Thirteen: Genesis

The Guardian from Sunaion transitioned out of Slipspace above Genesis, just like the others, and reassembled across from another, hanging together in space.

"Is that it?" Tanaka asked.

"Where are we? Is this Genesis?" Vale added, but then sections of the Guardian began to move under them, flexing and rolling like it was trying to shake them off. They weren't able to hold on began falling down one side of its long metal body.

"Activate mag boots!" Locke ordered, and finally managed to stop falling before he reached terminal velocity. The rest of his team did the same.

"Like standing on the edge of a skyscraper," Tanaka commented, "This is bad."

"We'll be fine," Locke answered, shifting to one side as a chunk of falling building appeared on his motion tracker. Bits of debris from Sunaion were falling all around them, forcing them to step aside occasionally to let them plunge past.

"Chief's down' there, huh?"

"Let's find out for sure. Spartan Locke broadcasting on all UNSC frequencies. Sierra 117, please respond."

"Fireteam Osiris. You made it. Good to hear."

All four of them jumped. It sounded like the Chief was right there next to them, standing at their shoulders to whisper in their ears. Was this what Roland had felt when he contacted the Infinity?

"Guardian's moving again," Buck said suddenly, right before it began rolling beneath their feet once more.

"Get moving," Locke ordered, "Reach a low enough altitude where it's safe to jump. Stay in the middle and watch out for gaps!"

"Contact me again when you reach the ground. Good luck, Osiris. Chief out."

"That's a big change from 'Like hell she is!'" Buck shouted as they began leaping from segment to segment, aiming for the ground so far below.

"He probably needs us to draw fire off him and Blue Team so they can reach Cortana!" Tanaka yelled back, "But I still don't see how he's going to fix this! He doesn't have any technical training in AI maintenance, and neither do any of us! How's he supposed to terminate this other AI?!"

"We just need to trust that he's got a plan," Locke replied, "Otherwise, we'll come up with something."

The Guardian finally knocked them off it, but that wound up being quiet fortuitous. They fell within sight of the ground, and all four of them fired their reverse thrusters to land heavily but safely on solid earth. "All right, let's try this again. Spartan Jameson Locke to Sierra 117."

"I take it your Guardian was the one that just looked like a dog shaking off water?"

"Yes sir."

"I know where you are then. I'll direct the installation's Monitor, 031 Exuberant Witness, to your location. She'll lead you to us."

Even as he spoke, a floating sphere-shaped hunk of metal with a single glowing eye opened the hatch to the structure in front of them. "More humans!" she said cheerfully, triggering the lift after they all had stepped on, "Greetings! I am 031 Exuberant Witness, Monitor of the Genesis installation. Welcome! The Imperial Commander has asked that I be your guide, and of course I will comply. Have you also come to stop the Warden from claiming the Mantle?"

"'Imperial Commander?'" Vale repeated, incredulous.

"The Mantle?" Locke asked.

"A forced peace upon the galaxy," Witness answered, "the threat of death overpowering any celebration of life. Unless you join with the Commander, Lady Cortana, and their team and stop her, it is your future."

"You've seen the other humans?"

"Oh yes. They have been in the Gateway for some time, trying to advance to Lady Cortana's location. It is not far from here.

"Oh, by the way, there are a number of hostile visitors outside," she added as the lift reached the lowest level, "so I brought you this. I assume it will be of use to you? The Commander seemed to think so." As the hatch to the outside slid open, the Monitor materialized a UNSC tank.

"A Scorpion?" said Buck, "Yeah, I reckon we can make use of that."

"I found it among the detritus of Guardian 3209's arrival," she told them as they mounted up, "The Guardian's Slipspace bubbles are bringing a considerable amount of rubbish from their origin planets."

Locke started the Scorpion's engine and began rolling. They rounded a corner and stumbled across a pair of Covenant ghosts zipping toward them. Locke brought the tank gun to bear and destroyed them both with precise shots. "Someone should tell these guys they already lost the war," said Buck as they watched a Phantom glide off into the distance.

"They wanna fight, let's give 'em one," Tanaka responded.

