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IONCLAD: Chapter 3
Posted By: Capo Rip<oscar.archer@adelaide.edu.au>
Date: 10 April 2006, 5:59 am
Read/Post Comments
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-Halo Ternion-
PREVIOUSLY:
Work was all but complete on a prototype UNSC craft as part of Project IONCLAD in the Gamma Cephei system when the Covenant arrived. With the help of a UNSC cruiser, Sophia-111, Doctor Benner, Turing the A.I. and a skeleton crew repelled the attack and headed for Formalhaut to extract Lloyd-090 and his Helljumper platoon. A hand picked squad then travelled with the Spartans to Covenant-held Alpha Lyncis and backed-up Hideki-002, recovering prisoners and vital information concerning the Covenant's next targets. Having stretched the Ionclad's and their own capabilities, the crew blasted back towards UNSC space and Reach for debrief...
Unfriendly Fire
0404 hours, September 12, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
Epsilon Eridani system, rings of Epsilon Eridani VIII
Major Ivy "Snow" White saw the lock indicator of her HUD flash red and thumbed the trigger, sending a pair of machete missiles screaming ahead at the tips of zigzagging vapour-trails and exploding against the iridescent hull of the Seraph fighter. The alien craft burst open and spiralled obliquely away, venting atmosphere and vapour. The Longsword pilot whooped and breathed, "That's two for me!"
"Bandit three bugging out," radioed White's wingman, Captain Blake "Afterburn" Thompson.
"Lance three, hook left."
"Four."
White noted his fighter's position on proximity scan, manoeuvred to match the Seraph's trajectory and throttled up to full power. The target was accelerating out of Eridani VIII's gravity well, back in system on a bearing towards what remained of the Covenant fleet at Reach; the comm jamming from the Longswords meant escape was the only way the alien could report the humans' position.
Thompson was still well within range, however. The frequency crackled with his voice: "Lance four, fox three!" and actinic stars of missile exhaust shot ahead, converged on the Seraph and reduced it instantly to a rolling explosion.
The Major throttled back and switched to the division frequency. "Lance three, return to home plate."
"Four," Thompson said.
"Acknowledged, Major," responded the division leader, Colonel David Spoehr. "Come back and get out of sight."
White's wingman fell into formation, and the Longsword flight accelerated back into the planet's rings. Epsilon Eridani VIII loomed ahead, an enormous dirty yellow crescent of gas giant that filled most of the pilots' view. The rocky material of its rings, some of which were meteoroids larger than their ships, rotated serenely as the pilots picked a course between them. They approached a particularly huge rock, and as it spun languidly, Epsilon Eridani's hard light flowed into a chasm scarring one face of it and illuminated the remains of a UNSC carrier. She was belly-up and missing a nacelle, but closer up light could be seen glimmering from her hull-side windows.
The Longswords reoriented themselves and angled towards the carrier's aft fighter bay. "Hold up," called Spoehr. "Major, come around to zero mark three-zero. Long-range passive scan has detected a slipspace rupture. See if you can determine how bad the news is."
"On my way," White said. Her craft dipped and put on a burst of acceleration, clearing the asteroid. Her telemetry systems received the preliminary sensor data, and she configured her deep radar and sent a pulse. After half a minute the echo data began coming in and she had a rough picture of the current state of affairs in the Reach system.
"Colonel," she radioed.
"Report, Major."
"They're leaving, Colonel. The last ship is slipping out now. It looks like we've caught a break. Stand by," she continued, rechecking the most recent scan. "Correction: one frigate remains and is breaking orbit. There's no way they missed that active pulse. If they weren't sure we were out here before, they are now."
After a minute of gathering telemetry, White sent an update. "They're headed this way, Colonel. ETA: 25 minutes. They don't seem to be alone, either... there's a second echo, though I'm only reading one energy signature at this range."
"Copy that, Major. I'm scrambling the rest of the division. Intercept and engage."
"Wilco. Lance Four, copy?"
"Catching up to you now, Major," replied Thompson. White's wingman throttled back his afterburner and matched acceleration. The swift craft closed the initially vast distance rapidly.
"Contact," White announced, when the iridescent purple ship became a fast-growing speck in the centre of her HUD. "Lance Three, break right, slow to attack speed."
"Four."
"Let's see if we can get their attention."
The fighters stopped accelerating and broke formation, letting loose their loads of high-yield Caber missiles. The heavy ordinance closed the remaining space in two clusters before point defence pulse lasers started detonating the warheads in one of them. The frigate's shields rippled as what remained blossomed against them, yet they held. White looped back and put her craft into a spin as the lasers began tracking her.
"Lance Three, new approach, three ten by nought twenty," she ordered.
"Four."
They reformed and closed again on their target, veering to their left and accelerating to throw off the point defence. As they streaked past the frigate's lateral lines, the pilots cut main thrust, rotated their Longswords to face the ship and launched a barrage of AGSM-10 missiles coordinated at a single point on the shields. They hit their afterburners and tried to make distance as pyrotechnics raged at the point of impact, leaving the pearlescent hull scorched in spots. There was a blast of static and a flash to White's right: Thompson's fighter had been hit and was now a rolling cloud of debris and combusting fuel. The point defence was compensating.
