Infection zones, damage, and a literal slaughterhouse unfolding around the ring. Thousands of ships shelling each other and bombarding the ring. Fighting for survival, attacking and retreating, while some simply fell onto the surface of the Installation. The more the humans watched, the more they realized the scale of the battle. Two conclusions came to me. First: The Covenant had brought massive forces this time. Second: Even my creators would have appreciated the scale of the carnage. And that was a benchmark.
The soldiers evacuated from the SSV Naglfar took up positions at the top of the control center, which was being briskly stormed by Covenant forces.
We were actively saved by the fact that the building itself was recessed into a canyon; there was simply nowhere to drop a Scarab, leaving them to use Phantoms and plasma tanks. Furthermore, the structure was built like a pyramid, with the ascent being as gradual as possible, connecting horizontal platforms. This meant that to get to the top, one had to run across all the platforms in sequence. An aerial drop? Theoretically possible, but in practice, there was a massive overhang above the platform, so dropping troops directly onto heads wouldn't work; moreover, the platform was perfectly exposed to fire during the landing process. So the containment continued.
And the humans, supported by the robot, were handling this containment quite well. One problem—in case of emergency, the only retreat was by teleport. Otherwise, everything was fine.
With the help of Splintered Design, a mass of interesting items had been evacuated from the ship, including anti-aircraft guns (the robots cut them off, then teleported them). With such support, Phantoms were on a one-way trip. And the Covenant was clearly afraid to strike with anything serious. They would break through eventually. But for now, there was time.
The Vice Admiral ordered the enemy be kept away from the complex, and we were managing the task, though weapons were scarce. But the Monitor helped a bit here: her equipment allowed for the creation of new mechanisms for repairing the installation and the robots. Drone lasers could be given to the soldiers, slightly modified to turn them into sniper weapons or even anti-tech. This was being done right here, using makeshift methods. Simply because the lasers were primarily tools, not weapons. But they performed their function, and did it well. When we finished here, the humans would have a working blueprint for such a weapon.
Work was also buzzing in the inner halls of the Halo's control center. Officers, using the holographic hall, were trying to coordinate the defense process; fortunately, the Halo was full of sensors, and the progress of the battle could be tracked in the smallest details, even finding individual survivors in the wreckage if necessary.
But for Noble Team, the mission was different. The Spartans were needed elsewhere.
"Less than an hour ago, the Covenant began the assault on the Library."
Saying this, the Monitor showed a complex recessed into the ring's mass, separate from the Halo hologram. A multi-level labyrinth of transitions. At a glance, there had to be at least ten kilometers of it, both underground and above ground. I clarified that there were essentially three parts. An outer ring covering the complex with a force field, an outer structure, and underground blocks extending tens of kilometers into the ring's depth. It was a technical zone, not intended for those made of meat; without a map, getting lost there was not just easy, but very easy. And somewhere there, in the depths, something important was hidden.
"And what's there?" Noble One asked. "Why is it a problem?"
"One moment," the Monitor replied, zooming in on the image. "The Activation Index can be found at this point. It is a necessary device for the operation of the equipment of Installation 06. As long as we control both the control center and the Activation Index, it is not a problem. However, the situation is changing. A large enemy ship has crashed near the Library. The complex's shields held, but now the Guardians are holding back the enemy's attempted assaults. Intervention is recommended."
The decision was made quite quickly. The soldiers were successfully holding the control center, and the Spartans headed for the Library. By portal, of course; traveling by their own means would have taken hours we didn't have.
We were dropped from the portal onto a mountain from which, in the distance, the complex itself was visible. And on our own, it would take us a long time to get there. Which meant we had to act differently.
"Impressive," Kelly said as she looked at the installation. "And why here, instead of inside the complex?"
The Library was enormous. The first level of defense was a wall, a kilometer high, over which the film of a force field shimmered almost imperceptibly. The wall was perfectly circular; inside it was nature untouched by the bombardments. Forests, like almost everywhere on this ring.
In the distance, amidst the forest, stood a colossal structure of gray stone and metal. An inverted bowl, around which were four supports, hugging but not touching the central building.
I spent a few milliseconds overlaying the Library's schematic onto its image. It turned out that everything we were seeing now was the Library. The above-ground part, the underground part, the wall. Twenty kilometers in diameter above ground, and about ten more below the surface of the Halo, and a hundred in depth. Massive. Meanwhile, we waited for an answer as to why we weren't teleported directly to the destination.
