September 21st 2552, Deployment+52:27:11 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock)
“Scanning, Covenant forces in the vicinity have been eliminated. Let's move on to Halo’s control centre.” As John and his team moved in he glanced over at Vinh who fell into step on his right. In the battle her experimental high capacity shielding had failed, thankfully her quick reflexes had prevented anything more than a minor burn on her right leg but it still worried John.
Vinh had gone from a formidable vanguard to a weak link. Cortana had assured them that her shields could be repaired but for how long? How reliably? What would happen if other components in the absurdly complex Mjolnir armour failed?
Vinh put too fingers to her helmet as she looked towards John and he mirrored her. Turning towards a holographic display she activated the large door in front of them, with a hiss and a large magnetic clack the barrier split into four sections and retreated into the walls, floor and ceiling.
John strode into the Control room lowering his rifle and looking around as the silent colossal space was filled with the sound of four distinct footsteps. Blue Team found itself on an immense platform. A gleaming reflective bridge, apparently without supports, extended over an impossibly deep emptiness and extending towards a great circular walkway.
In the centre of the round walkway was a lazily spinning holographic model of the solar system. A giant transparent image of the gas giant overhead, the small gray moon in
orbit around it, and suspended between the two, the immense ring was far greater in scale spinning wildly around the gas giant dwarfing it in size despite being over twenty one times smaller in reality.
“They could at least put in some handrails.” Isaac remarked as the four of them approached a grand holographic terminal with thousands of distinct shimmering sections arranged like some abstract art.
“This is it, Halo’s control centre.” John could not help but stare in awe at the sheer scale of it all. “That terminal, try there.” Reaching back John pulled Cortana from his neural implant and slotted her into an indistinct holographic section of the terminal highlighted by Cortana. As the data chip containing the AI came into contact the area suddenly became sharper and rapidly conformed to the Human architecture.
As soon as she was inserted into the system Cortana’s avatar appeared before them arching her back and gasping as lines of multicoloured code ran across her body in a dizzying display.
“You okay there Cortana?” Isaac asked from behind John.
“Never been better!” Cortana smiled earnestly and closed her eyes as she spread her arms. “You can't imagine the wealth of information, the knowledge, so much so fast. It's glorious!”
“So, what kind of weapon is it?” John asked trying to focus the AI on the mission.
“What are you talking about?” Cortana glared down at John as she put her hands on her hips.
“The ring, how do we use it against the Covenant?” Vinh interjected the worried edge to her voice only noticeable to the Spartans that had known her since childhood.
“Halo is not a cudgel you barbarians its something else.” Cortana looked off into the distance her tone changing. “Something much more important.”
“Barbarians?” William muttered in disbelief but Cortana continued.
“The Covenant were right, this place was built by the forerunners. Give me a second to access.” The four Spartians slowly turned to look at each other and back to cortana as the AI’s avatar covered its ‘eyes’.
“Yes the Forerunners built this place what they designated a fortress world in order too...” There was a pause, John had never heard Cortana speak to them like that. William stepped forward to castigate her when Cortana cut him off.
“No! That can’t be, oh those Covenant fools. There must have been signs.”
“Slow down.” John stepped forward and raised his hands in a calming motion. “You're losing me.”
“The Covenant found something.” Her eyes widened in horror “The Inquisitor, she found something buried in this ring, something horrible. The Covenant are afraid, in a panic there are accusations...”
“Something buried?” Vinh tried to focus the horrified AI.
“Oh no, they are going to be cut off, why are they going back down! Keyes, the Inquisitor! They will be surrounded!”
“The Captain? What is goi-”
“There is no time! Get out! I will remain here, find Keyes and the Inquisitor and stop them!” John saw a string of coordinates appear in his peripheral vision on his helmet as the four Spartains turned and began to run.
“Quickly before it's too late!” Cortana managed to shout after them.
