Chapter XI
Infestation
The Master Chief slogged through the slime and resin of the underground caverns. From the lights and grafitti showing through the black, stiff resin of the hive, the tunnel had once been some kind of sewer, and maybe a hangout for some local drug addicts. From the gore and slime splattered all over the walls, the fate of these people in the tunnel had been painful and gory after the Covenant had uncovered the secret hidden under New Mombassa.
"Hot damn, is it ever hot in here!" one marine mumbled. The other nudged him in the ribs and retorted;
"Yeah, man. But it's a dry heat, 'ya know?"
"Shut up!" Linda snarled. John arched an eyebrow at her from under his helmet; Linda had been tense, on edge, ever since the Pelicans had dropped them off in New Mombassa. Linda was usually quiet and kept to herself; now, she was lashing out at John and the Marines. If he could guess, John would pass the oddities in Linda's personality off as stress, but after the previous topside vision, John wasn't so sure. Something evil lurked inside these tunnels, something with the power to influence minds and possibly will and morale of soldiers. What else waited in this hellhole of a pit?
"Sir! I think you had better check this out…!" came the voice of a marine. A NAV marker appeared on John's HUD, and he sprinted to the marine's location. Ripley was bending over what looked like a big, leathery sac as John almost tripped over the marine.
"Sir! I thought you might want to see this…" he said, handing John a round object, covered in slime. Wiping the object clean, a familiar green tint gleamed in the semi-darkness. John could have broken down and cried right there; it was a SPARTAN helmet. A trio of long scratch marks were engraved on the side of the helmet, like claws trying to tear the helmet off during a frantic battle. John realized that shell casings littered the floor. Lots of them. Whatever had happened down here had been fierce and drawn out, based on the number of shell casings. Will and Kelly had been here, all right.
"They can't be far. We may just be able to get to them in time!" John growled, running deeper into the hive. Ripley stood, awed by the SPARTAN's sense of leadership, and followed the green, meter tall warrior into the darkness. Linda and the others fell in quickly, tightening their formation.
"Sir, this is Corporal O'Donnel! We've spotted more of those creatures, heading into the hive! They'll be on top of you soon, sir! Advise you evacuate ASAP!" the corporal shouted. John clicked off his COM and grimly said,
"Let's go".
-
Anna Cameron glanced warily around the hive, taking in all of the horrifying sights of the alien nest. On some other planet, this would be considered routine duty, nothing special really. The sewer looked extraterrestrial in origin, yet Anna knew it was still on earth. God damn this job, damn it all! The Covenant, the whole war, everything! Her boyfriend, Lieutenant Andrew Harrison, had been killed on Reach, on board a ship. The reports said that his ship, the Ithaca, had last been seen engaging two Covenant cruisers in a vain attempt to try and draw fire away from the orbital MAC guns. Obviously, this attempt had been a failure, and he was probably dead.
"Hey, look!" another Marine motioned. Anna followed his gaze to hear the sounds of a body being dragged over this resiny-stuff.
"After it!" John commanded, sprinting deeper into this hell-hole. The other SPARTAN, Linda, seemed very much on edge as she followed her comrade into the jaws of hell. Anna sighed and pressed on, gripping her rifle tightly.
"Cover fire!" came the voice of another SPARTAN from deep inside of this nightmare. The pinging of rifle fire and the staccado bursts of automatic weapons fire echoed quite clearly from the depths of the hive, and as Anna followed the Chief deeper and deeper, she was surprised to see two more SPARTANS battling it out with more of those bug-creatures. She knew it was those two new mystery SPARTANS, Spartans who had supposedly been separated from the Chief's squad or something years before.
Instantly, the Chief was in the center of the fray, firing his weapon at anything black and hissing. The Chief's ferocity was commendable; he worked with the speed of a jackrabbit, but the precision of a surgeon, targeting the jaws or the heads of the alien creatures.
The hissing of the alien's blood was the only noise in the chamber as the Chief finally relaxed, jamming a new clip into his smoking rifle.
"Master Chief, sir! The others, they're in deeper, and-" one of the SPARTANS began, but the Chief held up his hand.
"Hold on a moment. Who are you two, anyway? I never remembered any SPARTANS by the names Luke and Rebecca, anyway! You can't be from my team!" the Chief proclaimed. His voice remained level, emotionless. Anna had heard that every SPARTAN had been killed at Reach, trying to defend the orbital MAC guns from the Covenant assault…but, the Chief and this other SPARTAN, Linda, had survived. The other two were also Reach survivors, as well. She shook her head in confusion as the two SPARTANS held up their hands in submission.
"We'll explain topside, Chief. You're not the only one who's lost friends in battle, or made sacrifices…" the first SPARTAN, Anna couldn't tell which, spoke.
"They were my brothers. My sisters. No one can replace them" the Chief growled. Even from behind his helmet and mask, Anna could see that the Chief almost radiated emotion. He visibly bristled, and his iron hands threatened to snap his rifle in half.