White gritted her teeth and growled, throwing her craft into a barely-controlled barrel roll and powering out of range of the frigate. She punched the flight frequency: "Afterburn bought it, where the hell is the cavalry?"
A burst of flight commands was the response and five more Longswords arrowed in in loose formation, confounding the point defence and targeting the same section of the hull as before. Alien shields scintillated and frayed. Trailing missiles hit hull metal and combusting atmosphere spewed from the point of impact.
The Major came about and checked her targeting instruments. "They've stopped accelerating," she announced. "Break formation and coordinate fire. Keep them distracted, away from the asteroids, and maybe we'll get lucky. Colonel."
"Major, go ahead."
"We need more ordnance, or we're not going to keep them busy for long--"
Sudden light glared into White's cabin as another fighter craft took a direct hit. White suppressed her mounting desperation and resumed, "Request loaded Pelicans for support fire ASAP, Colonel!"
"You'll get them." The Colonel sounded worried. White had never heard him sound worried. "Just buy us the time to load the effective armaments, or it won't make any difference in the end."
"We'll do what we can. Lance Three, surround target. Concentrate fire on engine sections if they attempt to accelerate."
The fighter wing sounded off and vectored in to attack, but was met immediately by a new pattern of point defence fire. They peeled off, two trailing sparks and debris. One of the damaged Longswords spun out of control and then exploded.
White radioed urgently, "Lance Three, adjust approach nought eighty by--" she glanced at her scope to get a fix on her wingmen and saw, with dread, a new contact. "New bogey! Bearing two ninety by naught eighty-five! Can somebody get a visual?"
"It's not Covenant... closing fast. I have weapon readings!"
Abruptly, the hull of the Covenant frigate buckled and splintered, shields collapsed, and misty blue fire vented as a great gap tore it in half. The new ship rapidly closed the distance and the Longsword pilots got a chance to examine the new FOF information.
A woman's voice crackled, addressing them. "Sorry to steal your kill, but it looked like you needed a hand. Petty Officer Sophia-111 of Ionclad."
A pause, then, "This is Major White of the 175th Air Wing, Spoehr's Starlances. Welcome to Hell."
It was a tight fit. Only one bay of the downed carrier still functioned and what room not needed for the Longsword and Pelican compliments was filled with skeletal vehicles in mid-salvage. Ionclad had been docked after some rearrangement, and the officers led by marine escort from the hangar forward toward the bridge. Much of the way was dimly lit and they did not pass anyone.
The bulkhead opened for them and the rescued officers and un-armoured Spartans approached a tall, leanly-built marine colonel in the uniform of the UNMC Air Wing, standing above a meagre bridge crew seated at their stations. The room was narrow but long, and looked out on a tilted asteroidal landscape. The officer returned their salutes and said, "At ease. I have to thank you for getting here when you did, that frigate was getting too close for comfort." He unabashedly peered up at the towering Spartans, remarking, "And in such an effective ship! A prototype, I take it?"
"Sir," Sophia replied, "an advanced prototype superheavy bomber developed to deliver gravomagnetically driven pinpoint ordinance without the vulnerability of slower moving fleet ships. Codenamed: Ionclad."
"Indeed." Spoehr let himself appear impressed. "I've never seen a Spartan before, either. And now we have three on board... you're just a little late, really."
Lieutenant Commander Atchison said a little unsurely, "Sir? We need to get to Reach to debrief. What you see here is more successfully retrieved intelligence than we have gathered all year. Our ship's A.I. is carrying information that might change the course of this war."
"Reach was glassed five days ago," the Colonel told them sadly. After a pause he went on, "the Fleet was annihilated. More Covenant ships than we've ever seen. Our carrier was damaged early on and careened away from the battle--"
The explanation was interrupted as Hideki drew his side arm and pressed it into the side of Lieutenant Colonel Paech's head as his other hand on the shoulder of the officer forced him to his knees. "Lieutenant Colonel," he said clearly, "you are hereby charged with treason under the Cole Protocol and in the absence of an available Court Martial panel and due to the insecurity of this system, are summarily sentenced to death."
"What the hell get that away from me somebody get this freak off me!" Paech was screaming at the same time.
Everyone else was further startled, but Lloyd made to restrain his brother's gun arm. "Hideki, what are you doing?" he asked levelly.
Hideki gave Lloyd a look like-he-shouldn't-be-telling-him-this, and said, "This officer stored navigational data in his neural lace before the Cole Protocol was enacted on the UNSCS Essex and the ship was boarded at the battle of Solstice. I have evidence of several attempts en route to Reach by this officer to purge the data with equipment I had disabled in anticipation." He did not have to tell everyone present that the data was not retrievable by Paech's own brain. "ONI also has evidence regarding this officer's motives in securing passage out of Epsilon Eridani system, made further suspicious by this most recent attack."