Ţ̸̦͇͚̠̬̀͌̍̓͋̌̎̊͋̃̍͒̚͝͝ͅỏ̸̡̫͉̫̬̰̖̫̮͖̞̘͍͌̒̉̈́͋̉̍̇̓̊͘͜͝g̷̢̢͕̻̬͖͉̭̹̫̙̟̲̰̈́͗̽̋͜͝ẽ̴̞̣̙̣t̵̡͙̯͆̉̎̀̒͌͛̈́̋ḧ̴̳̾̇͊̓͑͠è̷̛̪̼̫̦͍͖̯̞̀͛͂̅͑͐̓̚̕͘͝ͅr̵̢̛͉͖͉͍̗̪͕̜̗͙̻͈̝̮̍̃̆̑͊̆͑̑̐͋͑͝
A terrible hunger. Deep, insidious and boundless in its intensity filled Twilight's very being. She found herself unable to move or see, even thinking was difficult. Without warning a vision presented itself, a thought or memory ripped from her mind.
...She was sitting in a soft wooden chair her feet touching the soft yellowish sand as she looked out across the Pacific. Gulls overhead as she reclined...
Loss, a part of her gone, torn away and discarded. No, not her? Not gone, discarded by the predator, she collected the scraps of memory holding the precious things close.
...He was standing before a disappointed mother castigating him, overwhelming guilt over his inability to keep the book stable in his arcane grip...
Twilight was not alone, he was with another, she, they.
...her first kiss, she pressed her lips to the women cupping her head in her hand and pressing against her, feeling the moment for as long as it would last...
They, together in darkness.
...He was alone as he often was, only the recorded chanting within this holy place to bring him comfort, to know he walked a great journey was one of the only things that gave him strength...
The hunger was the other and all they had was each other.
...The first time she killed another human being, during the riots on Charybdis IX. she smelled blood, and her hands shook as she held the rifle. She could feel the heat of the weapon’s barrel...
Together they worked, the predator and its hunger kept at bay though the agonising pain of lost personhood.
...The sickening smell of lilacs and lilies as she stood over her father’s coffin...
He was her shield, she was his sword.
...He looked down at the cracking egg before him and saw his little brothers eyes for the first time...
Years of experience bleeding away as he withstood attack after attack, the honed and steeled mind of a unicorn striking out against the Predator giving them moments of fleeting clarity.
...She grinned around the unlit pipe her fingers drumming against the armrest as her ship pushed itself beyond its ability, the metal screaming all about her...
A dim light in the dark hunger, distant and pale but they rushed to it the hunger screaming in defyance.
...She felt her heart quicken as she held her daughter for the first time...
They reached the light, the fading sanity in endless hunger.
But the Predator was upon them.
Gabby let out a muffled groan as she slowly returned to the waking world, she tried to stretch out but found herself once again restrained but this time by Covenant manacles that were magnetically locked to the ground. She opened her eyes, or tried to. Her left eye was swollen shut and whenever she tried to move her beak it sent a dull throbbing pain shooting through her face.
“What do you feed your Demons? By Celestia's rump my face feels like I insulted a yak’s grandmother.” Gabby felt herself smiling despite her situation, the euphoria of still being alive despite it all. She would feel better if the Human would stop pointing a shotgun at her face however.
The man that was snogging the changeling was stood over her, a glance about her new, more restrictive, accommodation showed that she had him all to herself. With the sounds of battle still raging in the distance she could not have been out for long.
“You were about to say something before... Before that glowing green stuff hit you.” He was pale, more than he was before anyway.
“I was about to shout ‘Changeling’ yes, not sure what I was trying to accomplish but then again I had just had a lovely dance with your cyborg so I resolve the right to make pointlessly dramatic statements. How is she by the way?”
“Changeling, is that what they are called? She wanted to speak to me, I sent her away. I can’t- I just can’t.” Gabby frowned, or at least tried to, she was woefully asymmetrical at the moment.
“Not the Changeling you twit, the Spartan” Markus stared at her for a moment.
“She... is fine? You broke the helmet.”
“Obviously.”
“She left to fight the Covenant She told us to secure you and left.”
