Chapter 22: Survivors
Shelter Codename: Valhalla
Lynn groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. Surprised that she was still alive, she looked around groggily to find herself in what looked like a makeshift infirmary. There were beds and medical equipment placed all around the room, but the Human-made equipment clashed with the Forerunner architecture of the room they were contained in. She desperately wanted to telepathically probe the surrounding area, but she could hear Gravemind's whispers in the back of her head, torpedoing that idea. She looked down and realized that she had also been stripped out of her armor and was now only wearing the simple undersuit that was worn underneath it.
"I see you're awake." That same old, grizzled voice from before uttered. "You've been unconscious for the past two days."
Lynn, not used to being caught by surprise, jumped in fright when she saw an old man, probably in his forties or fifties, walking into the infirmary. He was wearing a simple grey jumpsuit that covered a thin but solid frame. He had short, grizzled hair that was completely white and only complemented his cold blue eyes. Even though Lynn was absolutely sure he had never met this man in her life, there was something oddly familiar about him.
"Who are you?" Lynn asked, confused.
"I could very well ask you the same question." The man laughed as he sat on the bed next to Lynn's. "We don't get very many visitors here on the Ark. Human ones, at least."
"Alright." Lynn sighed. It wasn't as if she had much choice in refusing to answer the man. "My name's Lynn Wellings."
"Really?" The man's smile wavered for a brief second in surprise, but Lynn was quick enough to catch it.
"Is something wrong?"
"Nothing." The man shook his head. "I used to have a name very much like yours too, but that was all in the past. These days I'm now known as Didact."
"Then it's nice to meet you, Didact." Lynn smiled.
"Anyways," Didact coughed and looked away, as if he was trying to avoid direct eye contact with Lynn, "how exactly did you arrive here? The location of the Ark is not a well known fact."
"We came here from the portal." Lynn pointed to the sky, or rather, the ceiling of the infirmary. "We found it on Earth, and we took it to come here."
"For what reason?" Didact asked.
"To disable the Forerunner defenses there." Lynn replied. "It's attacking everything on sight."
"No," Didact frowned, "that shouldn't be right. The system was supposed to-"
"Do you know something?"
"Just from what Mendicant Bias has told us."
"Who?" Lynn raised an eyebrow.
"It will all become clear in time." Didact assured her. "Please, continue the story. What's happening on Earth?"
"Well," Lynn cocked her head, "when we left, we had an entire fleet of Human ships trying to retake the planet from the Covenant. You know who they are, right?"
"Oh, we all know what the Covenant is." Didact smiled. "They are really the reason why we are all here."
"Really?" Lynn was genuinely curious and dearly wished she could use her telepathy.
"I guess it's time for me to tell my side of the story then." Didact sighed.
Keyship
It had been over two days now, and the small Exile strike force had not gotten anywhere in its objective to disable the Forerunner defense. There were several more attempts to penetrate the alien defenses around the Control Center, but every time the Marines were repelled. The past few hours were mostly spent on grilling Silent Caretaker and the Forerunner database on all the available knowledge and data on what they called the Flood.
"So what you're telling me," Ackerson sighed, "is that we're dealing with a highly infectious, highly intelligent, and vastly numerically superior parasitic lifeform?"
"You are essentially correct." Silent Caretaker confirmed. "There are currently no known effective countermeasures to Flood infection other than the firing of the Haloes."
"And what would that entail?" Kyle asked.
"Systematic destruction of all sentient life in the galaxy." Silent Caretaker said matter of factly. "In order to eliminate the Flood's primary food source and halt the spread of infection."
"That wouldn't work at all." Kyle shook his head.
"Quite." Silent Caretaker nodded. "Due to a massive system malfunction, the Halo network was compromised and destroyed. Though the Ark has been working at full capacity, only sixty percent of the network is currently operational."
Kyle and Ackerson merely looked at each other and shook their heads.
"Well, we finally found something you two can agree on." Kay smiled.
"Shut up, you're not helping." Kyle growled and turned back to Silent Caretaker. "Any luck finding Lynn and the others?"
"My scans have proven negative so far." Silent Caretaker replied. "I have been systematically scanning all areas we come across, but the Ark is a large installation and there is no point of reference to start from."
"So then we're just back at square-"
"Wait!" Silent Caretaker interjected, his eye flashing. "Encrypted signals have been detected! Exact source of the signal is unknown, but I can track it!"
"Well then do it already!" Ackerson shouted. "Finding whatever it is would be a better use of our time than just floating up here!"
"Quite." Silent Caretaker agreed. "Coordinates locked. Changing course."
