Chapter 28: Armitage Station

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"Is it just me, or is this weird?" Ellis asked as they walked into the armory they had just been shown to by another nameless Private.

"Kind of," Greg said.

"I don't know, I think it makes sense," Izzy said as she walked straight over to an armor locker, pried it open, and started taking off her old armor. Greg joined her. He had to admit, he was eager for a brand new set of local armor.

"What about this makes sense? We get ordered to drive a hundred miles in the middle of an invasion by a zombie army and in the aftermath of an ongoing natural disaster, so that we four, who would have been three if Larsen hadn't randomly decided to come along, can form a task force to research said zombie army," Ellis replied as she began sorting through a case of weapons. Larsen did the same, silently and eagerly picking through the guns.

"I mean, it makes sense inasmuch as anything makes sense recently. He has a point: we have a crazy opportunity here," Izzy replied.

"She's right," Greg said. "Consider the Flood. Consider how dangerous they are based on just what we've seen. One of the most dangerous aspects of an enemy is a lack of knowledge about them. We don't know what they're fully capable of. We need to understand them, figure out more effective ways to kill them, or prevent this from happening. Gibson is right, we can't just react to everything that's happening, that's not what we do. We adapt, and overcome, and plan for tomorrow. And like he said, we're just the beginning of the task force. Plus, I imagine that we were probably all he could get. I guess it'd be hard to convince people to get that fatal illness they contracted taken care of while they're dealing with gunshot wounds."

Ellis grunted unhappily. "People do tend to focus on the most immediate threat. All right, fair enough. I just hope we get some more backup. He seems to have a lot of faith in you two."

"Yeah..." Greg murmured. He'd finished getting the armor on save for the helmet, and now he stared at his reflection in the darkened visor. "I'm not sure it's rational."

"I don't know, he might have a point," Larsen said. "You two have survived some improbable odds so far. Although I guess I'm not sure how much that reflects on me."

"Still want to find out?" Izzy asked.

"Yeah, I guess I do," he replied after a moment.

"Let's get on with it, then," Ellis said.

Greg nodded and pulled the helmet on. He ran a check of the suit's internal systems while he moved over to the weapon tables and started sorting. The armor felt good, at least. It all fit better and even had a kind of clean smell to it. As he sorted through the weapons, he marveled at the fact that he'd lost nearly everything he'd gathered on Polaris Island. He'd left his backpack behind at Adamant, given the notion that someone else could use it and the supplies he'd put into it. He'd left his shotgun in the Warthog, as it was seeing some serious wear and tear. And he was about to trade out his pistol. Honestly, all he had left was that black beanie, the uniform he'd found, and the combat knife. It made him think of how every seven years, every single cell in your body had been replaced with new cells, and so it begged the question, were you the same person?

It also made him consider the awesome power that a single human body could wield. The sheer amount of things that one person could get done, given time, determination, knowledge, skill, and some luck, was astounding.

He wondered if maybe Gibson had a point.

He wasn't so sure about himself and Izzy. Sure, they'd done a lot, and there was a lot more they could do, but were they indeed special?

Wasn't that the theory behind the Spartans? He'd never even really met a Spartan and he didn't know too much about them. He didn't even know where they had come from. But weren't they supposed to be special? Given the missions that no one else had a hope in hell of doing? Was he actually like that? Ultimately, Greg didn't want to linger on it too much. If he did believe in himself too much, he'd waltz into situations thinking he had protagonist armor, which wasn't even a real thing. Everyone was the protagonist of their own story, but everyone was subject to the whims and rules of the universe equally.

No, it only made sense to him to continue as he had been: being a Marine who was completing his objectives as efficiently as possible.

Greg found his focus honing down and zeroing in as he looked over the arsenal that had been presented to him. There was a lot to choose from, though the selection itself was somewhat limited. He finished checking out the M6G (and lamented that the M6D was so hard to get ahold of nowadays), made sure it was loaded and then slipped it into his hip holster. He checked over his knife again and saw that it was still in good condition. Well, he hadn't had all that much chance to use it yet, at least not compared to his guns.

