To fly out of The Library, we had to hijack a Phantom from the Covenant. Nothing particularly difficult, the same tactic as in my attack, just more careful. A Sentinel makes an entrance, the squad penetrates inside and mows down the Covenant forces. Now the robot can fly where it needs to; we have a captured Phantom, and we'll fly on it from here. You can fly on Sentinels too, but it attracts unnecessary attention. And a Phantom is a normal transport for Covies. Flying on business, everything's fine.
I wasn't allowed to pilot; Noble Two took the ship personally. So I connected to the ship's systems, surveying the battlefield. The ring's defense system had been pushed through, at a huge cost. And no, hordes of robots are still fighting the Covenant on the surface, and the infected too. But the orbital defense, after losing a solid part of the fleet, was finally destroyed or disabled from the surface. Reinforcements are regularly arriving for the Covies, and they attack without fear or doubt. It seems the vision of the "relic of the gods" has knocked everything out of them except religious fanaticism. Completely. Even the rebels aren't that unhinged in their desire to die for an idea.
What's worse, where we're flying, it's not good. While Covenant forces usually push through ground defenses, in these regions, even by the markers, there is no control. That is, even the Covenant forces indirectly acknowledge the scale of the problem. What's there? A yellowish mist. The parasite. We're definitely welcome there—as reinforcements.
The ring itself clearly bears the marks of battle. Molten lakes on the surface, holes in the metal structures, ship hulls, often burning; inside the ring itself and around it is a field of debris and a mass of black dots from smaller ships. The installation hasn't lost its shape, but there are a mass of holes and craters; the robots will be clearing the flaming lakes for a long time. The Covenant station is still hanging at a respectful distance, but hit marks are visible there too.
I assume this is the greatest damage suffered by the Covenant in hundreds of years. But they haven't started a war with the parasite yet. Against it, losses could be even higher, much higher. And after the shot, everything will be even more fun. The revenge will be epic.
But for now, the four of us are flying on the Phantom, and the squad is preparing for battle. Noble Two and Noble Five took the cockpit, sorting through weapons, while I settled in the passenger compartment.
"Noble Six?" Catherine-B320, Noble Two, called out.
"Yes?" the avatar replied without getting up, continuing to maintain the gear.
The Spartans were silent for a moment, and then they finally asked the question:
"Is it possible to survive the activation of the device?"
It wasn't an idle question.
"No," the avatar replied easily, "from what I've managed to find out, this weapon is designed to deprive the parasite of food and material for reproduction. That is, any possessors of a complex nervous system. Plus, some organic matter in a certain range will also be destroyed. A Human fits both points. It's a one-way trip, Noble Team."
I, however, will survive the shot, but who cares about such trifles. But they hadn't asked me about mortality.
"Why does the Covenant believe in this? Why do they push so stubbornly toward destruction?" the Spartan asked.
I thought about Noble Two's words.
"No idea. I'm not strong in understanding religion."
Also a fact. There are spheres of activity that aren't my profile. Theology is one of them. The fact that the Spartans aren't worried about the fact of their own death is unsurprising. After all, they were taught from childhood that they were soldiers; their colleagues died during implantation and didn't return from missions. I wonder what they're thinking. And you can't really ask. They won't answer. Out of pride.
We're approaching the target. The Phantom flew unnoticed across the battlefield, not attracting special attention, and approached its target. We got a few hours of rest, but it's time to continue the action. We've reached the parasite's territory.
Below, the usual signs of infection are visible: ship hulls, spore clouds, and indistinct movement. They're there. And they've noticed the ship.
"The infection has gone quite far," the avatar snapped irritably, looking at the monitors, "we're going to that structure over there."
The structure is a pyramid with metal constructs around it, sticking halfway out of a cliff. The pyramid's base construction consists of four more levels of platforms, currently empty. And it's at the base of the structure, among clouds of yellow mist, that something is moving. There, in the forest, there's clearly movement. Maybe animals, but I'll assume Flood combat forms. We need to get to the top, where there's a wide airlock passage into the control room. The backup one.