"Lockdown due to combat alert," Splintered Design explained. "Until the Activation Index is extracted and the complex is under attack, teleportation closer is impossible. The shields can be deactivated from the inside, but the movement lock will not vanish as long as the Activation Index is inside. It is necessary to allow time to suppress unsuitable biological forms before they reach the Library."
"There's the ship," Noble Five pointed out.
True, a Covenant carrier, burning and leaving trails of smoke in the sky, including the forest burned out around the ship, lay not far from the Library. Due to the nature of the atmosphere, the smoke clouds had a curious rounded shape. And under the Forerunner complex's shield, eight flying bricks were starting up and slowly rising.
"Carriers and repair platforms for heavy Guardians," Design explained. "The enemy is breaking through the corridors of the outer defense line. Sentinels are not coping. Urgent intervention is required. Immediately."
"Is there transport?" Noble Two clarified. "It'll take us forever to reach the wall. We need to speed up."
In response, six Guardians flew out of the forest—massive robots resembling a crab or a crawfish with hanging legs, firing red darts and equipped with forward shields.
"You will fly," the Forerunner AI replied confidently.
"Seriously..." the Spartan replied, examining the robot.
Noble One nodded.
"It'll do. Team, move out."
"Saddle up," the Avatar smirked.
Interestingly, no one objected. And we did indeed saddle the robots, fortunately their "backs" were narrow enough for it to be possible. Plus, we could magnetize our boots to the hull to keep from falling.
I officially declare: flying is very convenient. We flew over burning and scorched forests. Over Forerunner gun towers, mostly destroyed. Over the flashes of battles clearly between Covies and robots. Over boiling lakes of liquid stone. Over fields of burnt trees and ash, hiding the traces of the battle, the bodies, and the damage inflicted.
Above us lay the firestorm of the battle. Beams tore away from the ring, slamming into the Covenant ships that were bombing the station and each other. All this stuff exploded and fell like rain of fire onto both the Halo and the planet in the background. And it just drifted and exploded. Against this backdrop, the part of space hidden under the Library's dome looked like a nature reserve. Clean, neat, untouched nature. Well, that was temporary. Soon the inferno would come there too.
Splintered Design left via teleport, stating that the robots would help if needed.
"We have orders from command," the Avatar reported. "Protect the Library. If the enemy breaks through—extract the Activation Index and leave via teleport. We'll be running all over the installation, protecting the device. Good luck to the Covenant trying to catch us with those parameters."
Noble One nodded.
"Orders understood. Split into pairs; each pair will take one technical entrance on the wall. You know what to do."
The robots, listening to our communications, split into pairs. I was paired with the sniper-rocketeer Noble Five. And me with the hammer and submachine guns. The delivery process to the post was slowed slightly by the fact that we couldn't fly directly; we had to move along the wall and above the barrier. On the plus side, we could get a better look at the battlefield around the Library.
And things were bad there. A carrier had gone down, which meant there would be a lot of aircraft. For now, they couldn't penetrate under the dome, nor could they break it. But if the field failed, the Covies would quickly reach the Library as well. Plasma tanks and anti-gravs moved through the burning forest; Banshees and Phantoms flew in the sky. Scarabs broke trees with their hulls, incinerating everything the others hadn't reached. Their anti-aircraft systems mowed down robots, but they themselves were stalling one by one.
And above them swarmed robots, a vicious metallic swarm. There were many of them, but against the Covenant with plasma weapons, it was a fair fight. The Guardians leveled the battle somewhat, but they were being destroyed more or less effectively by the Covie strike craft, against which the sluggish Guardian wasn't particularly dangerous.
"You will be dropped on the wall. You must protect the shield sector," the robot reported mechanically.
"Acknowledged."
And then Noble One contacted us; they had already been dropped earlier.
"The Covenant is being assisted by The Possessed. Including The Possessed from among the Covenant ranks."
Oh, wonderful. Though strange.
"Acknowledged, we'll take note."
We were dropped onto a platform on the wall. Essentially a small ledge at a height of half a kilometer on a sheer wall, ten meters wide, from which a corridor led into the depths. Typical Forerunner architectural style: gray stone, bright lights, blue schematics. High enough for a Forerunner to pass, but devoid of numerous consoles and such—just a passage ending in a perpendicular turn and another identical corridor beyond.
