Chapter 5: Damming the Flood
Pillar of Autumn Cryo Bay
"Who are you guys?" Kyle asked.
"Hey! We ask the questions here!" One of the strangers snapped. He readied his rail rifle.
"We shouldn't be here." Lynn began to look troubled by something, her eyes darting.
"Shove off, this is our find!" The apparent leader of the party glared at Lynn. "We're not letting a couple of damn kids steal a goldmine like this from us!"
Kyle sighed. These guys were rival scavengers. Through sheer dumb luck or skill, they had also managed to find the wrecked Pillar of Autumn, hoping to plunder its secrets. Kyle raised his hands diplomatically and said, "Okay, we're all businessmen here, so why don't we make a deal? You let us leave with this cryo pod, and you can have the rest of the ship to yourselves."
"Who do you think we are?" The scav leader cocked his head. "We've got the guns, so I don't have to listen to a little wanker like you!"
"But-"
"Besides, what's so valuable about this cryo-pod?" The scav leader walked over and looked inside the pod. His eyes widened to the size of small moons when he saw what was inside. "Bloody hell! There's a person in there!"
The scavs looked at each other, surprised. The scav leader laughed, "Well looky here boys! It's not just a wrecked ship or data disc. We've got a living, breathing pre-Exodus human on our hands! Think of how much we'll get for a find like this!"
"We have to leave!" Lynn yelled, sheer terror creeping into her voice, "Something is coming and it's coming for us!"
"Shutup!" One of the scavs, fed up with Lynn's apparent rambling, struck Lynn in the side of her head with the butt of his rifle.
"Shit." Kyle breathed and ducked.
Stunned, Lynn temporarily lost control of her abilities. A telekinetic shockwave slammed into everything around her like a tsunami, sending men and empty cryo-pods flying in all directions. Thinking quickly, Kyle snatched his rail rifle and dragged Lynn behind the cryo-pod. He then stood up and fired a burst of rail rounds before ducking back behind the pod. One of the scavs got up to return fire, but was promptly stopped by the leader.
"Don't fire, you stupid twat! You'll hit the pod!" He spat, slapping the man's rifle away.
Kyle sighed in relief. If there was one thing he could count on, it was that he could use these scavs' greed against them.
"Come on Lynn," Kyle muttered, shaking Lynn gently, "wake up, because I'm really going to need your help on this one…"
Bridge
Two scavs cautiously made their way into the blasted remnants of the Pillar of Autumn's bridge section. The armored scavengers quickly scanned the area for anything of potential value.
"Damn, the captain was right. Nothing here but burnt up junk." One of the scavengers sighed.
"Can't get lucky every time." The second scav shrugged.
"Oh how right you are."
Both of the scavs whipped around to see Kay behind them, pointing a rail rifle straight at their heads. Kay smiled and said, "You chose a bad day to mess with us."
Somm Asteroid Cluster
Keyes sighed as he saw the distant prowler jump into Slipspace and disappear. He desperately hoped that he had made the right decision.
"Sir, the fleet has been deployed to their specified positions." Eurale said.
"Good." Keyes nodded. "What is the status on the N2 mines?"
"The N2 mines are still being deployed. Preliminary estimates suggest that full deployment will be completed in roughly twenty six minutes."
"Good. Make sure things stay on schedule."
Keyes gazed off into the distance again. In response to Lynn's sudden disappearance, Keyes had decided to send Ackerson after her, with orders to return her to the fleet by any means possible. However, Keyes had the ugly feeling Ackerson would "misinterpret" those orders in some way. However, there was nothing he could do about it. Ackerson was really the only man in the entire galaxy who was capable of tracking a rogue star like Lynn. Keyes had given him ample resources to carry out the search. Ackerson had decided to procure a stealth prowler as well as a small contingent of elite Marines in order to track down Lynn and her compatriots.
Keyes dearly hoped that he had done the right thing.
Pillar of Autumn Bridge
"You can try working a bit faster." Kay said as she kept her gun trained on the restrained scavs. "I don't want to be playing guard duty all day, and I haven't been able to get any contact with Kyle or Lynn."
"Be patient." Sanah said as she plugged a data jack into the Pillar of Autumn's aging control consoles. "This shouldn't take long."
Sanah grimaced as she scanned the ship's database. Years of misuse, decay, damage, and exposure had all but destroyed any semblance of structure or meaning in the ship's systems. However, Sanah did manage to find two fragmented files. One was very large, but encrypted. Sanah saved it on her onboard memory banks for future use and turned to the second file. It was a much smaller text file, which looked like some kind of log book kept by one of the ship's former crew. Within microseconds, Sanah opened the file and read through its contents.
