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Halo from the Flood's Point of View: The Sergeant
Posted By: Simpsons Rule
Date: 6 June 2003, 1:34 AM
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Author's Note: Some references in my story are talked about in Halo: The Flood. Alpha Base, for example, is one of them. If you have read the book, you'll understand my story a little better. If you haven't, you can still understand it, but I suggest you read the book. It fills in some important information that went on in Halo.
Meanwhile back at the front of the structure, the group of marines who had been assigned to guard it came under attack by the Flood. With better weapons and more room to retreat and regroup, the marines managed to kill off all of the Infectious Forms that assaulted them. Since contact with Keyes' group had been lost, the marines decided to stay stationed just outside an entrance to the structure. Unable to make any radio contact with Alpha Base for evac, due to the thick canopy, the team decided to broadcast an SOS through the downed pelican's com channel. Hopefully when a search and rescue team came, they would hear it. Uncertain if the "creatures" were scattered around the swamp area, the entire team slowly made their way to the pelican, recorded the message, and returned to their hiding place, waiting for help.
The Flood were spreading more and more rapidly throughout Halo. Sifting through their host's memories, they soon found the locations to many downed ships, all but one of which were Covenant. The Flood continued to attack the Covenant, each time adding more and more bodies to their impressive army. Although the Flood weren't necessarily physically stronger than the Covenant, the addition of the Infectious Forms proved them to be too much to handle for the Covenant. Grunts and Jackals lacked the full body shielding the Elites had and so they were very easily infected. Since the Infectious Forms attacked in very large numbers, Grunts and Jackals were overwhelmed and as soon as an Infectious Form inserted its needle-like tentacle into the creature's spine, it lost all control over its body. Elites, on the other hand, were a bit more difficult to infect. If an Infectious Form attacked an Elite while its shields were up, it would simply explode.
The barrier that the shields created didn't kill the Infectious Forms, just as running into a wall didn't kill them. Instead, when the Infectious Forms came in contact with the energy given off by the shields, it killed them. This just made infecting Elites more difficult, not impossible. The former Grunts and Jackals, that were now Carrier Forms, had a good method for dealing with the Elite's shields. Upon seeing an Elite, the Carrier Form would approach it and explode at its feet. The visual explosion was deceiving because although it didn't look like it, the Carrier Form's explosions had the same effect as grenades. The explosions would, hopefully, take out the Elite's shields and the resulting birth of Infectious Forms would infect the shield-less Elite.
Sergeant Marvin Mobuto had been thrown out of his warthog during the trip back to Alpha Base from the Pillar of Autumn. Left for dead, the Sergeant lay unconscious ten feet from his overturned warthog until the rain woke him. He stood and examined the battlefield, saw the dead bodies strewn across the valley, and knew his chances of getting back to Alpha Base were slim. He had no way of contacting the base and no vehicle to get him there. He rationed what he could from the overturned warthog, a health pack, a fully loaded shotgun, six grenades and enough food to sustain him for five days. He tried in vain to correct the warthog, but it proved to be too heavy. As he started to walk in the general direction of Alpha Base, he saw a fairly intact ghost on the ground with its Elite driver dead, still holding the handlebars. He removed the Elite and began pressing buttons until the engine started. He familiarized himself with the controls and began to drive to Alpha Base thinking that maybe he'd survive after all.
The battle hadn't been over for long since groups of Covenant, set to survey the area, were just arriving. The Sergeant heard the Banshees and had just begun to turn the Ghost around when they spotted him. At first, the Banshee pilot thought it was a lucky Elite that had survived the battle. He tried to contact him through the Ghost's communication system but there was no response.
Trying to get the hell away from the Banshee, Sgt. Mobuto was driving as fast as he could when this strange noise came from the Ghost. He recognized the sound as the language the Elites spoke. Realizing they must be trying to contact him, thinking he was an Elite, the Sgt. drove into a small structure he saw, hoping that it would buy him some time. He hopped out of the Ghost and ran deeper and deeper into the structure, looking for a back door to escape from. He finally found an extremely long tunnel and, thinking it was better than facing the Covenant, he began to walk through it.
Unknown to the Sergeant, the long tunnel was leading him to the Flood's holding facility but even more than that, to the index. The tunnels were reinforced to prevent the Flood from destroying them and blocking the Forerunner's access to the index. The monitor, who had been waiting for the Forerunners to reclaim the index, was observing the tunnels when he noticed the Sergeant. So much time had passed, without word from the Forerunners, that the monitor was beginning to think that they had gone extinct. As he scanned him, the monitor found out that he was immune to the Flood. The Flood, due to some natural resilience, couldn't infect his body. As in any organism, if a new threat was introduced to their environment, those who could adapt, usually a very small percentage, would. The Sergeant was very lucky indeed. Knowing that Halo must be activated, at all costs, the monitor approached him.
