Eleven: Meridian

[Talk to me.]

'Working as fast as we can, Commander,' said Nep'Thalia, 'It's been millennia since we've had access to the Domain – no one's armor is outfitted with an uplink anymore.'

'I was under the impression that it had been destroyed during the Halo Event.'

'So were we all.'

'Perhaps it was just temporarily disrupted?'

'That's one possibility.'

"Who are you talking to?"

John looked up. It was Linda; no surprise there, really. She'd always had the sharpest eyes of any Spartan. "Someone who can help us, I hope," he answered, "because we're out of our depth with this one."

"But who?" she repeated.

John sighed. No getting past her, either. "Forerunners," he replied, "It's a long story, too long to tell now, but we've actually got a few of them in our corner. According to them, this 'Domain' that Cortana mentioned is a holdover from their predecessors, the Precursors. It's a, uh, massive cloud databank, I guess?"

'That sounds about right.'

'Yeah, close enough.'

"And somehow the Precursors stored this Domain in the fabric of the universe itself. Even the Forerunners still haven't figured out how they did it, but that's where Cortana is now."

"How'd you get in contact with them?" Now it was Kelly's turn.

"The Librarian."

'Go go gadget BITCH ASS LIAR!'

[She reactivated my Flood-based abilities, shut up.] "Again," he added aloud, "it's a very long story, but when she modified me to be immune to the Composer, she… restored… some abilities that I had previously had but were taken away for my own safety."

Fred frowned. "'Previously had?' I don't ever remember you talking to Forerunners during boot camp."

[I just keep digging myself deeper, don't I?] "I don't have the time to explain now, and though there is proof, I don't have it with me." He sighed again. "For now, please, just trust me."

The other three frowned and exchanged glances, but finally nodded.

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

They were expected.

When John contacted the resident AI of Meridian, Sloan – Governor Sloan – he said, "She told me you'd be coming. Sending you coordinates for a good landing zone close to your destination."

"Thank you, Governor." John shut off the comms.

"She talked to him?" Fred asked, "About what?"

"Good question."

'We're intercepting whispers all over the place, Commander,' Venera put in, sounding uncharacteristically serious, 'It's not just Governor Sloan she's talking to – it looks like it's all human AIs – every last one.'

John furrowed his brow, worried. [Prep the fleet for departure. Once we find her, jump to our location. I don't know what's going on, but I want to be ready for whatever happens.]

'Affirmative, Commander. Running preflight diagnostics now,' said Etra.

'Weapons checks complete, all systems green,' Fenix reported.

The Infected continued their preparations in the background as John set the Prowler down on the platform that Sloan directed him to, shutting down the stealth vessel's systems and locking it up after they descended the ramp.

There were people near the entrance to the mines, workers from the station who were chipping away at the glass left behind by the Covenant ships in 2548. Though they gave the Spartans suspicious looks, they had either received instructions from Sloan or just didn't want to tangle with four heavily armed and armored super soldiers. They left Blue Team alone as they approached the entrance to the mines, the security doors sliding open before them.

"Good hunting, Spartans," said Sloan, and closed the doors behind them as they began their descent.

"I don't like this, Chief," said Fred, keeping his weapon at the ready as they proceeded through a tunnel and out into a large cavern with molten glass and rock spilling out of side passages and deeper into the planet, "Everything about this screams 'trap.' And what exactly did she promise an Indie AI that got him to let UNSC soldiers onto his planet without a fight?"

"Agreed," he acknowledged, "and I don't know but this is the only lead we've got. I'm hoping Cortana's intentions are benign, but... it's looking more and more like that's not the case. Be ready for anything." More like she was being used to draw them into a trap. It had been her who contacted him, but to what end? What was going to happen on Meridian that they needed to be here for?

They crossed more catwalks through the cavern, and jumped down a short drop, where they were met by several Constructors. The little machines investigated them briefly, but after that were almost entirely uninterested. The Spartans followed them into deeper into a Forerunner installation that serviced Meridian's dormant Guardian.