He picked up a battle rifle and checked it over. It looked to be in excellent condition. Greg stared down the scope, then slapped a magazine in and let it hang by the strap attached to it, and then he packed as much spare ammo for both weapons as he could. He was reluctant to abandon the shotgun, but he'd seen the sheer stopping power the battle rifle had on the Flood, and it was effective at all ranges. Or all the ones that mattered. And two weapons were usually enough. As he finished up, he looked around at the others.

"We good?" he asked.

"Yep," Izzy replied. She'd settled on the same weapon combination as him.

"I'm ready," Ellis said. She had grabbed an assault rifle and a pistol.

"Ready," Larsen said. He'd replaced his battle rifle with another, and apparently settled on an SMG as his backup weapon. Well, whatever worked for him.

"Then let's do this."

* * *

"Ellis, how'd you end up on Wintermute?" Greg asked.

They'd tracked down their Warthog, another Carrier snow model, this one in pristine condition. The route was programmed into the Warthog's map, which was intact, but all he had to do was follow a single road, so it was pretty easy. It would take him through the mountain range, essentially through it to the other side, where the medical outpost was positioned high on a plateau.

"What?" she asked, her voice piped in through their squad radio signal. They'd decided on a set frequency and had attuned their helmet radios.

"Well, we're all an official task force now, maybe we should get to know each other a bit more. Izzy and I crashed here, Larsen's a local, what about you?"

"I got rotated in two years ago," she replied after a moment. "I was on a ship before that."

"Why were you rotated?" Larsen asked.

"I told my superiors I wanted a challenge."

"Wow. That's...gutsy," Greg said. Those words were never a good idea to speak in the military. Because most people above you took a perverse pleasure in fulfilling your wish above and beyond what you thought was reasonable.

"I wanted a challenge. I meant it," she replied.

"Was it challenging enough?" Izzy asked.

"For the first few months, yeah. It was pretty brutal. Mainly just because of the cold and the snow. It's cold and snowy here so much of the year, especially where I was. The cold just saps your strength, but more than your physical strength. It saps your mental fortitude. It makes you want to just not do anything at all but get in out of it. It's brutal. I'd never really dealt with cold like that before. I hated it so much. But eventually I got used to it. It kind of felt like the right level of challenge after that. And then this shit happened."

"You seem to have done well so far," Greg said.

"It's hard to tell. I guess the fact that I'm alive and intact is a good sign, but who knows how long that'll keep up," she muttered, and there was a grimness creeping into her voice, something that told him she might not particularly mind if death found her.

What had she been through?

He decided not to press it. Instead, he decided to check the scout team's frequency that had been passed onto him before leaving. "This is Corporal Walker to Recon Team Delta, if anyone can hear me, respond, over." He waited, listened, heard nothing and repeated the message once more before giving it a rest again.

"What do you think might have happened?" Larsen asked, a note of anxiety in his voice now.

"Probably Flood, but it might just be bad equipment. Try to keep assumptions to zero," Greg replied, and began pushing the Warthog a little faster.

He had to admit, he wanted to find out what the hell had happened. Usually when a team went dark in hostile territory, it meant they were dead. He tried to stick to his own advice and not go into it with any expectations. Greg had just been handed brand new armor and weapons, a skilled team, and a vehicle, with a clear objective to boot. He was going to be like quicksilver, razor sharp and laser focused. As he cleared the rest of the distance, driving around a bend in the road, two cliff sheers rising up to either side of him, he realized that, in a way, he was getting exactly what he wanted. Earlier, he'd lamented being reinserted into the chain of command, missing the curious freedom of pure survival he'd been enjoying so far.

But this seemed like a nice compromise. Unless Gibson was a micromanager, Greg was probably going to be given free reign to complete objectives how best he saw fit. So maybe this whole task force setup was pretty great after all.

