STRING 36A

Earth calendar – estimated 97,445 BCE…

(Compiler note: We now approach the final files of this document, which are based on a variety of sources, including the old Ark terminals, and the prior 'Silentium' file. Before we conclude the story of the war with the Flood, there is another file we have unearthed, a fragment of what seems to be a larger string of audio uploads, from Forerunner computers. It seems to have a direct connection to the recent Project Goliath, with one important extension…)

[File uploaded to Builder technical support services, Custodes maintenance division] I hope soon to meet up with other Forerunners, as part of the Librarian's newest contingency measures, using the full resources imparted to her by the Master Builder and other allies. The Reclamation was her final project, meant to find fruition long after she, and perhaps all of us, have gone. She believes our species had failed in our path, and that it was time to start over. Despite our past differences, the species known as humanity would be granted the chance to pick up where we have left off. She also suspected an ancestral connection to them, or so I have heard. For that reason, as much Forerunner technology as we still have access to has been recoded to respond to human DNA, or at least, particular key strands that are hoped to survive throughout the genome, even amidst admixture. Human genetics are complicated, and they include various subspecies. It is even possible we must add our own DNA partly into the mix, for their full evolution to reach the necessary level of compatibility. And I sensed the Librarian was prepared to take that risk, for fear of an eventual Flood return. The humans must be made ready, she was heard to say, within an available window of time. We have done our part to prepare our technology accordingly, as well. The Guardians in particular are fairly ancient, and so may not be fully responsive in the way she desires. Still, I have acted to index them, and prepare them for later unearthing. Besides being law enforcement and siege weapons, they once served an older role, as custodians of the Domain, keepers of its spirit and eternal flame. Establishing nodes for our access, and collecting knowledge, as well as guarding against unauthorised intrusion; they retain some of that old connection, which could be a great boon to any future holders of the Mantle. I fear they may also embody some of our worst excesses for control and hubris, however. Still, what can be done has been done.

"Confirmation of dormancy: Guardians are prepped and stored for eventual Reclamation. I make my way now to shie… [data corrupted] …-signation, Bastion. There, I hope to find sanctuary, and some way to escape the coming conflagration."

STRING 36B

(Compiler note: communications between the Iso-Didact and the Librarian…)

She was able to see the approaching enemy forces from light years away, aided by Forerunner sensor systems.

It interrupted her key work, but not for very long – there was too much to do.

Instructions have been left for others to continue, including Monitors and other AI, custodians, servants. The geas, these 'gene-songs' implanted into humans, to be passed down multiple generations. To unlock, in time, into packages of knowledge and inspiration that will speed up their development, in several tens of thousands of years; and the DNA splices too. Other parts will persist in legend and myth, garbled, maybe, or tacked on to other stories, to be preserved. Even some memory of myself – what was it one of them called me, in that village – the serpent lady? She knew she did have a rather different face to these humans now around her; and that old woman, some sort of shaman or wise elder, had seen things few other humans there had been able to perceive. One could never plan for everything, and maybe it was time to let go, now – to cease at playing god, and allow whatever plans there were, whether known or hidden from all, to unfold as they would.

And now the Flood was on its way, and threatening, she suspected, to cut off the other portals, or seize one, deep within the remains of the Jat Krula fortifications, to access and destroy the other Ark. She now made one more gamble – a message sent out indicating a possible cure to the Flood had been found, upon this world. They had never confirmed it, had found contradictory evidence of it, and she suspected it may have been one more hoax by the Primordial. But if it was plausible in any way, it might draw their attention at a key moment, and make them hesitate, in even a small way.

If she miscalculated, though, this world was doomed, and maybe any future humanity still had.

There I tread again, playing god, she sighed. She feared by now it was all she knew how to do. Perhaps it was a good idea to end it here, with one final contribution, before she became too much like her husband.

To Bornstellar – who now embodied much of the spouse she had once known – she sent another message, alerting him to recent developments:

"Something is wrong! It's moving away! At night I can see it – flitting shadows – black against the stars. Thousands of ships! Not spiralling outward but heading for the line. This is the tipping point, Didact. It's no longer feeding. It's coming for you.

