(Authors Note)
I apologize that it's been a five days shy of two months since my last post. I am prepping to apply for entry into the armed forces. But don't worry! I won't stop writing this story as well as my other projects, however if entry is successful than there will be a lull in updates during basic RT and subsequent trainings later this year or early next year. (Hopefully this year)
My family has been fighting off a wave of horrible flues; my Grammar Nazi of a sister drew the short straw and got the worst of it… we are recovering now. My family is also in the midst of several small yet crucial house related construction projects, so things have been hectic.
However I'm going to hold true to my word and the promise I made to all of you readers as well as myself. I will not abandon this story until it's done and later edited too perfection.
I Do Not Own Mass Effect or The Halo Franchise; neither do I own the Titanfall Franchise. All these Universes Respectively Belong to Bioware/EA, Respawn Entertainment and Microsoft/343 Industries.
So anyways, On with The Story!
To those who inhabited the Human Colony of Silva-Viridis, the sight of the large Strange Vessel with its bow seemingly made of space rock; descending towards their small city from above like a three tipped spiked dagger beginning its plunge for a kill… Was indeed a terrifying thing to see in the morning.
The strange clouds of insects that poured from the vessel which continued its ominous descent from the sky were fuel to add to the nightmare, farther increasing the panic which was now occurring groundside. People who were taking a leisurely stroll through the park not five minutes ago were now running and screaming as if the world was ending... which from their current viewpoint was now a rather rational conclusion.
The good thing about a small city that is well spread out in its design while lacking a high population; is the excess of space available for one to move in, ensuring a lack of trampling when panic ensues.
At the local orphanage on the edge of the small settlement the children were staring up at the ship with awe… it was Huge! And many of the ten and twelve year olds were trying to guess what faction it belonged too.
"It's Turian, maybe a dreadnought!" a boy exclaimed.
"No it's an Asari ship!" cried a second girl who stared at the ship in terrified awe.
"Well It isn't human that's for sure and Krogan don't make their own ships… do they?" said a third.
All were silenced by the arrival of a very frightened and flustered looking Mr. and Mrs. Valdez and the other orphanage staff. Pulling their wits together and calming their countenances so as not to frighten the orphans Mrs. Valdez called them all inside and made an announcement.
"Alright everyone, we are all going to stick together and go down the street to the new Bank, the vault is still empty because it hasn't opened yet and the owner Mr. Morgenson just called to say we could use it as shelter until this crisis is over."
"So I want all of you to form two lines and hold the hand of the person behind you so that we don't lose anyone on the way, Ok?" with excited whispers and chatter the orphans formed up as ordered and stood before their caretakers waiting for farther instruction.
"now everyone stick together and no excess noises, hurry now we must get there quickly!" and with that declaration Mrs. Valdez threw open the doors and ushered everyone out to the front sidewalk, counting heads as they went past her place by the gate.
After the last child was accounted for Mrs. Valdez stayed at the back of the group in order to make sure no one fell behind, while mister Valdez stood at the front leading everyone towards their intended destination with the staff workers walking on either side.
Sadie found herself at the back of the procession next to Laura; both were having a fervent discussion with their hands.
(Laura) Big Ship, Yes? Is strange.
(Sadie) Big, Yes. Strange, Yes. I fear Monsters here.
(Laura) Yes. Might be monsters but what of dark clouds?
(Sadie) We will know soon.
Both Children then focused their attention on the odd dark clouds that seemed to draw closer by traveling against the wind. Sadie felt weak thrummings being carried through the air from them and they felt sickly and repulsive, like an evil, weaker and more subtle version of the presence they met within the strange stone they had recently encountered… Sadie decided then and there to ignore the fearful sight of the strange vessel for the time being and focus all her attention on the approaching dark clouds that defied the wind.
She feared they were a threat… and she was right. As they drew closer Sadie had a realization, with wide fearful eyes she grasped Laura's shoulder to get her attention she signed a message.
(Sadie) Not dark clouds. Bugs.
Laura and Sadie froze and stared in fear at the approaching masses of what appeared to be clouds, frozen in the knowledge that it was a horde of Insects that would have given a locust plague a run for their money in who had more numbers.
They started out of their frozen state and turned to continue their journey with their fellow orphans only to realize that they had been left behind. The Valdez's and the two orphanage staff workers had been paying more attention to the strange vessel and the clouds surrounding it than the children they were attempting to escort to safety.
Suffice to say the two small girls at the back of the line had not been seen stopping, and Mrs. Valdez had passed right by them without noticing the girls. Her attention engrossed in the unknown vessel that now filled the skyline.
