Halo: The Flood

by William C. Dietz

  There wasn’t a hell of a lot of choice, so he marched down to the point where the remaining span was anchored, and started across. He hadn’t gone more than thirty paces before fifty or sixty infection forms emerged from hiding and danced out to block the way.

  The Spartan held his position, waited for the Flood forms to come a little closer, and tossed a fragmentation grenade into the center of the group.

  The cavern ate some of the sound, but the explosive device still managed to produce abang , and the resulting shrapnel laid waste to all but a handful of the creatures.

  There were two survivors, though, both optimists, who continued to bounce forward in spite of the way in which the rest of the group had been annihilated. A single shotgun blast was sufficient to kill both of them.

  He slipped some additional shells into the gun’s magazine tube, took a deep breath, and moved forward again. He made it about halfway to the other side before a mixed force of combat forms, carrier forms, and infection forms started to gather at the far end of the span. Another grenade inflicted casualties, but they charged him after that, and the Master Chief was forced to retreat, firing the assault weapon as he did so.

  It was nip and tuck for a few seconds as combat forms launched themselves fifteen meters through the air, carriers charged straight in, and the omnipresent infection forms swarmed through the gaps. Retreating, the Spartan had already reloaded three times before his back hit the wall, and the last combat form collapsed at his feet, started to rise, and took a blast in the head.

  Once again it was time to reload both weapons, step out onto the gore-splattered bridge deck, and attempt another crossing. This one was successful, with only light opposition on the other side, and an opportunity to replenish his ammo.

  The next set of blast doors opened flawlessly, allowing the Spartan to enter a relatively short section of tunnel that led back to the surface. Determined to use stealth if at all possible, he slipped out of the passageway, scrambled up over the snow embankment to his right, and ran into a group of four Flood. A grenade took care of two—and the assault weapon finished the rest.

  A Banshee swooped in, burned a long line of dashes into the snow, and continued up the valley. The Chief was surprised to get off so lightly, but given the darkness and all of the confusion, it was possible that the pilot had mistaken him for a combat form. A worthy target, to be sure, but not something to turn around for. Particularly not when the valley was full of combat forms.

  He was careful to hug the face of the cliff and stay within the cover provided by the boulders and trees that lined the edge of the valley. The incessant thud of automatic weapons and the whine of plasma weapons testified to the intensity of a conflict raging off to his left.

  Then, just as he was starting to believe that he could slide by without firing a shot, he came up over a slight rise to see that the Covenant and Flood were engaged in hand-tohand combat within the depression below. A grenade followed with bursts of fire from the MA5B decimated both groups.

  Snow crunched as the human made his way down through the bloodstained snow, past the spot where a trio of greedy infection forms squabbled over a wounded Elite, and up another rise to a stand of trees where a combat form and a carrier tried to jump him. Both of the Flood staggered as bursts of 7.62mm slugs cut them down, and they flopped onto the snow.

  Having broken through the perimeter of the battle, the Master Chief was able to follow the nav indicator into a second valley where he came upon a group of dead Marines, loaded up on ammo, and tried to decide whether to stay with the scatter gun or trade it in for a sniper’s rifle or a rocket launcher. It would have been nice to have all three, but that many weapons would be unwieldy, not to mention damned heavy. In the end he went with the rifle and shotgun and hoped it was the right decision.

  The Spartan checked the Marines for dog tags, discovered that they had already been taken by someone else, and took the time required to drag the bodies into a nearby cave in the hope that the infection forms wouldn’t find them. That seemed like a good place to stash the extra weapons—so that’s what he did.

  Then, having followed the second valley to the point where it opened onto athird valley, he came across a now-familiar scene. The Covenant were battling the Flood with everything they had, including Shades, a brace of Ghosts, and two extremely active Wraiths, but the Flood had plenty of bodies to throw back at them and didn’t hesitate to do so.

