September 22nd 2552
“-mmer to Chief, Chief do you read me?” John glanced over at Silva, the man they had found underground looked terrible, with pale clammy skin and a glassy eyed stare, hopefully whatever happened did not require CBRN rated equipment, he was not convinced he could fight a war on the ring with only his team and five of the new kind of Spartan, they seemed somewhat... jittery.
“I read you Foehammer, we are returning to the surface now.” he glanced to the rest of Blue team on the strange transparent elevator. They were arranged in a loose diamond around Major Silva looking out at the blinking lights that blurred together as the platform they stood on rose rapidly.
“Finally! I lost your signal down there, we are almost out of time I am going to risk a hot pickup just outside the structure, with any luck we can still avoid the Covenants first wave. Did you find the Captain?”
“No, but we did find Major Silva, he looks unwell. When we get him back to alpha site we need to get him checked over by a doctor.” As if to punctuate his transmission the platform came to a rapid yet smooth stop, a loud clicking sound locking the platform in place at the entrance to the structure.
“Come on sir, let's get you on the pelican.” Vinh said as she stepped off the platform with the rest of the team. John's head snapped up rapidly as a bright orange light filled the room, the Spartan team’s weapons snapping to the ceiling as John squinted in confusion. A second later the figure that had just moments before been standing on the roof let out a bark of surprise and flailed her arms in an effort right herself before crashing into the ground with a flash of flared shields.
“Lieutenant?” John remarked impassively as he lowered his weapon, the Mjolnir armoured women picking herself up and rolling her shoulders from her drop.
“Chief” Amanda replied as she glanced about to gain her bearings.
“Nice of you to drop in.” Issac quipped stepping towards the fellow Spartan. Without warning the Lieutenant exploded into motion throwing herself forward and drawing the magnum magnetically clamped to her side as she wove around the Spartan II and fired at the hunched figure of Major Silva.
Issac’s surprise lasted less than a second and with a smooth motion he grasped her right wrist and pulled it into the air sending the third round fired into the ceiling as he pulled the supersoldier into a crushing headlock that pulled the woman off her feet.
“Lieutenant explain yourself!” John demanded as he rounded on the restrained Spartan.
“John...” Williams' voice was low and demanded his attention. John turned to regard the scene before him. It did not even remotely resemble a man, thick segmented carapace ending in fat limbs bloated with yellowed oozing flesh, here and there a green flame worked over its wraithing form and sections would turn tan with human skin or grow fur of unnatural colour, the light playing over its form in a dizzying sickening fashion.
“It's not Silva, he died seven kilomiters from this location in another section of this facility.” Cortana’s voice filled the silence left behind by Blue teams shock. There was a thud as Issac released the Spartan and the Lieutenant approached John.
“It's an alien race, infected by a parasite that came from this ring, the parasite was just waiting for the perfect moment to strike.” She reached out a hand offering a thin glowing blue chip to John. He looked at her before reaching forward and collecting the device slotting it into its home at the back of his neck.
“And here I was hoping you would fight over me.” John rolled his shoulders as he felt his armour become more responsive, more familiar. “Seems roomier in here then I remember” he smiled and slapped the side of his helmet.
“Chief?! Are you still in there? What is taking so long?” Foehammers voice rang out insistent over the comms and with a nod all of the Spartans turned to jog to the entrance.
“I will give you a briefing on the way.” Amanda called out. “You won’t believe it.”
Rainbow Dash snorted as her blood was fed into a makeshift analyser, the dwindling crowd of Sangheili and Equestrians were forced into the cramped confines of the command deck medical bay. With only a few tested sangheili standing guard outside after they had been tested. They had been forced to flee from the bridge after a dedicated attack by the flood parasite that the Legate seemed to know so much about.
“There you go Legate, genetic screening for your parasite. Now you owe an explanation.” Dash rolled her neck and looked back at the SpecOps Commander Rtas 'Vadumee who loomed impassively behind her.
Before the pair of them was a shimmering hologram of the Legate's aged and weathered face transmitted from an unknown safe room aboard the ship.
