As soon as Parisa heard the codeword, her blood ran as cold as ice. It was if her blood had been replaced with liquid nitrogen or something even colder. She remembered what happened at Zoi, what happened at Earth. Those nightmares neve left her mind, the people getting turned, the flood. Her breath shortened at the memory as she tried to force it out of her mind.

"Count to three, breath in, count to three exhales," she muttered to herself trying to regain her calm.

A few eyes looked to her as she did so, but no one mentioned anything.

"What's the situation Dana?" she asked after turning off her external mic.

"The Chief is currently engaged with several flood forms. I'm detecting other forms moving though the facility," the AI said.

Parisa sighed in both annoyance, reluctance, fear and terror filled her. There was only real one option she had to make.

"Activate the protocol," she said. "Alert the other ships and factions and check the ring," as she spoke a sense of wryness and tiredness overflowed though her.

One particular thought ran though her mind, killing the leaders of the other factions. It would be so easy to do. Order the ships to fire on the Capital ships taking out the leaders of the GHR and Victoria could send their territories into civil war, allowing her to take over as much territory as she wanted. Sarah, on the other hand, may be able to counter the attack and survive. But then it would be only her…. it would be so easy.

She clamped down those feelings and focused on the current situation. Standing she walked over to one of the commanders.

"Prepare everyone for evac," she ordered. "Quarantine measures," he nodded to that but before he could ask, Parisa whispered. "Level R-10," that made his eyes wide, but he nodded.

As he left, Parisa looked to Miranda and Cortana's sister making a vow to keep them safe.

OOOOO

John moved as fast as his augmented body and power armoured servos allowed. By his standards, it's was somewhat slow as one of the plasma blades managed to cut his leg armour. By normal human standards, he moved so fast it may as well as looked as if he teleported from one place to the other. Once clear of the flood forms, he threw a plasma grenade at one of them. It stuck to one of the forms, but if it noticed, it didn't care as it tried to chase John down with the others. But the Spartan moved fast before the grenade detonated and taking out two and a half of the six flood forms.

John then looked to the server towers before mentally kicking himself for the quick action. He had taken out four towers. He didn't know where the information was and likely made his mission harder. Bullets wouldn't do him any favours as well. They could also damage the towers. He needed to think, what could he use to take out… a memory came to mind. Reaching behind his back, he grabbed the energy sword that the Arbiter had gifted him before he left.

Activating it, he turned and faced the flood as they approached at speed. Their momentum presented them from stopping. Using that to his advantage, he brought his arm back and slashed at the nearest one. The shield didn't last long as the blade cut though the shield like butter then into the festering decaying flesh of the flood. He smelled flood before and was thankful not to smell this rotting corpse of a bother or sister as they turned to bits. He did a mental count. Three left, three flood forms that had vanished from sight.

It wasn't hard to come to the conclusion that they must have activated their stealth. Not worrying about that for now, he ran to the terminal and placed his hand on it.

"Accessing Data," Dana said as one of the flood forms decloaked and tired to attack from behind.

John kicked it in the torso sending it back a few feet before he moved into a follow-up attack. But the form blocked the attack and deflected it opening John up for another attack. The plasma claw managed to cut deep into his armour, but not deep enough to wound. Recovering quickly, and making a not to get some sword training, John moved in with speed for the attack only to be ambushed by one of other two flood forms. Breaking off the attack, he pulled away as the plasma claw cut into his arm.

Grunting at the pain, he looked to the two trying to plan out his next attack. Two on one wasn't always good odds. The flood relied on the instincts and knowledge that they absorbed from the people they infected. The two former Spartans in front of him most likely had more knowledge and experience centred and focused around close quarters combat. A huge disadvantage for him. He needed to play this carefully, tactically, plan his attack. As he did so a thought came to mind.

Having the knowledge of using weapons wasn't the same as knowing how to use one. The same also applied with experience. It was one of the reason's why human framed combat drones didn't work well. It was an abandoned project by the UNSC in the early years to make loyal soldiers. But they didn't work because, aside from the malfunctions, they didn't know how to act on the knowledge or experience. Even with rudimentary AI, humans always outsmarted them.

Because human could act on the knowledge and experience and in a way twist it. Out think how they moved. An evolutionary trait that allowed humanity to survive. He could use that. He turned and moved though the stacks causing the two to case him. that was good, they needed to focus on him. Once he was inside, he began to make random turns though the towers. Weaving though the towers for a few more moments, he then made his move. Making a turn down one he charged at one of the forms at speed.

He slammed into the form before it could react to him and he slammed it into the far end of the room crushing it into a pulp. With that done, he turned to move though the towers again tracking the other flood form. Unlike him, it was following him closely. Getting out into the open section of the room he stopped and brought his sword to bisect the flood form. The pieces splatter against the walls of the towers before John cutting the parts up. With that done he headed over to the terminal to retrieve the information.