  What the Chief wanted was the Banshee that was parked at the head of the valley, but in order to get at the aircraft it would be necessary to cut both groups down to size. He stayed right, slipped along the cliff face, made use of a thin screen of trees and boulders to hide his movements from those out toward the center of the valley. Finally, having passed behind a house-sized rock and found a vantage point that allowed him to look out on the area where the vast majority of the Covenant were congregated, the Spartan unlimbered the S2 AM, selected the 10X setting for the scope, and began his bloody work.

  In this particular situation he selected the softest targets first, starting with the Grunts on the Shades, followed by the outlying Jackals, all in hope that he could inflict a lot of casualties before the Elites took notice and sent the tank to get him.

  The problem was that the little world inside the scope was all-consuming—a fact that caused him to let down his guard. The first hint he had that a Flood form had come up behind him was when it whacked the Spartan in the head.

  The blow would have killed anyone else, but the armor saved him, and the Chief rolled in the direction of the blow. The long-barreled S2 wasn’t well suited for close-in combat but that’s what he had in his hands. There was no time to aim as the Flood form charged, only time to fire, and that’s what he did.

  The slug caught the ex-Elite in the chest. The combat form didn’t even flinch as the bullet passed through its spongy center of mass. A tiny spurt of gray-green ichor trailed from the entry wound, as the creature swung a vicious blow at the Master Chief.

  He ducked the attack and dropped the rifle. He dived, tucked into a roll and came up with his sidearm in his hand. He emptied the clip into the beast. One round blew its left arm off, and the final round made a foot-wide exit wound in the Flood’s back.

  He kicked in the creature’s chest, crushing the infection form within. He collected the S2, and frowned. He studied the fallen Flood for a moment, and saw that the creature’s insides were rapidly liquefying. The velocity of the S2’s projectile had passed through the nonvital mass of the creature’s chest and just kept going.

  Another nasty surprise, courtesy of the Flood.

  After a quick look around to make sure that there weren’t anymore surprises lurking in the vicinity, with his heart still beating like a trip-hammer, the Chief went back to his grisly work. Three more Covenant warriors fell before a barrage of fireballs arced high into the air to land all around his position. One came so close that just the bleed off it was enough to push his shielding into the red and trigger the alarm.

  He pulled back, switched to the assault weapon long enough to ice a couple of overly ambitious Grunts, and switched back to the S2 as he rounded the opposite side of the big boulder. He selected a spot where he could go to work on both the Covenantand the Flood, and settled in.

  He wanted to nail the Elites now and, thanks to the powerful 14.5mm armor-piercing rounds, he could drop most of them with a single shot. Combat forms were a different story, so he switched to the pistol. It was less accurate, but did the job. It wasn’t long before more than a dozen bodies were laid out in the snow. But then the word was out. Soon the mortar tank moved into position to bombard his new position, and it was necessary to pull back.

  The Wraith was a problem, aserious problem, which meant there was only one thing the Spartan could do: hike back to the weapons cache and trade the rifle for the launcher. It was a major pain in the ass, but he didn’t have much choice, so he pulled out.

  It took a full half hour to make the round trip bet
ween the valley and the weapons cache, so he expected things to have calmed down a bit by the time he returned. That wasn’t the case, however, which suggested that the Flood had thrown even more forms into the battle.

  The Chief followed his own footprints back to the hiding place next to the big boulder, put the launcher on his shoulder, and hit the zoom. The Wraith, which was busy hurling bombs down valley, seemed to leap forward. As if somehow aware of his presence, the tank spun on its axis, and launched a bomb toward the rock.

  The Spartan forced himself to ignore the artificial comet, locked onto the target, and triggered the rocket. There was an impact and a loudcrump! followed by smoke—but the Wraith continued to fire nonetheless.

  Now, with fireballs exploding all around him, the Master Chief had to take a deep breath, hold the tank at the center of his sight, and pull the trigger again. The tube jerked, the second missile ran straight and true, and hit with a loudcraack! The Wraith opened like a red flower, burped pitch-black smoke, and nosed into a snowbank.