The curve finally straightened out, and that's when Greg saw the outpost. It wasn't very large, the kind of outpost that probably support a staff of maybe half a dozen, perhaps ten at most. The road they were on terminated in a parking area in front of the outpost, between a pair of landing pads where people were probably life-flighted to in better times. Or at least more functional times. Now all he saw were broken windows, blood stains, and dented walls. A dozen Flood corpses were spread out across the landing pads, and they saw another Warthog parked and empty.

"Well, they got here at least," Greg muttered as he pulled up beside the derelict vehicle and killed the engine. He tried the radio one more time. "Recon Team Delta, this is Corporal Walker, I am at your location, if you are present, please respond."

Still nothing, just dead air.

They all got out and prepared their arsenal.

Settling the battle rifle firmly into his grasp, Greg led the way. "Larsen, you've got exterior check," he said.

"On it," Larsen replied tightly, and slipped off to the right as they made their way towards the main structure. He disappeared from sight, padding off across the snow and ice.

"Keep it tight," Greg said and led the way in through the main entrance.

The front door was forced open. He stepped over a Flood Combat Form that looked as fresh as the others. Judging by the sheer amount of corpses and spent shell casings, it seemed obvious that the recon team had been through, and they'd done a lot of fighting. In fact...

"Aw crap," Izzy muttered as she saw it the same time he did.

"What?" Ellis asked.

"KIA," Greg replied, and pointed. Across the ingress point they'd come into, which was a barren room, empty save for a desk, a chair, and a place to put cold weather gear in the form of a row of slim lockers and coat hangars, was a body. Near the only other door in the room, which was also open, was a human corpse wearing snow camo gear. The body was laying half in and half out of the door, unmoving, with a lot of blood on it.

"Come on," Greg said and crept forward. The way beyond was darker, so he swapped to his pistol and activated the flashlight. He wished all the MG6 models had flashlights built into the barrels, but they seemed to be hit or miss.

An antechamber with a half dozen other doors awaited them, a pair in each wall. There were a lot more Flood corpses in there. And a lot of spent shell casings. Damn.

"What happened to him?" Greg asked softly as he stood guard and Ellis crouched by the body.

"He was shot in the face," she replied.

"What?! Friendly fire?" Izzy asked, her voice low but harsh.

"More than likely, but..."

"But what?" Greg asked.

"I don't know, doesn't feel right."

He finished shining his light across the interior, then hesitated and drifted back. There was another body that wasn't Flood. Another snow camo wearing soldier.

"Cover me," he said, and crept forward. Most of the doors were open and he checked them as he passed, though each one revealed only a dark interior. He came to rest over the body and froze. "What the hell?"

"What?" Izzy asked.

"She was shot, a lot," he muttered. The soldier's body was peppered with gunfire.

"Plasma fire?" Ellis asked uncertainly.

"No. Bullets."

He looked around suddenly as something caught on his mind, and felt a slow, creeping dread begin to steal into his soul as he shined his light down on the nearest Flood corpse. "That can't be right," he muttered.

"What?" He continued staring. "Greg, what?" Izzy demanded.

"I think the Flood shot them."

"What's going on in there?" Larsen asked.

"We've got two confirmed KIAs. What's it like out there?" Greg replied.

"Dead. No activity. Did you say that the Flood are using guns?" he demanded.

"I think so. This Flood is holding a gun, a pistol, and here's another one holding an assault rifle. And I have serious doubts that there was this much friendly fire."

"We need to report this," Ellis muttered.

"Let's finish our sweep. Larsen, come in through the front door and stand guard."

"On it."

"Ellis, stay here in case we need backup. Izzy, take the right doors, I'll take the left, then we'll both get the remainder," Greg said.

She nodded tightly and they got to work. The first room he stepped up to had its door forced open, and shining his light inside revealed a patient room with a pair of beds, some closet space, a table with two chairs around it, and another door at the back. It was a bloody mess, one of the beds was occupied by a corpse. He moved to the back of the room and checked out the single door, finding a mostly untouched bathroom, then left and moved to the second room. It was essentially a repeat of the first, though it was full of Flood bodies that looked like they'd been hosed down with gunfire. Damn, it looked like the recon team had been jumped, but...

