Six: Devils on the Doorstep

LP 656-38 e, time unknown, 100229 BCE.

The battle was going badly. There was no other way to say it.

John ducked the swipe of a combat form – and had to choke back bile in a very un-Spartan-like manner when he jammed his scattershot into its chest. The shotgun equivalent blasted apart the body of what was once a Manipular, barely more than a child. Another combat form, this one of a Builder, jumped forward to take its place, screeching through twisted vocal cords. The Spartan backpedaled a bit to reload, then blew it to pieces, too, the bodies dissolving into motes of glowing golden data.

All around him, his subordinates and the planet's (woefully inadequate) defenses were struggling to hold their line against the Flood. They were buying time to evacuate the civilians in the major population centers that hadn't been overrun by the time they arrived. They hadn't lost any FoS personnel yet, but with an infestation like this –

'Six days,' he thought, taking out three combat forms with a single shell, 'It's only been six days since the Flood made landfall, and the planet is already as good as its. It isn't enough. We're doing all we can, but it isn't enough!'

The skies were choked with smoke and spores that created nighttime conditions even at high noon, but they were clear of any infected ships. That was always their battle plan – upon arrival, scan all ships and shoot down infected ones. Then worry about what was on the ground.

[What's the tally?] the Spartan demanded, the question directed at any one of the ancilla monitoring the transports evacuating the civilians.

'Approximately three hundred people to go, Commander,' Fenix, the ancilla of the Darkest Hour, replied, 'Between nine and ten more loads. The fighters will carpet bomb the area to cover the personnel extraction after that.'

[Please make it snappy!]

'Aye, sir.'

The Commander broke apart one combat form with the butt of his scattershot, then leveled the barrel and fired on more. The Forerunners weren't alone in their defense of the planet; Promethean Knights and Crawlers – the fragmented personalities of ancient humans not preserved in the DNA of their descendants – were also mounting an assault to protect the survivors. The Spartan had initially been reluctant to utilize the digital beings on the battlefield, but it soon became apparent that he needed some kind of additional support, both in the Fleet and on the ground. Because they were actually techno-organic, it was impossible for the Flood to properly infect them. If it tried, they would simply break apart, their databursts stored in the Fleet's supercomputers to be rematerialized later.

A squad of Crawlers raced between some Warrior-Servants a short distance from him. He quickly modified their "coding" to target infection pods or the center of mass on combat forms, and copied the same strands into a databurst that he sent back for general use.

A Knight broke apart in front of him; he charged through its remains and began blasting away at the Flood to give its Watcher time to reconstitute it. The Parasite was pressing hard; even if there was not a fully-formed Gravemind waving its ugly-ass tentacles around yet (who knew if the "Primordial" had actual tentacles), it seemed to realize that it was about to lose its remaining vicitms. The last of the emergency transports was loading up with panicked civilians, some of them tripping over one another in their haste to get on the ships.

Scattershot empty, dropped to thigh plate. Faint crackle of magnets, sharp "pang" as it attached. Suppressor coming up, riddling a combat form full of holes before it would take advantage of the lapse. Movement behind him; it was Nep'Thalia. She snatched the scattershot off his thigh and began reloading it for him. He said a quick thanks when she returned it to him, butt first.

"Last transport is away," Hrívë said over the comm, "Prepare for extraction."

"All hands, begin falling back," John commanded, "but do not turn your backs on the Flood!"

There was a chorus of affirmatives. He directed the Knights and Crawlers to cover their retreat, breaking up and returning to the ship as the ground they were holding began getting smaller and smaller. The Spartan himself was shoulder to shoulder with Kenera, shielding some Lifeworkers who were heaving a wounded Promethean onto the transport. "There's just no end to it!" the twin shouted to him over the gunfire, shields shimmering, "It just keeps coming!"

A blast of hot air washed over them, knocking some of the Flood off their feet and sending the infection pods flying. In the distance, the Storm and the Into the Night were beginning systematic vitrification of other cities that had already fallen, moving closer and closer to the one they were in.

:coming:

"Kenera-!"

A long, slender tentacle lashed through the line of combat forms in front of them. John dropped below the arc of the attack, but Kenera – who hadn't been able to sense it coming – was unable to dodge in time. The tentacle wrapped around her thighs and shot spikes through her armor, beginning the infection. The Chief gritted his teeth in sympathetic pain as she screamed and fell, then drew his plasma sword. A single slice cleaved through flesh, bone, and armor just below her pelvis, cutting off the infection before it could spread to the rest of her body. Another strike split the tentacle in half along almost a full five meters of its length.

There was a distant, twisted scream of rage and pain, and the tentacle withdrew, the Forerunner's legs still attached.

In once fluid movement, John shut off the plasma sword – more like a human katana than one of the Sangheili's blades – and let it attach to his other thigh guard. He snatched up the Forerunner, who was gasping in pain, and ran for the transport. Someone handed him a binary rifle as the vessel lifted off, and he turned to begin firing on the Flood as they made for the ships.

When they were out of range, he darted to Kenera's side. The heat of his plasma sword had cauterized much of the injured flesh, but even so, he'd cut through a number of major veins and arteries that hadn't fused shut. The Lifeworkers – including her adopted brother, Dacien – were trying to get a stay field stabilized around her, effectively trying to put her in a "hot" cryosleep, but her vitals were fluctuating so rapidly that the system couldn't get a lock.

She was bleeding out fast, and they weren't going to make it back in time to save her.

Food

No.

Preserve her

The Chief clenched his jaw again. It was beginning to learn what kind of "statements" it could get away with, what kind of prompts he would listen to.

