Legend of the Phoenix

6. Infestation

Once aboard her ship, now equipped with a warp drive that Holliday promised would function correctly, Xira immediately set off in the direction of the Cosmodrome. It hadn't been half an hour since she was last out in the field, and yet the Exo felt a surge of energy as she piloted her ship out into the frontier.

A few minutes passed in silence as they drew closer to their destination before Ghost suddenly perked up and expanded, to Xira's surprise. "Picking up lots of Fallen radio chatter near the Skywatch," he reported.

"What are they saying?"

A series of broken transmissions cut through, all of them in a foreign language but sounding urgent. "Captains calling for backup," Ghost translated. "'Enemy within...' 'Fall back, too many...'"

"Too many what? What enemy? Guardians?"

"Hold on! I'm losing the signal..." Ghost expanded further. "...Ah, lost it."

Xira steered the ship near the ground. "Perhaps if we find some high ground, you can trace the signal and find out what this 'enemy' is." The Cosmodrome was in view now. She brought the ship in close.

"It's not high ground I need. Something- or someone- is jamming their comms. I can't get a signal anywhere, even out in the open. It looks like we're on our own down here."

"Then let's find their power sources. If other fireteams are going in, I don't want them to be in the dark." The Exo prepared herself for transmission.

"Good idea." the machine said as they were transmitted down to the ground. She held her pulse rifle steady in her hands as she took off down the path she thought led to the Skywatch.

"Ahem," Ghost spoke up from the comms. "The Skywatch is that way." A white marker appeared on her HUD to the left. Xira stopped running, embarrassed, and began to follow the marker. She ran into only a few groups of Fallen, which meant that most of their forces have already evacuated the area.

"There. That building with the radar? That's the Skywatch." Ghost said as Xira continued her path.

"Nothing out of the ordinary out here..." The Exo didn't like that one bit. She kept her gun primed in case something suddenly appeared.

A few Fallen were guarding the entrance. They were hardly a match for her now. Xira took a deep breath to calm her nerves before stepping foot into the Skywatch. The suffocating feeling returned just as it had before, in the tunnels, as the dim, flickering lights, tight spaces, and occasional Fallen growl from the outside made it seem like something out of a horror movie. Xira's hands clasped so tightly to her rifle that she feared it would snap in two.

"This was one of Skywatch's old array stations- a link to the lunar colonies." Ghost's voice in her helmet calmed her fears somewhat, although they were not gone. She continued down the dark path, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible.

"Dead end."

"I can see that," Xira snarked as Ghost materialized and began to work on the lock.

"I can get it open." After a few seconds, he said, "The Fallen really didn't want anybody getting in. Or out."

That didn't make Xira feel better in the slightest. She backed up and slid behind an old computer station, keeping her eyes on the door for whatever may jump out from behind it.

Nothing. The space behind the door had a sickly green glow, with some sort of mold-like stuff covering the walls. The Exo really didn't want to know what that was. The hallway above was pitch black, making Ghost the only source of light she now had in this place.

"Detecting some strange energy signatures up ahead, and lots of motion."

"I've got a bad feeling about this..." The fear had returned with greater force than ever. She kept moving through the compound, jumping at every creak and groan of the metal beneath her boots.