“Yes I can see that, you will all go to the Hydroponics chamber one deck down. I will contact you there. Oh, and make sure the flood does not follow you.” As Rainbow opened her mouth the transmission ceased and the mare was left only with a table of fragile medical equipment to vent her frustrations upon, something she did with a typically Equestrian snort.
“You will take the survivors to the Legate and keep everyone safe, I will go and support Gilda in sabotaging the ship.”
“I de pressurised most of the decks in an effort to slow down this flood.” Rtas paused to consider that complication before he responded.
“Was it effective?”
“No.”
“Ah, are there any void suits fitted to Sanghili?”
“N-no sir.” The pair turned as a timid voice spoke up and Fluttershy stepped forward. “There were no Sanghili on the crew so there was never a need for them, however there is a way I can help you pass through the de pressurised sections of the ship.”
“Fluttershy?” Rainbow Dash looked at her friend, her face obscured but her voice conveying her concern.
“Rainbow, I can do this. I need to help somehow.”
“How?” Rtas looked down at the small yellow Equestrian.
“Well I can give you air when you go through the de pressurised sections, it's not the same as being exposed to the void itself because of the environmental control systems.” The butter yellow mare gave a slight smile as she explained “it would take days to fully vent the ship. I worked on the biological air filtration and recycling systems... As well as septi- uh, nevermind. You can’t exactly turn them off and vent it out, not that you would ever want to. But even in a section fully exposed to the void I can still give you air for a short time, I won't be able to protect your body from that kind of exposure however.”
“You will accompany us and support us with your Equestrian magic then”
“Oh um, No. No, I would likely die very quickly if I did that... No, I can breathe for you when you need it without being there personally. I think I can manage two at most.”
“In that case my best swordsman Kusovai and I will go and support Gilda. While the rest of my team will follow and guard you Major Dash. How are you going to cast this spell Equestrian?”
“Can the two of you please kneel down, you are very tall.” With a look shared between the two master swordsmen the pair carefully knelt before Fluttershy, without much ceremony the mare trotted forward and placed a chaste kiss upon the forehead of each of them before trotting back with a blush. The effect was immediate, like a bracing winter's day Rtas felt his lungs fill with cool air, its purity gave him a rush after months of recycled air offered by starships.
“There, now when you get to a de pressurised section its going to be a lot more straining on me, so um, please try to get through it as fast as you can, if that is okay I mean I know how dangerous it is and I do-” Rtas placed a hand upon the back of the mare.
“Thank you, we will move as quickly as we can.”
Gilda slipped behind a support bulkhead as a trio of bright green bolts of superheated plasma screamed past her causing her shields to flare brilliantly. After she had permanently disabled the shielding and isolation routines protecting the slipspace drive and pinch fusion engines the entire animated mass that had attacked the ship seemed to consider her a much higher priority then it had before, she had witnessed patrols of animated corpses blocking doorways and carefully scanning chokepoints to find the elusive camouflaged Griffon.
The tactics were effective, in order to pursue her objectives she had to reveal herself to the infection, lightning attacks that destroyed the puppeted corpses had allowed the mass to isolate her and the speed of its activity shocked her.
Halls were filled with biomass walls that funneled the catbird and limited her mobility. The infection had effectively turned an efficient and easy to navigate ship into a deadly maze, a constant stream of small parasites and larger bodies would flood towards her in a mad dash. It seemed the collective was content to simply overwhelm her no matter how much she destroyed, how much biomass was rendered useless in her path towards the engine room.
Rainbow Dash had been unable to activate the ship's self destruct, the protocol had been wiped from the system. Gilda would have to go to the engine itself and overload it, Something that would happen very rapidly and offer no chance to escape. Or plot a course that would destroy the ship in system, the local star was the obvious choice in this case.
But first Gilda had to actually reach the engine room alive. Not to mention that the slipspace drive had to be destroyed no matter what choice she made, allowing an organism like this to spread was unacceptable.
Throwing herself forward Gilda bisected what was once an unggoy wincing as the joints in her talons protested terribly. With the enemy she faced her own brute ferocity was her most effective weapon, what she would not do for a sword to take the strain from her talons however.