"I suggest bringing the Phantom inside. I don't like that movement," the avatar proposed.
Noble One looked at the screens and nodded.
"We'll do that. No point in attracting too much attention."
The Phantom, humming quietly, cautiously squeezed into the very top, between the platform and the overhang. The squad jumped from the transport onto the landing at the top of the pyramid, looking at the clouds of yellow mist below. It completely reduces visibility and even interferes with sensors. And yet, movement can be noticed. They're coming. On this ring, the dead have no rest. Noble One approached from behind.
"Noble Six, let's go. Noble Five will stay on guard."
Again, the wide, lit, ribbed corridors of Forerunner structures, which the Phantom cautiously but successfully squeezes into. The ship was turned broadside to the exit so that in case of an attack, the ship could help with the fire of three turrets under the belly and the machine gun. Noble Two remained as the door gunner. Well, the avatar and Noble One set off inside, toward the terminal. Another couple of hundred meters and two huge doors later, we arrived.
Compared to the control center, the backup hall is much more modest. A room about a hundred meters in diameter, a console against the wall that can be reached across a transparent floor, hanging at a height of fifty meters, and mechanisms in the center of the room. Noble One stopped at the console and asked:
"So, what needs to be done?"
The avatar pointed to the holographic terminal.
"Insert the Activation Index into the console. Yes, right into the hologram. The Activation Index will be sucked inside."
The man nodded, took the T-shaped crystal from his belt, and placed it in the console. The key hung in space, and the hall lit up, covered in schematics, inscriptions, and graphs. And a large amount of text in the Forerunner language, mostly warnings about ring system damage and parasite breakthroughs. Breaches, breaches, breaches. And there are many of them. The ring is seriously damaged; medium repairs are required. But it can fire, and that's all we need.
The avatar looked around, then approached and extended a probe, which also connected to the console. The world expanded as the system, deprived of a control AI, detected the codes of the Activation Index and the Reclaimers (ancient Humanity) and granted expanded access. I can't control the defense systems, but I can look around. All necessary ring mechanisms are repeatedly duplicated, which means even in this state, the Halo is combat-ready. I can work with this.
"I'm in the system, thanks, Noble One."
The man calmly asked:
"What's next?"
The avatar, analyzing the readings from the consoles quite briskly thanks to the core, replied:
"Wait. We'll make adjustments to the program now, and then we can toss the key to the Covenant. A couple of minutes."
Of course, I'm not just making changes but also downloading data. Thanks to the Activation Index, I was admitted into the Halo system. Which means I can get information from The Library. Pity the quantum channel has limited bandwidth, so I won't be carrying much away. But I can get some things. The comms crackled:
"This is Noble Five; those parasites are climbing up the ramp. A couple of dozen former Covies are running at me with a howl, and plasma isn't really taking them down."
The leader looked at me, at the graphs, and said:
"Fall back into the corridors; we'll suppress them with the Phantom. Noble Six, finish up here and let's go."
Yes, yes, yes. I need to mask the weapon protocols well. So that the changes made don't show up on the main terminal's graphs, at least until an official request. And set a timer; I don't want to give the Covies time to react or the parasite time to fly away. I see a solution.
"There's good news and not-so-good news. Which one first?"
Noble One ran into the corridor to Noble Five, and brisk firing could be heard from there.
"All in order," Noble One replied over the clatter of weapons, "there's a crowd of infected here, and plasma is ineffective. They get up, and losing limbs is no excuse. Neither is death."
Alright then. So, a couple more changes. There, I'm done here.
"Noble One, take the key; I'm finished. I'll be in the corridor in a moment. If we want to hide the drop in equipment power, we need to damage two pulse generators—I've identified which ones—then the system will reduce the overall weapon power to stabilize, leveling the flow. It won't affect the blast, but the volume of life annihilation will be slightly smaller. We'll do a good deed at the end."