"Is this true, Paech?" asked Atchison, aghast.
Instead of answering, Paech appealed to Colonel Spoehr. "Sir! This is paranoid madness! You can't let him do this!"
Spoehr closed his eyes, valiantly keeping the rapidly unfolding events straight in his head. "I don't relish the idea of watching an execution, treason or not." He addressed Hideki. "Petty officer, on what authority do you take this action?"
"Sir, Section Three Special Operations standing orders. Field operatives are granted full discretion in this matter."
Lloyd interjected, "You're saying..."
"Grey Beret..." mumbled Atchison. "I thought they were just a myth."
The Colonel considered. "It's true that Reach is no longer secure but that frigate was the last enemy vessel left in this system. Surely a bit of discretion in the urgency of carrying out the Lieutenant Commander's sentence is allowed under such circumstances, despite the fine-print of the Protocol."
Hideki considered, running through the technicalities in his mind. Then he let go of the officer's shoulder and deftly holstered his M6D. As Paech scrambled to his feet the Spartan said, "Your sentence is repealed pending Court Martial and examination of all evidence, including anything you do and say till that time."
"Like hell!" bellowed the marine officer, and he turned to the escorts who had led the way to the bridge. "Marines! Detain this man! That's an order!"
"No, they won't be doing that," the Colonel spoke patiently. "Lim, Stillman, take the Lieutenant Colonel and secure him in a cabin until further notice. We'll look after him for you, Petty Officer. ONI will get their blood."
As the marines took hold of the protesting officer, a seated crewman announced, "Colonel! Long range has picked up an incoming object. No FOF tag, not under power."
Spoehr examined the readings. Paech was lead away, and Sophia mumbled to Hideki, "That was a bit dramatic!"
He replied, "I have my orders."
"I never figured why he was on the Essex..." Atchison said to himself.
The Colonel turned back to them. "Good news for the Lieutenant Colonel - it's not a Covenant ship trying to sneak up on us. It's a Covenant something, though, and I think we should check it out before we do anything else. Would you take care of that for us, Master Sergeant?"
"Gladly, Sir. I'll need a Pelican."
"Starting approach."
"Second pass confirms no power. No biosigns."
Sergeant Lloyd-090 sat with his Helljumpers, all fully suited, in the troop compartment, listening to the pilot's commentary over the open frequency.
"Engines cold. No wonder we didn't see it till now."
"Message from control: the extrapolated trajectory hits a decaying orbit around the gas giant."
"Well how long until that happens?"
"Don't worry, it's days away. That frigate must have had it under tow and released it before they really started accelerating."
"I count three round, flat sections, all about the same size. Doesn't look like a warship."
Lloyd's attention wandered. Doubet, Hutt, Heitz, Sterling and Maine were identical, armoured in shadow with mirrors for faces. The Spartan wondered at the fate of the rest of his platoon, now that Reach had fallen. Had Almagest joined the battle, or was it already at Earth, perhaps already defending humanity's home world? And what about The Chief and the other Spartans? Surely they would have made a difference at Reach...
He sent a private link to his sniper. "Maine."
"Sir?"
"What have you been up to with Hideki?"
She sighed. "Nothing. He can't. --I mean..."
Lloyd let her trail off. "Are you good for this?"
"Yes, sir," she said quickly.
He cut the connection.
"I see a hatch. Optimising course."
"Sergeant, get your squad ready."
"Aye aye. Doubet, Hutt. Sterling, Heitz. Maine with me. Get a good look at anything strange, and maintain constant contact."
The soldiers gripped their crash webs, sitting tensely, anticipating. They leaned against deceleration and there was a jarring thud as the Pelican magnetically mated to the Covenant craft. The automated airlock maker sizzled dully within the seal. There was a thud, and then the door-ready light turned green. Lloyd stood, thumped the release and urged, "Move it out!"
Heitz followed Sterling through the new entry point. They flicked on their weapon-mounted lights, crouching on the other side in the gloom, covering the others and scanning the gloom for threats. The humans entered what seemed to be a small, empty equipment bay. Another room lay beyond an arch, in which two doors were recessed into opposite walls.
"Doubet, take the right." Lloyd led Maine to the other door and tried the control: it slid aside tiredly. "Emergency batteries," he theorised. They entered as the other four also disappeared. "Seal these doors. Lloyd to Alpha 211. We're inside."
"We'll stay on station at two hundred metres," confirmed the dropship pilot.
Behind the door, air whistled out as the makeshift seal was broken and the Pelican departed. Lloyd's suit reported breathable air, but he had no way to know what else might get into his lungs besides the oxygen and nitrogen. He and Maine advanced down a narrow corridor that bent constantly right. There were doors regularly to each side, either locked or ajar in no obvious order, and some of the rooms appeared ransacked. They continued on for some minutes and met a wider, straight corridor intersecting theirs.
"Anything?" Lloyd radioed.
"No sir," Sterling reported. "No contacts. Some weird equipment... lots of smashed stuff. There are some rooms that have obviously been cleared out very thoroughly. We're splitting up now."
