Seventeen: Gravemind
Fred came to slowly, with the realization that there were lights passing by overhead. He and his brothers and sisters were being dragged over the metal floor of a Forerunner structure, bound in strong tendrils of flesh. He shook his head, trying to orient himself despite the sharp bouncing of his body over the uneven floor, and reflexively struggled against his bonds, sensing that his brothers and sisters had begun to do the same. The tentacles only wrapped them tighter before they were lifted up into the air.
Cortana spoke over the local radio. "What... is that?"
The thing was very much like a snake, but it was almost entirely mouth, with two long tendrils for a "lower lip" and no visible eyes, and many slimy-looking waving tentacles, a handful of which were wrapped around each of the Spartans. Its body covered the entire floor of the cavernous space and spread partway up the walls, an impressive task in and of itself, but they could not discern its true color in the misty green light.
The immense head - no eyes, only mouth - pulled back slightly, as if affronted. "I?" it said, before leaning uncomfortably close and breathing green mist over them as it spoke, if it could be called speaking; "I... am a monument... to all your sins." They could hear its voice inside their heads, too; it was uncomfortable, knowing that they were not even safe from this... this... thing even inside their own minds.
And it had used the same words of the person in black from Alpha Halo; what were they to make of that?
Whipping noises, the sound of something whistling through the air, and two tentacles brought a silver-armored Elite into the cavernous space, one wrapped around his torso, the other around his right arm even as he struggled to escape the thing's grip. Other tentacles moved to help hold him. He was finally level with the Spartans, and that was where the thing held him as he continued to struggle.
"Relax," Fred growled, jerking his head toward the creature, "I'd rather not piss this thing off."
"Demons," the Elite hissed at them before focusing on the Gravemind.
"These ones are machine and nerve," it growled, pulling the Spartans slightly closer and subtly shifting and tightening its grip, making them renew their struggles as it petted Fred's helmet with one tentacle, "and have their minds concluded." It let out a low rumbling noise deep in its throat as it turned its attention to the Arbiter. Fred yanked the tentacle away from his eyes and watched as it turned the Sangheili this way and that before finally tipping him upside down. "This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded."
"Kill me or release me, Parasite," the Elite growled, every instinct in his body rebelling against his vulnerable position, "but do not waste my time with talk!"
"There is much talk," it rumbled, "and I have listened - through rock and metal and time." Its immense head pulled away from them, more tentacles reaching down into the darkness below them. "Now I shall talk, and you shall listen."
It pulled up a Monitor by one of its wing-like cowlings and the Prophet of Regret fused to a much thicker segment of tentacle. "Greetings!" the red Monitor said cheerfully, "I am Twenty-Four-Oh-One Penitent Tangent. I am the Monitor of Installation Zero-Five."
"And I am the Prophet of Regret, councilor most high... Hierarch of the Covenant!"
Penitent Tangent took notice of the Spartans. "Reclaimers?! Here?! At last! We have much to do. This facility must be activated if we are to control this outbreak!"
"S-stay where you are," Regret gasped, "Nothing can be done until my sermon is complete!"
The Monitor sounded indignant when he spoke again. "Not true. This Installation has a successful utilization record of one-point-two trillion simulated and one actual. It is ready to fire on-demand."
Regret turned to speak with the Arbiter. "Of all the objects our lords left behind, there are none so worthless as these Oracles! They know nothing of the Great Journey!"
"And you know nothing about containment!" Tangent spat back, "You have demonstrated complete disregard for even the most basic protocols!"
It was then that the Gravemind broke into their argument. "This one's containment," it said with a shudder, hefting Penitent Tangent, then Regret, "and this one's Great Journey are the same."
Both were returned to the darkness below, but they heard the Monitor crying out in fear, something that sent a chill down all of the mortals' spines. What was this thing doing to the poor AI - and why was Cortana shaking in fear in the back of Fred's helmet, continuously whispering nonsensical words interspersed with a name - John?