And here lay destroyed, scorched robots and killed, sliced-to-bits Covenant soldiers. A whole crowd of Unggoy, Elites, and three of The Possessed. I nodded to the robot:
"We're going deep; you won't fit here."
"Unit will monitor the access point," the machine replied. "Initiation. Cleanup recommended. Enemy is moving toward the manual shield control terminal."
Five and I headed into the tunnel, while the robot flew higher. Under the ceiling of the classic gray Forerunner material, among numerous glowing mechanisms, were narrow square hatch-portals from which Sentinels could emerge. The robots were destroyed and lay on the ground; the hatches were damaged and glowed red. Among the corpses, most were possessed Unggoy and creatures from the Citadel races. There were plenty of robots too. It seemed the Covenant had fought their way through, sparing no troops.
"Where to next?" Five asked.
The corridor ended in a square room with a column in the center. I calmly approached, examining the activation mechanism located on the column itself. I pointed to the hologram and requested:
"Poke that."
Five looked at me, then at the hologram, and asked:
"Why?"
Because I am a synthetic, and I don't have an intuitive understanding of where to press. I know this column rises, opening a passage. But I don't want to break the console itself; the security system would clearly be against such treatment, as would the robots. The question remained: how the Covenant had passed further. Likely just experience. We needed to go exactly there too.
"Five, I just don't know where to press. I could hack it, of course, but we don't want to pick a fight with the robots, do we?"
The woman didn't believe me.
"And how am I supposed to know where to press?" the Spartan asked, but looking at the mask, she nodded. "Fine."
She stepped up, looked at the console, and with a sharp movement pressed the hologram as if expecting the column to explode. She jumped back when a jet of steam erupted from the valves. I continued to watch the control panel, ignoring what was happening (there would be no damage in our armor). The panel went dark, and the column rose with a hiss, opening the way down. We peered into the tunnel. A standard square pipe, three by three meters. Inside were a couple of Unggoy corpses and a robot.
"That's our way," the Avatar nodded and jumped without waiting for an answer.
Boots struck the bottom of the tunnel with a thud, and a howl immediately rang out. A possessed Salarian was impaled on the extended blade of the hammer. With a wheeze, the creature continued to flail its limbs; the blade in its chest didn't stop it. The possessed creature's head exploded from a shot from Five's Magnum; I sent the corpse into a couple of its colleagues with a swing of the hammer. They were already rushing toward us.
A possessed Jackal, when the corpse hit its shield, fell onto its back, opened up, and took a shot from Five's pistol to the neck. I finished off the second with another blow.
"And there's the enemy. I assume we were heard," I nodded, examining the creatures.
"I suggest we speed up," Five decided, and I nodded.
We ran down the tunnel. One of the passages was open, and I tossed a grenade in there on the move. Then we jumped right onto a group of Covie soldiers with markings resembling the squid-ship on their armor. The Unggoy were scattered by the blast, while the Elite took a hammer to the head and was sent into the wall. And the Spartans ran further, toward the sounds of gunfire.
New tunnels, and more intact robots fighting the Covenant and The Possessed. The same for us as for the other Spartans. Three pairs of soldiers fighting through these tunnels. Us. All for the sake of victory. All for the sake of the future and Humanity.
"Group three, report," Noble One demanded.
Five replied:
"Advancing through the tunnels, clearing the invasion forces. The enemy is trying to break deep into the complex."
Noble One replied:
"Covenant forces are increasing pressure on the control center. We need to ensure they don't break through to the Activation Index. They dropped a Scarab down and are using it as a mobile headquarters and artillery. The Control Center may be lost."
The situation was heating up, yes.
"Acknowledged."
Next was another technical tunnel and more of The Possessed. Robots flying out of niches accelerated our progress and cleanup somewhat, but it was clear the enemy had moved further. And this run played a nasty trick on us. Around the next turn, the Avatar nearly ran into a cloaked Elite swordsman hiding there. Only reaction and the hammer saved me; to the extended blade I might have been impaled on, I responded with a hammer to the face. The Elite crouched, dodging, but shifted his weapon.
"Demons," he growled, "divine providence cannot be stopped. You will be exterminated, like the others before you. Worship through destruction!"
Five's sniper rifle boomed from behind, stripping the enemy's shields, and I drove the blade into the creature's neck. But even so, the Elite with glowing blue eyes tried to stab me with his blade; I had to jump back. The Elite pulled the hammer out of his neck (almost no blood dripped) and said:
"Now I won't be so easily..."
