Part 8
November 7th 2552 (Forerunner shield world)
Catherine ran down the ramp with so much enthusiasm that she almost fell flat on her face, her arms and legs seemed to cartwheel in an uncoordinated fashion as the gradient of the ramp took hold. Even Kelly was surprised by the doctors sudden burst of speed.
The open chamber where Fred, Olivia and Linda were located was illuminated by a single soft light, emanating from a small dome at the centre of the ceiling. Everything else in the chamber seemed unusually dark apart from the computer console which was covered by the bright alien symbols. Fred had maintained his distance from the console, so as not to be tempted by curiosity to press anything and accidentally activate some archaic system or thousands of Forerunner sentinels. The last thing they needed was an active threat especially with the doctor around.
Catherine bounded into the chamber with Kelly not far behind, the doctors eyes suddenly widened with barely subdued excitement. Kelly had thought that the whole planet should have been under a giant Forerunner Christmas tree, wrapped in a large red ribbon.
Catherine gazed around the chamber in amazement as though it was her first endeavor into a Forerunner structure, but she was always in awe of the technological feats that were performed by them. They could create whole worlds that would dwarf anything made by the Covenant and their ships could withstand unbelievable damage. Something that Humanity could do with.
Fred snapped the doctor back from her daydream, "Doctor, here's the console."
Catherine cleared her throat with a small cough, trying to regain some of her composure, but her childlike enthusiasm was proving difficult to contain.
"Of course Fred," replied Catherine "Kelly could you bring my case down from the entrance please?"
Kelly nodded and then ran up the slope with her familiar teeth-jarring speed, returning with the heavy carry-case before the doctor had even reached the console.
Catherine stood silently at the console for several minutes before pressing one of the floating symbols on the small holographic display. The room seemed to dim slightly before a large holographic sphere appeared at the centre of the chamber. To the left of the sphere were eight glowing orbs.
The uppermost orb was brighter than the rest and had a slightly more ornate appearance, whilst the fourth one down glowed less than all the others and was pale red in colour, whereas the remaining ones were all illuminated with a light wash of amber.
Catherine steadily rotated the large sphere and then magnified the image; it quickly became apparent that the sphere was a graphical representation of the world that they were on.
"What are those?" pointed Linda at the smaller orbs.
Catherine reduced the magnification and switched the view to the vertical line of orbs, focusing on the fourth one down. She zoomed in to the orb and then realised that it was not an orb at all, but an illuminated ring.
"It's Halo," stated Catherine "well, it's the one that John destroyed anyway the other orbs must be different Halo's."
"Is this some kind of control room?" interrupted Fred
"No it seems to be more of a map room or navigation chamber, this must be how the Forerunners on this construct monitored or coordinated their planned survival against the Flood."
"But they didn't survive doctor." coughed Olivia.
"No, no they didn't." replied Catherine with a disappointed tone.
"But we will." Voiced Fred
Catherine continued her exploration of the hologram, concentrating on the Dyson-Sphere. So far her venture had only succeeded in locating the sections responsible for the power grid, and the artificial star at the centre. The system and the planet were vast in size and a lot of time would be wasted looking for a control room or something similar, even a maintenance room would have sufficed, but Catherine was have no luck in finding either.
"I sure wish Cortana was here." Catherine whispered to herself.
March 27th 2553 (Location unknown)
John was thrown onto the floor as the structure seemed to lurch and heave beneath his feet. Cortana activated the view screen at the end of the chamber and the image of an unfamiliar ship appeared.
Unlike all of the Forerunner designs that John had seen before, this craft was more angular in appearance with a series of sharp angled facets on its exposed ventral side. It looked dark and heavily armoured, as though Humans had attempted to build a Covenant capital ship with the UNSC's entire collection of Titanium, but this was much, much bigger.
Along each side of the ship were a series of pylons and pod like structures, all arrayed on something faintly reminiscent of a delta wing, which gave the ship an eerie but deadly appearance.