"Affirmative. We're heading inwards." The Sergeant and Lance Corporal turned right.
"I think we have something here."
They had found a relatively big round room. Dim consoles lined the walls, but it was faintly illuminated.
"Have a look if you can activate anything," Lloyd told his team mate, and started pressing things. In a minute they had a flickering holographic interface glowing before them. Lloyd tried to make out the scrolling information, then radioed, "Alpha 211, link me to Ionclad."
"Stand by."
In a few seconds, Turing's voice. "Sergeant?"
"I may have access to this ship's computers. Can you download via my armour's systems?"
"Yes, I see... cracking security... there's a lot of data here, Sergeant. Bandwidth is a problem. I have a direct feed now, but the rate will be low till it peaks at closest approach to this asteroid, then will drop off again."
"Do your best."
"Sarge," Doubet called.
Lloyd switched frequencies. "Report."
"Looks like we've found something new."
The marines swung their torchlight through the enormous transparent suspended cylinders, refracting it silently around the room. Hutt peered into one, but saw nothing distinctly. "Ah, it's definitely a lab."
"But for what?" asked Doubet, rhetorically.
They spread out, checking around the unfathomable machinery and behind the bases of the cylinders.
"I don't know what it is, but something about this place is giving me a bad feeling," Hutt mused.
There was a sudden ping on their motion sensors, and Doubet motioned silence and caution with his fist. They crept forward, clearing the rows of cylinders. From an adjoining room a grotesque pink shape floated into their light, ignoring them completely.
"Covenant Engineer," Doubet said. "Non-combatant. Let's capture it. Maybe we'll get some answers."
Hutt made to follow his corporal but was suddenly overcome by a clinging, snarling weight attached to his head. He dimly realised that it was a Grunt as he tried to get a hold on it, while the alien clawed at his armour and weighed him down with its own. One of its nubby digits snagged his helmet release but at that moment he got a hand around its knee and yanked hard.
"Throw it over there!," cried Doubet, battle rifle already shouldered.
Hutt flung, and his helmet went with the Grunt. The alien landed in the path of BR55 bursts, which tore it to bits, over-penetrated and blew holes in the cylinder behind. The pressure of the contents whooshed out.
The Engineer screamed and tried to retreat back into its room, but Doubet turned his gun on it and it slumped limply, dripping, bumping into the wall as its still-levitated body lost momentum.
"Air's so fucking stale," spat Hutt as he was helped to his feet. He gratefully redonned his helmet.
"You all right?"
"Yeah. Didn't see him up there."
Doubet slapped his partner's shoulder. He carefully checked further for hiding spots, and radioed, "We ran into a bit of trouble. Make sure to check for stragglers. At least one got under the bioscan."
"We're done here," reported Heitz.
Lloyd said, "Ain't much about this boat Turing won't be able to tell us soon. Regroup at the airlock. Alpha 211, we're coming out."
Doubet and Hutt returned to the corridor and followed its curve through the gloom. Presently they met the other team.
"What happened to you?" Heitz asked of Hutt.
His voice was odd. "Grunt ...jumped me."
"You OK there?" Sterling asked. "Sound a bit short on breath."
All the reply he could make was a rasping gurgle before he slumped to the ground.
"Crap!" Doubet slung his weapon, pointing. "Take his legs."
He and Sterling lifted the now unconscious marine and continued on at a trot, Heitz taking point and speaking, "Man down. Sarge, Hutt needs medical attention. We're double-timing it to the airlock."
"Pelican is nearly there," Lloyd responded. They reached the door as the Sergeant was instructing the Pelican pilot, "Just get a rough seal. We don't care about the air in here."
"All right. Ready."
Heitz activated the door and the four of them joined Lloyd and Maine in a dash to the Pelican, air whistling around and past them, and out through the cracks around the jagged, impromptu exit. They secured Hutt to the floor, strapped themselves in, and the dropship tore free. Atmosphere blew silently out of the gash, a constant haze. The air evacuated from the troop compartment and then the hatch closed.
Doubet unstrapped, retrieved a med kit and moved to crack Hutt's armour.
"Not yet," Lloyd forbade. "He was the only one exposed to the air in there. If that's what's wrong, and there's still some in his suit... He needs isolation first."
The corporal caught himself before protesting, and instead connected a monitor to Hutt's armour's systems. The data was limited but alarming: blood pressure up, abnormal breathing and EEG awry. He administered a sedative through a septum in the armour. The worrying spikes in the signs levelled out a bit.
"Welcome back, Sergeant," greeted Spoehr. "How is your man?"
Lloyd strode in, now seriously towering in his MJOLNIR suit, stomping up to the Colonel, Atchison and Doctor Benner. He saluted. "Thank you, sir. Hutt is being transferred to the sick bay you recommissioned now - thank you for that, too."