As they approached a bridge, another Slipspace rupture opened up, releasing another Guardian into Genesis's atmosphere, and a number of Phantoms and Banshees with it. "Why has he called so many?" Exuberant Witness queried, "A single Guardian can effectively police an solar system. This show of force is unsettling."

"Sorry, police?" said Vale, "Show of force?"

"Indeed," Witness answered, "Guardians are how the Forerunners enforced peace on the lower systems.

"As you see, Genesis's defenses are targeting the invaders. Unfortunately, the defenses will consider you invaders as well."

"It's your installation," Locke shouted to her, aiming for the Prometheans and Covenant ahead, "Can't you tell them to let us through?"

"No," the ancilla responded sadly, "Most of my administration privileges have been revoked by the Warden - he has a higher priority access than me. Neither Lady Cortana nor the Commander have yet been able to infiltrate the system and restore them – the Warden has been engaging them constantly. But worry not! I still have control of some aspects of this facility."

As the Spartans moved up, shooting down a Wraith and a complement of Ghosts, as well as a few Forerunner turrets, she continued, "Warden is going to notice this commotion; be quick. Unless that is the Commander's intent?"

Locke turned the tank on a Knight Commander and shot it to pieces, then moved on to the Phaeton hovering overhead and raining fire down on them. It dissolved before it hit the ground. "You are performing admirably, I think," said Witness, "There's less of them now than there were, which I assume is your objective?"

There were three more Knight Commanders blocking the way into the structure ahead, bouncing around and firing their Incineration Cannons at UNSC and Covenant alike while their Crawlers darted around their ankles. Locke managed to shoot down two of them at once, along with a clutch of Crawlers, and swung the gun around to take out the third. "Looks like the road ends here," said Tanaka.

"Exuberant?"

"One moment. I will open this." They drew up and sat in front of the door for less than ten seconds before it began grinding open. "Follow me! The Gateway is almost ready! Hurry!"

"What's the Gateway?" Tanaka asked as the tank rolled forward.

"It is a bridge between the Domain and Genesis. Within that building, Cortana will be reborn into the physical world, and therefore able to escape the Warden, for the most part." As they rounded a corner, she called, "There! The Gateway!"

"And the Master Chief is there?" asked Locke, destroying a pair of Ghosts and a Banshee that came skittering their way.

"Lady Cortana has had the Commander and his team moving up through the Gateway for some hours, but the Warden has been committing much of his focus to delaying them," was the response, "He is preparing for something, but just what is unknown."

Another Guardian materialized as they topped a rise and came upon another battlefield between the Covenant and the Prometheans. Locke let the fireteam sit for a moment to catch their breaths before they continued on, gunning down everything in their path. There was a pair of Wraiths immediately in front of them, and they were the first to go, followed by the turrets. At some point, Buck and Vale had hopped off the tank to claim empty Ghosts, and so Locke left the ground troops to them in favor of using the tank on other, heavier targets.

"You may want to hurry," Witness offered suddenly, "The Warden is attempting to activate several high-level communications systems."

"How much time do we have?"

"Very little," was the reply, "Not enough. Almost none, in fact."

The team moved through the winding canyons and reached a crevice. Based on the Forerunner constructs on both sides, there was supposed to be a bridge there. Witness confirmed it, and after a couple of seconds, she successfully turned it back on. Fireteam Osiris rolled across – only to encounter the Warden on the other side.

"Monitor," he boomed, spawning a pair of turrets as well, "why do you aid these humans?"

"Oh dear, the Warden has found us."

"We've dealt with him before," Buck informed the ancilla.

"And you likely will again," she responded, "He is rather… tenacious."

"Like a cockroach."

"Imperial Commander!" Witness cried joyfully, "The human fireteam is on approach to the Gateway – they will be with you shortly!"

"Good. We're still here, but the Warden's growing more determined to keep all of us apart. Keep pushing through."

"Affirmative, sir!"

"Why do you call him 'Imperial Commander?'" Vale asked as they rounded the bend and came in sight of the Gateway, just as the Warden spawned again with an army of Prometheans.

