The chapter begins late into the early morning of the next day, above the treeline of one of the Ark's forests, the rumbling of a Nightingale's engines echoing across the area, it's searchlights illuminating the greenery below.
Onboard the Nightingale, silence was present, the marines said nothing, having read the reports.
Something was on the Ark, beyond anything they've seen, beyond even the flood, forerunners and the Prometheans.
"I don't like it."
Said one marine, his voice gruff and sharp while his brows were covered by his visor.
"No one does Sargent, it's way too creepy, to... jelly like to be real.."
Responded another, turning to the Sargent
"And yet it does, we said the same thing about the covenant, the banished, the Prometheans and recently the flood."
The Sargent said, closing his eyes as the Nightingale crested a hilltop, it's engines rustling the branches and brush below, just as they entered a decimated patch of earth.
The marines looked out into the brown scorched soil, massive craters spanning tens of meters in all directions, fallen trees whose leaves and branches stripped away or torn, uprooted or merely charred.
As the Nightingale crossed the decimated patch of earth, the faint scent of floral sweetness crossed the noses of the Marines.
"Hey, you guys smell that?"
One marine said, turning to his Sargent, voice lowered and slow. The Sargent took a deep breath, his eyes opening and sharpened.
"Yeah.. I smell it..."
He glanced to the squad of marines.
"Get a round into the chamber boys. Hey pilot! Take us higher! Get us an overview of the area!!"
The Sargent shouted, the piloted nodded, pulling on the controls upwards. The Nightingale's engines whined as it tilted up just as the Marines pulled back on the their assault rifles' charging handle, the Sequential clicks of bullets being chambered echoing.
The marines looked around, the decimated patch of earth spanning as far as the eyes can see, until the pilot spoke. Voice low.
"We have strange energy readings coming from the northeast, Sargent, changing heading to N.6.0E"
The Sargent glanced to his fellow marines, nodding to them. The marines did the same, their eyes furrowed, sharpening..
The moment grew tense, the engine whine diminishing as the Nightingale reached the end of the decimated earth, it's craters and stench of burnt earth vanishing. The Nightingale whirred as it entered a thick grove.
"Strange energy readings? Might be banished patrol, let's get a sight and report back to Theta Base!"
The group fell silent as the Nightingale banked to the side toward the energy readings, at first everything was going as planned, the marines did a final check of their gear just as the Nightingale flew over a heavy canopy, something wrong just beneath.
No one saw it until the pilot checked his instruments.
"We passed it?"
The Sargent glanced outside, onto the tops of the grove's canopy.
"Negative! It's beneath the canopy!"
--------
His visor tilted down, it's HUD dimming
"Take us down!"
He yelled, voice lowering sharply, the pilot nodded, quickly flipping switches and pulling levers.
The slow quieting whine of the Nightingale's engines began, the quick spinning 'Whum whum whum' of it's rotors picking up leaves, sticks and small amounts of dirt.
The Sergeant clicked his teeth, calling to the pilots in the cockpit.
"Oi! Pilot! Turn on the floodlights! I can't see Shit!"
A gloved thumb shot up as a response, the Nightingale's floodlights activated, illuminating the canopy below, it's light catching on branches and casting shadows below.
That scent of something floral quickly intensified as the light illuminated a partially reflective mass, the marines grimaced, scrunching their noses.
"There! It looks like an oversized fungi!"
One marine shouted, as another began taking pictures with his helmet cam, capturing photos of something never before seen with each flash of light
Beneath the branches, a smooth, pale, pearlescent structure curved up from the forest floor, its surface laced with thin, glowing veins that pulsed in slow rhythm.
The Nightingale's avionics sputtered once as the instruments glitches. The pilot's breath hitched before he quickly pulled up on the controls.
"Take your pictures! Whatever's down there, it knows!!"
The pilot shouted back to the marines.
Several strobes of light flashed from a marines helmet cam, illuminating the pearlescent structure..
The structure began to shift, the light illuminated by the floodlights. But what it caught this time wasn't rooted to the ground at all, but a flattened, fin-limbed shape.