Location Unknown
"Why are you so tense?" Sanah asked as she combed through John's biometric data. "I've checked my sensors for the fifth time and there aren't any enemies nearby."
Sanah and John had been spending the last two days wandering the Ark and trying to avoid the Flood that wandered around the bowels of the station. Sanah was not sure whether John was aware of the amount of time that had passed or not, but he never asked and never seemed too concerned about it. She was also amazed at the amount of endurance he possessed. Sanah had never seen a normal human able to withstand two straight days of constant combat and movement. Apparently, these SPARTANs really didn't need much rest and could operate for periods of time that could surpass any normal person.
"You can say that this place evokes some pretty bad memories." John said, looking carefully at the cramped Forerunner architecture that surrounded them. "Back before I got frozen, we were fighting on a Halo, which was a Forerunner facility similar to this one, but on a much smaller scale."
"I see…"
"Anyways, there was one point where I stumbled into an area called the Library, which was run by a Monitor, Guilty Spark, who was several times more idiosyncratic and insane than Silent Caretaker."
"Is that even possible?" Sanah gasped.
"Yeah." John nodded. "And for the next hour after that, it was nothing but following Guilty Spark through the same hallway over and over again waiting as he took his time opening locked doors."
"Well that doesn't sound so bad."
"With Flood coming out of every corner pretty much all the time."
"Ah, now I see." Sanah winced. "Perhaps we should stay alert then."
There was a rather tense silence as Sanah and John stalked through the halls. There were many opportunities for the Flood to strike, especially in this confined space, but for some reason, they never appeared.
"Have they forgotten about us?" Sanah wondered.
"No, the Flood don't forget." John warned. "They're waiting."
"For what?"
"For us to make a mistake."
Valhalla
"It's a story that reaches back two centuries to the very day we Humans as a species were exiled from Earth." Didact explained. "Back during the evacuation, thousands of ships managed to escape when the Covenant fleet arrived, but thousands more were trapped on the planet once their blockade was erected. The despair the people trapped down there felt was… immeasurable."
"Then how did they escape?" Lynn asked.
"Well, it depends on who you ask." Didact shrugged. "Some believe it was pure luck, others believe that it was divine intervention. Either way, the Covenant happened to have a Keyship in their possession and opened the portal to the Ark. The ships trapped here, with no other choice, decided to brave it and followed the Keyship to the Ark."
"That makes sense." Lynn nodded. "But if the Covenant made their way here, why haven't we seen any around, and why haven't they occupied the Ark?"
"Oh, believe me, they tried." Didact said sadly. "And unfortunately, that's the cause of our current situation."
"What happened?" Lynn whispered, already dreading the answer.
"They tried too hard, and they dug too deep in their quest to conquer the Ark." Didact said. "They tried to seize control of the Ark's systems without the use of Reclaimer. Of course, the system resisted their efforts and of course, they tried anyway. The result, well, let's just say they woke terrors that should have stayed asleep."
"The Flood?"
"Yes." Didact nodded. "By forcing their way into the Ark's systems, the Covenant almost irreparably damaged it. It wasn't limited to the Ark either. The Forerunner have countless facilities scattered throughout the galaxy, and at least one of them was where the last remnants of the Flood were imprisoned. They found a way to escape and eventually made their way here. They wiped out the Covenant force here and managed to create a foothold in the station before the Sentinels could root them out."
"Then if the Covenant were so easily wiped out, how did the Humans survive?" Lynn wondered.
"By sheer luck." Didact admitted. "And some help from the Ark's AI, Mendicant Bias. He contacted the evacuees and guided them to areas like this one. I'm not sure if you caught sight of those dual towers outside or not, but they aren't there for show. They have the power to actively repel the Flood, within a certain radius, at least."
"What is Mendicant Bias?" Lynn asked.
"He's an AI, or at least what's left of one." Didact said. "He said that the arrival of the Covenant Keyship 'completed' him, and now he's helping us as penance for some past sin he doesn't care to elaborate on."
"If he's so powerful, why can't fix the problems on this station?" Lynn wondered.
"Even with all his power, Mendicant Bias is still just a piece of the broken system." Didact sighed. "Due to certain failsafe measures, he's locked out of performing high level commands. Only Reclaimers can do that."
"But, the Monitors consider us all Reclaimers." Lynn pointed out. "Why haven't any of you ever tried?"
"Like I said, the system was irreparably damaged by the Covenant, triggering failsafe measures. One of those assumes that Reclaimers have been compromised by the Flood. The system is completely locked and the only way to access is the use of four coded phrases."
Suddenly, Lynn's visions, and Silent Caretaker's cryptic lines started making sense.
"I think I know what they are." Lynn said.
