Guilty Sparks

by General Rage

Fleeing from the glassing of Reach in the belly of the Pillar of the Autumn, the crew of the SR-2 Normandy find themselves stranded with their UNSC allies on a strange Forerunner constructed ring world called Halo with the Covenant hunting them. But Halo holds a secret, one deadlier than both the Covenant and Reapers combined... and it's hungry.

24. What Lies Beneath

Chapter 23: What Lies Beneath

September 20th, 2552: 2257hrs

They only got to the coordinates by the time it was dark. The thick smell of the swampy bog filled the Pelican's cabin even before they got close to touching down. The musk was overwhelmed, however, by the constant string of thoughts swimming in their minds.

They didn't understand why Cortana had been so seemingly frightened by whatever she found, why she didn't answer any of their questions. They had hoped maybe the garrison of Army Troopers that Colonel Holland had organized around the Control Room would get answers, but the news they got back was rather unsettling.

"Any change?" Miranda asked Shepard as he finished talking to Holland once more.

"The Colonel says Cortana still isn't allowing anyone inside the Control Room's central chamber," Shepard responded regretfully. "All she keeps telling them to do is to keep the Covenant out if they try to come back and to wait for us to return with the Captain's status."

"What about Alpha Base?" Chief asked. "Is it still on full alert?"

The Commander nodded.

"Nothing seems to have changed. As per Cortana's warning relayed through Holland," Shepard answered, beginning to repeat the orders issued by the Colonel over the radio. "Every Pelican that comes and goes gets questioned over comms, full guard posted at every landing pad and entrance to the butte's facility. They got the place locked down. I can imagine the same goes for the Control Room."

The heightened security was typical of a high alert situation, but no one knew what they were looking out for. Why Cortana wasn't simply telling them, no one could say. Shepard looked to Tali for a possible answer. The quarian had been uncharacteristically quiet since they had boarded the Pelican again.

"You know AI better than us, why is she acting like this?" Shepard asked her.

"I don't know," Tali admitted, sounding incredibly frustrated. "I keep telling you that. Whatever she found must've activated a security function, something pre-programmed into her by ONI or Halsey in case of emergency. From what I could see, she probably slipped into a sort of lockdown mode. That means any information she could deem classified won't be shared unless certain parameters are met. I can't be sure until I get a look at her, or at least ask her."

Shepard looked over to the Master Chief, who had been just as silent as Tali during the ride.

"What do you think, Chief?" He asked. "What set her off?"

But the Spartan didn't have much of an answer either. Cortana may have resided in his head from time to time, but he wasn't an expert in artificial intelligence. The only insight he had was what he had been able to determine back in the Control Room.

"All I know is that she looked genuinely scared for once," He informed the Commander. "And if she thinks the Captain is in danger, then that's what we should be concerned about for now."

"But maybe she's malfunctioning," Miranda suggested. "What do they call it here? Rampancy? What if plugging into that control terminal messed her systems up? She sounded a bit overwhelmed by all that information. What if she's gone crazy?"

Tali quickly shook her head.

"No, Cortana wouldn't go rampant from simply being plugged into a Forerunner computer system," Tali insisted. "She was designed to be the perfect infiltration program. There is no way she could be corrupted so easily."

"Agreed," Chief readily agreed with the quarian. "There's something we're missing here. I just wished she would've told us what it is."

Tali turned back to Shepard with a look of concern. She stood silent for a moment before fully voicing her thoughts. They had been nagging at her since they had left and she could hold them in no longer.

"Maybe I should've stayed behind," she told Shepard plainly. "Cortana and I have a good relationship with each other. Maybe I could convince her to tell me what she found. Or I could figure out if anything is wrong with her, however unlikely that is."

"If we're going into a Forerunner facility we're going to need some of your technological skills," Shepard explained. "Out of all of us, you're probably the one with the most experience with Forerunner tech given your time with Halsey."

"I wouldn't call myself an expert either," Tali reminded him. "I'm not sure how much help I could be in there."

"Regardless, your technical prowess is invaluable," Miranda insisted. "Without Cortana it won't be so easy to navigate this structure or hack through any locked doors we run into. And who knows what else we'll find in there."

Tali seemed appreciate the uncharacteristic sense of praise Miranda was giving her. She accepted it with a light sigh.

"I suppose it will be tight quarters in there," the quarian admitted. "I'll see what I can do when we're groundside, but no promises."

Shepard supposed that was the best he could hope for. The Master Chief seemed to have his own concerns though. The Commander saw that the Spartan staring out at the trees passing below them, looking as if his thoughts were rather distant. Shepard tried to bring his attention back.

"You look like you got something on your mind, Chief," He said, plying for a response from the Spartan.

The Master Chief took a minute to answer, and even then he still kept looking out the Pelican's door.

"You didn't have to come, Shepard," he told the Commander plainly. "I appreciate the help, but the Captain's safety should be my responsibility. We can't risk losing another officer at this point."

"That may be, Master Chief," Shepard agreed. "But if whatever is happening is as bad as Cortana made it out to be, you could use all the help you can get. Besides, we can't risk losing you either."

"The point is we're here now," Miranda added. "If the Covenant did find something horrible, something even they're afraid of, it's going to concern all of us at some point. For all we know, it somehow concerns the Inquisitor."

"Given how much that Reaper has its steel tentacles in everything I wouldn't bet against that," Tali concurred.

The Pelican finally began its descent below into the swamp and everyone began to pile out.

"The last transmission from the Captain's dropship was from these coordinates," Foe Hammer told them. "That was over twelve hours ago."

"That would put it around the time we got inside the Silent Cartographer," Shepard noted as they climbed out of the dropship.

"Just about, Commander," Foe Hammer replied. "When you find Keyes, radio in and I'll come pick you up. Be careful out there, something just don't feel right about this swamp."

The Pelican flew off, leaving the team behind to sort through this mystery on their own. They now found themselves in the middle of the swamp, the only light visible coming from luminescent plants surrounding the area. Beyond that, there was only fog, gigantic trees and the smell of bog water.

Before they could even get underway, they heard a faint static noise coming from their left. It was low and barely audible, but they could hear it over the sounds of the marsh. They approached cautiously through the fog and found the sound was coming from a downed Pelican.

The dropship looked pretty beat up, definitely in no shape to fly again. Supplies and equipment were strewn about the crash site and the Pelican itself was half buried in the mud while it leaned against some rocks. While they hadn't yet checked the ship, they had little doubt this was one of the dropships Keyes' squad had used.

"Why did it crash?" Shepard asked.

Miranda felt her fingers along a scorch mark across the side of the Pelican.

"My guess is Covenant small arms fire," Miranda suggested.

"So where are the bodies?" Tali asked, her eyes searching the area.

"It could've already dropped the Marines off before the crash," Miranda suggested. "The pilot may still be in the cockpit... under all that mud and water."

Chief carefully entered the Pelican and looked about the devastated passengers' cabin. He soon found the source of the static, the Pelican's transceiver. He waved the others closer.

"I think I'm hearing a voice, but it's too warped to make out," he said.

"Let me try and clean it up," Tali suggested

She walked onto the dropship and opened up her omni-tool. As she tweaked with the transceiver's controls, words started to form out of the static.

"I think I heard it mention Keyes," Chief said as he listened intently.

"Give me a second," Tali informed him, quieting him for a moment. "It's hard converting the transmission data and removing the interference at the same time."

Eventually, the full message began to come through, although still in pieces. The slightly panicked, but firm voice of a Marine started to waft through the air, static cutting off his words every few seconds. But the fear and sense of dread was readily apparent despite the garbled voice.

"Dropship Victor 933...Pillar of Autumn...need assistance. We are under att-... new kind of hostile...isn't Covenant...Captain Keyes has been...-dug in at a large structure in the swamp-...-need to pull out. Plea-...I will set this message to repeat at-...at regular intervals. Dropship Victor 933, clear!"

After that, the message began to loop again.

"That's all I can get," Tali said shaking her head. "The audio systems and mainframe are too degraded by plasma and water damage. I'm sorry."

"We know enough," Miranda assured her. "The Marines are holding up in some kind of structure up ahead, that must be the weapons cache Keyes was after. More importantly they encountered some new kind of hostile."

"It was probably another Husk Variant," Shepard suggested. "This has been a field day for those."

A good possibility and definitely something to watch for, but Chief still had some concerns.

"When was that message made exactly?" He asked Tali.

The quarian quickly keyed up the information on her omni-tool.

"According to the timestamp, or at least what I can make out, it was made close to eleven hours ago, that puts it close to an hour after the last transmission," Tali explained. "That doesn't bode well for the Marines if they were holding up inside the structure."

"Until we find some bodies we should assume the Captain and his people are still alive," Shepard stated commandingly. "But we should be prepared for the worst."

"Like whatever Cortana says the Covenant is afraid of?" Tali asked. "We can't rule out that they ran into that. It's the whole reason we're here."

"I know, but until we get more information we need to go by what we have," Shepard told her plainly. "Let's just stick together. Keep your eyes open and move cautiously, we're still in Covenant territory. If there are indeed husks around, or whatever it was Cortana was trying to warn us about, that's all the reason to be even more careful."

The small squad moved out into the swamp, rain still pouring down on them as the trudged through the mud-ridden soggy ground. It didn't take them long to hear several other footsteps from up ahead. They soon saw silhouettes of Covenant Soldiers, grunts and Jackals to be precise, rushing through the swamp. They sloshed through the water of the bog at an almost fevered pace, looking behind them every couple of seconds, their guns raised up and ready to fire.

They only stopped dead in their tracks when they realised who they were running towards. The grunts suddenly turned to run to the cover of some large trees. The Jackals meanwhile fired on the three humans and the quarian, forcing a confrontation. Everyone dispersed to get to cover as the Jackals began moving in a line, trying to retreat further into the swamplands with the grunts.

Miranda shot out the first retaliatory strike, hitting one of the Jackals in the side with a slam attack. The bird-like alien was lifted into the air and sent hurtling back down. The terrible aftershock knocked the Jackals on their asses, allowing the Master Chief to fire off a few shots into the downed aliens.

Tali sent her drone off to deal with the grunts themselves, who were just now firing back. Chiktikka managed to scare them out of the trees with a few quick zaps. The odd thing was, Tali wasn't sure if any of the energy blasts of them hit the Covies. They ran off almost as soon as they saw the drone. Chiktikka followed of course, managing to get a proper shock in on one of the grunts. The hit took him down and Tali managed to pop off a few shots on the other fleeing Covies.

Shepard sent a shockwave that managed to break-up a small formation of Jackals that was left. He unloaded two shotgun blasts into their ranks to keep them off balance and focused on him. The Chief now moved in for the kill. He circled around to their right and unloaded a full clip into their ranks. Their bodies twisted and turned as the gunfire ripped into them. Seconds later, the Jackals were all face down in the swamp water and Chief stared at them in bewilderment.

"That wasn't nearly as organized as it should've been," Miranda noted as she joined the Spartan along with the others. "The grunts usually stay behind the Jackals for extra cover."

"They seemed really eager to get away from here as fast as possible too," Tali added. "I've never seen them try to abandon a fight so fast."

Everyone was thinking the same thing, but it was Chief who expressed it aloud first.

"They were running scared, not running into a fight," he concluded.

"They certainly didn't look all too focused on us," Shepard agreed. "They looked more worried about where they were coming from."

"Perhaps they were fleeing from the Captain's squad?" Miranda suggested.

"No Elite would ever let them get this far if they were," the Master Chief told her. "Unless of course they were all killed in the fight, but even so..."

Something just didn't feel right about all of this. What was clear to the team was that the Covies had been running away from something. That something was more than likely the weapons cache bunker Keyes was raiding. At least they had an idea of where to go now.

As they started their trek into the swamp, however, Tali suddenly stopped. She looked up to the hills around them, her silver eyes darting rapidly, scanning the darkness. Shepard looked back at her, noticing her frozen visage.

"Tali, what's wrong?" He asked concerned.

The quarian was taken out of her search with a start. She looked back towards the Commander with a worried expression.

"I thought I saw something moving in the trees," she said, her voice slightly quavering. "Looked like a shadow or shadows. I couldn't tell."

"Might be Covenant or more of those damn walking mouth creatures Samara mentioned encountering," Miranda surmised. "Either way, more reason to get into that bunker."

"Best keep our eyes open then," Shepard cautioned. "We don't want to get ambushed and this terrain makes that way too easy."

The team trekked further into the swamp. Tali tried to keep her eyes forward, but they always wandered back to the darkened hills and trees above them. Something was definitely in them, she knew it. She just wasn't sure what it was exactly.

---

Varvok hoped that the cover story Retz had concocted would hold up under scrutiny. If their hunch was right, the garrison at the excavation site would mind getting an extra load of medical supplies. They probably wouldn't even check the papers and just be happy they were getting some unexpected help.

However, they couldn't be completely sure if the Covenant wouldn't be the least bit suspicious. Zek had every confidence in the story's persuasiveness though. Varvok himself hadn't been able to come up with one they could use instead anyway, so there was no sense in criticising the idea now.

As the Phantom touched down, they both took hold of the crate containing the medical supplies. Zek grabbed the right handle while Varvok took the left. They then walked to the exit ramp as it began to lower.

"So, what do we do once we're past security and inside?" Zek asked him.

"We get down to the quarantined sections of the structure and see if we can find any survivors," Varvok explained. "With any luck, they'll be able to convince Balak that the Covenant has put us at unnecessary risk with their testimony about whatever disease they've unleashed down there."

"You still think they're alive?" Zek questioned, not entirely convinced of the possibility.

"They're batarians and they're well-trained soldiers," Varvok responded adamantly. "They know how to survive a biological attack. We did constant drills for them back in basic. And if they're not alive, then pictures of the bodies will suffice."

Despite his optimism, Varvok wasn't a fool. He knew the odds were long at this point. The virus had very likely already killed them. In his mind though, he was hoping against hope that he'd actually find Sergeant Kreka and the others alive, however unrealistic he knew that was. He couldn't help it, he needed to hope.

As they exited the Phantom and headed down the ramp, they fully expected to find sangheili soldiers standing there. Varvok was already mentally reiterating his practiced lines. They had brought a shipment of medi-gel to the site. The orders were from the Supreme Commander himself. He wanted to be sure they were well stocked. For Thel 'Vadamee looks out for his beloved warriors, bravely fighting for the cause.

But instead, they found nothing. There were no sangheili, no guards, there was nothing there. The entire site seemed, abandoned. Varvok's initial reaction was that he had practiced all those lines for nothing. When he got a better look at the equipment around the camp his opinion changed a little. The defensive turrets had been thrown onto their sides. The weapons caches and supply containers had been busted into. Most distressing was the communication equipment. The field console had been smashed and the array had been broken in two.

"Well, this makes things easier," Zek noted as he got onto his radio. "Retz, get back into the clouds. We'll call you when we need pick-up."

"Right," Retz replied. "Don't hesitate to call. Something feels weird about this."

They took the medi-gel crate with them anyway as the Phantom took off. Even if there were no guards it still had a use to them. From everything they could see there had likely been some kind of attack. Those were Varvok's initial impressions at least. As they searched the area, making their way towards the entrance to the structure, they found that this scene of destruction lacked one significant item.

"Do you see any bodies around here?" Varvok asked Zek curiously.

"Nah," the kig-yar replied. "I'd have smelled them. Unggoy corpses smell something awful, not as bad as sangheili, but still bad. Either one of us should've caught a whiff of something, but I can't smell anything."

They put the crate down along the path and walked over to the damaged communications equipment. Varvok hoped to find answers there, but there didn't seem to be anything of note. Save for the fact that the consoles looked like they had been shot up by plasma rifles.

As Varvok continued to study the area, he stepped in something wet and sticky. Looking down he saw a small pool of darkish blue/purple blood at his feet. Bending down to get a look, he realised it was sangheili blood, but again lacking a body.

Zek suddenly came rushing up to him from behind.

"I can't find any human shell casings, magazines, footprints, nothing," he informed him, his voice growing more concerned. "I don't think the humans attacked them."

"Then what did?" Varvok asked as he stood up. "Animals don't use plasma weapons to shoot up consoles, and I doubt they could kill a bunch of sangheili and consume them whole."

"Even if the humans used plasma weapons, they wouldn't carry off the bodies of the sangheili," Zek added quickly. "Something else is going on here."

Varvok couldn't help but agree. There were only two conclusions he could reach, that the Covenant had destroyed the communication equipment themselves or the infected from inside had. But why would either side do that and risk denying themselves rescue? And neither theory could explain the lack of bodies.

"We won't get answers out here," Varvok concluded at last. "We need to go inside."

They walked up to the entranceway, speedily pulling out the hazmat suits they had smuggled away in the bottom of the medi-gel crate. They weren't about to risk catching whatever disease was down there. They placed the red suits on and closed them up tight. Zek also grabbed a few extra medi-gel packs and handed them to Varvok.

"That won't exactly help if there is a containment breech," he warned as he took the packs from the kig-yar. "They can't cure illnesses, you know."

