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Ring Of The Forerunners Part II
Posted By: Locke<Locke1588@aol.com>
Date: 29 December 2002, 9:00 pm
Read/Post Comments
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Author's note: Keep that feedback coming! Also, I'm sorry this part took so long to get here. Like most HBO authors, I was busy with the holidays.
Location: Halo
Valley near the Forerunner lab ANIM
The sleek, teal Forerunner craft hovered at about 90 or so feet above the bloodbath below. The swarm of escaped Flood swarmed across the valley, infesting and slaughtering innocent Forerunner scientists. Carriers were blowing up, spores leaping at fleeing forerunners, bedlam and chaos everywhere. The ambassador who was on the craft gazed down at destruction below him, as a small rocket pounded the bottom of the ship's hull. He made a deep, angry frown as anger and rage swelled up inside him. Shang-Zaer stepped up to the ambassador, resting his hand on the ambassador's shoulder. The ambassador did not turn around. He continued to gaze down at the battlefield as he yelled at Shang-Zaer. <Why do you allow this to continue? You could give the order any second and end this! How can you just calmly watch the destruction of your own people?>
He motioned to the many soldiers that stood around the balcony of the roofed "hover" craft. Each soldier was wearing armor and holding powerful handheld plasma cannons. The armor was shielded, and it looked like Spartan armor except it was silver, and slightly larger to fit the Forerunner body. The soldiers to, seemed unable to watch the destruction of fellow Forerunners without blasting the Flood to smoldering bits. Still, they had been given an order not to shoot, and they were completely loyal to all orders.
<If I let the soldiers fire, ambassador, there will be no Flood left to use for the test. It's not like me to give up such an opportunity to accomplish so much! I was hoping that impressing you with the test would be one of those accomplishments. I already spoke with the other 2 ambassadors, and they are very pleased with my progress! > <I should cut of all progress of the Flood creation right now! I want for at least SOME good to come out of sacrificing our own scientists! These so called monitor-prototypes better get here soon enough to save some of our scientists! > A wave of floating, shinny-blue orbs suddenly appeared on the horizon of the left hill. They began descending like a swarm, a cloud of them swooping over packs of Flood warriors. Laser fire from the Monitor Prototypes swept across the ground like searchlights, eradicating packs of Flood warriors, and even hitting some of the fleeing scientists. One of them obviously hadn't been equipped with a laser weapon. It just floated in the same position above the battlefield. It didn't seem to be paying attention to the battle; it was just staring off in some other direction. The ambassador turned to Shang-Zaer, a look of fierce anger on his face. He couldn't bear to watch innocent Forerunners carelessly slaughtered by some stupid experimental droids. Shang-Zaer spoke quickly, but in a calm, wise sounding voice. But Shang-Zaer was not wise, they both new he was just some greedy Forerunner engineer. <The purpose of this test is to select the perfect Monitor Droid for Halo, not defend individuals>.
The ambassador could no longer control his overwhelming anger. He turned swiftly, startling Shang-Zaer, and then slugged the engineer in the face. Shang-Zaer had been wearing a helmet, but the punch shattered the golden visor. He was just beginning to regain his balance, when a second punch drove him through the glass and onto the observation balcony. The support rail was shattered as he flew off the edge and vanished below. Standing on the balcony, the satisfied ambassador looked up just in time to see an inch-thick, controlled beam of red energy shoot up from below the ship. The energy beam was not like a regular blaster shot or a bullet; it continued to go on, like light from a flashlight. It penetrated the shield and armor of a nearby Forerunner soldier, and then, very swiftly, streaked through his torso, and burst out of his back. The soldier stumbled to one side, and the stream of energy stopped. No further damage was done to the soldier, the hit was completely clean. No one really bothered to analyze the damage though, as the corpse slipped over the edge of the balcony and stumbled downward into the valley. The ambassador looked away just in time to see a severely wounded Shang-Zaer climbing up the hull of the ship towards the balcony. He grabbed a post on the balcony, and tried to stumble back onto the ship. The ambassador leveled a large weapon at his head as he started to yell. <YOU TRAI-> In a sudden rain of energy, streaks of red streaked through the torsos of every soldier onboard, along with the ambassador. Corpses began slipping off the balcony that surrounded the ship, making a 90-foot fall into the battle below. It was definitely a bad idea to position all the guards on the balcony.