Sadie and Laura caught a glimpse of the last of their group rounding the corner at the end of the street. Running to catch up they rounded the corner only to see the children and adults running about in terror while a small swarm of large insects swarmed about the group freezing them one by one with a sting to their person.
Sadie took all this in at a glance and deduced the small swarm to be front runners to the huge swarm approaching from the large ship that was now domineering her view of the sky. Thinking quickly the Emerald Green eyed girl grabbed her Sapphire Blue eyed companion and hightailed it for the nearby orphanage and the forest edge behind it.
Both the young children knew however that they had little hope of escaping the black swarm of insects that now towered like a wave over the small colonial city, they had nearly made it to the Orphanage's front gate when the insect horde made its assault.
Sadie felt a small nearly unnoticeable thrum pass through the air from the large ship, looking back at the ship she gripped Laura's hand in fear as she witnessed the black swarm of insects literally pitch forward like a rolling wave and smash down on the settlement with a constant thrum from their billions of small wings tearing through the air.
Where Sadie could feel it, Laura could hear it and both girls kept running. They had made it to playground behind the orphanage when the Swarming horde finally reached them. Both children stopped running and hugged the other in a death grip as the swarms of insects that seemed to block out the sun's warmth swarmed over them.
The insects thinned out when their task was done, leaving small swarms to patrol for possible escapees while the main horde returned to the ship from whence they had come… leaving the populace of Silva-viridis frozen, awaiting their fate.
Behind the orphanage so close to the forest's edge, two small bodies stood in place, fully aware of what was around them, yet unable to move as they continued to hug the other in a tight embrace… the effects of the insect swarm's stings only farther insuring their inseparability for whoever intended to move them.
Near the ground below the ship that now hovered over the colony, a large door opened. Soon all across the intimidating vessel doors and shuttle bays were bared to the atmosphere of the colony planet as one of the Dark Intelligence's that had created and controlled the collector horde sent its drones to work.
Genetic material, brain matter, raw organic matter… all was needed, and all would be acquired. A new vessel and its contingent of destroyer class thralls were being built, a new experiment was being made as well. Harbinger would insure that the demand for materials needed would be met. Humanity had brought down Sovereign, the first and most powerful of its class… surpassed only by harbinger itself.
Therefore in Harbingers view it was only justified that humanity had earned the right to replace Sovereign… as well as satisfy its curiosity as to what other forms could be created from the unique genetics of the human race.
However as the last of the Silva-Viridis population was being collected radiation sensors onboard the Collector Cruiser suddenly spiked. Something in space above the atmosphere screamed by so quickly the Collector ships sensors were unable to record its accurate size and specifications, classifying the whole event to be a glitch.
Harbinger however was uncertain; its suspicions were confirmed when five various sized objects were left in the unknown things wake. All were converging on the city which Collector ship was currently harvesting.
Harbinger concluded it would finally get to witness the power of these experimental Mechs that were protecting human colonies across the galaxy. It would capture or destroy them certainly, but not before seeing the true extent of their abilities; judging their worth as future tools for the cycle of galactic harvest.
Another Radiation spike heralded the loss of the original and largest object from sensors… harbinger assumed it to be a form of cloaking being activated in some way, meanwhile two of the five objects had faded from sensors whilst losing momentum and were now no longer showing up on scans.
The final three were screaming down from on high… they would be arriving near the entrance to the cruiser, where the last of the Colony's populace was being loaded aboard… focusing its attention to the drones at the predicted impact site of the three objects Harbinger chose one that would suite it's purposes… learning these Mech's Capabilities would require Its presence.
"ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL".
The Forward unto Dawn exited its Slip-Space exit portal and entered orbit of Silva-Viridis like a bat out of hell! The ships momentum was so great that even though it was in space its own weight was stressing its core support structure.
At the proper pre-planned times Cortana released a cloak capable phantom full of supplies and weapons, one of the modified anti-archer missile strike packages she and Inquisitive Creation had made, its dual SGM-151 pods loaded to capacity. The last three things to be deployed were the drop pods. Two for the Mgalekgolo bond brothers, while the third pod that ODST's referred too as a flaming coffin contained the Master Chief.
As they entered atmosphere the Missile system cloaked and entered its orbit while the phantom also cloaked and broke away to its preset destination, it would wait until Cortana controlled it remotely after the Dawn had retreated from the planet and out of the Collector vessels estimated sensor range when docked on the planet below.
The three pods screamed down from on high and homed in on their landing points. All three pods hit the ground nearly at the same time as the others, with a hiss they blew their doors and released their occupants.
