The Spartan opened her eyes, ignoring the stab of pain as the light invaded. She was falling, she realized. With the realization came a jolt of adrenaline and she was unable to contain a violent curse.

The fall, in and of itself, was not such a problem, but as she fell, she spiraled, descending completely out of control. That was a problem – it meant that even if she locked her armor, she would still hit awkwardly, and still sustain massive injuries.

"Cook Actual, this is Gold Four," she barked into her comm mike, carefully keeping her voice level. "Do you read?"

"Roger that, Spartan. Go ahead."

"I have been separated from my team and my fighter has been destroyed. I am in a… compromised position at this moment." As she spoke, the Spartan fought to gain control of her descent. She was not quite able to contain the grunt of effort as she finally managed to stabilize, and as she took the spread-eagled position that allowed her the best control and slowest descent, she continued. "I have managed to gain control of my descent but cannot gain visual on the bottom of the shaft. I request a schematic of all excavations and underground tunnel complexes in this area."

There was a brief pause. Raven filled it with what she imagined was going on at the other end of the link – the communications officer conferring either with the Captain Cook's shipboard AI, or the navigation officer. Finally, the comms officer responded. "Approved. Transmitting now."

A little download screen popped up in her HUD just above her motion tracker. The Spartan watched the bar move from one side to the other and then the schematic popped up. "Received. Much appreciated. Four out."

As she reviewed the map, Raven felt her face gradually slip into a scowl. She had already fallen quite a distance and based on what this map had to say on the matter she still had quite the distance to fall – and she was still accelerating, thanks to the fact that her specific MJOLNIR subtype had been designed for minimum resistance, but was still as heavy as the other subtypes.

It wasn't the fall that was the problem. As the bottom of the chute finally came into view, she grimaced. It was the landing that would hurt. Raven battled her way into an upright position and manually adjusted the viscosity of the gel layer so that it was not quite locked, but would absorb a lot of the impact.

She had a split second to ensure her knees were bent and then felt her boots hit rock. The shock of impact moved through her feet and up her legs, and she felt cracks form in both tibias, both fibulas, and her right femur. It jarred her hips and spine, then continued up to throw a shoulder a fraction out of alignment. The only thing that kept her head from snapping forward and down – and therefore snapping her neck – was the fact that she had completely locked the neck section of her armor.

A resounding BOOM echoed through the chute and adjoining tunnel, and Raven actually saw and felt the crater form.

This was Spartan Time, where everything happened in an instant but time crawled so she could easily identify exactly what was happening, why, and how. The side-effect of that was that she experienced in excruciating detail just how much it fucking hurt to fall so far without a parachute and then hit solid rock.

"Sparrow," she said.

"Yes?" the AI responded immediately.

"I think I'm all right, other than a few little hairline fractures, but run a scan, would you?"

"Of course. Subject: Spartan-B312, Gold Four, Raven. The subject has recently experienced a twenty-one-point-two-three kilometer fall and impacted at over four hundred kilometers per hour. Subject's musculoskeletal structure has emerged relatively intact with hairline fractures to the lower legs and right femur, hairline fractures to L2 and L3, and a hairline fracture to left shoulder. Minimal muscle tearing in both legs, no muscular damage to remainder of body. Internal organs appear undamaged. Blood pressure and heart rate are elevated, as expected. Major concussion to subject's brain, unrelated to impact. Be careful, Raven. The concussion will affect you."

It was unusual for Sparrow to add personal comments to the end of a report. Raven wondered at that for a moment, then shrugged and leapt easily out of the crater. She paused, checked her weapons, then set off down the tunnel. Running was painful, but so was having her eyes open at all, so she pushed the pain down and kept going, eventually losing herself in the rhythm of her feet.

Raven was not fully conscious for quite some time, and only pulled herself back to reality when the tunnel suddenly sloped upwards on a steep incline. The unexpected change nearly tripped her up, but she recovered easily and kept going. "Sparrow."

"Yes?"

"Best cover when we get topside? I need something close to an LZ. And one more thing."

"Yes?"

"See if you can raise the team. I need a ride out of here."

…

Pulling herself back to reality, Raven let out an exasperated sigh. It was this concentration issue that had gotten her kicked off the SABER project, the one place she had been truly happy. The pilot's life was her niche. Ever since that damn accident, she hadn't been able to concentrate for more than half an hour at a time, and because of it, she was no longer a pilot.