Shang-Zaer stumbled back on board, gazing at the piles of corpses around him. He ripped off his destroyed helmet and carelessly tossed itbehind his back. The ship was vibrating rapidly and shaking. Apparently, one of those energy streams had streaked through the hull and hit the engine. A female sounding mechanical voice echoed across the deck. "WARNING! HULL HAS TAKEN CRITICAL DAMAGE! HOVER ENGINE IS SHUTTING DOWN! WARNING!" A 90-foot fall would not be long once it began. Shang-Zaer didn't have much time to make a jump, and so he instantly ran toward the balcony and dove off the edge. A piece of the hovercraft blew up behind him in a clash of metal and a burst of flames. Shang-Zaer didn't have much time to think as he fell, but he did. That laser fire was sentinel weaponry! I thought those prototypes were still being built! Someone must have hacked into the computer system and activated them! He glanced up at the monitor who still hovered motionless above the battle, watching the sentinels eradicate everything. You did it! You activated the sentinels! Of course! You didn't use you laser fire, and never will, because you have a much greater power!
Meanwhile
Covonet stronghold on the ice planet Thor
2 ghosts were escorting a large Covonet pig across the snowy landscape toward a large valley. A Covonet pig is a sleek purple, hover vehicle with 2 seats up front and a gunner seat in the back. Pigs also have 2 plasma cannons on both sides of the front, near the bottom. You could say it was the Covonet version of a "warthog". The vehicles descended into the valley, where a large Covonet stalker ship was "parked". A banshee had landed on either side of the stalker, and a blue armored elite stood next to each one. Wearing a bulky environmental suit, the elite captain Salivar jumped out of the passenger seat of the pig, as the vehicle slowed to stop. Salivar moved to the front of the Stalker and waited patiently. Slowly, a sliding door opened in the front, and a large ramp slid down. 2 sword elites in gold armor walked to the bottom of the ramp and saluted the captain. Then they turned as a large, blue, snail like creature slithered down the ramp. He was hovering at least 3 inches above the ramp, and had semi-transparent, slimy blue skin. At the back of his "torso", near the bottom, was a large, pulsing, purplish bag. These were the very distinct features of Covonet Lieutenant Nahara. Both Salivar and the sword elites saluted him as he reached the bottom of the ramp. "Nahara, our drop ship is now en-route with the nearest primitive grunt colony, and we are moving the orbital cruiser into position to load them up once the treaty is formed!"
Nahara responded in a deep, slurred voice. "Salivar, how many troops is the drop ship carrying? How many banshees are escorting it?" Salivar replied slowly in a confused voice: "Nahara, the drop ship only carries Covonet priests, and there are no banshee escorts! The mission of the drop ship is to make a treaty with this grunt tribe and send them Covonet missionaries! You even said-" "You weak minded fool!" The skin around Nahara's slimy head flared as he yelled angrily at Salivar. "I cautioned you about this in our last conversation! Did you not just finish a battle with a grunt tribe? These are not peaceful, treaty-making, intelligent beings we are dealing with here! It makes no difference to them if we are armed! Your forces are to be ready for grunt attacks at all times! In fact, I doubt these creatures are even as intelligent as the semi-sentient, aquatic Gabunkas on the planet Nash!"
Salivar stumbled backwards, terrified. "Lieutenant, I did not know you were so concerned about the intelligence of these creatures! In fact, we dissected one of them, and they ARE less intelligent then the Gabunkas!" It was only after Salivar said this that he realized Nahara was only joking. He tried quickly to correct his mistake, but Nahara was too quick. "YOU CARELESS IMBECILE! YOU WILL PAY FOR ALL THIS!" Nahara motioned to the 2 sword elites, and before Salivar could flinch, he was hacked to bits by plasma swords. Nahara rotated his slug-like head, and looked down at the chunks of elite that lay on the ground, a look of pity on his face. He turned to the elite that had been driving the pig. "Captain Garsh, you will now take Salivar's place in command. I know you wont fail me Captain!" Startled, the newly appointed captain jumped out of the seat, and stumbled forward, saluting Nahara. "We must ensure that the missionaries have made that treaty!" Nahara barked to Garsh. "Get those ground vehicles onto-" Suddenly a grunt spear swooped out of nowhere and ricocheted off Garsh's head armor. "What the-" Garsh turned around, drew his plasma pistol, and rapidly began to fire into the wave of blue that was now swooping down the side of the hill.
Garsh instantly took charge, barking orders to his men. "Grunt survivors of the last battle! Fire at will!" Both sword elites charged into the wave, and the ghosts charged forward as the drivers released a rain of plasma. There was no longer a driver in the pig, so the elite gunner rotated the automatic plasma turret and fired a stream of plasma into the wave. He swayed the turret back and forth, killing any grunts that stumbled into his line of fire. A group of grunts holding clubs surrounded a sword elite and pounced. One of the grunts managed to jump up and whack the elite in the head, killing him. As the elite fell over, a grunt snatched his plasma sword and began waving it aimlessly over his head as he charged towards one of the ghosts. Without noticing, the grunt sliced the elite who was driving it in half, and whacked the engine of the ghost. The ghost blew up and the grunt was thrown backward by the impact. Captain Garsh stopped firing and ran forward, hopping into the driver's seat of the pig. He slowly rotated the hover vehicle, and activated the plasma cannons on the front. A grunt slinger threw some kind of rock into the left cannon. The energy flow was clogged, and the cannon blew up, leaving only the right cannon, the gunner, and Garsh's plasma pistol. For once it seemed like the rebel grunts might win!