"Really?" Didact raised an eyebrow, as if he were only half-surprised.
"Well, I mean, I know I can find it," Lynn pointed to her head, "but it's just…"
"Gravemind is interfering with your thoughts." Didact concluded.
"How did you know?" Lynn asked, amazed.
"We've been stuck on this station for over two hundred years. We have our share of people with… abnormal abilities, and we're no stranger to telepaths, usually because they're the most dangerous of all."
"Why's that?"
"Because," Didact sighed, "you must have realized by now that Gravemind is a vastly intelligent, intensely malevolent being. It has the uncanny ability to glean knowledge from every Flood organism as well as control all of their actions. It's this same ability that allows it to communicate with telepaths."
"But why is it so interested in me- I mean- them?" Lynn wondered.
"Because it's the best way for it to seize control of the Ark." Didact said. "But don't worry, we've been able to devise some countermeasures."
Didact then reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small chip. He then carefully planted it on Lynn's right temple. "It's a psychic damper. It'll keep the Gravemind from detecting your presence, even if you use your powers, but it's vitally important that you manage them carefully."
"I've been learning how to manage all my life." Lynn remarked. She finally began to relax her mind, and felt the soothingly familiar rush of sensory input as her mind wandered through the surrounding area.
"Now that that's done." Didact smiled and offered his hand to Lynn. "How about we take a walk?"
Earth
"Eurale, give me a status report." Keyes sighed as he slumped in his command chair, now feeling impossibly fatigued.
"The last of the Covenant defensive force has been driven out of the system." The AI announced.
Well, that situation was certainly going to change very soon. Keyes sighed when he glanced at the tactical reports. So far, Keyes had roughly eight hundred ships and four orbital platforms at his disposal. However, they were all in high orbit due to the danger the Sentinels posed, and it was only a drop in the bucket compared to what the Covenant could send at them. Eurale had calculated that if called under emergency conditions, every Covenant warship in the immediate sector would be ordered to instantly drop their current task and be summoned to the war zone. Warships farther out would be called and immediately jumped into Slipspace. Keyes had heard reports that the Covenant had discovered a way to "overclock" their Slipspace drives, allowing them to travel in days what would normally take weeks or months. Of course, this was incalculably dangerous, but that had never stopped the Covenant before. With the vast importance Earth seemed to have to them, this was pretty much a guarantee. Eurale had predicted that at the start of hostilities, a Covenant counterattack could be expected within three to four days. Keyes had spent the time fortifying the Humans' foothold around the planet in preparation, but the constant activity had sapped his endurance and stamina to the breaking point.
"Sir, I suggest that you rest." Eurale warned. "My biometric sensors inform me that you are experiencing severe fatigue, high blood pressure, elevated heartbeat, and other signs of extreme stress. Your condition will only worsen the longer you stay awake."
"I know." Keyes admitted. "But there's still so much to do."
"Sir, you should get some sleep." Jillian said from her control station. "We've been up here with you since the beginning. You've already got the big stuff taken care of, we can handle the details."
"What is this, my junior officers giving me orders?" Keyes smiled. "I suppose I'm more tired than I thought."
"Don't worry Sir, we're just as crazy as you are." Keyes' weapons officer cracked a grin.
"Sadly, I must concur." Eurale reluctantly agreed.
"Alright." Keyes sighed and stood up from his chair. "I'll be in my quarters then. Just stick to the plan and we should be fine."
Unknown Location
"I've got contacts!" Sanah warned, suddenly shifting into full alert mode.
"Where?" John snapped, readying his weapon.
"They're… moving away." Sanah said, perplexed. "I've got over two dozen medium sized contacts moving away from us."
"Put it on the screen." John said.
"Wait… are we going to be following them?" Sanah said, aghast. "We've spent all this time just trying to stay alive!"
"Because the Flood only pass over potential hosts if they're after something incredibly important." John said. "And that's usually never good for everybody else."
"Alright." Sanah said, still somewhat skeptical. "I'm feeding the tracking data to you right now."
Wall of Tears
Meanwhile, not too far away, three armored figures were scaling a massive cliff, which was a combination of natural rock and Forerunner installation jutting out in various areas. They were a small foraging party from the Snowbound shelter, looking for Forerunner parts and components that the people in Snowbound always seemed to need. They had already completed their initial sweep and were on their way back to the shelter. However, that meant having to scale the Wall of Tears. Its true height was incalculable to normal Human perception. The foraging parties slowly learned over numerous trips that it took on average three days to climb from the bottom, even with their advanced power armor to assist them, to reach the nearest lift to take them up to the top of the Wall. Audrey, Reese, and Jace were already on the last leg of the climb and were only a few meters from one of the lifts.