"That is what he is," the ancilla responded, sounding confused, "Imperial Commander of the Fleet of Shadows and Director of Forerunner Special Operations, Flood and Quarantine Division. It is quite an impressive achievement for a human, what he has accomplished."

"How did that happen? How did he get those titles?" Locke asked the Monitor, ignoring the Warden as he started talking shit.

"Oh, it is quite a fascinating tale!" Exuberant Witness bubbled as they engaged the Warden and his posse, "I will summarize as best I can, for it is too long to tell in full now. You see, when he was fighting during the Battle of Installation 04, he was almost infected by the Flood, but he was saved by Lady Cortana. Though Flood DNA still got inside him, he was almost unaffected by its presence, save being able to hear the telepathic speech of the enemy Compound Mind with great clarity.

"Yet after the Battle of Installation 00, while he was adrift in space with Lady Cortana, both of them were removed from this universe and taken to an alternate reality by hostile god-like entities. They forced the Flood DNA still inside him to spread, and made him a complete Compound Mind – I believe you call them Graveminds? They hoped that he would succumb to the power of the Flood, whereupon they could bring him back to this reality and use him to strike a blow to your people's morale from which you would never recover."

"I take it that's not what happened?" Locke asked, the rest of his team too shocked or skeptical to speak.

"You are correct. The Imperial Commander fought his Flood instincts and ultimately suppressed them before he was able to defeat the entities and return here. His altered DNA was removed for a time, for his own safety from your 'ONI,' but the Librarian returned it to him on Requiem, and in a much-improved form."

"That sounds too good to be true," said Buck, "but it doesn't sound any more far-fetched than the rest of the stuff he's done."

"You said Cortana went with him?"

"Oh yes. In the Forerunner path to enlightenment, there are – Gatekeepers, I believe you would call them? Something to that effect – god-like entities not dissimilar from those who abducted the Imperial Commander. They are very much real and guard the path to the nexus of alternate realities. They sought to aid him by moving Lady Cortana through with him, believing that a familiar face would do him good, and rightly so, but they were forced to erase the events of the Parallel from her memory in order to protect her from ONI. She had a considerable amount of valuable information stored within. – And oh dear, now that I have told you, they will know!"

"That explains why the Chief didn't want to take off his armor," said Vale, scoring the last shot on one of the two Warden's forms, "He kept himself effectively sealed in a can – there's no DNA left behind anywhere for ONI to retrieve."

"And how he's been talking with all of us – Graveminds are wicked strong, and in the briefing on the Flood, I read that they can infiltrate computer systems," Tanaka added, "He's been directly connecting to our comms to bypass jamming."

The fireteam all turned their weapons on the remaining one of the Warden's forms, Buck scoring the final shot, before they all moved away to clear the rest of the Prometheans. The path clear at last, they all turned and sprinted for the door leading into the Gateway. It slid open at their approach, and they advanced inside, sweeping for more Prometheans.

"There, the Commander and his team!" said Exuberant, zipping ahead, "Commander, I have brought them, as you instructed."

"Well done, Witness," the Chief answered, "Thank you."

If it was possible for a Monitor with no face to beam happily, she did.

"What's your plan?" Locke asked him.

Over a heavily encrypted comm channel, the hybrid answered, "Once Blue Team actually gets to her, we'll have two options - one is to get Cortana out of the Domain, so the Warden can't attack her and steal her information, and wait for reinforcements I've got coming to help us battle him here before we take the fight to him. Two is for her to bring us into the Domain so we can help her terminate him right away. We need you to keep the Warden busy – he's trying to keep us away from her."

"You don't have to do this alone," Locke said, right before a red-gold glow from above lit the area.

It was the Warden, of course. "You're too late to do anything," he said, his voice echoing around the chamber, and he began building energy.

As close as they were, they :felt: the Chief reach out to block him - his push so strong that even the non-sensitive felt the shockwave - but he hadn't been fast enough. The Warden stole him and Blue Team away.

Yet, mid-jump, Cortana seized control of the teleportation and redirected them elsewhere, closer to the core of the Gateway.

**********

Next chapter: Guardians (The "Unfortunate Discovery" Remix)