by Various
“We’re not outrunning that,” Lopez said calmly. “Singh, kneel and go low, for the legs. MacCraw, keep your cool and aim for Ayad. Make it drop Ayad before it gets to us. Percy, heart. I’ll go for the head. Now . . . fire!”
It lost its Ayad shield first, dropped it. MacCraw made a lucky shot and hit the muscle and bone in its wrist. It stumbled as the bullets hit it, each one more precious than the last. Slamming into its body over and over again. It might be Elite, but it didn’t bleed. A sigh of something green and dandelion-seedlike puffed out from the wounds opening on its skin. Strangely beautiful, those wounds, in the hissing light of the flares. Wounds that should’ve stopped and dropped it, but it kept coming. Kept howling.
Staggered onward on tottering balance, pressing against the storm of bullets as if they were toxic raindrops. Until, finally, Lopez managed to take out its knees.
It crashed down, not seven meters from them.
But it didn’t stop. Didn’t even pause, clawing and crawling its way across the floor, on its belly, a smear of dark green behind it.
No one hesitated. No one waited for another order.
When it was done, the corridor reeked of gunsmoke, the smell acrid in their mouths and the backs of their throats. Lopez’s eyes stung, unable to handle the swamp-gas smell of the dead Elite.
Lopez thought of the bodies in the cupboard. Thought of the Elite stomping on Rabbit’s chest, on the infection form. She walked up to it, this thing, and pressed the muzzle of her rifle into the suggestion of a giant angry goiter clinging to its chest. Let off another quick burst. Realized she’d forgotten something, something important.
Ayad rose up from the darkness beside Singh.
Singh hadn’t the reflexes, hadn’t the training. Enough time for the technician’s face to change. Knowing. Not wanting to know. Then he was smashed into the far wall with one terrifying blow, so hard his skull shattered in the helmet, face flattened to a pulp as he dropped.
Percy, cursing, a burst from his rifle going wide, caught by the backswing. Lopez heard his neck crack. Turned too fast. Sudden pain where Smith had shot her.
And MacCraw, like he’d done it a million times, brought his rifle up and shot what was Ayad right through the head.
The flare light painted everything red and gold, made beautiful what should’ve been ghastly. MacCraw stood there, staring at that tableau like a painter who didn’t know what to make of the paints on his canvas.
Lopez put a hand on MacCraw’s shoulder, her one remaining bead. That shoulder heaved under her touch, and then steadied.
“Where to, Sarge?” MacCraw asked in an empty voice.
Lopez gave him a smile, knowing it was grim and making it brief. “Objective hasn’t changed, kid,” and as she said it, it became true. They were Marines. The job kept getting harder, but they got the job done, and that meant they had to keep getting better. They’d faced the worst and best the Covenant could throw at them, and now the worst the universe could throw at them, and survived treachery by their own kind. And they were still walking. Still breathing. That was a hell of a thing.
A hell of a thing.
>Benti 1544 hours
* * *
Rimmer told them Henry had found the cricket bat in the guard’s locker room. Who knew when the guards had the chance to play cricket, or where, but the Elite was a natural with it. A rabid white slug thing had dropped from one of the overhead lights, moving too fast for any of them to shoot, and he’d splatted it against the far wall with one easy swing.
Clarence examined the green goop falling in clumps and nodded his approval. Yet Benti knew Clarence could turn around and kill Henry in an instant.
Benti hadn’t been able to speak to him since Gersten’s death. She’d found it hard to even acknowledge his presence. The fact was, it had cost him nothing to pull the trigger. That was what bothered her the most.
Beneath that, another, deeper, layer of unease.
He’d seemed to know. Before Rimmer had said anything about infections and coming back. How did he know?
Rimmer: “Henry was the one who sprung me out. There was a . . . one of the guards, she’d been, she wasn’t, but he took her out. Saved me. He’s a good guy, really.” Rimmer couldn’t stop talking, which set Benti’s teeth on edge—thought maybe he’d been imprisoned because he’d talked someone to death. He couldn’t stop touching Henry either, like a frightened puppy, and she was sure she wasn’t imagining the distaste on the Elite’s face at that.