He didn't get to finish the sentence, as he lost his head. We shared a look, I grabbed the hammer, and we continued the fight, as the Elite wasn't alone here. Possessed Turians, Jackals, and Unggoy. And at the end, a possessed Jiralhanae that charged down the tunnel, bowling over his colleagues. I destroyed the Turians and the Elite with the hammer and grenades; the Jiralhanae caught a rocket in the narrow space. Notably, he didn't die, though the explosion tore the body open.
One limb, one eye, and a chunk of head, a demonstration of his entire inner world. And still moving, albeit with difficulty. A burst from an assault rifle into the synthetic elements of his organism finally put him to rest.
A steady thumping of mechanisms echoed ahead. That wasn't good. Rushing forward, we found ourselves in a large square hall. Below, on a lower level, was a square platform, around the perimeter of which were three columns with already familiar holograms. A fourth was raised to the ceiling. In the center stood a terminal where an Elite was working. A squad of a Jiralhanae, three Jackals, a dozen Unggoy, and some of The Possessed were spread out on the platform. The Elite barked, and the Jackals began firing at a column. After a few hits to the hologram, it began to hiss and, spewing clouds of steam, retreated to the ceiling. On the platform lay the husks of two Guardians and at least a dozen Sentinels, destroyed.
We shared a look and attacked. A full "click" of grenades, Five's rocket launcher. While the rockets were still flying, I jumped down from the balcony onto the platform, firing SMGs mid-jump and readying the hammer. The Elite turned at the noise and roared.
"Demons!"
Landing on an Unggoy's head and catching the Jiralhanae with a gravity strike, I replied:
"You're no beauty either."
Judging by the thud, Five had put down the empty rocket launcher and taken up the sniper rifle. I gripped the hammer with one hand, snatched a plasma pistol from a crushed Unggoy with the other, and was throwing grenades with my tails.
Under the boom of the sniper rifle, the Elite collapsed onto the console, but the hologram didn't appreciate that method of activation. Nothing happened. But The Possessed didn't throw themselves at me; they went for the columns and began striking them with wide swings. Though the column was indifferent to such treatment. However, after a burst from the last Jackal's plasma pistol, the column hissed and rose. But the Jackal wasn't allowed to do that to the last column; a sniper shot took his head off.
I waded into the crowd with the hammer. Gravity strikes, blade strikes. No jokes or comments, just focused slaughter. Split a skull with the blade, jerk the hammer aside, triggering the gravity strike effect to scatter The Possessed. Spin the hammer in flight, impale a possessed Salarian on the blade, use him to block a sphere from a possessed Asari. Shake off what was left of the Salarian after the sphere's impact, close the distance with a dash, driving the hammer funnel-first into the Asari's stomach. Impulse. She flew like a piece of mincemeat into a possessed Turian; a second one fell nearby. The Turian took a burst to the skull and went quiet. The enemies were finished. Five had dealt with the Covies.
"Noble Five to Leader. Outer shield terminal three cleared. Ready to hold the line."
They replied sixteen seconds later.
"This is Noble Leader. Terminal one cleared. But we were too late; they managed to turn it on."
"Noble Three. Shield terminal two under control. The enemy didn't even manage to reach it; holding position."
Splintered Design cut into the line.
"To deactivate this sector of the shield, all three terminals must be deactivated. If you successfully hold the enemy at even one, the shield will hold."
"You heard the Monitor," Noble One reported. "Executing."
For the defense, we took up positions in the corridor leading to the terminal. A good field of fire, and besides, if anyone started deactivating the columns, we'd hear it. New robots were sent to us, which successfully lowered the three raised columns back into their places.
"What is the function of the columns?" Five clarified with the Monitor. "Why are they here? And what's the point of making them deactivatable by gunfire?"
The robot replied over the comms, as everyone was interested. There were four such columns in all three terminals.
"These are channels for power transmission. They deactivate not from gunfire, but from overheating. System redundancy. Upon overheating, decoupling occurs for cooling and, if necessary, repair without risk of electric shock to service units. Followed by re-coupling. All four channels can only be disabled intentionally."
"Understood. So, the columns must be down."
"Correct."
The doors behind the platform opened. Well, gates, through which this platform could fly on its own. As it turned out, it was located on the inner side of the outer wall, right at the force field. Yes, there were essentially two walls, with the barrier located between them. Moreover, the walls themselves had protection, which made cutting them with Covenant Scarabs possible but pointless. And the structure itself had its own containment systems. Even if this layer were breached, there would be several more beyond.