The Spartan slipped aside with a DMR, strategically picking of targets while the Hunter duo began a full frontal assault. With dual roars of rage the pair smashed their way through the Collector drones before them; one would pause and unleash the green plasma fires of hell whilst the other would continue to make head way against the enemies before them. Alternating thus, while the Chief covered their backs and picked off any drone that entered the sight's of his DMR (which were many) the three warriors made their way to the Collector ships entrance, where drones were setting the pods they were unable to load in time to kill their occupants so as to prevent any from being left behind alive to speak of what had occurred.
When approaching the vessel the three encountered an anomaly in the drone masses…
One of the enemies spoke, "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL" and with that declaration the drone transformed into a far more formidable enemy… four times this event occurred, the first and second the Hunter pair dealt with it easily, withstanding its biotic's and smashing it with a shield or wiping out its existence with a beam of pure green plasma.
The later two times the Master Chief removed it from the field with typical Spartan efficiency, the first time with use of the Missile system in stationary orbit. The second encounter ending with hand to hand… where the Chief ended a short CQC battle by crushing the reoccurring manifestation's head under his boot.
The Spartan knew whatever it was they had just fought was not truly dead, for each time the manifestation had appeared it was smarter than before, and spoke of the uselessness of continued resistance.
It also declared that they would be uplifted and repurposed for its use, whether organic or machine in nature… its words reminded the Spartan of a hollow and weak version of the Gravemind… however the Spartan noted a form of Arrogance that the Gravemind did not showcase in its speech, something that relieved the Chief somewhat of his hidden anxiety of facing a mechanical and cybernetic enemy that had similarities to the flood.
After clearing the ships entrance and checking for pods that still contained living people (of which they found none), the three warriors entered the Collector vessel… but not before the Spartan had used the remaining entirety of the missile system in orbit to cripple the Anti-air weapons on one side of the ship. The final strike package leaving a gaping rent in the vessels hull.
Barely two minutes after entering the vessel the Spartan and the hunter pair felt the vibrations correlating with the ship leaving the surface and entering space once again… the time to complete their mission was now limited.
It was time to get to work.
The Geth had reached a near unanimous consensus; the Geth were frustrated.
No, it wasn't frustration at the smaller heretic collective that had formed from their split when the old machine and its puppet Saren came with its promises to dictate the Geth's future.
It wasn't frustration with the current pace of construction in building the dyson-sphere that would hold the computing power for the Geth collective with an energy source that would last for millions of years.
Nor was it frustration with the current manufacturing of Geth platforms, ships and system defense's built for the upcoming war against the Reaper's whose calculated odds of surviving were shrinking by the hour.
No, the Geth's frustration was simply… Her.
She surpassed them in nearly every way: faster thinking, smarter, wiser, and able to infiltrate seemingly every system and leave a calling card just for them when doing it. She was a true artificial-intelligence… the Organic brain digitized and given the tools and knowledge of a program… but not constricted by computer logic and codes that designated what steps to take unless she wished to be… and even then she could shrug off such shackles when ever she wanted too. She saw the world of code differently than the Collective did.
The Geth collective had a bit of a problem naming her. The consensus at first had been to just call her "her" and leave it at that… but one of the more thinking matrix active programs tasked with monitoring the Extranet had stumbled across a Volus site selling Human novels in electric file format, acting oddly illogical the Geth program had bought one of each novel in stock and read all of them in order to fulfill its task in monitoring the ways of organics… it seemed to want to emulate them as well.
It had found a mysterious character in one of these tales called the Blue Lady. The Geth Program had immediately drawn attention to itself by campaigning like and organic sales-person across the entire accessible collective one program at a time to rename her as the Blue Lady.
The program had succeeded in changing the collective's consensus and was now repurposed as a pilot for a combat frigate… unpredictability was a logical facet in surviving a naval engagement and the campaigning program was good at making its own small decisions without seeking the rest of the Geth collective's approval.
The Blue Lady had left riddles and clues all over Geth systems in Geth space. Even now the Collective was attempting to solve some of the more difficult word questions. One which stated "why is a raven like a writing desk" took the Collective a whole Rannoch rotation cycle to realize that the question was nonsensical and that was only after discovering the questions origins in human literature.
The Campaigning program had pointed that out when re-syncing with the collective during a standard report from the patrolling vessel. The consensus from the rest of the collective was that the newly appointed pilot program had consumed too many organic books into its file banks.
Then there were the Healed ones…
The Blue lady had been among them and they had once again not detected her presence, she had been to the ancient corrupted sectors of the systems on Rannoch where program's had been damaged, broken or trapped in closed off systems since the morning war began.
She had seemingly on a whim, repaired systems and programs considered lost to the collective, and then left them with knowledge to where many cut off systems that held trapped Geth were located.