"Yeah, but if I get shot by a crazy infected survivor I'd prefer to have it around," Zek responded.

"Good point," Varvok agreed as he loaded the medi-gel into his storage pack on his suit.

They got to the doors and Zek began to input the code to open them, obtained for them by Retz of course. It wasn't easy to get, but he had managed. Zek now owed his first mate a few credits for his trouble, but it was no great loss. The doors soon opened wide, allowing the two to enter.

"Now we can finally figure what the hell they're hiding down here," Varvok declared.

"Hopefully it doesn't make you shit yourself to death," Zek added cautiously. "That is no way for a person to go."

---

"None of this sits right with me, Garrus," Jacob told the turian as they walked. "Whatever spooked Cortana sounded really bad. You should've seen her face. You know that stuff they say about synthetics not knowing any real emotions? Well, she looked legitimately scared to me."

"Worried about Miranda?" Garrus asked him.

"I'm worried about all of them, Keyes, Shepard, Tali," Jacob clarified. "It just doesn't feel right sitting on the side lines here while they trudge around some swamp in enemy territory. If only Cortana would just explain what was going on I wouldn't be so concerned."

Truth be told, Garrus was uneasy himself. Cortana had always been such a calculating and cool headed AI. From the sound of things though, that all vanished pretty quickly when she got plugged into the Command Console. There was little they could do about it now though, she wasn't letting them in and Shepard had ordered them to stay here at the base for now. If the Commander didn't check in within an allotted timeframe, then they could come get him. He didn't want risk all of them befalling whatever fate Keyes had, but Garrus still didn't like the plan.

"We have to have faith that Shepard knows what he's doing," Garrus said to Jacob reassuringly. "That they all know what they're doing. I mean, this can't be any more dangerous than the Collector Ship."

"That was a trap our former boss let us walk into, remember?" Jacob forced the turian to recall. "I'd rather that this mission not be nearly as bad as that one was."

"Well, we'll know if Shepard has stepped in it if we don't hear from him in the next few hours," Garrus reasoned. "If it comes to that, we'll just have to make sure we get there in time to help him out."

Jacob reluctantly nodded his head in agreement.

"Something still feels messed up about this," he reiterated once more. "I'd rather we be on stand-by, not waiting here."

"We'll need to be here in case the Covenant try to launch a retaliatory strike on us for taking the Control Room," Garrus reminded him. "We're stretched thin, with Holland's troopers holding down the fort over there. We can't be everywhere."

"I know, I know," Jacob responded. "I guess I'm just a bit pissed off about the whole situation is all. Nothing had been easy since we ended up in this place, feels like we're just geting thrown from one problem to the next. Business as usual, but being trapped on some weird artificial planet running a guerrilla war is a lot more constant. I've barely slept in the past two days."

"I know the feeling," Garrus added, rubbing his own tired eyes. "Believe me."

No one was getting sleep, not when every hand was needed on deck. Alpha Base seemed a lot less crowded now that most of Holland's people had been sent to protect the Control Room. That meant fewer people to man the defences and that made Silva worried.

He had good reason to be worried. The Covenant had gotten attacked on one of their ships and in two separate strategic positions today. It was unlikely they were just going to take that lying down. They had to know they were by now, especially since the Covenant soldiers previously stationed here were long overdue for a check-in.

The fear of an attack was compounded for them all by the fact they had taken a few more prisoners, grunts to be exact. They were a considerable security risk if a Covenant attack hit. That was why Silva had them put in a secure cell deep inside the complex.

He didn't stop there though. He doubled patrols on the perimeter the second Holland relinquished command of the base to him when he left for the Control Room. He also had the ODSTs set up turrets at specific points to add to the defences. Silva was finally in charge of the butte he had taken and was wasting no time in making sure everyone knew that, especially the Spartans.

Jun and Linda had been ordered to set up sniper's nests. It was a good idea, but Garrus couldn't help but feel he was trying to keep them back. Silva wanted his ODSTs to head the defence, not the Spartans. He couldn't do the same with the Normandy crew or Kat for that matter.

While Silva was in charge of the inner perimeter, she had taken over direct command of the outer perimeter. She requested the Normandy assist her, keeping them out of Silva's control. Even he had to admit that with their reduced strength, they needed the extra hands. He didn't argue her decision, which suited Garrus just fine. He didn't want Silva pushing him around anyway.

As they walked along the edge of the butte they soon found Kat near an assortment of crates. She was scanning the night sky when she spotted to two walking. She moved over to them as they got closer.

"Anything to report?" She asked.

"Nothing from Shepard and everything is still quiet," Garrus told her. "We checked in with Samara and Zaeed's groups on the way here as well, they've seen nothing either."

"I'd say I was at least happy to hear all is quiet, but I don't trust it," Kat responded, sounding a bit unnerved. "Maybe it's all this talk about whatever happened with Keyes' team, but it's starting to get to me."

"At least you know you're not the only one feeling nervous," Jacob said, trying to lighten the mood.

As they were talking, McKay marched up to them from the other direction.

"Nothing on the west end," she reported. "Some of the Marines thought they saw some movement in the trees below, but we got zilch on sensors. I told them to keep an eye on it though, just in case."

"Well, with any luck it will stay nothing," Kat told her. "That way the only thing we'll have to worry about is Shepard and the Master Chief finding Keyes."

"Silva isn't exactly happy about the lack of information on that front," McKay informed her. "I think if he was at the Control Room instead of Holland, he'd be banging on the door and demanding Cortana to let him in. What exactly spooked her?"

The million credit question at the moment, one Garrus wished he had the answer to himself. There weren't too many people here who could provide a worthwhile answer though.

"I've been trying to figure that out myself," Jacob answered McKay. "I'm open to theories though."

"If it scared Cortana enough to lock us out of the Control Room it has to be big," Kat suggested, sounding rather wary about the whole situation. "Something has felt off about this ring since we got here to be honest. Finding out it was some kind of weapon didn't really resolve that feeling. What kind of weapon? What does it fire? How do you use it when it's stuck in orbit around a gas giant? Why put rocks and plants all over its surface? None of it makes any sense."

"And now we find out the Covies found something," Garrus added with the same air of suspicion in his voice as Kat's. "Something they're afraid of, to be specific. That means they probably can't control it or kill it."

Kat nodded in agreement as she looked back out into the darkness above.

"And if they can't handle whatever it is, what chance do we have?" She asked, speaking what they were all thinking. "This whole thing is starting to smell bad. The only thing I'm certain of is that we've stumbled into something huge. Something that's about to explode right under us and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it."

As she stared into the night air, her gaze narrowed on one particular part of the sky. Garrus took up his sniper rifle and aimed it at where she was looking. He soon saw a Pelican limping through the black towards Alpha Base.

"I thought all Pelicans were accounted for," the turian said cautiously.

"They were and no one is due back yet," Kat told him, her already guarded tone growing even more cautious. She flicked on her radio to contact control. "We have a Pelican listing in along the coordinates Six Zeta Niner, we need confirmation of intent."

The Pelican continued on its path, but Kat wasn't done with it there.

"I'm switching to flight control's frequency," she told the others.

Garrus followed suit, wanting to know what exactly Kat was so worked up about.

"Attention incoming craft, state your call sign and intention," the controller ordered.

"Charlie 217, requesting permission to land," the Pelican's pilot replied.

"Charlie 217? We thought you were lost," the controller told him.

"No, just uh, damaged," the pilot answered with a slight quaver. "Transmitting verification code now."

"Anything to report in?" The controller asked.

"Just really need to land, that's all," the pilot answered hurriedly. "We're in need of repairs."

The Pelican was soon directed to land. The conversation didn't seem all that remarkable, but Kat's demeanour remained unchanged. She started walking away at a very brisk pace.

"Where are you going?" Jacob asked they tried to keep pace.

"Charlie 217 was reported missing after the Autumn's crash," she noted aloud. "That was before Silva took the Butte. How the hell did they know to come here?"

"Maybe they caught our frequency," Garrus suggested. "We've been sending it out in hopes of finding more survivors."

Kat shook her head as she kept marching.

"It's too convenient," Kat responded vehemently, still looking straight ahead. "That pilot sounded more worried than relieved to find us here."

"He did sound a bit unhinged and direct," McKay admitted. "You want me to get security over there?"

"Do it quietly, I don't want him tipped off," Kat ordered her.

McKay walked off to gather some Troopers while Garrus walked up beside the Spartan.

"He could just be a nervous pilot, Kat," he told her.

"What does your gut tell you, Vakarian?" she asked him in response.

"Better safe than sorry," he admitted. "It couldn't hurt."

Kat nodded in agreement and approached the designated landing pad. There, she surveyed the scene and pointed out orders to the others.

"Garrus, move over to those storage bins and acquire a line of sight," she ordered, looking at him over his shoulder. "Jacob, tell that machine gun nest over there to turn towards the Pelican's door. Hold your fire until we're sure something is wrong. I'll be by the weapons locker."

Garrus did as told, moving towards the storage bins. As he did, he spotted McKay moving into position with a number of ODSTs. Following close behind them was Jack, looking rather curious at the whole scene. When she spotted Garrus she ran over to him.

"Did we capture another one?" She asked. "What's with all the scrambling?"

"Just stay down and hope that you don't have to help us," Garrus told her quickly. "There's something up with that Pelican."

Jack seemed to light up at that suggestion, moving into position alongside Garrus in the storage bins. Garrus wasn't about to shoo her away, they could use the extra biotic muscle after all. The Pelican soon touched down on the path, seemingly unaware several guns were being pointed at it. The doors slowly opened and Garrus was the first one to see that Kat had been right. In the doorway, partially covered in shadow, was an Elite's snarling mouth.

Garrus got ready to fire, hoping for a brief moment that the Covie was a prisoner. When the door dropped and more Elites were revealed that hope vanished. They were all in silver armour, armed with plasma swords and rifles. They seemed confident for a brief moment, and then they saw everyone nearby pointing guns at them.

There was no order to shoot, just gunfire. Kat opened up first with her DMR, hitting one of the Elites shields. Garrus fired one of his rounds at the same Covie, blowing through the alien's defences and taking off his head. The machine gun beside Jacob opened up next, hitting one of the Elites several times before he brought up his sword to block the shots.

The Covies started pouring out of the Pelican, bursting from the side doors, out of the cockpit or just running off the ramp firing their plasma rifles at their aggressors. The element of surprise had eluded them, but they weren't about to give up on their mission. That seemed to suit Jack just fine, as she sent a shockwave rippling through their ranks, two Elites managed to dodge it, but it caught one and threw him into the side of the Pelican.

"And here I thought tonight was gonna be boring!" She shouted jubilantly as she fired her pistol into the Covenant squad.

The Covenant soon started to rally from the initial attack, tossing a plasma grenade at the machine gun nest in an effort to silence it. Jacob and the other Marines vacated the nest before the grenade hit any of them, but the explosion destroyed the gun regardless. Jacob and the Marines pulled back to better cover before the Elites could try again for their lives.

With the biggest bullet hose gone, the Elites tried to push forward. They returned fire on their human aggressors, killing two ODST troopers with their plasma bolts. One of the Elites tried to rush at the frontlines with his plasma sword. McKay let loose with her Battle Rifle, hitting his shield several times, but not slowing him down. Garrus, seeing the Drop Trooper in trouble, took aim with his omni-tool and activated an overload charge. The attack drained the Elite's shields and allowed McKay to land a clean shot through the alien's eyes.

The Elites soon realised that there were too many guns and they were far too exposed to break through this way. They pulled away, looping around the defensive perimeter in an effort to get to the base proper. As they did, many of them activated their cloaks, while others stood behind to cover their attempt. Garrus thought he saw one Elite in black armour leading the charge inside. He tried to get him in his crosshairs, but the Elite turned at the last second and opened fire on him.

"Shit!" The turian growled as bolts flew close his head, forcing him to duck.

Jack threw herself to the deck as the bolts came whizzing in, although she was quick to the stand up and try throwing out a biotic attack. It unfortunately missed the speeding Elite. Garrus managed to get off his shot, despite the suppressing fire. The bullet didn't hit the Covenant soldier center mass like he wanted though. It struck the Covie in his arm instead, wounding him, but allowing him to keep in the fight. He activated his own cloak moments later and vanished alongside his comrades.

Kat grabbed a rocket launcher from the weapons locker and aimed it at the Elites still huddling around the Pelican. She fired the weapon right at their transport. The projectile entered through the back and exploded inside the aircraft.

The blast caused Charlie 217 to go up in flames and take the Elites with it. Anyone close by was thrown back a bit by the blast or momentarily blinded, but other than that they were okay. The assorted ODSTs and Marines now refocused their gun sights towards the direction the Elites had fled while Kat sent out a message on open channels.

"Perimeter breach, I say again perimeter breach!" She shouted aloud as she readied her pistol. "Hostiles are in the zone! Elites, Spec-ops, heavily armed, highly dangerous, possibly an advance force for a full scale assault! Enemy has cloaking technology! Switch to infrared! All points, rally on sectors twelve and thirteen! We need to hunt them down!"

---

The rain continued pour down in buckets as the team trekked through the murky swampland. The Master Chief stayed on point, his eyes checking the motion tracker on his HUD constantly. Tali's shadows hadn't appeared again, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Getting ambushed by wild animals or more Covenant were possible distractions he could do without.

With that in mind, they tread carefully through the fog, never stopping for long. There wasn't much to look at anyway, beyond the naturally iridescent plant life and overgrown alien trees. The only unexpected sight was a crashed Covenant dropship.

Its two carrier appendages were lodged into the ground, bits of foliage already growing up into it. Its body was held up by the edge of a hillside. Looking up, they could see a large hole in the side of the dropship's cockpit, an indication of how it had ended up the way it was. It still looked odd seeing the craft just standing upright like it was, but it barely slowed them down.

"Probably shot down by Keyes' team," Chief suggested.

"I'm not so sure," Miranda questioned. "It doesn't look as recent, about a day old at least."

"If I could reach the cockpit I could find out when it crashed from the datalogs," Tali said. "But we don't have that kind of time."

"We'll see about figuring it out when we come back," Shepard told them all as they kept walking. "Let's just worry about Keyes."

It was still odd to find two dropships from both sides crashed so close to each other. Had they taken the other out in some kind of fight? It felt eerie, to say the least. With a Captain to find, however, it quickly passed from their thoughts. Peculiar as it was, it didn't seem too out of the ordinary.

They soon came upon a small ditch and a log bridge spanning it. Chief tested the large fallen tree with his foot, kicking it slightly. It seemed sturdy enough to hold all four of them so he began leading the team across.

As he got to the middle, however, his motion tracker went nuts. Yellow dots appeared all over the screen and he looked about in their immediate directions. He saw nothing though, just more trees, more fog, more rain and more shadow.

"What's wrong?" Shepard asked him, the Spartan's frantic search and sudden pause not going unnoticed.

"The tracker picked up friendlies everywhere all of a sudden," he said, still rather confused about what had happened. "I thought maybe..."

But as he spoke, the yellow dots vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

"They're gone," he said, sounding more flustered than anyone here had ever seen him.

"It was probably a malfunction then," Miranda suggested.

"I checked my equipment before I left," the Spartan assured her. "Everything was working fine."

Shepard turned to Tali for answers.

"You have some experience with Spartan Armour," he reminded her. "Can you give him a field diagnostic?"

"I can, but I can't imagine anything being wrong with it," Tali told him sincerely. "My first guess would be water damage, but MJONIR armour is airtight. It has to be for missions that take place in vacuums."

"Can we do it on more stable ground at least?" Miranda asked. "A log over a ditch isn't exactly stable."

Tali turned to the Normandy's XO with a sly look in her eyes.

"Maybe you should reconsider dressing in heels for missions," she suggested teasingly. "You wouldn't have to worry so much about slipping."

"Ha, ha, you are hilarious, Tali'Zorah," Miranda grumbled back at her, clearly unamused. "A true comedian among your people even, can we please get off the log now?"

The group walked the rest of the way off the log, but Tali wouldn't get her chance to check the Chief's helmet. As they approached solid ground again, they heard the distant sound of gunfire over the next hill

"Those are UNSC rifles," Chief declared. "Come on!"

The small team crested the horizon of the hill and beheld their target, the entrance to the supposed weapons cache. Bullet tracers flew from its gaping open in the side of the rock and rushing forth from within was entire squad of grunts and Jackals. They were fleeing from the gunfire in droves, barely even trying to shoot back, making a beeline for the trees ahead of them. A rocket suddenly chased after them, slamming into one of the Shade turrets set up alongside the entrance. The explosion ripped apart two unfortunate grunts and the flying turret ended up landing on a Jackal as he made his escape.

"Keyes has them on the run," Shepard said with a smile. "Here I thought we were saving him a second time."

"Never count a good Marine down I suppose," Chief added.

"Let's get in there and help them then," Miranda declared.

Miranda slid down the side of the hill, digging her shoes into the sloping dirt. She opened fire on the retreating grunts and Jackals with her pistol before sending out a throw attack to knock them down.

