The violence has escalated.
Next chapter (which hopefully won't take as long as this one and won't involve the scrap of a partially written draft sitting on my hd) is planned to have everyone dealing with the aftereffects of encountering the Flood, and an update on the situation on High Charity.
Standard copyright disclaimer: I do not own Halo or any associated media, characters, or settings which are properties of 343 or Bungie. This is a work of fanfiction written purely for entertainment and not for monetary gain.
2150, 26 August 2550
Camp Scott, Installation 04, Iota Horologii System
At the back of a jury-rigged UNSC tent, two pairs of kig-yar sat in a circle around half a pack of cards.
"That's the other red jack, top card, I win."
"Why is the other jack above the one from the top suit? This makes no sense."
"It's right here in the rules the human gave me with the pack of cards. Deal with it. Oh, and that's four hands to one, we win this round. Pay up."
"Ahh – unggoy shit, I'm out. Chac Lon, can I borrow another couple credits and -"
"No!" Chac Lon rolled over in his hammock, turning to face the losing kig-yar. "I've already loaned you money twice after Shim cleaned you out at this damn game, and you still kept playing after I told you to stop. Shim, just make this idiot clean your rifle for the next week or something and let me get some sleep."
"You sure you don't want to play?" Shim Vol asked as the losing kig-yar slunk away. "We've got an open spot."
"You know me, I stick with dice and darts." He paused, hearing movement outside the tent. "Sounds like human outside. What do they want?" In theory Chac Lon and this group of kig-yar were supposed to be on rest for the next five and a half hours. And the other UNSC soldiers rarely came by for social calls.
Sure enough, there was knocking at the entrance of their tent a few seconds later.
"You all awake? Good." Chac Lon was a bit surprised to see Sergeant Johnson instead of some random corporal. "Chac Lon, need you to grab a couple of your best jackals and get to the command tent. Light Bulb is here and he's upset."
"The what is here? That floating thing from that Forerunner control room?" By the gods, why would Guilty Spark have come to their camp?
"Yep, that thing. Was going on about containment, said he needs everyone involved. Even you and the split-lips."
"I'll be there in three minutes." Chac Lon was already out of his hammock and putting on his armor. "Shim, Zhal Ven, and... you two, Dhak and Ral." Chac Lon pointed at a pair of Ruuhtians who were already mostly dressed. "Come with me, see what this monitor wants." The word "containment" rattled around in the back of his mind. The monitor had mentioned that the rings were built to contain some sort of parasitic disease called the Flood? Had it escaped? He had enough gas masks for all of his kig-yar on this ring, but not as many full spacesuits. Hopefully whatever this disease was wasn't too virulent. Fighting in gas mask was bad enough; doing it in a spacesuit in full gravity and atmosphere was downright awful.
A few minutes later, Chac Lon and his kig-yar were in the main command building at Camp Scott. Aside from Sergeant Johnson and a few other Marines, the presence of all three Spartans was immediately noticeable. As the presence of three sangheili. In the middle was the star of the show; the Forerunner monitor, 343 Guilty Spark.
The monitor looked around the room, examining the mixed group assembled at his request. "Excellent, excellent. Representatives of all species are here. We must move quickly. While the short delay did allow me to slow down and look at the events from a somewhat more detached perspective, the situation remains critical. Time is of the utmost importance."
"What's the situation at the facility where the outbreak happened? Will we have to deal with hostile Covenant forces along with the Flood?" One of the Spartans, 117, asked. Evidently the monitor had started briefing him before Chac Lon showed up.
"All of the jiralhanae, kig-yar, and unggoy among the team that damaged the containment facility perished. Fortunately, their efforts at containment, while crude, were effective enough that the local sentinel detachment was able to fight the Flood to a stalemate and keep it from leaving the immediate vicinity. However, I have lost contact with all sensors within the facility itself, and while I can predict several outcomes and their probabilities even a construct as intelligent as myself cannot be certain. We must plan for the worst case scenario."
"Which is?" The gold-armored sangheili asked the question on Chac Lon's mind (and probably everyone else's).
"In the event of an uncontrollable infestation which escapes this Installation, protocol dictates that the Index must be retrieved and brought to the control room by one of the Reclaimers, for the purpose of activating the installation. While all of your equipment is terribly inadequate, your 'Spartans' are the least unsuitable for this purpose."
"That would kill everyone in this galaxy." The Spartan seemed less than enthusiastic about following protocol.