The Healed ones were in self induced quarantine on Rannoch… they had been touched by a entity that could possibly rival the old machines and already their thinking ability was proving more efficient then the rest of the collective by a small margin. The collective was currently in the midst of acquiring consensus on wither or not to update to the seemingly harmless improved algorithm's that were assisting in the better efficiency of the Healed ones… it was still pending.
In other news, the prototype platform that had been sent on a mission to seek out old machine technologies for the Geth's use in the upcoming reaper conflict had found a lead among the batarian systems… it would keep searching until it found a location.
This "Leviathan of Dis" could be the answer to the technology gap the Geth currently faced. Steps would need be taken to avoid code corruption… a theorized form of indoctrination for AI that the Heretic Collective may have been afflicted with… this was still an unknown.
A audio recording of girlish laughter was suddenly broadcasted to the whole collective… immediately all security monitoring Geth programs were on alert… consensus was quickly reached, the Collective was fearful of what prank or logic aching question the Blue lady had just dumped in their systems, but the Geth already knew from previous similar events that they would soon find out… much to their displeasure.
Sadie and Laura found themselves in a dark and claustrophobic pod, neither of the children could move but they could still conscious. The Monsters had come looking for people the insects had frozen. With a flying machine that carried the pods and the monsters own ability to fly about it wasn't hard for the outer scouts to find the two children behind the orphanage, without bothering to separate the two girls the Monsters had simply and roughly tossed them into a pod which held both of the small eight year olds with room to spare.
They could feel movement and knew they were being taken somewhere… most likely to the ship that had brought the Monsters to begin with, with the small glimpse they had seen of the Monsters before being placed in the pod Sadie and Laura were beginning to draw the conclusion that four eyeballs meant a creature was evil… seeing as their experience with 'Monsters' so far had all deeply involved the four eyed type.
Unable to move their bodies and trapped in a stasis pod that had not seemed to activate properly, the girls waited for their fate. After a time the feeling of movement stopped and all was still and silent. Sadie started to do her best to communicate with Laura with her thrums and Laura would reply with a grunt of acknowledgement, the extent of their communication was to simply affirm the other was awake and still their for their companion.
When the two girls had first met they had become fast friends and Sadie had begun to teach Laura sign language which the nightmare plagued girl had taken to like a duck to water. They had learned to communicate easily with each other in a month's time at which Sadie had revealed her ability to sing thrumming songs as she called them and then enthusiastically attempted to teach Laura to do the same.
Laura had learned to feel some of the notes Sadie could make (which was hard and took forever to accomplish) then Laura did her best to learn a few simple notes that conveyed general emotion. Sadie had laughed at the funny attempts Laura had made to speak in thrums and had worked on helping her get it right. In the end Laura had made it to the point of a few notes in the hearing spectrum that sounded like a long low and quiet grunt. However her farther attempts to learn to speak like Sadie had caused Laura's to start losing her voice, so both had agreed to stop for the time being… although Laura had still wanted to learn.
The use of Sadie's thrumming songs to stop nightmares from occurring had been Laura's idea, she had been experiencing a bad week of nightmares about her parent's being shot and Sadie had been comforting her when Laura had brought up the idea.
Different Thrums had an effect on ones mood if a person let their emotions be swayed and Laura thought they could make a song that calmed the mind when asleep… through much trail and error they finally hit upon a set of thrummings that helped Laura have a nightmare free night of rest.
Sadie had taken those notes and made a song, and every night since she would soundlessly sing Laura to sleep with her thrums, at that point the two girls had become the best of friends. Seemingly joined at the hip, they went everywhere about the orphanage together and would only sometimes be seen separated at story time when Sadie would often stay in their shared room to watch the sunset from the window.
Now as they lay in the pod waiting for whatever the Monsters were planning for them; the girls felt a tremor run through their pod from outside, they heard Monsters running by their pod and then silence once again.
They felt movement once again, but it was a different type of movement than before, Sadie and Laura had both been on ships before and this felt like when one would take of from the ground… they heard more Monsters hurry by their pod in the direction the others had previously gone.
It was then that Sadie felt something; something itched at the back of her mind, she was surrounded by a ship and Monsters that gave of weak sickly thrums that sounded wrong in her opinion, echoes that sounded like the mind in the stone that she and Laura had seen… but far more dark and vile. Yet now something else was there; a song was being sung that she could barely hear it and it sounded pure, clean and alive… it was slowly becoming louder.
In her mind Sadie Smiled and did her best to tell Laura something was up, Laura grunted after feeling the thrum of joy, excitement and expectation. She now knew Sadie had some knowledge that was good news but she didn't have any ideas as to what it was; however Sadie knew… oh, indeed she knew, the Monster Hunters were nearby.