Valuable warrior ally save her

Ignoring the way its "words" morphed into shrieks of wrath, John caged his instincts behind the strongest shields he had and knelt next to the dying Forerunner. [Kenera.]

'…mander…'

[I don't want to lose anyone under my command.] The armor protecting his hands slid away to float over his forearms.

'… don't wanna die…'

[Very well.] John felt the muscles in his hand flex as he triggered the change. His fingers grew to half again their original length, most of it made up of wickedly sharp talons. He sank the claws into the exposed muscle of her thigh, ignoring the blood that coated his hands as a result. The infection, and numbing endorphins he injected with it, spread primarily through her circulatory system first, saturating and changing her flesh before going for her central nervous system. His instincts battered at the walls of its cage, but he ignored its desire to completely overtake her. Instead, the Gravemind-Spartan simply met and forged a bond with the Warrior-Servant's mind when he felt her "appear" in his "mindscape." At his command, the major blood vessels in her legs sealed themselves off, enabling her to pass out in peace as the Lifeworkers finally got the stay field up.

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

"How is she?"

"She'll – well, I suppose 'live' is the wrong word, but she's not going to die, either." Areana brushed the newly-Infected twin's silvery hair out of her face. She was still unconscious, but every once and a while, the hybrid would touch her mind to make sure she was still there.

Her legs were already regrown down to her knees, but there the infection had slowed the healing process. Joints were a lot more complex than simple muscle and bone, so it would take more time to make and arrange the specialized cells.

"Why is she unconscious if she's – out of danger?"

"Likely so that the… her body can dedicate all of its resources toward healing itself," said the Lifeworker, running a scan, "If she were awake, her – regeneration – would be slower because those same resources would be being used elsewhere."

"I see." John looked down at her. [Doing all right in there?]

'For the one hundred and twenty-ninth time, I'm fine, Commander. Just bored. And it's hard for me to get in contact with my twin.'

[Areana's going to help how she can. How attached are you to your vegetarianism?]

'What kind of a question is that?!'

[A valid one. The Flood assimilates all kinds of species into one… mass… when it forms a Gravemind. It stands to reason that you or I could eat meat – however disgusting it may seem to you – in order to heal ourselves faster. The infection would change the foreign cells to match ours and operate them as if they originally were ours. So…]

She sighed. 'If it'll get me up and about faster, I'll try anything. This is boring as all get in.'

[Get out. The phrase is "as all get out."]

'Close enough.'

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

"You want me to what?"

"You heard us, Commander."

"Kenera I can understand because it was life or death. But just out of the blue – and you!" The Spartan jabbed a finger at one of the Gultanr. "Your mother would mount my head on her wall!"

"No, she wouldn't," L'Toress said, folding her arms, "I'm of age, and Ferial-kaa-san would understand. She might not be here with us, but you can sure as hell bet she'd find some way to contact us if she disapproved."

"Holonet call for you, Commander."

"Ha!"

"MO-OM!"

"I sensed a disturbance in the Force. What's going on?"

"I'm not going to infect your daughter if that's what you're asking."

"Oh, is that all? I give you leave to do so."

"I love you, kaa-san."

John stared at the holographic rendering of the Primas Uperbia. "You want your daughter to become a vicious attack zombie from space?"

"Kenera seems fine to me…"

"I never said that, but given the alternatives – enemy Flood or death – I think you're the least of the evils."

"What a ringing endorsement. I am filled with confidence."

"Spartan, let's face it. You may be strong, you may be lucky – hell you may even have a form of immortality now, if your age is anything to go by – but you're not a miracle worker. Unless you take steps to preserve them, some of your subordinates are going to die."

The Spartan growled low in his throat, then blinked and looked away. "Quit poking logic-shaped holes in my argument."

The matriarch tried to muffle her laughter, but wound up making some undignified snorting noises. "Oh, Spartan, what would we do without you?"

"Be dead as sin."

When the hybrid took a survey of his crew and asked them what they thought, most of them were surprisingly in favor of fleet-wide infection (by him, at least). Some, like the Adonte, were in for practical reasons; "Your infection has proved to be an efficient means of communication, computer interfacing, intellectual stimulation, and combat methodology, based on our observations of the enemy Flood." Others were for it for personal reasons; "I can't sense, speak to, or otherwise psychically interact with my twin the same way we used to, asshat, so you're infecting me whether you like it or not." Still others were curious about what it would be like and how they would survive as "vicious attack zombies from space."

In the end, they won out over the Spartan's protests. Under the supervision of the Lifeworkers to analyze the process and Warrior-Servants to guard against instability, he began infecting his subordinates one by one. He did it in fits and starts, with periods in between for him to meditate, relax his mind and interact with his new minions on a mental level.

The Mavalt – a race of plant-beings from the system that bore their name – were a bit more complicated. Because they were not the Flood's usual fare, they had to go through a few unconventional contortions to "be brought over." Even the ancilla of the Fleet – Etra, Fenix, Hrívë, Uvë (Abundance), and Astar (Faith) – were incorporated on the periphery, able to stream data directly to the newly infected soldiers.

[I'm not used to having so many people yammering in my head all at once.]

'You'll get used to us eventually, Commander.'

[Oh God why.

**********

A/N: And now we all know why the Infected's bodies haven't decayed away or turned into carrier forms. In The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor from the Halo Graphic Novel, the Flood is seen gathering corpses from the Covenant and humanity in order to form a proto-Gravemind. In my mind, it makes sense that the Infected could also "assimilate" what they eat in order to keep their bodies running after their original cells run out of energy and begin to die. The "new" cells would just need to be "infected" and modified to have the same DNA and cellular proteins as the host. The same with plants, etc.