"Yes, that would be an unfortunate, but intended effect of the activation of the Array. Still, to prevent complete loss of biodiversity in the galaxy, drastic measures must be taken. You must understand." 343 Guilty Spark paused, his main light flickering for a bit as he thought deeply. "Although without ready access to the Ark, initiating the reseeding protocol would be complicated. This bears further thought." The monitor paused for another moment. "Regardless of these secondary concerns, action must be taken to prevent the spread of the Flood. Even if it remained confined to this installation, an infestation of sufficient size could compromise that primary function of this installation. That would be unacceptable!"
Everyone was silent for a moment, as they took in what the monitor had said.
"Be that as it may, we're all in agreement that we need to clear out this one installation." Colonel Gagne, who had been silent since the kig-yar arrived, spoke up. "What kind of environment are we looking at? Open area, industrial, underground tunnels?"
"The location of the infestation is primarily localized to subsurface tunnels, at this installation, here." 343 Guilty Spark projected a simplified map of the ring in the air. A squat looking bunker complex sat within a misty swamp. "Most of the tunnels are large enough for any of your species to walk upright, but a few are significantly more constrained."
"Alright then. Loadout is shotguns and incendiaries. Stick with each other and don't lose sight of your buddies. One-one-seven, you're in charge of the details and ground force. I'll get two Pelicans up and ready."
"Copy that, sir."
Fighting inside, in a tunnel complex filled with toxic, putrid air? Lovely. For Chac Lon, the swamp was better than the frigid environment of the control center, but only just. And the warmth wouldn't make up for the claustrophobic environment or having to wear a spacesuit. The weapons were another issue. He was decently familiar with the M90 shotgun the humans used, even if he'd rather have his needle rifle or even the human battle rifle. But he'd never so much as test fired a human flamethrower.
Back in his earlier life, Chac Lon had done a few jobs in contaminated environments. Abandoned industrial sites were great for salvage, and anything clean and safe had been stripped of value decades ago. As a young kig-yar with barely enough money to fill his hands, he did what he had to do. As the captain of his own ship and crew, he'd have charged a king's ransom to do a job like that again.
But, now, working for the UNSC, he didn't have a choice. If he dug his claws in and refused, he'd at least end up in the brig back on the Targhee. And the UNSC would just grab a couple more of his kig-yar to fill in for him. So he'd take this job, and deal with scrubbing off his feathers and his suit once they got back to camp.
"I'll set down in cover a few clicks away. The brutes and elites might be shooting each other, but I don't want a stray Banshee taking potshots at me."
"Copy, Echo 337. Will call for pickup."
As Spartan-117 waved him off, the last of the Pelicans departed, leaving the UNSC troops alone with 343 Guilty Spark, outside the entrance to the infested Forerunner complex. While the monitor had used the ring's teleportation systems to go on ahead, the humans, kig-yar, and sangheili had to ride Pelicans over to the site. From the outside, the only sign anything was wrong was a few jiralhanae and kig-yar corpses, that looked like they had been burned with some kind of energy weapon.
"This area was sanitized by the local sentinel contingency prior to my arrival at your camp. Some of their weapons are still intact; I would recommend salvaging anything that might be of use to you." The monitor had clearly seen them looking at the bodies of the Covenant outside the bunker.
During the Pelican ride to the facility, Spartan-117 had analyzed the blueprints 343 Guilty Spark provided him. He identified and briefed the group on three main objectives. The first was getting to the "control center" of the facility, which would allow all of its defenses to be reactivated. Unfortunately, it was also where the worst of the infestation would be. The three Spartans were the best equipped to handle it, in their sealed and shielded Mjolnir armor. They would handle that.
The second objective was a backup control center a few levels underground, but not as deep as the heart of the facility. If there were any inactive sentinels inside, some of them might be able to be reactivated from there. Fleetmaster 'Vadamee and his sangheili would tackle that objective; they had personal shielding like the Spartans, and their energy swords would likely be very effective against the Flood.
That left the ODSTs and kig-yar. Some of the ODSTs would stay behind to guard the entrance; both from any Flood that had escaped into the nearby swamp and from any surviving jiralhanae. They'd also man the decontamination equipment that had been brought along; a caustic foaming substance and spray nozzles for it. Standard stuff for decontaminating after operating in a dangerous environment.
The kig-yar, along with a squad of six ODSTs, would head for a control node for the facility's environmental control systems. Restarting the ventilation systems would clear spores out of the air, and make everyone elses' job easier. Plus, it was shallow enough that the kig-yar and ODSTs in their environment suits could handle it. Hopefully.
Spartan-117 had made very clear to everyone that the first priority was coming back alive. Their numbers were already limited enough, and while they didn't know exactly what Flood infection looked like, the monitor had told them enough to know it was to be feared.