  “Nice shot,” Cortana said admiringly, “but watch the Ghost.”

  It was good advice, because although the attack vehicle had held back up to that point, it came skittering into sight, opened up with its plasma weapons, and threatened to accomplish what the rest of the Covenant soldiers hadn’t.

  But the Chief had reloaded by then. The rocket tube was the right weapon for the job, and a single missile was sufficient to send the attack vehicle flipping end-for-end to finally wind up with its belly in the air and flames licking at the engine compartment.

  With that problem out of the way the Chief came to his feet, slapped a fresh load into the launcher, and made a beeline for the Banshee. He was halfway across, with nowhere to hide, when a pair of Hunters emerged from a jumble of boulders.

  Now, grateful that he still had some rockets, he had no choice but to stop, drop to one knee, and take them on. The first shot was dead on, hit the alien in the chest, and blew the bastard apart. Another rocket flew over the second Hunter’s right shoulder and cut a tree in half. The big alien started to lumber across open ground, picking up speed and charging its arm-mounted cannon.

  It was a waste of ammo to pepper the front end of a Hunter with 7.62mm rounds, and slow though he was, the alien could still bring him down with a blast from his arm-mounted fuel rod cannon.

  So he put his sight onto a target so big he didn’t need to zoom, and let fly.

  The Hunter saw the missile coming, tried to deflect it with his shield, and failed. Seconds later pieces of warm meat showered the area, melted holes in the snow, and continued to steam.

  The Chief ran past without a second look, jumped onto the Banshee, and strafed the rest of the Covenant forces on his way down the valley. Judging from the way the nav indicator was oriented, the Spartan needed altitude, a lot of it, so he put the alien attack ship into a steep climb.

  Finally, when the red delta flipped over, and started to point down, he knew he was high enough. He did a nose-over and caught his first glimpse of the way point below. The surrounding area was dark, and snow continued to fall, but the platform was nicely lit. He lowered the Banshee onto the pad and had just bailed out of the pilot’s seat when the Sentinels attacked. “This is the last one,” Cortana said. “The Monitor will do anything to stop us.”

  The Chief blew three of the pesky machines out of the air, backed through the hatch, and let the door close on the rest.

  “We’re close,” the AI commented. “The generator is up ahead.”

  The Chief nodded, stepped out into a room, and felt a laser burn across the front of his armor. It seemed that the Monitor had posted Sentinelsinside the complex, as well. Not only that, but these machines had benefit of intermittent force fields, which were resistant to automatic weapons fire.

  Still, he had a couple of 102mm surprises in store for the electromechanical enforcers, which he fired into the center of the hovering pack. Three Sentinels were blown out of the air. A fourth did loops as it tried to rid itself of a plasma grenade, failed, and took another machine with it. The fifth and sixth succumbed to a hail of bullets as their shields recharged, while the seventh slammed into a wall, crashed to the floor, and was busy trying to lift off again when the Chief stomped it to death.

  The way was clear at that point and the Spartan was quick to take advantage of it. A few quick strides were sufficient to carry him into the central chamber where he was free to approach the final pulse generator.

  “Final target neutralized,” Cortana said as the noncom stepped back a few moments later. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Let’s find a ride and get to the Captain,” the Chief agreed, as he prepared to leave.

  “No, that’ll take too long.”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  “There’s a teleportation grid that runs around Halo. That’s how the Monitor moves about so quickly,” the AI explained. “I learned how to tap into the grid when I was in the Control Center.”

  “So,” the Chief asked, somewhat annoyed, “why didn’t you justteleport us to the pulse generators?”

  “I can’t. Unfortunately, each jump requires a rather consequential expenditure of energy, and I don’t have access to Halo’s power systems to reroute the energy we need.” She paused, then reluctantly continued. “There may be another way, however.”