It rippled with every breath of air. Iridescent blues and silvers rolled down its seamless hull in slow, deliberate waves, thin veins of light pulsing toward a central node that watched them with dozens of unblinking lenses. The thing didn't turn toward them so much as flow in their direction, each movement too smooth, fluid, natural, too alive, for any machine the Marines knew.
The Sergeant growled to the pilot, the safety of his assault rifle clicking.
"Get us out of here!!"
The pilot jerked the controls of the Nightingale, banking hard to the side as the strobes of light continued to flicker.
PHZTEW!
a bright blue bolt flew passed the Nightingale before detonating above, raining down crystalline fragments, refracting the strobe lights.
The Pilot jerked harder, his co-pilot pushing a leber forward. The roar of the engines followed, taking the Nightingale into the distance as several additional airburst clouds exploded behind them.
"Holy shit!! This is Sergeant Hernandez in Recon team 4, unknown bogies in N.6.0E, taking Anti-air fire!!"
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In Theta Base, the moment became tense when Hernandez's voice cracked in and out over the long-range channel. The last burst of static dragging across Theta Base's comm room like a knife on metal.
The hurried steps Agent Finch was the only indicator of her movement the techs looked up from their consoles, shoving past a corporal to get to the primary display.
The feed from Recon Four was stuttering half darkness, half frantic strobes but in the frozen stills between the glitches she caught flashes of curved hull, fin-shapes, and that impossible pulse of blue light.
Her gut went cold, her hands formed into fists.. She keyed a priority relay to the Spirit of Fire without taking her eyes off the screen.
The moment the priority relay pinged the bridge of the spirit of fire, Captain Cutter tensed.
"Isabel!"
He barked, the artificial body of Isabel materializing on the table.
"Sir, Finch says Recon Four just got tangled up with those 'curtains' she's been tracking"
Cutter's eyes sharpened, his jaw clenching tight.
"On screen!"
Isabel nodded as a holographic display of a marine's helmet cam spurred to life. Revealing the jarring moments leading up to the pearlescent structure and the sudden emergence of a riderless vehicle.
Cutter inhaled deeply.
"I want that area triangulated isabel!"
Without hesitation the ping from Recon team 4 materialized alongside the map of the Ark, revealing it's rough location.
"Heading is N.6.0E, it's north northeast of the Enduring Convictions orbital bombardment sir!"
A low hum crept out, hands tightening.
"Damn it.... Isabel, Isabel, those marines return i want their helmet cams sent to Agent and Milo Finch..."
With a quick movement several transmissions opened, holographic images of red team emerged
"Red team, get a team together, i want everyone at Theta! redirect Omikron Assets to Theta base "
"Sir, yes sir!"
The transmission frequency ends, Cutter turns to the rest of the bridge.
"I want this ship on red alert, get Longswords and Condors in the air!!! Get Pelican transports to Omikron base now!!! Omikron's a liability until we know what we're up against. Strip it of anything useful and pull the men back to Theta. If these things want Omikron, they can have it what matters is that they don't get us."
Isabel looked up to Cutter, voice rising slightly.
"Sir, I believe the deployment of long range assets to Theta will better our odds at security, have M400 Kodiak deployed at these locations, to keep out assets at Theta protected while keeping our marines out of knife-fighting range."
Cutter's jaw clenched, eyes landing on the holographic table, blips of green appearing at 3 different locations.
One at Theta Base to protect it's outer perimeter while the two others are stationed closer but not too close to the strange FOB Recon 4 team encountered.
With a slow inhale he nodded.
"Get to it isabel."
She vanished in a brief flash of digital light just as several holoimages appeared, Anders and Milo.
"Sir, we have an-"
Cutter's eyes narrowed.
"Anders, new kid. Listen up and listen good, we have a rising situation and I have reason to believe ONI is going to try to interfere."
Anders was about to something, but the ultra sharp gaze he gave silenced her immediately.
"That's a scary expression"
She thought just as Cutter began, his voice uncharacteristically serious... more so than she's seen.
"Here's how this goes, and it goes this way because I say so."
"Professor Anders" he began.
"you own the science. I own your perimeter. Effective immediately, Theta Lab is under emergency biohazard quarantine as a Spirit of Fire forward site. FOB THETA is under my operational control. No one no one moves people or samples without my written release."