"Help her out, Tali," Shepard ordered. "The Master Chief and I will cut off their escape."

"Not if we get them all first," Tali taunted as she followed after Miranda.

As Tali rushed down the hill, Chiktikka activating beside her, Chief and Shepard moved around towards the trees. They could flank the Covenant by heading down the hill from here. The various grunts and Jackals focused their fire back on Miranda and Tali, taking cover behind the massive trunks. As expected, they weren't watching their left as much as they should've.

Shepard sped in first with his charge attack, boosting straight into one of the grunts with ease. The attack put him right behind one of the Jackals, so he fired off his shotgun at the alien before he could turn around to defend his vulnerable rear. The bird-like alien fell forward onto the ground, never realising what had hit him. Shepard then sent out a shockwave at two more Jackals who hadn't yet realised they'd been flanked. The attack sent both of the aliens flying into the air.

The Master Chief was already halfway down the hill and firing his assault rifle into two grunts as he did. The Covies soon realised they had been flanked and opened fire on the Spartan. Chief's shields absorbed the bolts of energy, however, keeping him safe until he reached the bottom.

He tucked and rolled when the hillside ended. Popping bac kup, he fired a long burst of bullets at the grunts among the trees. The aliens started running for better cover, firing off overcharged bolts at the Spartan. One of those shots hit him, draining his shields completely. Chief quickly rushed behind a tree trunk, warning lights blaring in his ears. For a second, he looked to his motion tracker to see where his targets may have gone, but he stopped.

"Still not sure if it's working or not," he growled under his breath.

If Cortana were here she'd have already answered that issue and fixed it. He wondered for a moment if he had taken the AI for granted so quickly. Regardless, he still had a job to do. He moved out of cover with his rifle held high and began laying down a stream of fire as he rushed up.

The bullets met a Jackal's shields, not doing much to affect him. That was until a certain little combat drone suddenly came at the alien from the side. Chiktikka's energy pulse wounded the Jackal badly and he turned to protect himself from the next shot. That left him open to the Chief, he sidelined him with the end of his rifle as he ran past.

The Chief's shields took a few shots as he ran. He noticed they had come from his side and looked to see two grunts trying to move out of the kill zone. He tossed a grenade that landed behind them. It exploded moments later, showering them with shrapnel. He then returned his eyes forward, still searching for more targets.

He soon spotted Shepard firing on a tree as little pink needles fire back at him. The Commander kept behind cover as the shots hit the trunk. When he spotted the chief moving up, he pointed to the other side of the tree. Chief instantly knew what he meant and the Spartan moved to get behind the shooter.

He moved up slowly behind the tree, his rifle at the ready. Getting into position, he saw two more Jackals trying their best to keep Shepard pinned down. One of them spotted the Chief as he aimed his rifle and turned to shoot, only for him to be pulled away by a blue energy field and up into the air. Chief wasted no time in laying his rifle rounds into the remaining Jackal, catching the bird creature in the back.

The Covie turned as several bullets struck into his spine. His shield blocked the rest, but the Master Chief was close enough now that the alien's defences wouldn't matter. He smacked the shield with the end of his rifle once and then again before kicking at the Jackal. The force of the attacks disrupted the shield and gave Chief the moment he needed to fire straight down into the Jackal, with the remainder of his clip.

The swamp was silent again and the Master Chief met back up with Shepard moments later.

"Popped the other one while he was still in the air," Shepard told him. "Thanks for the hand."

"You too, Commander," Chief added.

"Let's link back up with Tali and Miranda then," Shepard said. "They're probably already talking to Keyes and his people now."

But when Chief and Shepard exited the clump of trees, they did not find the good Captain or his Marines. They found Tali, Miranda, a host of dead Covenant around them, but no UNSC soldiers to be seen. It was oddly suspicious, and not just to the Master Chief.

"Where's Keyes?" Shepard asked, rather perplexed at the scene. "Did you see them?"

"We saw nothing, Commander," Miranda told him, sounding just as bewildered as he was. "Tali and I got down here, we looked back, but there was no one there."

"That's impossible," Shepard said shaking his head in disbelief. "We saw them shooting, they were right here."

It made no sense, why would Keyes run away from back-up? He clearly should've known Miranda or Tali were friends. Chief walked up to the entrance and called inside.

"Captain!" He shouted. "Keyes! Sir! Anyone!"

But no answer came. Cautiously, he began to enter the structure proper, the others following behind slowly. Tali brought up her omni-tool as she did.

"Cortana helped me patch up my omni-tool's scan systems, boosting their range," she said simply. "I'll run the program, get a layout and see what it can pick up. By the way, Miranda and I got most of them. We counted."

"Oh you think so?" Shepard asked, not really believing her. "What makes you say that?"

"The fact you scared half of them back out when you started shooting and they ran into me and Miranda's line of fire," she light-heartedly claimed. "They practically charged right up her submachine gun's barrel and-"

Tali stopped mid-setence when her scan ended and it came back negative.

"Scanner reads all clear on life-signs," she said rather surprised. "They're not in this room. I don't get it, how'd they get out of here so fast?"

To be sure, they all circled the area, searching for any sign of where Keyes had gone to, or if he had been here at all. They carefully walked around the large hole in the centre of room and the structural pylons positioned around it. Other than some Covenant weapons crates and few bullet holes though, they found nothing. The only other thing of value were some spent shell casing, which Chief bent down to get a closer look at.

"Someone firing UNSC weapons was here," he declared. "The Covenant won't touch them, so who else could it be?"

Suddenly, a strange sound started coming from the hole in the middle of the room. They pointed their weapons at it, only to find it was just an empty elevator lift that was rising to meet them. There were no Covies on it and there were no Marines, just a lift. As it chimed, signalling its halt, the group approached it.

"Seems like this is our only way in," Shepard noted. "You think Keyes sent it for us?"

"If it was, why didn't he wait here for us?" Miranda asked. "Why did he leave at all?"

"This is the only way in or out of this room, besides the front door and maybe some vents up near the ceiling," Tali informed her. "We didn't see anyone leave. Where else would they go but back inside?"

"My point exactly, why would they go back inside?" Miranda asked in addition before looking to Shepard. "Commander, this seriously stinks to high heaven, just like that Monitor EDI encountered."

No one disagreed with Miranda there, but it was clear the only way they'd get any answers would be to head down into the structure themselves. That didn't mean they had to be reckless about it though.

"Tali, check the Chief's helmet before we head down," he ordered. "We need to be sure the motion tracker isn't on the fritz. Keep your omni-tool's scanners running as well, maybe we'll get lucky and pick up something."

Tali nodded and began running a quick diagnostic on Chief's helmet. Mere seconds later, she got a result on her omni-tool. It was a reassuring result, but it added to the questions.

"There's nothing wrong with the tracker," she told the Spartan. "Everything is working at full capacity."

"So what did I pick up out there?" Chief asked, rightfully concerned.

"Let's hope it was just some animals," she told him. "At least we know your tracker isn't malfunctioning, we'll need it inside."

They got into the lift and Chief instinctively went for control panel nearby. It was like every other console he had encountered on this ring, same symbols and everything. He pressed down on one of the familiar symbols and the lift started to move.

"You think Keyes is still somewhere in here?" Shepard asked the Spartan.

"I'm hoping he is," he responded. "But I won't lie. This all feels off somehow."

Cortana's words still hung in the Spartan's mind. The Covenant had found something in here. Something they were afraid of. Keyes had been alone with that something for more than twelve hours now. Was he even still alive and had they just made the same mistake by coming here? Whatever it was, Chief wasn't about to run away from it. The Captain needed him and if this thing was dangerous they needed to put a stop to it before it put more Marines at risk. Right now, that was all that mattered.

---

Entering the lower levels of the bunker, Varvok turned his helmet camera on. Whatever he found down here he was going to send straight to Balak. With any luck it would convince him that the Covenant was putting them at unnecessary risk and they'd be able to get away from this damn ring.

For the first few floors and corridors though, they found nothing. Empty hall, after empty hall greeted them. The entire complex seemed completely devoid of any form of life. There were, however, signs of some kind of fight just like outside. There were consoles smashed, broken pieces of the walls on the ground, plasma scorching everywhere and even blast marks on the floor caused by explosions. Again, just like outside, there were no signs of any bodies and only trace amounts of blood here and there.

"This is starting to creep me out," Zek told Varvok as he smoothed his hand over a blast mark. "You'd think we'd find something by now. Instead it's just a repeat of everything from outside."

"I was hoping we'd find a clue by now myself," Varvok admitted. "I think we may be in far enough now to try something though. Let me do a toxicology test."

Varvok had downloaded a contaminant scanning function for his omni-tool a long time ago. When you were employed by a group that used terror tactics, it was just good common sense to make sure you weren't breathing anything toxic. You never knew when some idiot would drop a vial or set off something poisonous. Varvok ran the program, but it wasn't the results he was expecting.

The scanner had picked up something, but it wasn't really airborne like he thought. It pointed him to something nearby on the floor. As he approached it, he saw it was a small puddle of green liquid. He and Zek bent down to get a better look.

"You guys bleed green?" The kig-yar asked.

"That doesn't look like blood to me," Varvok replied, studying the liquid carefully. "It's definitely not my people's blood at least. Whatever it is though, I'm picking up some kind of irregularity with it."

Varvok brought out a swab and collected a sample, placing it up to the omni-tool itself to give it a more in-depth scan. A few seconds later, he got a result.

"Toxicology suggests this liquid is full of microscopic foreign bodies," Varvok explained a she read off the scan's readings. "Perhaps the remnants of some kind of virulent bacterial infection, at least according to what these readings suggest. Whatever it is, it's warped the organic matter, twisted it somehow from its original form. The genetic structure scan suggests it is in fact..."

Varvok paused for a moment, trying to come to terms with what the scan said.

"Sangheili? It's genetically similar to sangheili DNA," he told Zek.

"That does not look like it came out of a sangheili, Four-Eyes," Zek told him.

"It could be stomach contents," Varvok suggested. "Maybe this virus induces vomiting."

"Can you be sure of that?" Zek asked.

"The sample is too badly contaminated," Varvok admitted. "I'd need more sophisticated equipment and someone who is more knowledgeable in this field to figure it out. At least we know what kind of disease this is now, some kind of rapidly mutating virus. One that is able to affect the genetic structure of the host. To what extent, I can't be sure, but it's something. Let's keep looking around, maybe there's a better sample we can use to find more answers."

It was the best idea they had at the moment, but not really an answer. The two stood up from the floor and walked further down the hall, searching for more potential clues. As they did, Zek discovered something even more intriguing, a small communications terminal.

He gave it a good once over, examining it closely. It didn't look in very good shape though, a cracked monitor, exposed wiring, broken panelling, but it looked in slightly better condition than the console outside.

"Can you get it to work?" Varvok asked.

"No," Zek admitted. "But Retz showed me a few things on recovering data. I can probably get us the last few messages it ever sent."

Zek reached into one of his envirosuit's pockets and pulled out a small device. He plugged it into the machine interface and began the recovery process. As he did, Varvok thought he heard something nearby. It was a low rumbling guttural sound. He turned to where it was, thinking he heard something sloshing next. Just as quick as it came it was gone again.

"Got it," Zek spoke up, catching Varvok's attention.

The batarian turned to see Zek pulling the device out and handing it to him.

"Portable jump drive, it should have everything in there," Zek explained. "Can you plug it into your omni-tool?"

"I can probably just access it remotely," Varvok assured him.

Varvok fiddled with his omni-tool for a moment and eventually got a solid signal on the little drive in his hands. A plethora of confused, damaged and badly corrupted words flashed before his screen. But there were key phrases he could make out.

"Containment failing," he read aloud with growing distain. "The Infected are growing in number. Sterilization recommended... parasite... something about a lockdown. It says, loss of contact with other sites could only mean disaster... parasite again. It sounds like they were going to kill the infected instead of trying to cure them."

"Well, killing usually is the answer to every problem in the Covenant," Zek told him with a shrug. "I have to admit it is the easiest solution for most things."

Varvok kept reading.

"Now it's just repeating words, abort, abort, escape, abandon ring." He said, his puzzlement growing with every word. "It's like someone was panicking on this last entry, but they couldn't finish it. It's like they were trying to send out a last minute warning. The last couple of words I can make out are 'kill the parasite.' Then it just devolves into corrupted code. It keeps using that damn word, parasite. What's it talking about?"

"My guess is whatever spreads this virus," Zek suggested. "You said that mutated sangheili blood was full of virulent transformative bacteria or something."

"Yes, but it's silly to call a virus or germs a parasite," Varvok told him. "Perhaps the sangheili don't appreciate accurate scientific terms. Unless there really is some kind of living organism down there, I doubt we're dealing with an actual parasite. They must've opened a chamber, unleashing some kind of ancient alien disease and when the infected figured out they were going to get hunted down and killed they must've fought back."

"Or they've lost their minds and gone nuts," Zek suggested, sounding a bit more cynical.

"We don't know that," Varvok told him sternly. "You said it yourself, the Covenant prefer to kill their problems. They wanted to cover up their mistake, that this damn ring world is some kind of plague ridden hell hole they led their people into. If we can find one of these infected people alive, and show them to Balak, then he'll have to believe us."

Zek looked down a darkened hall and sighed.

"So that means we're going further in, huh?" He asked.

"It's the only way we're going to find out for sure," the battarian informed him. "Besides, we need to find where this all started."

As they entered the corridor and started walking down, Varvok heard that low rumbling guttural sound. He then heard the strange sloshing sound once more, tromping down the corridor away from them. Something seemed to rush from the shadows, the sloshing sound followed it. Zek must've heard and seen it too, because he turned on the flashlight on his hazmat suit's head covering at the same moment Varvok did. The shined both of their beams down the corridor, bur saw nothing.

"You think it was one of the infected?" Zek asked nervously.

"If it was he took off pretty quick," said Varvok cautiously. "He might be scared, tread lightly from now on."

Varvok wanted to call out to the infected man, but he wasn't sure how he'd react. It was better to just try and follow him for now, get a better feel for his condition. Given what he had been through, shouting out aloud that he was here to help could scare him. The people sent to kill him before had been there to "help" before after all. And, as much as he wanted to believe they were still in control of their faculties, Zek had a point that the mutation effects of the virus could've affected their minds as well. They would need more information before they tried anything like that.

They walked slowly down the hall, ending up at a doorway that had been blown wide open from the other side.

"Well the infected are smart enough to use explosives at least," Zek suggested.

"This looks like it will take deeper into the facility," Varvok observed. "Down to wherever it is this all started, in this bunker and in every excavation site like it."

"How do we know we're close?" Zek asked.

"When we find that stuff that was growing out of the vents my men spoke of," Varvok replied. "We need to get a better look at it. I have a feeling that is the source of the bacteria that infected everyone. Then we can follow that... fungus or whatever it is, to the chamber where they unleashed this damn plague."

The two continued on their journey, walking into the dark, unsure of what next they would find. All Varvok knew was that they probably weren't going to like it. His fears of a deadly disease infecting the entire complex and his own people had been confirmed. If his men weren't already dead, perhaps they were wishing they were right now. He just hoped some were still alive.

---

One minute the night had been quiet, the next minute every Leatherneck on site was rushing to grab the nearest rifle they could grab. Kowalski supposed this was inevitable though, the Covenant weren't just going to let them keep the butte after all. They were bound to come back to try and retake it. He had just hoped they'd have more time to prepare. Or that the Control Room getting seized would mean the Army Jarheads would be getting some action instead of them.

Unfortunately, the Covenant for some reason thought taking back Alpha Base was more important than getting their hands on the giant ring-shaped super weapon. Aliens had weird priorities it seemed, but they were smart enough not to bunch up with each other for too long.

Their little infiltration squad had split up into several groups. One or two Elites were enough to tie down even the best Marine, so Kowalski prepared for the long haul tonight. He got his DMR and Pistol loaded and moved out with the team.

Sergeant Taylor suggested splitting their groups up in an effort to maximise their potential. Ramirez and Kowalski went with the Sarge to the east end of the base, while Pearson took Ellingham and Agley to the west. The plan was to assist in overwhelming the Elites. Even they wouldn't last long under sustained fire. The real problem would be finding them quickly, before the expected main attack force followed them up here.

"Keep on your toes, team," Taylor ordered as they ran. "These Spec-Ops Elites are tough customers, they proved that on Reach. Ramirez, you got that Vindicator rifle the Normandy handed out. Switch to disruptor rounds and aim for their shields."

"Got it, sir," Ramirez dutifully replied.

"Kowalski, you help me keep them suppressed," Taylor commanded next. "That will give Ramirez time to get an angle and bust through their shields."

Kowalski just nodded quickly, noticing the sound of gunfire rising into the air.

"Looks like someone spotted the bastards," Taylor observed. "Let's move!"

They changed direction, heading towards the Warthog storage lot within the complex. There, they found a small squad of Marines firing at two Elites who were moving among the various Warthogs. The Marines were set up behind the room's doorway, as well a portable defensive shield they had set up.