Fifteen minutes later, and the kig-yar and ODSTs were well into the tunnels with no sign of the Flood but a slowly thickening miasma in the air. The radios were mostly silent; whatever metal the Forerunners had used to build this place seemed to be interfering with communications between the different team. Still, there was nothing serious so far, and they could still talk among their squad. As they rounded a corner, the team saw the floor and walls partially covered with lumps of strange, greenish-brown biomass.
One of the ODSTs nudged one of the lumps with his foot. It gave slightly, making a nauseating wet sound as the rubber boot of the ODST's environment suit pressed against it. "Gross." The human soldier muttered, as he withdrew his foot. A bit of greasy residue was left on the toe. "Good thing we've got these suits on. Need a long shower to clean that shit off."
"I've seen unggoy breeding holes worse than this." Chac Lon responded, as he moved to take point. Still, he checked the diagnostics on his armored vacuum suit. Filters were still good, but he switched over to the internal air supply. Without the bulky extra pack he'd normally use for EVAs, the air would only last a kig-yar about half an hour, but something was putting him on edge.
Up ahead was an intersecting hallway. He was almost there when the walls and floor suddenly vibrated angrily for a few seconds, and a garbled burst of static came over the radio. Chac Lon stopped, dropping to a squat and raising his rifle to his shoulder. He looked down the sights into the dim light ahead of him; nothing. "Shim, you see anything?" He whispered into his radio.
"Nothing." The other T'vaoan hissed back, as she scanned the hallway. The ground shook again, not as violently as last time, but easily felt.
"I don't like this, man. Something hinky is going down." One of the ODSTs, a young private said, fear creeping into his voice.
"Vomez, you always have a bad feeling, you wimp." Another trooper, a few years more experienced, snapped back. "Hey jackal, we good to burn this shit on the way out?" He asked, gesturing with his flamethrower toward the strange biomass they'd just passed.
"Fine by me." Chac Lon replied. He tapped the incendiary grenades at his waist, making sure they were still there. He'd lifted two of them off one of the jiralhanae corpses outside the facility. Chac Lon had never used them before, but he'd heard stories from other kig-yar about jiralhanae using them in assassinations or undercover operations on behalf of the Covenant. Had they known what they were running into here? Chac Lon had a disturbing thought; if those jiralhanae outside the facility were sent to contain the Flood, what had happened to the first group to stumble upon this facility?
"Contact left!" One of the ODSTs yelled, and Chac Lon whipped his head around to look. Emerging from the dim light of one of the hallways were a dozen strange, brown colored creatures. Barely rising to the height of a human's knee, they scuttled forward on thin tentacle-like appendages, with a few more tendrils waving in front of them. Chac Lon could see no sign of a face or anything remotely resembling a normal body.
"By the gods, what is that?" Dhak whispered, while Chac Lon hissed a few curses of his own. One of the ODSTs pulled out their sidearm, carefully sighted in on the lead creature, and fired. The single round demolished it, the main body of the thing simply popped like a balloon.
"Whatever it is it goes down easy. Don't see what that robot was so worried about." The human soldier said, smiling, as he picked off another one. The rest of the ODSTs and kig-yar drew their own sidearms, ready to deal with the seemingly inconsequential threat.
Suddenly, there was movement in the shadows, and out of the darkness came hundreds more of the creatures. Chac Lon stood shocked for a moment, paralyzed. The sound of the ODSTs firing their pistols as fast as they could shook him back to awareness. "We're getting out, go, go! Stay as a group, stay close!" He yelled, as he backed up and pulled out his shotgun. Now he saw why the monitor had called it the "Flood". The creatures surged forward, like water rushing from a broken dam.
The recoil from the M90 was brutal, even for a somewhat heftier kig-yar like Chac Lon. Luckily, he barely had to aim; the surge of creatures covering the floor and walls were packed tightly enough that each blast from the shotgun shredded multiple targets. But it wasn't enough; the hallway was too narrow for more than three or four of the UNSC soldier to fire at a time, and there seemed to be no end to the oncoming tide. Hissing profanity, he grabbed one of his two incendiary grenades and spiked it at the ground a few meters in front of the horde. Shim Vol and three of the ODSTs got the idea and threw their own grenades into the pool of flame Chac Lon's grenade created, making a temporary wall of fire between them and the creatures. Even through his spacesuit Chac Lon could feel the heat; he backpedaled away, fearful of even the slightest possibility of damaging the seal on his suit and inhaling the toxic air.