The avatar hurried to the squad.
"A lot? How much will the effectiveness drop?" Noble Five asked, clearly continuing the fight.
A grenade explosion sounded ahead. They're having fun over there.
"Effectiveness, no, but the blast radius will drop by ten to fifteen percent. The consequences will be slightly reduced. Not fifty thousand light-years in diameter, but forty to forty-five. We'll save at least some of the worlds in the galaxy. But we could also not save them, of course. I've set up the single blast; there won't be any problems. And I've put a block on changes that only I can remove."
And a timer, but everyone needs to think it'll be the Covenant.
The avatar ran around the corner and, extending hard light blades and firing at the enemy, launched an attack. The parasites attacking the Spartans belonged to former Covenant races. Elites, Jackals. Both the former and the latter had kept their shields, taking the massive pulses of the Phantom's gun on them.
Plasma acts ambiguously on the infected. They clearly feel no pain, and even with a torn chest cavity, the burning mutants continue to attack. On the other hand, the burning plasma of the Phantom's guns incinerates its target quite quickly. But the infected have shields, which allows individuals charging into close combat to withstand one or two hits. As a result, a balance of damage and the danger of the beasts is maintained.
The Spartans, armed with Covenant weapons, break the shields, but the organic matter is burned away less effectively. Partly because the monsters don't really care about being hit. Shotguns would be good here, but we don't have any.
"Hit the center of the chest, to the right of the heart. The Flood infection form is hidden there. Under the Elite's armor, presumably. They don't need a head."
The sight wasn't the most appetizing for organics
...of them, presumably. From the Elite's armor protrudes a bloated, yellowed body; the head dangles behind the back, slapping against the pauldrons during the run; in place of the right hand is a triple blade-whip. And all this goodness rushes at you with a long howl in quantities of a dozen individuals. And yes, losing a head is no excuse, as I had to warn them.
"And vision? How does it see?"
A question to which even the people of my era could not give a precise answer. Since individual forms of the altered are twisted beyond recognition, yet they see perfectly anyway.
"The brain is a parasite in the chest; the head doesn't matter."
"Zombies?" Noble Two asked.
The Avatar, having darted past her colleagues and entered close combat with a pair of altered, smirked.
"So, you did find time for entertainment cinema after all? Yes, zombies," I spun around, slicing through the whip-arm with tails of Hard light, then drove a light blade into the symbiont, causing the monster to drop like a stone.
Noble Two tried to land a blow, which I took on the corpse of the first one impaled on my blade. Noble One stripped its shields with a burst from a Plasma Rifle, and I deactivated the second one with a thrust of my blade. For a Jackal, it's simple to deflect the shield-disk with the hands and pierce the parasite with a top-down strike. Nearby, three more crumbled to ash after a burst from the Phantom. Cover with a Jackal from another one when the shield is dropped, finish it. And they were gone. Only bodies in all degrees of charring remained.
Noble One clarified:
"Can they get back up?"
The Avatar nodded.
"If they aren't charred or destroyed enough? Yes, they can."
The leader nodded.
"Burn them with the Phantom. Noble Six, are the adjustments finished?"
The Avatar, having deactivated the extra equipment, approached the others. No need to strain the armor system with protection and blades made of Hard light. Besides, visibility increases.
"Yes, I've done everything. Now we need to draw the attention of The Covenant to this point and finish breaking the generators. And with that, our task will be complete."
A howl erupted from the open airlock, and new Infection forms began to crawl out. Ten, twenty, a hundred...
"Fire. And turn on the transmitter on the Phantom. Let the Covies see a distress signal," Noble One ordered.
We began to shoot. The Infection forms are weak, fragile. A bag with tentacles, no protection. One hit from anything and the creature's bag bursts, and it dies. But when there are more of them than you have bullets, the situation changes somewhat.