"Your Prophets," the Gravemind continued, its massive, fleshy head swaying closer to the Arbiter, its spore-laced breath giving him an irresistible urge to cough, "have promised you freedom from a doomed existence, but you will find no salvation on this ring. Those who built this place knew what they wrought. Do not mistake their intent, or all will perish, as they did before."
"This thing is right," Fred interjected, reluctant to agree with the Gravemind, but he felt the need to drive home the truth it told."Halo is a weapon; you're Prophets are making a big mistake."
"Your ignorance already destroyed one of the Sacred Rings, Demons," the Arbiter snapped, "It shall not harm another."
The Gravemind could see that the Arbiter required more convincing. "If you will not hear the truth, then I will show it to you. There is still time to stop the Key from turning-" At this, it appeared to look up through the roof, its "eyes" locked on something far away. "-but first, it must be found. You," speaking to the Spartans, "will search one likely spot, and you," meaning the Arbiter, "will search another. Fate had us meet as foes, but this ring will make us brothers." It tapped into Halo's teleportation system, feeling the Other's presence give way before it, a momentary victory; it threw the humans and Sangheili away from itself, teleporting them to different locations around - and on - Halo.
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The fighting on and around High Charity was terrible on both sides, Sangheili-controlled ships firing on Brute-controlled ones; though their skills were far superior, they were by far outnumbered. The Jiralhanae had the Kig-Yar, the Unggoy, and the Yam'ee at their backs; all but a few of the Huragok were largely ambivalent, and the Mgalekgolo were split amongst themselves, sometimes even within their own colonies.
The battles inside were just as bad as the ones on the out, save far bloodier, and Brutes were ruthlessly killing any who tried to enter the Council Chamber. Truth was broadcasting all over the city from inside, via the Covenant equivalent of television. "We are all of us gravely concerned. The release of the Parasite was unexpected, unfortunate, but... there is no need to panic. In truth, this is a time to rejoice, a moment that all the Covenant should savor - for the Sacred Icon has been found." Truth held up the Index before the camera. "With it, our Path is clear, our entry into the Divine Beyond, guaranteed. The Great Journey is nigh, and nothing, not even the Flood, can stop it."
The Flood may not have been the one doing the actual stopping, but it had sent its regards through its unofficial representatives: Red and Blue Teams. They materialized in the Council Chamber, eight fully-armored and utterly unstoppable juggernauts, unarmed for the moment but that meant nothing; they had been trained to be just as effective with their bare hands, but it seemed that the Gravemind had more invested in them than they realized. It provided them with enough Covenant weapons for each to have one and at least two reloads for the needlers and carbines, and all of them hefted the firearms, glaring at Truth from behind their visors.
Their Brute Honor guards stepped forward to protect Truth and Mercy, and the former snapped, "Kill the Demons!" He pushed a button on his throne, and the Prophets' platform descended through the floor, and Fred barely managed to stop Kelly from making a jump for it, instead turning their weapons on the two Brutes and the Grunts that had manned the cameras. They picked up the weapons that their foes had dropped; they needed all the firepower that they could get in the heart of High Charity. It was not long after they died that a second wave of foes entered the chamber, almost insultingly few, and it didn't take long until they, too, had begun their "Great Journey."
"Put me down on one of the pedestals by the door," Cortana said in Fred's ear, and they moved in that direction as a collective, providing cover for the Senior Chief as he laid a hand on the holo-imager. "That Prophet, Truth," she told them, "He has the Index. You've got to take it from him. Let me get these doors." There was a familiar tone as they unlocked, then hissed open. "Go. It'll be easier to track Truth if I stay in the network."