"You know, I've always kinda wondered," Reese panted as his powered glove grabbed another handhold and pulled him up several more feet, "why the Forerunner never actually bothered putting a lift on the bottom of the Wall."
"If you think it's so tough," Audrey replied playfully, "why don't you just build one down there yourself?"
"Maybe I will." Reese huffed and looked around. "Hey, where's Jace?"
"He's been lagging." Audrey said, a bit worried. "He's still a couple hundred meters below us."
"Shit, at this pace, we won't reach the lift before the Sentinels arrive." Reese shook his head.
Even now, Reese and Audrey were thankful for the Forerunner power armor they possessed. Back when their ancestors first arrived, Mendicant Bias had modified the designs for Level Nine Sentinels and converted them into semi-self intelligent, powered suits for Human use. The suits had proved crucial in helping Humanity survive the harsh conditions and dangers the Ark threw at them, as they provided superior protection and enhanced strength and stamina. However, even with these advantages, scaling the Wall of Tears was still arduous and taxing on those who had to climb it.
It was several more tiring minutes before Reese and Audrey reached the lift. They quickly clambered into the relative safety of the lift cab, which would shield them from the Sentinels' piercing eyes. However, Audrey glanced at her clock and cursed when she saw the time.
"Damnit!" Audrey keyed her radio to warn Jace. "Jace! Jace! The Sentinels are coming! Shut down your systems! All of them, or the Sentinels will find you! Jace!"
Unfortunately, all she got was static. Audrey cursed. Not even the comm systems of an ancient precursor race would work when they really needed to.
"Cut the transmission!" Reese hissed. "They'll track the signal!"
Meanwhile, two hundred meters below, Jace was still struggling to catch up to Audrey and Reese. He was almost regretful of his decision to try and follow them up the Wall of Tears, but he was determined to prove that he could scale it. Taking a deep breath, Jace began scaling the wall with newfound confidence. Suddenly, he heard a blast of static in his ear and several muffled words.
"Audrey? Reese? What was that? I can't hear you!" Jace said, dialing up his signal strength in an attempt to hear what they were trying to say. However, he then got a warning that something was behind him. He slowly turned around to see a Level Six Sentinel. Both Jace and the Sentinel stared at each other for a brief second before the Sentinel's solitary blue eye flashed.
In an instant, Jace was reduced to a massive bloodstain on the Wall. The only physical evidence of his existence was a solitary arm sheared off at the elbow, still dangling from the handhold it clutched.
Back in the lift, Audrey and Reese were deathly quiet when their sensors picked up the arrival of the Sentinel. They also had the ugly feeling that the reason Jace's life signs were immediately cut off was not due to him shutting down his suit either. However, something they didn't expect happened. The blinking dot on their sensors that represented the Sentinel suddenly winked out and never reappeared.
"What the hell…" Audrey whispered.
"Did it just… disappear?" Reese asked.
"I'm checking it out." Audrey said, slamming the door control.
"Wait! Why?"
"Because Sentinels don't just disappear." Audrey replied before leaping out of the lift.
"Son of a…" Reese sighed before leaping out after her.
As with all things related with gravity, jumping down the Wall of Tears was infinitely simpler than climbing up. Audrey was completely confident as she freefell down the side of the Wall. She had gone up and down the Wall over eight hundred times, and she knew every square inch of its face. She knew for a fact that there was a ledge she could land on just two hundred twenty meters below her and that the inertial dampers in her legs would be able to absorb the impact. She landed on the ledge with a loud metallic clang, with Reese landing next to her just seconds later. Neither person bothered to look for Jace, since they knew that he was most likely dead, and that there wouldn't be much left of him to recover. What they were interested in, however, was the smoking hulk of what was once a Level Six Sentinel, and a lone figure standing above it.
"Holy shit! Did what I think happen really happen?" Reese cried out incredulously.
"I think it did." Audrey nodded.
"What do we do?"
"We should go meet him."
"Why?" Reese asked, a bit nervous.
"Dude, the guy just totally wrecked a Level Six! That is just badass." Audrey gushed. "Maybe he's like, from Rat's Nest, or even Valhalla!"
"Yeah, that is pretty awesome." Reese nodded in agreement. "Oh damn, he's looking right at us!"
"Hey!" Audrey waved to the mystery figure. "HEEEEEEEEEEEY!"
"Did you just hear something?" John asked as he looked up from his most recent kill.
"It looks like you've picked up some admirers." Sanah giggled.
"What?" John turned to see two armored figures running toward him. He tensed for a second but realized that their movements and posture didn't suggest any kind of hostility at all.