"That's the Forerunners enemy?" shouted John in the drowning noise.
"Yes, it must have been alerted to the planet's location when I reactivated the systems. All of the nearside weapons platforms are preparing to fire at the alien vessel."
John regained his balance only to be thrown to the floor a second time when the Forerunner weapons fired. He glanced at the display which showed the alien ship rolling to the side, narrowly avoiding the initial barrage. It returned fire with bright lances of green fire, striking a weapons pylon only 20 miles away.
The ground heaved again with another volley, but this time the barrage found its mark.
Six streaks of blue lightning impacted on the belly of the alien ship, causing its hull to ripple with a series of cascading explosions. Amazingly the ship was still functioning and replied with another deadly lance of green fire, but this time it was much closer to the structure where John and Cortana were.
John thought that the thunderous sound of the blast and the immense vibrations shooting beneath his feet foretold of his imminent death, but somehow the structure survived the detonation. But as they view the carnage outside on the view screen both Cortana and John could see that the surrounding mountains of sand were now molten shapes of glittering glass, and there was no sign of the Pelican.
The Forerunner weapons fired a third time, but this time there was no reply from the alien vessel. Instead its damaged shape started to list violently before slowly succumbing to the gravity well of the planet.
Cortana maintained her observation of the mammoth-sized ship as it plunged through the atmosphere, on a dreadfully close trajectory towards the ground.
"Chief, I'd hold on to something!" yelped Cortana
John ran over to an area near the dormant Forerunner in the throne-like chair and wedged his armoured shape into a gap between the consoles, where his maintained an iron-like grip on the opposing bench.
John watched with gritted teeth as the ship pulled up at the last moment from its steep descent, but the momentum proved too much and the ship's great belly splashed on the surface, before rolling over a dozen times in a corkscrew effect until it came to rest with a broken back.
The resulting impact had shaken the chamber they were in and the empty cases that were scattered around on the metal floor had been forced to dance and skip with the vibration. In any other situation the sound of the spent cases jumping around on the floor would have been deafening, but the crashing ship was doing a much better job of destroying John's eardrums.
The sound filtering system in his Mjolnir armour was doing its best to drown out the sound, but the intensity of volume being emitted was too much.
Once the dust and molten glass had settled, Cortana magnified the image of the broken vessel. She was amazed that the battered ship had survived the crash relatively intact, save for the huge tear across its dorsal section. Cortana knew that a ship of that size and mass with the damage inflicted by the Forerunner weapon system should have been shattered, but here she was looking at a shape that still resembled a space faring vessel.
Cortana expected to see nothing further from the smoldering hulk, but she was alarmed when she saw movement.
At first it was difficult to make out, but then the familiar shape of something humanoid became increasingly apparent. And then she saw another and another, until there were twelve dark figures moving slowly but menacingly towards the facility.
John shook his dazed and spinning head and then slowly pulled himself up, propping himself against one of the consoles until he regained his balance.
Cortana followed the slow deliberate approach of the dark figures until they were at the entrance where they had previously entered. Immediately several antenna-like protrusions extended from around the doorway before striking out at the figures with bright blue arcs of fire.
The light display was immense and Cortana was forced to reduce the brightness of the screen so she could still she what was happening.
Only one of the figures had fallen from the fire, smoke rising from its seared torso, but the rest continued on into the doorway before silencing the Forerunner security system with their own weapons.
Several seconds later an explosion ripped open the large heavy door and the remaining eleven humanoids walked steadily inside.
It was only here that both she and John were able to make out enough detail of the walking figures, they were all wearing some kind power armour similar to John's but obviously capable of receiving a great deal more damage than any form of Mjolnir suit.
Cortana strained at the image, "I'm sending in the sentinels."
John glanced over at Cortana and then back at the dark figures, several seconds later hundreds of sentinels opened fire at the strolling aliens.
