Outbreak at Site 22

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Outbreak at Site 22
Date:	October 4, 2556
Location:	Site 22, Marcey system
Outcome:	Flood outbreak mostly contained Site 22 destroyed via nuclear weapons bombardment
Details Belligerents United Nations Space Command The Flood Commanders CAPT Pedro Alvarez Strength 1 Paris-class heavy frigate UNSC Saturn 2+ Pelican dropships 3 Condor dropships Cyclopes 1 fireteam of Spartans Fireteam Leviathan Hellbringers IMC hazmat corps personnel Flood attacker forms Casualties 89 UNSC personnel killed or infected All 4 Spartans of Fireteam Leviathan 46 Marines 39 Hellbringers 2 Condors 1 destroyed 1 captured All but 2 Pelicans destroyed Numerous civilian casualties Near-all forces destroyed

The Flood outbreak at Site 22 was a small-scale outbreak of the Flood parasite that occurred in 2556. The outbreak began after the chance discovery of a Forerunner starship buried inside an asteroid at a location codenamed "Site 22," resulting in the infection of numerous civilian personnel and eventually a number of United Nations Space Command military personnel deployed to combat the outbreak. To date, the outbreak remains the only known instance in which a Spartan supersoldier has been infected by the Flood, resulting in the declaration of the CORRUPTER and UPSILON cryptonyms and the total destruction of Site 22 via the nuclear weapons fired from UNSC Saturn, a Paris-class heavy frigate overseeing the operation.

Background

In 2555, the human homeworld Earth was attacked by a fleet of Forerunner Retriever Sentinels, resulting in the widescale destruction of much of the UNSC Home Fleet - which had already itself been battered in fighting against the Covenant during the Battle for Earth in 2552. As a result, systems such as the Marcey system were critical hubs for mining and supplying many of the raw resources needed to reconstruct the fleet to fighting condition. Operations in the system were conducted in a joint partnership between the Imbrium Machine Complex (IMC) and BXR Mining Corporation, based out of the township of Elvie on the asteroid LV-31.

In 2556, a BXR survey operation resulted in the detection of a large Grade-K deposit at Site 22, resulting in the belief that the site harboured Forerunner technologies. The company deployed a number of EM-120 augers to investigate, which soon broke through the outer shell of the asteroid and exposed the Forerunner alloys - confirming the find and arousing the suspicion that the site may be a whole Forerunner spacecraft. Three days following the initial survey, a team of IMC hazmat corps personnel were deployed to the site to investigate directly, utilising a Pelican dropship.

The battle

After arriving at the site, a small team of miners led by Mox entered the Forerunner ship, only to be beset upon by the Flood interred within - resulting in garbled radio transmissions. The now-infected Mox soon returned to the surface and began to attack the rest of the party, who only had basic mining tools with which to fight off the infected. The loss of contact was registered by the artificial intelligence Lycaon, a Smart AI assigned to UNSC Saturn. Upon relaying the news to the ship's captain Pedro Alvarez, Lycaon attempted for two hours to get further information on the situation. However, BXR and IMC remained tight-lipped on the matter due to their unwillingness to compromise their potential find.

When the ship was finally able to observe the site directly, the crew immediately recognised the Flood on the surface, resulting in Lycaon attempting to commence the standard UPSILON protocol and urging Captain Alvarez to bombard the site with nuclear weapons. Alvarez refused, believing the find to be of critical strategic significance to the rebuilding of the UNSC fleet, resulting in Lycaon's attempt to remove the captain from command as per UNSC Regulation 14-372-01. Lycaon was interrupted during his attempt to relieve Alvarez's command due to Alvarez's knowledge of the command override phrase actiones secundum fidei ("actions according to faith") - leaving the AI frozen and the junior crew hesitant to attempt a mutiny against their commanding officer. Instead, Alvarez ordered the deployment of several Condor dropships to deploy military forces to the site to begin Flood cleanup operations.

Upon landing, the force (consisting of a squadron of Cyclopes, multiple Hellbringers, and the Spartan Fireteam Leviathan) was immediately engaged by the Flood, and for a brief time appeared to be successful in their attempt to mop up the outbreak. However, the Flood was soon able to bring down one of the Spartans, resulting in their infection and conversion to a combat form. The Spartan's MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor immediately detected the presence of the Flood Super Cell breach and reacted by overpressurising the armour's hydrostatic gel layer, crushing the Spartan's body, and activating the explosive mechanisms inside the Spartan's Gallows VISR - with the aim of destroying their brain. The Flood was able to counteract this and inject its own code into the suit, cancelling the countermeasure deployment and instead re-sealing the armour while converting the Spartan inside.