"How do they manage to breed so fast?" Noble Five asked seriously. "You said eight hours ago there were a couple of thousand."
The Avatar, continuing to fire in short bursts, replied:
"Corpses. Dead organic matter is processed very quickly. The Covenant itself provided them with biomass, weapons, and specialists. If they had to seize bodies by force, the process would go slower. The more corpses, the more of the parasite. The more of the parasite, the more corpses. Geometric progression."
A dozen combat forms infected by the parasite ran down the corridor, and once again we had to switch to close combat. For three Spartans and an Avatar, it's not a problem, but there are still quite a few of them. And the longer we stay here, the higher the chances of running into The Covenant. We need to leave.
"Disgusting," Noble Five exhaled, "my armor filters are showing increased load. This junk is clogging the suit's air ducts."
"Don't take off the helmet!" the Avatar growled immediately. "If you want to live."
"I'm not an idiot," she grumbled, continuing to fire back.
Behind the roar of shots and the howling of the Flood combat forms, we missed the hum of a descending Phantom. An enemy one. The machine lowered right in front of the passage, from the exit side, and opened fire on our Phantom and on us. In an empty, albeit wide, corridor. Oops. I found the channel through which we communicated with the robots and shouted:
"Teleportation request! Target—evacuation of Reclaimers to power generator 4397. Immediately!"
A yellow vortex appeared between us. Noble One huffed.
"Let's go! Into the portal!"
Under the fire of the Phantom's three cannons and the Covenant soldiers in black already unloading from it, staying alive became somewhat difficult. Jumping out of our Phantom, the Spartan covered her head as the ship's engines exploded and it crashed onto the corridor deck (previously it had hung under the tunnel ceiling on antigrav) and she also jumped into the vortex. As soon as we disappeared into it, the portal closed.
Instead of the howl of shots and the roar of burning and running Flood mutants, the new location met us with the howl of the wind. We found ourselves on a landing pad a hundred meters above the ground. Below was a partially burned forest, now shrouded in a yellowish haze of spore fog.
"And why didn't we do this before, Noble Six?"
The Avatar smirked.
"I only had guest access. The Index gave me power that my father never dreamed of. I have no idea who he was. But I am absolutely certain he was one of the leaders of Humanity."
And it's no joke; I don't know exactly who created me. The Spartans, having exited the battle, set about checking their equipment. I looked down. We were in a gorge, with the generator niche carved right into its wall, and a gray platform for transport located outside. The fact that Forerunners were supposed to be here was given away by five-meter-high doors deep into the rock. Glowing green, open.
Below us, there were the same traces of active combat and infection. But by all parameters, it seems our presence hasn't been noticed yet. I explained:
"There's the answer to the question of how they infect everything so quickly. Spores, like mushrooms. Spores from one corpse are enough for a large clearing. Industrial organic production."
The squad, stopping nearby, also looked down. There is definitely life there.
"They're running around," Noble One noted. "Can they climb up here?"
The Avatar nodded.
"If they want to badly enough, they can crawl through the technical tunnels. Anyway, we'd better not linger here; it's still a question of how far we'll get next."
The squad headed into the vertical door, which, judging by its five-meter height and pentagonal shape, was intended for Forerunner leaders. These individuals subjected themselves to accelerated evolution. They mutated into a more complex form. Ordinary individuals were more or less similar to humans, only taller. But their leaders became much larger, and their height could easily reach four meters. It all depends on the function. At the same time, a Forerunner of the higher castes could operate the Boundless Will or a Jupiter-class alone, combining the functions of a crew and a ship's AI. And not forgetting to give orders to entire formations of ships in the process. Dangerous, powerful individuals that no race of the current times can match. And that is a fact.
"And the portals?" Noble One clarified.
I smirked.