She had, at least, managed to keep Sparrow. The AI was useful – and he was her friend, in a world where it was impossible to have friends at all. Raven was surrounded by ODSTs and Marines. The Marines, she didn't mind so much, but it was hard to get close to people who found her intimidating. Harder still when she knew those very same people were probably going to die in the course of this damned war. Just like she would. Just like everyone would.

"Daydreaming again, Raven? Focus," Sparrow reminded her.

Raven sighed. "I'm trying."

"I know. Your brain is still healing, and if you quit trying to concentrate, it will quit trying to heal."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Raven said, already distracted again. She pulled herself back to the present with some effort and felt a twinge of irritation. I'm sick of this shit, she thought, frowning behind her faceplate. I'm on watch, for fuck's sake!

"Hey, language," Sparrow complained, making use of Raven's wetware to plant his words as a thought in her mind to remind her that he was in there.

"Deal with it," Raven grumped out loud. A Marine looked at her oddly. That made her smirk. It was entertaining watching their reactions to what Sparrow liked to call Raven-isms.

Watch was boring. There was never anything to see and never anything to do and Raven found it incredibly difficult to stand still and not fidget. Her mind kept wandering without any adrenaline in her system to keep it on task.

"You're being reassigned again," Sparrow said suddenly. "My notification algorithm just alerted me to the fact that your number is being used in reference to a transfer."

"Lovely. I wonder where to, this time? Hopefully something more useful than this posting. Ugh."

"I'm not sure… it seems to me as if a squad commander put in a request specifically for you."

Raven stood a little straighter. "Spartans?"

"Unfortunately not. More Marines. But these ones do actual combat work, so you're not going to be so bored."

"Long as I get to kill things."

"That's the spirit," Sparrow said approvingly.

…

Raven stepped off the Pelican, fully armored, all five of her weapons attached to various parts of her body. It was awkward to carry so many different weapons at once, and so she normally only carried two or three into battle, but someone had to carry them to the armory.

Almost immediately, she was mobbed by the local insects that liked to eat the paint on her armor. She didn't bother trying to bat them away; they would come back incessantly and it was about time she got a new paint job anyway. She was kind of tired of the same old black with red accents. It had been her color for years.

"Time for a change, I think," she said to Sparrow.

"In what?"

"Armor color. What do you think? Bright orange? Pink? How about day-glo yellow, just to annoy Command?"

Sparrow made a noise that was a good approximation of a human groan. "Conservative would be best. The black works well. Would a change of accent color be enough?"

"No, I'm sick of black. Utterly sick of it." Raven walked into the armory and started unloading weapons. "I really do think that something completely different would be nice. Hmm… I want gold accents."

"Gold?"

"Yes, gold. I want to go back to Gold Team one of these days. I was happy as a pilot."

"You're too sentimental. A warmer color would look good with gold. Red, or orange, or perhaps purple…"

"Lilac?" Raven grinned behind her faceplate. She liked the idea of lilac and gold. "You know I hate deep purple, but lilac is unique, and the gold would really pop."

Sparrow sighed. "I should never have suggested purple… really, red would look best. A nice dark bloody crimson type red."

"You're no fun," Raven informed the AI, placing her sidearm on the table, though she would have preferred to remain armed. "Come on, stay quiet, I have to report to the CO."

"General," Sparrow corrected.

"Whatever. To me, if he outranks me, he's the CO, I don't really care what rank he actually is."

Sparrow sighed in frustration. Raven ignored him and swiped a very small pistol from a shelf – it wasn't hers, it was loaded, and it was the type designed to be kept concealed. She slipped it into the hardcase on her thigh, along with a couple of clips of ammunition. Raven went nowhere unarmed. She didn't count the combat knife sheathed at her chest, because bladed weapons had never held much interest for her. She rarely used it.

With quick, long strides, she left the armory and headed to the Command cubicle. Every building here was made of plastic cubes, easily deployed and cheap to make. That made it instantly recognizable as a forward base, close to the front lines. It would later be developed into a more permanent base with permanent structures, once Raven and the other soldiers had pushed the enemy back far enough.

She sidled through the door, squeezing past an idle Marine, and then snapped a smart salute.

"General, sir! Sierra-B312, reporting for duty, sir!"