Though reluctant to leave her, the Spartans knew that she spoke the truth and darted through the open door, across the intersection, and through the opposite door, coming face-to-face with a partition not unlike the ones the Forerunners had in their Installations. A Grunt rounded one side; Kelly shot him with her plasma pistol, and the two teams circled around either side, weapons at the ready. There were more of the stubby aliens in the room beyond, and Linda and Jerome killed the two manning the plasma turrets as fast as they possibly could, making it safer for their siblings-in-arms to take out the rest of the little buggers before moving after the Brutes on the far side of the room.
The alien apes hadn't done much to stop them from killing their underlings, just fired a few shot here and there before ducking back under cover, and they were both slain before one could berserk, enabling the Spartans to continue on without being chased by a red-eyed gorilla.
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"The Librarian's Dreadnought... It's been millennia since I've seen it."
The Chief and a handful of other Infected stood in the presently open bay where the Spartans would make their grand escape. The sleek silver metal was a little more worn, a little more aged than when they had last seen it, docked on the San 'Shyuum home world after being brought from Earth. The Spartan had not known which Dreadnought the Prophets had actually acquired, but after careful assessment of his memories and known data packets he had gotten glimpses of while on board, it could have been none other.
It was on this ship... that the Didact's love had perished after the firing of the Halo's. They could have done something to save her; they had advantages that the Origin had not, but...
John shook his head to rid himself of the memories and stepped further into the ship. In the distance behind him, he sensed the Spartans emerging onto the platform where he'd gotten his first look at the Dreadnought, back in the Origin, and he turned, switching his helmet to maximum zoom and just barely reaching the platform, seeing them dueling with the various aliens guarding it.
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More of them came up the grav lift at the far end of the platform, and a pair of green-armored Grunts were carrying plasma turrets; behind her visor, Linda's lips curled into a snarl, and she dropped to one knee, bringing her recently-acquired beam rifle to bear on one of the aliens. Even before its body hit the ground, she had already brought the barrel of the rifle around and fired at the second Grunt, sending it to join its comrade. Douglas got one of the Brutes, while Sam took the other, and the remainder of the Spartans dealt with everything else, finally gathering around the grav lift and the holopanel next to it.
"Truth is moving through the lower levels of the tower," Cortana told them, eyes locked on the Eiffel Tower-shaped ship out in the center of the city, "I'll reverse this grav lift; drop down, try to cut him off." She turned to look at the Spartans as they blinked dubiously at the opening. "It's safe, really; just step in."
Fred sighed and went first, the powerful currents of the grav lift catching him and depositing him gently on the floor below. Sam landed next to him, and they moved forward out of the way of the others just as a trio of Grunts exited the door in front of them.
When all of the Spartans were on the lower level, they moved forward around the partition and followed the slope down through the next room; it was strangely empty, making Cortana whisper in their ears, "It looks like they've got bigger problems right now - or they're about to, anyway." She was rerouting all of the enemies taking grav lifts away from the area, forcing them to move on foot, and by the time they got to the Spartans' location, the warriors were already gone.
A trio of Jackals greeted them through the next door with heavy plasma fire, but the warriors overwhelmed them and swept through the room, slaying the Brutes, Jackals, and Grunts that they found there.
"Wait a minute, I'm reading some Marines IFF transponders! They're originating somewhere below your position."
In the last room in the string, there was another grav lift that took them further into the tower...
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John stretched out on the top of the cargo module in one of the holds, watching as his Infected made fun of one another's "combat forms," the Spartan having mutated their appearances so that they looked like ordinary infected humans; they had even donned some stolen uniforms to look the part.
Now, of course, they were determined to razz one another, no matter how much it made him sigh and shake his head in exasperation. They got like that occasionally, which was why they needed rules.
Speaking of which...
"Oi."
"Yes, Ta'Ron?"
"Don't call me that; I'm not the Captain of the Guard. Rule Number One while we're gallivanting around: not talking aloud. You're supposed to be brainless combat forms. Rule Number Two: no pranks - this means you, Venera, Kenera."
"Aw, man!"
"Rule Number Three: no spoofs or snarking or sarcasm inside my head. Clear?"
