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Hopestar : cp7 : Dreams of Nightmares
Posted By: sam_fisha<sam_fisha@yahoo.com>
Date: 16 February 2005, 8:41 PM
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The Marine struggled with the strange thing which had attacked his face, he grappled with it before an ally stabbed the thing with his knife. It exploded into fleshy ribbons, sending sickly green mucus onto the Marines face.
He spat as he wiped the green guck of his face with his sleeve. "What was that?" He asked as he examined the chunks left by it.
"Flood." The Captain said as he looked at it, remembering what the officer had said earlier.
Fields of golden grasses stretched farther than he could see, lush green trees dotting the hillside before him. The azure colored sky above him was filled with colorful birds, singing peacefully as he walked. Behind him in the distance stood a small farmhouse, old white paint dry and flaking off, a large bell hung from the oversize porch, ringing lightly to tell him of dinner.
A large dog walked at his heels, its thick black coat of fur seemed as dark as a starless night. He turned to head back to the farmhouse, walking casually towards the quiet ringing of the bell on the porch. Elsewhere he was Corporal Trudy, third division, but here he was Dan, just another person living out his life. The pleasant scent of potatoes and cooked turkey wafted along the light breeze. Large stalks of corn twirled and dipped at the mercy of the wind in a never ending dance. Slowly the saffron colored sky turned an angry red, the winds rising to a strong gust. The large dog began barking, sniffing the air as if something were wrong.
The gentle ringing of the dinner bell stopped and all the birds in the sky above stopped singing, instead flying as fast as they could away from where he stood. The air grew hot and dry, the winds growing even stronger. The dog barked louder but he could barely hear him over the rushing wind. Somewhere in the distance a white flash appeared a solid wall of light stretching from the ground to some unseen place in the sky. It grew closer with startling speed, spreading until it was as wide as he could see.
He turned and ran from the wall of light, feeling an intense heat begin to overtake him. The farmhouse was enveloped in the light; it burned instantly and fell to the ground. Stalks of wheat curled and turned black as the heat claimed them. He ran as fast as he could, stumbling occasionally in his hasty retreat from the heat.
His foot landed on a large clump of dirt and twisted at the ankle, sending him to the ground. He rolled on his back, gasping from the pain. Above the sky he saw the source of the heat. A long purple streak of hatred hovered in the distance, shooting the beam of light and heat down at the planet.
The wall grew closer, intense heat rippling through him.
Corporal Trudy gasped as he awoke, looking around himself in a daze. He shook off his memory of his home and focused at the task at hand. Surviving until the Hopestar sent help.
The Master Chief floated down the large hole, watching the solid rock around him with mild interest. Occasionally he would see a mineral which sparkled as he pointed his helmet light at it.
He floated another foot down and saw an instant change; the dark rock was replaced with the all too familiar engraved metal he had known to be made by the forerunner. Complex designs ran the length of the hole, which had opened into a large rectangular room. The designs seemed to change and twirl as he watched them, golden and silver colored lines that were somehow always moving, even though they were fixed to the wall.
He peeled his gaze away from them and focused on the room. It was at least ten meters across, and littered with square outcroppings of metal covered with delicate looking etchings. On one end of the room a large pile of cylinders the size of his arm stood stacked beside a large octagonal hole surrounded by bright lights. In a corner stood one of the large hovering holographic panels.
In the opposite side of the room was a large door, covered with the same forerunner hieroglyphs. He was hovering two meters off the ground when the gravity field weakened, releasing him and allowing him to fall the last six feet. He landed gracefully on one knee in crouch and recovered instantly. He readied his plasma pistol and watched for any sign of Covenant. A thousand questions raced through his mind even as he was focusing on the search. Was this the Ark? Where are the Covenant? How'd I get from the Forerunner ship to here? He silenced his thoughts and focused on the holographic panel.
Dozens of tiny holographic shapes moved in never ending circuits, flying along hundreds of tunnels and pathways. He zoomed in on a single stationary object. There was a vague feeling that he recognized it.
