The Flood (33 page)

Spark bobbed slightly. “Of course,” the construct said directly. Then, sounding more like his officious self again, “This installation has a maximum effective radius of twenty-five thousand light years, but once the others follow suit, this galaxy will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient biomass to sustain the Flood.

“But you already knew this,” the AI continued contritely. The little device sounded genuinely puzzled. “I mean, how
couldn’t
you?”

Cortana glowered at the Chief. “Left out that little detail, did he?”

“We followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter,” the Monitor said defensively. “You were with me each step of the way as we managed the process.”

“Chief,” Cortana interrupted, “I’m picking up movement–”

“Why would you hesitate to do what you’ve already done?” 343 Guilty Spark demanded.

“We need to go,” Cortana insisted. “Right
now
!”

“Last time you asked me: if it were my choice, would I do it?” the Monitor continued, as a flock of Sentinels arrayed themselves behind him. “Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer has not changed. There is no choice. We must activate the ring.”

“Get. Us. Out. Of. Here,” Cortana said, her eyes tracking the Sentinels.

“If you are unwilling to help – I will simply find another,” Spark said conversationally. “Still, I must have the Index. Give your construct to me or I will be forced to take it from you.”

The Spartan looked up at Spark and the machines arrayed in the air behind him. The assault weapon came up ready to fire. “That’s not going to happen.”

“So be it,” the Monitor said wearily. Then, in a comment directed to the Sentinels, he added: “Save his head. Dispose of the rest.”

The vast platform that extended out over the Control Room’s black abyss felt small and confining as the Master Chief was attacked from every direction at once. Ruby red energy beams sizzled, and the smell of ozone filled the air as the airborne Sentinels circled, searching for a chink in his armor. All they needed was one good hit, a chance to put him down, and they would be able not only to take his head, but the Index as well.

Cortana’s intrusion skills had become much less conventional since the landing on Halo. He had been surprised when she’d used his suit comm as a de facto modem to broadcast her way into the Control Room computers. He was also unprepared for her sudden return. After so much time in the ring’s massive systems, she felt somehow larger. He pondered her unusual behavior – her shortness, the flare of temper.

There was no time to consider Cortana’s “mental state.” There was still a mission to achieve: protect Cortana, and keep Spark the hell away from the Index. For his part the Spartan wove back and forth, conscious of the fact that the walkway had no rails, and how easy it would be to fall off the edge. That made hitting his targets a great deal more difficult. Still, he had seen the Flood bring Sentinels down, and figured that if the combat forms could do it, so could he. He decided to tackle the lowest machines first.

He was careful to get a good lead on each target. The assault rifle stuttered, and the nearest target exploded. He switched to the shotgun and fired methodically. He pumped a new round into the chamber, and fired again. Thanks to the broad pattern provided by each shell, the pump gun soon proved itself to be an extremely effective weapon against the Sentinels.

One of the machines exploded, another hit the deck with a loud clang, and a third trailed smoke as it spiraled into the darkness below.

The battle became somewhat easier after that, as there was less and less incoming fire, and he was able to knock three more robots out of the air in quick succession.

He started to move, reloading as he went. One especially persistent machine took advantage of the interlude to score three hits on his back, which triggered the audible alarm, and pushed his shield to the very edge.

With only four shells in his weapon, the Chief turned, blew the robot out of the air, and spun to nail another. Then, weapon raised, he turned in a circle, searching for more targets. There weren’t any.

“So,” he said as he lowered the shotgun and pushed more shells into the receiver, “don’t tell me – let me guess. You have a plan.”

“Yes,” Cortana replied unabashedly, “I do. We can’t let the Monitor activate Halo. We have to stop him – we have to destroy Halo.”

The Spartan nodded and flexed his stiff shoulders. “And how do we do that?”

“According to my analysis of the available data I believe the best course of action is somewhat risky.”

Naturally, the Chief thought.