With the tables rapidly turning and the containment operation devolving into chaos, Alvarez realised his own shortsightedness and the risk now posed to the galaxy should the Flood make it off Site 22. Consequently, he gave the order to enact CORRUPTER protocols and begin nuclear bombardment of the asteroid via Shiva-class nuclear missile, giving all surviving ground-side personnel seven minutes to evacuate. During the bombardment, some Flood, including the now-infected Julien Donney and a Spartan, were able to reach one of the Condor dropships and use it to escape using its slipspace drive.

Aftermath

Following Site 22's destruction, captain Alvarez considered the weight of his actions and the punishment he was likely to receive were he to return home. He considered final dispensation for Lycaon and ordering his inexperienced crew to abandon the UNSC to avoid such a punishment, though he remained unsure of how successful it would be. A day later, after he continued considering his options over a bottle of Titan Smoke he had planned to save for his retirement, Lieutenant Anwar Shafiq sent him a causality report of the outbreak. The report that included the revelation that one of Saturn's slipspace-capable Condors was missing, potentially taken by the Flood. He then ordered Shafiq to send him all recovered footage and swore him to silence until the facts were confirmed.

On October 9, Alvarez ordered that all 193 of the ship's remaining crew were to assemble in the frigate's hangar bay for an addresses from Alvarez, who would tell the assembled marines and security staff he had received classified orders from FLEETCOM to leave the Marcey system and enter slipspace with non-essential personnel being put into cryosleep. The assembled crew, already doubtful of whether Alvarez was fit to still be in command after four days of silence from him, began poking holes in his story with one comms officer pointing out that they had not received anything from FLEETCOM for the past four days. When Shafiq found that all senior staff, including himself, would be assigned to cryo while 30 ensigns would be left to operate the ship, as well as finding the names of Fireteam Leviathan among the maintenance crew, he brought it up to Alvarez, only for him to dismiss it as a system glitch and summoned Shafiq to his quarters - to Shafiq's refusal. Major Moran, the commander of the Saturn's Hellbringer division, accused Alvarez of attempting to escape accountability for his failure and silencing the crew by putting them in cryo. Shaziq then accused Alvarez of covering up the potential of the Flood escaping Site 22, kickstarting a mutiny as the crew attempted to remove Alvarez from command with the goal of taking him to Earth for court-martialing. In response, Alvarez opened the hanger's exterior airlock, sucking the assembled crew into space. In the days following, the remaining crew would turn on Alvarez, whispering their own plans and making their own factions. Alvarez slowly had the remaining dissenters killed until he was the only one left on the ship. On October 31 he would write a final report, confessing his failure and reflecting on what led him to make the choices he did. This culminated in the reactivation of Lycaon, who was left the ship to do as he pleased, as Alvarez seemingly took his own life.

UNSC Saturn would remain adrift for three years, five months and seventeen days, where Lycaon would watch the continued turmoil in the galaxy and concluded that humanity was not to ready to be a true interstellar civilization, with the events on Site 22 and the Saturn proving their fragility and self-destructiveness. Eventually, he was found by Sloan, who would invite Lycaon to join the Created.

The Condor taken by the Flood crash-landed on the planet Atropos, with many of the Flood forms onboard severely damaged. The ship would be discovered by Kanto'Boreft, the Minister of Aretalogy and a member of the Governors of Contrition who had been exiled from High Charity for their extreme beliefs. Seeing the Flood as a emissary of the Gods, the Minister sought to test them. He would dismantle the space station he had been assigned to, the Ninth Watchtower of August Attendance, and relocated his followers to the planet's surface to be alongside Atropos' small human population. The Citadel the Watchtower carried would become a temple for the Flood, where he would send one of his compliment as a "Chosen Sacrifice" for the parasite to grow it. Eventually, the Flood would break free of the Citadel and begin to swarm across Atropos before forming into a new compound form, transmitting a psychic signal into the cosmos, searching for something. The Minister would compose a final testament for any who would discover it before leaving to give himself to the Flood.

List of appearances

• Halo Infinite
  • Season 04: Infection (First mentioned)
  • Season 05: Reckoning (Mentioned only)
• Halo: Saturn Devouring His Son (First appearance)
• Halo: Ascension on Atropos (Mentioned only)