Chapter 20

Daniels saw the flash on his HUD, and the feed simply led to static, as far as he could see, his best friend hadn't made it out

In a sudden flash of anger he slammed his fist into the wall, leaving a small dent, it was his fault that Harvest went in there, if he had simply told him to wait then he would still be

"Shut up." Tatyana said, annoyed, "Until we know what happened to him, he's MIA, now stop dwelling on it and get to stopping the Flood."

Daniels did his best to calm down, if he kept acting in anger he would get himself killed, and that would save nobody

"What kind of energy was that?" he demanded, his voice cold

"It wasn't the Flood, it seemed more like magic than anything else." Tatyana said, "There's no scattered atoms so he wasn't vaporized, it could be something along the lines of a teleport."

"Magic can do a lot" Daniels said, "But I doubt Harvest learned how to teleport while he was gone."

He half hoped that Harvest did know how, but that was half past not happening

"Give me a marker" he ordered, "I need a tab on any and all life signals on this ship"

"Why all the life signs?"

"Because there won't be any when I'm done."

[…]

Harvest felt like he was being thrown like a ragdoll, wind whipped past his face and he realized his VISR must've shattered, the pain in his back intensified, darkness was all around him, he could see a light as he was freefalling towards it

It is not yet your time

He wondered if that voice was him going insane or if he had died, a split second later he slammed into the square of light

It felt like fire and ice were running through his veins, the air was ejected from his lungs, and he coughed out the MRE he had the previous night

"Some are more subject to this than others after a rough rescue" a familiar voice said

He looked up, and three figures that he recognized were there, a small purple unicorn, a battered ODST, and an even more battered alien

"What…the hell…was that…?" He managed to get out

"Twilight's got this magic spell to teleport, as long as she knows what the place looks like." Young said, "Joseph had let her into the bridge at one point."

"But the time of the parasite is now" Qualomee looked off, between the trees, "If it is not stopped than this whole world will be destroyed."

Harvest managed to get his double vision out of the way and saw they were in the Everfree Forest, a clearing where a UNSC pelican was hanging on the vines and branches

"Where's the Rookie?" Harvest asked

"Morris is still on board the Scavenger" Young answered, "He went to look for Daniels, hopefully we can get the COMMs array back up, we have no signal out here."

Harvest sat up, and swallowed his pride, teleportation must've had more of an effect on him than he thought, his lunch was the only one spilled on the grass

"This isn't good" Harvest's mind caught up, "You certainly took a beating."

"We took down more than they had predicted" Qualomee made a gesture Harvest assumed was a grin, "Yet not a single life was lost on our part."

"Those ponies know how to hole up in an emergency" Young laughed, "I doubt an anti-wraith mine would get through."

"Did you say that Morris was inside the Scavenger?" Harvest nearly lost more of his lunch

"Yeah, why?" Young looked at him

"There may be a worse issue than the Flood." Harvest began to recount the tales of what he found in the weapons room

[…]

Daniels had been cutting through the Flood forms he found, before breaking into the weapons room and heading straight for Qualomee's assigned locker

He disregarded the green slime blobs, as he'd seen enough of them before, he tore open the locker and uncovered the elite's little project

The ODST hefted the enhanced plasma cannon and hefted it, testing its weight which was rather heavy

The sound of a door opening caught his attention, and Daniels turned around to face several dozen flood combat forms

'Looks like about 50 of them, just as many training dummies.' Daniels hefted the weapon and aimed towards the horde

He fired once, a massive flash of purple was accompanied by a hallow thump and a massive wind that knocked him backwards into the locker

As he pulled himself together Daniels saw that the slime blobs had been blown apart by the blast

Some of the bug things that he had seen in town had been set free, they quickly caught sight of the lone trooper

Surprisingly, most of them scuttled behind him seemingly cowering in fear, once Daniels turned around he understood why

The blast had caught the attention of a giant form of the Flood not seen on the Halo ring, but on the planet Harvest back in 2531. A Flood Thrasher.

"Sweet Jesus." Daniels readied his rifle, "This isn't going to end well."