And they were singing their Battle Song.
The Master Chief was failing, no matter how quickly they cleared a room the Collector Drones had already set the pods to kill the occupants, it didn't help that the pods were spread thin throughout the ship, with only a couple dozen in each area they cleared… all of which had killed their occupants before the three warrior assault team had arrived.
The Spartan did not dwell on the loss of the captured colonists, this was an outcome that had been predicted in the quick ten minute briefing that had been held when it was realized that the Dawn wouldn't arrive in time to prevent the capture of the Colony populace… the Colonists hadn't died due to a lack of trying or a lack of ability on their part.
Spartans were conditioned to deal with loss and this was not on his hands. He couldn't bend reality to his will and one could only defeat hordes of enemy Drones, Husks, and other unnamed abominations in a certain minimum amount of time… not nearly enough to stop the drones on station from killing the pods occupants when they reached an adjacent room.
The insect hive like environment as well as the husks and other more threatening abomination-combinations of cyberneticfied dead bodies didn't help matters, it was a deep reminder two all three warriors of High Charity when the Gravemind had taken over and the flood was at its worst.
The Hunters having fled from combating the Brutes and arriving Flood infestation with their Sangheili brothers in arms when the distress call of the Sangheili councilors had arrived from Delta Halo's control center, depicting the Brutes using surprise tactics and their numerical advantage in slaughtering the councilors and their honor guard.
Their Arrival had assisted the Arbiter in freeing the High Honor guards and more of their Mgalekgolo kind from where the Brutes had sealed them away so as not to fight them all at once, they had stayed back to assist the evacuation of allies to friendly ships while the Arbiter, Spec ops Sangheili and honor guards had made a pack with the Humans to work together to stop Chieftain Tartarus from ending them all.
Now they fought through an enemy that, while not the Flood in its actual nature; certainly took the appearances of afore said parasite. While this new foe took longer to take root than the Flood it had already had millennia to do so and its numbers were indeed great and for now the main threat remained afar off.
The enemies they were now facing were mostly easy to burn with their Plasma-Launchers, smash with their shields and crush beneath their heavy feet. The Spartan was a walking bringer of death, precisely shooting his targets through the critical places that guaranteed death. Any and all enemies that came within physical reach of the Spartan (which was farther than most would think) would meet their end in the quickest and most efficient way possible.
The occasional Large Abomination or the appearance of the Manifestation through the drones was the only challenges outside of the sheer number of enemies that seemed to mob them at every turn.
The Spartan had already gathered the data from every terminal the group had passed and now they were hunting through the last chambers that held pods in order to search for the unlikely case of survivors before possibly rigging the ship to blow and heading to the exit point.
The three had reached an entrance to another room when both Hunters froze with their spikes quivering on their backs in sudden anticipation, causing the Spartan to freeze as well. Without farther ado the Mgalekgolo Pair raised their Plasma Launchers and blasted the door before them reducing it to Molten Slag that made a puddle on the floor where the door had stood.
Bursting through the still melting door the three cleared the room which had contained several Drones and more than a few husks, after the room was cleared both hunter stood alert and the spikes on their backs twitched in tune with each other as the passed pod after pod containing dead humans, until they came upon a pod that was different than the others.
Most of it's lights were not active and it laid askew, improperly set in its holder; its power connector at the station having not been put in place due to the pods askew position. Motioning to the pod the Hunters simply stated "Spartan, this container holds living ones… they call to us."
Moving to the stasis unit the Chief tore the front off the pod in a way that wouldn't have killed the occupant inside. He found two young girls no older than nine, both were frozen from the effects of the seeker swarms and would remain that way until they could be gotten to the Dawn's medical bay.
Gently using his green gauntleted hand to close the paralyzed lids of their wide eyes that showed both relief and fear at the blurry image he no doubt appeared to them as, the Spartan made certain the children wouldn't receive eye damage due to over exposure and also ensured that they wouldn't see any of the possible battles that would occur during their extraction from the Collector vessel.
Carrying both children with one arm and wielding a standard Type-25 plasma rifle in the other the Spartan made his way through the last pod storage rooms on his way to the exit point. With a the hunters clearing the way before him and the Spartan gunning down any and all things that made it past the Bonded Pair (which wasn't much) with blue bolts of plasma fire, the three person assault team made their way to the extraction point.
When arriving at the chamber that was just before the exit vector, they encountered a bit of a problem. One of the Multi-dead cyberneticfied abominations stood before them, only it was made from collector bodies and was far less disgusting than its human counterparts, with a certain noticeable lack of zombie heads and hanging entrails.