The grenades did their job; as the creatures mindlessly pushed forward into the flames, their 'heads' popped under the intense heat. The humans and kig-yar paused for a moment, to catch their breath and regroup.
"Fire looks like it works, get those flamethrowers ready." Chac Lon said, as he struggled to fill his lungs.
"Damn right." One of the ODSTs said, as he grinned and shot a brief puff of flame out of his weapon.
"Boss, is that what the monitor was scared of?" Dhak asked, fear in his voice.
"I think there's something else." Chac Lon replied. These small things were scary, but they'd managed to stop them with just normal weapons. He'd seen the ruins of what the Forerunners built, how could their empire have fallen to a bunch of weird blobs on legs?
"All teams, this is Team Charlie, come in." Chac Lon radioed to the other teams. Had the Demons or Sangheili run into these creatures also? There was no response, just a brief burst of static.
"This is Team Charlie, we have run into heavy opposition from unknown hostiles and are pulling out. Do you hear?" Still no response. Well, he tried. The fire was starting to die, and in the dim light he saw the creatures starting to push forward again. They needed to keep moving.
A few more intersections and turns in the tunnels, and all they had to deal with were a few clumps of the creatures following them. Nothing that a quick burst from the flamethrowers or a few shotgun shells couldn't handle. As long as they didn't run out of ammunition before making it back to the surface of the ring, they'd be fine.
They came to a choke point within the hallways, where one of the doors jammed partially closed on the viscera of a few of the creatures. As they were preparing to file through one by one, Chac Lon took up a position at the rear of the formation. He was the first to see it. Out of the darkness, along with another wave of dozens of the small creatures, was something else.
Shambling towards them was a monstrosity that barely fit within the tunnel. Its features were twisted and warped, covered in greenish-brown growths with an arm distorted into absurdly long tentacles. It rumbled toward him, moving surprisingly fast on a pair of malformed legs. Chac Lon carefully aimed, and fired, sending a shotgun shell directly into the being's head.
The shot from the 8-gauge shell was devastating at close range, tearing huge chunks of flesh from the creature's head. But it barely even flinched. It stumbled a bit, before letting out a horrifying scream and slashing at Chac Lon. The agile T'vaoan barely evaded, throwing himself against the wall as the tentacles passed barely over his head. Frantically, he worked the action of his shotgun, and fired another barely-aimed shell into the creature's center mass. This time it rocked back, stunned, before someone else put another shell into it, and it dropped.
Chac Lon barely had time to stand up before seeing even more of them coming down the hallway. Adrenaline pumping through his system, he fired another round, and as he did, he realized what he was shooting at. It was the jiralhanae who had first found the facility, warped into something nearly unrecognizable. Was it those small things that had done this? Was this what would happen to them if they died?
Now truly afraid, he fired again, hitting his target off center. It staggered but stayed upright, for a moment, until one of the ODSTs set it afire. As it did, a horde of the smaller creatures rushed in. One avoided the flames and jumped for Chac Lon. Jumping back of out the way, he frantically fired the last round in his magazine, and missed. He managed to crush it against the wall with the butt of the shotgun, but now his main weapon was empty. Grabbing as many shells as he could fit between his fingers, he started reloading. Then, Chac Lon heard screaming. His instincts told him to turn and look, but his mind knew he had to defend himself. He loaded two shells, then pumped the action and fired into last of the group of mutated jiralhanae. The second shot, along with half a dozen others from the rest of the squad, put it down. They were in the clear, for now. Chac Lon inhaled, then turned to look at where the screams had been coming from.
Ral lay on the floor, a massive tear in the front of his spacesuit. One of the things sat atop his chest, sinking its tendrils in as the Ruuhtian weakly clawed at it. Something was moving underneath the skins, rippling and squirming around. Chac Lon and two nearby humans stood watching, frozen in horror. Until Shim Vol walked up and put three shells into the creature, killing it and Ral. Chac Lon heard her mutter an old mariner's prayer, as he unfroze himself.
"Get clear." He said, gesturing toward the other soldiers nearby and motioning them back away from Ral's body. Once they got far enough away, Chac Lon grabbed his second incendiary grenade and lobbed it onto the body, coating it in flames. In seconds, it was ash. One of the ODSTs with a flamethrower looked at him, and nodded. The understanding was clear.
"There's more of them!" One of the humans yelled, as another wave of the Flood rushed forward. Again, there were dozens of the small creatures, plus a few more of the mutated, deformed jiralhanae.