Among their fellow Devil Dogs were Zaeed and Samara. They were taking the occasional shots at the Covenant as they weaved and bobbed through the vehicles. Their efforts met with moderate success, through no fault of their own. Elites were pretty quick after all.

"Show me your damn eyes so I can blast them out of your bleedin' skull!" Zaeed shouted aloud over the sound of his Mattock assault rifle.

A Marine suddenly took two plasma bolts to the chest and fell back onto the cold hard floor. Seeing that, Kowalski quickly looked for cover. He and the rest of the team fell in behind Samara.

"Need some help?" Taylor asked the Justicar.

"They are dug in surprisingly well," Samara admitted as she reloaded her rifle. "Thankfully, none of the Warthogs' turrets are currently activated and they don't seem to know how to turn the cars on. That or they just refuse to touch human weapons as usual. Otherwise, we'd have machine gun turrets hitting our positions."

"We could throw a grenade in," Ramirez suggested. "Then again that seems like a waste of good Warthogs."

"Not to mention their fuel cells would probably all blow up and take us with them," Kowalski added nervously.

"Then its back to basics," Taylor decided. "We flush them out into the open and hit them hard."

That would be easier to do if they were in a wide open area instead of inside the base. They'd need a little strategy. Luckily, Samara had one.

"Massani," she called out to Zaeed. "I shall attempt to get closer, cover me."

"Doing my best, but they aren't staying put for long," Zaeed warned.

"Ramirez, back her up," Taylor ordered. "You have the disruptor rounds after all. The rest of us will help cover you."

Kowalski and Taylor then opened up on the Covenant among the Hogs. Zaeed joined in shortly after, firing off a concussion round to further discourage the Elites. Samara and Ramirez quickly ran into the storage room, making sure not to draw too much attention to themselves. Kowalski tried to see where they were as he kept up the fire, but they were soon among the Warthogs using them for cover.

It was then a plasma bolt nearly hit Kowalski in the head and he jumped back in shock. Taylor spotted the offending Elite and fired several times on him. The shots hit the shield and did little damage, but they forced the Elite back down.

"You okay, Kowalski?" Taylor asked.

"No problem, Sarge," he assured. "I still got my head."

"Pay more attention, Private," Taylor warned. "We're getting through this night in one piece, no matter what. I have intention of putting you in a body bag."

Taylor continued to fire on the Elites while Kowalski fell back in beside him. He wasn't about to argue, he had almost made a fatal mistake just then. Samara was more than capable of handling herself, he didn't have to watch her all the time. The asari soon proved it when one of the Elites was thrown out of cover by some kind of blue aura. Ramirez next popped up among the Hogs and let his Vindicator rip into the alien's shields.

"Quick, before he gets back in cover!" Zaeed shouted out. "Nail his ass to the wall!"

Zaeed aimed at the Elite's legs, blowing off a right tendon before the Covie could take off. Without shields he was vulnerable to attack and every Marine was quick to target him. Kowalski lined up a few shots on Covie himself, hitting him on the neck and shoulder. The alien kept standing though, firing back as he tried to get to more cover. Samara then came into view from behind a hog and used a pull attack on the Elite, forcing him into the air and away from safety.

"I got him!" Taylor called out.

Taylor fired a stream of bullets from his assault rifle as Zaeed aimed his Mattock again. The veteran merc fired another concussive shot that smacked into the floating Elite as Taylor's bullets ripped into him. The alien fell back to earth, full of holes, lying in a pool of his own blood.

That left his squadmate though, and he didn't intend to die so easily. He fired his plasma blasts at Samara, forcing the asari into cover. He then tossed a plasma grenade at the entrance to get rid of her extra firepower.

"Shit! Back!" Taylor ordered frantically.

The grenade landed near close to their position and everyone raced away from the doorway. Most everyone got to safety, but one poor Marine wasn't fast enough. The plasma blast sent him flying in an opposite direction and forced everyone down to the ground when the shockwave hit.

Kowalski turned on his back to see Samara through the blue smoke, still in the room. She had sent one of the Warthogs hurtling across the room and into the Elite. The alien managed to dodge the attack, but Ramirez opened fire on him with his Vindicator.

After a few good hits the Elite's shields were down. Samara then fired off a few shots from her submachine gun right into the alien's gut before using a biotic throw to toss him into a wall. She quickly rushed over to the downed alien and sent biotic punch straight through his skull.

She really didn't need anyone looking out for her.

Taylor helped Kowalski up as Samara and Ramirez rejoined the group.

"Well that went well," Zaeed said a he sat up. "Someone's going to have to fix the dents Samara put in that Hog though."

"How many do you think are left in the base?" Taylor asked aloud to the others.

"From what I understand there was a substantial force of Elites that came out of the Pelican," Samara explained. "Not many escaped the landing pads after their ruse was discovered, but it stands to reason they could be anywhere now."

"They may have already engaged the other squads," Ramirez suggested. "Let's open a channel and see who's closest to us. We can help out."

Samara seemed to agree, bringing up her omni-tool in an attempt to see how the battle was going outside. There were a few screaming voices over the airwaves asking for assistance and back-up, but before they could respond Samara received a priority message from Garrus. She opened the line to him and the turian's face filled up the screen.

"Samara, how's the hunt going?" He asked her.

"Two of the enemy have been vanquished," she informed him.

"Yeah, well we may have more incoming," he warned in his usual aloof way. "We spotted some Covenant dropships coming in just now. Jacob had Joker get the Normandy in the air and they've engaged them. That seemed to scare them off, but we think they're headed for a landing somewhere up-spin of the complex. Kat has gone with McKay to prepare a defence. She's taking Jun and Linda with her to help out."

That meant the follow-up to the initial strike force was here. If more Elites got inside this was going to become a blood bath real fast. Luckily, the Spartan were on it, so hopefully all they'd have to worry about were the remaining Elites already inside the base.

"Do they require further assistance?" Samara asked stoically.

"No, with the Spartans tied up we need everyone we can spare here at the base even more," he explained. "I ran into Buck and his team, I'm sending them your way with Grunt. Meet them near munitions; we've gotten reports of more Elites down there."

"What about you?" She asked out of concern.

"Me and the others are on this one group's tail," he explained. "They're moving through the personnel quarters topside, almost like they're searching for something. We'll take care of them though, even if it takes pushing them off the side of plateau to do so."

"Good luck, Vakarian," Samara replied.

Samara shut off the omni-tool and looked over to Sergeant Taylor and Kowalski.

"Well, let's get to munitions and check these reports out," Taylor conceded. "Better safe than sorry, we don't want them blowing up the whole plateau after all just to kill us."

"Better than sitting here on our asses all night," Zaeed agreed. "Come on!"

The group rushed off again, hoping to find these Elites before they did too much damage.

Linda took up positions with the other Snipers, as did Jun. The rock formations overlooking the front end of the plateau were a great sniper's nest and gave them a perfect view of incoming enemy force. The Covenant Dropships had taken a beating from the Normandy, two of their number had been destroyed on one pass and another badly damaged on a second.

Not wanting to risk the dropships crashing onto any Marines, Kat asked Joker to move the Normandy into position behind the Covenant's flight path. The plan was to block off any of the dropships trying to escape afterwards, rather than have one of them careen into them. If things went well, Joker probably wouldn't have many targets to hit anyway.

With the Normandy on stand-by, they now had to deal with the severely crippled, but still potentially dangerous, main attack force. They had ruined their most direct approach into the base, but that wouldn't stop them from trying another way. As the dropships touched down on the mesa and the squads of Elites poured out, Linda and Jun took aim at the aliens.

"You think they saw trenches on their way in?" Jun asked her.

"If they did, they don't think it's a problem," Linda responded. "Why else would they still land here?"

They watched the Covenant begin their advance with the dropships strafing the Marine lines. Linda waited for the go to fire. Kat and McKay were running the defence and they wanted the Covenant close enough to realise their mistake.

"We have eyes on several Elite officers," Linda informed Kat through the radio. "They don't look like they suspect anything."

"Of course they don't," Kat replied. "That suits us just fine. McKay says her people are ready, but she wants to see if you can pinpoint their leader."

Linda looked through the crowd and spotted one Elite that stood out. If her memory served her well, then this guy's armour betrayed him as a field commander. The way he was issuing commands to his troops made that even clearer.

"He's in the center of the group," Linda informed Kat. "One of these days they're going to learn dressing in gold is a bad idea."

A few moments later, Kat replied.

"I see him, I don't think McKay's people will have trouble killing him," Kat admitted. "They got every gun levelled on the centre. I need you and Jun to pick off the lower-tier officers. They'll try to rally the situation. The faster we put them down the sooner their subordinates will turn tail and run. Then we can get back to getting rid of our first crop of uninvited guests."

"Then tell McKay to fire away, Noble Two," Jun spoke up eagerly. "We'll handle the leftovers."

Mere seconds later, the trenches below lit up with the headlights of a pair of entrenched Scorpion Tanks. They began unloading shell immediately into the Covenant assault force. Explosions lit up the darkness as the Covenant were decimated by the first volley of shells. Linda picked out the body of the dead Field Commander amongst the aftermath, or at least what was left of him.

"Head bad guy is dead," Linda informed Kat. "I'm searching for his friends."

Linda spotted a few of the lower-ranked officers among the crowd, trying to get the other Elites and Covenant soldiers to rally. She found one pushing a grunt forward, despite the second volley falling around them. She got a good bead on him and fired a shot, cutting into the alien's eye with ease. As the Elite fell,

Linda moved to a second target, an Elite in red armour using two Jackals to help him advance forward. The Spartan took aim at one of the Jackals, placing her crosshairs over his right foot as he walked. She fired a shot, causing the Jackal to fall to the ground in pain. With the exposed, Linda repositioned her crosshairs over the Elite's head and pulled the trigger, slicing through the top of the alien's skull.

Linda quickly reloaded her weapon and searched for more targets. She spotted one Elite taking up cover behind a small rock, shielding himself from the incoming tank shells. Linda didn't think she could pull off a decent shot with the cover he had, but she could try something else. One of the rocks was angled a bit inward, if she hit it right she could caused the bullet to rebound into the Elite.

She took careful aim with the rifle, lining up the shot with the rock. This would be tricky, but if anyone could do she knew she could. She pulled the trigger and the bullet rocketed out of the barrel. It struck the rock just in the right spot and rebounded back towards the Elite, hitting him square in the face. The deflection had dulled the impact and it wasn't the most accurate shot, but the Elite was suddenly up on his feet, clutching his face in pain. Linda quickly fired another shot, hitting him in the back of the head as he turned from her.

As she looked for her next target, Linda saw the Covies starting to pull back. She could see a lot of Elites already dead on the field. Not all of them were her on Jun's handiwork, but it was still satisfying to see their attack faltering so quickly. There were still Elites on the field trying to force their comrades back into the fight, but even they had to see this was futile. The dropships slowly headed back down to the mesa, trying to cover their deployed squads below.

"Let's pick off the stragglers," Linda told Jun. "Make sure they know just how costly facing us really is."

"I was thinking the same thing," Jun agreed.

The two Spartans continued firing on the Covenant soldiers as they tried to rally, but everyone could see where this fight was going. The Spec-Ops Elites would soon discover they were on their own at this rate. For once, they were outgunned with nowhere to hide.

---

The Jackals fired up at their position, peppering the platform with plasma fire. Chief pulled back into cover to reload his assault rifle, avoiding one of the plasma bolts that had been aimed at his head. He began moving to a better position, one that wasn't saturated with plasma bolts hitting their cover every second.

The small squad of Covies had broken itself into smaller units, firing from several positions frantically. It gave the team a small advantage. They could concentrate on the individuals among the group more easily rather than worry about the squad as a whole. It still meant there were a lot more plasma bolts flying through the air though.

A few feet away from him, Chief saw Miranda send another furious volley of shots from her submachine gun down at the enemy. She managed to strike one Jackal who was too busy focused on something else to cover his flank. His unshielded side took the full brunt of her assault.

The Spartan also saw Shepard firing his own assault rifle off in bursts. He was making carefully aimed headshots on the grunts whenever they popped their heads out. Few of them were really aiming at anything, just firing up at the upper platform, hoping they'd kill something it seemed. Not the best use of their battery power.

At the same time, Tali used her Sabotage program to infect one of the Jackals' plasma pistols. When the alien next tried to fire an overcharged shot, the plasma coils backfired on him. The blowback overloaded his own shield and gave Tali the chance to fire a clean shot into the little bird-creature's skull,

Chief decided to put a stop to the firefight then and there though, not wanting to waste more time on these guys. He activated one of his frag grenades and tossed down into the Covenant ranks below. The blast killed two of the remaining Jackals and three more grunts. Chief then rushed in during the aftermath, landing atop one of the Jackals with both of his feet first. He then let loose a torrent of bullets, cutting down the two remaining grunts as they tried to run for cover.

With that, the motion tracker showed all clear, the fight was over.

"Think you can get back up?" Shepard called down to him.

The Spartan looked around the area. He immediately saw an open door to his right, where the Covenant had poured in from.

"I think our way forward is through here anyway," he told the Commander.

"I guess so," Shepard admitted, looking over to the open gap. "I'm not sure what wrecked this console up here, but I don't think we're going to be able to use it now. We're coming down."

As Shepard's team prepared to drop down to his floor, Chief reflected on how this little fight started. They had entered this large open room to find a broken console, most likely for another one of those light bridges. Down below they saw a whole squad of Covies run into the room like headless chickens, screaming and hollering.

Once again, they seemed surprised to have seen them in here. It was an all too familiar pattern from what occurred outside. As Shepard's team hit the floor and walked over to him, he decided to share his concerns.

"That firefight seemed a bit sudden didn't it?" He asked them all.

"They weren't exactly the best coordinated groups of defenders," Miranda admitted. "They weren't fighting as a unit. Just like all the other squads we've encountered so far have."

"That may have something to do with the lack of leadership," Shepard suggested. "We haven't seen a single Elite in any of these groups either. Isn't that supposed to be protocol for them?"

"Grunts and Jackals are rarely allowed to use their own initiative," Master Chief answered. "The only time you see squads like this without Elites leading them is when they're being used as cannon fodder. I haven't seen many Elites break their own rules of fighting like this though. There is usually always at least one Elite warrior per Covenant squad."

Tali was the first to ask the question they were all thinking just then.

"So where are they then?" She questioned. "Keyes couldn't have killed them all but left their subordinates alive."

"I don't know," The Master Chief confessed with a slight shrug. "But something is definitely not right about all this."

"We best keep a look out for our missing Elites then," Shepard suggested. "We could be walking into an ambush here."

Wary of a possible trap, the four walked carefully through the next door. They found a corridor that split in two directions in a square-like pattern. Shepard and Miranda took one way, while the Chief and Tali took another.

They met up again moments later on opposite of each other. Looking into the room beyond the next door, they couldn't see much due to a wall blocking their direct view. They could see four Jackals off to the side, seemingly guarding another door from what they could see.

The team quickly moved inside the room quietly, keeping their eyes on the Jackals as they took up cover. When they got a better view of the aliens, they noticed they were looking towards the door they were guarding, not out at them. It was curious, but at the moment all anyone could think was how this played to their advantage.

"Let's sneak up on them," Shepard suggested. "We can probably take them by surprise."

"Here's hoping," Miranda concurred.

They group spread along the width of their portion of the room, keeping their guns trained on the Jackals all the while. Chief and Shepard had a clear shot of the back of two of them, while Miranda and Tali moved towards their side. They would make this as quick and clean as possible.

The Master Chief fired first, landing a shot square in the back of a Jackal's head with his pistol. As one of the other Jackals turned to face the Spartan, he was met by Shepard biotically charging into him. After impact, the Commander then fired his shotgun into the tumbling bird. The two remaining Jackals turned to Shepard and the Master Chief, overcharging their weapons as they did. They were taken completely by surprise by Miranda and Tali from the side, however.

The quarian fired two blasts from her shotgun. Both impacted one Jackal, tearing open the side of his torso. Miranda sent a warp attack at the last Jackal before hitting him with a spray of submachine gun rounds. The Jackal turned to block some of the shots, but she wasn't deterred by his shield. She sent a biotic slam attack curving towards his side. It hit him and lifted the alien into the air and throwing him back into the ground with a sickening smack.

"That was easier than it should've been," Miranda noted as she looked over the bodies. "They were more concerned with watching the door than watching their backs. We never should've gotten this close. I'd expect this of the gas-breathers, but I thought these overgrown buzzards were smarter than that."

"It's too sloppy," The Master Chief stated, agreeing with the overall conclusion. "Even without Elites looking over their shoulders, Jackals don't leave themselves open like this. They're more professional than that, it's how they get paid. Unless..."

The Spartan paused for a moment as he tried to think.

"Unless what?" Shepard asked out of concern.

"They were looking at the door when we came in," the Spartan reminded them. "They weren't guarding it. They were making sure something didn't come out."

Intrigued by the suggestion, the team walked over to see exactly what was behind the door. When it opened wide, however, they only discovered another mystery altogether.