"Chief, they're close. We have to hurry. I think those things are dragging them down to the deepest levels of the Hive…" the second one urged.
"What's the Hive?" Anna asked, curiously. She didn't like the sound of it, like a nest of these foul creatures wasn't bad enough!
"The Hive is exactly what it sounds like. Let's go" the SPARTAN said grimly, marching on deeper into the nest. Anna sighed and followed; did these SPARTANS have to be so damn cryptic?
-
Fred groaned silently, the dank air seeping into his nose. A small bit of water dripped onto his face…dripped onto his face! Where was his helmet?
Then he remembered the fierce battle that had occurred from deep inside of the hive. Damn covenant bastards. They had set this up, here, on Earth. A hive of these big black bug things.
Dozens of civilian and Marine corpses were strapped to the walls in the chamber. Many were dead, blood splattered all over their faces and chests. Ragged holes had been punched through their chests, and Fred knew that Dr. Halsey's creatures were down here, on Earth.
The distant sounds of gunfire penetrated the room. John and the others…they were coming. But would they make it in time? Fred tried to move his arm to his COM unit, but it was stuck, stuck in the gooey resin that covered the entire room. He was trapped.
"Will?" he called.
"Fred? Is that you?" he called, seeming miles away.
"John's coming" Fred rasped. The air was dank and hot, and it was getting harder to breathe…Will's response took longer to echo across the chamber this time.
"I know. Don't you hear him? He won't stop. John won't lose" he confidently stated. Fred nodded; John wouldn't give up. No matter what.
One of those bugs appeared in front of Fred. It seemed to size him up for a second before scuttling back into the darkness.
"Oh, god. A SPARTAN?" came a call from the darkness. Fred looked up; a marine was strapped to the wall about six feet away from him. Using his neural interface, Fred merely had to think to turn on the floodlight attached to his shoulder. A young Marine, looking no older than eighteen, was strapped to the wall.
"Sir, we're gonna die. We're all gonna die. There are these crab things, and they jump on your heads…oh god, I can still hear them screaming. Then…then…" the young marine babbled. Fred grunted; he could begin to feel the resin giving underneath the powerful servos of his MJOLNIR armor. If he could just get free and reach his shotgun still strapped to his back…
Finally, his hand burst free of the resin binding it in place. He ripped the goop off of his torso and other arm, and burst free of the wall. Grabbing his shotgun and sliding in a shell, he fired at a bug that tried to impede his progress. The body fell over top of a large, tan egg. As Fred panned his floodlight around the chamber, he realized that there were thousands of eggs, lined up in neat rows, all across the chamber.
"Holy…!" the young marine began as he saw all of the eggs. Fred blew the closest egg into tiny bits of flesh and slime with a shotgun shell.
"Will? Where are you?" Fred yelled, using a fragmentation grenade to burn a path through the rows of eggs.
"I'm fine, Fred. I'm here" he said, two feet away from Fred. He turned, relieved to see him alive. He carried his helmet in front of him, almost like a sacrificial offering…
"Will?" he asked. Will smiled, to reveal a set of sharp, shiny teeth. A quartet of legs appeared on the helmet's brim, and helped hoist one of Dr. Halsey's "face huggers" onto the top of the helmet. Without a second thought, Fred fired his shotgun, not caring about hitting Will, or this impostor. The image of Will faded and turned into a black, grinning alien bug, holding a egg in front of it. The hugger was shredded, blown to tiny pieces on the ground.
"Whoa…sir…what was that?" the marine asked as Fred proceeded to cut him free from the resin.
"We'll figure that out if we make it out of this hole. Will, are you alive, or is that really you?" Fred called. No response.
"Fred? It's me, Kelly!" came a SPARTAN voice. Fred shone his light towards the source of the voice; there was no mistaking the sage green armor, strapped to the wall of the Hive.
"Kelly? Are you alright?" Fred asked, rapping his knuckles on the side of Kelly's armor to make sure she wasn't another illusion. She was real.
"Stop fooling around, Fred! Get me down! These things still have Will!" she yelled as Fred cut her free using the Marine's combat knife. The marine held his pistol low, and Kelly wielded an SMG.
"Will?" Fred asked, this time using his COM unit. It crackled.
"Fred, is that you? I'm alive, and in some sort of egg chamber…it's…"he trailed off. Fred's face drained of color.
"We're on our way" he said over the COM. A NAV marker appeared, about a half a kilometer away. It was through a winding tunnel of sorts, which spiraled downward.
"Well, we've got our work cut out for us, don't we? Let's go, move like we got a purpose!" Fred rallied the one living marine and Kelly to him before checking the walls for any live victims who weren't impregnated. None were still alive, the gruesome holes a testimony to that fact. Fred and the others pressed on deeper into the hive, only stopping to glance behind them as a loud roar echoed through the Hive.
"She's coming…" the marine moaned as a dark shadow, darker than even the Hive itself, rounded the corner…
