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Incident Part 1
Date: 21 March 2008, 4:15 am
Author's note: It's been awhile for me. Enjoy.
10 August, Reach City / Case Report Lieutenant Smith Shepard (UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, Office of Investigation), report: the Gladiator incident
I'm originally from Earth, the home planet. This is my first time on the big blue's doorstep. Reach isn't much different, the flora and fauna much resemble that of Earth. The city is certainly the planet's closest resemblance, its New York Metropolitan size with Southern California diversity. I got a Birdseye of the countryside when as we approached the landing strip. The Big Horn River is beautiful, an emerald ribbon cutting through green. Sunlight reflects off it like a million glittering diamonds. It stretches off into the horizon, an infinity edge. They say if your ONI you're a zombie, you've lost your soul. But I can appreciate natural beauty and it reminds me that no matter how soulless our organization may (or may not) be, we're doing it to preserve the beauty of places like this. It's all truly breathtaking, but under all those trees and along those shores I know there are dozens of military camps, missile emplacements, and beneath that canopy isn't just dirt, there's titanium.
I sit with Ensign Costa and Petty Officer Wilson. Costa is small and wiry and according to his Career Service Vitae he is somewhat of a party animal, to say the least. Wilson is burly and quiet. Today Costa joins Wilson in silence.
Costa, "This was my first assignment aboard a boat. I had just graduated from OCS, second in my class. I was a damn good engineer. I have a Captain uncle in the War Department. He got me my position on the Gladiator. I was so stoked when I learned I got it. I was headed to the front line."
Wilson, "We shipped out of here, headed for the Jericho Theater. There were reports of a Covenant insurgence. We were part of a relief element, five other ships. You knew the shit was going to be thick if they were sending that many. We were also carrying about a thousand Marines onboard. We didn't have the luxury of AI, so it was all human hands. Of course the ship's navigational systems (often referred to as the "onboard") are prerouted, but Slipspace is such a goddamn anomaly. The onboard can crunch all the numbers but there really is no way of coming out even close to the destination. I've logged over seven thousand hours and the closest I've ever come out was half a billion miles out system."
Costa, "Pathetic right, and those Covie bastards can make absolute precise jumps, even very short ones. Rumor has it your outfit has been experimenting with different ways to break into Slipspace. Like how the Covenant does it…"
Wilson, "In theory."
Costa, "Yeah, they cut it open, you know, surgically."
Where did you come out?
Costa, "We don't know where to this day. Although astronomers have suggested it was in Zeta Reticuli."
What happened?
Costa, "It certainly wasn't something wrong with the onboard. The Gladiator was a destroyer, totally contemporary. All systems were a hundred percent. The onboard is basically artificial intelligence, but it doesn't have a personality like smarter generations, even stupid ones. Just a very smart computer. Its programming is perfect, it doesn't make mistakes."
"It was a Slipspace anomaly. The onboard detected it en route and brought us to normal space, a standard precautionary procedure."
What was it?
Wilson, "A meteor, big fella too. It must have somehow followed us out of Slipspace. Which is odd, the hole between dimensions is only opened for seconds; it makes no sense how such a large object came to normal space right behind us. Then again nothing about Slipspace makes sense."
"We could see it, it was a large rock, three miles across or so. It looked like a cratered, gray potato. It had this dust cloud around it, probably stirred up from the violent change between dimensional spaces. Anyways, the dust was bluish and greenish, like a comet's tail."
Costa, "I was on the bridge tending to some equipment problems. The captain and his navigators were trying to figure where the hell we were. We were in empty space, no planets or stars nearby. They plotted a course and started heading out. The captain decided to go close to the meteor, the bastard that threw us off course. He made a ship wide call for everyone to peer out their windows, we would be within a thousand miles of it, a good view."
That close you went through the cloud?
Wilson, "Yep, right through it. We could see it as we went passed the meteor. It looked like Saturn's rings up close, a bunch of dusty, rocky particles just floating around, bumping into each other. We slowed down to prevent any collisions with larger objects."
Do you think that was it?
A pause.
Costa, "Yeah."
Bathford Hotel
I'm sitting with Tech Officer Javier RothRock in the lobby. He's a jittery fellow with his dark hair in a crew cut, a neatly pressed uniform, and a camel back of water strapped around his waist. He drinks from it as if he's in a desert.
RothRock, "I like to stay hydrated, especially after what happened. Before I hated the stale ozone taste of recycled water on ships. After seeing so much dried out skin and nearly drying out myself in that engineering room I'll always drink water. Always."