August 23, 2552
Things have been pretty hectic lately. We've got almost seventy Spartans aboard, the most I've ever seen in one place. It looks as if they're prepping for a major assault. God help whatever we're going to attacking.
August 25, 2552
I think Cortana might be going rampant, or something like that. When our ship jumped, we ended up in a completely different system. However, it didn't mean it had any shortage of Covvies to greet us. I thought we were going to be dead meat, but the Captain knew what he was doing and closed distance with that huge, ring-shaped space station. The Covvies didn't even fire off a single shot. Once we were safe, the Captain decided that we would invade the station rather than one of the Covvie ships. We defrosted the Spartans and dropped them onto the surface. Of course, the Covvies are starting to send their own troops down, but I don't expect to see any of them come back.
August 26, 2552
We've been doing pretty good so far, given the circumstances. The Captain and Cortana are just proving to be hell for the Covvies. The Captain would just fly the Pillar of Autumn out into the open, blast a nearby Covvie ship with the MAC, and then retreat and use the station as cover. The Covvies are too scared of shooting the station that they won't even dare fire a single shot. Instead, they've been sending boarding party after boarding party. It's been a chore trying to hold them off. We've even had to recall a couple of Spartans to assist us.
August 27, 2552
Man were things wild today! Once we loaded the Spartans back on, the Captain had us speed as far from the station as possible. Before we knew it, the whole damn thing exploded, taking out the whole Covvie fleet. Unfortunately, some of the flying debris struck the Autumn, so we're stuck here until we can effect some repairs. To save resources, the Captain had all the Spartans put back into deep freeze.
August 28, 2552
There have been some disturbing rumors floating around the ship lately. There have been stories of weird sounds, things scuttling in the shadows, and all sorts of creepy stuff. I would've just dismissed these stories as just superstition, until people started disappearing. The Captain fears that we may have Covenant saboteurs hiding aboard. He's posted double guards on everything and no crewman is to wander the ship without a Marine escort. Ugh, more work for me…
June 1, 2552
I have no idea what these things on the ship are. Cortana calls them the Flood. I'm not sure how she knows that, but if it's got a name, there's a chance we can kill it, I guess. Whatever they are, they've taken over half of the ship already. As a precaution, Cortana jettisoned all of our cryo-pods, including the Spartans as well as the lifepods before they could be "contaminated." We've been trying to seal them in to contain them, but the things somehow know our override codes and they're spreading like wildfire. We've even been locked out of the self-destruct option. We should really try and jump back to friendly space for some help, but the Captain refuses to, saying something about containing these things to be the priority. I have the ugly feeling that we're not going to be leaving this ship…
Unknown
It was a disaster. To keep the ship from going anywhere, the Captain decided to lead an effort to manually overload the core. But the moment we opened the bulkheads, they were everywhere. We did manage to destroy the engines and comm systems, so this ship won't be able to move or send a distress signal. But they got the Captain. My god, they got the Captain, and we couldn't do anything about it.
We've sealed ourselves in the bridge now. There's not many of us left. We're running low on supplies and ammo, but we don't dare open the door to try and scrounge. We can hear them pounding against the door, groaning, screaming, wanting to get inside. One of the bridge crew couldn't take it anymore and shot herself. I probably would've done the same thing, but I intend to use my last clip for something more productive.
Unknown
There's no way out. The path is shut. There's no way out. There's no way out. There's no way out. There's no way out. There's no way ou-
END MESSAGE
"Kay," Sanah got up. "I think we'd better-"
"Holy shit!" Kay screamed as a small, ugly balloon like creature leapt onto one of the restrained scavs. The man screamed as the creature crawled all over his face.
Thinking quickly, Sanah whipped her rail rifle around and shot the little pest with pinpoint accuracy.
"What the hell is going on here?!?!" The other scav yelled, obviously distressed.
"That's a very good question." Kay motioned for both scavs to get up. "Let's go and get Kyle and Lynn. I have a feeling they're in the same deep shit as we are."
Cryo-bay
"They're here!" Lynn shouted as her eyes snapped open. "They've come!"
"What are you talking about?" Kyle said, confused.
Suddenly, the scavs began yelling and their fire resumed, except that it was in the completely opposite direction. Curious, Kyle quickly peered over the cryo-tube and saw the scavs firing at a bunch of shapes in the darkness. This was definitely their chance to escape.