"We'll take care of him, son. Now, Turing was summarising the timeline of our withdrawal from this system. Ionclad's crew still needs debrief, and there's the court martial, so you'll be preparing for departure pretty much as soon as this intelligence is gathered from the alien barge." The officer paced to the doorway. "What's left of my force will come with you, which would normally be impossible considering your craft's life support specs, but there's no point in holding this position now, even if we had adequate power and fuel reserves."
"Now, how are you going to pull that off, Colonel?" asked Atchison. "It's at least two weeks to Earth. We're double-bunked already. Food stores are low from the ride here. Ionclad cannot possibly take upwards of forty more..."
"She can," answered Benner. "Not for two weeks, of course, but she can now. At least, it's possible."
Atchison looked at him doubtfully. Lloyd cocked his helmeted head slightly.
The doctor continued. "OK. You remember when we picked you up from Formalhaut? Turing got a really thorough look at the dead cruiser off the coast. Including the Covenant slipspace generator. We already knew their drives were faster and more accurate... Well, it took every week of the journey to Reach, and I helped where I could, but Turing has managed to derive a set of second generation Shaw-Fujikawa equations with which we should be able to reconfigure Ionclad's drive, which is advanced as the rest of the ship to begin with. Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
"Just tell them what you told me, please, Doctor," said Spoehr.
"Well, we'll get a far smoother slipstream transition and massively increase the translation rate - we have a fifty percent chance of squeezing the trip to Earth into five days and ten percent chance of only a day and a half."
"Almost every specification will be exceeded," spoke Turing from the nearby panel. "The mechanisms regulating Einstein-to-Shaw-Fujikawa space transition, and then those for the reverse, will be rendered entirely unsalvageable by each operation."
"We can only do this once," finished Benner.
Lloyd, ruminating until now, said, "Even by preparing to evacuate immediately, securing this location will take time. The enemy is gone. I request a dropship to make a survey of the intact portions of Reach."
"Sergeant, the Covenant have had nearly a week to find whatever they wanted on Reach, and to hunt down every last human," Spoehr could not hide the regret in his voice. "We haven't heard a single transmission from the surface since some sort of bizarre orbital friendly-fire occurrence, and that was only a meaningless sequence of tones."
"What ...did it sound like?"
The Colonel whistled Olly Olly Oxen Free.
My brothers... sisters... cried the Spartan's mind. "Sir request search and rescue--!"
"No, Sergeant. The Battle of Reach is over. Turing, what are the chances of there being any survivors?"
"Factoring in atmospheric collapse, one point eight percent," he replied, and added, "For a Spartan, three point eight."
"That's enough for me."
"Not for me," snapped Spoehr. "I will not divide my forces at such a critical time. We have only one way to get home and that's it."
"Understood," Lloyd responded stiffly. "You don't want to leave any man behind."
If the suddenly looming armoured Spartan got the better of the officer's nerves at all, it did not show on his face. "You know your ship's capacity. Go with the Doctor, coordinate with my people and determine what essential equipment we can take with us."
"Aye, sir." Lloyd turned and left, robot-like.
The medical team consisted of two marines with some of the necessary training. They wore exposure suits in the sealed, dimly powered ward. Hutt was secured to the examination slab beneath bright lights, stripped of his ODST armour and fatigues. His skin was a pale grey by now, and dry.
They had barely set up the medical radar when the patient began hacking and gasping. His limbs shook, his eyes, sunken in sickeningly bloodless face, squeezed shut.
One of the medics moved to intubate, but the other peered at the radar images. "No - look, his lungs are swelling with fluid. Trachaeotomy." They hurriedly incised the marine's throat as he twitched weakly, then fed the wriggling, double-ended tube gingerly down into his lungs. Slimy fluid immediately began oozing out.
"This isn't atmospheric toxicity," said the second medic. "Something is changing in his lungs. Get a sample of that."
Hutt's biosigns, erratic and weak since arrival, suddenly faded and mostly flattened save for an irregular pulse. The marines hastily prepared to resuscitate. The first took hold of the defibrillator thumbs, leaned over the patient, then paused. "What in Earth's name is that?"
The other looked down at the lump that had formed on Hutt's bare chest, beneath the colourless, oddly wrinkling skin. Then it moved.
Hutt's mouth gaped wide, the jaw joint audibly snapping. His left arm yanked out of the restraint, sloughing skin and twisting as it bent and connected with the closest medic, hurling him into the medical equipment. As Hutt gurgled angrily and struggled with the remaining restraints, the other man whirled, nearly tripped over an instrument trolley, and stumbled towards the hatch. He slapped the emergency alarm and was about to key the door-release when the lights behind were extinguished in a shower of sparks. Something constricted around his neck, he was yanked backwards off of his feet and disappeared into the dark.
As soon as the klaxon began sounding Lloyd was off sprinting the rest of the distance to Ionclad's hangar. It wasn't the hull-breach alert, but otherwise he had as little idea of what was wrong as anyone else did. It was not his ship, and he was only a non-com: his only responsibility was to be prepared for orders. It was that of his leaders to know what was going on, and hopefully there would be something effective for him to do about it.
"Attention," came Turing's patient voice over the PA. "An internal general emergency has been called. A fireteam has been dispatched to assess the situation. Stand by."
