The Flood (25 page)

“Never been better!” Cortana affirmed. “You can’t imagine the wealth of information – so
much
, so fast. It’s
glorious
!”

“So,” the Master Chief asked, “what sort of weapon is it?”

The AI looked surprised. “What are you talking about?”

“Let’s stay focused,” the Spartan responded. “Halo. How do we use it against the Covenant?”

The image of Cortana frowned. Suddenly her voice was filled with disdain. “This ring isn’t a cudgel, you barbarian, it’s something else. Something much more important. The Covenant were right, this ring–”

She paused, and her eyes moved back and forth as she scanned the tidal wave of data she now accessed. A puzzled look flashed across her face. “Forerunner,” she muttered. “Give me a moment to access...”

A moment later, she began to speak, and her words rushed out in a flood, as if the constant stream of new information was sweeping her along.

“Yes, the Forerunners built this place, what they called a fortress world, in order to–”

The Chief had never heard the AI talk like that before, didn’t like being referred to as a “barbarian,” and was about to cut her down to size when she spoke again. Plainly alarmed, her voice had a hesitant quality. “No, that can’t be... Oh, those Covenant fools, they must have known, there must have been signs.”

The Chief frowned. “Slow down. You’re losing me.”

Her eyes widened in horror. “The Covenant found
something
, buried in this ring, something
horrible
. Now they’re afraid.”

“Something buried?”

Cortana looked off into the distance as if she could actually see Keyes. “Captain – we’ve got to stop the Captain. The weapons cache he’s looking for, it’s not really – we can’t let him get inside.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s no time!” Cortana said urgently. Her eyes were neon pink and they focused on the Spartan like twin lasers. “I have to remain here. Get out, find Keyes, stop him. Before it’s too late!”

Echo 419’s engines roared as the Pelican descended through the darkness and rain into the swamp. The surrounding foliage whipped back and forth in response to the sudden turbulence, the water beneath the transport’s metal belly was pressed flat, and the stench of rotting vegetation flooded the aircraft’s cargo compartment as the ramp splashed into the evil-looking brew below.

Foehammer was at the controls and it was her voice that came over the radio. “The last transmission from the Captain’s ship was from
this
area. When you locate Captain Keyes, radio in and I’ll come pick you up.”

The Master Chief stepped down off the ramp and immediately found himself calf-deep in oily-looking water. “Be sure to bring me a towel.”

The pilot laughed, fed more fuel to the engines, and the ship pushed itself up out of the swamp. In the three hours since she had plucked the Spartan off the top of the pyramid, he’d scarfed a quick meal and a couple hours of sleep. Now, as Foehammer dropped her passenger into the muck, she was glad to be an aviator. Ground-pounders worked too damn hard.

Keyes floated in a vacuum. A gauzy white haze clouded his vision, though he could occasionally make out images in lightning-fast bursts – a nightmare tableau of misshapen bodies and writhing tentacles. A muted gleam of light glinted from some highly polished, engraved metal. In the distance, he could hear a droning buzz. It had an odd, musical quality, like Gregorian chant slowed to a fraction of its normal speed.

He realized with a start that the images were from his own eyes. The knowledge brought back a flood of memory – of his own body. He struggled, and realized in mounting horror that he could just barely feel his own arms. They seemed softer somehow, as if filled with a spongy, thick liquid.

He couldn’t move. His lungs itched, and the effort of breathing hurt.

The strange droning chant suddenly sped into an insect buzz, painfully echoing through his consciousness. There was something... distant, something definitively
other
about the sound.

Without warning, a new image flashed across his mind, like images on a video screen.

The sun was setting over the Pacific, and a trio of gulls wheeled overhead. He smelled salt air, and felt gritty sand between his toes.

He felt a sickening sensation, a feeling of indescribable violation, and the comforting image vanished. He tried to remember what he was seeing, but the memory faded like smoke. All he could feel now was a sense of loss. Something had been taken from him... but what?

The insistent buzz returned, painfully loud now. He could sense tendrils of awareness – hungry for data – wriggling through his confused mind like diseased maggots. A host of new images filled him.

Keyes continued to float, mesmerized by the parade of memories that began to pile on him, each one appearing faster than the last. He drifted through the fog. He didn’t notice, or indeed care, that as soon as the bursts of memory ended, they disappeared entirely.

The strange
otherness
receded from his awareness, but not entirely. He could still sense the
other
probing him, but he ignored it. The next burst of memory passed... then another... then another...

The Chief checked his threat indicator, found nothing of concern, and allowed the swamp to close in around him. “Make friends with your environment.” That’s what Chief Mendez had told him many years ago – and the advice had served him well. By
listening
to the constant patter of the rain,
feeling
the warm humid air via his vents, and
seeing
the shapes natural to the swamp, the Spartan would know what belonged and what didn’t. Knowledge that could mean the difference between life and death.

Satisfied that he was attuned to the environment around him, and hopeful of gaining a better vantage point, he climbed a slight rise. The payoff was immediate.

The Pelican had gone in less than sixty meters from the spot where Echo 419 had dropped him off – but the surrounding foliage was so thick Foehammer had been unable to see the crash site from the air.

The Chief moved in to inspect the wreckage. Judging from appearances, and the fact that there weren’t many bodies lying around, the ship had crashed during takeoff, rather than on landing. The impression was confirmed when he discovered that while they were dressed in fatigues, all of the casualties wore Naval insignia.