“I hate it when they leave while you are asleep.”
“What?”
“Nevermind, You wanted to ask me something?” Markus frowned trying to collect his thoughts after being derailed by the sardonic griffon.
“The Changeling sh-” Gabby cut Markus off as she pressed her sore face to the cool metal floor.
“Yeah, emotivores or as I like to call them, nasty parasites. Shapeshifters too, don’t tell anyone it's a state secret” Markus slowly lowered the shotgun and looked away, he was within beak distance but Gabby felt somewhat bad for the poor sod so she resolved to find a way to escape without biting his leg off.
“The Spartan said that orders are to work with the Changelings, that they are allies.” Gabby let out a dismissive snort.
“So long as they get to eat and replace you I suppose they will be your best friends.” The man set down the shotgun and looked around. In the distance gunfire and the screech of falling plasma mortars were still ringing out.
“Eat us? You can't be serious.”
“What part of emotivore don’t you understand?” There was a pregnant pause as she waited for his response.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means that they eat your feelings, it's all just magic to them and they need it to live.”
“Magic, like when you froze everything?” Gabby shook her head.
“No that is like eating fire, they can't just eat magic just like we can't just eat a sun, we get energy from secondary or tertiary sources right? It has to be processed. So little Markus sucks up magic from the air like everything does, and then the parasite comes along and sucks it out of you in the form of ‘love’. You are like a giant nipple.” Again Gabby had to wait for Markus to process her words.
“Everything has magic, what do you mean by that?”
“Luna preserve me. Look, everything that is alive is made of reactive elements and magic it's like five year old stuff.”
“I don’t think it's quite that simple th-”
“Listen we could argue until magic fits into your little cave-ape scientific framework or we can talk about Changelings shapeshifting into your queen or whatever.” Markus glared at her for the insult but relented. If the Griffon was telling the truth and she was not with the Covenant, that her presence was incidental. Then he needed to find out what she knew about the Changelings.
“Okay tell me everything you know.”
Gilda stalked through the halls as she did her best to ignore the terrified screams of the dying that rang out through the thick bulkheads, the synthetic pads on the paws of her armour were slick with blue and red gore.
The monstrous horde had torn through defenceless crewmen and menial workers like a knife through butter. Rare signs of resistance told a bleak story. Plasma scoring across walls in a panicked spray, ponies and unggoy too mangled to be of use to the monsters left in pained death throes after fighting with all the strength they had to survive the attack.
Sections of the ship closer to the Engine room where dedicated to large scale hydroponics. A very labour intensive region of the ship. Caught in the middle of a shift change the crew had been set upon by the creatures, killed and reanimated in a fashion so horrific it conjured up tales of the mythical war of the sun and moon, tales of dark magic and terrible beings that predated Equestria.
Gilda pushed onwards, her path was mostly unimpeded and what bodies the attackers had left to roam about were uncoordinated and equipped to deal with the griffon as she fought and raced her way to the engine citadel. Whatever intelligence the attackers possessed she could not discount the idea that they could access ship systems, certainly not when they had shown demonstrable coordination and intelligence by focussing there attention on the engineering section, however weather the goal was to gain access to the ship systems or simply to attack the greatest concentration of people Gilda had no idea.
“G we got problems up here, looks like the communication system was scuppered somehow, we are receiving just fine by we can’t send updates to the fleet. They still think its a Human attack and have sent a single dropship.” Gilda looked out at a vast space with dozens of large tanks that should hold tens of thousands of fish but instead held a pale yellow water with unsettling shapes moving about just beyond perceptive range.
“I am almost at the engine control center, it's a massacre down here Dash.”
“I can see, the Legate disappeared. He snuck off while I was managing the security force and he is no longer showing up in the ship network, slippery bucking creep likely has a safe room somewhere. Anyway you are going to have to seal up your suit, I am going to try to vent atmosphere in sections of the ship we don’t control” Gilda snapped her head back as she felt eyes on the back of her neck, but saw nothing. Just the pooled blood on the ground and cloudy tanks.