"There is no Monitor. I don't think the local defense systems will appreciate equipment damage; even with my access, they'll attack us. We'll have to go on foot. And only I have the gravity reduction module in my armor. I'll go down, look for transport, and pick you up."
The device needed for destruction turned out to be an energy stream controlled by force fields. Leading, presumably, to the Beam tower above us. There are no consoles; we'll have to act crudely. In the circular room, a blindingly white beam shoots from the floor to the ceiling, surrounded by columns and stream stabilization mechanisms. Energy pumping directly, without environmental resistance. Reliable.
"And how do we damage this device?" Noble Two inquired. "No consoles, nothing. I don't think if we start shooting at the beam, it will help."
The Avatar silently took a step forward, embracing the energy stream. Not strongly, only bringing the suit's field into contact with the stream's containment field.
"As the Asari say, Embrace Eternity..."
At that moment, two things happened. First—the energy stream became unstable, an explosion rang out, and three hands immediately yanked the Avatar back. The floor shuddered as solar flares began to tear the surrounding matter, and the shaking quickly became so strong that the floor and walls began to crack.
"What are you doing, you idiot?" Noble One barked into the helmet's visor. It seemed there was even some concern.
I, ignoring the increasing vibration and the new cracks appearing on the coating, as well as the beep of the depleted shield, replied:
"Destabilized the mechanism. Why make the others do what you can do yourself? Someone has to go in..."
Clang. I was lightly struck on the helmet by a gauntlet. And visor to visor across from the Avatar, Noble One's head stopped. He leaned in close and said:
"Right now we are on a mission, Noble Six. You know where we need to go and what needs to be done. You are the guide. That means you are valuable, regardless of attitude. To damage the generator, one must come into contact with the shield?"
Well, well...
"Yes, that's enough. The fields conflict. And then the unstable stream will do the rest itself."
No further comments were needed, as the stream began to slowly destroy the room, thanks to the intense vibration and jumping flares. And Noble One was satisfied with the answer. The squad quickly left the room, which threatened to collapse. The slight vibration was noticeable even outside. When we returned to the platform, Noble One noted:
"Then you point the way, we escort you where needed. And don't you dare expose yourself just to prove you're not an enemy. No matter how we feel about the situation, the mission is more important."
I nodded. But I still had to be the one to go down. Because it was specifically on my suit that the robots had installed the gravity reduction module. Not based on Element Zero, but on Forerunner technologies. The squad needed new transport to replace the abandoned one to move further, and it had to be obtained. I had to carefully descend the cliff, reducing my own mass, straight into the burned forest shrouded in smoke and spores. To the parasite.
"A magical forest, a center of wonders."
I didn't turn on the blades yet; they glow, noticeably. I had to walk through the forest like the Big Black Wolf. No corpses, though it's clear The Covenant was here, and the altered too. A mass of destroyed equipment.
But as for intact devices—there was a shortage; they weren't there, everything was shot up, destroyed. Only burned-out hulls. Banshees, a Phantom, several Ghosts, all destroyed. Teleportation, as I had suspected, was not granted to us. I don't know where they put the Monitor, but the automation reacted negatively to the equipment failure. In the end, after walking for about an hour, Noble One contacted me.
"Noble Six, do you know where the next generator is?"
Oh, here we go.
"I know."
Noble One was silent for a couple of seconds and added:
"Then my order, soldier. Destabilize the remaining one on your own. We're already dead, so let's do something good for a change. It's better than waiting and hoping one generator is enough. Is the order clear?"
Well, that's logical. I'm not sure how long we'll be looking for anything intact and flying. The Covies don't have ropes, no intact Banshees or any other flying mechanisms either. Moreover, while I was walking here, the squad repelled an attack by robots trying to restore the equipment. So, what other options are there?
"Order understood, Noble One. And yes, I am Khaela, goodbye, boss."
"See you in hell, soldier. Spartans always complete the assigned task. Don't let me down; I don't want to spoil the statistics."
"Will do, Noble One."