But the final flood form decided to make it's move as it appeared before him and slashed at his arm. John deflected the attack but not before it cut deep into his chest. Once deflected he then moved in to cut the flood form into pieces. With a grunt covering his wound he moved up to the terminal and took Dana off of it.

"Did you get the data?" he asked.

"Confirmed, I have the data. As per protocol, I have nukes locked onto the station. I suggest you leave," she said in a calm but concerned tone.

"Understood, nearest exit?" he asked.

"Pelican hanger two levels above you," was all she said before he began to run.

OOOOO

Kelly sat in the office of one of the police sergeants who had arrived at the scene. Given the nature of the attack, and her ranking as a former member of the Spartans and a current high-ranking employee of Misriah, it meant that this was taken very seriously. She had heard horror stories from her fellow Spartans about how some police members were trying to get them jailed, or just outright harassed them, she hoped that it wasn't going to happen to her. A part of her hoped that her connections to the President and Misriah would be able to get her some leeway, but she also hoped that her position didn't give her any favours.

She didn't want to be labelled as one of 'those people' by her fellow Spartans. While Spartans did have a rank, in terms of the military. That rank didn't translate to everyday life. All Spartans were equal, but that didn't stop low mutters and gossip. She didn't want privilege; she didn't want to be seen any differently. But in truth, the police were already considering what happened due to her killing spree at the docks.

It could be argued that she did that because she knew that terrorists were there. But they had a heads up from the President, and even Police knew to keep back from Spartans on the warpath. And she was on the warpath that day. She felt hypocritical at that. She was glad that the police let her go that day, that she wasn't arrested. But now she didn't want the same treatment for beating up a group of people.

An officer walked in with a tablet in his hand. He looked at her with equal measure of fear and respect.

"Miss Kelly, I have to apologise for the wait. We had a bit of a situation at the mall, a gang decided it would be fun to try and mass rob the place," he said as he said down.

"It's fine," Kelly said masking her emotions with years of long practice. "I'm used to waiting,"

The man nodded as he looked at the information. "So, they said that you attacked them first, unprovoked and out of the shadows, how do you explain this?"

"I was on my way home, when I spotted them following me," she half lied, trying to explain enhanced Spartan senses wouldn't help her. "To make sure, I took turns down a few streets to see if I was imagining them. But they did follow. To prevent anyone from getting needlessly hut, I went down a back alley to hide,"

"And this is where you attacked them?" the officer nodded.

"Not immediately," she confessed. "I had to see if they were a threat, so threw a rock down the alley to see if they were armed. They were,"

He nodded again. "So, you acted in accordance with your training and disarmed them before calling us,"

It was her turn to nod. "That's right. I do not know why they were stalking me, but… but I saw a threat and eliminated it,"

His brow raised at that, questioning the wording but nodded. "Understandable," he said before typing something down.

Kelly watched him carefully. While large police officers weren't uncommon, this man wasn't large. Or at least not enough for his belly to protrude. Ever since the UNSC had been established, the police forces of the various worlds had to go through a stricter training and fitness regime to weeded out the unfit. But, like always, people fell though the cracks and this man could be one of them.

She couldn't tell what, but there was something about him that rubbed her the wrong way. He typed a few things in before asking a few more clarifying questions before letting her leave. On the way-out Kelly took her phone and called her boss. There was one thing that she needed to do at least. Get a lawyer.

OOOOO

"Kill the reds, kill the reds, kills the reds," the soldiers in blue chanted like it was a battle cry or prayer.

They stood around a flag with white eagle on it. The way that they stood was almost religious reverence around the piece of cloth, as if it was there for them to worship. In a way it was. These 'soldiers' weren't the best that the UNSC had to offer. They were the worst, which was the point. These soldiers weren't meant to be anything more than cannon fodder, flash cloned on mass for the Freelancer project.

In the distance a trumpet sounded alerting the soldiers in blue run out of the base to fight soldiers in red armour. Above them a lone solider is blue just watched over. He said nothing before walking on towards a base in the distance. He needed to be alone, his mind didn't feel right. But then again, it rarely did.

"Oh hello," he said as he noticed two people standing at the entrance to his base. "Are you here for the party? I'm sorry I haven't gotten anything ready, you need to come back later"

"Caboose, we need to leave," Griff said as he pulled himself off of the base. "We've been found out,"

"Oh, what did they found out?" he asked. "Wait, who found out what?"

"Orion," Kaikaina. "Some bitch came to take us away,"

"Oh, you mean how were the first Spartans?" he asked.

"How did…." Grif began but shook his head. "You know what, ever mind, we got to get out of here,"

"Oh, but we can't go," Caboose began. "The cake is in the oven, and we haven't got the party started,"

"Well have the party done another time, we need to go," Grif said as he grabbed Caboose by the arm and pulled him off towards the motor pool.