The Griffon was forced to continue onwards the air around her shimmering with the heat of maintaining her shields and cloaking systems rendering her into a deadly blur and confusing the swarming infection when her systems were able to catch up and actually camouflage her.
With a polite chime a door in her path that had been miraculously spared the application of rotting biomass opened and Gilda loped though only to find herself in a wide open space spanning several decks with long winding ramps at the edges, in the middle of the room was a shimmering ball of superheated light contained within semi transparent nanolaminate. Transparent enough to allow a fraction of the waste light a pinch fusion generator produced though the solid material. Said fraction was more than enough to burn into her hyper sensitive eyes as her helmet desperately darkened its tint to spare the long suffering griffon.
Despite the blinding equipment Gilda did not slow or stop, she bounded forward into the room and forced her eyes into focus as a small army of corpses filled the air with bolts of plasma as the infection tried to pin down her location. Gilda threw herself into the fight pulling her long rifle from her back and using its formidable weight as a club to crush her attackers. She would have to eliminate this force if she was going to enter the engine control room from this section and have enough time to mare a console.
Superheated plasma slipping past her strained shields to eat into her helmet snapped her out of her battletrance, with a haggard gasp of boiling air the hen threw herself away from the fight and into the air as warning sigils and alarms screamed and her eyes watered from the intense heat. She could feel the immense magical strain in her veins and spine, a pulsing agony that burned at her nerves from the magic she had demanded from the universe within the doomed ship.
With a free talon she clutched at a rounded conduit that hung from the ceiling of the huge pinch generator room her body shuddering with each strangled breath as she looked down at the parasite forms collecting in the chamber below and around her. From a multitude of doors came an army of the recently dead, lumbering with red ribbon feelers that snapped and twisted about to find the lone catbird. First it was dozens of them, then hundreds of mutilated unggoy and ponies stumbled into the chamber.
There was a pause as the hive mind infected settled down and began searching for her in small packs while other lumbering dead began to collect in doorways with the majority blocking the entrance to the slipspace drive.
A taloned hand clutched her last runestone, the jet black stone was not typically issued given its craven nature. It was not a product of dark or primordial magic, it was actually rather simple, a product of modern science. Should she fail to force her way to the slipspace drive and program the drive to send the infected ship into the sun then she would have to activate the runestone, with her proximity to the pinch fusion drive it would turn the ship into little more than ash and vapor.
Catching her breath for a moment Gilda observed her surroundings and began to plan her first strike.
“Very good, you may enter.” A nondescript bulkhead just off the maintenance hall shifted inwards almost inaudibly and slid aside to reveal a well stocked security room, Rainbow wasted no time and strode forth as what remained of the survivors staggered in behind her, just a dozen, mostly members of Rtas’ special forces team. “Do hurry and close the door, I don’t want to give away our location.”
“What are we dealing with Legate?” Rainbow made her way to the San'Shyuum.
“It doesn't surprise me that an Infidel such as yourself would be so ignorant. It pains me to think that servants such as yourself are what dear Twilight must contend with.” He let out a sigh and took a drag from a small metal tube tied to his wrist by a fine silky cord. “We are dealing with the flood, an obstacle presented by the holy Forerunners. One of the many tests we must overcome if we are to follow them on the great journey and activate the holy rings.”
“How about we keep the theology to a minimum.” Dash spat her words and found it difficult to restrain herself, still she had a duty to the people around her, she had to get them out alive and she had to know everything she could about this Flood. The Legate held her gaze for a moment before turning away.
“They are mentioned in several religious texts but the details are woefully inadequate considering the circumstances. I have however identified a pattern of behavior since they boarded us with the human ship from Halo.” He directed Dash’s attention to a screen containing organized cuts of security footage the Legate had deemed of significant interest before he continued.
“At present it seems that the infection is using knowledge of the layout of the ship that its victims possessed, thus it stands to reason that when the flood infects living or dead neurological material it can learn from it. The degree of information it can extract is unknown but in the last half an hour since Commander Rtas’ men were infected the Flood has shifted to a more organized and directed defensive posture. It is also reacting to the incoursion that your Griffon friend has made into the engineering deck, it was sending small groups to kill her as and when it could gather them but now it is collecting a larger force and only sending out probing attacks to keep track of her. With the tactical knowledge the Flood now possesses it is only a matter of time before Gilda, Rtas’ and Kusovai are killed, you need to contact the dropship Rtas’ told you about and get us off this ship.”