"Hello, my name is 343 Guilty Spark. The Flood have escaped and it is essential that we activate this installation. Please, follow me."
Thinking the monitor was some sort of Covenant camera or weapon, the Sergeant unloaded 5 shells of his shotgun before he realized that it wasn't attacking him, it was trying to talk to him, and that the shotgun was having no effect. The only thing the Sergeant could make out was "Please follow me." All of a sudden, gold light began to circle the Sergeant and he began to feel nauseated. Before he knew it, he was within some sort of building.
The Flood knew the moment the Sergeant had entered the building. They all began to swarm to him, eager to get him infected and to stop him from reaching the blue beam, three levels up.
The Sergeant had no idea what the hell these things were. For that matter, he didn't care. All he knew was that they were easily killed by the shotgun and that was good enough for him. The problem was that there were too damn many of them. He had no one to cover his six except for the Infectious Forms, which took any opportunities they saw to attack. The Combat Forms left the Infectious Forms alone; they knew the Sergeant's infection was inevitable since he was only one person. They also didn't want to risk harming the host beyond infection. Finally Sgt. Mobuto shot his last shell and, with not enough time to reload, an Infectious Form jumped on his back and inserted its tentacle into his spine.
The Sgt. felt an unimaginable sharp pain in his back as the tentacle touched his spine. Without even thinking, he punched the little bastard clinging to his back. It burst and gave the Sergeant time to reload the shotgun and finish off all of the Infectious Forms in the area. With a moment to relax, the Sergeant pulled out what remained of the Infectious Form's tentacle and used his health pack to seal the wound with bio-foam.
His hands were shaking uncontrollably, his eyes were darting from one shadow to the next, and he wondered what the hell was happening to him. Besides the sharp pain in his back, he felt fine. Fortunately for him, the Infectious Forms didn't sever the spinal cord for if they did, they risked being unable to control the host's body. As the marine was checking to make sure there weren't any more Infectious Forms, he noticed this unmistakable bright blue light, the monitor.
"Who the hell are you and why did you bring me here? You almost got me killed!" In his fit of rage, the leatherneck put five additional shells into the monitor.
"That was unnecessary reclaimer. As I have previously stated, I am 343 Guilty Spark and the monitor of this installation. We must activate this ring and stop the Flood from spreading. You must retrieve the index and reunite it with the core."
Before the Sgt. could respond to that, the Combat Forms chose that moment to attack. Having a wide variety of Covenant weapons, the Combat Forms posed a serious threat. Luckily, the shotgun proved to be a very effective weapon and before long, no Flood were left on that floor. Looking at the carnage that was left behind and unable to get a response from 343 Guilty Spark, the marine picked up a plasma rifle and four plasma grenades and followed the monitor hoping for an exit.
The other Flood had heard the noise and were well alerted that there was someone within the structure. They thought, however, that whoever it had been was now infected since the gunfire had ceased. To their astonishment, they heard the elevator begin to rise. Although they didn't know what the noise was, they did know that it wasn't another Flood who had activated it.
The Sergeant walked through a narrow corridor, off the elevator and found himself in a seemingly empty room. As the monitor was leading the way, still unable to get a response from him, the Sergeant was following very closely hoping that they could get out before anymore of the creatures appeared. Just as the leatherneck was in the middle of the room, the other Flood attacked.
Surrounded on all sides by Flood, the marine desperately threw grenades to suppress the coming onslaught of Flood. With no more fragmentation grenades left, the Sergeant was glad he decided to pick up the plasma grenades and began throwing them as well. One plasma grenade, the last one, stuck directly to a Combat Form. It leaped into the air and landed right next to the marine, tentacles flailing. Rather than fire his weapon, the marine dived away from the Combat Form and caught a bit of the explosion.
When he had leaped, he didn't care of what was on the other side, but now, after surviving the grenade, the marine could look up to see he had landed about ten feet from an entire group of Infectious Forms. He quickly tried reaching for his shotgun but found that it had dropped during the dive. Remembering his plasma rifle, he quickly tried to fire it. Desperate and scared, the leatherneck held down the trigger for an automatic spray of plasma.
He began to feel the weapon heating up and before he knew it, the gun had stopped firing and was releasing its waste heat. The Sergeant couldn't do a thing except scream as the Infectious Forms tried to infect him. Although they were unable to, the two-inch wide holes that were punched through his skin to his spine made him feel like he was going through hell. Though not enough to instantly kill him, the Sergeant couldn't even move.
Finally the Infectious Forms gave up and left the body. The Sergeant, who was barely conscious, just lay in a pool of his own blood and watched as multiple fire from Combat Forms finally ended his misery.
With that, the Flood decided to return to their hiding places within the vents in case anyone else decided to cross their path.
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