"At ease, soldier." The General returned her salute with a slightly weak one of his own. Raven saw that his shoulder was bandaged and he held it like it was hurting. "As I'm sure you are aware," the General continued, "your presence here is due to a request I made. I specifically asked for you. Your record is impressive, lass, and you are just what we need here. Your impressive talents were wasted where you were posted immediately prior to your posting here."

"Yes, sir," Raven said, carefully controlling the urge to express the affirmative more emphatically… like hell yeah I was wasted there.

"We need Spartans on the front lines. This whole damn war is, to use an old phrase, going to Hell in a handbasket. There aren't enough of you. Your task will be to ensure that morale remains high in the camp, save some asses, and kill some Covenant. I presume you are already used to such tasks."

"Yes, sir."

"You will be heading up Fireteam Alpha. Assemble them and have them all at the briefing room by 1100 today."

"Yes, sir. Is there anything else, sir?"

"No, Spartan. You are dismissed."

Raven snapped a final salute, which the General responded to with one of his own. The Spartan offered a brief nod, then left, clicking her comm twice to gain attention before she spoke. "Fireteam Alpha, I have been assigned as your temporary leader. I am Lieutenant Raven-B312. You can call me Loot or Sir. I want you all assembled in the square by 1030 for introductions, and then we are expected in the briefing room to receive orders."

Numerous voices – Raven guessed about thirty – responded quickly. "Yes, sir!"

A split second later, another voice put in. "So you're the new Lieutenant. Figures the Gen chooses you. He always did think you freaks were better, somehow. Record's impressive, girly, but what qualifies you to lead?"

Raven saw the Helljumper sauntering towards her and guessed that this was who was causing trouble. "Drop and give me fifty. One hand."

"Excuse me?!" The Helljumper stared at her, slack-jawed, for half a second, obviously shocked at being put in his place so swiftly. Raven smiled; same voice, same man. Her instincts had once again proven correct.

"Do it. NOW. You don't want to know what will happen if you disobey a direct order from me."

The ODST hit the dirt and started doing pushups. Raven eyed him, thinking he was not struggling enough. This was hardly a punishment at all. Back in the day when she had been stupid enough to disrespect her superiors, she'd been made to do fifty with so many weights strapped to her chest she could barely breathe. She had been just a normal child, physically speaking, back then. But then, even then she could remember beating seasoned Marines in pushup contests. Perhaps the training had left more of a mark on her physical development than she had thought.

The training, however, was not what had made her the soldier she was. It was more a matter of inherent toughness. She had been chosen specifically because she refused to acknowledge pain or discomfort for more than a fleeting moment. She noticed it, she accepted it, and then she simply forgot it was there.

More than half the fireteam was assembled by the time the Helljumper finished his pushups. He was sweating and dusty and swore as he got to his feet.

"Now," Raven said, "you will apologize for doubting me."

"Sorry," the ODST mumbled, face twisting like the word tasted bad.

"I can't hear you." She could. It was a prompt to get a proper apology.

"Sorry, sir. It won't happen again, sir."

"…better… it's going to have to do. I'm not going to get much else out of a Helljumper." Raven shrugged and ordered herself to forget about him. She refused to carry grudges. It was unprofessional and frankly made for a terrible leader.

As the last few Marines fell into position, Raven stepped up to one of the fallen logs they used as chairs, and stood on it for a little height. She might have been a Spartan but she was nowhere near as tall as the Two-Series, standing at just over 6'6"… and nowhere near as heavy. Even fully armored she was only about a quarter of a ton.

Therefore, to properly asset her authority, she needed a little bit of height. It was a very primitive urge for people to follow those taller than them and lead those shorter than them, and reminded her somewhat of the hierarchy of Brutes.

"All right, lads, we've got some aliens to kill. But first, I want to make sure I know what y'all are capable of. Sound off, in order of rank, with rank, name, and specialization. I hope we're given some time to train together, but somehow I doubt we'll get it. If they're deploying a Spartan, there's never any time to get really familiar."

The next fifteen minutes was filled with the Marines yelling out the requested details. Raven filed away each name, responding with nothing more than a silent nod to confirm she was paying attention. She attached a detail to each name – like how Private Brent J. Spencer had a nasty plasma scar on his left bicep, or how Sergeant Jonas F. Collins had a straight nose but the look of a man who had been in many fist-fights. One Marine had the look of a deserter – uneasy, nervous body language and a rat-like face – and she resolved to watch that one closely. That was Corporal Kit Brady, no middle name, Earthborn, no specialization.

