Chapter 5: Four: Assault on the Control Room
The two teams' drop zone wound up being inside a large steel dome somewhere in the ring's interior, and fortunately for Forehammer's bird, there were only a handful of terrified Grunts to greet them when she brought them in for a landing. There were two Shades on the platform jutting out over the abyss, but the aliens in those quickly bailed once they caught sight of the "Demons" in the Pelican's troop bay. The Elite supervising the lesser aliens charged from the hatch after all the Grunts had gone inside, and the sight of their leader going into battle against the Demons seemed to inspire some courage in the naturally cowardly beings.
However, it did not stop them from being killed by one of the eight warriors fighting their way to the Control Room.
The Spartans engaged the Covenant in the next room, too, and left still more bodies in their wake, aiming for the hatch on the far side of the room. They stepped through – and found themselves on an uncovered bridge spanning the gulf between two sheer cliffs. What caught their attention was the pure white snow drifting gently down from the thick grey clouds overhead. Even as Cortana commented on Halo's unusual weather patterns, the Spartans were already back to work, silently killing the sleeping Grunts clustered around a pair of Shades on either side of the door. The AI tutted at the foolish triangle-shaped aliens for sleeping in a combat zone just before a human voice came over the radio.
"This is Fireteam Zulu requesting assistance from any UNSC forces, does anyone copy? Over."
A Pelican flew over the bridge while being fired upon by the Covenant, swinging around to return fire on the aliens, and Cortana replied via Fred's radio, "Fireteam Zulu, this is Cortana, we read you. Hold position; we're on our way." The group of soldiers could hear the cheers of the humans in the background when they caught sight of the eight Spartans making their way across the bridge.
"Roger that," the first voice said, "Make it quick."
Red Team followed ramps down below to an under-slung bridge, and the eight proceeded along both parts of the bridge, slaying everything in their path. Ducking through the hatch at the far side, they quickly split up again to kill the Covenant soldiers in the room beyond and rode the lift down two at a time, careful not to accidentally knock each other off. By the time they were all on the ground, Linda had managed to take out all of the Grunts and Jackals in the area with her sniper rifle, but the Wraith tank was still a very big problem, throwing plasma bombs around like water balloons. Though Sam had hijacked one of the Shades and was hosing fire in its direction, the distance was too great, the power insufficient to punch through the Wraith's tough armor.
Once again, Kelly served as the rabbit, making a beeline right past it to the far side, but when it turned its bombs on the main group of Spartans, she ignited two plasma grenades and stuck them on the back of the tank before sprinting away as fast as she could. The heat from the ensuing explosion washed over her back, and the force sent her skidding forward a little, almost overbalancing, but she regrouped with the other Spartans and humans, unharmed. In the next valley, they found the rest of Fire Team Zulu – and their crashed Pelican. In addition to the Warthog from the previous valley, the Marines had brought a M808 Scorpion tank, which Fred immediately commandeered. The 90mm tungsten shells took out the Covenant squad harassing them with ease, and the small mob of soldiers chose to head down the pass rather than the tunnel; the tunnel would have been too tight for all of them and the tank and Warthog, and if a shell had gone off too close, that would have been the end for all of them.
More Covenant soldiers engaged them before they'd even rounded the blind corner to the valley beyond, but it only took a single round from the Scorpion to take them out. The soldiers left the Wraith floating on the frozen lake to Fred, instead going for the Ghosts and Banshee first, followed by the actual infantry. Elites died under hails of bullets, Jackals went flying when grenades exploded, and Grunts ran circles of terror before they were finally picked off. The Hunters that came up from the Forerunner-made tunnel were no big deal; one proximity shot from the tank was enough to slay both and send them flying through the air.
"C'mon, people, let's keep moving!" the sergeant yelled, "We're not in the clear yet!"
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"I need a mount."
Nep'Thalia promptly looked at the Spartan like he was crazy. Which he was, in a sense, but that was beside the point. "A what?"
"A mount. You know, a noble steed."
"…why?"