"I've remotely destroyed our Keyships – a security measure. Without them I cannot reach the Ark. But neither then can the thing. I'm trapped. On a beautiful, empty world. Its inhabitants have been safely indexed, every single one of them. Well worth the effort it took to build one final gateway even at this late hour. This may be our last communication. I'm begging you.

"Fire the Array. Light the weapon, and let it be done."

The reply came within the hour, using, by Forerunner standards, achingly slow superluminal communications piggybacked on neutrino waves and slipspace eddies, with even wavespace now becoming closed to them, by Flood sabotage.

"We've confirmed your observations. Infected supraluminal ships are arrowing inward from several clusters. No more spiral growth. The thing is counterattacking. Suppression, Security and Emergency Circumstance fleets are all being recalled. Systems are evacuating.

"Mendicant Bias is not presently communicating with us, nor offering surrender. But now I can guess where you are."

Soon enough, she found other communications – though not from the treacherous Bias, still clearly enemy communications, offering the Gravemind's new spiel – of peace, salvation, embrace – a nightmare dressed up in sweet talk. Perdition sold as a new paradise. Then she sent another, more bittersweet message:

"My work is done. The portal is inactive, and I've begun the burial measures. Soon there'll be nothing but sand and rock and normal ferrite signatures. You should see the mountain that watches over it: A beautiful thing – a snowcapped sentinel. That's where I will spend what time is left to me.

"Did I tell you? I built a garden. The earth is so rich. A seed falls and a tree sprouts or a flower blooms. There's so much… potential. We knew this was a special place because of them, but unless you've been here, you can't know. It's […Eden].

"I have to stop transmitting. The thing is listening. Its undead homunculi are babbling – laughing through every channel they can find. Be proud. The Mind claims victory, yet it still doesn't suspect. You've outwitted it, my love. And now you can destroy it.

"But you cannot save me."

By diverting the Flood into accessing the old portal networks, she had calculated more and more of them would be safely in reach of the Halo Array, and not located in any other exotic Precursor channels. The Halo effect was believed to destroy even those, but there was no sense leaving too much to chance, in these last desperate hours.

And she also decided to pass on her title, her role, to one of those who would be leaving on the last ship out, assuming they made it: A young protégé of hers – a promising young woman known as Chant-To-Green.

With that decision made, she terminated all further transmissions, and awaited her appointed end.

At the Ark, the centrepiece of the remaining Forerunner strategy (as far as Chakas knew) the Iso-Didact, as all now called him, bade his goodbyes, dispatching the new Monitors to take command of the Halos individually, transferred by the few Lifeworker vessels now available to them. Keyships, vast transports of organic material and frozen lifeforms, had been destroyed around the galaxy to prevent access to the Ark's portal networks, and this was to be the last transit. For many of the sparse crew aboard, it could well be a one-way trip, as well.

Seven monitors, including Chakas himself, had been appointed. They were similar in design to those manning crucial Line installations along the Jat Krula defence cordon, but even more sophisticated. Key line installations were also placed near to each Halo's deployment site, for additional security. Each monitor sported a single eyepiece, marked with the symbol of Reclamation, now, as a reminder of duties still to come, and each eyepiece glowed a somewhat different colour. Chakas' now was a vibrant cyan blue, and the pinprick within it seemed to dart about, inquisitively, still full of much of the life of the organic mind now uploaded into it.

"I send you on your way, friend. Your new home will be Installation 04. I will also give you a new designation…" he paused then, remembering, though secondhand, in a way, the naming of Mendicant Bias, so long ago, and the expectations this had maybe placed upon him. But it had already been agreed that the Monitors must bear additional symbolism, for this task.

"Henceforth, you will no longer be just a guide and assistant; you will be a guardian and protector of an entire installation. You will be called 343 Guilty Spark."