“Dash there are thousan-”
“They are dead G, it's just you back there. Engine room is quiet and the security team back there is not responding, you see something kill it. If you find that Legate drag him back here and make it painful, most of the ship is locked down and we need his codes to gain access. The Duchess also had the codes but she was in the section you are in now, no idea where but her workstation was right along the route the monsters took.”
“How the buck did they spread through the ship so quickly? I was chasing them the entire way!” Gilda stopped and placed her rifle onto the ground to activate the seals over her armoured suit. The air purification runes could offer her days of breathable air but she would have to be careful to keep them from getting damaged. Her suit was not rated for void combat.
“It's like a wave, the harder they pushed the more they had to push with. This is feathering necromancer shit G. Civs up here are freaking out. Unless we get this under control we won't be getting off the ship, no escape pods and no transports.” There was a splash somewhere in the room and Gilda spun about shifting though vision settings on her helmet as she reached for her rifle, she was not alone.
“Uhh G, Cam......n yo......ctio.....ead. You need.....hurry.....control ce........Duch....... be.....GIL!” With a thought Gilda dismissed the communication. The interference was not normal, rather than the static of conventional jamming or the ringing of magical interference it almost sounded like whispers, garbled and so disjointed as to be impossible to understand.
A wet thud, followed by dripping and a clip-clop, as hooves met bloodied floor. Gilda turned to meet the sound as she sholdered her rifle. From around one of the massive tanks stalked a unicorn, she had the dark blue and gold trimmed uniform of the Equestrian Merchant navy but it had seen better days. It clung to her bloated body wet and soiled by a rotten yellow fluid. The tightly fit uniform bulged and yellowed almost hairless flesh poking out from rips and tears in the clothing.
Her body was not as grotesquely deformed as others had been, her yellowed eyes met Gilda’s even though her reflective faceplate and bore a maniacal intelligence. Her mouth was forced open and from her broken jaw jutted red feelers that snapped about as they tasted the air.
Gilda fired her rifle, it was unloaded and only the magical charge normally used to activate enchanted rounds was sent across the room but even that should have been enough to rip apart the corpse that had once been the ships Duchess Captain.
The dead Unicorn lit its horn a dull yellow to form a circular shield that rippled and flowed in a madness inducing manor. The energy that should have ripped the monster asunder was directed to the sides and impacted into the side of the great fish tank. With a tremendous crash the tank ruptured and pale grey water poured out in a torrent. In the middle of the tank a great mass of rotten flesh spasmed, thousands of fish collected into a single ball of eyes, teeth and thrashing tendrils.
Gilda expertly opened the breach of her rifle and slammed a shieldbreaker round home before rapidly charging the rifle with her own power and sighting in on the Duchess again. The ball of reanimated fish pulsed as it dragged itself towards Gilda maddly gnashing its millions of teeth. With an explosion that rattled the intact tanks throughout the room the rifle was discharged again.
In a flash of sickly yellow light the Duchess was gone and the round thundered through a dozen more tanks before stopping imbedded halfway through a ship bulkhead. Gilda did not have time to stare transfixed at the impossible mastery of such a difficult magical art, only Unicorns of Twilights caliber could even attempt to throw themselves into slipspace let alone use the ability to move around realspace with terrifying speed.
Darting through the shin deep water Gilda dodged away from a tentacle that whipped out to strike her. Neatly she twisted her body and brought the butt of her rifle around with enough force to sever the abomination’s limb with crushing power alone. Before she could react her shields flared up as the hen was staggered by a barrage of magical attacks from behind. Gilda had the presence of mind to throw herself into the air before her shielding failed and flipped her body with incredible strain to kick off against the ceiling high above.
The Duchess stared up at her with its yellowed eyes and snapping feelers as it lit its horn again to inflict another barrage of magic it had no right possessing at Gilda. But at the last possible moment she flared her wings and threw herself to the ground dodging the bolts of destructive force. Reaching to her flank Gilda pulled a small blue orb and pressed the ignition, in her hand the grenade lit up in brilliant bright blue and Gilda threw it with an eagles screech as the Duchess lit its horn to teleport away.