He leaned closer to it and quickly felt foolish that he had not recognized it instantly. The little hovering hologram was a perfect representation of a Sentinel .
He shook his head and wondered why he hadn't noticed it immediately. Ever since he had awoken on Earth he had been disorganized and unfocused. Changed somehow.
The metal clanked loudly as he walked to the door on the other side of the room. His fingers hovered over a small holographic keypad for a second before hitting a few of the keys, almost by instinct, like a pianist playing a piece he thought had been forgotten.
The door beeped pleasantly and slid open, granting him access into an almost identical room beyond. Walking in, he noticed one large difference; the ceiling was covered with large cylinders. The strange cylinders were about two feet across and a meter from end to end, colored a strange light teal.
He tore his gaze away from them and turned to search the area when he found himself face to face with a large Covenant Elite.
He jumped back and brought his plasma pistol up, but did not fire. He realized as quickly as he had jumped back that it was nothing more than an excellent hologram. Stepping closer he saw that what projected it was indeed Forerunner technology, not Covenant. Scolding himself for not seeing it on the way in he began to wonder why it was there.
"Exquisite isn't it?" Said a chirpy metallic voice behind him. He spun around and raised his plasma pistol, bringing it to bear on a small Sentinel. It was clearly a Monitor but it was different, smaller and its encasing metal roll cage that protected its 'eye' seemed to be thinner than that of Guilty Spark.
"Who are you?" The Master Chief asked as he lowered his plasma pistol, knowing the Monitor would do no harm to him.
"I am Monitor one-oh-seven, Wanderer." The Monitor said happily, bobbing up and down in the air as he talked. "Monitor of this ship." His yellow 'eye' blinked excitedly.
"Wanderer? Ship?" The Master Chief said as he watched the little machine dance and twirl in the air excitedly.
"Yes." The Monitor answered politely. "My designation is Monitor one-oh-seven and I am the protector of this vessel.
"What happened to the Covenant that were here? And the Humans?" The Master Chief asked as he examined a Sentinel tunnel behind the Monitor.
"Covenant? Humans? Ah, yes, you are referring to..." The Monitor drifted off as he was talking, like an old man forgetting the ending of a story.
"What happened to them?" John asked, watching the strange Monitor. Guilty Spark had acted slightly like this while he was trying to activate the first Halo.
"Ah, yes, they left as they ordered me to activate the weapon. Curious, only a few of the known life forms were present.
"The weapon was activated!?" He yelled at the Monitor. "What happened?"
"Nothing, they did not have the clearance to order such a breach of protocol. I was however informed of a..." Once again the Monitor trailed off, annoying the Master Chief to no end.
"What is this vessel?" The Monitor turned to him, suddenly growing silent of his chirps and whirling sounds.
"What is it?" The Captain asked as he looked down at the sedated balloon of flesh.
"An infection form, the lowest of the Flood forms." ONI officer Goldman answered, gazing through the glass down into the examining room of sick bay three.
"Hmm... And why wasn't I informed that the Flood wasn't a myth?" The Captain asked with the same tone of a Mother about to scold her child. "Why didn't you ONI idiots tell me of an immediate risk!"
"We didn't find it necessary." Goldman answered, not moving his eyes from the little nightmare below him.
"And you didn't think it necessary to warn me even when you knew I was allowing an unresponsive Pelican to dock with a ship full of unarmed civilians?" The Captain asked, beginning to grow angry.
"It was your choice to allow it to dock." Goldman Turned away from the glass, his back facing the Captain.
"My decision would have been different if ONI had given me all the information!" The Captain yelled, bits of saliva flying from the Captains mouth and splattering on the back of the officers black uniform.
"What's done is done Captain; we should focus on the task at hand." The officer activated a com link to the Doctors in the room below. "Begin scans, and when that's done we'll start the dissection."
"Meet me in my office at oh-seven hundred hours. Don't be late." The Captain turned and walked from the room, leaving Goldman to oversee the dissection of the Flood thing.
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