"Let's go!" Kyle grabbed Lynn's hand and got up to run.
"Wait!" Lynn reached out to the cryo-pod. The pod lifted nearly a meter into the air and floated there obediently. "Now we can go!"
Kyle and Lynn made a run for the door with the cryo-pod in tow. They ducked as random rail rounds peppered the room around them, firing at targets that may or may not have been there. They had almost made it to the door when someone, or something, blocked their way. It was a hideous looking creature. It had a humanoid appearance, but was horrendously scarred and bloated by ugly alien growths and mutations covering its body. Without hesitating, Kyle shot the thing in the face and continued going for the door.
"What the hell was that?!" Kyle yelled.
"I don't think I want to know!" Lynn shouted, firing her rifle at another group of the mutated creatures.
Kyle barged his way through several more of the monstrosities, shoving them aside and giving room for Lynn to move the cryo-tube. He whipped around a corner and smashed into another figure. He quickly backed off, rifle raised until he saw Kay doing the exact same thing to him.
"Kay?"
"Kyle?"
"Leave now, reunions later!" Lynn gasped as she hurled another telekinetic assault against the oncoming attackers.
"What are these things?" Kyle gasped as he fired down the hall. "They're coming out of everywhere and nowhere!"
"Something our friends brought along?" Kay nodded to the two prisoners they had dragged along with them.
"Negative." Sanah cut down a wave of alien creatures with typical machine efficiency. "These organisms are wearing uniforms and possess identity tags. As strange as it may be, these thing are in fact this ship's crew."
"Former crew." Lynn corrected. "They're not even human anymore."
"Can we get back to the ship?"
"No good." Kay shook her head, "Tried, but the whole route is clogged with the things."
"Well we're in a deep pile of shit, aren't we?" Kyle looked as more of the creatures began appearing from all sides.
"I can't keep this up much longer." Lynn panted, her drooping body betraying her fatigue. "Keeping this tube up and these things back is not going to last forever."
"Shit." Kyle turned to Sanah. "Sanah! Do you still have an uplink with Hal?"
"Of course."
"Well dial him up. I've got few things I need him to do…"
Nietzsche
The communications console pinged, informing Hal that he was receiving an incoming transmission. The attached encryption meant that it was Kyle making the call.
"How may I help you?"
"Hal, I hope you are somewhere nearby, because I need you to move Nietzsche directly parallel to our position on the Pillar of Autumn! Once you do that, hold position and open the hangar bay doors!"
Hal ran the incessant background noise through his memory databanks and discovered that the sounds were in fact rampant gunfire and sounds of screaming. Combined with the stress levels in Kyle's voice, Hal determined that there was some urgency to Kyle's request.
"Right away."
The AI never even stopped to ask Kyle of his intentions. Though years of experience, Hal had learned that it was a waste of valuable processing time and power to predict the actions of humans. He obediently carried out Kyle's request, shuttling Nietzsche out of its hiding spot and holding it next to the derelict hulk.
"Nietzsche is ready and waiting."
Pillar of Autumn
"I hope you know what you're doing." Kay grimaced as she say Kyle slapping C12 explosives onto the wall.
"This is basically the outer hull right here. If we blow through it, we'll have an escape route, and I doubt these little bastards are rated to survive in hard vacuum."
"Assuming we don't get blown up along with them."
"I wouldn't worry." Sanah reloaded her rail rifle and shot down another disfigured crewman. "Those C12 explosives are specifically designed as shaped charges. The blast will be localized."
"Last time Kyle tried to pull off a 'localized' detonation, he killed about five hundred Covenant Imperialists and destroyed some very pretty Covenant vessels." Kay sighed, "You can see why I'm a little worried about this plan."
"Time to find out if I rigged these up right." Kyle closed his eyes and pressed the detonator.
There was a huge bang as the explosives detonated, shearing a perfect circle in the hull. The pressure differential took care of everything else, sucking the weakened portion of the hull into space along with everything else in the ship. The team found themselves flying through the void, their momentum carrying them toward Nietzsche's open hangar bay like birds returning to their nest. Meanwhile, the alien organisms twitched and struggled as the hard vacuum instantly froze and depressurized their bodies.
The moment they hit the inside of the hangar, the massive doors began to slowly close. However, Kyle narrowed his eyes and saw one of the scavs trying to make his way through the opening as well. What should he do? Close the door and leave the man out there, or save him?