Nahara turned and hovered back up the ramp into the stalker as the ramp began to close. Both banshees had already taken off and were now raining plasma upon the incoming grunt wave. " Tell those banshees to get back over here and escort us to the objective point!" Nahara barked to the pilot as the door behind him closed. "We'll leave Garsh and his men behind to distract the grunts! I'll appoint a new captain when we get back to the fortress!" The stalker took off, and the 2 banshees quickly joined it as it vanished over the horizon, stranding Garsh and his men in the icy valley. Salivar had carelessly dropped his communicator before he was hacked to bits. Garsh was still battling the grunts when the communicator device turned on. An elite appeared on the screen. "Captain Salivar! Excellent news! The missionaries you sent finally made a treaty with a tribe of those weird blue things! All the males in the tribe are being armed and loaded onto the corvette as we speak!" The elite stared at the white he saw on the screen, waiting for Salivar to pop up and reply. "Salivar? ... Salivar?"
Back on HALO
Remains of the Forerunner lab ANIM
Shang-Zaer sat in a large control room, wearing a life-support suit. This was the last functional control room in ANIM to be precise! The control room and the few remaining functional labs were controlled by a single power core in the interior of Halo, and intelligence reported a large number of Flood had infested the interior bellow Halo and waves of Flood Warriors were heading towards the power core. Forerunner technicians were trying to figure out: did the Flood actually KNOW it would easy to take ANIM once the power core was destroyed? Or was this unusual migration a coincidence? At one end of the room, a captain was rallying what was left of his troops. This squad was originally used to control the Flood on ANIM, but now they were just being sent into the interior of Halo to eradicate all the Flood. The flood was to powerful now for the Forerunner to make any efforts to control it. The Flood was now considered a failed creation, and the new plan was to contain what was left of the Flood once most of the Flood had been eradicated. The chosen monitor would then be left behind with a group of sentinels to make sure the contained Flood did not escape. The Forerunners would never annihilate a WHOLE species, and they wanted to keep their reputation as "elder, peaceful beings".
A forerunner soldier approached Shang-Zaer. A monitor prototype hovered next to him. "Shang-Zaer, this is the prototype you requested to speak to!" The soldier left, and Shang-Zaer turned to the Monitor. "Don't act innocent, monitor, I know you activated those sentinels. How did you do it? And why?" Just like all the other monitors, this one spoke in a butler-sounding accent. "The security firewall was poorly programmed! I could so easily hack through and activate the sentinels! I would never give up such an opportunity to accomplish so much!" Shang-Zaer realized the monitor was quoting HIM! How does he know this? Shang-Zaer thought. And then, suddenly, he realized why it was this particular monitor that had activated the sentinels. If the firewall was so poorly programmed, ANY of the droids could have hacked in and activated the sentinels! But then again, they were all ORDERED not to do that! That's it! That's the greater power this droid has! He has something none of the other ones do! Free will! Not ARTIFICIAL intelligence, TRUE intelligence! He continued to speak to the monitor as if he had not just discovered the droids secret, but he had a feeling the monitor could see right through him. "You cost me a lot of men! And that ambassador! I had to burn what was left of that ship, and then make up some excuse about how flood warriors blew it up! You almost cost me my job!" He acted frustrated, but deep inside he was really thinking: I've found it! I've found the perfect monitor! This is such a happy moment its unreal! "I apologize." The monitor answered in a calm voice. Then there was sort of a long, awkward pause. "Monitor!" Shang-Zaer interrupted the silence. "What is you name?" The monitor looked upward slightly and spoke in a proud voice, as if reciting a poem.
"I am 343-GuiltySpark"
Meanwhile
Elsewhere on Halo
The large, human ship began to lower itself to the ground. Three metallic legs unfolded with a swish and touched the ground. This was the ship that had been launched in 2025, the ship that carried a small number of Human passengers that had been in hibernation for 500 years. All the passengers stepped out of the vessel and looked around. THESE were truly the first humans to set foot on Halo. The master chief would not arrive for many, many years. Only the pilot, who had awakened an hour in advance to land the craft, had seen the huge ring world. He could not possibly explain it to the passengers. He was about to make a hopeless attempt do just that, when all the passengers saw what looked like a huge, sloping, tower in the distance. Mountains, oceans, and plains covered the side of the huge structure. In fact, there was one on both sides of them. "What is that thing?" asked one of the passengers. It was the pilot who replied. "I don't know but we're standing on it".
TO BE CONTINUED
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