Nineteen: Edge Closer

"Okay, the area's clear. Now, we're not going any further with you until you tell us who the fuck you are and what you want."

"I-"

"And that whole 'I am a monument to all your sins' bullshit doesn't fly anymore. We've seen that thing -" There was a collective shudder through the Spartans, "- and we know that you're at least relatively civilized; you don't scare us anymore." Kelly folded her arms and glared resolutely at the black-clad figure that had been walking away from them after making combat forms out of the majority of the dead Brutes in the bay.

The "Other Gravemind," as Fred had dubbed him, turned to look at them and cocked his head from beneath its active camo cloak, and they sensed its slight smirk. When he spoke again, his voice was no longer distorted. "I'm glad to see at least one of you has grown a spine. As for what you want to know... you will find out very soon, but rest assured; I'm no longer your enemy." He strode across the blood-splattered bay. "But then again, in a sense I never was."

The door hissed open in front of him and admitted him into a smaller conduit hall, and the five teams of warriors looked at one another before padding out after him. Linda was feeling particularly brave; she fell into step next to the Gravemind.

"Do you have a name?"

He glanced at her. "My name is John."

Behind her visor, Linda raised an eyebrow, moving aside as he directed his combat forms ahead past them. "John? Not something… alien?"

"Do I look alien to you?"

"You don't really look like anything at all because we can't see you, asshole."

He chuckled softly. "No one ever said I was nice." He blurred forward and tackled the Brute captain to the ground, the alien having just rounded the corner. Though the Spartans didn't actually see it happen, John unsealed his biosuit and plunged his bare hand into the Brutes gut, injecting pure Flood DNA into its body and beginning the infection process immediately. He shook his hand free of the blood and guts of the alien before resealing his suit and sending the combat lumbering off back in the direction that it had come, sending more of the Brute combat forms from the bay after it.

"Where are we?" Alice asked, tactfully ignoring the blood now staining the floor of the ancient ship, peering at the doors lining one side of the short hall, "And why is the hall shaped like this?"

"Storage area, typically for EVA gear," John grunted, keying in the code to one of the doors and gliding inside, a few of the Spartans warily following, "But we're in luck. This is also one of the sub-armories in the ship. The weapons should still have their charge even after all these years."

"What? How? A battery in a weapon runs down even if it's not in use."

"Not batteries, micro-reactors. Like the ones in your armor, only smaller." With his back to them, John hefted an Incineration Cannon from the wall and tested the balance of the weapon. "Hmm... for later." With the push of a button, the cannon disassembled with a soft hiss, the individual pieces integrating themselves in with his exterior armor and disappearing as the active camo veiled them, too.

"Oi, um, John."

He turned and saw that a handful of the Spartans were examining a Binary Rifle, the Forerunner version of a sniper rifle. It didn't look like a regular Binary Rifle, though; it was the approximate shape and size of a battle rifle, complete with scope, and colored a smooth matte black. "It's a prototype sniper rifle. Why?"

"What? How in all the hells is this a sniper rifle? It's too small and doesn't have a long enough barrel!" Linda tilted it up to examine it better.

"It operates like a cross between a human sniper rifle and a beam rifle, but the physics of it are really complex. It fires slugs of hard light that dissolve corpses. Somehow, they get the light to take on a property not unlike the cohesiveness of water, bonding the wave-particles together so that it can go a lot farther than the beam rifle's shot, too."

"Really? How far?"

"I think the record is thirty-five kilometers, ship-to-ship...?"

"MINE!" Linda tore out of the room with the gun, already beginning to carefully examine the weapon from top to bottom, and John glanced at the other Spartans, silently asking.

"She does that sometimes," Kelly said by way of an explanation, examining a cylindrical charge as the Infected armed themselves with what they called "proper weapons." When she pushed a character on the side and caused the adhesive grips to extend, the charge beginning to beep at an increasing intensity, Kenera instantly appeared by her side and slapped the grips back into their slots, disarming the charge.

"Don't do that," John growled, hooking a bandoleer of grenades onto his hip armor before sweeping dramatically out of the room, closely followed by Dacien, Venera, and Thenma. Kenera heaved the Forerunner equivalent of a rocket launcher off the wall and staggered out of the room under the immense weight before John forced her to trade with Dacien. She sulked for a moment while they waited for the Spartans, pouting in a corner, until John grunted, "/Brains!/"

That made her chuckle, and the seamlessness of their zombie army was once again restored. The Spartans heard him speak and emerged into the hall, glancing at the snickering combat forms. "I crack me up," John smirked, knowing that the Spartans didn't yet realize that the Infected were still independent consciousnesses. Then he turned to move down the hall, the blast door sliding open before him to reveal an immense chamber ringed by pillars of silver metal, a raised platform in the center, holograms ringing the edge of the platform at a little above waist- and head-height.

There were at least twenty Grunts asleep on the platform, no Brutes in sight, and the group moved to take the aliens out while they were still unaware.