"I was a techie, a lot of us hate that term, feel its degrading. I embrace it, cause that's what we are. However I do share the feeling with everyone else that we are the unsung heroes. We're the ship crews, our job is to maintain the vessel, keep it sea worthy and battle ready. (Laughs). Keep it 'battle hot' as we like to call it. We're not Marines, we're not Helljumpers, and we're not bridge crews, or pilots, we're the pale figures in the ship corridors in a jumpsuit with a laptop running a diagnostic. No one notices us, like the quiet kid in school. But our presence is certainly felt. The navy hasn't won a lot of victories in this war, but of the ones we have won, how many of those were because a good ship crew? How many of us have died in ship to ship engagements? Lots. Statistically speaking more navy crewman die than Marines. We are unsung, but I know we make a difference."
Did you see the meteor?
RothRock, "Yeah, I was on my way to engineering when the captain made the call. I looked out through a nearby veiwport. It was amazing, beautiful. The blue dust clouds and the rock itself, massive, silent, just awe striking. Reminded me of the Large Megellanic Cloud. I took a picture and sent it to all those poor bastards below decks who didn't have a window nearby. I got a free meal from the chef for that one."
You were the first?
RothRock, "Um, yeah…I was in engineering, the massive, extremely hot room that houses the engines, its close to the reactor and the Shaw Fujikawa. There's a big risk of radiation poisoning down there. But we're all drilled on the hazards."
"I was with a guy named Seth. He was cool, a little quiet, level headed. He was one of the best Techs I've ever served with. He could fix anything, talk about a do everything man, we called him Mr. Multimedia Man."
"We got a report of a screwy circuit. The thing is a part of a backup coolant pump. The backup systems are always fucking up more than the primaries. The circuit was in far corner of engineering, and this is no little room. Me and Seth threw our equipment up on a tracked dolly. We walk over there, this dolly trudging along behind us. The circuit is in a damn jungle of circuits. They're stored in this really narrow tunnel, something that I don't want to go in. This is in a small hallway in the far corner, right. Its cramped and little, the dolly can't access so we took some stuff off it and hauled back into there. It was dark and sweaty and hot. I hated it, kept on complaining. Seth always kept a cool head and told me to chill, it would be over before I knew it. He opened up his laptop and connected it to the rack. He ran through the systems and found the problem. A circuit that had to be replaced. The Thing was, this particular circuit was in an even more remote part of engineering. A little tunnel that you have to crawl into to gain access to the circuits."
(Takes a large gulp from the camel back.)
"We walked to a dusted little door in the floor. You know this thing hadn't been used for ages when there was dust on it. We opened it and a cloud came off. We climbed down this narrow ass ladder, its dark as hell. Here its extremely cold cause we're so close to the outside of the ship, I mean right next to the inner armor. Seth and I did rock paper scissors and I lost, bastard always won at that game. I shimmied into this little tunnel, which goes on for about fifty feet. I found the right circuit, replaced it, and started making my way back."
(He clears his throat. Takes a drink.)
"I heard something. A thrash or, uh, a thud, I don't know. It wasn't loud or anything, just really quick."
(RockRock looks sweaty. He loosens his collar. I think I hear a sniffle.)
"I was in the shaft maybe five minutes. I got out…"
(He stands.)
"I'm sorry."
UNSC Camp Ettrick Alpha Blue, Naval School of Engineering
Lt. Commander Anderson is a fast talker; I struggle to keep up with her.
Anderson, "I'm one of the designers of our ventilation systems on frigates, destroyers, cruisers, civilian models, even old Halcyon class cruisers. I helped manufacture ships like the Gladiator on Mars."
"I do not know the particulars of what happened. I was only asked to explain how the expel ducts work. These are shafts that connect to the vacuum. If anyone on a ship smokes or if there are any types of gases or carcinogens detected in the ships ventilation system, the ship takes these aerosols or anything less than breathable oxygen, separates it and transfers it into expel ducts, which expel it into space. In the engineering decks, there are several types of gases being vented into the air from the numerous machines. There are five expel ducts around engineering. They are circular, about as big as the circumference of a car tire."
"On occasion they do suck in vacuum to eliminate anything lingering in the pipes by decompressing the atmesphere. I do not know for sure if anything can gain access through the expel ducts. Maybe."