A stairwell branched in the hallway. She didn’t mind at all the sudden convenience of a sign pointing up that indicated engine room access. She crept up, peeking over the lip of the landing, the others crowding at her back.
“They learn,” Rimmer whispered. “They take what you know and learn.”
Something small and pale leapt out of the darkness. She threw herself back only to stop flat against Henry, who pulled her aside with one arm, the other swinging that cricket bat and hitting another ball sac down the length of the hall.
Benti scrambled up, away from the Covenant, with undue haste. He looked at her, lower jaw hinges flexing subtly. You could tell a lot from someone’s eyes. Had to remind herself he wasn’t a “someone.” She could still feel the impression of his hand—not human, not at all human—on her shoulder, knew the hair on the back of her neck was up, and it took all her willpower not to pump his gut full of hot lead.
“Thanks,” she managed, as more Flood bugs came bouncing out of the hall.
It was like a fairground game, shooting ducks. Only, not really.
Funny how you adjusted to the situation, no matter how messed up. She felt relief that these weren’t the great ravening horrors that had chased them through recycling. They weren’t going to slash them open and crush them. They were small, these little infectors. One bullet, one hit, and they would burst.
Just, there were so many of them.
And Rimmer couldn’t shoot for shit.
“Stop!” Benti yelled. “You’re just wasting ammo! Swap, and reload mine.”
Even Clarence switched to his pistol, single shots popping white pods there, there, and there. A good sharpshooter, on top of everything else. Not too many of those in the Marines, not at private level.
“Where are they coming from?” It was like a machine full of half-chewed gumballs had broken all over the floor.
One slipped in close, and Henry smashed it flat.
Benti could’ve sworn the Elite looked a little gleeful.
>Foucault 1559 hours
* * *
The video ended, and the loop began again.
Foucault knuckled his eyes, taking the moment to collect his thoughts. After what he had been shown and told, he was inclined to think maybe Rebecca had indeed gone rampant. Found himself hoping that were true, because if forced to choose between the story she had spun and a rampant AI embedded in his ship, the latter seemed the lesser trial.
On the monitor: a wide, high room of unfamiliar architecture, and a ravening horror leapt at the camera, decayed and misshapen and still unfortunately recognizable as a human, UNSC logo just visible on the remains of the uniform. A shotgun blast floored it, but there was another to take its place, and another, and another. In the background, on the floor, a recently killed Marine convulsed, and came back. Footage of what Spartan-117 and the Marines who preceded him had found on Halo.
He picked his words precisely. “We have not been able to defeat the Covenant in nearly three decades, and yet, here we are, returned here for the sole purpose of seeking this out.” He felt tired, more than sleep-deprived. “This greater threat.”
An infected Marine ignored the bullets striking its torso and leapt at a healthy, live, uninfected Marine. Foucault had turned the volume off, but the screams still sounded in his mind.
“I don’t believe it was in the original brief,” Rebecca said. “The ONI agent heading the research project aboard the Mona Lisa seems to have exceeded his parameters. Significantly. And we
still don’t know for sure.”
Foucault shook his head at the insanity of it all. “Is there more?”
“No,” she replied. He didn’t believe her, and didn’t not believe her. Almost didn’t care. “But now you understand, we cannot deploy any more Marines, not without explicit confirmation. We cannot risk the Red Horse.”
He watched a small white pod of a creature latch onto a Marine’s chest, watched the life leave those eyes, watched something else take over. A cold worm of dread coiled in his belly.
“We do not willingly abandon our own,” he said, to himself, and knew right then and there that statement was close to becoming a lie.
>Lopez 1602 hours
* * *
What had once been Rakesh chased them toward the bridge, howling and gibbering and raising a chorus of answering growls. Lopez had caught sight of him stumbling on a derailed security door and bolted. Didn’t look back. Hadn’t wanted to see what he’d become, and definitely didn’t want to see if they were, in fact, being pursued by more than one. Couldn’t waste ammo if they could possibly help it, even though they’d taken all Singh and Percy had left.