“I am not contacting that ship until the slipspace drive is disabled and everyone is ready for extraction.” Rainbow pointed a hoof at the Legate before slamming it to the deck and continuing “If that dropship docks and the Flood finds a way onboard then we put the entire fleet at risk and I don’t leave my mares behind.”
“Major Dash!” Before the Legate could respond to the mare the squat form of an Unggoy rushed forward waving his arms “Major, major! Fluttershy!” Dash rushed away from the legate and towards her old friend who was quietly wheezing in the corner, a herd of concerned ponies trying to tend to her at once as the lumbering Sanghili stayed far away and out of trouble. The pathological aversion to medical care rendering them largely useless considering the situation.
“Get back the lot of you!” Dash stomped forwards with wings flared to assert dominance. “Give the mare some space to breathe and sit down!” With a flurry of hoofsteps the pony horde quickly found other places to be far away from the Major as Fluttershy struggled to fill her lungs. She looked at Dash without a word as she with incredible effort took air in through her nose and exhaled it from her mouth trying to maximise the amount of oxygen entering her system.
“She might as well give that up, it's not like they will last long when they encounter the flood anyway.” The Legate let out an annoyed huff as he watched the mare struggle to breathe for three people.
“They are making good time, they should be joining Gilda soon at this rate. We shall wait twenty before we make our move for the hanger to signal the dropship.” Dash placed a wing upon Fluttershy's back for support and used her other wing to shift the air currents of the room to allow better quality air to reach her friend sooner.
“What a waste of time.”
Rtas bounded forward as his eyes burned and skin felt uncomfortably tight, his second keeping pace just behind him as the Sangheili Commander made his way through the labyrinth of twisted and desiccated corridors.
He felt a primal panic as he kept his mouth closed. Oxygen did not pass his nose or lips but his lungs inflated and deflated with air as crisp as the cold morning winds of his home on sanghelios. His mind revolting against his purposeful action, he had no doubt that his second was suffering in the same way.
Passing through another bulkhead with a dazed lope Rtas and Kusovai slowed as they met a sealed door, with a muffled chime a door slid shut behind them and jets of air filled the chamber, re energizing the pair and marking the transition to the engineering section of the ship.
He was met with a damp heat and rancid smell he had come to know all too well since he boarded the ship and in front of the warrier pair was a single Unicorn. Her sin sagged around rotten bone and her head hanging loosely as a parasite stuck out of her neck with its red feelers licking the air. Her jaw hung loose but tensed now and then as if she was trying to speak and as Rtas saw her eyes snap to him he felt nothing but rage at what the parasite had done to a sister of the great journey.
The thing took an unsteady step and he ignited his blade in time with Kusovai and charged forward intent on freeing his fellow sister of the Great Journey from what must be unimaginable torment. There was a sickly pale light as the rotten bone of her horn ignited and Rtas was blinded by his shields activating, whatever magic the thing forced her to cast striking him too fast for his eyes to process. As the light collected again he darted to the side before continuing his charge. From behind the unicorn came a horde of small scuttling parasites that leapt between her legs and over her form with an ecstatic energy, intent on attaching to Rtas and Kusovai.
Rtas threw himself back as his sword brother let out a battlecry and began to whirl forward, the light of his blade failing to keep up with the master's incredible skill as dozens of the parasites were destroyed with a dancers precision. Using the advantage offered by Kusovai Rtas dove forward again to meet the Unicorn bringing the blade down upon her as he offered prayers for her safe journey to the Forerunners.
With a crack of displaced air the Unicorn was gone and Rtas was forced to catch himself and slice apart more of the small parasites that leapt at him. He was forced back behind Kusovai as with a chime the door at the end of the hall opened and though it lumbered several more equestrians led by the Unicorn.
