Five: The Beginning of Judgement

John still slept on occasion. It was more natural than letting his armor do all of the necessary functions for him, and felt better, especially since Déjà had no real frame of reference or even ability to process the sheer volume of information and activity that the Hive had. They knew the Flood could be coming at any time, and they all were scrambling to get in position, to save as many people as possible.

There was so much they didn't know, though. They knew "Seaward" - G 617 g - would be first presumed contact, but not when in specific, or if it was from there that the Flood spread to the rest of the ecumene or just the first of many Flood incursions on several planets, or when the Flood first escaped the planet and started its run through the galaxy.

But whatever else may have been true, John was still a living, breathing human being (sort of) and he needed rest. Sleeping was weird now, though; he still dreamed, but he could also hear the rest of the Hive communicating amongst themselves, and remembered their conversations and the information they generated when he woke up.

The twins were trying to get into something with Niken and Azizura, one of the Lituni, and Nethalia was telling them off; John listened with mixed amusement and exasperation.

There was only a moment's warning. Just the barest sense akin to being dragged underwater, right before the vision struck.

The ship hit the ground at such a high velocity that it nearly burst apart, digging a trench only a few dozen meters long but spewing debris for hundreds of meters and belching thick smoke into the sky.

The closest people to the crash site were a family of farmers, Forerunners choosing to live the simple life on the very edge of the galaxy; an unconventional choice for such an advanced society, but a pleasant one for those who wished to labor - or live naturally in luxury. The matriarch rushed to the very edge of the debris field, calling in Digon and Jagon to any survivors, the patriarch right behind her, while their kids herded their animals away to a safe distance.

The animals didn't need much encouragement; they were bellowing and stamping their feet, streaming into their pens and pressing against the far fence like they wanted to keep going. Their eyes rolled, wide and red with fright.

The kids closed the pens behind the animals and ran back to the crash site, calling for their parents. They had disappeared into the burning wreckage, searching for survivors; if they had found anyone, their voices couldn't be heard over the sounds of the fire and the groans of the failing superstructure.

The ship wasn't one they recognized, not that it really resembled anything now. "Mom!" one of the children cried, weaving slowly, carefully, through the burning wreckage. She was the oldest of all the children, but even so she was still a Manipular untried, born on Seaward and wary of outsiders.

It wouldn't save her.

Something moved in the wreckage. "Mom?" she called, "Mom!"

It was her mother - what was left of her. Her head was tilted to one side, eyes glassy and unseeing, jaw slack with bloody spittle dripping from her mouth. The Infection Pod had already begun to assimilate itself into her flesh, cutting its way into her chest cavity.

The combat form howled and leaped at the child, who screamed and tried to run.

Too late.

John jerked awake, the taste of alien blood on his tongue.

All of them had seen, same as him. Finally, Ferial spoke. 'It has begun,' she said quietly.

[We're leaving,] said the Spartan, equally quiet, [Now. Right now. Everyone onboard.]

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By the time they arrived at Seaward, Wharftown was already overrun. There were combat forms everywhere, chasing a handful of survivors through the streets.

John led the deployment, his mind still linked with the bridge crew's to give an overhead view of the planet. Their hard light drop pods hit the ground at terminal velocity, but not one of the occupants felt it. Then the pods dissolved, releasing the Spartan and fifty Warrior-Servants into the Flood's midst, along with half a dozen brave Lifeworkers.

The combat form in front of him had once been a child - the same child from the vision.

She wasn't a child anymore. He lifted his suppressor and fired a short burst into her chest, where her own Infection Pod had burrowed in. It popped, and she dropped, a puppet with its strings cut. Even as he turned his suppressor on another combat form, he dropped one hand from the gun, clenched his fist to activate the built-in plasma sword, and cut the body in two, preventing it from being easily retaken to rejoin the fight.

There were already carrier forms staggering through the streets. John hit one with a fully-charged boltshot round, then rapidly switched back to his suppressor and gunned for the Infection Pods it released.

Someone fled through down a side street and stumbled into him; he almost turned his gun on her, but it was just a frightened old woman - for now. One of the Warrior-Servants scooped her up and nearly threw her to another further back, who passed her on like they were a bucket brigade.

The first transports were landing behind the thin defensive line they had set up around the centermost courtyard in the town, their own guns firing at the Flood to cover the flight of the few remaining citizens. The Flood had no weapons of their own to speak of, save their long tentacles and virulent flesh, which put them at a disadvantage - for now. John fired and reloaded as fast as he could, his mind and eyes somehow automatically tracking the enemy Flood.

The Flood infection inside him was almost ominously silent, had been ever since their return from Path Kethona, but it was still a bottomless well of hunger, of wordless whispers. Who will notice if we take a few? Our Hive? Our Infected? We can turn their minds, erase their memories; their continued existence is at our forbearance with them. They cannot speak if we do not allow it, and this will soon be a Hive of the Other; who will know?

What part of "shut the fuck up" do you not understand?

The last of the survivors was nearly thrown onboard the lead transport - a Manipular who had somehow survived through all the chaos and made it to them - and it lifted off for the Fleet, Lifeworkers on board to tend to any injuries and decontaminate them as thoroughly as possible. John and the Warrior-Servants started falling back toward their own transports, still working to hold the attention of the Flood to keep them from attacking the transports.

At last, they were away. Worldquake, the ship that had brought their Miners in, had been converted to a destroyer, and now it moved in close, taking aim at Seaward's only population center.

John didn't see her fire, instead saying, [Where's the Primary Pioneer Group? There was supposed to be one here, looking for additional energy sources for the ecumene.]

'Gone. The Flood took it before it reached Wharftown.'

A visual appeared on his HUD. A small camp was perched on the very edge of a cliff, midway between the crash site and Wharftown. It was completely empty - completely empty. [And how'd they get here? Where are their ships?]

Déjà pulled the records; they'd had three small but Slipspace-capable corvettes, fully stocked with supplies, weapons, ammunition. All three were gone, no sign of them anywhere near the planet.

They had saved about eight percent of the planet's total population - better than zero - but even so, the Flood had escaped.

[The Forerunner-Flood War has begun.]