She nodded. "Sir yes sir."
"Milo, you're temporarily commissioned to Anders' team as Acting Research Officer. You don't go anywhere without an ODST escort and a Spartan in reach. If a black-badge waves paperwork at you, you say: 'FOB Theta is under Spirit of Fire quarantine authority. Movement requires Captain Cutter's release.' Then you call me. You do not argue policy in a hallway."
Milo quickly nodded, flinching softly at Cutter's quick and sharp words. "Y-yes sir!"
Cutter took another breath, his back straightened as a holographic image of an incoming transmission from the Dauntless appeared beside him.. cutter ignored it.
"When you get the chance tell isabel to stand up a hard air-gapped lab pod. Negative pressure, independent power. Dual-key access: you and me hold the second key. Write-once logs on everything. One-way optical mirror to the ship's vault. If anyone throttles your links or tries to walk around you, you lock the lab, page Red Team, and put a Nightingale on the pad. No debate."
"Chain of custody: three copies of all data Theta core, ship vault, cold courier. Dauntless gets read-only mirrors with my watermark. If any mirror goes dark, we assume tampering and we pull."
"Rules of engagement for all elements supporting Theta: Illuminate, mark, deny. Lethal only to protect life or exfil. No live-capture unless I sign it and Anders co-signs it. If comms die for more than ninety seconds, you hit the exfil trigger and come home under smoke. Kodiaks will paint you a corridor."
"Sterilization. Hear me clearly. No scorch orders while my people are on the ground. Hard triggers only: one, confirmed colonization of human tissue; two, uncontrolled spread across two defensive lines; three, loss of lab containment with purge failure. Anything short of that is a no. Anyone says 'sanitize' early can practice on empty dirt outside the wire."
"Agent Finch is reassigned to counter-intel and base security under Spartan authority. She doesn't task your research; she keeps ONI honest at the fence line."
"Comms discipline: mission traffic only. The cover story outside this room is Banished electronic warfare. The truth lives in the logs and in your heads until I say otherwise."
"If ONI shows up with a smile and a cart, you ask for written orders with name, rank, and article. Then you recite the line I gave you and you sit tight. I'll talk to the Admiral. You do your jobs and you come home alive."
"Questions go to me or Isabel. Otherwise, move. Get the lab sealed, get the escorts posted, get the guns plotted. We do this clean, or we don't do it at all."
The two looked at Cutter for only a moment, but before either could acknowledge, the transmission ended and Cutter answered ONI's. His eyes sharpened and his lips pressed into a thin line just as Trent's image stabilized.
Then the all too ONI voice of Rear Admiral Trent began.
"Captain Cutter. Rear Admiral Lucian Trent, ONI. Effective immediately: ONI assumes control of the contact. This AO is BLACK/ULTRA. Theta, Omikron, and all attached UNSC assets fall under Joint Containment 7-Alpha. You retain ship self-defense; all surface ops execute my ROE. All telemetry and samples route to Dauntless; Isabel's external links are read-only. No unsanctioned movement, captures, or comms. Hold, observe, contain. Sterilization authority rests with me. Acknowledge."
Silence befell the bridge, all eyes turned to Cutter, the bridge personnel said nothing, jaws dropped... the silence was deafening.
With a single inhale, Cutter responded, his voice low and tense, restrained...
"Admiral, Cutter. Copy BLACK SKY. FOB THETA is under Spirit of Fire emergency quarantine and my OPCON for force protection. Anders and Finch Jr. remain in place; all data mirrored to Dauntless read-only. Isabel stays unthrottled to keep safety systems online. No transfers, no capture, no sterilization without my signature and Anders' concurrence per hard triggers already issued. You'll get my SITREPs. Stay off my trigger and out of my perimeter. If that's an issue, put it in writing and we'll survive it first."
The moment grew tense, neither side looking away. Trent's eyes narrowed into a glare, Cutter reciprocated in kind, chin tilted up, his own eyes like daggers.
Then the silence broke.
"Tch.... Acknowledged."
The transmission cut, and Trent's image vanished... Cutter took another breath as the tension refused to vanish... only simmer...