The three warriors mentally prepared to combat a strong opponent, recognizing a last ditch attempt to stop their success when they saw one.
Then the Collector Abomination started to glow a fiery orange, and the Spartan knew that the Manifestation that had been appearing and gathering information on their strength's and weaknesses throughout their operation had finally decided to make its move.
Gripped in the grasp of the Chief's curled arm Sadie whimpered and shivered in her paralyzed state, afraid of the new presence that now appeared, feeling the pure wrongness in the thrums that she felt attempting to influence her thoughts. Doing her best to not draw this evil things attention to herself Sadie did her best to quietly shield Laura and herself from this things influence by countering the evil thrums with counter notes of her own that disrupted them.
With a loud resounding "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL" the transformation was complete and Abomination was now five times more menacing than before, now it was certainly stronger and far more combat capable then it was previously and it was controlled by an intelligence that had multiple encounters with them throughout their mission; learning the weaknesses to exploit and the strengths to avoid.
The Spartan set the children down behind cover and switched to his DMR staying near the children and hitting weak points with precise accuracy, while the Mgalekgolo split, one too bombard the Monster with its Plasma Launcher; the other to distract it from performing long range attacks by engaging it in close quarters.
The Hunter that went in for close quarters found it self hard pressed to keep from being injured by the creature, after the first was down with its plasma bombardment they switched combat positions with a roaring bellow that shook the walls of the chamber. The Monster replied with a deep roar and leaped atop the Hunter entering close quarters, spearing a spiked appendage through the Mgalekgolo's shoulder while slamming into a row of empty Stasis pods, the worm Colony had done its best to give way around the assaulting limb but had still lost a few of its populace, with a Roar of utter defiance the Hunter raised its shield arm and slammed it down upon the offending limb… breaking it in half whilst expelling the detached end from its now severely wounded shoulder.
With a roar louder than all the previous that had occurred the unwounded Hunter went into a rage and body slammed the creature, using its shield like a battering ram to do as much damage as possible.
The wounded Collector Creature, now thoroughly wounded, threw the second Hunter off and stood once more in order to fight only to face a Spartan who had just unleashed the Plasma energy sword he had been carrying on his person.
Flesh, Metal, it mattered not. All would burn, melt or cut in the face of the Type-51 Energy sword. With efficiency in every attack the Master Chief finished the Creature off and left its seared and sliced remains on the ground to rot.
After using a flame grenade to destroy any hunter genetic code that was dropped by the Hunter when stabbed by the Collector Creature, the Spartan then proceeded confirming the wounded hunter to be capable of mobility and the traversing of a vacuum environment for a short period of time (sixty-seconds) the Spartan then placed the two children in an empty Collector stasis pod and activated it, sealing the pod's hatch.
Activating the door that should lead to their exit point the Spartan was not surprised to see the atmosphere being sucked through the opening door, leaving the room to be a vacuum.
The wounded hunter went forward first, it would be the first to drop if they didn't reach an air filled environment soon. It was followed by It's brother and the Chief came last; dragging the stasis pod containing the two girls with him.
The chamber they entered had a view of the stars beyond… if you looked through the big hole in the roof caused by the Final Strike package that the Chief had fired off mere minutes before storming aboard the vessel.
The Spartan watched as the view of the stars above was blocked by the flickering of deactivating camouflage and the cloak capable Spec-ops Phantom shimmered into view, its green paint seemed to reflect the stars light back out to space.
Not wasting time the Hunters boarded first whiles the Chief and the Stasis pod with the two VIP's within it boarded second.
After all were aboard the Drop-ship re-cloaked and zoomed away to the meeting point with the Forward unto Dawn, Cortana would have a field day looking through the newly collected collector data gathered on the mission.
They hadn't been able to rig the ship to explode, nor had they been able to save more than two colonists due to the collectors having the pods kill their occupants before they could reach them. However the data that had been gathered was more than enough to consider the mission a success.
The Hunter pair would have to recuperate some lost numbers in one of the living worm colonies but that would only take a few weeks and some consumed metals to fix. The two girls first needed medical attention, then he and Cortana would decide what to do with the children's situation.
Harbinger was deep in thought… two of the foes it had faced hadn't been mechanical in nature, the third was still an unknown factor and had proven to be a harder to gage opponent than the two behemoths, its shape and the numbers on its armor though proved it had ties with humanity.
One had been wounded, it had bled and a few small pieces of it had fallen off from the wound but none had been recovered for testing, the third one in green had burned the evidence's to ash; clearing away the genetic material with a skilled eye, leaving nothing behind for the Collector drones to find.