The following is an excerpt from a UNSC Naval HIGHCOM Panel of Inquiry's inquest on the Gladiator incident. The subject of questioning is Tech Officer Samuel Clark. CLASSIFIED, ALPHA PRIORITY, BGX DIRECTIVE.
Admiral Gerov, "On file are more than one account of surviving tech staff–your colleagues and ship mates–who claim the most probable way was through one of the expel ducts. How else could it have first been on the engineering levels?"
Clark, "Yes sir, there are no missile shafts or other external openings near the main engineering decks. The expel ducts are the only openings around engineering. The fact that they periodically suck in vacuum to decompress, this cleans the vents and pipes of any foreign bodies, and makes it seem the most likely way onto the ship."
Admiral Gerov, "Are you saying you think it was through the expel shaft?"
Clark, "Yes sir I am."
United Nations Space Command Medical Research Institute For Infectious Research (UNSC MRIIR, pronounced for short, "Mur-eye)", 45 minutes outside Reach City
Dr. Shi Kai was the chief medical officer on the Gladiator and is considered a hero of the incident. Since, he has gained wide knowledge of highly infectious agents and now heads MRIIR's Lethal Pathogens branch. He has extensive experience working with Biosafety Level four
agents. With a deeply lined face, tired eyes that have a lively glint, and a beard flecked with gray, Dr. Kai prefers to wear old fashioned glasses rather than have his aging eyes surgically returned to 20/20.
Dr. Kai, "Virulent. That's what I called it. That's what the captain didn't believe. He didn't like the term 'biological anomaly'."
You were the only medical officer at hand?
Dr. Kai, "The only. I have two assistants. Two. That's three medical staff for a ship of fifteen hundred crew and another one thousand Marines. Doctors and even medics are in very short supply these days. We had just gotten out of Slipspace; the other two were still in cryo and would be thawing within the hour along with everyone else. The engineering and bridge crew were the first to thaw."
"There was no call. Three Techs from engineering ran him in to the infirmary. They said something had happened…something bad. A bigger man was carrying him; he was covered with his friend's blood. They set him down on a table on his chest and I went right to it, didn't have time to glove up. He was of medium size, they said his name was Seth. He had a wound on his upper back, near the middle. It was deep, the skin around it was jagged and looked as if he had been stabbed. Something was protruding from the wound, it looked like a yellowish stick. Yet when I touched it, it was soft and moist and produced a smell so foul I nearly vomited. I knew it was organic, the end sticking out was mangled and green ooze dripped from it, it looked like it had been ripped off something, it was an appendage."
"Everyone was screaming, it was chaos, I tried to keep them all calm. Seth's appearance was unlike anything I had ever seen. His skin had turned yellow and seemed to sag, like there was no more collagen. His head was leaning to one side, his pupils were very dilated, I thought this meant that there was no more brain activity. I had to literally pull the appendage out of the wound, it was latched on unnaturally tight. After this I gloved up and went into the wound. I parted the cloth, the mangled flesh, and then the torn muscle. The blood was, well, green and slimy. Thick, like it was all clotting. The appendage had latched onto his spinal column, the upper Thoracic vertebrae had something all over it, and it was covered."
With what?
Dr. Kai, "I have no idea. They were reddish lines. The surrounding tissue seemed to be liquefying. His skin was blotted, yellow, turning moist. What looked like a goiter had bulged from his left shoulder, causing his entire head to lean to one side. It was huge, abnormally so. A massive lump the size of a grapefruit. What made me step back was it pulsated."
Pulsated?
Dr. Kai, "Yes, it pulsated and oscillated, up and down, like a heartbeat. We all were on the other side of the room when this started to move. I took a step closer, the three Techs slowly followed behind me. Curiosity killed the cat, right. Then three appendages burst out of it. I mean burst, just shot out. They looked exactly like the one that I had cut off."
"Then he reanimated."
Incident Part 2
Date: 28 March 2008, 2:38 am
Reach / Gladiator incident report, continued
Dr. Kai, "It…or should I say he, reanimated, jumped right to his feet, as if nothing ever happened.
This interview will be intermixed with the one I conducted with Tech Officer Marsh, Kyle, who assisted in bringing Engineering officer "Seth" to the infirmary and was present at the time of reanimation.
Marsh, "He didn't even look human. His skin was a pale yellow, that's the only way I can describe it, pale yellow. Mottled, blotched with what looked like disgusting lesions. His forearms seemed to be swollen, like Popeye. His whole head leaned to one side with that bump on his neck, and those things sticking out of it. His face had these red lines, looked like when you scratch at your skin really hard and those red lines follow. They covered his entire face. They…pulsed, I could see his heart beat in them.