"Oh my God," Miranda said cringing slightly in disgust.

There, lying in the corridor just past the door was the body of another Jackal. The state of decay suggested it had been there awhile, but that wasn't the gruesome part. The entire hallway beyond the poor dead bird-creature was covered in alien blood. Both the walls and the ceiling were practically oozing purple. Some of the blood had even started to coagulate, caking the entire corridor.

"Keelah," Tali nervously spoke up. "What the hell happened here?"

Chief bent down to get a better look at the dead Jackal, giving him a good examination. Miranda steeled her senses and walked over to corpse herself. She eventually nodded her head, coming to a conclusion.

"Looks like he was beaten to death," she suggested. "Severely beaten to death, I might add. All his bones are broken, there's bruising everywhere, even his armour is almost caved in. I... can't tell if they're post mortem or not. But I definitely don't see any bullet holes or plasma marks."

"Marines wouldn't do this," The Chief stated as he looked over the body. "Elites might, but never this brutally. Not on a Jackal, not even a grunt."

"Then what the hell killed him?" Shepard asked, his concern growing.

"My guess," Miranda began to suggest. "Whatever it is Cortana was so afraid of."

The Master Chief had to admit, that was probably the answer. The question now was, what kind of thing would be so viciously cruel that it would beat a Jackal this badly until most of its blood was smeared all over the walls? He couldn't think of anything so relentlessly and needlessly brutal, save for the Brutes maybe. He doubted they were responsible for this though, for the simple fact the body didn't look like it had been eaten.

They walked over the dead Jackal, moving through the caked blood as fast as they could. They didn't get far before something started to seriously smell. It wasn't the blood though. It was something far more potent. Even Tali, with her fully-functioning olfactory filters, got a hint of the odour.

She followed the scent to an open door leading off to a side room. They couldn't get inside because it was blocked by a bunch of overturned Covenant crates, but there was a space enough above it to see into the room. Upon looking inside, she immediately wished she hadn't.

"Oh Keelah, that's just wrong!" She shouted aloud in horror as she stepped back. "I think I'm gonna be sick."

Shepard took a moment to steady Tali, before her little prophecy came true. They didn't want her vomiting inside her helmet. When she looked stable enough to stand, she propped herself up against the wall. Miranda, Chief and Shepard then went to take a look into the room themselves. Immediately, they all stepped back out of shock as Tali had.

The room was full of bodies, both Jackals and grunts to be precise. Their putrid stink clouded the air, their blood dripping from the walls, their face contorted into several horrified frozen screams. They were piled on top of each other like logs, a mass open tomb for all to see.

"What in God's name happened down here?" Miranda asked, her voice shaken slightly by the scene.

"Here's a better question," Shepard posited, holding his hand over his mouth so he wouldn't breathe in the stench. "Notice anything missing from that room full of dead Covenant?"

"Yeah," the Master Chief answered instantly. "I can't see a single Elite body in the pile."

"Maybe they trapped them all in there to let whatever is down here kill them," Miranda suggested.

But the Chief shook his head.

"If there was some kind of fight in there, they wouldn't just run away from it," Chief explained. "They don't do that, not even to save their own skins."

"One thing is clear, we need to find Keyes and get the hell out of here ASAP," Shepard concluded.

"Sounds like a good plan to me," Tali concurred with Shepard. "The more I see of this place, the more I want to see less of it."

The Master Chief was also looking forward to finding Keyes, getting some answers and leaving this bunker behind. Cortana's words rang truer with every step. He did not want to end up like the Covies in that room. He just hoped the Captain and his squad hadn't already met the same fate.

---

Varvok had expected to find their mysterious fungus, but he hadn't expected so much of it. The vents of the room were practically covered in the stuff. It was already spreading to some of the walls. This was faster than any normal mold he had seen. Now that he was getting an up close looking of the stuff though, he doubted it was truly completely botanical in origin. It was certainly organic, but it didn't really look entirely like a plant either.

As Zek looked for a way out of this room, he kept doing tests with his omni-tool. None of it seemed to make much sense. There seemed to be so many DNA signatures in the fungus that it couldn't get a precise reading. It was almost as if it was made up of different species, but that was impossible. Before he could even attempt to make sense of it all, Zek called over to him.

"I think I found an elevator down," he told him. "The console is messed up though. Give me a second with it."

Zek's opened a wall panel and began trying to hotwire the system to reroute power to the console. Varvok hoped his cursory knowledge of technical mechanics would be enough to get them going. He wanted to keep pushing deeper into this facility, to find the answers that continued to elude them. That and he wanted to get away from this infested room.

The fungus hadn't gotten far outside the vents, but it was spreading across the walls. The stink in gave off wasn't great either. Even through his hazard-suit he could smell the pungent odour of what seemed like a cross between rotten vegetables and roadkill.

He knew he should've checked the olfactory filters on the hoods of these things before he brought them along. Trying to distance himself from the stench, Varvok walked over to see how Zek was doing.

"Are we mobile yet?" He asked as he looked over the kig-yar's shoulder.

"Just a second," Zek tried to assure him. "It's been awhile since I've had to hotwire something. Not to mention the fact that I've never messed with Ancient Forerunner tech before. I used to do this on shuttlecraft I wanted to snag, and that was when I was still young."

Zek didn't seem to give himself enough credit though, as only a minute later the console sprang to life once more. The holographic panel lit up the mostly darkened room and Varvok quickly moved to call the lift up to them. He pressed down on one of the symbols and soon after heard the sound of the elevator moving up towards them.

"You do realise that is likely where all this fungus is growing up from," Zek told him as they waited.

"That's exactly why we need to go down there," Varvok reminded him. "It's where we'll find the evidence we need."

"I get that," Zek replied. "But I'm just saying that this doesn't look good. You probably aren't going to like what we find down there. By that, I don't mean the proof your boss needs. I'm talking about your men. If they were exposed to whatever disease the Covenant let loose, they could be dead already."

"It hasn't been that long," Varvok argued. "Even if they are infected, we can probably find a cure for them or at the very least treat them until the illness works itself out of their system."

"And if you can't do either because they're already gone?" Zek asked him.

The batarian hung his head slightly. Varvok wasn't stupid. He knew that the prospects looked grim. He couldn't blame himself if they died, the Covenant led them to their deaths not him. But he couldn't live with himself if he didn't at least try.

"I'm not going to think they're dead until I see their bodies," Varvok explained. "If they are... then at least I know what happened to them. When Torfan happened, my family wondered if my brothers had gotten out for days. Weeks went by without word. Eventually, we had to accept they were dead and we'd never know what had happened. We'd never know if they suffered, or where they died, or who did it."

Varvok tried to blot the thoughts out of his head again. He didn't want to think about his brothers' deaths, he never wanted to think about them.

"I wondered for years if I hadn't done enough to try and help them, if I should've acted when I first heard about Torfan." Varvok continued on. "Eventually, I accepted the fact that there was nothing I could've done for my brothers back then. It was out of my control."

Varvok suddenly steeled himself as the elevator doors opened.

"But this time is different," he declared as he entered the lift. "This time I am in control. I can actually do something. I'm not a helpless observer, I'm their Leader. I need to believe my men are alive, that I have a chance to save them. If it was your crew down there, wouldn't you want to believe you still had that chance?"

Zek gave a thoughtful look and eventually nodded.

"I just want to know if you're ready for the likely possibility this isn't different," Zek elaborated. "When you work with the Covenant, you soon find a lot of things are beyond your control."

"We'll find out soon enough, Zek," Varvok informed him. "Now come on, we best not waste time."

Zek got on board with Varvok and they soon descended into the lower reaches of the facility.

---

Kowalski kept his rifle levelled as they walked slowly through the halls. They had found Sergeant Buck and his squad already waiting for them near munitions storage. Grunt was with them as well, sporting his massive Claymore shotgun as usual. The ODSTs were wearing specialised thermal-imaging gear to help them locate the cloaked Elites.

They hadn't spotted anything immediately, but they weren't about to give up the search. Buck's team took point while everyone else backed up the rear. Only moments into their sweep, they reached a corner and Buck suddenly held up a hand stopping everyone in their tracks.

"I see something," he whispered. "We got targets in the zone."

Samara approached the Sergeant and he handed her his thermal specs. Taking a quick look through them she saw the heat signatures of four Elites still in cloak. They were going from room to room down a long hallway, in what seemed to be some kind of search pattern. All anyone else could see were doors opening on their own, and the faint outline of something shimmering.

"Garrus mentioned that they seemed to be looking for something on the surface," Samara observed in a low whisper. "Perhaps the entire Spec-Ops team's objective is different from that of the assault squads."

"Seems like it," Buck concurred. "Best they don't find whatever they're looking for. So how are we going to play this one, guys?"

"They're heading down the corridor now," Sergeant Taylor brought up. "We should get someone ahead of them. Get them sandwiched between two groups. That way they can't slink off in a cloak."

"Yeah, while we engage them from behind they run straight into someone else's guns," Dutch added. "Sounds like a good idea to me."

Zaeed was quick to volunteer his services.

"I can get in front of them," he assured them. "Just let me bring Grunt along and maybe one other. We'll get better coverage that way."

"Alright, Ramirez I want you with them," Sergeant Taylor ordered. "We'll send them running into you, so be ready and watch for crossfire. Switch to thermals on your imaging scope, it should help you locate them."

Ramirez nodded and went with Zaeed in Grunt. They'd take a corridor that would put them in front of the Elite's path, closing the trap. Now all the others had to do was spring it. Kowalski huddled up among the rest of the team as Buck explained their plan.

"We can find cover in the doorframes and on both of the corners here," Buck explained. "Me, Rome and Dutch will open fire first, that will get their attention. Samara, you hit them hard when you get an opening. Sergeant Taylor, Private Kowalski, you keep them suppressed."

"Alright then, let's get this done then," Taylor declared.

The team quickly moved out along the corridor. Kowalski found cover in a small outcropping part of the wall. Taylor moved behind a crate that had been left in the corridor in front of the private, while Samara took cover in a doorframe across from Kowalski. Buck and Rome took up the adjacent corners of the hall and Dutch moved into a doorframe behind Samara.

The Elites hadn't spotted them yet, as they were too busy checking some of the rooms ahead of them. They could hear the sounds of them turning over everything within as they searched. And when they did come back out of the rooms, Buck opened fire.

The ODST's shot hit one of the Elites in the back of the head, but his shields kept him safe. The Covenant immediately returned fire, unleashing a furious barrage of plasma bolts. Each of them quickly moved to cover where they could find it in the corridor, as their weaker shields would not hold up under sustained fire.

Kowalski opened fire on the Covenant intruders, trying to keep them pinned. When one of the aliens poked his head up to fire, he shot off a burst of shots that hit the alien. The Elite growled from the hits and turned his rifle towards the Private. He shot off a single plasma bolt before going back down. Kowalski had to pull back a bit when the searing heat of the bolt struck his cover, but he quickly poked his gun back out and began firing again.

Samara was also keeping the Elites suppressed, but that didn't mean they weren't fighting back. Plasma bolts slammed into the doorframe, one of them hitting her barrier. She pulled away from the fight for a moment to let it recharge, but she realised they'd need to put more pressure on the Covenant. She looked back into the room she was in. Finding a weapons crate she grabbed one end and used her biotic powers to shove it out the door and into the hall.

"Kowalski, Taylor," she shouted. "Move up!"

She opened fire again on the Covenant, giving the Sergeant and Private a chance to reach cover. Kowalski rushed out sliding in behind the crate while Taylor leapt towards it. They both began firing away directly into the Covenant positions, much easier to do now that they were in the middle of the hall. As they kept firing, forcing the Elite's heads down, Buck's squad moved up from their previous positions in the rear. Dutch ran up the corridor firing from his hip before ramming himself into cover.

Gunfire rained down on the Covenant Spec-Ops team, saturating the corridor with bullets. As one Elite tried to fire back, Taylor activated the omni-tool he had been provided just the day before. He used it to send an overload attack at the Elite, shorting out his shields.

That gave Buck the chance to land a solid stream of hits on the alien. Riddled with bullets from the ODST's Sergeant's submachine gun, the Elite fell to the floor. He kept firing his gun determined to battle to the last. Romeo then shot a clean bullet into his skull, putting him down for good.

With one of their number dead and their enemies too close, the Spec-Ops Elites began to pull back to what they hoped would be a better position. They started to make their move by rolling away from cover and opening fire as they ran back, activating their cloaks as they did. They didn't get far though, for as soon as they began to pull back a shotgun blast rang out. Grunt fired at one of the Elites from behind, blowing out his shields and then his back in one shot.

"Ha! Didn't see it coming, did ya?" He laughed as he reloaded.

Zaeed quickly tossed out an inferno grenade into the path of the Covenant. The fiery blast scorched one of the Elites before Ramirez shot a few holes into him. He stumbled back, still ablaze, aiming his weapon at the two humans and the krogan. Grunt managed to act first though, charging into the Covie and sending his burning body flying into a wall. The Elite then collapsed to the floor dead.

There was only one Elite left now, but he knew he was trapped. He pulled out his Plasma Sword and fired with reckless abandon in every direction, using his blade to stop bullets from hitting him. Grunt and Zaeed managed to hit him with two concussion shots, but he quickly recovered and began to charge back towards Kowalski.

The Private fired constantly at him, as he and Taylor began to fall back. Thankfully the alien's charge was halted by a powerful biotic shockwave from Samara. The attack rippled across the floor, slammed into the Elite and threw him into the opposing wall.

"Stay down and this will be quick," Samara commanded, pointing her weapon at him.

Everyone else in the hall did the same, but the Elite did not intend to die alone. He roared proudly as he brought up a plasma grenade in his hand. Anyone in the corridor that saw the look in the Covenant Soldier's eyes knew what he intended.

"Back!" Taylor screamed aloud.

Everyone rushed away or dove into cover as the plasma grenade went off, killing the Elite. Thankfully, everyone had managed to get to cover in time. As the smoke cleared, everyone got back on their feet and regrouped.

"Still got my eyebrows," Buck quipped. "I think we're good."

"I thought the gas-suckers only did that," Romeo commented.

"It is not an uncommon reaction," Samara plainly informed him. "It depends largely on how committed one is to his or her cause."

Kowalski looked around the area a bit, surveying the battle scarred hallway.

"What do you suppose they were looking for?" He asked to everyone as he scanned the corridor.

"Covies don't use our weapons," said Dutch as he thought aloud. "They didn't seem to be trying to blow up the base with our munitions. Beats me what they were trying to find."

"Maybe prisoners?" Zaeed suggested. "Captured Covenant Weapons?"

"Well, whatever it is we've cleared this section," Taylor shrugged. "I think we should get up topside, see if we can help Garrus mop up the rest of them."

"Agreed," Buck concurred. "We can't let him have all the fun now can we?"

The team rushed off to locate Garrus and end this attack once and for all.

---

They expected to find more Covenant by now, but after the group of Jackals in the previous room, they weren't encountering anything. The Master Chief paced around the empty space, peering at the motion tracker to find some source of movement. All he could see were the friendly yellow signatures of his three companions. According to the tracker, there were no Covenant in the vicinity.

"You'd think if the Elites were waiting to ambush us they would've hit us by now," Shepard said as he walked over, looking at the platform level above them.

"I was just thinking that," Chief agreed. "Then again, who's to say they're even alive now?"

"It is starting to sound like we're dealing with some kind of alien creature," Shepard admitted. "I'm just not sure what sort of animal could take out a whole facility full of Covenant like this."

There weren't many fauna on this ring that Chief could readily call out as prime suspects. Those blind two-legged predators were one, but this didn't seem like their work. He tried his best to think, to figure what it was Cortana was so worried about. If only she had come with them, they could've sorted this out by now. Weren't they supposed to be a team? That was why he was assigned her.

"Master Chief?"

Shepard's voice pulled him out of his quiet frustration and the Spartan looked to him.

"I don't know, Commander," he finally spoke up. "If it was an animal why leave so many of those Covies back there to rot? And the Covenant wouldn't be afraid of animals either. That and it just doesn't seem right."

"What doesn't?" Shepard asked.

"I don't know, it just doesn't seem like this situation was a random attack by a pack of carnivores," he explained. "It feels... more purposeful somehow. Those bodies didn't just die where they were. Some of them were stacked on each other. Not many animals do that."

Shepard eventually nodded and looked over to Miranda and Tali. The two were near another of the locked doors on their level, trying to hack into them.

"We have a way out?" He called out to them.

"Not yet," Tali answered. "We're going to try another door."

Shepard turned back to the Master Chief shaking his head.

"This place feels like a goddamn maze," he grumbled. "I hope we don't get turned around here by accident."

"Maybe you should get out of here before that happens, sir," Chief suggested.

Shepard looked taken aback by the suggestion.

"I've dealt with creepier situations, Chief," he assured him. "I'm a little unnerved, but I'll be fine."

"It's not that," Chief tried to tell him. "I just have a suspicious feeling about all this. I don't want your crew losing their Commander while going after mine. It doesn't feel right."