“Sarge! The door!” MacCraw pointed, looking back at her, then beyond her. Only to look forward again. Fast. Didn’t make her any more curious about what was behind them.
“I see it!” The bridge up ahead, a giant arrow on the wall confirming it, and the door to the bridge sitting back from the wall a hand span, an overturned chair stopping it from sealing. Oh, small mercies. Crashed up against the door, lighting a fire where Smith had shot her, and kicked at the chair. “Get in there!”
MacCraw turned to face Rakesh, backing toward her and fumbling for his weapon. Lopez cursed. Without the obstacle the door began to slide shut. Shoved her shoulder in the gap. “Dammit, MacCraw, I said—”
Caught a glimpse over MacCraw’s shoulder. Oh shit.
MacCraw added his own weight to the door. Rakesh was fast, way too fast, oh shit oh shit oh shi—
The door shifted, and they fell through. Scrambled back, MacCraw landing an elbow in Lopez’s injury. All the air left her; she couldn’t even grunt. The door closed slowly, and Rakesh was so fast, footfalls so heavy, ravening shout loud in her ears. But: cut off cleanly. The door sealed with a sigh, and locked, as it had been trying to do for hours.
MacCraw scrambled to his feet, flashlight on the door, then the room beyond, then back to the door. “He knows we’re in here,” he said, voice shaking. A muffled but insistent thudding began on the hatch.
“It,” Lopez corrected him, clamping down on the pain in her side. “It’s an it, now.”
MacCraw nodded, mouth moving as if trying to convince himself. He flinched at every knock on the door.
Lopez stood. She pursed her lips, stepped past him, making a slow pan of the bridge with her flashlight, her hand steady, that small show of calm enough to reach him.
“Sensing a pattern here,” she said, noting the arcs of blood on the walls and floor. The drag marks that almost didn’t register with her anymore. Nothing moved except drifts of green dust, growing in little crests here and there. Someone had holed a beastie before going down. Good to see. Most of the displays had been wrenched from their stands and smashed, but some still showed readouts, broken through the cracks. The bridge must have a separate power source.
They ran their lights across the ceiling, shone them into every corner and under every station, until Lopez dared to believe they might be safe. Let out a deep breath. They might actually have some time to think for a change.
“Don’t think anyone is gonna use the nav system.” MacCraw stood over the ruined console. “Guess we can go home now?”
“Soon,” Lopez promised. “Soon.” Smith’s voice echoed in her mind. Retain their knowledge. Didn’t like the implications. Wondered if any of the crew had been infected. Didn’t like that thought, either.
“We came here for the nav system, didn’t we? What else is in here?” MacCraw glanced nervously over his shoulder at the door. The assault showed no signs of waning. The infected Rakesh was going to pummel itself into a pulp trying to get at them.
“We can use the ship’s system. Get me radio contact. I don’t care how, and I don’t care who: Benti, Burgundy, raise the Red Horse, hell, raise that damn Covenant ship. Just get me someone to talk to.”
MacCraw spun suddenly, taking aim at a corner in the ceiling, jerked to check another corner, looking for giant angry boils, snotbags, infection forms.
Lopez couldn’t blame him, but they didn’t have time for it. “Private! Get to it!”
“Yessir.” Training overrode his fear. He brushed broken plastic and green dust off the glass atop an undamaged console. “What are you gonna do, Sarge?”
Lopez righted a chair, ignoring the foam bulging from the slashed seat. She’d been counting rosary beads again. So many lost. Thinking about that thing wailing on the door, that had been one of her Marines. Thinking about why.
“I ever tell you I can touch-type?” She pulled Smith’s security pass from her pocket and waved it at him as she sat. “Old school, I am. Now get cracking.”
>Benti 1608 hours
* * *
Somehow, against the odds, they’d reached the engine room.
Now what? Benti hadn’t a clue.
They were crouched down, peering over dead consoles on the control platform mounted two flights up, and they had a fine view of the main engine deck below.