Where was the third guy?

The profile Gibson had given him said that there should be three personnel. So far they'd found two of them, but where was the man in charge? Greg wanted to find him just about as much as he didn't, but he had to know, even if the reality was that he was just as dead as the rest of his squad.

"What've you got?" Greg asked as he emerged from the second patient room.

"Surgical bays, no survivors, just Flood corpses in there," Izzy replied.

"Let's keep going," Greg said, and moved over to the final two doors. One was open, one was closed. Greg decided to let Ellis guard the closed one for now and took Izzy through the open door. Another dark hallway filled with the dead awaited them, and it looked like the battle had continued on in here. There had to be half a dozen dead Flood in there, and spent shell casings were everywhere. Three more doors awaited them.

The first door was open, and as Greg approached it, he froze as he heard something. At first, he thought it was just his mind playing tricks on him, or maybe the wind outside interacting somehow with the base, but then he became positive that he was hearing something as he stepped closer to the door: breathing. Labored breathing.

"We might have found him," Greg muttered. "Get ready."

They stacked up on the door and after listening for a few seconds longer, he leaned out and aimed into the room. There were more dead Combat Forms in there, as well as...he focused the light on the figure sitting against the far wall of what appeared to be a patient room, for people to rest and recover in. Next to a bed with a scattering of medical supplies around them, sat a figure. That's where the breathing was coming from.

"Identify yourself," Greg said.

No response. He shifted closer and saw blood. Fresh and red and fully human. The flashlight's beam revealed a man in white camo. The armor was dented and the clothing was ripped. His helmet had a dent in it and his visor was cracked.

"Ellis! Get in here!" Greg called as he crouched by the man.

"Holy shit, I can't believe he's still alive," Izzy muttered. Greg wanted to shift him to a bed, but he knew he shouldn't move him until the extent of his wounds were revealed. Ellis ran in. She whispered a sharp curse and crouched by him, shooing Greg and Izzy out of the way. While she got to work checking the survivor over, he looked to Izzy. "Stay here for the moment. I'll finish checking this wing, then come back and get you so we can finish our sweep."

"Got it," she replied.

He left them and quickly checked out the remaining two rooms. The second was a copy of the first, another patient room for post-op patients to recover, and the third was what looked like a shared office. It had a pair of desks, some chairs, and a shelf filled with random items. It was relatively untouched by all the conflict that had battered the isolated facility. Greg doubled back and picked up Izzy, seeing that the two had shifted the survivor to one of the beds in the room and he was being tended to by Ellis now, who moved with a quick, calm professionalism.

"What's happening?" Larsen asked as they came back out into the main room.

"Found a survivor, he's in bad shape. Ellis is looking at him now. Have you seen anything?" Greg replied.

"No, nothing," he replied.

"Okay, stay here until we finish our sweep."

"Understood."

They slipped into the final portion of the facility, which turned out to be a tightly-packed living section. There were five bedrooms in a row, four of which were meant to hold two people in what must have been extremely close quarters, and the fifth one was the same size, but meant for one, probably whoever ran the place. They didn't even come with their own bathrooms. There was one, communal bathroom and shower area, a storage area, and a little mess hall. It had been mostly untouched by the Flood, though several windows were broken out and snow had drifted in. They spent a moment activating the shutters to seal the broken windows off.

Once they were sure the place was secure, they gathered Larsen and returned to Ellis and the unnamed Marine.

"How is he?" Greg asked, coming over. Ellis had an emergency lantern on and hung up on the wall by the patient bed where the man lay.

"In bad shape," she muttered, and tossed something onto the floor beside her. He saw that it was a tube of biofoam, and it was getting added to a small pile of them. "They cut him up pretty bad and he lost a lot of blood. That's why he was unconscious. I'd guess that he barely managed to kill the last of them, and came in here to patch himself up, as some of the wounds are bandaged over, but he lost too much blood before he could finish the job. It's lucky we got here when we did. This biofoam should help him heal up, though."

"What's

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