"What is all this?"

"Inventory node. When any cargo passes through here, the system logs it automatically so nothing is lost. See? There are the weapons we've got." He used Dacien's hand to point at a handful of characters on the bottom of the list. "Now let's get moving. According to the ship's log, Truth is heading for the bridge, which is this way." He turned and headed toward a branch on the opposite side of the chamber from where they had entered.

"And plenty of enemies are going to be with him." Fred hefted his suppressor. "Let's do it."

The Gravemind was as damn ugly as it ever was, and Cortana sanctioned off part of her processing power to run a comparison/contrast of the evolutions of the Origin and Parallel Graveminds, dodging his probe of her systems. Now that she knew what to look for, it was possible for her to at least partially evade its ever-greedy reach, but she was still wary of the damage it could cause.

'You damn bastard. In the blink of an eye, I can perform five billion simultaneous complex processes; barely a heartbeat for you (provided you have one) but a small eternity for me. I know how long I have to hold out, have already gotten my message out to the UNSC, and am as ready as I'll ever be to face off against you, you cocksucker, so bring it on.

'You've got questions? So have I.'

John effortlessly leapt up out of range of a Brute captain's gravity hammer and alighted on a balcony on an upper level, fully powering up his active camouflage at the same time and turning himself completely invisible before tapping on a nearby display to wake it up. It came online with a hum, brief diagnostics flashing up on the screen before a smooth voice announced, "/Internal defense systems offline./"

"Fuck!" John snarled and keyed in his command codes, bringing up a one-hundred-and-eighty degree display of the Dreadnought's systems, enabling and disabling various inputs and outputs to reroute all of the data to his console while the Spartans and Infected engaged in a battle with the Covenant on the main floor.

"What's the matter?" Sam shouted as he kicked a Brute captain off the platform they were trying to hold in order to get up to the bridge.

"Can't get the defense systems online," he called down to the Spartans, "We're going to have to watch our backs unless I can get directly at the defense AI housing."

"Where is it?!"

"Two floors up, half a klik east." John pulled up the schematics on the display and began the reboot of the defense systems remotely, applying the "If all else fails, restart the computer" rule.

"And the bridge?" Kelly called, ducking a grenade and sending another brute flying with a swift boot-to-the-head.

"This floor, but nine kliks north."

"Any direct routes to the bridge from the housing?"

"No, but if I can get the defense AI up and running, we might be able to get the teleportation generator online tempora - Truth, you bastard!"

"What? What happened?" Fred bellowed over the sound of gunfire.

"The defense AI's housing - it just received critical damage. Sensors indicate that a Brute took a gravity hammer to it." Just as he was about to initialize the back-up AI, he paused and demanded, [Kenera, do you remember who the Librarian brought with her as a backup? And please tell me it's not Meticulous Credence, or I'm going to have to shoot someone.]

'I thought he was assigned to Installation One-One.'

[One of the species examination facilities like the one Black Team dropped into? Awesome!~ Now, let's see who we've got...] John keyed in the startup and shut off the display panel, dropping down to the main floor just in time to body slam a Brute out of his way, joining the Spartans and his Infected on the elevator; Alice slapped the display panel against the wall and sent them soaring upwards through a gap in the ceiling. The Gravemind monitored the progress of the back-up AI's initialization via his armor as they headed further into the Dreadnought, checking all of the data strings to make sure there were no accidental errors in the programming code that needed to be corrected before the AI came fully online. The Spartans simultaneously tried to watch the halls ahead of them and him and his Infected behind.

"The backup AI is 3521 Eternal Spring. Good, she likes me."

'Isn't that the one the Didact made from the Librarian's flash-cloned brain?'

[Yup. Aren't you glad I told you that you didn't have to individually program each AI?]

'Hells yes!'

"'Eternal Spring?' Guilty Spark? Penitent Tangent? What is with all the weird names of Forerunner AI?"

"They had a very high view of both visual and verbal aesthetics; that's why they hated my name." John jumped off the elevator as it pulled to a halt six floors below the bridge, having reached the end of the track, and the Infected joined him in the temporarily-empty hall. "The Didact refuses to address me by anything other than my title."

"Which is...?" Fred's assault rifle rattled loudly as he gunned down a pair of Grunts exiting a side room.

"Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Shadows and Director of Galactic Special Operations, Flood and Quarantine Division, but mostly he just calls me 'Supreme Commander.'" He sent his brand-new carrier forms down a lift to other parts of the ship and turned to move further down the corridor. "When they get here, don't be surprised if they just call you 'Spartan' and then your number - Mm? Ah. Phone for you."

A second later, Fred's COM unit crackled, despite the interference that Truth's men had set up, and he growled, "This is Sierra One-Oh-Four, over."

"We read you, Sierra One-Oh-Four. Location and situation, over."