There was a pause before Rtas threw a plasma grenade to stall the advance of the larger flood infected and the pair charged forwards again, fighting for every step they took. When the duo reached the combat forms an even more desperate struggle broke out as what was once a Pegasis flared its broken skinless wings and with a flash of light threw itself forward with so much force into Rtas that the Commander could do nothing but let out a pained grunt as he felt something inside him break.
Stunned and sent reeling into the ground the Sangheili rolled backwards to disengage from the flood infected Pegasus, as the equine figure slammed its bloated forehooves down onto the position he had just occupied. Collecting himself Rtas tested his arm and body with a flourish of his blade and let out a pained roar at the way his ribs moved. The Pegasus of course looked no worse off for its attack, the parasite somehow inheriting the Equestrian magic that protected Pegusi from blunt force trauma.
Rtas did not allow the Pegusi a chance to take the initiative, he dove forward and swung wildly, finding the head of the Equestrian only from the good fortune that the parasite had chosen to lunge forward again. Rtas darted to the side as the destroyed corpse passed him and looked to Kusovai as the swordmaster darted backwards from the dehorned Unicorn, the parasite’s forehead glowing red with the magical organ laying on the ground smoldering.
With a warcry Rtas joined his second and bisected another flood form, this one did not have the desecrated form of an Equestrian or Unggoy. It was long and thin, flat almost with long spindly legs on both sides that dug into the material as it jittered about, upon its flat body was a tumor like growth with a number of fine bone spines set at odd angles that would shoot from the yellowed flesh at incredible speed burying themselves several centimeters in the nanolaminate bulkheads about him.
Rather than falling apart and revealing yellowed bones and rotting organs beset by yellow tumors the new creature flailed about uselessly, before Rtas could do much more his second dove forward to deliver a flurry of attacks against the thing that refused to die, the Unicorn executed by an expert cut along its spine. After a moment the new form became still to a fashion, its putrid mass still throbbed as it began to lose a coherent shape.
“They have begun to do more than simply puppet the bodies of their victims, they are growing their own forms now.”
“Then we must put a stop to it.” Rtas rolled his neck and relaxed his grip upon his blade, his hand had gone numb from the constant battle but he could not allow his weakness endanger the lives of the fleet.
They fought on, to the engine room.
Gilda dropped and allowed her wings to catch a current of air that did not exist, like an invisible reaper she swept over a group of the infected and allowed her talons to scythe though the delicate spines of the dead. As dozens fell to the ground like puppets with their strings cut, the griffon tilted the tips of her wings to send her up to a walkway. Below her the teeming horde lumbered about to try to find and contest the invisible enemy.
Landing on the sparsely populated platform Gilda got to work, she brought her talons together into a scoop like shape and drove it into the body of what was once an Unggoy before grasping its neck and pulling the dead creature apart despite the parasite's useless flailing.
With the first parasite form dead on the platform Gilda reached out to catch the plasma pistol falling to the ground, once held by the parasite she destroyed. As the rest of the infected on the platform twisted about to fire blindly at their destroyed comrade, Gilda threw herself flat to the ground with a talon outstretched and the plasma pistol pointed forwards.
As bolts of superheated plasma flew uselessly over her, some impacting other infected, she let out a barrage of green bolts that melted into the yellowed flesh of the infected before her. By the time the weapon in her talons discharged superheated air to cool itself half a dozen puppeted corpses lay still.
Taking advantage of the lull in resistance headed her way, Gilda threw the weapon over her shoulder and darted forward to collect two more that had fallen to the ground before turning about and beginning her grisly work.
Bolts of green plasma ate into the corpses that shared the platform with Gilda as she methodically maneuvered about the throng of hostile dead. The mass of Hostiles converged towards her position filling out the ramps and sending haphazard shots up at her without concern for hitting other infected. Across the room there was a chime followed by a familiar embattled roar.
Gilda’s head snapped to a platform obscured by the intense light of the pinch fusion reactor as two figures darted into the room and set upon the infected, the Sangheili special operations team had arrived.
Took them long enough.
The flood, lacking the specialised combat forms required to deal with the threat the three posed, swarmed towards them in a mad desperate charge. Unicorns, Earth ponies, Pegusi and Unggoy now a horrific mass of screaming death.