The space engines dominated, sinking beneath the floor and looming high above them, the shielding around the thrusters looking to Benti like giant centipedes, stretching back through the rear of the ship. Nestled between them, oddly innocuous, the slipspace engine, a standard Shaw-Fujikawa translight, nothing more than a six-pack of boxes propped against each other. A melange of grease and oil and rancid hydraulic fluid mostly snuffed out the pervasive mold smell.
The floor was crowded. It was busy. It was Flood Party Central. No surprise there.
Details began to leap out at her. Covenant strode huge among the turned humans, most of them trailing scraps of prison garb, some in official uniform, and there, in the middle of them, Maller still in Marine armor. He was warped out of shape, limping, dragging an appendage of gristle behind him. Maller crossed paths with a Covenant Elite ruptured like a huge septic bruise, and they almost seemed to nod at each other. All of them, the prisoners and guards, humans and Covenant, united, in total harmony. Of one mind.
Better to think of it as a party, and they were the rogue DJs who’d crashed it.
But, no, that didn’t really help. She had to look away, up at Henry, who was checking, kept checking, the catwalk behind them. He met her eyes, unhappy but in control, too much the warrior.
Clarence swallowed, his lips parted, gaze fixated on something below, and swallowed again. The muscles in his jaw worked as he clenched his teeth. He looked a question at her. Their orders didn’t seem to apply anymore.
Rimmer had been partly right. This wasn’t all the ship’s dead. On the slipspace engine, the Flood had fixed a giant clot of mucus. Not mucus, Benti corrected herself, some sickly membrane, throbbing and quivering, odd shapes distorting its skin, half caught in it, as if something were moving within, and suddenly the picture resolved itself, and those odd shapes against the membrane became arms and legs dressed in uniform, the crew caught and suspended in the glob. Struggling. Alive.
Benti raised a numb hand and covered her mouth, not sure if she was holding in a sob or vomit.
A squeak that might’ve become something louder and Benti snapped around. Clarence was faster, one arm around Rimmer’s head, the other hand clamped firmly over his mouth, expression dour. Rimmer gripped the arm around him, not struggling but holding on like a drowning man to a life preserver. Benti bit her lip and hoped he wouldn’t release Rimmer until they were well out of here. There was too much terror in Rimmer’s eyes.
A new sound cut above the shuffle and murmur and held the full attention of all the F
lood below. As one they turned blindly toward the sound, a horrible synchronicity in the way they raised their heads to sniff, claws and nails flexed, ready to attack. Benti could almost taste the mindless rage that swelled and peaked, and then suddenly dissipated.
An infected person, a human, came into view, carrying a body. No, an infected Marine. Cranker. Carrying someone alive. Someone badly wounded, dripping blood, but alive and struggling, wailing, sobbing, thrashing and kicking as they neared the mucus glob.
“Don’t let them take me!”
Benti’s heart thumped. She put her other hand over her mouth, recoiled, sagged back against Henry’s leg. A sour smell and trickle. Rimmer had pissed himself.
Burgundy.
>Lopez 1613 hours
* * *
What are we fighting for? The question rang loud in Lopez’s mind. She couldn’t think around it. What are we fighting for? She took a data crystal from the console, tucking it firmly in her vest pocket. She had only skimmed some of the files Smith’s pass had granted her access to, but there would be time to read the rest later. She’d read enough for now. Too much. There was no mystery left in this ship, their mission for even being here. What are we fighting for? It took conscious effort to keep everything she’d learned from rasping in her voice.
“I think . . . yeah, I got a signal, Sarge! Booyah!” MacCraw pumped his fists in the air.
“You raised the Red Horse?”
Neither of them paid any attention to the dull booming any more. The infected Rakesh was a lot more aggressive and annoying than the real Rakesh.
MacCraw couldn’t and didn’t try to dampen the goofy grin on his face. “She’s talking, oh yeah, she’s talking!”
“What about Benti and Burgundy?” she said, crossing over to him.
MacCraw jittered in his seat, too excited by the sound of home. “I couldn’t raise either of them, but the intercom is online in most of the ship.”