Unlike John's initial fight with the automated guardians in the narrow entrance way to the chamber, where he could channel them, these aliens were in a much wider corridor.
John could probably have parked two or three Scorpion tanks sided by side and still have room to walk around them.
There was no cover, not that the aliens sought any. It was as though they were oblivious to the threat of the sentinels.
Then one of the figures fell to the storm of fire, and then another and another, before the aliens returned fire at the metallic swarm. In one single retaliatory blast over a hundred sentinels dropped from the air, damaged beyond repair by a zigzagging streak of green lightning.
One after the other the rest of the aliens opened fire at the sentinels until all of them were lying in a smoldering heap on the scorched metal floor.
Cortana immediately looked over at John, "I think you better go chief."
"And go where exactly?" he replied
A faint wash of panic and then frustration covered Cortana's glowing face, "Damn you're stubborn," Muttered Cortana "very well I'm securing all of the doors and walkways on this level and the ones above, it should buy us some time."
John collected all of his weapons and ammunition that he had left from his battle with the sentinels.
In all he had 83 rounds from his assault rifle, 97 rounds for the battle rifle, 1 Lotus anti-tank mine, an M6C magnum with 18 rounds and an M19 SSM rocket launcher with 2 rockets.
On any other day and against any other enemy john would have had a field day, even against the Covenant. But here he had to admit it, these aliens, this enemy of the Forerunners was something entirely different.
John laid all of his weapons on the floor behind the consoles that were in the middle of the room, and placed the Lotus mine near the locked doorway. If he was to inflict any significant damage he had to make sure that the majority of the aliens were well inside the chamber before he could remotely detonate the mine.
A dull explosion sounded from above them, "Hurry chief!" warned Cortana.
John glanced around the chamber at the walls and the floor, trying to think of some way to slow the aliens down. There were several of the damaged sentinels lying on the floor
"What sort of power source do these sentinels have?" asked John
"A form of plasma fusion, why?"
John smiled inside his helmet, "I think I've just found some more mines."
As fast as he could, John carefully extracted the fusion cores from the fallen sentinels and connected them all to a damaged power conduit in the wall.
Once he was ready he stood ready, behind the nearest row of computer terminal and consoles. In his hand he had the rocket launcher, with his battle rifle secured on his back and the pistol on his mag-plated thigh.
Another explosion echoed inside the structure, but this one was much closer. John double checked his weapons a fourth time and waited.
A further explosion sounded, but this one ripped open the chamber door, sending broken sections of the door in all directions. John ducked just in time as the main bulk of the fragmented door flew just over his head.
John quickly recovered and aimed at the nearest alien, before squeezing the firing trigger on the M19 rocket launcher.
Part 9
March 27th 2553 (Location unknown)
A deep pop echoed from the front of the rocket launcher as the solid propellant was ignited, and the four retaining pins were released. For a split second it seemed as though the launcher was faulty, until the quiet pop was replaced by a deafening roar as the rocket screamed towards the nearest alien.
The rocket hit the alien square in the face and exploded with enough force to destroy a Warthog, as a result it was thrown against the nearest wall, landing with a bone shattering crunch.
Despite the direct hit to the face, which was now a semi-molten blob, the main bulk of the alien had somehow remained intact.
John had previously turned Covenant Wraith tanks and the lumbering Hunters into smouldering wrecks in his encounters, with successive hits from a rocket launcher. But here was an alien no bigger than himself, clad in some kind of power armour that, despite being dead, still had all of its limbs attached after being hit by an M19.
Just as the launcher had completed its automatic re-load of the second and last rocket, John turned to the next alien in line and squeezed the trigger.
Even with knowledge of the outcome, the alien made no attempt to evade its impending demise, and as a result it was thrown against the wall, knocking two of its comrades onto the floor that fell directly on top of the string of fusion cores.
John dived to the floor, behind the Forerunner computer terminal just as Cortana activated a power surge in the damaged conduit. The line of sentinel cores exploded in a blinding display of light, sending two more of the aliens to their deaths, but that still left another four.