“An explosion of sufficient size,” Cortana explained, “will help destabilize the ring – and will cut through a number of primary systems. We need to trigger a detonation on a large scale, however. A starship’s fusion reactors going critical would do the job.

“I’m going to find out where the Pillar of Autumn went down. If the ship’s fusion reactors are still relatively intact, we can use
them
to destroy Halo.”

“Is that
all
?” the Spartan inquired dryly. “Sounds like a walk in the park. By the way, it’s nice to have you back.”

“It’s nice to
be
back,” Cortana said, and he knew she meant it. Although there were any number of “natural” bio-sentients that she thought of as friends, the bond the AI shared with the Spartan was unique. So long as they shared the same armor they would share the same fate. If
he
died then
she
died. Relationships don’t get any more interdependent than that, something that struck Cortana as both wonderful and frightening.

His boots made a hollow sound as he approached the gigantic blast doors and hit the switch. They parted to reveal a battle in progress between a group of Sentinels and Covenant ground troops. Red lasers split the air into jagged shapes as robots burned a Jackal down. The contest was far from one-sided, however, as one of the machines exploded and showered the Covenant with bits of hot metal.

The room was a long rectangular affair with a strangely corrugated floor. Standing at one end of the space, and well out of harm’s way, the Spartan was content to watch and let the two groups whittle each other down. However, when the last robot crashed, leaving two Elites still on their feet, the Master Chief knew he’d have to take them on.

The Covenant spotted the human, knew he’d have to come to them, and stood waiting. The Chief took advantage of what little bit of cover there was and made his way down the length of the room. With only half a clip of ammo left in his assault rifle, he had little choice but to tackle them with the shotgun – far from ideal at this range.

He fired a couple of rounds just to get their attention, waited for the Elites to charge, and lobbed a plasma grenade into the gap between them. The explosion killed one soldier and wounded the other. A single blast from the shotgun was sufficient to finish the job. Striding though the carnage, he exchanged the assault weapon for a plasma rifle.

From there it was a short journey through an empty room and out onto the top level of the pyramid. It was dark, and a fresh layer of snow had fallen since the time when the noncom had battled his way up to the Control Room from the valley below.

There were guards, but all of them had their backs to the hatch, and didn’t bother to turn until the doors were halfway open. That was when they saw the human, did a series of double takes, and started to respond. But the Chief was ready and used the energy weapon to hose them down. The Elites jerked and fell, quickly followed by several Jackals and Grunts.

Then, just as suddenly as the violence had started, it was over. Snow swirled around the sole figure who remained standing, began the long, painstaking job of covering each body with a shroud of white, and fostered an illusion of peace.

Cortana took advantage of the momentary pause to update the Spartan regarding her plan. “We need to buy some time in case the Monitor or his Sentinels find a way to activate Halo’s final weapon without the Index.

“The machines in these canyons are Halo’s primary firing mechanisms. They consist of three phase pulse generators that amplify Halo’s signal and allow it to fire deep into space. If we damage or destroy the generators, the Monitor will need to repair them before Halo can be used. That should buy us some time. I’m marking the location of the nearest pulse generator with a nav point. We need to move and neutralize the device.”

“Roger that,” the Chief said, as he made his way down the first ramp to the platform below. Once again the element of surprise worked in his favor. He killed two Elites, caught a couple of Jackals as they tried to run, and nailed a Grunt as it appeared from below.

The wind whistled around the side of the pyramid. The Spartan left a trail of large bootprints as he made his way down to the point where the ramp met the next level walkway, crossed to the other side of the structure, and ran into a pair of Elites as they hit the top of the up ramp and rounded the corner.

There wasn’t enough time to do anything but fire, and keep on firing, in an attempt to overwhelm the Covenant armor. It wouldn’t have worked had the aliens been farther away, but the fact that the plasma pulses were pounding them in close made all the difference. The first Elite made a horrible gurgling sound as he fell and the second got a shot off but lost half of his face. He brought his hands up to the hole, made a gruesome discovery, and was just about to scream when an energy bolt took his life.

