and Farr slumped to the floor, weakened and discouraged. To the Flood mutant, he looked dead, so Jason shot off after the Spartans.
"We received your distress call, Commander!" a voice spoke loudly through James's mic. "We're on our way! Over."
"Affirmative!" James said back solemnly. "Over and out," he finished, closing the link and hurrying after his teammates. "Foehammer will be here soon," he reported. His stomach began to knot together as the air around them started to sizzle with heat. Alex told them that the device couldn't be immediately shut off and that it would have to be powered down over the course of half-an-hour to two hours. That was roughly how long they had to get off the moon and survive.
The remaining three Spartans thundered down the hallway and created such a ruckus that it was not hard for Jason to track them and keep on their trail from unseen areas of the ship, always moving only when they did, stopping when they did to unlock doors, and matching their footsteps exactly. Panic and worry was beginning to settle in over the three of them, but finally they reached the back area of the ship. It was a long catwalklike walkway that extended over a deep chasm, where the bottom of the ship was hardly visible in the dim light. Twenty meters away was the back exit, just to the side of the unlit engines. The exit was, literally, a door, used to evac soldiers in this kind of emergency.
Back in the control room, Farr slowly pulled himself up, howling with pain from the impact. He figured it best to get the ship off the ground, because the EMP device was slowly turning itself off, and they didn't have much time. He crawled across the bridge, grunting now, and slammed his claw down on the ignition button.
The Spartans halted when they reached the back room, and steadied themselves as the engines burned into overdrive. The ship quickly launched itself from the ground and shot like a bullet towards the atmosphere above. Moments later, the ship slammed to a halt again. The engines had malfunctioned. It was then that disaster struck yet again. Jason himself dropped from the ceiling panels and wrapped a tentacle around the Commander, knocking him to the ground. Behind the three of them, a panel sprung loose on the bulkhead, and an officer waiting in dropship Foehammer called to them. "We don't have much time!" he yelled, cupping his hands. They had already dropped Zaran off back at the Constitution and returned for the Spartans.
James rolled across the ground and used his boots to knock Jason into a standing position. He and Bryce took off at a run, Alex behind them all, for the dropship. Then, Jason snared Alex with a tentacle and dragged him backwards with surprising. "No!" James cried as Jason whipped him over the edge. He screamed as he fell, and it was then that Jason knocked a button with another tentacle that caused the bulkhead below them to explode at the edges and drop away. This was used for quick deployment. A large planet of green was shown below, and the bulkhead halves slammed hard into the ground, creating a fiery landing for Alex, who jerked to a stop as the tentacle whipped down.
"Surrender yourselves to me, or your comrade dies!" Jason hissed. "If I know anything about humans, it's that you won't sacrifice your friend!" He growled the word 'friend', and James knew then that the Flood inside Jason was talking, not the human himself.
"Fight it!" James cried, desperate to help his friend. "You're not an enemy, you're one of my best friends in the world," he said quietly.
Alex dropped further; Jason's hold was slacking. Alex screamed as he fell two more meters and then jolted to a halt. He was breathing too hard for it to be considered normal. Alex was terrified for his life. If James could pull this off, he'd never disobey that man again.
"Pull him up!" James tried again as Jason fell to his knees. He was struggling to remember who he was, who he used to be, and bring all those memories back. Then, the memories poured into his brain. He remembered everything about his childhood, growing up on Earth with his parents, and best friends, James and Alex. He remembered Alex giving him a present for his sixth birthday, and when it broke, the young Alex hugged him and dried Jason's tears, promising to buy him another one. It was then that a bad memory, one of a Spartan, looking just like Alex, leaving him behind as enemies covered his body, leaving him to pain and sorrow. The Flood infection form living inside him fueled this anger and he roared in fury. "You did this to me!"
Without warning, Jason hauled Alex up, used two tentacles to hold him upright, and rammed a tentacle through his chest. Alex gasped as the tantacle pierced his body, and blood began to spill onto the deckplates. "Nooooo!" James and Bryce shouted, but neither one of them moved. Alex's head lolled back, and he repeatedly gasped for breath. He was dying, and they all knew it. Jason was enjoying it; the tentacle had taken him through his right lung, and had barely missed his heart. A perfect kill, one that would not destroy the victim until he suffered greatly and suffocated to death.
Alex brought up a hand from his side, revealing a fragmentation grenade, and scowled under his helmet. He spoke for the last time, "You son of a bitch," and then silently pulled the pin from the slot. In this moment, all that could be heard was the pin as it dropped to the catwalk, and in Jason's not-too-intelligent mind, the realization of what Alex had just done flooded his senses. He screamed in fury.
The grenade went off just as Alex died, and hurled the two of them off the platform before Jason could remove himself from Alex's corpse. Jason's body was ripped open after the loud whump! and fire from the grenade, also torn by flying shrapnel. The two of them fell from the ship, through the open hatch, and sank away towards the shrinking surface. They were both lost forever.
A swirl of emotions flashed through James's head, and he was vaguely aware of the fact that he had just lost the two people in his life that meant the most to him. Two people he would do anything for, move Heaven and Earth themselves if it were possible for them, end his own life for them, and now they were gone. Lost forever to the jungle far below. James sank to his knees and removed his helmet. The ghost-white face, masked for too long under a helmet and protected from sunlight, was covered in flowing, clear tears that formed rivulets down his cheek and onto his chin. Even after years of training against emotion, this was too much. He was barely aware of Bryce hauling him upright, and backwards into dropship Foehammer. He was also hardly aware of them turning from the now-falling battleship and leaving the moon behind.
Jason and Alex, the friends he had known—loved, even—nearly from birth, were gone from his life, never to be seen again, both taken from him by the ones he hated more than the Covenant...the Flood. He swore to himself then that he would make the nasty parasites pay for what they did to his friends. James realized then that the Covenant had not taken any of his team...Brent had died due to being infested, Jason had killed Alex and Jarrett because of being infested, and Alex had killed Jason because the Colonel was infested. This whole mess wasn't the fault of the Covenant, it was the Flood who were responsible. It was the Flood he swore he would make pay in the end.
Several minutes after dropship Foehammer cleared the atmosphere, the entire moon lit up like a ball of fire. The EMP device was off, and dangerous radiation had torched the planet. When the flaming gouts of fire cleared, all that was left was a desolate, barren wasteland of a moon, information of bygone species lost forever to its mysterious past. James intended to solve those mysteries and end his questions for good. Everything that was James and Bryce's past, their friends, was lost to them forever.
Bryce turned to face his Commander, tears flowing freely down his now- exposed face (his helmet sitting at his side) and said only one thing the whole trip back, one thing that made James feel so much better, "They will be avenged."