When they both got near him though, he was immediately bombarded with a hail of questions.
"Who are you?"
"How'd you trash that Sentinel?"
"What shelter are you from?"
"Can you teach me to do that?"
"Whoa, I've never seen that kind of armor before! What model is it?"
"Shut up!" Sanah's voice screeched in everybody's radios. "Slow it down, please."
"First things first." John sighed. "My name's John, or you can call me Master Chief."
"Sure thing, Chief." One of the strangers bobbed her head. "I'm Audrey, and this fine gentleman standing beside me is Reese, both natives of good ol' Snowbound. Which shelter are you from?"
"Shelter?" John cocked his head curiously. "I wasn't aware there were any other Humans on the Ark at all."
"Holy SHIT!" Reese glanced at Audrey, and then back at John. "I've never heard of somebody living outside of a shelter!"
"Dude, you must be a seriously badass motherfucker!" Audrey exclaimed.
"Ummmm, sure." John sighed.
"A bit hyperactive, aren't they?" Sanah shook her nonexistent head.
"Whoa hey, your suit can talk too?" Reese inspected John's MJOLNIR armor like it was some sort of sleek, sexy car. "What are its specs?"
"Aw, you're just gonna bore him with all your techno-babble." Audrey slapped Reese's shoulder. "Even I can't understand half the stuff you say."
"Excuse me, but is there somewhere a little safer where we can do this?" Sanah asked.
"Oh, yeah, right." Audrey said, suddenly remembering where exactly they were standing. "Sure, we'll take you back to our shelter. It's just at the top of this cliff."
John craned his neck back to see the Wall of Tears stretching almost infinitely into the sky. "Wonderful."
Location Codename: Snowbound
"Whoa! You mean that you're a super soldier? And they like, gave you steroids and pumped metal into your bones?" Reese bounced excitedly. "That sounds so cool! Can you tell us what it was like?"
"I'd rather not." John said glumly.
"This is just too much!" Sanah giggled. "It's like you've suddenly become a dad with two kids!"
"No more words out of you, or I'm yanking you out." John growled.
"So you've literally got an AI inside your head?" Reese stared at John's mirrored visor. "What does it feel like?"
"Highly overrated, believe me."
"Man, you should really see our home!" Audrey said in excitement. "Sure, Snowbound may not be as big, or nearly as cool as the other shelters, but it's got its own little charm…"
Suddenly, all Audrey and Reese stopped in their tracks, prompting John to do the same. He was about to ask what was wrong when he looked at the horizon and quickly drew his own conclusion.
"That's…" Audrey whispered.
"Shit!" Reese cursed and armed his Sentinel beam rifle. "Let's go!"
With that, John, Reese, and Audrey rushed off toward Snowbound, where the flashes of explosions and large plumes of ugly black smoke could be seen.
Valhalla
Valhalla was certainly a sight to behold. It was a large city contained within a long, narrow valley. It looked surprisingly metropolitan for a place that was usually described as a "shelter", with countless buildings erected in perfect blocks with functional and practical roads and streets connecting them all. On both ends of the valley stood a pair of massive towers that hummed and glowed with invisible energy. They were the sole reason this town could exist at all. Lynn had never expected the shattered survivors to be living in a place like this. Then again, the people here had two hundred years to build it. Plus, it was Lynn's first time seeing an actual city, as she had spent her entire life confined on ships or space stations and running for her life in various ruins and uninhabited wildernesses of all kinds.
"It's quite something." Lynn gasped.
"This is home to about ten thousand people." Didact said proudly. "There's another roughly half million survivors scattered in several dozen shelters like this one."
"So, how do you manage all of this on your own?" Lynn asked.
"We don't." Didact shrugged. "We never would have gotten anywhere without Mendicant Bias helping us."
"Can we see him?"
"It's not quite that simple." Didact motioned to the sky above, which showed the rest of the Ark in the warped horizon only possible in an artificial construct. "Mendicant Bias has no actual 'core', or at least none that we can actually find. He usually manages things from the background, and only contacts us when he needs to."
"But, there are so many things I want to ask him." Lynn said glumly.
"I'm sure he'll contact you when he believes you're ready." Didact said optimistically.
Their conversation was then interrupted when an armor clad stranger immediately rushed in. He stood next to Didact and whispered something in his ear. The old man's face instantly hardened from a wizened old man to that of a battle-ready warrior. Lynn could even feel the warrior's rage building up in him.
"Is something wrong?" Lynn asked, already knowing the answer.
"One of the shelters is under attack." Didact confirmed. "It's our duty to aid them."
"Mind if I tag along?"
"Of course." Didact nodded and grinned. "But you're going to need some armor."