Sgt. Forge already didn't like this planet, even more so after running into Covenant Brutes. "Serina, I thought you said there weren't any signs of the Covenant down here. What do you call all this?" He said with no real heat, the Captain had already told him not to rely on the Spirit of Fire for intel; they didn't know where they were either.
For the next half hour, Forge and the two Elephants he'd come down with fought off waves of Brutes while looking for a decent place to set up a Firebase, when he was hailed over the radio. "Spartan Red Team, reporting in. Sergeant, we will flank the enemy and move to your location."
Together, they mowed Brutes down like no one's business, easily getting to the beacon's location and linking up with Red Team, who were sporting Shawn's upgrades. "Nice masks, got any spares?" He asked as Douglas puffed his chest up. He may not always get along with the wrench monkeys, but anything made by a fellow Spartan was welcome.
As they regrouped to move on, Echo squad called in, "Echo is operational. Situation normal. All is... Hold on. Something's... moving! We've got movement, all over!" Forge was on the mic instantly as Red Team shared a look. "Talk to me, Echo, what's going on!" He got nothing but screams, "This is Echo! Help! Help! They've breached our-aaahhhhh!!"
Forge kept hailing them as Serina and Captain Cutter were alerted to what was happening. "Echo signs are offline - quite suddenly, I might add." Serina sounded a bit worried as Cutter gave orders, "Sergeant, take a team out there and find out what's happening."
Forge and Red Team didn't waste any time as they sped towards Echo's last location, when India Company suddenly called in, "India, reporting in—Elephant's unpacking. Hold for...wait. Over there...what the hell was that?" Forge asked for more details, but all he got was screams, then silence.
"India signs are offline as well. How very ominous." Serina said as she and the Captain pulled their attention over. Forge still pushed forward, and one of his scouts called out, "Signal flares. We must be close."
He was right; they finally found what was left of Echo squad. Echo squads Elephant was still there, but it was covered in what seemed to be flesh, with tentacles sprouting from various spots. The bodies of Echo were strewn about, as small tentacled creatures milled about.
"Forge here. I believe teams Echo and India are compromised, over." He said, as Red Team sent a quick picture to Shawn before getting ready for a fight, something was horribly wrong here. "Covenant? I'm not reading any Brute signatures."
In unison, the small creatures turned and swarmed Echo squads bodies, burrowing into their skin as the bodies convulsed and mutated. "Not Covenant, sir - something else, something worse. Much uglier."
He could only manage that quip before the mutated marines threw themselves at them with guttural roars. Red Team blasted the ones closest to them as Forge and the Marines gunned down the ones that reached for them. "Clear that crap around the Elephant. We need to get it mobile."
On the Spirit of Fire's bridge, Captain Cutter and Serina are swiftly combing through the UNSC's combat data to find anything that resembles what Sgt Forge is fighting down below. Seeing that Forge has cleared out the creatures and cleaned up the Elephant, Cutter sends a quick message before going back to searching. "Sergeant, I'm approving your beacon for a firebase site. Serina, prep pods for launch."
As Forge finishes setting up the base, Captain Cutter and Serina give up searching for now, though Serina has made a few disturbing observations. "Well, this is new... and scary. These organisms are...interesting. Our database has nothing on their origins - or, well, anything about them, really. At first glance, they appear to be a species of virulent, parasitic organisms that thrive by consuming other sentient life of sufficient biomass."
Cutter shuddered as Forge chimed in, "Serina, you ever hear the phrase 'too much information'?" He doesn't bother to listen to her response as he takes a few Marine squads to go look for any friendlies in the area, hoping to make his way over to where India Company went silent.
As they pick their way through the corrupted landscape, Forge and the Marines can't help but twitch towards the sounds they hear, gripping their guns more tightly, not wanting to end up like Echo squad. As they march, they can't shake the feeling that they're being watched.
Suddenly, one of the scouts shouts, "We got friendlies over here!" Startling everyone for a second before they speed up, finding a squad of ODSTs. "Thank god you found us!" One said, sounding relieved as the squad lead stepped up to Forge, "There were more of us in our platoon. We all scattered when it hit the fan."
Following their directions, they went towards the next squad of ODSTs, having to destroy a small swarm of the little balloon-like creatures, not risking any chance that they'd get touched by the little bastards.
Finding the next squad under attack, they didn't hesitate to help as what looked like mutated Brutes were shot to pieces before they could get too close. "Thanks for the rescue, sir." The squad lead said as they linked up, safety in numbers.
The next squad was a bit trickier as they'd left a few markers for friendlies, but plenty of balloon things had to be shot on the way, which didn't bode well for them. Thankfully, they found the squad, and not a moment too soon. "Thank god you found us - we thought we were goners for sure." "Yeah, I spent my last magazine ten minutes ago."
Spending a little time to make sure none were injured, Forge passed around some ammo from the Elephant before setting out to find the last squad, and hopefully, the last Elephant.
As they searched, Shawn finally emerged from his ship and shared a bit of what he knew with Captain Cutter and Serina, though he didn't tell them everything. He did stress the point of decontaminating everything that went planetside, from transport ships to personnel, even gear and materials that could be repurposed.
Though a bit confused, Captain Carter went along with it. They were facing a never-before-seen bio-hazard; the last thing they needed was to fight an outbreak of whatever this was, and the Covenant at the same time. So he enforced strict decontamination protocols as Serina did scans on everything coming back from the planet, hoping to stop anything from spreading to the ship.
Back on the surface, Sgt Forge had finally found the last squad, as well as the location of the missing Elephant. Just as they were getting ready to leave, one of the ODSTs called out, "One of them bit me and ran off... Is that bad?" Another looked sick, like he was about to fall over, "Something's wrong. I feel funny..."
To everyone's horror, the entire last squad falls to the ground convulsing and screaming as tendrils erupt from their skin, flailing to try and hit more of them. "Kill them, NOW!" Forge yells as they all turn their guns on the ODSTs, filling them full of lead before turning to the swarm of balloons that had tried to sneak up on them.
Not wanting to give them time to panic, Forge keeps them occupied. "Clear that Elephant up NOW! We need to get back to base before night falls, and it's starting to get dark, people!" They scramble to follow orders as Forge fills in Shawn, Cutter, and Serina on what transpired.
"Good call, Forge. Check the other for bites or scratches as well. We can't afford to fight an outbreak and the Covenant." Cutter says as Forge looks back at the horribly mutated lumps of flesh that used to be ODSTs, "What if I find infected who haven't turned?" He asks as Shawn answers, his voice grim. "You do what you have to, or we all die."