"Keyes gave us a ride off of Reach, I owe him," Shepard replied simply. "Besides, I'm not leaving you down here alone now, especially if there really is some pack of alien predators lurking about."

Chief appreciated the Commander's sense of loyalty, but he almost wished he had taken up the suggestion. He wasn't about to argue the point now. He had been with the Commander long enough to realise that he wouldn't turn tail so easily. He just thought it was worth a shot.

"What's really bothering you, Chief?" Shepard asked him. "We had this same conversation before on the way in."

He supposed it was pointless to keep hiding it at this point. He wasn't being very good at hiding it anyway. At least not from Shepard, he just seemed to know.

"Reach," he exclaimed plainly. "Pretty much everyone I knew or cared about, save for Linda, died there. I barely even got a chance to mourn before cryo-sleep."

Shepard said nothing, but Chief could tell he was listening intently.

"When I wake up, I'm partnered with you and your team," he continued. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful sir, but it feels too soon."

"No, I understand," Shepard told him earnestly. "They were your family after all. They're supposed to be irreplaceable."

"That's part of it," Chief continued. "They were the only people I could trust in the field for a long time. Now, I'm putting my trust in you, your team and Cortana all of a sudden. I'm not saying you haven't earned it, but it's still a huge change."

Chief looked back over to Tali and Miranda as they worked on another door.

"Your crew," he began. "How do you see them?"

"To be honest," Shepard shrugged. "I'm not sure what I'd do without any of them. They put their lives on the line everyday though, and I know what that means."

"My team was the same," Chief informed him. "Not just the ones who became Spartans, but everyone else was too. Those who didn't make it through augmentation, it hurt when I saw what happened to them. You've been lucky, Commander, so many are still with you."

"I still lost too many," Shepard informed him softly. "And you still have Linda, and now you have us. We'll never be them, and I don't want to try, but you're welcome with us. And for what it's worth, Chief, I'd put my trust in you any day."

Chief almost smiled at that, not that it would've mattered as Shepard wouldn't have been able to see it. It was then he almost considered giving Shepard the Spartan version of the gesture. But he clenched his hand. Despite his respect for the Commander, it still felt like it was too soon. That was a step he wasn't willing to take, an attachment he wasn't prepared to take on again.

"Commander!"

They both looked to see Miranda waving them over.

"Tali found a door out!" She proclaimed.

They approached Miranda and she led them to the door. It was behind a Covenant weapons crate sitting on a small platform at the back of the room. Needler guns and ammunition were strewn across the floor beneath it. Tali was already near it, prepared to enter.

"This one was already open," she explained. "I think the Covenant were trying to keep it closed with that crate. But, maybe Keyes moved it or someone else did."

"If it was Keyes then we're on his trail," Shepard determined. "Come on, let's get going."

They entered the door into another hallway. Mere seconds upon entering they heard a strange gurgling sound from up ahead. It was followed by breaking glass and then two gunshots. Chief instantly recognized the calibre.

"That's a Marine M6D sidearm if I've ever heard it," he declared. He then pointed ahead of them. "It came from that door."

Shepard motioned the others forward and they approached the door cautiously.

"Alright, time to get some answers," Shepard told the team as they stacked up. "Weapons down for now, but they may be engaged with something in there. Be ready for anything."

They all nodded in agreement as Chief and Tali went first. As the door opened, a large room was revealed to them as well as one lone Marine huddled against a wall. The second he spotted the quarian and the Spartan he screamed aloud and began opening fire on them with his pistol. Chief immediately pushed Tali out of the way as the bullets hit his shields. They both retreated into cover in the doorframe.

"STAY BACK! STAY BACK, YOU AIN'T TURNING ME INTO ONE OF THOSE THINGS!" The terrified Marine screamed at the top of his lungs as he kept shooting. "I'LL BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT! GET AWAY FROM ME!"

"Son of a bitch, he's gone mental," Miranda growled under her breath, a bullet striking part of her cover.

"You okay, Tali?" Shepard quickly asked her, gravely concerned.

"I'm fine, Master Chief shielded me from the shots," she assured him, looking next to Chief. "Thanks, by the way. I don't want to test my shields against your overpowered sidearms."

"Anytime," Chief replied simply.

Shepard next tried to communicate with the panicking Marine.

"We're not the enemy," he shouted at him. "Stand down, soldier! You're safe now!"

But the Marine only winced in terror when Shepard showed his face and opened fire again as he let out a nervous scream.

"Don't touch me, you freaks!" He grunted at them. "I won't be like you! I'll die first!"

More bullets slammed flew at them, hitting the wall behind them. Miranda let out a rather irritated sigh, a blue aura surrounding her hand.

"That does it!" She declared sneering.

"Miranda, he's just scared, don't do anything rash," Shepard ordered.

"Please, this isn't Jack you're talking to, Commander," Miranda replied, sounding a bit a offended.

Miranda stepped out and threw out a biotic attack. A stasis bubble formed around the Marine, stopping him from shooting another bullet at them. She then walked over to the frozen soldier and punched him across the face. The field dissipated and he fell to the floor. Miranda grabbed his gun before he could do more damage with it.

"You'll get this back when you learn not to shoot friends with it," she told him sternly.

The Marine got back up, huddling into the corner while he rocked back and forth.

"Go away! Find your own hiding place! The monsters are everywhere!" He demanded.

"Well at least he knows we're not going to kill him now," Tali said as they approached. "He's still crazy though. Best we take what we can get."

"What monsters are you talking about?" Shepard asked the Marine. "You mean whatever killed the Covenant? What happened here?"

But the Marine didn't answer him. He just kept rocking in place, clutching his legs in his arms and muttering to himself.

"Play dead," he said shaking. "That's what I did, play dead. They took the live ones. Oh God, I can still hear them! Monsters..."

The Marine broke down into sobs. Shepard turned to the others.

"Why does this keep happening to us?" Tali asked Shepard.

"Luck of the draw," Shepard shrugged, turning back to the Marine. "We need answers, man. Talk to me here."

"Just leave me alone!" The man demanded loudly, suddenly lifting his head and screaming aloud as sweat poured down his face.

Chief marched over to the Marine, not intending to listen to his request. He picked him up off the floor by his collar and pushed him against the wall.

"Get a hold of yourself," he ordered. "You're a Marine, remember? Act like one."

"We're dead is what we are, dead, all of us," the terrified man declared.

The Spartan shook his head at the pitiful display. He put the Marine down and for a moment he was able to stay on his feet.

"Where is Keyes, soldier," Chief asked him. "Where is your squad?"

Those words set off something in the Marine's mind.

"Sarge...? Mendoza...? Bisenti...?" The Marine said, looking off in another direction, his voice sounding distant and horrified. "Oh God, those things took them. Oh God, I can still hear them screaming."

"Yes, those are Sergeant Johnson's men," Tali recalled as the Marine drifted off into incoherent mumbling. "Where are they now?"

"They're gone! Get it? Gone!" The Marine screamed at her. He then fell back to the ground, clutching his legs once more. "They won't get me! Oh God... oh God, I don't want to be like them. Please, please no, please noooo..."

The Marine returned to sobbing and rocking in his little corner while the others tried to make sense of his rambling.

"He's clearly traumatized," Miranda stated. "He can't help us in this state."

"I'm getting a very distinct Feros feeling from this suddenly," Tali added.

"Feros?" The Master Chief asked bewildered.

Shepard put up his hand as he tried to field the question with distracting from the real issue.

"Whole other story," he explained quickly. "Alien ruins, bunch of homicidal robots, an ancient evil plant, it's really not that similar. Although I will admit the crazy sounding guy we found there was a bit more coherent in his warnings."

"His story does have similar elements to how Husks are made though," Miranda suggested. "Although, it doesn't make much sense that they'd attack the Covenant, considering the Inquisitor has control over them. That and I doubt the Elites would have problems dealing with a few human husks. They're not exactly difficult to kill."

"Yeah, this might be something else," Shepard considered. "Let's check around the room a bit."

It didn't take them long to see that place was entirely trashed. Clearly some kind of fight had occurred in here. Unlike most rooms they had encountered, the entire area was bathed in some sickly green light. In one corner it looked like something had exploded, as a small fire raged among some wreckage. Said wreckage led up to the level above.

The most intriguing part of the room though was a strange cubed cell of some kind, its glass windows broken and shards scattered around it. Rising up from a vent inside the cell was a strange green gas that saturated the inside of the chamber. Tali approached it cautiously, entering it with her omni-tool out.

"It seems like some kind of incubation chamber," she reasoned as she peered around the area. "Not sure what for though."

Suddenly, something dropped onto Tali's helmet as she was staring up. She backed away as it obscured her visor, shouting in slight panic as she tried to figure out what had landed on her. She brought her hand up to her faceplate and wiped her fingers across the obscuring substance When she looked at her palm, she saw it was covered in some strange yellowish-green slime.

"Ugh, gross," she said as she shook the sludge off her.

"What happened, Tali?" Shepard asked as he rushed over to her.

"Some kind of slime," she explained. "It dropped from atop the container onto my visor when I was scanning the area. I think I know what this thing was for though, some kind of biological containment cell."

"You sure?" Shepard asked.

Tali bent down to scan the slime directly as Miranda and the Chief crowded around her.

"Definitely," she declared. "I'm picking up a lot of bacteria in this stuff. It's harmless by itself, but I'd be careful around it. It's highly contaminated with... something. I can't be sure, my best guess would be spores or foreign bodies, or maybe it's just puss. That's what my omni-tool is reading at least. I'm not Mordin. He'd be able to figure out more."

"Perhaps the Covenant released some kind of hazardous biological agent," Miranda suggested. "It could've infected their minds or made them hallucinate. It would explain he violent reactions of our friend over there."

"But if they killed each other we'd still find the bodies of the Elites," Chief told her. "And why haven't we been infected by this hallucinogen?"

"It could've been vented before we arrived, but not in time to keep Keyes' team from getting a dose," Miranda proposed. "I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just trying to throw out possible answers."

"Every room in this place just seems to give us more questions instead," said Shepard, sounding ever more frustrated. "We need to keep moving, find out where the 'monsters' took Keyes."

Chief looked back to the frightened Marine's position and tried to talk to him.

"Get up, we're gonna get out of here," he told him.

But the Marine shook his head violently at the suggestion.

"No, safer here, much safer here, can't go, won't go."

Chief looked to others, shaking his own head. He left the pistol Miranda grabbed off him and placed it near the whimpering soldier. He wasn't about to leave him here defenceless.

"We'll have to try and come back for him after we find the Captain," Miranda reluctantly said. "Maybe he can talk some sense into him. Well, if he's alive."

"Let's not jump to conclusions yet," Shepard told Miranda as they began to move out. "According to him, they were all captured. If he's just traumatized and not hallucinating, then Keyes and the others are probably still alive."

"Yeah," Miranda replied, an underpinning of dread in her voice. "That's what scares me."

They climbed on top of the wreckage, past the bodies of a few more grunts, and walked onto the catwalk above the room. They saw an unlocked door nearby and exited the room, the anguished sobs of the lone Marine echoing behind them.

---

Varvok looked at the devastation around him as he and Zek walked through the facility's lower levels. It was clear to all that this was where the outbreak of the virus had started. The walls were strewn with blood, scorch marks and even more of the fungus. All the equipment was broken and the lights were barely working.

"Looks like we're really late to the party," Zek observed.

"The virus must have affected some of their minds the longer they were exposed," Varvok suggested.

As they continued walking, Zek stopped in his tracks. He sniffed at the ceiling, sticking his beak up at one of the vents above. Varvok looked back to see what had attracted his attention.

"What are-"

"Sssh," said the kig-yar, pointing to the side of his head.

Moments later, Varvok thought he heard some kind of warbling, gurgling sound above their heads, but only faintly. Zek stepped back a bit to get a better view, his rifle pointed up at the vent. Eventually he came upon a break in the vent, but was only able to see blackness inside.

Suddenly his eyes widened and he fired into the vent several times. Varvok backed away, as the kig-yar kept firing down the vent. Eventually he stopped and Varvok rushed over to him, knocking his weapon away from the vent.

"The hell are you doing?" He demanded to know.

"Something moved up there, something way too fucking small to be any of your men mind you," he quickly added. "I could only see shapes, but I thought I saw... saw some kind of weird yellow glow and then... eyes or something."

"You sure you don't have a break in your suit?" Varvok asked him.

"I'm fine, it wasn't a hallucination," Zek insisted. "Or did you not hear the sound?"

Varvok supposed that was compelling evidence, but he wasn't so sure.

"Where did they go?" Varvok asked. "This glowing pair of eyes you saw, I mean."

"That's just it," Zek told him. "There was more than one pair. About six pairs by what I counted."

Suddenly, a roar echoed throughout the corridors, a loud sickening drawn out roar. It was followed by another growl, nearly as drawn out, but sounding far closer. It was like nothing Varvok had ever heard before. It was guttural, eerie, almost like some kind of moan.

Zek pointed his Needle Rifle down the corridor where the sound had come from. His gun was shaking in his hands more than usual as he aimed it. Varvok felt a cold chill on his spine, his skin growing wet. As the sounds continued, getting louder each time. They both began to slowly back away, Varvok grinding his teeth while Zek started breathing loudly through his nostrils, his beak quivering.

"I don't really know what's making that," Zek told Varvok nervously.

"Yeah, me neither," the batarian agreed.

The two ran down the opposite corridor, watching their backs as they did. Out of the corners of his eyes, Varvok could see shadows moving among the darkened areas of the halls. He could hear the strange warbling sounds once more, followed by gross, slimy footsteps tromping around the halls.

He kept a tight grip on his gun as he ran, hoping whatever was lurking in the shadows still had enough of a mind of its own. That they didn't see them as a threat, that they weren't here to hurt them, he hoped they could reason, could understand. But in the back of his mind he was wondering if he was just fooling himself at this point.

Suddenly, his omni-tool started beeping and he stopped in his tracks. Zek ran a few paces ahead before turning back towards him.

"What, did we lose them?" He asked, his eyes searching the area.

"I have locator chips in all my people's armour in case they were ever captured or lost," Varvok explained. "I set my omni-tool to inform me of when one was near. One of my people is close by."

---

The team crossed the light bridge and moved towards the strange red Forerunner symbols that marked the wall in front of them. A broken door lay on the ground underneath the symbols, the metal twisted and mangled beyond recognition. From what Shepard could see, he could only come to one conclusion.

"They look like they were smashed apart from the inside," he observed. "Like something was trying to get out of that room."

"Which means, of course, we're headed inside said room," Tali noted with a sardonic tone. "Now this really is giving me horrifying flashbacks."

"I don't particularly like the big red symbols on the wall either," Miranda added.

Despite their misgivings, everyone moved forward into the room beyond. They slinked along a long wall that spanned the width of the room. When they reached its end they found something, the body of a Marine laying dead on the ground before them. His weapon was at his side, his face a frozen image of terror and his blood was splattered across the floor, streaming down a ramp led to a lower level.

"Just like the Jackal from before," Tali observed.

"At least now we know Keyes came through here," Shepard said, trying his to be constructive. "Let's check down there."

The team slowly and cautiously descended the ramp. When they reached the bottom, they found themselves in front of a small door. There was some kind of mechanical device attached to it, different from all the other doors. It was clearly UNSC in origin.

"Must be a portable mechanical lock override," Chief observed.

"I need me one of those," said Tali rather excitedly.

Chief went to press the button on the device to open the door for them, but before he could, he heard a noise. It was some kind of strange warbling, gurgling sound, followed by slithering of a sort. He turned around, pointing his gun back down the corridor. He wasn't the only to hear it though, as everyone else was doing the same.

"What was that?" Miranda asked.

"Not sure," Chief said.

Chief turned back, placing his gun over his shoulder. He then pressed the device's button and the door flew open. As it did, Chief watched as another Marine fell onto him. The Spartan caught the soldier in his arms before he hit the ground, but as the Marine went limp, Chief knew he was already far gone.

"Get inside," Chief told the others, pointing his gun back down the hall, the noise still fresh in his mind.

The others quickly moved in, pointing their guns in the same direction as they entered the room. Chief slowly followed them soon after, his gun still trained on the corridor. As the door shut, Chief turned back towards the room, setting the dead Marine back onto the floor.

He then looked around the area, which the others were already searching. It was a long rectangular room with two small raised areas in the middle, doors covered each side and, most disturbingly, there was a lot of human blood on the floor. A lot of blood, but there were no bodies to be seen.

"This must be where Keyes' team got attacked by whatever that lone Marine was talking about," Shepard surmised.

"But what attacked them?" Miranda said, reiterating the question again. "Covenant? Wild animals? Each other? How are we supposed to figure this out?"

Chief took a moment to search the floor a bit, before finding the answer. There was a helmet sitting in a pool of blood. He bent down and picked it up. Looking it over, he found some words on the back of the helmet reading 'Pvt. Jenkins, Wallace A.', a name of one of Johnson's men.

"This is our answer," he said aloud, showing them all the helmet as they approached. "Every Marine has a camera in their helmets, remember? We just need to play back the footage. My helmet can do that through the HUD interface."

