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The Spartan removed the camera’s memory chip, slotted the device into one of the receptacles on his own helmet, and watched the playback via a window on his HUD.
The picture was standard quality—which meant pretty awful. The night-vision setting was active, so everything was a sickly green, punctuated by white flares as the camera panned across a light source.
The picture bounced and jostled, and intermittent spots of static marred the image. It was pretty routine stuff at first, starting with the moment the doomed dropship touched down, followed by the trek through the swamp, and their arrival in front of the A-shaped structure.
He spooled ahead, and the video became more ominous after that, starting with the dead Elite, and growing even more uncomfortable as the team opened the final door and went inside. Not justany door, but the same door through which the Master Chief had passed only minutes before, only to have a dead Marine fall into his arms.
He was tempted to kill the video, back his way through the hatch, and scrub the mission, but he forced himself to continue watching as one of the Marines said something about a “. . . bad feeling.” A badly garbled radio transmission came in, odd rustling noises were heard, a hatch gave way, and hundreds of fleshy balls rolled, danced, and hopped into the room.
That was when the screaming started, when the Master Chief heard Keyes say that they were “surrounded,” and saw the picture jerk as something hit Jenkins from behind, and the video snapped to black.
For the first time since parting company with the AI back in the Control Room, he wished that Cortana were with him. First, because she might understand what the hell was going on, but also because he had come to rely on her company, and suddenly felt very much alone.
However, even as one aspect of the Spartan’s mind sought comfort, another part had directed his body to back toward the hatch, and was waiting to hear the telltale sound as it opened. But the doordidn’t open, something which the Master Chief knew meant trouble. It caused a rock to form at the bottom of his gut.
As he stood there, gripped by a growing sense of dread, he saw a flash of white from the corner of his eye. He turned to face it, and that was when he saw one, then five, twenty, fifty of the fleshy blobs dribble into the room, pirouette on their tentacles, and dance his way. His motion sensor painted a sudden blob of movement—speeding closer by the second.
The Spartan fired at the ugly-looking creatures. Those which were closest popped like air-filled balloons, but there were more,many more, and they rolled toward him over the floor and walls. The Spartan opened up in earnest, the obscene-looking predators threw themselves forward, and the battle was joined.
It was dark outside. Only one mission had been scheduled for that particular night, and it had returned to the butte at 02:36 arbitrary. That meant the Navy personnel assigned to the Control Center didn’t have much to do, and were busy playing a round of cards when the wall-mounted speakers burped static, and a desperate voice was heard.“This is Charlie 2-1-7, repeat 217, to any UNSC forces . . . Does anyone copy? Over.”