Dr. Kai, "He stood for a second, just staring. He seemed to be breathing rapidly, and it came in raspy, heavy breaths, ragged sounding. I was behind him. The three techs were in front of him, he was staring at them. I could see the wound where I had to pry the appendage out. There was no bleeding; I could see the green blood, the white of his shoulder blade, Thoracic vertebrae, a flap of the Trapezius muscle. What was peculiar to me was that the dorso-lateral musculature seemed to be more defined, exaggerated, as if all of a sudden they had increased in size and strength."
Was this part of the transformation, for the arm appendages?
Dr. Kai, "I assume so."
Marsh, "We just stared at him for a moment, he did the same. There was no facial expression, no show of emotion. Even his eyes conveyed nothing, they were so dilated and bloodshot and blurry, they were voids."
"I was frozen in place. We all were, just staring. The other two, Ross and RothRock, were right next to me, no one said anything. We were in shock; he still had two arms and two legs, but he didn't look human anymore. Whatever the hell happened to him, well, it screwed him up. I heard all these stories of people who tried to talk after someone reanimated, like that person was a friend of theirs or something, and then the person trying to talk got killed. I knew instantly, Seth wasn't human anymore. None of them were."
"None of us saw the stick (this is what crew members began naming the sword like appendages on the arms of the reanimated) that had formed on his arm. I remember RockRock taking a slight step forward and whispering 'Seth', and then he struck. It happened so fast. Seth raised his arm and swung down on Ross, the big guy who had carried him in, who was covered in his blood. I didn't see what happened, I instantly jumped away, in RothRock's direction. I fell into him and my momentum took us both to the floor. I felt a spray of hot liquid. It sprayed all over me, on my clothes, in my mouth, it tasted coppery."
Dr. Kai, "I acted on instinct. As a former Helljumper medic with five years experience in the field with the 105th Drop Jet, I had acted instantly on a number of battlefields, against hordes of Covenant. Plus with the training, how can I forget the training? They drilled it into your mind, into your very movements, quick reaction became a motor function."
"I knew he was hostile the moment he swung down on Ross, poor fellow, never knew what hit him. The gurney was right behind him, at waist level. I dashed forward and pushed it into his waist. He lost his balance. I kept pushing, it took all my strength; I'm an old man. I pushed him into the surgical prep room, pushed the gurney all the way through the doorway. Then I closed the pressure doors from the medical room where we were, and to the waiting room. He was locked in surgery prep. Through the door's window, I could see him get his footing. He let out a scream, it was a terrible throaty noise, and it didn't sound human. He lunged for the door and swung his arm appendage at it. It scratched the glass."
"I checked on the others. RothRock and Marsh, they were covered in Ross's blood but okay. Ross had nearly been cut in half, as it was a downward swing, his upper body was no longer recognizable. And a deep, deep wound ran all the way down to his crotch. Blood was every where."
Dr. Kai takes a moment.
"I went to contact the captain immediately and get a security detail down to medical. As soon as I went to the link and opened up the ship wide COM line, it was full of screams."
UNSC Naval HIGHCOM offices, Reach City
I sit in a conference room with Lt. Commander Sara Vega. A shorter woman with dark hair pulled back and a serious expression, she was present in the cryogenic bay, or "sleep chamber, during the event.
Vega, "I woke up in a haze, as I always did after waking up from an ice nap. The cold hit me in waves, running down my spin, intensifying as I slowly came out of it. I coughed up the surfactant, awful stuff, tastes like ass. After climbing out of the tube I looked around. Everyone was climbing out of the tubes, some doubling over. A fog seemed to hang in the chamber and the low red light of the overheads always made for a creepy experience for waking up from cryo."
"I heard coughs here and there, talking, footsteps, and then crawling."
Crawling?
Vega, "Yes, I have no idea what it was. It sounded like a large bug, you know, crawling along on hardwood or something. Then there was this squishing sound. It got louder. Corporal Desmond, a Marine and who was right next to me, heard it too, everybody did. Then I heard screams."
Sergeant Kiley was present during the event in the cryo room
Kiley, "I heard the screams. I ran into cryo two, right across the hallway. There were these...things running around the floor. They looked like oversized, deformed spiders, they were like little pods. They ran around on several little legs, just crawling, and they moved fast."