Intelligence suggested that this thing was an infected brute, even if it wasn't the sheer force this thing could put into someone's skull was mind-blowing. If it got hold of him or the bugs they'd be toast, with brains on the side

It sniffed, and began to feel its way around the room, Daniels nearly laughed, it couldn't see! He held a finger up to where his mouth would be in order to tell the bugs to be quiet, this would be insanely risky

Daniels picked up a piece of the locker, looked up at the catwalks above, and gave it his hardest yet most accurate throw, time seemed to slow down as the piece of battered metal slammed right into the catwalk, knocking it downward

At that exact moment he gave a cry, he hoped it sounded something similar to speech because he had intended to shout 'run'

The bugs picked up on it, because as one they began to rush towards the doorway, Daniels hadn't looked back, nor did he intend to

The catwalk crashed down behind him, blocking the pathway inside

Daniels put his hands on his knees and breathed deeply, he had dropped the giant gun inside the weapons room, now he'd have to make do with his rifle

He remembered the bugs, they seemed to look around confused, the ODST noticed that several of them hadn't made it through

"Just one thing" Tatyana chimed in, "We've got company, right through that door."

[…]

Morris was wandering his way through the ship, near the cargo bay, fallen bodies of Flood and changeling were everywhere, he checked his COMM again, it was still damaged from the fight, no channels available to anyone

"Where the hell is he?" he complained to himself

The sooner he found Daniels the sooner they could clean up this mess

The lack of enemy contacts was fraying his nerves, as if there was something ready to jump out and attack him any second

His weapon was a basic pistol, he hadn't found much else in the wreckage of the battle, he'd have to make his way to Communications; namely he'd have to get to the bridge

He pressed the controls of a metal door, and found the barrel of a gun right in his face

"Fancy meeting you here" Morris quipped

"What the hell are you doing here?" Daniels demanded

"Looking for you, you'd get yourself killed on your own." Morris rebutted

Daniels breathed deeply, "Fine, but don't expect me to get you out of Hell alive."

Morris nodded, before looking at the Changelings

"What are those things doing in here?"

"I got them out of a situation with a Thrasher, they haven't stopped following me since." Daniels shrugged, "As long as they don't get in the way I couldn't care less."

"So, what's the plan, we've got a lot to do if we want to get everything together for the next Covenant assault." Morris looked around, "Where to first?"

Daniels hefted the rifle, "We go in and fix the source of the infection"

[…]

Harvest put his left hand first, finding a nice perch in the growth of the Everfree, his position in the trees would make it much easier to see if any danger was incoming

"Keep me covered!" Young called, "I've got to fix the COMMs on this junk-heap!"

"Not a moment too soon Grunt" Qualomee called into the trees, "The parasite is upon us!"

'Grunt?' Harvest thought to himself, before firing his DMR that was in the weapons stash

The Flood wasn't going to let up any time soon, it was quickly and efficiently sweeping through the camp, before striking and vanishing back into the trees again

"I want a defensive perimeter set up around the camp" Harvest ordered, "Put up anything you can find to make a barrier."

"There's nothing useful in this pile of garbage" Young shook her head, "The signal is next to dead, we're gonna have to trust Morris on this one."

"Woman, we can still fight the parasite!" Qualomee raised his plasma rifle, "For glory!"

At that exact moment, the forest exploded into chaos

[…]

Tatyana began to run some scans on the town from the ship's sensors, something was wrong, it was almost as if she could taste it

Joseph and his squad were an odd bunch, they got the job done where most others couldn't but the fact that their behavior (especially Joseph's) had altered since their initial landing

The AI had burned through nearly half of her seven year life, living as a ship AI for a search and repair vessel, it was almost the most boring thing ever. Then the Alpha Team came along, they typically left her in the ship, Tatyana suspected they weren't aware she was there, as she was the one who deleted the second file from the Reach Archives

Despite her limited understanding in human emotions, what she had seen the young Rookie Harvest endure during his time with the Alpha Team, he wouldn't bode well with the events on Reach

Even though she deleted the files, she kept a copy for analysis later, they may prove useful in her study of the ever growing Delta Squadron, the now five troopers were all very alternate, yet the cooperation they had was undeniable

Then they picked her up, after Twilight had taken her for study in her basement, the attack of the Changeling-Flood Forms, and the rescue enacted by Joseph, she had found that field research was quite enjoyable, it gave her information the UNSC may be able to use later

'Why now?' a sudden thought struck her, 'We can't get off planet, what does the Flood hope to gain?'

Unless of course there was a loose end that wasn't tied up, but the likelihood of that was… rather large knowing the group she was now a part of

There was more she needed to know, the insatiable desire to study this squad was powerful, and she came to the conclusion that she may not return to the UNSC

'This can only end in one scenario' she thought solemnly, 'Time for some more dedicated research.'