Six: Tears Shed by the Stars

John despised waiting. It was the antithesis of everything a Spartan was; they were meant to move, to fight, to defend, not sit idle in Slipspace. Especially now.

The Flood had confirmed presences in fifteen star systems. Fifteen. It had been four Earth weeks since Seaward, and of those fifteen systems, ten were completely overrun. He suspected that only one or two had actually been the initial vectors from Seaward; the rest were most likely either ships hijacked from the planets in question or unwitting evacuees who inadvertently brought it with them, not knowing to quarantine and decontaminate themselves.

[No more stopping to drop off people we save. Either they stay with us for the time being, or we call someone to come get them.]

'Fair enough.'

The Fleet - now officially designated the Fleet of Shadows, which John thought was dumb; why couldn't they be plain old Battlegroup Alpha or something - had split into two groups, which were en route to two of the five not-yet-completely-overrun systems. The stealth corvettes had gone ahead to scout out the situation while the rest of the ships finished loading up and followed.

It wasn't looking good. The corvettes were doing their damnedest to shoot down every ship with a Flood presence onboard while still maintaining their stealth, but there were more ships than they had guns. The Flood itself had taken control of more than a few of the planetary defenses, and they were shooting down non-infected ships, their accuracy getting better by the second.

[There's at least one Gravemind forming somewhere in each of those systems. Focus fire on that; it'll retreat to defend itself, might give some of them the chance to escape.]

'Understood.'

The two battlegroups dropped out of Slipspace only a few hours later. They were momentarily dead in space as they reconciled from their journey, but then they powered back up. Gift of Life and Blue Moon launched swarms of unmanned fighters in their respective systems as they drew near the infected planets, their cruiser escorts firing on escaping ships and the Flood infected ones that came their way.

[Drop us in the largest population center, Shadowfall. The Flood will be drawn to all the people.]

'Understood.'

There was a distant shriek in the other system. 'Found it! Under the capital's council building!'

'Acquiring targeting solution. Stand clear.'

Fog of War fired on their system's Gravemind the same instant John and the other Warrior-Servants were dropped to the surface.

The atmosphere was already beginning to change, clouds of spores starting to roll out from underground tunnels throughout the city and the planet. Most Forerunners were insulated from that in their armor, but if that was breached, all it would take was a few active spores and in a matter of hours, maybe less, that person would be completely overtaken.

The pod dissolved around him. This time there was an even greater disparity between the number of Flood and their own forces, more civilians around them. He left his suppressor on his back, instead activating his plasma swords and cleaving combat forms in two. He had no real skill or style - but then again, neither did the Flood (yet), so he made it work.

He ducked under the swinging tentacle of a combat form and sliced it in half, stamping on an Infection Pod trying to skitter past him. Another combat form, head lolling grotesquely back, leaped at him, bearing him to the ground, though not for long. Heart pounding, he swung both swords at once and split its torso apart, then kicked the remains away, rolling back to his feet.

All around him were Warrior-Servants, fighting and snarling and struggling to hold the courtyard against the oncoming tide. '"The Shaping Sickness" may be a truer name,' said Empathy-for-Neutrality, physically grabbing a combat form and throwing it as hard as he could back into its comrades, sending dozens sprawling, 'but "the Flood" is definitely more appropriate! There's just no end to them!'

[And there never will be.]

Echoes of the Gultanr's intuition whispered, and John ducked. His armor registered the Flood tentacle overhead, and he shoved both of his swords back into its torso, then twisted around to throw it to the ground.

There was another right behind it. Its tentacles curled around his forearms, its strength struggling against his own, and its mouth fell open. "You. Through the glass, darkly-"

"Is that all you all can say?!" John snarled and tore himself free, then cut the combat form in half from head to toe, along with another running at him from behind it.

A Manipular ran past him, crying, and he swiped a sword through the Infection Pods pursuing her; they popped before they even made contact with the blade, the high temperature of the plasma superheating and expanding their internal gases such that they exploded.

Behind him, the first transports landed to start evacuations, their swarm of protective fighters covering the city so thickly that the sky went almost completely dark. All of them were remote-piloted by the Hive; they had discovered very quickly that John's innate ability to mentally interface with technology did not only extend to the Domain - or to himself. One of the many pilots directed a lance of Phaetons to streak past overhead and target the Flood further back on the street. The number of survivors was dropping, while the number of Flood was growing - swiftly.