What was happening?
Kiley, "There was a musty, thick smell in the air, and a haze in the room, it was hard for me to see. It was Chaos. I saw one of them latch onto a woman, she was naked and had probably just gotten out of her cryo tube. She fell to the ground, convulsing, then she didn't move. I ran over to her, trying to help. I was fully dressed in a jumpsuit and had my sidearm. I drew it on the thing and fired. The little bastard popped, pulp flew everywhere. I looked around; there were dozens of people with these things on their backs or chests, struggling to get them off. I realized there were even more bodies on the ground, unmoving."
"Then something jumped on to my back. I spun around, trying to get it off, but it stuck to me. I fell to my knees, flailing about. I could feel it digging into my upper back, ripping through my jumpsuit. It started to dig into my skin; I could feel the muscle tearing. With my other hand, I aimed the M6D over my head and down. I fired maybe six times. I felt the pop; it felt like a grenade concussion. My back was on fire. I could feel the inside of my jumpsuit was getting slick and I knew I was bleeding badly. I didn't know if it was just from the thing, or if I had shot myself. I hobbled out of cryo two into the hallway and grabbed my COM link. I called for reinforcements, for anyone with a gun."
Vega, "I was completely naked, I felt vulnerable. It was hell all around. I hid in between two tubes. Ahead of me there were people on the ground with the little things still attached to them. None of them were moving. There were people running back and forth with one of the things at their heels. I couldn't stay where I was; I had to get to the lockers, or somewhere safe. But that was on the other side of the chamber from me, and you know the size of cryo chambers, their gyms, huge. I took a deep breath, mumbled a prayer, and ran."
"I was in the very middle of the room. I stepped on bodies, almost tripped on one. I could feel the ground was slick and wet. With all the screams and gunshots, I felt like I was in crossfire, in the middle of some big battle, with people dying all around. A woman ran past me, her hair whipped me in my face. I could feel the blood that had come off her hair and onto my face. About ten feet from the door, I tripped and fell."
What did you trip on?
Vega, "A body, they were all over the floow. One of the things jumped on my chest. I grabbed it with both hands, it felt sticky and hot. I squeezed with all my might and it exploded in my hands. It's remains blew into my face and I couldn't see. I felt someone pick me up, I heard a door shut, and people breathing heavily, someone was crying. As soon as I opened my eyes I realized I was in one of the locker rooms and wrapped in a towel. This one was reserved for officers and it was smaller. There were maybe fifteen other people with me."
Kiley, "I had helped pull a few people into the officer's locker room with five other Marines. We closed all the doors leading to it. We saved only ten people. I looked through the window into the sleep room. There were dozens of the little pods still crawling around. I didn't hear anymore screams, no one was running away."
"People were beginning to get up off the ground."
The following is an audio recording of the UNSC Gladiator's bridge, recorded by the onboard after a ship wide alert was called.
Captain Flynn, "What the hell is the purpose of this alert? Who called it?"
Bridge officer #1, "No idea, sir."
Bridge officer #2, "Captain! I have another alert, this one in the cryo two chamber."
Bridge officer #2, "Sir, another's been called in engineering."
Captain Flynn, "What the fuck is going on!"
Bridge officer #3, "Sir, something is…"
Automatic gunfire.
Captain Flynn, "What the hell."
Bridge officer #3, "Sir! A Marine!"
Gunfire, louder.
Captain Flynn, "Don't discharge your weapon! Stop!"
Marine, "Sir, we need to seal off this section, now, their coming."
Captain Flynn, "Get security up here immediately."
Bridge officer #3, "Captain Flynn, I have Dr. Kai on the line, he says he needs to speak to you immediately."
Marine, "Sir, seal this place off now!"
Captain Flynn, "Tell Dr. Kai to wait. Send security details to the engineering decks, and to cryo one and two, have them secure all of them And get someone up here..."
Automatic burst, yelling, inaudible, screams.
Bridge officer #2, "What the fuck is that!"
Captain Flynn, "Mother of God."
Marine, "Shit, I'm out! Captain!"
A squishing noise in the background, unknown origin. Semi automatic shots from an M6D sidearm. Screams.
Bridge officer #3, "Holy shi–"
Bridge officer #1, "Captain hold still! HOLD STILL!"
