Chapter 17

0800 hours, January 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)

High Charity/ Inside In Amber Clad/ Looking for survivors

"You're coming up on the engine room, stay sharp." Bastila told Andrew after he and his team exited the large hole. The hallway that led to the engine room's entrance was thick with the spores Flood usually left behind, whatever Andrew and the others expected to be in the engine room, it was the Flood.

Andrew paused next to the door, looked down at the pair of dead marines, and hoped they wouldn't reanimate like the other bodies in the cafeteria. Andrew then punched in the door's 'open' button and entered the room. Inside, there were two platforms above the main floor. Andrew, who was standing on one of the platforms, looked down and saw hundred of Flood forms slowly, zombie-like, walking around. On the opposite platform, some Flood forms sighted the spartans.

Suddenly, before the Flood combat forms had a chance to fire, seven fear crazed marines entered through the door behind the monstrosities... oblivious to the spartans nearby. Two Flood infected Marines went down when the rest of the Flood below sighted the regular Marines.

"Ahhh hah hah!" A marine cried out as he fired his SMG at the advancing Flood. Infection forms popped, combat forms lost limbs, but the Flood kept on advancing. Suddenly, another, larger, group of marines entered from the ground floor. They weren't fear crazed like the marines in front of the spartans, they seemed okay besides the fact that they were freaked out. But they weren't freaked out enough to stop fighting.

"Let's go! Shoot these ugly bastards!" A marine, a sergeant, shouted. The marines started to open fire at the advancing Flood with an assortment of battle rifles, assault rifles, SMGs, shotguns, and HE pistols.

"C'mon! Let's help those marines!" Andrew yelled. The spartans leapt down in the middle of the group of Flood and started to open fire. Cameron and Philip slashed randomly at the Flood with their dual wielded energy swords, cursing and yelling. Kyle had run towards the large group of awestruck marines to tell them to hold their fire. Andrew saw that the fear crazed marines were getting slaughtered by Flood combat forms, he and Monica leapt across from the platform to the other platform where the marines were. Andrew shoved his shotgun through one combat form and blasted the head off the combat form behind it. Monica had shoved the protesting marines into a corner and sighted a combat form sneaking up Andrew's six. She aimed her battle rifle, and after a series of three round bursts, the Flood form fell down, a huge cavity in its chest.

"Okay spartans! Regroup! Meet me where those marines are!" Andrew shouted as he pointed towards the larger group of marines. Monica and Andrew grabbed the surviving fear crazed marines and ran towards the group of marines.

"Duck!" Kyle yelled. Andrew grabbed Monica and they slammed to the ground, just as hundreds of bullets passed overhead and literally shredded a group of oncoming Flood. Once again, grabbing the marines by their shirt collars, Andrew, Monica, and the fear crazed marines ran towards the Marine's positions.

"C'mon sir! Let's head back to HQ! Follow me!" The sergeant yelled as he motioned towards the door they came through.

Andrew, his spartans, and the marines ran through the blast doors and locked them shut. From there, they went through a long series of hallways and corridors before they entered the Marine's HQ.

It was In Amber Clad's armory.

"Thank goodness you guys came!" The sergeant said, sounding exhausted. "I thought we were doomed until we saw you jumping down from those platforms."

"No problem," Andrew replied as he looked around the HQ. Makeshift barriers, turrets, it was the typical type of shabby defense. Kyle was standing in the back making some rearrangements.

"We are here to find any surviving marines… are you guys it?"

The sergeant nodded grimly as he looked at the forty-six surviving marines and the orbital drop shock troopers, ODSTs. Many were wounded.

"Sergeant, we need to get to the hangar, that way we can escape this Flood infested ship."

"Good thinking sir, but we'll have to get through many hallways and Flood infested areas before we can make it to the hangar, and, as you can see, we have wounded.

Andrew nodded grimly when a new, a wonderful idea popped into his head.

"Bastila, can you get inside the ship and depressurize some of the ship's rooms?" Andrew asked.

"Let me see… Yes! I can! Only the rooms that have functional depressurization vents… and that's only 32 percent of the ship. Though, Flood aren't effected by… oh!" Bastila replied.

"That's right, Flood infection forms pop at the lightest touch. No doubt the would pop if they were depressurized!" Andrew nodded. "Let's go!"

A single, rather large, group of humans slowly made their way through In Amber Clad's corridors. They encountered almost no resistance though, in one encounter, a group of Flood had broken through the ceiling. After many hours of fighting and running, the group finally made it back to the room with the large hole.

"Andrew, I don't think we can all run through the cafeteria, it'd be too crowded." Bastila said.

That was a rather large snag, a very large snag indeed. If they'd try to take turns running through, then the Flood forms would be awake when they'd try to run.

"I know!" Andrew said. About fifty percent of In Amber Clad's human survivors were ODSTs, which meant the rest of the marines would be able to easily all fit inside the cramped cafeteria.

"Okay, all ODSTs follow me and Monica! Kyle, you have command of everyone else… get to the armory and wait for us to arrive, agreed?" Kyle nodded and led the marines and the other two spartans through the cafeteria doors. Now only Andrew, Monica, and 22 ODSTs were left.

"Okay, follow me!" Andrew commanded. The humans walked through the large hole and entered the large chasm with the bowl shaped transporting lift.

The ODSTs followed the two spartans inside the bowl shaped transporting lift.

"Give me a moment to activate this piece of junk." Bastila said. Suddenly, a large group of Flood, including two infected hunters, exited the large hole and saw the group of humans.

"Open fire!" Andrew yelled. "Bastila, any time you're ready!" The lift jerked forward and started to smoothly float towards the opposite platform.

"Don't worry." Bastila replied as Flood combat forms started to pour out of the doors leading to the balconies.

"Um… I'm getting REALLY worried now." Andrew replied.

Even though some of the combat forms didn't make the jump, the vast majority of the combat forms leapt onto the lift and started to open fire with an assortment of weapons. Three ODSTs fell down as a Flood infected elite and an infected brute used their tentacles to whip them with supernatural strength.

When the lift had finally made it halfway through the chasm, only eleven ODSTs remained. Monica had dual wielded two SMGs and was firing them at a crowd of combat forms when a sniper rifle bullet cut through the air… and passed straight through Monica's chest.

"Agghhh!" Monica cried out in pain as her SMGs fell to the ground. Blood started to slowly drip from her wound.

Andrew, who heard her cry out in pain, stood there; dumbstruck for a moment, when a plasma bolt impacted on his weakened shields. His shields overloaded and failed as Andrew sprinted towards the wounded spartan. He grabbed Monica and threw her down as another sniper rifle bullet flew by her helmet. Andrew turned and saw a single, flood infected human, holding a sniper rifle single-handedly. It fired off another shot and the bullet passed straight through Andrew's leg, blood gushed from the wound… but the spartan didn't care. He needed to get Monica to a medic… and fast.

"Suppressing fire!" Andrew screamed. The ODSTs circled around the two wounded spartans and started to fire their weapons. The sniper rifle wielding Flood went down as a merciless hail of bullets cut through the air and impacted on the monstrosities. Andrew slowly stood up and fired his BR55 rifle at the Flood as well.

Then, there was a slight bump that interrupted through the lift's smooth ride. They had made it. Andrew picked up Monica's unconscious body from the bloodied lift floor and carried her to the Phantom. On the other side of the chasm, Flood were standing… still as statues. Their prey had escaped.

"Hang on…" Bastila said grimly as the last ODST entered the dropship. The Phantom slowly started to hover and it took off, flying away from the Flood infested chasm….