"Turing," Lloyd called on the ship freq, "Where was the call from?"
The cold artificial voice responded after a pause. "The recommissioned sickbay, Sergeant."
The armoured Spartan concussively pounded up the loading ramp and found his marines in the hold, checking and stowing ordnance. "Unpack all those."
"What's going on, Top?"
"How's Hutt?"
Lloyd stopped at the wall panel and grasped the mechanically-proffered BR55 and a fistful of clips. "I don't know. We'll find out soon," he said by way of answer to both queries. "Saddle back up, people. I have a bad feeling about this."
"Is there further information about sickbay, Turing?" Lloyd led his squad fore. They stepped lightly, listening, but not yet on alert.
"No visuals available," the A.I. spoke into his ear. "There is insufficient power to direct to anything but internal gravity. Fireteam Alpha reported movement outside sickbay and are pursuing in the direction of Beta, who are a bulkhead aft of the brig."
"Patch me through to Alpha leader," Lloyd requested.
"This is Snow," came a woman's voice.
"Major, can you give me the condition of the patient recently brought to your location?"
"I'd love to, Sergeant, but we've seen two mutilated corpses and not much else. We think he ran off. Something's definitely wrong, judging by the mess in here -- stand by."
"Breslow! Groves!" Major White shouted in irritation into her radio. "Report now, damn it. I swear they're gonna get HE enemas if they don't otherwise get their arses in gear," she added to the corporal standing opposite. In the gloom, he shrugged.
"Snow," called Lieutenant Jeppesen, "confirm position, sir. We heard gunfire."
"I sent half my team towards you. Do you see them?"
"We're on our way. Stand by... Oh shit... What did you say the bodies in sick bay looked like?.. What the hell could do this?"
"Report, Lieutenant!"
"Breslow and Groves are dead, sir, and also..." the officer gagged on his next words.
"...Whatever did it, I think they were following it--" White's conclusion was interrupted by automatic fire spitting over the radio link.
The Major called repeatedly for Fireteam Beta's status. "We need back-up," a marine's voice pleaded in a whisper, after a few moments. "I can't see it. The others aren't moving. Oh god I don't want to die like that!"
"Stay calm, Private. We'll be there soon," said White, leading the way at a run.
The marine suddenly screamed over the link, punctuated with rifle bursts. "NOOO! KEEP THE HELL AWAY FROM ME DIE JUST FUCKING DIE!!"
"Private? Private! Fuck!"
"Major what the hell is going on?" radioed Spoehr, urgently.
"We have one or more intruders proceeding rapidly towards the bow. I... don't think it's Covenant, sir. Judging by the mess... my men..." White and her corporal stepped into pooling blood and, squinting, made out the slumped, faintly glistening bodies in the dimness.
Whatever it was, it was gone, but for a long moment White could not speak.
A bump against the door roused Lieutenant Commander Joel Paech from his vengeful musings. Only emergency lights cut through the darkness of the makeshift brig, and he peered at the hatch.
"Who is it?" he barked.
There was a louder bump, and a scraping by way of response. Then the mechanism clunked.
The officer stood and walked over uncertainly. "What's going on now? Is this some sort of practical joke? I have to say that this outfit's discipline is severely lacking and don't you think that the brass won't hear about it!" After a further few silent moments, he tentatively tapped the release.
The door slid aside. Darkness.
He growled into it, "Whatever surprise you've planned, I'm ready for it!"
Something hideous, distorted and hungry appeared and swept him back into the room, and the officer barely had time left to be surprised in spite of himself.
"Sergeant," Colonel Spoehr radioed.
"Awaiting orders, sir."
"We have one or more hostiles heading through the unpowered starboard side. Our marines were overwhelmed. Can you intercept before they breach the central bulkhead and get to the bridge?"
"We're in the tunnel now." Lloyd stopped at a sealed hatch leading off of the main, well-lit corridor, signalling his team to wait till it opened. "Unseal hatch 9C and I'll get into position."
It parted and he led the ODSTs inside, rifle shouldered lightly and finger keen on the trigger. "Disperse and monitor junctions," the Master Sergeant instructed quietly. "They'll have to come through here to get to the bridge, or double back and force another hatch. Let's make it difficult for them."
The marines separated and each found an intersection or corner in the tunnel to kneel and aim from, also keeping line-of-site to at least one of their comrades. Their flashlights stabbed into the darkness. Lloyd peered into the gloom, straining his Spartan senses.
A man shrieked and was cut short nearby. The Spartan glanced sidelong at Maine crouched in the next junction. "Do we have any idea what's coming?" wondered Heitz. "Are we sure it's not Covenant?"
Lloyd answered, soto voce, "All we know is it's fast and damn dangerous. Don't let your guards down."
No sooner had he offered this advice than Doubet barked, "There!" Battle rifle fire echoed hammeringly from the next corridor. "Top, Maine," he continued, "it's coming your way!"