John popped his head above the computer terminal to see where they were stood, but this time they had stopped, as though assessing the effectiveness of their new threat. All John needed was for them walk forward another metre or so and they would be directly next to the LOTUS anti-tank mine.
John frowned in his helmet, staring at the dark figures. "What are they doing?"
"I think they're trying to figure you out, see how much of a threat you are. Three hundred sentinels couldn't stop them but one Spartan seems to be more of a handful." Examined Cortana
Just as Cortana finished her sentence, one of the aliens raised its black gauntlet at John and a strange fizzing sound filled the chamber.
"Get down!" warned Cortana.
John fired a quick burst from his BR55 Battle rifle as he dived for cover, but the brief storm of bullets did little to deter the alien.
A second later and the room was filled with cascading bolts of iridescent green light. The computer terminal took most of the blast, but the alien energy seemed to worm and slither its way around as though looking for its target. Several smaller strands of lightning sprang from the smoking computer console, striking John and the surrounding area.
His Mjolnir armour seemed to flex in the flowing energy, as if it was being slowly pulled apart and then he heard a distinctive pop as his shields failed.
Bright pin-pricks of pain surged from his legs and arms, followed by waves of intense heat and nausea. John thought he was physically on fire until he managed to open his stinging eyes to see the energy finally dissipating.
"Chief!" yelled Cortana "The mine!"
John pulled his aching head up and around the computer terminal to see the remaining aliens slowly lumbering forward, into the killing radius of the anti-tank mine.
With his body still reeling from the energy weapon, John reached over and grabbed the LOTUS remote firing trigger. The pistol grip sized device was illuminated by a single display that read "SAFE" in bright green letters.
John toggled the switch and the previous display was changed to "ARMED" in a menacing red glow, before he pressed the spring loaded trigger.
The anti-tank mine shattered like glass before exploding, sending three of the aliens in all directions, one of which was struck by the shaped charge. The fourth was thrown against the nearest terminal followed by a storm of fist sized mine fragments.
John slowly pulled himself upright and then felt a warm wet trickle on his top lip, he tasted blood.
The alien attack and the succession of explosions without his shields had caused several small blood vessels to burst, it was nothing serious but his head was aching and his limbs felt as though they had be pulled off and re-attached by a blind field surgeon.
The chamber that was previously immaculate and quiet was now covered in small fragments of metal and debris. Along the floor and walls near the entrance were several charred blast marks where the fusion cores and the LOTUS mine had been.
The darkly armoured figures were spread around the room in a varying degree of rag-doll poses, as though a giant hand had just thrown them around.
The nearest alien, slumped against the terminal, was the only one that still looked completely intact, save for a small pot-marked area on its back.
John was taking no chances and levelled his Battle rifle at the aliens head.
The alien suddenly turned to face John, arms raised, knocking the weapon from his hands. Now that he was closer John could make out far more detail of the dark armour than before.
The head was a series of angled plates or panels with two red slit-shaped eyes that were devoid of pupils or anything similar, but it looked as though this was part of the armour and not the aliens' eyes.
The mouth area was another collection of angled plates as was the majority of the armour, but unlike the rest of its bulkier body, the arms seemed thinner almost insect like in nature with a single row of small jagged barbs where each elbow was located.
John had seen enough, and powered a single fist as hard as he could into the aliens' angled face.
Initially the dark material that covered the helmet seemed to absorb the impact like sponge, but then he felt resistance and the alien helmet crumpled, sending the alien sliding along the hard metal floor before coming to a stop next to the rest of its dead comrades.
John surveyed the scene before him and silently counted his blessings.
When he had fought against the Covenant and even the Flood, John had simply done what was required to achieve his mission and to survive, and even though his experience with the Flood was somewhat unpleasant he always saw them as an opponent that could be defeated.
But this enemy of the Forerunners was something else entirely. They had easily destroyed hundreds of sentinels and breached the armoured exterior of the facility in a matter of minutes.