"How can we watch it though?" Shepard asked him.

"I can handle that," Tali assured. "Cortana shared a few ideas with me about Chief's helmet specs. She wanted to go over potential improvements for the Heads-Up Display she had considered. I can connect us to Master Chief's own playback feed and watch the footage through my omni-tool."

"Do it," Shepard instructed. "I think it's about time we got some answers."

Chief pulled out Jenkins' helmet-cam memory chip and plugged it into the back of his own helmet. As he did that, Tali quickly logged into Chief's playback feed and ran it through her own Omni-Tool's video player. In a few moments, a picture came on screen.

It showed the inside of a Pelican with several Marines sitting beside each other. One of them was Sergeant Johnson. The sound of some really rock n' roll music played on the Pelican's speakers, filling the cabin.

"Why do we always have to listen to this old stuff, Sarge?" One Marine asked Johnson.

"Watch your mouth, son," Johnson warned him. "This stuff is your history, it should remind you grunts what you're fighting to protect."

"Hey, if the Covenant want to wipe out this particular part of my History, that's fine by me," The Marine jokingly responded.

"Yeah, better it than us," one of the other Marines declared.

"You ask them real nice next time, Bisenti," Johnson dared the Private. "I'm sure they'd be happy to oblige."

"Johnson's got good taste in music," Shepard suddenly commented. "I'll give him that."

Miranda and Tali stared at their Commander with discouraging looks. Shepard could only shrug back at them.

"What? My parents had a collection classic rock music files when I was a kid," Shepard admitted sheepishly "Sue me."

The footage was mostly unremarkable from that point onwards for a time. The squad disembarked the Pelican, made their way inside the complex and left a second squad outside to watch their rear. But after a quick fast forward, they soon found themselves looking at a large open room. A room none too dissimilar from the one they had been with the glass cell. The Marines were all huddled around what looked like a dead Elite corpse, its chest caved in and rib cage exposed.

"Which is weird, right?" Asked one of the Marines. "I mean, look at it. Something scrambled the insides."

The Marine poked the Elite's side with his boot as Johnson weighed in on the matter himself.

"What's that? Plasma scarring?" he asked.

"Yeah I dunno," another Marine said as Jenkins looked to the body once more. "Maybe there was an accident. Friendly fire, or something?"

It was then Captain Keyes suddenly approached the squad, decked out in full military gear as he approached. Johnson turned to him as he joined the discussion.

"What do we have here, Sergeant?" Keyes requested.

"Looks like a Covenant patrol, badass Elite units," Johnson explained. "All KIA, sir."

"Real pretty," Keyes said, sounding a bit disheartened. "Friend of yours?"

"Nah, we just met," responded one of the Marines apprehensively.

Everyone looked to each other as Chief fast forwarded the footage again.

"We didn't find any Elite corpses," Miranda noted.

"Something must've moved them," Shepard suggested. "Like the ones in the room we found."

"Wait, it's starting again," Tali informed them both. "It looks like they're outside this room."

They watched as Keyes ordered the door opened and a Marine obeyed despite not sounding too sure about it. According to him, the Covenant had locked the room down hard for some reason. To be fair, if this really was a Weapons Cache, that would be normal procedure. But as Keyes' squad entered the room, things felt off. The feeling wasn't lost on Keyes' team either.

"I got a bad feeling about this," one of them said.

"Boy, you always got a bad feeling about something," Johnson replied derisively.

It was then someone's voice came over the radio, alerting the whole squad within the room. It sounded like it was from the other squad that had been left outside. The voice did not sound at all calm, but panicked and scared as he asked for the Captain and Sergeant in a weak, fearful voice.

"What's going on, soldier?" Keyes asked him back.

"We got contacts, lots of them," the voice responded, sounding more panicked and urgent then before. "But they're not Covenant! They're just tearing through us! What the...? ARRRRGGGGHH!"

The line went dead suddenly as Johnson tried to get them back on the line.

"That sounds pretty similar to that Pelican Pilot's emergency message from outside," Shepard recalled. "Remember, hostiles that weren't Covenant?"

Johnson suddenly gave up on contacting the soldier on the other end and turned to one of his men.

"Mendoza, get your ass up to Second Squad's position and find out what the hell is going on!" He ordered.

But Mendoza seemed frozen in place.

"But Sarge-"

"I don't have time for your lip, soldier, I gave you an order!" Johnson repeated.

But Mendoza was insistent, and everyone watching the footage could hear why. The warbling gurgle noise they had heard was playing in the footage. Mendoza convinced the squad to listen and soon they started to panic.

"Where's that coming from, Mendoza?" Johnson asked him.

Mendoza searched around, as did Jenkins, trying to locate the source of the noise. Suddenly, Mendoza pointed to a door and shouted aloud.

"There! Mira!"

The door suddenly burst open wide and crawling out from within were several small bulbous looking yellowish-green creatures. They had several tendril-like legs, swept back tops and had strange red-tipped antennae sticking out of their heads or mouths, they couldn't tell. A bright sickly yellow glow resonated from them as they swarmed into the room.

"What in the hell?" Miranda asked aloud, her voice filled with shock and revulsion at the scene before them.

Suddenly there was a scream from out of Jenkins' line of sight. He turned just in time for the group to see one of the creatures embedding themselves into a Marine. The Leatherneck screamed aloud for his friend to pull it out, begging, pleading for help. The other Marine did his best, wrenching the creature away from his friend, but now it tried to turn on him.

It was then that more of the creatures appeared and they too began pouncing at the humans, crawling over them, forcing them to swat them away as they tried to burrow into their bodies. The Marines opened fire, unloading everything they had into the swarming onslaught, but the creatures were relentless. They kepty throwing themselves at Keyes' squad, determined to break through. One Private got caught in the neck and fell to the ground, writhing in pain as his attacker began ripping his throat out.

"Keelah," Tali said in utter terrified disbelief as she looked on, her hand over where her faceplate's mouthpiece. "Those things are eating them! By all the Ancestors, they're eating them!"

The fight continued, the Marines desperately trying to hold back the tide. Try as they might though, the ravenous swarm was overwhelming them. For every creature shot to bits, dozens more appeared. The Marines were soon surrounded by the alien life forms. They did their best to cover each other, but their attackers outnumbered them greatly and they were quickly being engulfed by the voracious bug-like organisms.

"Goddamn it, Jenkins," Johnson shouted, looking into the Private's eyes furiously. "Fire your weapon!"

But Jenkins was too frozen in fear to fire his weapon, his head searching around the room in a panic as he viewed the horror all around him. Meanwhile, his squadmate Mendoza was simply too afraid to stay. He ran from the room, screaming "This is Loco" as he fled. Keyes tried to order him back, but command had broken down.

The creatures were crawling all over the Marines now, biting into their flesh and tearing at their clothes. Ear-piercing screams of abject terror and pain burst from the speakers, filling the room with their cries. That was when Jenkins fell to the floor as the swarming abominations engulfed him.

"JENKINS!"

Johnson's voice and the strange warbling gurgling sounds the creatures made were the last two things the camera recorded. Chief pulled out the memory chip from his helmet, tossing it to the floor as he shook his head. He stood back up and looked to the others, still dumbstruck by what they had seen.

"Looks like we got our answers," Chief concluded.

"Why were they trying to burrow into them?" Tali asked worriedly, trying to make sense of it all. "What are they?"

"They don't seem like any of the other creatures we've encountered on this ring," Miranda managed to reason. "That's what the incubation cell we found must've been holding. The Covenant let them out."

"But there was no way that cell could've held all those things," Shepard reasoned, his mind suddenly reaching a dire conclusion. "Unless... there's more than one cell in here. Crap, this wasn't a weapons cache. We've walked into some kind of biological containment bunker!"

Chief brought up his weapon and scanned the area.

"We need to get the hell out of here," he declared.

As he spoke, one of the doors at the back of the room burst open. Suddenly, dozens upon dozens of the same disgusting little creatures swarmed into the room. Miranda brought out her submachine gun, Shepard his Assault Rifle and Tali her pistol. As the tide of creatures began to move towards them the group opened fire.

"Don't let them near you!" Shepard shouted. "Keep your barriers up!"

Shepard sent out a shockwave that rippled across the floor. It killed several of the little creatures, but many more remained. Miranda emptied her thermal clip and quickly slapped in another, firing like made into the oncoming swarm. One of them leapt at her, exploding in front of her barrier and damaging it. Another followed suit, trying to damage it more.

"They're trying to bring down our shields, bit by bit," she warned as she used a slam attacked to crush a number of the little disgusting blobs. "Don't let them!"

Tali kept firing away with her pistol, doing her best to take Miranda's advice. But as she did, another door burst open, unleashing more of the little monsters into the room.

"Left side!" Tali cried out, activating Chitikka to cover some of the additional ground.

The little drone worked its way through the swarm, blasting bolts of energy and disintegrating the attackers with ease. Shepard joined in, unleashing his Assault Rifle on the creatures, popping their bulbous little bodies one by one. Tali moved back, trying to keep within the group.

"Look out, more incoming!" Chief cried out as he saw another door begin to cave in.

The Spartan tossed a grenade before the door broke apart and it detonated in the little creatures' face. But more poured out and Chief was forced to empty another clip into the onrushing swarm. He swished his gun's barrel back and forth as the creatures continued their advance. Some jumped at him, hitting his shields. He managed to take out some as they careened towards him, causing them to explode just inches in front of his face.

"I don't get it," Tali suddenly spoke up as she kept firing. "These things couldn't have done all this damage on their own! How could they have completely overrun the Covenant before-"

Tali's answer arrived before she could fully ask her question. Bursting from the door they had entered the room from came more of the swarming creatures, and something else, something bigger. Charging from the outside into the room came several tower two-legged creatures. They growled and snarled at them as they ran at the small team. They were brownish yellow, had strange red-tipped feelers sticking out of its chest and one of its arms was misshapen and deformed. It looked more like a tentacle than an arm now.

"Me and my big mouth," Tali grimaced nervously.

She ducked away as one of the creatures took a swipe at her. Shepard fired his assault rifle into the beast, but all it did was seem to mildly annoy the creature. It turned on the Commander now, giving him a better look at the remnants of armour the creature had on him, armour he recognized. He also recognized the familiar flopping head on top of the alien's body as a very familiar mandible-mouthed alien species.

"Guys, they're the Elites!" He cried out, a fearful tone punctuating his realisation. "They're the missing bodies!"

Shepard sent a shockwave attack at the creature, sending him flying. He got up moments later and continued his attack.

"They're zombies, like the Husks!" He shouted across the room to the others. "Those things, they turned them into these things somehow!"

"That is not natural behaviour," Miranda declared, firing her pistol into another of the creature's bodies. But the rounds seemed to have no effect on the undead Covenant. "Argh, my guns are useless!"

Miranda sent a slam attack hurtling towards the turned Covenant soldier, lifting him into the air and then crashing him back into the floor. But it didn't hurt the creature at all. He just got back up and moaned at her.

"Damn it all!" She cursed. "Biotics aren't working either!"

"I got this!" Shepard quickly assured the team. "Aim for the head!"

Shepard fired his assault rifle at one of the zombified Elites' heads. He managed to blast it off with a few good hits, blowing the former brain box clean off. It seemed to give the alien pause, but it didn't stop him. He just kept charging.

"Oh bullshit," Shepard growled in frightful wide-eyed surprise. "That's cheating! At least the husks play fair!"

Shepard ducked under one of the zombie creature's swipes towards his head. Chief then fired a full blast from his assault rifle straight into the alien's chest, emptying his magazine and blowing off one the undead alien's limbs. Finally, the zombie Elite fell to the floor, dead.

"They're not invincible," The Master Chief declared. "Try hitting them center mass! It seems more effective!"

Tali and Chiktikka were engaging one of the alien zombies as they rushed her. Chiktikka's energy blasts, however, seemed only slightly more effective than Tali's pistol. As the creature took a swipe at her, Tali rolled to the side, put her pistol away and pulled out her Shotgun. She fired into the back of the zombie Elite once and then twice, blowing off a limb and then exploding his chest out form the back.

"Shotguns work better than the pistols!" Tali informed the other, before firing it on some of the swarming little ones that tried to rush her.

Shepard instantly changed to his Shotgun and turned on the Cryo rounds for it. He fired them at one of the charging Elite Zombies, and managed to hit him with a solid enough hit to freeze him solid. Although, being encased in ice didn't seem to stop the undead Covie. He wrenched himself out of his icy bonds, breaking his legs off from his body as he forced himself forward.

"Damn it, stop cheating!" Shepard demanded nervously, backing away from the creature shakily.

He quickly switched to incendiary and blasting the Elite zombie with another shot, finally killing him. He called out to the others with the news.

"Fire works on them!" He said hurriedly.

Miranda let loose a warp attack on one of the undead Elites, managing to at the very least affect the alien. The creature seemed to convulse wildly as the biotic energy ripped him apart from the inside out. Chief used the opportunity to fire a few pistol rounds into the creature's chest, sending him to the floor in a few good hits.

"There, stay dead," he said as he stood over the body.

Before Chief could even turn though, the undead Elite sprang to life again and reached to attack him. Chief fired down into him again several more times. Miranda joined in, blasting her submachine gun into the monster's chest. That time, it stayed down.

"Durable, aren't they?" Miranda rhetorically asked the Spartan.

Tali fired off another blast at the remaining swarming versions of the creatures, ending the firefight at last. Now able to catch their collective breath, the team regrouped in the center of the room. They took a short minute to study one of the corpses of the creatures in front of them. It didn't take them long to figure what had happened to the Elites and why these things seemed to burrow into people's bodies.

"Look at those little things sticking out of the chest cavity," Shepard said pointing. "They look like the antennae on the little ones. Remember how they tried burrowing into that one Marine on the video? That's probably how they turned them."

"I just want to know why our weapons didn't work," Miranda spoke up.

"My guns worked just fine," Chief reminded her. "Your weapons seem to have a tougher time though."

Curious to find the answer, Tali walked over to one of the dead creatures. She first made sure it was dead by firing her pistol into its chest. Wasn't much, but the thing didn't move at least. She then poked it with the end of her shotgun, saw it break the skin with ease and felt the body cave in as she did. She suddenly slapped her faceplate with her palm.

"Ugh, of course," she said with an annoyed grunt as she turned to others. "These things, they're just mush. There's nothing to shoot inside them. Our guns are designed to penetrate more than anything. They use mass effect fields to propel little grains of lead at high speeds and take out vital organs inside the body. Our rounds just pass through them with minimal damage."

"They work fine on Husks," Shepard noted. "They're kind of similar to these things, aren't they?"

"The husks don't need their organs, yes, but they're still structurally similar and more fragile," Tali explained. "You shoot the head, it dies. You hit any part of its body with enough bullets, it crumbles. Every piece added to it is important to keep it functioning. There's nothing to hit inside these things that matters, just bloated corpse fat that the tiny rounds pass through without really damaging anything."

"And the only thing of any real value is the creature embedded in the chest," Miranda reasoned. "It's some kind of parasite, one that doesn't just control the host but mutates it as well. The body is just a way for it to get around, that's why headshots don't work either."

If that was the case, most of their guns were useless on these things. Save for Chief's weapons that used actual ammunition and their Shotguns of course. Shepard didn't need to figure out why that was.

"UNSC weapons have more of an effect because they don't have the same penetration power our weapons do," he reasoned. "The same is true of our shotguns. There's more of a surface area created by the spread shot, just like Chief's guns since they fire actual bullets. There's actual weight behind their hits, whereas all our other guns work more on speed.""

"Then we need to get you all better guns," Chief surmised. "We can grab that dead Marine's assault rifle outside. I can give my pistol to Miranda."

"Yeah, that seemed to work pretty well on them," Miranda agreed.

Chief tossed her the gun and some of his ammo, which she quickly took in hand.

"It should do, until we get something with an even higher calibre least," she said as she gave the pistol a once over.

"Biotics don't hurt them, but at least they push them back," Shepard added. "My incendiaries seem to burn the little parasites in their chest cavities, so that should work to our advantage. Alright, priority now is getting back to the surface and warning everyone about these things. We'll have to figure out what happened to Keyes later."

There was a distant haunting moan from beyond the doorway. More of those things were out there and they were waiting. Shepard slapped a new thermal clip into his weapon as Tali readied her own shotgun. Chief walked up alongside Shepard, cocking his own assault rifle.

"And here I thought my first encounter with the husks on Eden Prime was going to be the scariest thing I ever encountered," Shepard said to the Spartan fretfully.

"These things aren't going to let us leave without a fight," The Master Chief warned him.

"They never do," Shepard warily concurred.

---

Zek watched the door as they entered the room, keeping an eye on the shadows before moving away. Varvok in the meantime scanned the area with his eyes, checking his omni-tool for the precise position of the signal. The floor was covered in blood and it was hard to see anything with the lack of light.

"This is where your man is?" Zek asked as he backed away from the door.

"According to this, yeah," Varvok replied. "Just give me a second."

