Mission 9: Keyes

Mission Objectives

1. Board the Flood-infested cruiser

   You return to the Truth and Reconciliation, now overrun by Flood. The hangar bay from Mission 3 is unrecognizable — Covenant bodies everywhere, Flood biomass coating the walls. The Covenant and Flood are actively fighting throughout the ship. Your objective is to locate Captain Keyes on the bridge, but the Flood have reached him first.

2. Navigate the cruiser's infested corridors

   The cruiser's layout is the same as Mission 3 but the combat dynamics are entirely different. Flood combat forms now wield Covenant weapons scavenged from dead Elites — watch for Flood carrying Energy Swords, they can lunge from surprising distances. Covenant patrols will sometimes ignore you to fight Flood; do not shoot them and they may clear a room for you.

3. Reach the bridge through the alternate route

   The main corridor to the bridge is collapsed, forcing you through the ship's maintenance shafts and crew quarters. These tight spaces are perfect for the shotgun. In the crew quarters, a Covenant Spec Ops team is making a last stand against a Flood swarm — toss a grenade into the melee and mop up whoever survives.

4. Find Captain Keyes on the bridge

   Keyes is not on the bridge — the Flood have dragged him deeper into the ship. You find his neural interface on the bridge floor, and Cortana traces his life signs to the engine room. The bridge itself is a combat arena: Flood pour from the ceiling vents while two cloaked Elite Ultras try to hold the command console. Let them fight it out.

5. Confront the Flood and extract Keyes

   The engine room reveals a grotesque Flood blob-form that has absorbed Captain Keyes. You cannot save him — you can only retrieve his neural interface from the biomass. Destroy the blob-form with sustained fire to its central mass, then grab the interface and escape as the ship's reactor begins to go critical.

Boss Strategy

The Flood blob-form in the engine room is an immobile organic mass that spawns combat forms and infection swarms continuously. The blob itself has a large central glowing core — this is the only part that takes damage. Use the Needler — its supercombine explosion deals massive damage to Flood biomass and the homing needles curve toward the core automatically. Do not use the shotgun; you need to stay at mid-range to avoid the infection forms spawning at the blob's base. Kite the spawned combat forms around the engine room pillars while pausing to unload into the core between waves. On Legendary, two full Needler magazines and a frag grenade will kill it. The blob pulses before each spawn wave — use the pulse as your cue to reposition. The room has a rocket launcher in the far corner if you exhaust your Needler ammo.

Collectibles

• Terminal 9 — In the Covenant cruiser's command center, behind the holographic display
• Skull: IWHBYD — Inside the ship's engine maintenance shaft, accessible via a vent in the hangar

Secrets & Easter Eggs

• Hidden Needler ammo cache — in the hangar bay where you board, check behind the first set of Covenant supply crates on the right wall. Two Needler ammo boxes spawn here, enough to carry you through the entire mission with the Needler as your primary. The Needler's supercombine is devastating against Flood biomass.
• Alternate route to the bridge — instead of following the objective marker through the maintenance shafts, take the second left in the hangar bay and climb the damaged gravity lift shaft. It leads directly to the crew quarters balcony, letting you bypass two combat rooms and enter the bridge from the upper level with a tactical advantage.
• Covenant weapons locker — the cruiser's armory (same room as the Sniper ammo cache from Mission 3) is now restocked with Covenant weapons. A Fuel Rod Cannon spawns on the top shelf — it one-shots the Flood blob-form's combat form spawns and deals heavy damage to the core. Five shots total, so make them count.