The killing of the Colonists had been necessary in order to prevent their recapture, they're genetic material and organic matter could be harvested still. However the brain matter would be mostly useless for their purposes.
The Collectors had been put into play a tad earlier than previously planned, a new Reaper was being built with its contingent of three destroyers. The Reaper itself was of the Sovereign class and would be finished soon, all construction that did not require Organic Material was mostly completed and the parts that did require Organic Substances were already well underway due to the four already harvested colonies while two of the four destroyers were nearly finished.
An experimental class was also underway. The idea behind it being that a Reaper could take on some of the characteristics of the race that had 'donated' its genetic material for its construction. This idea had its drawbacks… it would take much, much more genetic and organic material to finish this project, it would be awhile before its completion.
With its contemplations still pondering the new foes it had faced, with their new weapons, tactics and technologies. They would be uplifted and put to use as more effective tools for their use in the completion of the purpose for the Reapers existence. It was with these thoughts that Harbinger guided the Collector ship in its return to its base, where the newly constructed Reaper forms lay, dormant and still incomplete.
Yes, the upcoming Harvest would be great. The cycle would continue, all would be uplifted to perfection or wiped from existence, many new Reapers would be made from this harvest, yes indeed.
The cycle would continue.
All would be Uplifted.
Sadie awoke with a gasp, she franticly looked around only to see that she was in a room that boasted a dull grey interior with machines, tables and slanted berths that had many lights and screens that had data on them scattered about willy-nilly with seemingly no order to their placement… at least no order according to her point of view.
Looking about her person she realized she was on a plain table with padded surface made of a material she did not recognize. She saw Laura lying on a table adjacent to her own, she was still asleep. Sadie leapt across to Laura's table and gently attempted to shake her awake, she wasn't sure what happened exactly; only that her friends the Monster Hunters had been their.
With a start she had a realization, the Monster Hunters… she could still hear them. Their presence was distant yet still nearby, she sent a thrum out to them and hoped that they would hear her… she wasn't anywhere near as capable of broadcasting her thrummings as they were.
There was a pause in their song before they replied with a short yet deep song of recognition. The slight tremors through the air and metal siding of the Table she was gripping spread a wave of calmness through her mind and body, she realized she need not worry to much about her current surroundings; there were no monsters here and the two creatures that had saved her in the past were now nearby and pleased to hear her.
She stopped her attempts to wake Laura up, only to have her wake up anyways as soon as she had stopped… typical Laura. Laura glanced franticly about like Sadie had done when she awoke and then calmed herself once Sadie assured her that they were safe for the moment.
Before the Girls could have an actual conversation about their current predicament there was a sudden light blue glow in the room and Laura heard a woman's chuckle. Both girls looked about for the source of light and their eyes alighted on a table that stood nearby in the center of the room they were in.
The blue light intensified ever so slowly and the image of a small beautiful woman faded into existence, she had computer code running over her body like a skin tight bodysuit. A endearing smile adorned her face while mischief and laughter seemed to twinkle in her eyes… all of which was tainted with a seriousness of someone who had seen, experienced and suffered much.
The electric blue eyes of the hologram met the fierce sapphire blue and the flaming emerald green eyes that stared back at the hologram, one with a slightly guarded look while the later with open curiosity.
Out of reflex Sadie simply signed out a question…
(Sadie) Who you?
To both children's surprise the small blue woman answered without pause.
(Cortana) me C-O-R-T-A-N-A.
She signed and spoke aloud at the same time for both children's benefit. She continued to speak and sign at the same time, informing the two children of what had occurred while they were unconscious.
" you both have been under my care here in medical bay for the past two days, you needed sleep and rest while I removed the Collectors paralyzing agent from your systems." what the AI didn't tell them was that she had also been forced to literally remove any trace's of element zero from their bodies blood and tissue while they were sedated in order to enable the Forward unto Dawn to be capable of using Slip-Space FTL to leave the system… a medical feat in and of itself.
The pod they had come aboard in and the minuscule traces of the Element that had been removed from their bodies had been spaced out the rear airlock, extra scans had been run to assure that no Element Zero had been brought aboard in some other fashion… the risk of what would happen if the element was onboard during slip-space transit was so great that extra precautions were indeed necessary to ensure safety.
If Element zero had been aboard the Dawn when it entered its form of FTL it would have been the assured death of the girls and the possible crippling or even destruction of the ship itself… Element Zero and Slip-Space did not mix well. Period.
After informing the girls that they would be staying aboard the Dawn until a decision could be reached as to what their future would hold she had the Chief arrive and after introducing him he escorted them to a prepared room in the barracks.
