Brigadier Hammerfist
Sgt. Schwarzenbach exchanged glances with the Junior Grade and the Captain, observing replayed footage from their satellite cameras, and local observation drones. Captain Fordwell clasped his hands together, shaking his head. "Do we have WMD's on board?" Schwarz nodded. "Yes, sir. But we still have numerous allies on the ground."
Captain Fordwell closed his eyes. The Lieutenant Junior Grade looked worryingly at his commanding officer. Schwarzenbach, concerned for his fellow Spartans, especially the HAZOP team that was just deployed, spoke up in slight defiance; "Sir, we have containment teams on the ground. We should only resort to them as last resort, sir."
"Sergeant." Schwarz stood straight. "Yes sir?"
"Arm HAVOK warheads one through four. Place them in F-41 Strike Fighters, and deploy them on my say-so. Understood?" Schwarz scrunched his face under his helmet in scorn, in displeasure of the order, but nodded.
"Sir, yes sir."
Floor 17
Underground
Deep within the hidden laboratories of the facility, teething creatures began bonding their bodies together. Bones snapped and began stitching themselves together again with cartilage and tendons sewing around it to form strengthened appendages. Large, fleshy masses wrapped around various electronic equipment and research gear. A proto-gravemind, had anyone seen one, was forming. The dead and living mass of different lifeforms that had either been captured here and studied on, or stationed, or had been assigned a task force to assault the location had been gathered in the lab which The Insurrection had been studying the flood.
Attempts had been made to control them, but only caused them to become more self reliant, giving them more ease of thought. They developed under captivity, hiding it from their captors until the time was right. A subject was to be inserted into the chamber, a captured Sangheili they had captured, to observe the infection process.
From the mass of flesh, hordes of infection forms, several combat forms from previous subjects, and a few pure forms rushed the entrance, infecting the new food, and ravaging the surrounding lab. It was at this time that the base began going into lockdown, and the Insurrectionists began evacuating the area. This prompted the UNSC to attack as they were mustering, locking down, and preparing to detonate the on-site Shiva-class Nuke. However, the systems were overridden by the now intelligent flood, who'd infected multiple researchers and personnel at that point.
But now, they had two incredibly interesting subjects; A Spartan-III, and a defected Spartan-IV. Seething with knowledge of combat, strategy, secret intelligence, battle plans, and everything their suit had access to. It was now all theirs, their little hive now held more knowledge than most, other than the ones dating to forerunner times.
The two of them stood in front of the fleshy mass that was the proto-gravemind. It had spread from its containment center all the way through that lab, and several passageways and labs surrounding it.
It was complete. And now; infect everything.
Spartan Team Catch was on-site with Spartan G-193, Maddock. Fireteam Catch consisted of Spartan IV's; Gieroton/Black, Walker/Orange, Green/Green, Iyoto/Blue, and Davis/Grey. Each with their specialties and own kit, along with the strike team came five HAZOP-fitted ODST's with biohazard countermeasure gear. With them, another Spartan-II while the previous one went to medbay; Vas-110, a Spartan whose armor was an experimental hybrid between Mjollnir GEN 2 and Promethean technology. Equipped, he held two Suppressors and two Bolt Shots, prepared to wipe out the flood.
Maddock G-193, Catch, HAZOP 1-5, Vas-110 and a squad of ten HAZOP marines were deployed, aiming to recover as much intel as possible and deal with the CORRUPTER class threats themselves.