Without a word, John directed the Infected to start falling back toward the LZ, hurling as many grenades as he dared into the waves of Flood. Bodies and body parts flew in all directions, but the Flood just kept coming. Adults, children, male, female - all of them had been taken equally by the parasite; what was left of the people the Forerunners had worshipped as gods and yet destroyed was unrelenting and unmerciful.

One of the Warrior-Servants went down, overwhelmed, and Infection Pods pierced his combat skin, seeking flesh.

The instant it made contact, John knew where the Gravemind was - but it also knew where he was. Even as two of the destroyers - Zealous Champion and Ring of Winter - swung around to target the enemy, all of the combat forms turned and charged him, shrieking battle cries. They even abandoned their attempts to chase down the uninfected Forerunners in favor of burying him under their bulk.

The Spartan hit the ground hard but barely felt it, more intent on the Flood. They were merging together over him, almost like the Gravemind was trying to form a second version of itself or even a spore mountain on top of him, trying to crush him - his resistance - under its bulk.

His plasma swords were still active.

He cut himself an opening amidst the howls of the Flood and heaved himself out even as the mass started to squeeze; long tentacles pursued and tried to drag him back. He cut them up too and lunged backward. The other Infected were similarly targeted, but most of the enemy Gravemind's focus was on him.

You wanna play, you son of a bitch? All right. Let's play.

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He wasn't sure how long he fought, only that he was careful to one sword close at all times, regardless of which hand wielded it. The other swung wide through the ranks of combat forms, sending them sprawling and building a wall of bodies brick by brick that blocked the path. The streets were slick with blood and viscera, and he himself was soaked in it. He'd lost count of the number of - ex-people that he'd cut down; the Flood wasn't into Pure Forms yet, but it would be soon.

'Spartan, we're ready!'

[Have a major decon ready; all of us are covered.] He was exhausted as well; Déjà was keeping him on a steady drip of stimulants and painkillers to keep him on his feet.

'Understood.'

John started falling back toward the LZ one step at a time. The Flood kept coming over the wall of corpses, kept adding more, making it thicker, deeper with bodies. Some of the Warrior-Servants behind him started attacking them long-range as they came over, covering his retreat even as he covered the first of their transports.

The Zealous Champion fired again, this time destroying on an infested ship trying to escape, but for every ship they shot down, another one made it out to Slipspace, seeking more worlds to consume.

The moment he came in arms' reach, one of the Lifeworkers onboard emptied what was essentially a bucket of bleach over his head, cleaning and at least partially disinfecting him at the same time. He jumped onboard and accepted an Incineration Cannon from Ferial, turning to fire one of the charges into a knot of Flood running for the transport as it lifted off. They dissolved into golden flakes of data, but he didn't see; the transport had already gained enough altitude that the physical forms were no longer a threat.

It was the admittedly-sparse defense system that was the problem. One of the long guns swung around to target them as they lifted into range.

John cast his mind into the local systems. Even though it had the biomass, the Gravemind was still reorganizing itself after they'd destroyed the first one, letting him steamroll over it just long enough for the gun to misfire, taking out one of its own ships. The Spartan retreated immediately, but by that time the last transport was already out of range.

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John stripped out of his armor and dropped it into the decon station, heedless of his nakedness. They had made it back without incident - but they had rescued less than one percent of the planet's population. And who knew how many of them would still be alive at the end of the war.

None of the deceased were anyone he knew, no one he was close to, but he felt the Fleet's grief as they started glassing the planet. It was different from what the Covenant did; they just vitrified everything in one fell swoop, while this just vaporized organic matter - Flood biomass. Cleaner, but no less devastating and sadly not feasible to implement on a large scale; only their battleships, Perfect Storm and Call of Midnight, had both the power and precision to do it, and designing and building them had taken a long time - too long.

Too little too late.

The Spartan stepped into the decon shower and let his head fall forward to rest against the wall as the liquid poured down over him. His eyes saw something else, though, looking through the security system down at the planet - covered in thousands of years' worth of civilization - as it burned.

When he was clean - and his armor was too - he went down to observe the survivors. Most of them were silent, numb, but there were some whose grief couldn't be quieted even by their ancillae. The Lifeworkers were moving among them, getting identifying information from all the ancillae, reuniting families where they could (few enough, but still joyous reunions), and tending to injuries as they were processed.

[Alert the Librarian. See if she can have even just one team on standby for us to shift survivors deeper into the ecumene.]

'Of course, Spartan.'