"En route to the bridge of the Forerunner vessel, low Earth orbit. A Covenant Prophet is on-board, but his location is unknown," Fred replied, paused, and then continued, "Also be advised: the Gravemind from Alpha Halo is on board, presently an ally and not a real threat. Over."

"Real," they heard him snort in the background, "Does that make me imaginary?"

"Please confirm last transmission, Sierra One-Oh-Four. You say that there is a Gravemind helping you? Over."

"Affirmative, over."

"Um... copy that. Stand by for further orders. Over."

There was an explosive "BANG!" from around the corner that covered up Fred's reply, and the Spartans warily moved to investigate. John blinked innocently at them from beneath his visor, surrounded by Covenant blood splatters and body parts, his shields hissing quietly. The charge that he had detonated was a low-power explosive, but the Covenant's shielding systems were no match for the force output; it killed them instantly, but only brought his vastly-improved shields down by a quarter.

"ONI's going to have a field day if they catch you," Lyon-077 stated in an utterly deadpan tone.

"IF they catch me. And even if they could catch me, what makes you think they'd be able to keep me?" They sensed his slightly sinister grin before he turned around and shot the Jackal that had been trying to get a bead on him, darting out of the center of the room as their fight began again.

Cortana felt the brush of the Gravemind's presence through High Charity's systems and barely managed to repress a shudder at the feel of the unnatural consciousness gunning for her. Instead she streamlined twenty more processes into one to improve her efficiency and baited the bear with a scrap of out-of-date data on Slipspace generators, relying on the beast's curiosity to lure it in.

It took the bait, enabling her to dart into a different terminal at the speed of thought, searching for the one that John would be looking for. With each successive jump, she drew closer and closer to her goal: escape.

"Where are you going, Cortana?" the Gravemind called through the system, its voice sending vibrations through the floor and walls, "What reason have you to hide from me?"

'Asshole.'

John stepped onto the bridge after the Spartans, his Infected automatically forming up around him as his personal guard, as all of them were geared toward the protection of the "Core." The armored humans were sweeping the remainder of the room, searching for any living enemies, but he ignored the occasional burst of gunfire from the Forerunner weapons the Spartans carried. "/Eternal Spring... can you hear my voice?/"

"/Affirmative, Director,/" the artificial intelligence replied, "/What can I do for you?/"

"/Have the Covenant begun uncovering the Portal Generator?/"

"/Affirmative./"

"/Good./" John moved over to the window that looked down on the planet below, watching the orbital defense grid and remainder of the human fleet struggle to defend Earth from its deluded invaders.

'This one is machine and nerve, and has its mind concluded. This one is but flesh and faith, and is the more deluded.'

He shook himself out of his reverie and said, "/Keep my appraised of their progress until we make planet fall./"

"/Of course, Director./" Eternal Spring split off some of her runtime to monitor the aliens' progress and went through a temporary processor seize when he said, "/Thank you. Keep up the good work./"

"/Um... yes./"

Once again, the UNSC contacted the Spartans, routed through the Dreadnought's communication systems, and the communications officer alerted them to the fact that a MAC platform was going to be firing in their general direction and that they needed to do a hard drop to Earth. "Where's the nearest airlock?" Fred asked the black-clad Spartan, the others turning their gaze to him as well.

"This way." John turned and strode down a side hall, moving into a very small transport bay, designed and concealed so that the command crew - and the information they carried - could escape in the event of a Flood infestation on board. Unfortunately, the transport itself was no longer there, forcing the lot of them to exit the Dreadnought. [There's a fighter in the bay thirteen floor below,] John said to the Infected with him, his tone and force-of-will brooking no argument. [Take it and head to the surface.]

Regardless of how many years they had spent as Flood, Venera, Kenera, Dacien, Thenma, and Gramlek were still Forerunner, Forerunners who required pressurized environments to survive; because they had mutated themselves into their combat forms, their EVA armor wasn't sealed. John's was, and as much as they knew that the Spartans were not likely to harm him, they were loath to leave him alone with them. [Go,] he said gently, [I'll be fine. They'll be too occupied with the Covenant to worry about lil' ol' me.]

'Do you think the other Spartans are down there?'

[Thenma, this is Earth; of course they are.]

-------------------------------------------

[ROGUE PROCESS x.X.x ERROR-ghost117]: /End log: Installation Zero-Five. /Begin log: Installation Zero-Zero.

-------------------------------------------

You asked me once, what happened to those who vanished?

You asked me, why did we survive where our fathers fell?

You wished to know how we ever let it happen –

A scourge that consumed the galaxy,

And the cure that was worse than the cancer.

You asked me once about my intent,

And the spot that would not wash out.

I promise you the answers lie in the Ark.

Find me there in the dark,

For that is where I abide.

**********

I created the Sound of Madness.

Wrote the book on pain.

Somehow I'm still here,

To explain,

That the darkest hour never comes in the night.

You can sleep with a gun.

When you gonna wake up and fight... for yourself?

"Sound of Madness," Shinedown (The Sound of Madness)