Incident Part 3
Date: 18 April 2008, 6:16 am
12 August / Case officer: Lieutenant Smith Shepard (UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence, Office of Investigation), Gladiator report continued
Thus far in the interviews I have conducted, we can see that all personal accounts correlate and have led up to this. After hearing Dr. Shi Kai's description of Tech officer Seth's symptoms and ultimate "transformation", we can agree that the unknown organism is of virulent nature.
The worst 48…
I sit in cafeteria three of the UNSC frigate Alexander. Opposite me is Sergeant Daniel Matos. He was a part of Colonel Heatherly's personal security detail as a communications tech. The Colonel was in charge of all Marine elements aboard the Gladiator. Shaved head, five o'clock shadow, a Saint Christopher around his neck, he wears a sleeveless T-shirt that exposes several tattoos that I can only imagine represent past campaigns. According to his CSV he was not allowed to get the name of the Gladiator (or those of his fallen comrades) inked onto his arm as the destroyer's fate is classified beyond top secret and any references of any sort to it were banned to "insure secrecy".
Matos, "The next forty-eight hours were the worst, hence the name given. I think more people died in that period of time than any other. We had just come out of the freezer, showered, shaved, and in jumpsuits when we got the report that people were being attacked in the cryo chambers. It's unfair if you think about it, tragic. How many people were killed and turned into those things, right when they stepped out of their tube, fresh out of a long sleep, never knew what hit them. No warning."
What did Heatherly do?
Matos, "Right after hearing about it he called up the captain to find out what exactly the hell was going on. We just got word that there was trouble, something going on. We thought it was a Covenant boarding party. He didn't get any reply from the bridge; so he ordered us to prepare to repel borders, defend the ship he said. There were four others with me in Heatherly's security detail and about fifty regular Marines. We went to the armory, locked and loaded, and headed down. Some of us had time to throw on armor vests, but most of us were in jumpsuits. All the way a Tech named Darrel was trying to access the battle net from a portable console, from there we could see who was where, what their status was, and have a major tactical advantage. For some reason it was down."
Did you try the COM?
Matos, "Every channel, the ship's COM line was filled with traffic, so much you couldn't hear or make out anything coherently, it was like every person aboard suddenly yelled into it at once. The Colonel wanted me to continue to monitor it. There were screams; I could hear growls, cries for help, gunshots, prayers, just chaos. At one point I made out someone saying giving their final testimony, right over the COM line. Shit man…how many people did we lose in those cryo chambers?"
"I didn't like hearing that."
"As we ran down these flights of stairs, me with my bulky COM pack on my back, I opened up the Marine channels. Our main channel had some traffic, a scattered cry for reinforcements here and there. The Colonel activated his headset and called for a ship wide threat assessment and report. One Marine, Strauss, radioed back, said he was with twenty others, Marines and crew. They had managed to get out of their respective cryo room and hide somewhere. Heatherly wanted to amass a counterattack on the Covenant. The guy says, 'these are no Covenant'. That threw us off. He went on to tell us what had happened, with the little pods scurrying around, attacking and killing people. People reanimating. He said forget trying a counterassault."
"We came to the cryo level, a bunch of connected hallways leading to all these cryo rooms, each one holds about a hundred people. The main hallway was dead, no screams, no gunfire, just silence. Someone came through a pressure door from cryo 2. Someone yelled something to him. The figure just stared for a moment. I could barely see him, he was in the shadows, but I could tell something wasn't right. At the time I was thinking he didn't look…normal. He charged us and jumped onto a guy near Heatherly. Someone let loose with their assault rifle, the guy stopped moving. I got a good look, he was yellow looking, his head bent at a weird angle, and he had these things sticking out of his arm. Then someone yelled look. There were tons of them ahead of us, all of a sudden, out of no where, these little pod things. We opened fire. Then came more people, running, making snarling noises, they all looked like the guy we had shot."
"They came from everywhere, a flood of them. Heatherly ordered us to knuckle up into a group, like ancient Romans used to do, a battle square so to speak. Each person had their angle with overlapping fields of fire, and we let them have it. I shot at everything. I was through maybe three clips when Corporal Banks yelled, 'I'm almost out". I realized I had grabbed only five clips and I was halfway through my fourth. I yelled to Heatherly we couldn't hold them all off. They just kept coming, wave after wave. He yelled to fallback to the stairs. We did a giant push pull tactic, keeping them back a little. When we got to the steps we bound up them. Fifty of us just running, I was sort of in the middle. I didn't look back but I think some people got taken down. I heard yells for help. We got to a mess hall about two decks up. We crammed in and slammed the pressure doors shut, thankfully Darrel was still alive and he locked them. Everyone was trying to catch our breath; you could here those things banging on the pressure door."