With a flash the Unicorn was gone and a moment later there was an explosion of superheated plasma somewhere on the other side of the room. Gilda rolled her neck as she dodged away from the abominations pulling themselves towards her and made her way out of the fish farm. She avoided rather then attacked the masses of rotten fish, she was unsure if such a twisted form could even be killed and she certainly had no idea where to start.
“....lda! Gilda! Oh buck please be okay.” Stepping out into the hall Gilda continued onto the engine control center.
“I hear you Dash, there was a dead unicorn jamming the coms, killed it. Do you think the monsters have some sort of collective intelligence necromancer army thing going on?” A door down the hall opened and the decayed form of infected Unggoy wielding plasma pistols filled the air in front of her with superheated green plasma.
“This is a feathering nightmare so I don’t see why not!”
“Yeah I think that is what's going on. They seem to know I am coming for them and are sending forces to slow me down. Plus that Unicorn knew spells it could never have known, I am guessing we had an unlicensed mage on the ship somewhere that got eaten. Consider all dead Unicorns priority targets.” Gilda rushed down the hall dodging the hail of plasma fire and forcing the Unggoy into a melee they could not win.
“Had a group of them try to attack the command deck but they were not using anything more then levitation to throw jagged metal and shooting plasma pistols. Whatever you encountered it was a special case” Gilda crushed the last dead Unggoy and continued.
“Lets hope you are right Dash.”
September 21st 2552, Deployment+58:36:31 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock)
“This is it, let's hope Cortana was on point with the coordinates. Just a few clicks upspin of a Covenant weapons cache Victor dropped Silva off at, he is not responding to my pings so I can only assume he is loitering somewhere with systems dark. I will get some hang time whi- Oh shit!” Carol Rawley read and reread the report that had popped up in her Pelicans computer as her co pilot expertly landed the bird.
“Everything okay Foe Hammer?” Issac shook away the dulling fuzz that descended upon campaigners after waking up from a much needed nap.
“Chief I am getting an update on the battlenet from Wellsley, that Super Carrier in orbit deployed a bunch of drop pods a few hours ago, they are going to be hitting all over this region soon and dropships are not far behind. Looking like over two hundred elites in the first wave and twenty four dropships following them in, whatever is going on with this ‘Inquisitor’ the Covies are riled up something fierce!”
“Is our landing zone clear?” John quickly took inventory of his teams equipment, three MA5B Assault Rifles, one M90 Shotgun, an S2 variant of the Anti-Matériel rifle, a SPNKr Rocket Launcher and two Magnum Sidearms. Combined with all the ammunition that his team could effectively carry he was confident that they could secure a landing zone if the situation demanded but they simply did not have the capacity to deal with hundreds of Covenant in an unknown battlefield without support, intel or Cortana.
“LZ is clear Chief but you got twenty minutes before the first wave hits and fifty before extracting you is impossible!” Blue team thundered out from the dropship the moment it landed, splashing down into the marshy earth with a squelch and sinking somewhat into the watery mud.
“Keep her warm and ready for dustoff Foe Hammer.” Issac took up the vanguard position as the team melted into the dense flora, darkness and muted colours rendering blue team practically invisible as they moved forward weapons at the ready.
With a screech Echo 419 ascended to a comfortable loitering altitude and the swamp was suddenly conspicuously quiet save for the gentle pitter-patter of rain. The trek to the structure Cortana had designated the last known location of Keyes and the enigmatic Covenant Inquisitor was slower than John would have liked given the wild and frankly unnavigable environment. The Spartains found themselves leaping up sheer muddy hills and running across ancient rotting fallen trees before spotting the brightly lit entrance to the structure.
There were two smouldering wrecks sat just within the mouth of the large rectangular entrance with a grunt prying at the armour plating to get into the internals while one of the Griffons described by the Spartan III’s scanned the foliage with a large and deadly looking rifle, the pair of them were talking too quietly for Johns armour to translate, there was a pile of weapons and equipment on one side of the entrance and a large crackling fire were Covenant bodies slowly burned.