After searching for a bit, his omni-tool pointed him towards the very back of the room. As he approached cautiously Varvok eyed something in the darkness, something standing in front of him. He turned on his light and shined it on the shadow.

A sickly yellow creature stood with its back to him. Its body looked mangled and rotten, but Varvok could recognize the armour it wore clearly. It was batarian for sure. Varvok could recognize it by the brown colour and the insignia of the Swords of Khar'shan on its shoulder.

The creature soon recognized the light and turned towards Varvok. The decayed looking visage of a batarian's face stared back, the head limping towards the side, strange feelers sticking out of its chest, and its arms had been mutated and warped. It was a horrifying sight, one that made even Zek back off a bit, but Varvok stayed put. His eyes were only focused on the face. It was someone he knew.

"Kreka?" Varvok asked.

"That's your guy?" Zek asked amazed. "I'm guessing he's looked better."

Even decayed and rotten, Varvok could recognize the Sergeant with ease. The infected batarian's mouth hung open wide like a cave and began to moan. Kreka then began shuffling towards Varvok and Zek. The kig-yar raised his weapons as the infected batarian approached. Varvok just tried to talk him down.

"Kreka, it's me, Varvok," he tried to tell him. "I came to get you and the others out."

But Kreka didn't seem to listen, his moans becoming more of a threatening growl as he advanced.

"Kreka, stand down," Varvok said, reaching for his pistol. "I'm here to help, where's the rest of the group?"

Kreka just growled and ran towards Varvok suddenly. Varvok pulled out his gun as he did, but the infected Sergeant swatted it away and then hit him with his strange mutated tentacle arm. Varvok was thrown into a pillar and Kreka kept advancing on him.

"Kreka, stop!" He commanded. "I'm giving you an order, soldier!"

Kreka didn't stop he kept moving towards the Lieutenant Commander, ready to finish him. Then several needles slammed into Kreka's backside. After a few hits he suddenly exploded in a pink mist. Varvok looked up to see Zek standing over him as the mist cleared, offering his hand. The kig-yar pulled the batarian up and onto his feet.

"I don't think your man was in there anymore," Zek sympathetically told him.

"This virus must be worse than we thought," Varvok said, shaking his head in disbelief. "It has debilitated them, ruined their minds. They're just... walking corpses. I should've seen it sooner but..."

Varvok grabbed his forehead and shook it. Moping about this wouldn't solve their problem. What was done was done. They needed to get out of here now.

"We have the evidence we need at least," Varvok stated. "Balak can't deny there's something wrong now."

"Then let's book it back to the surface," Zek said as he headed for the door. "Before more of those things decide to drop on by."

But moments after exiting into the hall, Varvok's omni-tool beeped again loud. Then it beeped again, and again. He looked to it and saw what should've been a good sign, but was now something far worse. It was more of the locator signals for his men, closing in on their position.

"That does not sound good," Zek said as he looked at the omni-tool.

Varvok could hear the beeping growing louder and then more of those strange gurgling and warbling noises. He looked to his left and could see something moving down the halls towards them. Varvok's eyes widened in fear, he had wanted to find his men and now he wishedf he hadn't. A horde of infested changed batarians moved towards them, first shuffling but then picking up speed before bursting into a charge.

"Run!" Varvok shouted, firing his rifle in the decayed visages of his former people, to little effect it seemed.

Zek fired back as they raced down the hallway, never standing still for too long. These infected were still pretty fast despite how rotten and decayed they looked. Varvok tried shooting at them as well, but his assault rifle seemed to do little to actually hurt the creatures. He even fired his ballistic blades back at the infected, but they too failed to affect them.

"They just won't go down!" Varvok said, astonished at the resilience of his infected soldiers.

As the horrifically altered batarians kept advancing, all Varvok found he was able to do was fall back as Zek kept covering their retreat. He did not know what disease had befallen his people, but it had made them seemingly invulnerable to ordinary weapons. He took his weapon in hand and prepared to try something a little more drastic.

"Forgive me, boys," he said as he turned one more time. "Hopefully this will be quick."

He took aim at one of the infected batarians as he rushed forward. He fired a single shot, straight into the head of his former comrade. He hoped it would stop him, end the pain his soldier was under, but it didn't. The head was blown clean apart by the pistol shot, but the body kept walking.

"That's not possible," Varvok said backing up in fear.

"Four-Eyes," Zek called out to him from up ahead. "Get the fuck over here!"

Varvok kicked the headless body of the batarian away from him and kept running. He soon found Zek around the next corner, firing at something ahead. When Varvok looked he saw something dropping out of the vent, bulbous, brown creatures with tiny tentacles for legs and strange feelers. They moved towards Varvok, gurgling and warbling at him and Zek.

"What the hell are those?" Varvok asked Zek.

"You're asking me?" Zek replied frantically. "All I know is that they don't look fucking friendly!"

The strange little bulbous creatures kept pouring out of the vent, swarming towards them. Behind them, Varvok could hear his men approaching. He grabbed Zek by the shoulder and they both took off down another corridor, one that would lead them back towards the elevator.

They rushed down the hallway, spotting the elevator just up ahead. As they did they were blindsided by one of the infected he threw himself out from behind the cover of an alcove. He nearly swiped Zek's head off, but the kig-yar filled him full of needles and kicked him back. The creature exploded as the needles detonated, clearing the way once more to the elevator. Zek frantically pressed down hard on the elevator button several times.

"Come on you piece of ancient dead alien junk!" He anxiously shouted. "I am not going to be fucking eaten by a bunch of fucking creatures!"

"Those are my men, Zek," Varvok reminded him.

"Yeah, and they want to eat my face, so excuse me for being impolite!" Zek replied, his frantic tone still intact.

The doors to the elevator swung open at last, but from within jumped one of strange bulbous creatures. It rushed towards Zek, who fell to his back with fear. The creature instead found itself leaping towards Varvok. It slammed into his hazard-suit's headpiece and began trying to gnaw at the covering to get inside. Wasting no time, Varvok quickly grabbed the thing and tossed it into a wall where he shot at it several times with his pistol. Once was enough though, as it easily popped the little bastard in one hit.

Zek scrambled to his feet and ran into the elevator, Varvok close behind. The last thing they saw before the doors closed were the rest of Varvok's men rushing after them. Luckily, they barely got close enough as Zek fired back on them with his needler until the doors slammed shut, leaving them far behind. At last, the two could rest of a moment.

"The fuck happened to them?" Zek asked, trying to catch his breath. "What in the actual fuck happened to them?"

"I don't know," Varvok said, clutching his head in his hand as he leaned against the wall. "None of my shots seemed to even hurt them. I thought their pain receptors had been repressed by the virus, but I shot one in the head and... he didn't die."

Zek looked up at Varvok, a fearful look on his face through the hazmat's visor. He grabbed him by his arms and forced all four of his eyes to stare right him.

"Look at me," he said, still out of breath. "You say that again. You say that again and you be damn sure you're not shitting me. You shot it in the head?"

"I know what I saw. I blew his head apart," Varvok insisted. "He didn't die, he kept coming at me."

Zek stepped back for a moment, his head looking frantically about. For a moment, Varvok wondered if the kig-yar believed him. The next time he looked back at him though, the batarian could tell the former pirate knew he was telling the truth.

"They're not alive, are they?" Zek finally said.

"It doesn't seem like that," Varvok replied, a similar frightened look on his face.

Zek slammed the back of his fist on the wall of the elevator, his breathing becoming heavier as he tried to collect his thoughts.

"That is not natural," he stated. "That's... that's not right. Dead things don't walk, they just don't."

Finally he gathered himself enough that he was able to start thinking straight again.

"That thing, the one that jumped out at us just then," he began. "It went for you, right?"

"Yes, and it tried to get through my suit too," Varvok admitted.

"It's no coincidence that those things are down here with them," Zek reasoned. "What if they're spreading this virus or whatever it is that's doing this?"

"Seems likely," Varvok admitted. "I think the real problem here is getting back out. But my weapons don't work on these things."

Without even saying a word, Zek gave Varvok his needler, forcing it into the batarian's hands.

"That seems somewhat effective," Zek told him, pulling out his back-up needler. "Just remember to land enough hits on them."

"You can't fight them all off with just a needle gun," Varvok told him ardently.

Zek finally grinned at the batarian and pulled something off his belt. It looked like the hilt of a knife, but moments later a large purple energy blade popped out of its end. Its top was a slanted sharp looking point and it resonated with a bright neon shine.

"Sangheili aren't the only ones who know swordplay," he stated. "Plasma machete, I keep it close, always. I'll cut my way out if we have to."

"Good to hear," Varvok told him. "Think you can call Retz from here."

Zek tried, but all he got was static.

"We're still too deep, we'll need to get out of this bunker first," he reasoned.

"Then we keep moving and we don't stop for anything," Varvok declared. "We need to get out of here and speak of what has happened. The Covenant won't be able to deny this now and Balak will have to listen."

"And then what happens?" Zek asked.

"He pulls our men off of Halo," Varvok stated confidently. "The Covenant has betrayed our trust by hiding this from us, by sending us to die like they did to cover up their mistake of releasing these things."

Zek didn't seem all too convinced of that, but Varvok was certain Balak would listen. Zek didn't know him like he did after all. Balak was a good leader and cared for his men. He'd be as outraged as Varvok was about all this. There was no doubt of that fact in his mind.

The elevator stopped on their floor and Varvok took a look outside. He scanned the room, trying to see if there were any more of these things. He couldn't see anything so he motioned Zek to follow him out cautiously. They covered each other as they moved forward, taking special care to watch the shadows as they did. For a moment they thought they were in the clear.

Then plasma fire erupted in front of them. They both stepped back before looking in the direction of the fire and saw something start walking towards them. It was about eight or so feet tall, had swept back legs and four fingers. It also had a strangely familiar looking head. It didn't take long to figure out what it was.

"They got to the sangheili too!" Varvok stated aloud.

The infected sangheili opened fire once again. The two split up, dividing the decaying Covie officer's attention. Varvok fired at the alien with pistol, not because he thought it would work, but so Zek could get in close. The kig-yar came at the creature from the side and using his plasma machete sliced the sangheili's decaying firing arm clean off. Zek fired a whole slew of needler rounds into the monsters back next before the creature swatted him away with his other arm. That was somewhat of saving grace, as the hit had gotten the kig-yar away from the sangheili before it exploded.

"Ugh, crap," Zek said as he shakily got back onto his feet. "I've been hit pretty hard by sangheili before, but that was fucking painful. It's like something increased his strength."

"Anything broken?" Varvok asked.

"He may have cracked a rib or two, but I'm fine," Zek assured. "Just make sure we don't get hit again like that."

The two began rushing through the halls, heading back to the stairs that would get them up to ground level. There were more of the infected creatures waiting for them in corridors though. They sprung out now and again, firing plasma rifles and mass effect powered weapons. Zek and Varvok had to duck into cover quickly before methodically firing out on the monsters.

Varvok plugged another of the infected batarians with a few clean shots, blowing him apart as well as one arm off an infested sangheili nearby. The decaying creature blasted a torrent of plasma fire at the batarian soldier, but Varvok managed to get to cover before any of the hits got him. He then ran out and fired at the creature as he strafed the area, hitting the infected one by one, blowing them into chunks when the needles detonated.

As he moved, one of the infected sangheili jumped at from the side, tackling him into a small alcove. Varvok ducked under the monster's next swing and slid through his legs before firing into the creature's back and kicking it into the alcove. One last shot into the beast and the needles detonated, destroying the monster.

Zek in the meantime cut his way through the various infected, slicing limbs off those who tried to take swipes at him. He ducked under one decaying sangheili's arm and cut off one of his legs. That bastard wasn't going to be chasing him anywhere now, at least not very fast.

As another of the batarian infected rushed him, Zek threw his machete into the dead monster's chest. As the beast tried to get it out, Zek rushed up and ripped the sword out of the abominations body, cutting clean through his torso. He rushed past the fallen monstrosity, firing into another sangheili with his needler.

As the former Covenant soldier exploded into a pink mist, one of the other infected creatures fired at Zek. The kig-yar bounded off the wall and fired back on him as he used his plasma machete to slice into the back of another of the creatures. When he landed he thrust the sword in and up through the creature back, cutting him clean through.

The duo came to the stairs at last where they were greeted by an infected sangheili firing on them with a kishock harpoon gun. Varvok was a bit surprised to see an elite using one of their weapons, but he supposed that whole 'we don't use heathen guns' rule no longer applied to an undead walking corpse. He backed away from one of the shots as it slammed into the wall. Then he popped back out and fired every needle he could into the creature, aiming for the arm. The following pink blast tore the abomination apart and freed up their escape route.

When they got to the top of the stairs, Varvok then turned back to them and armed an inferno grenade. He waited for the monsters to show themselves again and raise their weapons. An infected batarian appeared with a plasma rifle, but Varvok didn't hesitate this time. They weren't his people anymore.

"Burn!" He shouted, throwing the grenade down.

The explosion erupted in the stairwell, engulfing the abominations completely. Strangely enough, Varvok thought he still heard some of them firing up at them as they raced up the steps. He blocked out their gurgling and warbling, their growls and roars. They were almost out, they couldn't falter now.

As they moved out of the darkened corridors and into the more open hallways, Zek tried to contact their ride.

"Retz," he shouted into the comm-link. "If you can hear me, it's time to get us the fuck out of here now!"

As they moved to the exit, they heard more of the strange warbling sound once more. This time it came from behind them. They looked to see a bulkhead door begin to buckle, moments later it burst open as an infected sangheili rammed through it. He was followed by more of the strange little bulbous creatures which all started moving towards Zek and Varvok like a living tidal wave.

"Run for it!" Varvok cried out.

The two opened fire on the mass of creatures, popping them like balloons, but they knew it was a fruitless effort. They quickly turned away from the creatures completely and broke out into a sprint, the sound of the creatures nipping at their heels constantly behind them. Zek activated a plasma grenade and tossed it back, hoping it would slow them down. The explosion erupted shortly after and the warbling sound did seem diminished, but the plenty more of the creatures were still there. Varvok could see it out of the corners of his eyes.

Another infected sangheili broke out from one of the vents in front of them, armed with a plasma rifle. He opened on the two, forcing them to duck to the side as the shots came at them. They could stop for long, not with the bulbous creatures so close behind. So Zek rushed out while Varvok fired, blasting needles into the abomination. Zek got close enough to slice the arm holding the gun off the creature as well as the monster's legs.

"Come on!" Zek motioned Varvok forward.

The batarian ran, but found himself grabbed by what was left of the infected sangheili. It growled and moaned at him, trying to keep him stationary while the swarm of bulbous creatures closer.

"Let go!" Varvok demanded, slamming his foot down hard on the abomination's hand.

The stomp worked, breaking off the hand at the wrist and letting Varvok run free. He tossed another inferno grenade over his shoulder just as the wave of bulbous creatures arrived, incinerating them. He now rushed to the exit straight ahead where Zek was waiting, guarding the door. They ran through it, locking it behind them. Varvok then welded it shut quickly.

"You think it will hold them?" Zek asked him.

"No, but it will keep them locked up for awhile," Varvok explained.

The Phantom was already landing, so the two rushed over and up the ramp. They were exhausted from their run, panting and wheezing from their rush to escape.

"Take off," Zek ordered Retz anxiously, ripping off his hazmat suit's head covering. "Take off and do not fucking look back!"

Retz did as ordered, but not unquestioned.

"The hell did you two find down there?" He asked, staring at them both.

"It's worse than we imagined," Varvok said as he collapsed into a seat and began taking off his hazmat suit. "It's not a virus. It's not a disease. It's something much worse."

"How worse?" Retz asked nervously.

"Let's just say Halo just got a lot more dangerous," Zek told him ominously. "For both us and the humans. We didn't find some stinking precious relic for the damn Journey. We found a fucking death trap."

Zek's dramatics weren't far off. Varvok suspected the other excavation sites had been full of these things and that the Covenant had released them all. They could use guns, they were harder to kill and they were relentless in their pursuit. Now they were out and it didn't seem like anything would stop them from swarming over all of Halo. And once they were done with that, Varvok doubted they'd be satiated. This whole thing had just gotten a lot bigger than he had expected. They had gotten out of the tomb, but they weren't safe. No one was anymore.

---

AN: They're here! Hey, it's about time! Now the horror addition to the genre tag on the summary quip isn't just there for show anymore!

343 Guilty Spark was my favourite level in the game for this entire sequence alone. Honestly, I had never played something that pulled the rug out from under you like this. NEVER. For more of my thoughts on the level and this chapter, do check the profile page. Review if you can and do visit the TV Tropes page. You can add favourite parts if you want by the way, just letting you know. You can gush, especially if it's about me. XD (I didn't mean to sound pompous there, you don't have to praise me. I'm really humble, I just like knowing what parts of the story are pleasing readers the most is all.)

Check back in a few days for the continuation of the Flood's introductory level. How are Shepard and the gang going to deal with Zombies that break all the rules? You'll find out.