"We set up a sort of base in the mess. Darrel opened got the battle net up and went about figuring out the whole situation. He brought up a list of all the Marines and crew aboard."
With the health monitoring/identity chips implanted in every Marine and crewmember, you could see the status of everyone aboard?"
Matos, "Of course. Strange thing was, most of them were alive, but their bios indicated bodily activity that was way out of the realm of normal."
Like what?
Matos, "I only remember bits of what Darrel said. Stuff about irregular heartbeats, like they were unusually high, and something about metabolism, like it was through the roof. I remember him shooting off all this technical shit about the body and how no normall human could live with such bodily activity. He described it as being super human, like those with the weird activity had higher levels of energy, stamina, and he guessed strength. The only thing that was lacking was higher brain activity."
"Heatherly was a genius, he had Darrel pull up a 3D schematic of the whole ship and display everyone's location based on their chips. When he brought it up we could see the highest concentrations were still in the cryo levels, but a lot were moving out and away from there. Heatherly had Darrel put all those with normal functioning in green and all those with the crazy activity in red."
"There was a lot more red then green. We could only see maybe fifteen pockets of a lot of green, large concentrations of people. We identified ourselves, in the mess two decks above cryo. There were maybe thirty or forty little dots of green scattered throughout the ship, lone survivors who had managed to lock themselves away, but not in a group. Man, I can't imagine how much that must have sucked, to be alone in the midst of all this. I saw one dot that was in a closet in the middle of the cryo deck. In the middle of red."
"That was when an explosion destroyed the door to the mess and they breached our only protection. That was when we learned they could use guns."
Falcon Bay Military Prison, sixty minutes east of Reach City
I sit in the visitor's center of the minimal security wing. Lieutenant George Cyprus is currently serving a three-year sentence for assault of an officer (and incident not related to anyone involved with the Gladiator). He is one year in thus far and is up for a parole hearing in a few months. His psychological prognosis attributes his history of violent behavior with "some type of traumatic experience either in his childhood or more recently." I can assume it is connected with the Gladiator incident.
Cyprus, "Three days and I'm up for a hearing. I'd rather die at the hands of the Covenant or even those things than spend another night in my cold, dank six-by-eight."
"I had just come out of my fitful cryo sleep when the pod things attacked. They scurried around like spiders and took you down. I killed one, squeezed it until it popped and sprayed little alien guts all over me. Not the best smelling things. I ran and hid in a little closet. It was the housing for the automated janitorial bot. The thing was about the size of a mule and I just had enough room to stand, I could barely find a comfortable position. For five hours I stood crammed in there, watching as people started to reanimate. God, they looked…not human, yellow flesh, those sticks poking out of their arms and neck. I could smell them through the door."
What were they doing?
Cyprus, "The hell should I know? They just stood there for a while, not really doing anything. Some of them ran out of the room, but two or three just stood still, breathing heavily. After an hour or so I had nodded off and woke up to see they were dragging he bodies of dead crew to the hallway. The bodies didn't look transformed at all. But they still were dragging them. I saw one had the body of a dog, I think it was a Labrador. I thought what the hell is a dog doing aboard, and then I saw the red sash around the bodies' neck. It was the Marine's mascot dog."
"Even if I was in an awkward position I was able to fall asleep. I was slowly drifting off into REM when I heard an electric whine. I looked down at the bot and remembered that it was autonomous and would leave the closet to clean the floor. If the door opened I would be exposed, and I couldn't go further into the closet. It was too cramped. I remember thinking fuck their going to tackle me and eat me. My biggest fear was they were going to do some kind of harvest.
What gave you that idea?
Cyprus, "They were collecting dead bodies. And I don't just mean dragging them around, I mean taking them off somewhere. Collecting, like preserving them."
"I heard the bot switch on, it was starting to smell like cleaning chemicals, bleach. I got a spike shot of adrenaline, the door opened. I could feel the bot bump into me as it was heading out. I was just standing there, frozen; damn thing gave me a push, like 'wake up asshole'. I bolted it for the main entrance. Three, or four, I forget, but a couple were standing in front of me. They all turned around at once and started coming towards me. I felt like I was a running back in a football game, only the touchdown was my life. I dodged one; another jumped the highest jump I have ever seen. I could tell it was going to land in front of me so I dashed to the side and avoided it. I was just running, I could feel them on my heels. I got out of the cryo room, ran down the main hall. There were dozens of them in the hall. It was all a whirlwind; I didn't know where I was going. I was in adrenaline overdrive, I ran up a staircase, my legs were tree trunks, my veins pumping acid, I ran until I found a derelict kitchen to hide in. I locked myself in a storeroom. And I didn't have to worry; it was full of food supplies to sustain me."