"Hal! Stop the doors!"
The hangar doors shuddered to a stop long enough for the man to struggle his way inside. The doors then resumed their task and closed soundlessly. The entire room hissed as the hangar pressurized.
"Thanks for the assist." The straggling scav gasped. "I almost thought they had me there."
Without warning, without hesitation, Lynn walked up the man and shot him through the head. The two scav prisoners screamed in protest and horror. Instinctively, Kyle, Kay, and even Sanah drew their weapons on Lynn.
"What the hell was that for!?" Kyle grabbed Lynn in anger. "He wasn't a threat!"
"That wasn't the man you thought he was." Lynn said grimly. She pushed Kyle aside, bent over the dead body, and began to pry off the dead man's chestplate.
What was hidden under the armor horrified everybody. Under the plate, there was an ugly growth digging into the man's chest. Lynn drew a monomolecular knife and sliced the chest open, filling the hangar with the disgusting smell of pus and rot. Lynn then reached inside the man's chest and pulled out one of the ugly little balloon creatures they had all seen on the Autumn.
"That's how they spread." Lynn said grimly. "That's why the crew was still seemingly alive, because these things took over."
Kyle and Kay could only look on in horror. In the background, one of the prisoners vomited.
"Their ship is still attached to the Autumn." Lynn pointed to the prisoners. "We can't allow any of the things to escape. We have the destroy both ships."
"Hal-" Kyle raised his head.
"Done." Hal said grimly.
Kyle glanced at one of the external cameras that was feeding the targeting data to Hal. Nietzsche's weapon systems came online. There was a dull buzzing sound as the magnetic accelerator cannon's capacitors charged until the MAC finally fired. A solid titanium A slug struck the docked enemy corvette dead center, shattering the titanium A hull like glass and adding to the debris field around the Autumn.
"What about the Autumn?" Sanah asked. "It would be illogical to leave it here. There would still be a risk of the organisms onboard spreading."
"We have to destroy that too." Lynn replied, still looking down on the thing she had just killed.
"Well, we have no nuclear weaponry onboard, and destroying a ship of such size and mass would be next to impossible with the conventional weaponry at our disposal." Hal chimed.
"The ship is already in a loose orbit around Threshold." Sanah remarked, "What if we struck it with a MAC strike so that it would plunge the ship into a decaying orbit?"
"Yes…" Hal buzzed as he made the calculations, "If fired at the right time an trajectory, we could knock the Autumn out of its current orbit. It would then burn up or be crushed by Threshold's atmosphere."
"Do it then." Kyle said.
"At once."
"Kay, Sanah, take care of the prisoners. Put them in the brig until we can deal with them."
"Sure thing." Kay prodded the two scavs with her rail rifle and marched them out of the hangar.
"Lynn…" Kyle turned to see Lynn nimbly putting the dead scav's chestplate back on, muttering something under her breath. Possibly last rites.
"He wasn't human, Kyle. Not anymore, but that doesn't change the fact that he was one." Lynn's eyes welled up a little. "I hate how we have to kill each other while the Covenant are gladly doing that as well. It's not right."
"Few things ever are." Kyle glanced at the cryo-tube. "What do we do about that?"
"Might as well find out." Lynn stood up and activated the control console.
PASSCODE REQUIRED
"Well that's not good." Kyle scratched his head. "We could try breaking it open…"
Lynn shook her head and said, "That might kill him. But I have a better idea."
Lynn touched her hand against the tube, closed her eyes, and then slowed her breathing. Kyle shook his head as he looked on. It was one of those vaguely defined abilities Lynn had. It was tough to explain, but Lynn said that sometimes, inanimate objects would be permeated by some kind of "psychic residue", such as the thoughts of a person who possessed are touched that same object. Kyle never really understood the concept, but it certainly a big help in order to track down an item's owner.
Suddenly, Lynn's eyes snapped open and she typed a simple sentence into the control console.
PASSCODE: OPEN THE HUSHED CASKET
There was a slight beeping sound as the cryo-tube tried to process the code.
PASSCODE ACCEPTED
The cryo-tube suddenly hissed, and cold foggy air vented from the tube. Like monster breaking free of its coffin, the tube door slowly opened. Wary of what was inside, Kyle and Lynn both peered at the tube's occupant.
They were amazed at what they saw.
"We might actually be able to pull this off after all." Kyle said, surprised.
"A real Spartan. Who would've thought?" Lynn smiled.