He had been lucky this time, exceptionally lucky. A few more of the aliens and the situation would have quickly become more than difficult.
John thought about Cortana's warning for him to escape before the aliens reached the chamber, he could understand her concern. If anything happened to him she would be stranded here, without the ability to physically move around, but worse than that she would be alone.
John looked over at her and Cortana turned to meet his gaze, her usually calm appearance had changed to something else. Her eyes, despite being a holographic projection based on the interpretation of data from her core, showed more emotion than usual, they showed relief.
She had gone from his friend and guide to an electronic surrogate, concerned for her distant child. But John recognised this look; it was the same anxious stare that Dr Halsey had displayed when he returned from his first combat mission.
"Cortana, you remember when I said next time let's try something harder?"
"Yes."
"I was joking." Replied John
November 10th 2552 (Forerunner shield world)
Catherine peered over the rim her glasses at the large revolving hologram; her eyes were dry and stinging with fatigue.
She had spent three long days searching the schematics of the sphere for something that would help them, anything that would provide them with the proverbial key for unlocking the Cryo-tubes. But that was not their only concern.
Despite the apparent safety from the Covenant and anyone else they were still stranded, without a means of transport they would be staying here for the rest of their lives.
With that in mind Catherine had included anything that resembled a ship or hangar bay along with another slip-space portal.
Kelly walked up and handed over a steaming cup of coffee, "Here doctor, drink this."
The ration-pack coffee was the only thing that was keeping her awake at the moment, along with the occasional nudge from Chief Mendez.
The chief had made his way inside after Catherine's' first day of searching had turned up nothing of interest; the only thing that peaked her enthusiasm was the environmental controls for the Dyson sphere. Here she could change the temperature and weather of the habitable area to suit their needs. This was presumably for accelerating the growth of the vegetation that covered all that they could see.
Mendez glanced up at the doctor as she hugged the hot cup in her hands, his eyes stood out in the pale light, "You should take a rest."
Catherine slowly stood up with a jaw-dislocating yawn and removed her glasses, folding them away into her lab coat.
She briefly rubbed her eyes before joining Chief Mendez at the other end of the room, where the lift shaft was located.
The decision to place a sentry at the lift had been Fred's idea, but everyone knew it was just another way of giving a group of hardened soldiers something to do, to keep their minds focused as much as possible.
Catherine sat down on one of the small logistical cases.
She lifted the hot cup to her nose, smelling the coffee.
The strong smell was a welcomed break from the surgically sterilized environment that was now their home. Even the flowers outside were almost odourless.
The Forerunners had been the most advanced species in the known universe at one time, and they had achieved what the Covenant could only dream of.
They could create entire planets, build moon-sized ring-worlds and had the ability manipulate space-time. "If only they had mastered the coffee bean," Thought Catherine.
She took a small sip, savoring the strong taste.
Despite originally being a tea drinker Catherine had acquired a taste for coffee, or that's what she kept telling herself.
Her research work on Reach, including the SPARTAN II program had required long hours of work and constant confrontations with the military, especially those that wanted to shut her work down, Ackerson being the primary pain in the ass. So coffee became the main source of fuel in her work.
She took another sip of the dark liquid, closing her eyes.
"Doctor," started Mendez "I thought that you had one of those portable AI's with you?"
Catherine looked over at her laptop, where a small pea-sized object was sitting.
"You mean Jerrod? Yes, but unfortunately his matrix is extremely fragile and his power source is limited. I was hoping to save him for a rainy day." Sighed Catherine
Mendez looked around the room, as if looking at their current options, "Begging your pardon ma'am but this seems like a pretty wet day to me."
After a brief pause Catherine agreed, saving Jerrod wouldn't matter if they had no way to get off the Dyson sphere.
She reached over and activated the small pod.
"Good afternoon doctor," said a familiar English accent "How may I be of assistance?"