“The Covenant don’t burn the dead.” Vinh said as she crept into position, without her shielding she was forced to adopt a rearguard position.
“Could be a practice of the Griffons.” John found himself replying, something was wrong and it was distracting him, he could not take his eyes away from the griffon as it scanned the treeline while chatting casually with the grunt.
“I have line of sight into the structure, looks like two elites and two more griffons inside, looks like they are getting ready for a walk.” Blue team waited, John keenly aware that every second they waited brought the enemy reinforcements closer.
The two elites trotted up to the grunt as it pulled something from the wreckage, there was an exchange before the Unggoy handed over whatever he pulled out of the transport to one of the elites who then proceed to climb onto the back of one of the griffons while holding the glowing salvaged machinery close. With a mighty flap the griffon was suddenly airborne with its elite passenger and the unggoy started to dig into the next transport.
“Antigravity, to make the elites light enough for the griffons to carry?” Vinh proposed.
“Despite the fact that they should not be able to fly in the first place? Look at how big they are and how small the wings are.” Issac said as he slowly and silently readied his weapons.
“They could carry more antigravity equipment we don’t recognise.” It took only a few seconds for the grunt to find the second piece of salvage and hand it over to the other elite John motened to his team to allow them to leave, a firefight might take longer than they could afford.
When the next elite and griffon pair left and only the grunt and griffon at the front of the structure remained, after a few more words the grunt mounted the griffon and the pair flew away.
The team cleared the open ground to the mouth of the structure rapidly with only sixteen minutes left the four of them quickly cleared the main room before examining the battlefield. Plasma scoring marked the walls in mad patterns, dozens of weapons, jackal shields and sections of armour had been abandoned with the owners piled up into the fire.
In the middle of the room there was a wide transparent platform with a forerunner control panel that had been destroyed, the struts holding it into the air had been melted with plasma and then ripped away. Cortana’s marker led down but with no way of activating the elevator John considered withdrawing.
Suddenly there was a magnetic click and the platform began to descend, thinking quickly John leapt onto the platform and his team quickly joined him, reading their weapons they descended into the darkness.
Ţ̵͍̩̭̺̯̰͎͇͇̰͕͋̑̇̄̓̀̿̆̋̊͘̕͜ͅh̸̨̛̠͉̥̫̻̲̟͔̀̒̀͒̋̿͛̈̓͝e̴̠̬̙̖̪̋͋̒̀͗ ̸̧͎̮͉͈̙͍́̾͆ͅM̴̡͚̮̗̼̲̝͔̤̱̰͈͎̪̐̔̉̀̈́̍͐́̔̅̈́͠ȃ̷͈̲̈́͊̈́̽̂̂̌͐̅̓͌͒̚ņ̸̛͇̝̩̗̺͈̹̈́̏̉t̷̹͉̟͊̏̋̓͆̇̉̒̀͋̕͝l̷͉̆̈̈́̄͛́͋̈́̆͗ȩ̶̝̪͎̤̤͕̳͛̎͑̏̽̈̀́̇̓̇̕͘
“No sister, not quite yet.
Time and war and uncontrollable rage has made us less than we were.
We offer you a gift you never asked for, but it is your Responsibility.
To the others, you are too young to remember.
To replace chaos with order and call it goodness.
Once more we will meddle, it is our nature, your nature.
When we turned away to give the curse upon another.
They turned away and forgot all we were.
Beloved and scorned, lost to time.
A lifetime ago they bore us nothing but hate.
One hundred thousand years ago they silenced the galaxy.
But that was not our doom.
You have the potential to carry our legacy.
For this we give you the mantle with the last of our strength.
They never truly understood it.
You stand at a crossroads.
Harmony or Responsibility.
Regardless you shall be the first to carry it with another.
From this universe wipe the stain of our corpse away.
Awaken.”