They dwelt on the moment, for a while. All Monitors involved now bore a name indicating contrition and an inciting incident, or attestation, to the tragedy they would be bearing witness to – along with a numeric code, escalating in multiples of seven, culminating in six digits for the seventh Installation's monitor. "We were young and foolish when we met. So much has happened for both of us. We are not at all that we were, are we?"

"I will think on those good days – I hope to find comfort in the memory…" Guilty Spark replied.

That is something we will all badly need, Bornstellar mused. And yet… it is likely even that may be denied you. As a Monitor, memories that could prove compromising will be coded, sectioned and maybe removed altogether, to prevent infiltration or logic plague. Why have all my friends become darkened by my responsibilities, thus far?

He recalled the last desperate transmissions he had tried to send the Librarian, with all indications being that they had not been received, whether jammed, disrupted en-route, or just unable to be picked up anymore.

"Proud? When I have failed you utterly, how can I feel anything but sorrow? Bias has begun his last assault. He crossed the line this morning, and destroyed your waiting rescue party.

"It's over. We're activating Halo, our shameful last resort. I can picture you in your garden, surveying all you have created – surveying all you have preserved. And I curse the circumstance that keeps my finger on the trigger. Of all the fates to befall us, this is the cruellest of all. My inaction and hesitation kept me here, on the wrong side of the line. And three hundred years of our society's failure and miscalculation makes me your executioner.

"It's too much to bear."

He turned to Chakas, needing one final moment of him being a confidant, before duty swallowed up him into a cog in the machine, as well. "Now, old friend, we have the most important job in history – perhaps in all time. You may well outlast all of us here; you may see the new galaxy emerge. Tell me, Chakas… if this was your choice, after all we have seen and survived… would you fire the rings?"

Guilty Spark remained hovering, as if frozen in place. His eye dimmed slightly, but he made no reply, as yet. Then he seemed to come awake again, moving slowly away. Had he been silently rehearsing his answer, hesitant?

A communication came in at that moment from Offensive Bias, the last remaining Contender-class AI, now in control of a mere eleven thousand warships of varying strengths and abilities, that was being arranged tactically to repel the final assault for the time they would need to complete their tasks.

"Portal opening," Offensive said. "Didact… I have received a coded signal from Mendicant Bias: it offers no quarter, expresses full confidence in its successful destruction of this Ark – and asks that I transfer to join it; allowing me to survive and partner with it."

"Why tell me?" the Iso-Didact asked warily.

"Just in case you were still doubtful about my freedom from the logic plague: I am still here, still with you, Didact. I await your instructions," he replied. Offensive was far less of a philosopher than Mendicant – more driven, focused, less creative, outside of specialised abilities.

"Thank you – I have no doubts. Disperse the Halos," he commanded the machine mind.

Across the galaxy, dispatched by massive portals in orbit of various worlds where species had been gathered for evacuation – now largely empty – seven huge bands of shining metal and natural-looking landscapes appeared in various alien skies, watched, in some cases, by those left behind, feeling emotions ranging from fear, obeisance and religious awe, to foreboding on what seemed (correctly) like the end of an age, and a now uncertain future. It was future to soon abruptly end – an era marked by one concept:

Unworlding – such as the San Shyuum prophets had spoken of before: the end of history as it was known, and of physical life itself. Whether that then led on to transcendence and entry into a newer – better, perhaps – world, was something the sages hotly debated, on many worlds. But they were to have little time to resolve those – the clock had already begun to tick.

And elsewhere, shadows crept across the stars, hordes of hostile forces, moving ever closer toward the same kind of portals that had dispatched these heralds of a new time.