That suggested that the dropship had landed successfully, discharged all of its Marine passengers, and was in the process of lifting off when a mechanical failure or enemy fire had brought the aircraft down.

Satisfied that he had a basic understanding of what had taken place, the Chief was about to leave when he spotted a shotgun lying next to one of the bodies, decided it might come in handy, and slipped the sling over his right shoulder.

He followed a trail of bootprints away from the Pelican and toward the glow of portable work lights – the same kind of lights he’d seen in the area around the Truth and Reconciliation. The aliens were certainly industrious, especially when it came to stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down.

As if to confirm his theory regarding Covenant activity in the area, it wasn’t long before the Spartan came across a
second
wreck, a Covenant dropship this time, bows down in the swamp muck. Aside from swarms of moth-like insects and the distant chirp of swamp birds, there were no signs of life.

Cargo containers were scattered all around the crash site, which raised an interesting question. When the transport nosed in, were the aliens trying to deliver something, weapons perhaps, or taking material away? There was no way to be certain.

Whatever the case, there was a strong likelihood that Keyes had been attracted to the lights, just as he had, followed them to the crash site, and continued from there.

With that in mind, he swung past a tree that stood on thick, spider-like roots, followed a trail up over a rise, and spotted a lone Jackal. Without hesitation, he snapped the assault rifle to his shoulder and brought the alien down with a burst.

He crouched, waiting for the inevitable counterattack – which never came. Curious. Given the lights, the crash site, and the scattering of cargo modules, he would have expected to run into more opposition.

A
lot
more.

So where were they? It didn’t make sense. Just one more mystery to add to his growing supply.

The rain pattered against the surface of his armor, and swamp water sloshed around his boots as the Master Chief pushed his way through some foliage and suddenly came under fire. For one brief moment it seemed as if his latest question had been answered, that Covenant forceswere still in the area, but the opposition soon proved to be little more than a couple of hapless Jackals, who, upon hearing the sound of gunfire, had come to investigate. As usual they came in low, crouching behind their shields, so it was almost impossible to score a hit from directly in front of them.

He shifted position, found a better angle, and fired. One Jackal went down, but the other rolled, and that made it nearly impossible to hit him. The Spartan held his fire, waited for the alien to come to a stop, and cut him down.

He worked his way up the side of a steep slope, and Chief spotted a Shade sited on top of the ridge. It commanded both slopes, or would have, had someone been at the controls. He paused at the top of the ridge and considered his options. He could jump on the Shade, hose the ravine below, and thereby let everyone know that he had arrived, or slip down the slope, and try to infiltrate the area more quietly.

The Chief settled on the second option, started down the slope in front of him, and was soon wrapped in mist and moist vegetation. Not too surprisingly, some red dots appeared on the Spartan’s threat indicator. Rather than go around the enemy, and expose his six, the Master Chief decided to seek them out. He slung the MA5B and drew out the shotgun – better suited for close-up work. He pumped the slide, flicked off the safety, and moved on.

Broad variegated leaves caressed his shoulders, vines tugged at the barrel of the shotgun, and the thick half-rotten humus of the jungle floor gave way under the Chief’s boots as he made his way forward.

The Grunt perhaps heard a slight rustling, debated whether to fire, and was still in the process of thinking it over when the butt of the shotgun descended on his head. There was a solid
thump!
as the alien went down, followed by two more, as more methane breathers rushed to investigate.

Satisfied with his progress so far, the Spartan paused to listen. There was the gentle patter of rain on wide, welcoming leaves, and the constant sound of his own breathing, but nothing more.

Confident that the immediate perimeter was clear, the Master Chief turned his attention to the Forerunner complex that loomed off to his right. Unlike the graceful spires of other installations, this one appeared squat and vaguely arachnid.

He crept down onto the flat area immediately in front of it. He decided that the entrance reminded him of a capital A, except that the top was flat, and was bracketed by a pair of powerful floodlights.

Was
this
what Keyes had been looking for? Something caught his eye – a pair of twelve-gauge shotgun shells, and a carelessly discarded protein bar wrapper, tossed near the entrance.

Once through the door he came across a half dozen Covenant bodies lying in a pool of commingled blood. Struck once again by the absence of serious opposition, the Master Chief knelt just beyond the perimeter established by the blood, and peered at the bodies.

Had the Marines killed them? No, judging from the nature of their wounds it appeared as if the aliens had been hosed with
plasma
fire. Friendly fire perhaps? Humans armed with Covenant weapons? Maybe, but neither explanation really seemed to fit.

Perplexed, he stood, took a long, slow look around, and pushed deeper into the complex. In contrast with the swamp outside, where the constant
drip, drip, drip
of the rain served to provide a constant flow of sound, it was almost completely silent within the embrace of the thick walls. The sudden sound of machinery startled him, and he spun and brought the shotgun to bear.

Summoned by some unknown mechanism, a lift surfaced right in front of him. With nowhere else to go, the Master Chief stepped aboard.

As the platform carried him downward a group of overlapping red blobs appeared on his threat indicator, and the Spartan knew he was about to have company. There was a screech of tortured metal as the lift came to a stop, but rather than rush him as he expected them to, the blobs remained stationary.

They had heard the lift many times before, the Chief reasoned, and figured it was loaded with a group of their friends. That suggested Covenant,
stupid
Covenant.

His favorite kind, in fact – apart from the dead kind.

Careful to avoid the sort of noise that might give him away, he completed a full circuit of the dimly lit room, and discovered that the blobs were actually Grunts and Jackals, all of whom were clustered around a hatch.