Chapter 18

Harvest was walking through the dark corridors of the Scavenger, ready for any sort of ambush, the sickly yellow light of the VISR was irritating and made him feel as if he were back in boot camp, ah boot camp. He'd never forget the day he put 'toilet cakes' in the commander's locker, he had to scrub the bathrooms with his toothbrush for weeks

A strange light snapped him out of his thoughts, it was glowing green and seemed to be coming from somewhere in the direction of the bridge

The lone soldier hefted his rifle, god knew what lied in wait for anyone foolish enough to tread this path

It was all in the job description

"Feet first into Hell…" Harvest muttered to himself

Then he walked to the bridge, and almost certainly danger awaits

[…]

Daniels sat on the stool in front of the decrepit CPU, it looked like something from the year 2013, ancient technology. How those humans got on with it was a mystery, but the bigger mystery was what was happening on the screen

Are you going to just sit there or help?

The ODST reached for the keyboard

Who are you?

The name's Tatyana, I was the Scavenger's AI

The Scavenger had an AI?

It had to, did you think Morris handled everything himself?

I'm sure he thought he did

He didn't. Now in the USB port of this computer there's a chip, I need you to take it out and insert it into your helmet

How do I know this isn't a trap?

Have you ever Joseph?

Daniels shrugged, he never did, and nothing ventured, nothing gained

Where do I put the chip?

There's a slot on the back of your helmet, it should fit in there.

Daniels kneeled down, there was indeed a chip in the USB port, he removed it and held it up to his view

It was a UNSC standard AI chip, exactly what would need to hold a smart AI that Tatyana claimed to be

He reached the chip around his shoulder, before sliding it into a slot he didn't even notice existed on his helmet

Daniels flinched as an insanely cold fluid filled his head, it felt like frozen mercury was entering his skull

"Sorry about that, it's not always pleasant the first time." A voice said through his helmet speakers

"I wouldn't imagine" Daniels retorted, "Do Spartans have to deal with this?"

"Only the ones with AI." Tatyana answered

"How did you end up down here?" the ODST asked

"Did you think Twilight was doing 'spring cleaning'?" she said flatly

"Of course not, but you could have just said so." Daniels rolled his eyes

"The town of Ponyville appears to be covered in a restrictive goo that saps a sort of energy from it, we may need a sample for analysis."

"Save the town first, samples later."

Daniels checked his ammo, he had to find Twilight and the others, and for that he needed to go back outside

[…]

Harvest was nearing the bridge when some movement caught his eye by the barracks, inside a large portion of the strange slime was blocking off a corridor into the weapons testing rooms

He fastened his rifle to his belt and tried to punch through the slime, it simply bounce him back off

Now the ODST had to think of a clever little scheme like Daniels would, the slime reflected his punch with equal force, but if he were to slowly come at it?

He stuck his finger into the goop, it was cold and had the consistency of snot, but wouldn't let him get through, he retracted his hand and wiped the strange gel on the wall

In the event of an emergency that would prevent a crew member from reaching the escape pods from the bridge, where would they go?

Harvest snapped his fingers, "The service corridor!"

It wasn't too difficult to find, the corridor was enough for one human to walk through with little trouble, this path was usually unnoticed unless it was being specially looked for

The doors slowly slid open, these corridors could be specially used in the case of emergency to hide certain items or people if the need be

Harvest checked the plasma rifle, it wouldn't be quiet if he ever had to fight something, and it was perfectly likely that he was going to fight something

The further he went into the corridor the more it became difficult for his suit to filter the air, apparently there was something in the air that was clogging the filter

Luckily being close to the weapons room he could find some spare air tanks, he queued his suit to scan the residue in the air

While that was running he opened the door to the weapons room, being a service corridor it opened to a catwalk that was meant to service the lights. Down below were some weird looking piles of goop, one of them appeared to be shaking…

Harvest took the strong metal coil that was kept up there and tied one bit to the pole, the other end to his waist, and slowly began to slide down

Once his boots hit the metal of the floor his suit had made a ding, no sooner had he realized his mistake

He hadn't checked underneath the catwalk on the way down, and several thousand flood infection forms swarmed downwards towards him

Without thinking he lifted the rifle, but once thought kicked in he sprung towards the gooped up doorway, using it as something to back up against

Harvest began to fire the plasma rifle into the swarm, luckily enough there were no combat forms and all he had to deal with was the little mushroom-like infectious manifestation

"Joseph's gonna be pissed" Harvest muttered to himself, "He doesn't like it when the home base gets compromised."

[…]

Daniels was going through the town, the only place big enough to hold several hundred captives would be in the Scavenger, so it would be best to take a look there, strangely enough Tatyana wasn't bad company, even though Daniels had never taken much of a liking to AI

"Unfortunately I believe we are dealing with something you may be familiar with, especially considering your record." Tatyana said

"And what would that be?" Daniels asked

"You may not have noticed, because of your vacuum sealed suit, but there's this alteration of the atmosphere, and the only thing on this planet that does that is…"

Daniels swore under his breath

"I remember, the Flood have to be back." Daniels paused, "Then what are these bug things? They don't seem very Flood-like to me."

"I'm guessing a native species, but this is only speculation."

The ODST checked his ammo counter, it read at a full 32

"We've been compromised! Flood infection forms in the Scavenger!" Harvest's voice keyed through the COMM

"On my way." Daniels cut the link, he didn't need any panic from his friend right now

Besides, when it mattered most Harvest always seemed to make it out one way or another, he just had to do it one more time

[…]

Through rock and metal and time, it has waited

With the Artifact it would sweep the universe, and embrace all into its grasp

Once the reclaimers were erased, and the Artifact out of their grasp, it would finally take victory