Private Wyler is in her fifth week of ODST training at Camp Preston
According to her profile she felt she was "tough enough to face anything, even becoming a Helljumper" after surviving the Gladiator incident.
Wyler, "Ten of us were armed up as we say. We had MA5B's, full body armor, I had a shotgun. We were on out way down to the cryo level, to respond to the call to repel borders down there. We had taken the stairs, as the elevators were slow. One flight above the deck maybe twenty crewmembers ran past us, a woman was screaming, two people were holding someone. Some of them were covered in blood. They rushed past us in a giant crowd, up the staircase. One of them looked back and yelled 'get out of here' really hysterically, like it was the apocalypse. Roger, our Fireteam leader told five of us to go after the crewmembers who had just ran past and try and calm them the hell down, and the other half to continue on. We split up, half going up, half going down. I don't know why Roger wanted half the squad to go after them, it seemed a bit excessive to me. I was halfway up the stairs when I heard a noise and a scream. I don't know what the noise was but the scream, the scream sounded like Roger. We never saw anyone who went down the stairs again."
"We found the group a deck above, huddled in a corner of this hallway. They were under a light, the rest of the hall was all dark, just black, I mean like pitch. When the five of us got there we realized there were maybe half of them missing, they must have run off somewhere else, like they were scattering. Martinez asked one of them what happened, what they saw. No one answered; they all seemed dazed, in shock. I remember thinking these were a bunch of crew who had been in countless naval battles with the Covenant, why would they be scared out of their wits over something like a boarding party, a situation they more than likely had faced before."
"I saw a woman was holding someone in her arms. The person the two were holding when they ran past. He was in the darkness; I couldn't really get a good look. I leaned in closer and saw that the guy's skin was…I still don't know how to describe it, it was not flesh colored, it wasn't normal."
Was it yellow?
Wyler, "I guess, it was pretty dark, plus I didn't look long enough and I don't remember. Anyways, I saw what looked like a stick jutting out from his arm, and I could tell the guy's head was cocked to an odd angle; there was a large bulge on his neck. Later, after we had fought them off an were in contact with everyone over the battle net, Dr. Kai described it as a goiter-like growth underneath the skin, the subcutis I think he said. I remember Dr. Kai's medical analysis, creepy stuff."
"That was when he reanimated, literally jumped to his feet. One moment he's rigor mortis, the next he's more animated then a cartoon. He raised his arm, the one with the stick poking out of it, and brought it down on the woman who had just a second ago been holding him. I got covered in her blood. I drew down with my shotgun and squeezed, firing blindly. The magnum blew the guy down. I couldn't see from the woman's blood but I could tell because I got sprayed again, the smell was horrid."
"We heard a noise from somewhere ahead, in the black. It sounded wet and reminded me of insects for some odd reason. Two of the people in the group jumped to their feet screaming. I was still shocked from shooting the guy and I rubbed my eyes so I could see. Davis who was farthest away vanished; something pulled him in to the dark. Martinez threw a flare and we got illumination. That was when they attacked, first the little pods scurrying across the ground. The remaining four of us opened up. It was a good thing they popped when you hit them, that killed more of them. Then the big ones came, like the guy I had shot. Martinez was swearing, he would shoot one but they would get right back up. I would have to pump them a second time. The shotgun worked the best. As soon as I ran dry, I dropped the M90 and pulled my M6D, that damn thing, one shot to the head and I tell you those things went down, that really did the trick. Martinez said we couldn't fight them off forever, we could hear more of them coming. He pulled the pin on a frag and lobbed it down the hall, by now the flare was dying and we were losing light. When I turned around I realized the crewmembers were already running. We took off after them, doing a two man tug fallback. These things were right on our heels. A frag in close quarters, my ears ring to this day."
"We eventually found a storage room that we locked up in with three people from the group of crewmembers. What happened to the others, I don't know. In their panic they just ran without a destination. How many people on that ship ended up like that, before they got transformed? Fear struck, running through a hallway with what used to be your pals now trying to rip you apart…"
At this Wyler ends the interview.
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