"Riding in on a Warthog won't have the same effect. I need to teach them to fear the Flood, not view it as some kind of cosmic amusement." Pause. "And no, I can't use a tank. Too slow. And we don't have any Mongooses."
"Why not one of our vehicles?"
He gave her a look which said it all. "They're too weird for anyone to take them seriously; you know that I start laughing the moment I see them. And I was intending to create something out of that…" he pointed at a pile of excess crap that came from creating all of the Infection forms, "…but it's not bonding to itself."
"Of course it's not. I put a special acid in it to prevent that. Why not just use one of the Dragon-horses?" She rooted around in her satchel before pulling out a vial of neon blue fluid and breaking it over the puddle of crap. The excess Flood mass began congealing almost immediately, bonding to itself and forming simple proteins.
John opened his mouth to speak, paused, and closed it again. "I didn't think of that. That reminds me, why hasn't this been cleaned up?"
"The cleaning crew is busy."
"Translation: Venera and Kenera haven't done anything stupid yet, so you can't assign it to them as a punishment." John crouched by the nastiness and shoved his hands into it like it was bread dough, already beginning to mold it anyway, not at all bothered by the slimy, chunky feel of it. "If they do do anything idiotic, have them bring it all here."
"Whatever." 'He's gone completely bonkers.'
[I heard that.]
Nep'Thalia watched for a moment as the Spartan began forming the mass into new Pure forms, the creatures' skeletal structure began to take shape in the Spartan's hands, confused. 'How is he doing that?' she thought to herself, 'It's impossible for us to consciously form anything out of Flood… crap… that's been left behind from one of our experiments, but he's… the Gravemind. Right. He's probably not even aware of the fact that he's forcing the cells to react and change into a pure form, only instead of making it into a base Tank or Ranged or Stalker form, he's creating new Pure forms outside of the mold the other Gravemind set.' She cocked her head, eyes widening slightly.
'Fascinating.'
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Fred poked his head from the hatch and warily peered around. The Spartans had arrived on yet another bridge, this one ice-covered stone, and there were Covenant everywhere. There was a Wraith on the ground below, along with several Ghosts two Banshees on the bridge itself. S-104 withdrew back into the hall without being noticed, and met up with the other Spartans just around the bend; they needed to come up with a plan. Sam still had the rocket launcher; they could use that on the Wraith. Linda could take out some of the Covenant on the bridge while Kelly made a break for the further of the Banshees, and Red Team would back them up. Fred would make an attempt for the closer Banshee, but even with the different distances involved, Kelly had the advantage over him.
However, things worked out perfectly for them; the Wraith didn't notice Sam's rockets until it was too late, and both Kelly and Fred made successful hijacks. Cortana made a passing comment about terrorism as the pair of airborne Spartans cleared the way for the other six as they sprinted across the icy surface, careful not to slip. The others would be on their own when they went inside, but Kelly and Fred cleared the outside while they were fighting their way to the lift. The pyramid was covered in blood of many different colors when they emerged, and there were bodies in random positions all over the place, the Spartans having used the fuel rod guns to lob plasma bombs at the Covenant soldiers from the Banshees' combat ceiling of three hundred meters. They landed at the top of the pyramid while waiting for their combat siblings, and they were almost surprised by a pair of Hunters that had been hiding in a structure at the forefront of the Control Room's doors.
Sam arrived just in time to launch a rocket at the final Hunter, preventing it from smashing Fred and Cortana to bits with its immense shield. They gathered together outside of the immense doors and held a brief conference of war; all of their motion detectors picked up enemies inside the first of the doors, and as there was no way to only open the doors a little, Fred opened the door with all of the other standing a fair distance away but still in front of it, rockets and grenades primed. The explosions brought down a fair number of the aliens, and it was a simple matter to duel with the others, wearing the last of the Elites down to a pulp while the Grunts ran around in terror.