A multitude of sighs. "Yes, Commander."
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"Fear the pink mist," Cortana snickered in Kelly's ear as she unloaded half a magazine from each of her needlers at a Brute captain hovering outside the door where the last of the Marine cellblocks was. As quietly as possible, they slipped into the room and "assassinated" the Brute inside, along with its Unggoy entourage, freeing the Marines from their cells, and they quickly made their way back to the central grav lift on the AI's instructions. After they eliminated all of the aliens that came down the lift, they headed up to the level that they had seen before, the one with the corpses of the SpecOps Elites lying around.
Just as they alighted on the platform, three Elite Minors chased by a flock of Yam'ee charged into the room; startled, the Spartans lifted their weapons and fired, taking out the lot of them at once under the hail of fire.
As they moved on, they could hear Truth ranting over the PA system about how the Elites had failed to protect them, putting their lives at risk. "Truth is turning on the Sangheili," Cortana told them, "They're being killed all over the city. It's... it's awful."
In the very next room, they encountered a pair of Hunters, and despite the Marines freaking out, they were easy to slay when you had eight Spartans on your side. They headed through the door behind the partition at the back of the hall and found themselves out in the open air, standing on the edge of something like a garden filled with enemy aliens.
All of the Spartans wore identical expressions of jaw-dropped-WTF-are-you-serious behind their visors, and the humans stood there, blinking, for several seconds as they stared in wonder as the designer's obvious stupidity. It didn't even look like a conventional garden, for crap's sake, what with all the random boulders and dead trees, but the plasma fire may have had something to do with that. And the birds! What sane person puts birds on a space ship with an already-heavily-burdened oxygen supply?!
Finally, Alice heaved an immense sigh and turned back around, vanishing into the room from whence they'd come. When they followed her back, they found that she'd flopped to the ground in one of the alcoves and taken her helmet off so that she could eat one of her stash of protein bars in relative peace. One by one, the other humans joined her, giving their energy levels a boost while simultaneously letting the Covenant fight themselves out before they swept in to clean up the rest.
They passed through the next door, and Cortana came over the COM; "Did you enjoy your snack time?"
"Maybe."
"Well, good, because the Covenant just destroyed two of their own ships because the Flood is onboard."
"Shit."
"My thoughts exactly. I'll keep you posted."
The next room was a long, formal hall with an almost ridiculously steep slope ad no one in it, fortunately for the not-yet-deceased Covenant personnel. The next space was open and had a horizontal gravity lift spanning a gulf in the towers. They approached the pad -
Only to hear the familiar hiss-explosion of a human Slipspace rupture.
The humans' heads whipped around, trying to see - "It's In Amber Clad!" Cortana called, just as the ship blasted overhead and curved away from the wall, heading in the same direction that they had been going. "Hailing... No response," the construct said, putting some fingers to her temple, "Wait. I'm getting something from Keira, the ship's on-board AI... they've been overrun by Flood!"
[Shit! I forgot about that!]
'Smooth move, dumbass.'
[Shut the fuck up,] he growled, but it lacked any real heat.
"She's crashed into another tower ahead of our position, and I'm not registering any human vital signs." Even as Cortana spoke, John's crew was already on the move, teleporting onboard and searching for any survivors while killing the enemy Flood; they were already infected, and could not be so again until their body was "killed."
The Spartans and Marines made their way across the grav lift and quickly slew the Sangheili and the Jiralhanae that came around the bend once the Jackal guard was dead. The Grunts were much easier, and a handful of the Marines simply chose to knock them off the platform rather than waste ammo on them; the end result was the same. They rounded the bend and came across another outdoor garden, this one with few plants but a waterfall and rectangular pond instead.
Of course, it was filled with fighting Covenant.
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"Hey, guys. How far do you think the shot from a beam rifle will go?"
"Uh... maybe half a mile before the light diffuses too much to be lethal. Why?"