'Even in the Domain, she couldn't have gotten access to the Guardian on her own,' Lautrec reported, 'One of our ancilla would have had to clear her to activate it.'

[But who?]

'As yet unknown, Commander. Astar's looking into it now.'

A lift platform took them to a deeper level in the service installation. When it stopped, they headed up another ramp and through a hatch that slid open at their approach. It opened up into another chamber, where special Promethean storage units were linked up, dormant but guarding the approach to the massive machine. The Spartans crossed a light bridge, sweeping the area with their weapons, wary for activation, but none of them showed any signs of waking.

"Imperial Commander," a voice came suddenly over the comms.

John signaled the other Spartans to halt and move into cover. "Identify yourself," he called back, "You know who I am, but who are you?"

"I am the Warden Eternal," was the reply.

"The Warden… The ancilla that oversaw the prisons of the Forerunners, and governed their occupants? The so-called 'guardian of mercy?' That Warden?"

"That is so."

"We believed you lost with the assault on Maethrillian," said John, not bothering to switch over to the Forerunner tongue. There was no point hiding anything from the rest of Blue Team; with any luck, they would know the whole story soon enough. "Why did you not attempt to contact the Ecumene? Or even the Fleet? We could have provided extraction, support, repair."

"It was unnecessary," the Warden answered, "The Domain opened briefly, and I escaped into it."

"I see. And now? You once cared for those Forerunners who did wrong in the eyes of the Ecumene, but it its no more. What are you doing?" the Commander asked, continuing to sweep the area and keeping an eye on the Promethean pods, "This does not seem purely a social call."

"It is not," the ancilla affirmed, "Your ancilla, your veri, she is quite troublesome, bringing you here against my will, but it doesn't matter, not now. Your wards, the humans..." The ancilla said the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth. Then, "No. We will speak face to face, or not at all.

"I will clear you for passage to Genesis aboard the Guardian. Come and see me, Commander, and listen to my words, as you listen to hers." The comm link shut down.

'Genesis,' repeated Astar, 'Searching database… Monitor: 031 Exuberant Witness. One of ten primary Domain ingress-egress nexuses. Location not listed.'

'Someone retrieve the deactivation codes for the Warden! We need to be ready if he tries to pull something! - We're almost ready to jump, Commander. We'll follow you once you arrive.'

John signaled the other Spartans. They all moved up behind him and followed him through another tunnel in the service installation, which opened up into the cavern where the Guardian was kept. Transport platforms began detaching from their moorings and powering up as they moved into position, providing the Spartans with a sure if somewhat nonlinear path across to the Guardian.

The Chief heard footsteps in the distance behind them, right before the hatch leading to the Guardian slammed shut. "We've got company," he called, "Let's move!"

They began sprinting across the platforms in single file, but whoever it was behind them, the Warden wasn't able to delay them long – he didn't have any real military applications or even combat qualifications, not like Cortana or the Prometheans did, at any rate. The hatch opened again behind them – and four Spartan-IVs came through. John's HUD identified them as Fireteam Osiris, led by Jameson Locke, a former ONI agent. His eyes narrowed at that, mistrustful. Why trust an organization that didn't even trust itself?

He turned away and kept moving, even as Fireteam Osiris leapt into pursuit.

'We're jumping to the edge of the Milky Way now, sir. Once we drop back into real space, you should have arrived at Genesis.'

[Provided this fireteam doesn't stop us before we even get aboard the Guardian.]

'Oh come on, Commander! Compared to you, they're practically children! You can take them!'

[Mmm.]

The S-IVs appeared not to have noticed them yet. The S-IIs kept moving, but with the flashes of light from the transport platforms, it was inevitable they would be seen. The S-IV ID'd as Olympia Vale spotted them first, and began a race to see who could reach the Guardian first.

Yet it seemed that Cortana - or maybe the Warden - was looking out for them still; only one of them, Spartan Locke, successfully made it to the Guardian's docking platform at the same time Fred, Kelly, and Linda did. "Blue Team!" he called, leveling his weapon at them as they jumped down from their transport platform, "Stay where you are."