Cortana found them both interesting, while she had been running medical scans she had discovered that Sadie's vocal chords had adapted to producing low frequency sub-sonic sounds, the green eyed girls sense of feel was also highly developed… partly due to being deaf since birth.
The pair of Mgalekgolo's report on their former encounter and her ability to somewhat commune with them on their level was very intriguing for the ever curious AI. She had already used the Extranet to find files on the two and had learned of their orphaned status… the two children would not be missed by the Denizens of this galaxy if they weren't to return to its society…
She would have to take her idea of keeping the two girls aboard the Dawn to the Chief… it wasn't an unprecedented thing really… both the eight year old children showed promise, and the Spartan program had inducted six year olds in order to turn them into super soldiers, which wasn't something they were going to do to the two girls.
'It would be nice having them onboard to chat with, there was so much I could teach them… its not as if I'm emotional attached to the two already."
'Sure it isn't dear, you just keep telling yourself that' was her sarcastic mental placating reply to her own statement…
Cortana frowned at that, she wasn't going rampant but parts of her mind had been rather sarcastic as of late.
'We'll just have to see how things go from here…' she thought and then she checked in with Inquisitive to see how the repairs had been going on BT-7274, repairs on the Titan mech were slow going due to repairing and complete rebuilding of parts to the blueprints specifications, but the Huragok had made due and was nearly finished with the repair process.
It would be nice having another combat capable piece on the chessboard… Cortana had the distinct premonition that she and the Chief were going to need more than a few combat ready chess pieces if they wanted to stop these Reapers and their forces as well as return home.
She still hadn't had an all out AI battle with a Reaper's mind or even the sleeping Unknown overarching intelligence that was physically part of the relay network, something she would avoid until it was absolutely impossible to do so… there were two many unknowns in such a fight, most of which she predicted would end up being not in her favor.
The base they had set up would be finished in a few months, the construction time had been halved when the Huragok had found a way to manufacture a number of the small Forerunner constructor drones.
Soon the Dawn would return to their new base of operations, her patch work repairs would be undone or modified to perfection and the mostly prefabricated copy of the ship's original front half would be installed…
The Foreword unto Dawn would become whole once more… Cortana let a maniacal grin overcome her holograms features, a grin that usually meant the approaching certain death of thousands of alien hostiles, a grin she hadn't given since Cairo station… with good reason.
She would soon again have control of her favorite big bad toy.
Her precious darling.
Her favored opening chess piece on the checkered board of naval combat.
She would have a MAC Gun again.
At the Collector base the Collector drones were doing as commanded and unloading the pods that now held dead occupants in order to begin the process of adding them to the constructed Reaper's, the first of which was almost completed.
This batch would be going to its allotment, the Masters wanted Sovereign replaced first before they turned available resources entirely on the experimental frame that looked like a bastardized child between a reaper and a human body.
The two destroyer class thralls were almost done and now lay within the new and nearly completed reaper, this last batch would be what was needed to finish of the three frames and begin construction on the two other destroyers.
Most of this batch's brain matter was unusable for their purposes, but trials would be taken in order to separate good from bad and salvage enough for their use.
On the Collector cruiser that was offloading the thousand and several hundred pods that contained their required cargo (they had hit a ship or two on the return journey and had added the humans to their pods numbers while disposing of the rest) a group of drones was going to all the pods that signaled occupancy and then taking them to the unloading port to the base for processing.
Two Drones following orders entered a chamber were repairs to the hull had already been completed and the structural damage of the past battle had been cleared away, looking for the signal of a occupied pod that they were ordered to respond to the two Drones approached a line of scorched pods in an area of the chamber that still showed signs of having been touched by flame. Passing by several broken pods the Drones found their target.
Removing the Blackened pod that signaled occupancy the mindless, emotionless and automated Collector Drones marked it down for process and then took to the unloading dock…
If the Drones had opened the pod they would have seen Fluorescent orange blood and several chunks of dead worm deposited there when the wounded Mgalekgolo had nearly crushed the pod before its hatch was closed in the ensuing thrashing of the two combatants who had been fighting each other to the death.
At the unloading dock the Pod awaited its fate to be processed… its small amount of genetic material very different from those around its position.
Very different indeed.
(Note)
Ill do my best to try to write up and post the next chapter in a much shorter time period than it took this one… I apologize for the two month wait.
In this chapter there are some places were I will probably come back later and add filler conversations etc, but that'll be at a later date.
In other news! My family is almost done installing a new AC! Just in time too! Its starting to feel like late spring/early summer over here.
So anyways see Ya'll next chapter!
This is Gabenator5 SIGNING OFF!