  The Spartan frowned and shook his head. “Something tells me I’m not going to like this.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can pull the energy we need from your suit withoutpermanently damaging your shield system or the armor’s power cells,” Cortana continued. “Needless to say, I think we should only try this once.”

  “Agreed. Tap into the Covenant network and see if you can find him. If we’ve only got one shot at this, we should make it a good one.”

  There was a pause as Cortana worked her magic with the intrusion and scan software. A moment later, she exclaimed, “I’ve got a good lock on Captain Keyes’ CNI transponder signal. He’s alive! And the implants are intact! There’s some interference from the cruiser’s damaged reactor. I’ll bring us in as close as I can.”

  “Do it,” the Master Chief growled. “Let’s get this over with.”

  No sooner had the Spartan spoken than bands of golden light started to ripple down over his armor, the now-familiar feeling of nausea returned, and the Master Chief seemed to vanish through the floor. Once he was gone only a few motes of amber light remained to mark his passing. Then, after a few seconds, they too disappeared.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  D+73:34:16 (SPARTAN-117 Mission Clock) / On board theTruth and Reconciliation .

  He wasn’t here, wasn’t there, wasn’tanywhere insofar as the Chief could tell from within the strange never-never land of Halo’s teleportation net. He couldn’t see or hear anything, save a sense of dizzying velocity. The Spartan felt his body stitched back together, one molecule at a time. He saw snatches of what looked like the interior of a Covenant ship as bands of golden light strobed up and disappeared over his head.

  Something was wrong and he was just starting to figure out what it was—the inside of the ship seemed to be upside down—when he flipped head over heels and crashed to the deck.

  He’d materialized with his feet planted firmly on the corridor’s ceiling.

  “Oh!” Cortana exclaimed. “I see, the coordinate data needs to be—”

  The Chief came to his feet, slapped the general area where his implants were, and shook his head. The AI sounded contrite. “Right. Sorry.”

  “Never mind that,” the Spartan said. “Give me a sit-rep.”

  She patched back into the Covenant computing systems, a much easier task now that they were aboard one of the enemy’s warships.

  “The Covenant network is absolute chaos,” she replied. “From what I’ve been able to piece together, the leadership ordered all ships to abandon Halo when they found the Flood, but they were too late. The Flood overwhelmed this cruiser and captured it.”
r />   “I assume,” he said, “that’sbad .”

  “The Covenant think so. They’re terrified that the Flood will repair the ship and use it to escape from Halo. They sent a strike team to neutralize the Flood and prepare the ship for immediate departure.”

  The Chief peered down the corridor. The bulkheads were violet. Or was that lavender? Strange patterns marbled the material, like the oily sheen of a beetle’s carapace. Whatever it was, he didn’t care for it, especially on a military vessel, but who knew? Maybe the Covenant thought olive drab was for wimps.

  He started forward, but quickly came up short as a voice that verged on a groan came in over his implants.“Chief . . . Don’t be a fool . . . Leave me.”

  It was Keyes’ voice.

  Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK. He clung to the tether of his CNI carrier wave, and “heard” familiar voices. An iron-hard, rasping male voice. A tart, warm female voice.

  He knew them.

  Was this another memory?

  He was struggling to dredge up new pieces of his past to delay the numbing advance of the alien presence in his mind. It was harder to maintain a grasp on who he was, as the various pieces of his life—the things that made him who he was—were stripped away, one at a time.

  Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.

  The voices. They were talking about him. The Master Chief, the AI Cortana.

  He felt a sense of mounting panic. They shouldn’tbe here.

  The other grew stronger, and pressed forward, eager to learn more about these creatures that were so important to the struggling prisoner who clung so stubbornly to identity.

  Keyes, Jacob. Captain. Service number 01928-19912-JK.

  Chief, Cortana, you shouldn’t have come. Don’t be a fool. Leave me. Get out of here. Run.