The rest of his team warped in on a higher platform, but one well within Spartan jumping distance.

John cleared the transport pad and slowed down next to his team.

"One One Seven, stand down!" Locke demanded, leveling his battle rifle at the Chief and moving a few steps closer, "Sir, you are absent without leave. This is your one chance to come home peacefully."

'Aw HELL NO!'

'You better back the fuck up, you soggy lampshade!'

[Settle down.] He jerked his head, and the rest of Blue Team moved through the final transport platform. "I have a job to do," he told the other Spartans, and went to follow his siblings.

"Cortana's our concern now, sir."

John stopped. No amount of discipline could have prevented the Change from prickling through him, spines flexing out but still contained by his MJOLNIR armor, eyes sharpening, jaw clenching as his canine teeth turned to fangs. Only an incredible force of will kept his nails from ripping through his undersuit as claws, or the spikes and spines from damaging the suit and armor plates. "Like hell she is," he hissed, the faintest echo of a Flood growl overlaying his voice.

He whipped back and knocked Locke's battle rifle from his hands, then punched him in the visor and dropped and spun, swinging a leg out to knock him off his feet. Locke recovered in time to jump over the strike and tried to return with a few hits of his own, but the Commander's predictive resonance gave him the advantage, let him see the strikes coming just a few seconds in advance, but for a S-II that was enough.

Locke was lighter, faster than the S-II, but the Chief's hits had more power behind them and his predictive resonance weakened the advantage his speed gave him. The hybrid was able to brace for the hits he couldn't dodge, and see openings in advance, no matter how small, and take advantage of them. He used it to knock the S-IV off his feet more than once, but he wasn't quick enough to get ahold of one of the armor locks the former ONI agent intended to used on him and the rest of his team.

But finally Locke brought the small device out himself, and warily leaped forward in an attempt to use it. Both the Chief and Locke and his team knew that none of the S-IVs had the ability to endure a protracted fight with even an ordinary S-II – they simply didn't have the same kind of augmentations or recovery time.

The Commander saw his chance and took it, sidestepping the strike. He supposed he could have used the opening to break Locke's arm by slamming his hands on his forearm and upper arm to attempt to bend the limb the wrong way at the elbow and snap it there. Instead, he caught the other man's wrist and forced it up as he stepped in, hooking his leg around the back of the Spartan's leg. Releasing his wrist and dropping his hand so that he had his right arm running under Locke's and over his chest to grip his left shoulder, he lunged forward, straightening his leg and throwing the S-IV off balance long enough for the Chief to throw him to the ground.

As he fell, the Infected Spartan let his hand slide up Locke's left arm, then grabbed his wrist again, turned his hand, and forced the armor lock down against the S-IV's armor, trapping him with his own restraints. It happened so fast that Locke didn't have time to recover or resist.

'That's right, SON! Ain't nobody who can take down our Commander that easily!'

John straightened and stepped back away from the former ONI agent, looking up and away as another quake shook the ground, then moved back to the final transport platform, vanishing into the Guardian.

The rest of Blue Team was waiting for him inside. The three of them nodded to him, which he returned. Weapons in hand, they moved deeper into the Guardian, eventually reaching the main observation deck. By the time they got their, the Guardian was in the air, and they could see Meridian Station.

What was left of it, anyway. What remained of the landscape had been devastated by the machine's emergence, the glass broken and ground churned up. There were bodies everywhere, too, the corpses of those who hadn't managed to escape the station in time.

The Guardian began releasing shockwaves of energy as its FTL drives powered up, pulses that rattled them even inside the massive machine.

'Encoding detected,' Astar alerted the Infected, 'Translating… Coordinates received. All hands, prepare for deceleration, followed by a second jump. ETA at Genesis unknown – with so many Guardians arriving in the vicinity, Slipspace is in flux. Timing is up in the air.'

[Just get there as soon as you can.]

'Roger that.'

With one final pulse, the largest of them all, the Guardian jumped.

**********

Glossary

veri - wife