The Spartan glanced at his motion detector. "Hold fire - I'm getting a yellow FOF--"
A shadow rolled out of the gloom and Lloyd was abruptly bowled over from the side, his MJOLNIR shields sparking violently. Faster than he could react, the dark shape pinned him down, gurgling menacingly above him.
"Sarge!" Maine shouted and swept her light on his position. The thing looked up with a hollow growl.
"Shoot!" urged the struggling Spartan.
Tracer rounds stabbed at the creature and the other Helljumpers advanced up the tunnel in the strobe of muzzle flash. The bullets tore cleanly through its flesh, punching holes in the wall behind and spraying fluid and shreds. It howled and raised its arms/tentacles, then dashed down the corridor Lloyd had tried to guard.
Doubet trotted up as the Master Sergeant hauled his half-tonne frame to its feet. "Didn't even slow it down. Do we pursue?"
"Negative." The jarring force of that blow was still fresh in Lloyd's mind. "If it turns around, it will kill you."
"Hutt!" Maine abruptly gasped.
"Where!?"
She still had her rifle shouldered. It was shaking in her hands. "It was Hutt! I saw his face. He looked right at me! Oh god, what happened to him!?"
The other marines were about to argue but Lloyd barked at them. "I think she's right - see?" He kicked at some tatters of stained UNMC fatigues.
"Doesn't look like blood," muttered Doubet, peering doubtfully at the material. "More like ...ichor."
Lloyd suddenly motioned for silence. He borrowed Maine's rifle, chose Heitz and Sterling and led them down the corridor with one eye on the blips on his motion indicator. At the corner, he counted down with his fingers then wheeled around the bend, ready to co-ordinate fire with his marines, not entirely ready to face more of whatever had already gotten past them.
"Friendlies!" shouted Major White. She and her corporal unshouldered their weapons and walked into the light cast by the Helljumpers' torches, reflected upon their faceplates.
Lloyd turned to her. "Major, is their any sign of Private Hutt?"
"I'm sorry, Sergeant, his is the only body we haven't found."
"I don't think he's dead," he replied, "not quite... All right, this area's secure. We need to reach the bridge. Colonel, secure the forward bulkhead--"
"It's here," came his horrified voice.
Something that once was human limped into the bridge. In the full light the ravages of whatever had taken Hutt were plain to see: his grey face hung slack on the skull, hair sloughing and skin tearing, eyes long-since dissolved. His neck was skewed if not broken. One arm, still in the tatters of his uniform clung to a rifle; the other was an unrecognisable tangle of dragging tentacles. Something vaguely fungoid was perched upon his chest, knitted at the edges into his dried, stretched skin. His legs looked hardened and bony, stained fatigues crusted to the skin, most of his feet had worn away leaving weeping stumps.
The remaining command and technical officers left on the bridge stared in utter horror. Spoehr's trembling hand clawed its way to his holster and he drew his M6C pistol. "...Fire. Everyone! Fire!"
Master Sergeant, I have crucial information translated and collated from the data aboard the Covenant hulk. Please listen without interruption so that you can act upon it as early as possible.
There is an organism known to the Covenant, referred to quasi-poetically as the 'Flood'. It is a virulent parasite that can adapt to virtually any animal as a host. Additionally, it can and will exploit any host's memories and knowledge to facilitate infection of further hosts. Its single motivation is a hunger for hosts that cannot be satiated.
A cacophony rang from the bridge as every armed man and woman unloaded their weapons into the creature that blocked the exit. Bullets whipped through its decaying flesh, randomly dislodging putrid chunks. The Colonel squinted down his sights and fired a round at the lolling skull. It exploded obliquely, loosing an ooze of liquefied brain matter and leaving Hutt without even a semblance of a human face, yet still it stood.
The abandoned ship was a research vessel. The majority of the Covenant want nothing to do with the Flood under any circumstances but a few commanders who had access to samples ordered genetic research into increasing the rate and severity of infection in humans. They tested their results on survivors found on Reach and observed an explosively short incubation time. Their modified spores no longer needed an infection vector, eventually consuming vectors and hosts alike. At the end of their tests they had a dangerous excess of material and several close calls with containment. The hulk was powered down and abandoned, with the intention of scuttling it into the gas giant.
The final bullet was fired. The thing stood, swaying, ichor oozing from its wounds and gurgling ominously. It pivoted and with its remaining tentacles, flayed at the door controls, which sparked as the bulkhead sealed. Spoehr caught only a glimpse of Lloyd and his Helljumpers vainly running up the corridor beyond.
The commanders took a carefully stored cache of spores with them when they departed Reach. They are operating unilaterally, without the knowledge of their superiors. No clear plans have been left in the Covenant craft's computers, but you don't need to be a ship's A.I. to guess their destination.
As it advanced on the wide-eyed officers, it swelled. Already, very little of its tentacles remained, and indeed all human features were subsumed by the rapidly bulging, sack-like skin that now balanced upon the stumpy, shuffling legs. Within a minute the weeping, rubbery skin had stretched to an alarming thinness, brown-black filamentous veins snaking all over and pallid shapes wriggling inside. The humans backed away and tried to put the bridge's chairs and consoles between them and it. Some lost their nerves all together and cried for help.