Guardian robots flew into the room, after which the doors closed. One hovered directly opposite the corridor, and two in the corners to cover the entire hall.
"How's the control center? Holding?"
The Monitor replied:
"Confirmed. The Covenant is actively storming the territory; a ship is hovering over the canyon and shelling positions with small caliber. Sentinels were able to bring down a ship by ramming, plugging the canyon from above. The enemy continues the assault with a large number of strike craft and is bringing in reinforcements through service tunnels. They are having moderate success."
Good. The Possessed and the Covenant were also crawling toward us. The combination of two Spartans and Guardians was holding the enemy back quite decently. There were periods of active combat and the silence of the control hall. Occasionally, rare Sentinels flew by on their business, their hum breaking the silence. And then another squad of Covenant or The Possessed would run at us, and the battle would start again. Several more hours passed like this. Then more, and more.
"This is group two," Noble Three suddenly reported over the comms. "We're under attack by those huge beasts. No heavy weapons, and there are five of them. These things might be on your headings too."
Problems. We had heavy gear, but the other groups only had grenades.
"If you can't handle it, retreat," Noble One ordered. "There are other lines of defense."
But Three didn't answer.
"Continue holding the defense. The terminals are still ours," Noble One ordered and cut off.
And then some shit started crawling toward us too. The metallic clatter of footsteps, and the beasts appeared from around the corner. Yes, they had sent them in all three directions. And there were far more than one.
"Well, good luck to us."
As soon as the first beast appeared around the corner, a rocket slammed into its face. The projectile hit one of the metallic ribs protruding from the organics and exploded. The creature recoiled; Five fired a second rocket from the second barrel. This time the explosion toppled the creature, and it fell on its back. But there was more than one enemy. The second attacker, shielding its head with a limb, pushed aside the corpse of the first and rushed at us. I threw two Plasma Grenades at once, and the explosion literally cooked the attacker's flesh. It reached us that way, more robot than organic, but still alive. This time I managed not to miss with the hammer, bringing it down behind the ribs. A gravity strike slammed into the creature's torso, and it simply slumped to the floor. A fused and twisted heap of metal and baked meat. The aroma must have been lethal. Two more rocket explosions thundered behind.
"Watch out!" Five barked as a third beast shoved aside the second with a jerk, along with my hammer, which the latter had managed to grab before shutting down. And the new opponent grabbed the Avatar.
The creature's grip tightened across the chest of the MJOLNIR Armor; I grabbed the beast's head with both hands and jerked it aside, covering the blue eye-lenses with my fingers. The giant hesitated, turning its back to Five, but still holding me aloft.
"Shoot!" but I realized Five hadn't reloaded yet.
The Guardian discharged its mortar with a hiss, catching both me and the monster. The explosion was quite deafening, and the beast, staggering but still holding me, took a couple of steps one way, then the other, tripped on the edge of the platform, and plummeted from the balcony down toward the terminal. Crushing me beneath it and using me as a shock absorber. Falling five meters with a combined mass of a couple of tons, plus me on the bottom... not pleasant. Systems reported mechanical damage and partial loss of mobility. But I was still here.
The Avatar had managed to halfway crawl out from under the first carcass when a second one fell on top of me, finally blocking any possibility of movement. Moreover, the fall occurred with the metallic lower part hitting the helmet, causing it to crack and slightly crumple.
Systems immediately showed damage from overloads. Unpleasant: multiple ruptures of synthetic muscles, no comms, the armor's reactor was unstable, servomotors were damaged, the frame was deformed. Repairs would take some time and, ideally, a workshop. Worse, I was out of the fight. Comms? Failure. In MJOLNIR Armor, all the delicate equipment is located on the back. So I could only listen to the sounds of battle, explosions, then the hissing of the column mechanisms.
Then the platform jerked, we moved somewhere, and again the sounds of battle, then silence. And then the monster was removed from the Avatar; a bright flash of a Sentinel laser detached the possessed creature's limbs, still locked on me in a death grip.
"Repair in progress. Stand by."
I'll wait. Need to get back into the fight as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, a Guardian and three Sentinels were busy with the urgent repair of this armor. I had to waste almost two hours just for my body to be discovered. A little more time to restore mobility in these conditions wouldn't matter anymore.
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