Then, as the Spartan prepared to descend into the valley below, Cortana said, “Wait, we should commandeer one of those Banshees. We’ll need it to reach the pulse generator in time.” Like many of the AI’s suggestions, this was easier said than done, but the Chief was in favor of speed, and filed the possibility away.

Now, as he came down off the pyramid, he saw lots of Covenant, but no Flood, and felt a strange sense of relief. The Covenant were tough, but he understood them, and that lessened his apprehension.

The alien plasma rifle lacked the precision offered by an M6D pistol or a sniper’s rifle, but the Chief did the best he could to pick off some of the Covenant below. Still, he had only nailed three of the aliens when his efforts attracted the attention of a Wraith tank, along with more troops. There was nothing he could do except retreat back uphill.

The Wraith, which continued to hurl plasma bombs up-slope, actually helped by preventing other Covenant forces from charging after him. That advantage wouldn’t last long, though, which meant that he had to find some additional fire power, and find it fast.

Even though there was no sign of the Flood at the moment, some of their half-frozen bodies lay scattered about, suggesting that there had been a significant battle within the last couple of hours. He knew the Flood carried weapons acquired from dead victims, so the Chief ran from corpse to corpse, looking for what he required. For a while it seemed hopeless as he uncovered a series of M6Ds, energy pistols, combat knives, and other gear – anything and everything except what he needed most.

Then, just when he had nearly given up hope, he saw a few inches of olive drab tubing protruding from under a dead combat form. He rolled the ex-Elite over, and felt a rising sense of excitement. Was the launcher loaded? If so, he was in luck.

A quick check revealed that the weaponwas loaded, and as if to prove that luck comes in threes, the Spartan found two reloads only a few meters away.

Armed with the launcher, he was ready to go to work. The Wraith represented the most significant threat, so he decided to deal with that first. It took time to make his way back across the face of the pyramid to a point where he could get a clear shot, but he did. The monster was dangerously close as he put a pair of rockets into the mortar tank, and watched it explode.

He ejected the spent rocket tubes, slammed a reload home, and shifted his aim. Two more rockets lanced ahead, and detonated in clusters of Covenant soldiers. He fell back and slung the rocket launcher; he had a limited supply of rockets, and once they were gone, he had no choice but to go down onto the valley floor and finish the job the hard way.

He crept up on the pair of Elites who stood guard near a Banshee. They went down from deadly, spine-cracking blows and he stepped past their fallen corpses. He examined the Banshee’s controls while Cortana pulled up files the tech boys in Intel had prepared based on examinations of captured craft.

He boarded the single-seat aircraft, and activated its power plant. He wondered why the aliens hadn’t used the ship against him, was thankful that they hadn’t, and eyed the instrument panel. The Master Chief had never flown one of the attack ships before, but was qualified to fly most of the UNSC’s atmospheric and spacegoing ships so, between his own experience and the tech files Cortana provided, he found the controls relatively easy to understand. The takeoff was a bit wobbly, but it wasn’t long before the flight began to smooth out, and the Banshee started to climb.

It was dark, and snow continued to fall, which meant that visibility was poor. He kept a close eye on both the nav point Cortana had projected onto his HUD and the instrument panel. The design was different, but an alien turn and bank indicator still looked like what it was, and helped the human maintain his orientation.

The attack ship made good speed, and the valleys were quite close together, so it wasn’t long before the Spartan spotted the well-lit platform which jutted out from the face of the cliff, as well as the enemy fire which lashed up to greet him. The word was out, it seemed – and the Covenant didn’t want any visitors.

Rather than put down under fire, he decided to carry out a couple of strafing runs first. He swooped low and used the Banshee’s plasma and fuel rod cannons to sweep the platform clear of sentries before decelerating for what he hoped would be an unopposed landing.