Finally, the room was empty of living foes, and the Spartans rounded the corner to come face to face with another door. It slid open with a touch of the holopanel off to one side, and the group proceeded through it and the following door into the control room itself: a platform of steel extending into the void, forming a perfect circle around the exact center of the room. Both inside the circle and beyond it, holograms of Halo floated, the larger spinning in the air beyond the bridge, the smaller complete with a holo of Threshold and Basis, its moon. Red Team stood with their guns pointed at the door while Blue Team approached the holopanel, examining it carefully. Cortana, however, showed no such caution, instantly uploading herself into the control room's systems and appearing as a super-sized version of herself over the holopanel. Her facial expressions conveyed pure delight, and the colors of her body cycled through the whole of the color wheel before settling back onto her native crimson, though still with a faint green edging.
"Are you alright?" Fred asked, more out of concern for the mission than her.
"Never been better," she said as she grinned devilishly, "You can't imagine the wealth of information – so much, so fast! It's glorious!" She actually did a little pirouette on the holopanel.
"Okay… So what kind of weapon is it?" Fred asked her, fist tightening involuntarily on his assault rifle.
"What are you talking about?" Cortana demanded, putting her hands on her hips.
"Halo. How do we use it against the Covenant?"
"This ring isn't cudgel, you barbarian," she snapped, "It's something else – Something much more important." She appeared to be staring off into space, reading something that they could not see. "The Covenant were right; this ring… It's of Forerunner make… Give me a moment to access." She touched her first two fingers to her temple, closing her eyes as she pulled up the information. "Yes, the Forerunners built this Halo, a fortress world to – no. That – that can't be right. Oh, those Covenant fools, they had to have known, there must have been signs…"
"What is it, Cortana?"
"The Covenant found something buried here – something horrible – and now they're afraid."
"Something buried?" Sam asked.
"The Captain – we have to stop the Captain. The weapons cache he's looking for – it's not really – we can't let him get inside. There's no time to explain – get out, find Keyes, stop him. Before it's too late! If you don't," she said as the Spartans finally caught on to her urgency and turned to do as she ordered, "all of us are going to die." The Control Room's doors slid silently shut behind them, leaving her alone.
Or so the Spartans thought.
"You are an excellent actress."
Her holographic head snapped around to face the voice's owner as he deactivated his active camouflage and appeared in the room, his cranial armor retracting so he could look up at her even as he walked around to the "front" of the holopanel. Cortana's database had already matched his voice to the one she had wanted to hear for so long, and she said his name as she "stepped" down onto the platform. "John."
He shook his head to fluff up his hair, then looked up at her once more and gave her a little crooked smile. The AI could have died happy. She returned the smile, stepping forward to rest her head on his chest. "I missed you."
"I can tell." He tilted his head. "And there's something I need to tell you." When she looked up and cocked her head, waiting, he sighed and gave it to her straight, not even bothering to dance around the subject as any other person would have. Her facial expression was utterly shocked most of the time, mixed with anger and hate. She appeared not to care that he was like the monster that had held her captive on High Charity; she even said as much.
"You are still John–117. Why should your species bother me?" She realized that he had been agonizing over her reaction to his new nature, so she said, "Besides, it's been really boring without you here to stir things up. This will probably make people start spinning in their graves. Not to mention Doctor Halsey's reaction if she finds out. And the Spartans'. And Lord Hood! Oh, I can just see their faces!" She collapsed backwards onto air, covering her eyes with one arm and laughing so hard her sides began to hurt. "But I guess if you're the Gravemind of Alpha Halo, then we're not in real danger."
"Real danger," he snorted, "Does that make me imaginary?"
She started laughing again, and he watched her with a soft smile on his face. "I hate to leave after we just got back together again, but I need to be there when the Infected bring Keyes onboard the Truth and Reconciliation."
"I'd tell you to be careful, but that would be pointless. You live for danger."
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I feel it deep within, it's just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I hate what I've become, the nightmare's just begun
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I feel it deep within, it's just beneath the skin
I must confess that I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster
I, I feel like a monster
- "Monster," Skillet (Awake)
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