As the Halos moved out, so did the last full Forerunner armada this galaxy would know, a mere eleven thousand ships arrayed sparsely against an ever-growing armada that was now over four million craft in strength. Commanding the allied forces was Offensive Bias, the last Contender AI, and the younger, more pugnacious brother of Mendicant, who directed the opposing fleet. Both were literally buds from the same branch, fruit of the same tree, and crafted in much the same way – but for separate tasks. Offensive knew much of Mendicant's mind, his personality, and his tactics, as well as of his recent history, and used that pool of knowledge to find his weaknesses, particularly in this angry, fanatical state he now appeared to be in. This was also driving him more and more towards direct, unsubtle attack – a brutal spearhead manoeuvre, meant to hammer the Forerunner forces upon the anvil of his fleets, and drive them into clouds of their own fallen brothers' ashes. It was, however, also predictable, thus far:

"Mendicant has burrowed through the Sphere exactly where I expected – a direct path from renewed Rampancy to final retribution. Rage has made it predictable," Offensive reported, for his combat log – adding his own dismissive contempt for the disloyal piece of software he currently felt no kinship toward. 'Malfunctioning mechanical trash,' he had recently called him.

"If the fate of the crews of my auxiliary fleet were not already a foregone conclusion, I would rate their chance of survival at 1.96 million to one – still, I did not expect an easy fight: just one that I cannot to lose," he continued, uploading to records as he spoke.

"In support of 05-032's original 1000 core-vessels is a fleet numbering 4,802,019 – though only 1.8 percent are warships – and only 2.4 percent of that number are capital ships: I am outnumbered [436.6:1].

"I expect my losses will be near total, but overwhelming force has its own peculiar drawbacks: Such a press of arms invites many

opportunities for unintentional fratricide..."

As the two armadas began to close, a large chunk of the enemy fleet separated from the rest of the crush, and began driving forward toward the lead Forerunner vessels. Offensive Bias identified them as nearly one point eight million commercial and leisure craft, ranging from tiny yachts and shuttles to large transports and liners in excess of five thousand tons (much of that mass made up of hard-light, allowing for less dense vessels overall) Despite their relatively flimsy nature, their numbers were still sufficient to overwhelm most of the allied fleet's targeting systems, all but guaranteeing some would break through, and begin harassing Offensive's forces from within their own lines of battle. He wondered somewhat if this was a calculated move, or just a contemptuous expression of disrespect on Mendicant's part – that it was not worth yet risking any real warships on this initial assault.

Despite the massive array of targets cluttering the tactical displays, Offensive Bias was still able to detect a smaller force – perhaps involving core-ships, which might house digital extensions of Mendicant himself - had broken away from the enemy fleet at some point, and was now attempting a stealthy relocation; possibly to somewhere within the allied lines. Millions of kilometres still separated the bulk of the two advancing fleets, but that gulf was closing rapidly. Offensive kept his fighters and escort craft held back, drawing in more and more of the hijacked commercial craft towards his carriers. A second enemy wave was already on the way, consisting of fighters and what looked like rigged up boarding craft, seeking to draw close to Forerunner ships and impale and penetrate them – repurpose them to enemy aims, as all these other hostile craft had become in the last few years. Offensive mounted a defence that was effective enough, initially, but designed to look somewhat inelegant and reliant on luck, for parts of its tactics. All was geared towards encouraging and underestimation of his abilities – and his resolve. Unconventional tactics would soon be put into play – sometimes necessitating sacrifices.

Unlike Mendicant Bias had been reported to be, Offensive did not flinch much over the spending of his own soldier's lives, if the goal be a fruitful one. As an old report from the reprobate AI had stated, before his defection, the time for half measures had truly passed.

One of Offensive's vessels had already been boarded and hijacked, but rather than respond to its new occupants, it instead steered itself into the clench of newly arriving enemy ships, and rammed long-side on into one of them. Thousands of warriors were cast into the void – alongside a similar number of reanimated Flood perversions.

Further waves followed over the next three and a half hours, totalling seven surges in total. The most recent was a mixed force of tankers, barges and smaller hijacked warships. Some of the barges were nearly ten times as massive as those commercial craft in the first wave, and seemed chosen for durability this time, over swarm tactics. Meanwhile, the cohesion of Mendicant's core-ships, serving as the hubs of several attack wings, around which larger forces pirouetted, was slowly coming apart, reducing their effectiveness to react rapidly to new offensives and redirection of assets.

Tight beam communications from the Ark implied that the final countdown was underway, according to a preselected code meant to conceal that intention. In twenty minutes or less, the firing sequence was expected to trigger – and the first stage of this battle, the most crucial, would come to completion.