By the time Gilda met the two Sangheili the room had fallen still, rotten infected flesh carpeting the ground as the reactor became a grave for countless innocent lives taken by the flood.
“You fight well Griffon.” Rtas wheezed, pressing his mandibles together to hide the pain.
“Our objective is the sabotage of the slipspace drive and inputting a flight solution into the main computer directing this ship into the local star.” Gilda cocked her head as she looked between the pair of them she supposed they too fought well. For Sanghili.
“The flood will follow us here, it must know of our intent!” Kusovai’s words turning to prophecy as with a chime the doors at the other end of the room opened and death surged though as its namesake.
“Go! I will buy you both time.” Kusovai gave a flourish with his blade to Gilda and Rtas before turning back to the deadly horde that desperately launched another attack upon the knightly trio. The fury and fear of the parasite made manifest as it converged all its forces upon the engine room as a last ditch defence.
Rtas and Gilda turning and darting away to the adjoining engineering subsection, the former to destroy the slipspace drive and the latter to input the new navigation data.
“They are at the drive, now they just have to set us on a course for the sun and we can leave this tartarus damned ship.”
“The mobile Flood has stopped advancing upon the drive systems...” Dash’s attention snapped to the Prophet.
“What? Why?!” The Prophet shook his head.
“I don’t know, they are splitting... Some are still going towards the drive, others are collecting and moving... Moving, moving towards us.” He spun about on his chair, real fear on his face for the first time.
“Rainbow!” Dash turned to the breathless Fluttershy as she watched tears stream down her dirty face.
“Fluttershy, its okay there is no way they know about thi-”
“I-its, the spell, I can breathe again, Dash it's easier for me to breathe again!” Dash wasted no time. She brought a hoof to her helmet.
“Gilda! The Flood are swarming towards us, they know about the safe room! We are trying to relocate to the hanger but I don’t know if we can hold them off. Get this ship pointed at the star and get back here now!” With that the remaining Ponies, Sanghili, Unggoy and San'Shyuum collected themselves and left the safe room before they became trapped inside.
Out into the main corridor the beleaguered group had but a moment before the sound of scuttling and rank smell of death reached them.
“How did they arrive so quickly!” One of the Sanghili cried out as he sent a burst of plasmafire down the corridor towards the flood now rounding the stretch towards them.
“Nevermind that, keep moving!” A unicorn officer shouted as she joined the firing line to send bolts of superheated plasma at the teeming mass racing towards them.
Any pretense of organized retreat evaporated as a vent over the group burst open. The world around Fluttershy became a chaotic mess of plasma discharges and terrified screams as tiny infection forms swarmed over the survivors. She turned to watch Hurp let out an agonised scream as several of the parasites swarmed over him before the diminutive alien overcharged his plasma pistol and turned it towards his own head.
Fluttershy screamed just as she worked out what she was watching and with a sob she charged through the crowd of dead and dying heading towards the hanger she heard hoofsteps around her but did not look to see who else followed.
“Gilda! The Flood are swarming towards us, they know about the safe room! We are trying to relocate to the hanger but I don’t know if we can hold them off. Get this ship pointed at the star and get back here now!” Gilda and Rtas looked at each other as Major Dashes voice came over the communication system.
“The slipspace drive is destroyed.” Rtas said as he deactivated his energy sword.
“I still need some time.” Gilda responded as she inputted a series of navigation markers to the computer that wound bring the ship into a slingshot trajectory towards the local star, she was not an expert in orbital mechanics and had to rely upon the documentation on the console itself as she worked, talons dancing across the holographic control panel.
From behind them came the deaded chime before the door to the engineering subsection opened. A single figure staggering into the room.
Rtas drew both his energy swords and ignited them, the pain in his core focusing his mind as he looked at the desecrated form of his friend.
“Your... Comrades...” The thing had the gall to speak with Kusovai’s body. “Part of us, we know... They knew. We... Have command codes.” The thing ignited its own twin blades and with undeserved, stolen, grace it began to circle Rtas. “Will soon leave. Spread.”
“You will find that difficult abomination.” Rtas promised.
“You will... Be with us.” As one they charged, blades clashing.