"I guess we're gonna find out."
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When the Spartans followed the path around another tree-like protrusion, they found themselves at another horizontal grav lift - where there were a lot of dead bodies. They didn't question it, moving on instead; the Flood was a bigger problem than mysterious corpses. The next room was filled with fighting Elites and Drones, but rather than wait for them to kill each other, they simply mowed through he opposition, ending up with only minor injuries that needed to e treated with a few quick puffs of biofoam to seal off the wounds.
Their next areas were, once again, the Covenant's unusual water gardens with, once again, mysterious dead bodies. This time was not coincidental, and they paused to examine the deceased enemies.
"They were shot from a great distance, and based on the size of the wound and angle of entry, I'd say our sniper is using a beam rifle."
"From where?"
Linda looked up from the bodies and peered around for a moment before pointing at the Dreadnought. "That's the most likely candidate. It's the only thing high enough to actually get a good visual from."
"Hmm. Let's keep moving, people."
The next room had a steep upward slope, and three Brutes appeared at the top, all carrying Brute shots. Though they lost a Marine to a berserker, the humans were able to continue on virtually unimpeded. Whilst they cleared the next "garden," Kenera piped up, "Hey Cortana."
"Yes?"
"Do you think the Commander's theme song should be 'I'm Too Sexy?'"
The Spartans were very alarmed when Cortana suddenly burst out laughing for no apparent reason over the COM before it snapped off. "I was more going for 'You're Going Down' by Sick Puppies. Why do you ask?"
"Well, all of the visible enemies ahead of the Spartans are clear, so there's nothing really left for us to do. So, naturally, we decided to finish the argument of what the Chief's theme song should be. Your suggestion is very much win, by the way. It has about six thousand votes and counting."
"Ah. Well, let me know when the final results are in."
"Of course."
Each successive hall was virtually identical to the one before it; it was a wonder none of the aliens got lost patrolling the area. Or, that was what they thought until they reached the Mausoleum of the Arbiter. There was already a battle in progress between some Elites and Brutes, and Cortana appeared on a nearby holopanel to tel them that, "You might consider sitting this one out."
"So, what was that earlier?" Fred hissed at her as they hunkered down just inside the door.
"What was what?"
"That laughing thing that you did."
"Oh, that. Just catching up with some old friends." She grinned sinisterly, and they didn't question her any further. After several minutes, she said it was safe to go ahead; there was only one Hunter left. Even as they eliminated it, she let them know that Miranda and Johnson were closing on Truth's position, and they picked up the pace, sprinting through the next open hall to the opposite door.
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There were three of them, easily seven feet tall, and one of them carried 343 Guilty Spark under his arm like he was some kind of oversized bowling ball. "Split them," Tartarus growled to the other two, "One in each Phantom." Even as the other two shoved their prisoners toward their respective Phantoms, he moved to kneel before the two remaining Prophets.
"The hopes of all the Covenant rest on your shoulders, Chieftain," Truth said, handing the Index to the kneeling Brute as if he was conferring some unspeakable honor to the other.
"My faith is strong," Tartarus assured the Prophets as he took the Index, "I will not fail."
Just then, numerous Infection pods climbed over one of the balustrades ringing the platform and began skittering toward the Covenant aliens, and the Brutes flung aside their weapons to begin smashing the pods with their bare feet and hands. However, one managed to get through and tackled Mercy off his throne, making the Prophet cry out in pain. Tartarus made to help him, but Truth called, "Let him be. The Great Journey waits for no one, brother. Not even you."
One by one, the aliens moved away from the dying Prophet, leaving him alone.
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Yeah, I get it,
You're an outcast.
Always under attack.
Always coming in last,
Bringing up the past.
No one owes you anything.
I think you need a shotgun blast,
A kick in the ass,
So paranoid. . .
Watch your back!
- "Sound of Madness," Shinedown (The Sound of Madness)