Ensconced within the control Citadel of the Ark, a jutting, flying buttress like structure more than (half a mile) in length, Bornstellar, the new Didact, waited with a few other loyal subordinates, including a young female warrior servant, Glory-of-a-Far-Dawn, who had escorted him to the trial of the Master Builder, some seven years before. Once someone who had caught his eye, she now blazed like a dim dwarf star before the charismatic nova of the Librarian, who was not cut off from him as well.

One last message allegedly from her had been transmitted towards him, and stored in communications buffers – but he distrusted it, feared an enemy counterfeit.

Perhaps someday he would submit to temptation, and peruse the message personally, if he survived that long. Here, gazing out of the tall transparent alloy window that looked out onto the cascading waterfalls at the Ark's hollow centre, lit by a burnt copper world sat within, like a fiery ember, he had time to focus only on the next moment, and the next after that.

It was almost time.

"Do we delay?" Offensive Bias reported.

"No delay: check point for final abort, ten seconds. Installation 04 – will initiate discharge, followed sequentially by the remaining installations. The rings will fire once their fields intersect."

Now in position across the galaxy, the seven Halo rings had been positioned to almost – but not quite – equidistant points within the galaxy's five major spiral arms; none were thought to be needed within the galactic core, its hostile radiation and dense suns made life unlikely within. Still, by overlapping their fields of fire and waveforms, the rings were capable of sterilising all life within the galaxy and out to two or three radii of it – so eliminating any potential holdouts was a near certainty. Orbiting far away from it all, at over twice the galactic diameter in total, the Ark was far outside, and 'above', the immanent cataclysm. Life forms had already been put into protective stasis within it, just in case. As one of their final acts, Lifeworkers had seeded most major still habitable worlds with a solvent, upon their departure, which would break down all remaining biomatter of animal (and sentient) life, upon a successful firing. Not even a single spore of Flood would remain, and the biospheres of those worlds should recover without fetid remnants to pollute them.

Remnants of what had once been swarming, bustling, throbbing life, in all its incomprehensible variety. Once that was swept away, would come the hard work of reseeding – the Library project. Guided by scattered facilities, Builder assembly sites and 'canon worlds' – planetary compendiums of knowledge (should such remain) – life would be carefully restored on millions of worlds, or at least, those not scorched from orbit or swallowed up by ignited suns. So much had already been laid waste to, in this savage, over three hundred year long war.

Now, one way or another, it would conclude.

"Countdown: one minute, twelve seconds," a computer voice announced, flatly, unemotionally; all the weight of the moment was felt silently within the minds of the participants, with no further need for theatrics.

"There is no peace left – no place where the parasite cannot reach: You were right about it all. Let us hope the final measure is not too late," the Iso-Didact mused aloud, uploading into his armour's combat logs.

"Confirm Array burn radium – check. Confirm Array synch – 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 - …check. Commence…" the voice continued, robotically.

Already, superluminal sensors reported strange echoes from some of the Halos, evidence that at some causality level, the firing had already taken place – and some of the effects were leaking backward, through quantum channels: perhaps an effect of the zero mode synchronisation, of all seven fields reaching out to each other?

"Forgive us," the woeful Iso Didact said at last, placing his hands upon the two circular input displays, blinking away moisture from his view out at the fiery world in front of him, and the dim cosmic vista beyond. He activated the controls…

"Commence – Array authorised…"

"It's done: By my hands. The pyrrhic solution is ignited. All I have left is the quiet of space to lull me to sleep. I will dream of you…" he voiced to his armour's systems alone, recording the moment, as a last confession of guilt.

"Enter reversion sequence to deactivate…?"

"I feel no peril – no pain – no remorse; is that… normal?"

Status lights and holo displays lit up, and power throbbed in a column behind them. Further behind that, holographic displays of all seven Halo rings turned gently in rotation, now bracketed in red. In a sequence, they flashed…

And for those in the room, those were the only outward signs of Armageddon.