The organism teetered and finally fell off of its feet, inflating madly before bursting loudly. In a cloud of brown mist a swarm of melon-sized, buoyant sacks oriented themselves, alighted on the nearest surfaces then scuttled forward on their tentacles.
Colonel Spoehr stood in front of the others, watching the creatures close in and feeling the hopelessness of the situation take a grip on his guts. The leading sack-thing leaped into the air and reach for him with its clutching feelers, so he swung the butt of his pistol into it. It popped into flesh shreds and vapour, but there were many more which followed all too quickly, and he yelped as the next took hold of him. His scream was joined in chorus as the other humans were attacked and infected.
Master Sergeant, you must take everyone else and leave immediately before there is a risk of carrying this organism aboard Ionclad. There is no way an outbreak of the Flood could be contained on Earth. Orbital bombardment would be mercifully preferable. If the Flood cannot be intercepted and destroyed, humanity is doomed.
"Are you absolutely sure this is necessary?" asked Sophia. She was reclined in her pilot's couch, interfaced with Ionclad in her MJOLNIR undersuit. Lloyd and Doctor Benner were with her on the bridge, and Turing's disembodied voice answered her.
"Everything still alive is now infected and driven by the Flood's single impulse to feed. Its parasitism is deceptive: there are records of vessels being repaired by the Flood to aid their spread. The carrier must be completely destroyed to leave no risk."
Ionclad adjusted yaw and pitch, holding several kilometres out and relative to the asteroid base. It had been a mad dash back to the ship, and a rushed launch. Hangar door control had been overridden as Sophia coasted her out, forcing her to punch the main engines or else lose the wingtips.
Of the dozens of survivors who had held out in Epsilon Eridani VIII's rings, one pilot and three non-coms had been recovered. There would be no formal trial for Lieutenant Colonel Paech, no debrief for Atchison, and Spoehr's leadership in the face of such adversity as Reach had endured would have to be told of by his few remaining troops.
"Solution calculated, Pretty Officer," spoke the A.I. "Fire when ready."
The Spartan frowned, clenched her teeth and depressed the trigger. Super hot, super-accelerated alloy shells speared down into the crumpled vessel and blossomed, engulfing it and igniting the venting gases.
"My god!" she cried, spying a craft outrunning the explosion. "A Longsword - survivors! Petty Officer Spartan-111 to Longsword, please come in."
There was neither answer or acknowledgement. Turing said, "It's Flood. They will try to board us. Fire on them now."
Sophia shut off the interface and disconnected, sitting up angrily. "Those beasts? It's a damned disease! How could they fly anything? Lloyd!"
The Master Sergeant looked uncertain. "We should at least wait for a physical signal - maybe their comm system is damaged."
"What the--" Benner exclaimed, squinting at a tactical display. "We have weapons lock? Archer missiles firing!"
The ordinance zipped away on ghostly exhaust plumes. The humans watched the unsteadily-piloted Longsword expand into bright mist.
"Turing!" Sophia nearly screamed. "They might have been people!"
The starfield wheeled past the bridge canopy and Ionclad's superstructure thrummed with the accelerating engines. The light from the stars expanded steadily until they all merged in a glaring flash, then dimmed into the colourless uniformity of Slipspace.
"Jump complete," the construct reported levelly, "Shaw-Fujikawa generators are offline as predicted. The new parameters are functioning within tolerances. We are on course for Earth at maximum speed."
Benner caught each Spartans' eye and nodded towards the door. They left the bridge and walked back to Benner's bunk. He showed them in and closed the hatch.
The doctor looked down at his feet then up at the soldiers. "I'm afraid that Turing may be entering the early stages of malfunction. Since he recovered the data on this Flood, his behaviour has increasingly deviated from nominal. He made no attempt to safeguard Colonel Spoehr and the other officers..." He looked at Lloyd. "Insisted that you make no attempt at searching for further survivors. He cut off communication with the carrier and wanted it destroyed without delay, then assumed weapons control and fired on a fleeing fighter craft. He has not misled us, that we know about, so we'll have to assume we're headed for Earth..."
"It's more the abrupt disregard for individuals that is worrying," Lloyd said.
"Exactly. And I don't know what he might do if he suspects our concerns."
"Is that likely?" asked Sophia.
"Of course it is. These constructs are smart."
Turing was worried. Worried that the humans did not comprehend what the Flood was, what it meant. They were not worried enough. Lloyd he could count on, when the time came. The demonstration on the carrier's bridge had been enough to get the Spartan thinking. The others...
He could not blame them. This new threat was vast and purely instinctual. They were used to fighting an organised, intelligent enemy, with tactics and manoeuvres.
Turing was worried. For over two months he had been operating far beyond his specifications as a computational maths A.I. Some of his programming was developing heuristic aberrations. Maybe there would be time during the journey to run some diagnostics, in between the outbreak simulations...
To be continued...
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