And I went through the forest along the canyon floor toward the next generator. First on foot, then I found a Ghost antigrav in a clearing. With it, things went faster. And not a single intact Banshee. At the entrance to the tunnels lay a Spirit, destroyed by an explosion into halves, and a pile of biomass into which bodies had gathered. Nothing worthwhile.
The tunnels, through which infantry transport can fly, met me with silence and a complete absence of vegetation. This is a typical element of Forerunner design; outside there may be lush jungles, but inside their mechanisms, there is always sterile cleanliness. Or, in this case, individuals of the parasite, who also made use of the tunnel and opened a hurricane of fire on the Ghost. So, when I flew out the other side of the mountain, the armor was melted in many places, and lightning jumped across the hull of my Ghost, occasionally dealing minor damage to the shield.
And at that moment, when the cosmos was above me again, the ring shuddered. And exactly in the middle, a white glowing dot began to form. Right on the timer.
"Looks like the process has started. I don't know if they used the main terminal or just pressed the symbol on the backup. Or if the timer set by one kind little fox went off. Better hurry."
***
The Hierarchs of The Covenant gathered in the reception hall of High Charity. The ring's systems had stopped attacking The Covenant, and the reinforcement fleets had successfully arrived during this time.
So the capital of the Covenant Empire was moved so that the ring occupied the central place on the monitor located behind the Hierarchs. A small dot of divine light in the middle of the ring expanded into a vortex larger than High Charity, sucking in energy. The colossal divine mechanism came to life, ready to give them everything for which it was created. To give them power. To give them transcendence. To give them a place beside the gods. That which he, Truth, had always deserved. Divinity.
The Prophet of Truth spoke:
"...Today I can say, we have completed the great divine trial. The search for the ring, the keys to The Great Journey, took many years; many Prophets led The Covenant on the path to transcendence. But today, here and now, we are on the threshold of greatness."
The Prophet of Regret took over.
"The ring has been reclaimed from the sinners. The desecrators are defeated, and divine power is ready to cleanse us all. The sacred relic is in the hands of the faithful and it is pure once more, thanks to all those who sacrificed themselves for the glory of The Great Journey! All who made this day possible. All who allowed The Covenant to successfully complete this trial."
The Prophet of Mercy continued:
"This was our lesson. Our trial of faith. Our final step to prove our loyalty to the gods. Our readiness to sacrifice everything and, casting aside fear, take a step forward toward greatness. When the Humans who desecrated the ring were exterminated, when our trial was passed, the sacred ring began to work. We are ready to receive the reward. We are ready to begin The Great Journey. Right now!"
Truth nodded.
"The moment of Truth has arrived. The charging of the divine mechanism is finishing. The portal is about to be opened. Transcendence, ascension will begin. The Great Journey will begin. That which the Prophets before us predicted. That to which we have led The Covenant," at that moment, a bright dot separated from the ring, moving into the center of the mechanism. Truth was very pleased, although the fact that the ring had triggered somewhat early was slightly irritating, "remember what sacrifices were made for this day. Remember what path we have all traveled, the faithful. Remember that only those pure in faith will enter the halls of the gods today. Remember who led you here."
With that, the prophets turned to watch the opening of the gates along with everyone else. And when the projectile almost reached the central glow, they looked at each other and simultaneously pronounced, raising their hands:
"Salvation comes. Let The Great Journey begin!"
There it is, a new facet of power. A new facet of divinity. Now.
The dot reached the center and a bright light flooded the space around. It was the last thing they saw. The last thing seen by the living within a radius of twenty thousand light-years with the epicenter at this point.
Khaela's Avatar, when the light faded, left the generator she was defending from the robots and looked down. The spores were scorched away, along with some flora and fauna. There is nothing else. No movement, only ash and smoke. Only death and machines that remove any traces of the presence of living beings. No one else.
"Task completed. Shot fired. Noble Team—farewell."
***
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