"Keep moving! If we don't move they'll cover us!" Chac Lon didn't know whether the Flood were coordinating amongst themselves, but he did know that even insects could crudely communicate with each other using chemical signals. He had to assume these things could do the same. The first round from his shotgun tore into a cluster of the small creatures, destroying them. His second did the same, killing another half dozen. The next target was one of the mutated jiralhanae. It was far enough away that the blast from Chac Lon's shotgun only wounded it. As Chac Lon reloaded, he caught sight of an object in the infected jiralhanae's right hand.
The Flood creature fired only five shots before its spiker jammed, and every one of them flew wide of Chac Lon. But that it fired a weapon at all was a shock. As fast as he could, the T'vaoan emptied his magazine, tearing the infected jiralhanae to shreds. As he frantically reloaded, he heard the sounds of gunfire behind him, and out of the corner of his eye, saw even more Flood coming from a cross hallway. He ignored it as he crept backward, his back against the wall of the hallway. Another Flood creature shambled down the hallway toward him, randomly firing a plasma rifle. Chac Lon ducked, barely dodging a burst of red plasma that splashed into the wall at head height, and fired three shells. His aim wasn't perfect, but the first two of his shots blew off the jiralhanae's arm, and the third obliterated its leg, sending it tumbling to the ground.
Glancing behind him, he saw one of the ODSTs smashed into the wall by a burning jiralhanae, as the body of another human lay burning on the floor. The situation was rapidly getting out of control. "Shim, you still alive?" Chac Lon hissed into his radio as he reloaded his shotgun. He was down to less than a magazine and a half, and he wasn't confident his pistol could handle the infected jiralhanae.
"Yes, can't talk now!" She whispered back.
"If you can, run. Someone needs to warn the surface about this." Chac Lon said. "Me and the rest of the humans will stall them as long as we can."
"Talk to your sister for me." Shim Vol responded, before clicking off her radio. Chac Lon saw her empty her magazine, before turning to sprint down the hallway faster than any human could. None of the ODSTs noticed, they were too busy trying to deal with dozens of the small creatures rushing toward them.
Chac Lon emptied another three rounds at one of the infected jiralhanae as he backed toward the rest of the group. Thankfully, that seemed to be the last of the big ones. For now, at least.
"Anyone, this is Team Charlie. Do you hear us?" Chac Lon radioed the other teams again. Still no response. He hissed several curses. The fear was starting to get to him now, and he could tell it was hitting the rest of his team, too. He had to act like he had it together, if he was going to keep the team running and have any chance of staying alive. Slim as it was.
"How many canisters to you have left for your flamethrowers? They're the best thing we have." Chac Lon asked the ODSTs. One had one reload, the others were on their last canister of fuel. Not what he hoped, but they would have to live with it. "When the next group of them comes, cover the entire hall with flames and throw your grenades in. We need to make a wall so we can stop them and get some distance."
The ODSTs nodded. "You know, it's crazy, but I'd rather be fighting a hundred of you jackals than this shit. No offense." One of them joked.
"And I'd rather fight a hundred of you humans, too." Chac Lon shot back, smiling.
Five minutes later, they were out of grenades, and running. Their gambit got the squad a bit of a lead on the Flood following them, but the parasites could be anywhere withing the maze of tunnels that made up the Forerunner facility. After half a dozen more turns down hallways, Chac Lon was starting to worry they were going deeper into the facility. Then, ahead of him, he saw hovering blue lights heading toward him. Sentinels. They were saved!
A cluster of five Sentinels flew by, ignoring the humans and kig-yar as they headed deeper into the facility. Not even a minute later, after the Sentinels turned a corner, Chac Lon heard the sound of the Sentinels firing their weapons. The Flood must indeed have been close behind.
"Just get out, let the Sentinels cover our back!" Chac Lon shouted over his shoulder. The other humans and kig-yar didn't need any more encouragement, and the situation soon devolved into everyone sprinting as fast as they could toward the exit. Thankfully, they ran into no more Flood, and Chac Lon was still able to make good time even in his spacesuit.
Chac Lon was the first of his group out, followed closely by Dhak. Immediately, he was hit in the face by a spray of decontamination foam; if his spacesuit had any leaks it would have burned his skin in seconds. Though at this point, he wouldn't have minded. Once he wiped his face clear, he saw Shim Vol sitting, resting against a pillar. Good to know she had made it out. He also saw all three of the Spartans; no surprise they had lived, but had they accomplished their objective?
The most shocking thing Chac Lon saw was the team of sangheili. Their gold-armored leader had survived, but nearly half of them were gone. The Flood Chac Lon and his team ran into killed about a third of their unshielded team. What had the shielded, armored sangheili run into that was so much worse it killed even more of them?