Most of them were men, so the few women, Raven simply filed away as female, and noted each individual's build. Gunnery Sergeant Matilda K. Hollingsworth was slender to the point of being skinny, and while she was tall, Raven thought she probably weighed less than a hundred pounds. Another was short and stocky, and had to stand near the front to be seen at all – Lance-Corporal Catherine Beck, who was only 4'11", somehow managed to look every bit as lethal as her taller comrades. The others were less immediately distinct from one another, but one had slightly wider hips, another a narrow waist. The differences were easy to spot if Raven looked for more than half an instant.

Telling a bunch of Marines apart was a piece of cake. Raven was used to Spartans, and, moreover, she was used to Spartans in Sabers. It took an incredibly practiced eye to tell the difference between two Saber pilots and actually came down to intimate knowledge of each pilot's individual personality type and the way they handled their fighter. Even with the tagging and tracking systems down, Raven could guess at a glance who was who.

But, she admonished herself, that life is over, at least for now. You're a ground-pounder now.

As the last Marine sounded off, and Raven filed away his name, rank, and a defining feature, the clock in the Spartan's HUD flicked to 1050, and she stepped off her makeshift podium, leading the way into the briefing cubicle.

…

"Alpha Leader, disengage and fall back!"

Raven ignored the order. Her Marines were safely out of harm's way, providing her with covering fire while she fought close-up. She used twin SMGs when the targets were too far away for her shotgun to be effective, and the shotgun for up-close. It was a useful tactic, though, she thought with a wry smile, she would have preferred to just bomb the bastards to kingdom come.

"Alpha Leader, do you copy?"

She sighed and finally responded. "I read you loud and clear, Firebase Actual. I do not, however, agree with the order." As she spoke, she fought, each of her SMGs trained on a different Elite. Both fell at the same time, though as she was carefully staggering her fire, the weapon in her left hand clicked empty while the weapon in her right still held a half-full clip. She reloaded the empty weapon whilst still firing with the non-empty one. "My fireteam is in no danger – you will notice they are in easily defensible positions providing the covering fire I need to keep moving forward."

"An order is an order, Spartan, not an invitation to tea!"

"Sparrow, shut him up," she muttered under her breath, knowing her AI partner would hear what the comm mike could not pick up. "If I recall correctly, sir, my orders are to push the Covenant back, regain the valley and mountainside, and use my own judgment to decide battlefield strategy. My original order, I must remind you, was death or glory."

"It's on your head if anybody dies. And you'll be facing court-martial for this!"

Raven shrugged. She had faced court-martial several times before, and had always been cleared on the basis that her judgment of the situation was accurate, and her course of action correct. "Yes, sir."

Sparrow chuckled in her ear. "Bet he didn't realize what he was signing up for when he requested our presence here."

"I dare say not," Raven agreed, switching out to her shotgun to blast a hole in the middle of a hapless Grunt that had gotten too close. "He should have done his research, requested someone else, if he wants a puppet. I answer to nobody but myself. Give me an order, and I'll follow it, if I think it's worth my time. If I think it's a mistake, all the threats and coercion in the universe could not force me into it."

"Sooner or later, they'll quit assigning you to group missions full stop," the AI commented happily when Raven, without hesitation, engaged a pair of Hunters – the last two enemies, and the only two that the Marines were unable to drop without heavy weapons. No Marine was fast enough to go toe to toe with a Hunter and survive.

"I hope so," she muttered, dodging just in time as one of the Hunters discharged its assault cannon. The explosive, radioactive beam of plasma sizzled past so close Raven felt blisters form on her side despite the armor that protected her skin from most plasma-based weaponry.

Hunters were big and cumbersome, and mostly fairly slow, but they could move fast when they wanted to. The one that had fired suddenly roared and charged. Raven held her ground, shotgun level, waiting for an opportunity to fire.

The Hunter was so close she could see the individual orange worms. Finally, she sidestepped and twisted – and had to duck not just the Hunter's massive shield, but the spines that could cut a Spartan in two despite energy shields and MJOLNIR armor. One spine made contact with her left shoulder as she finished her turn and fired into the alien's back as fast as she could pump the slide on her shotgun. It allowed her three shots in the time it took for the Hunter to start swinging around to face her again… and its momentum carried it the rest of the way around to fall almost on top of the Spartan who had killed it. Raven had to somersault backwards to avoid being crushed.

While she was in the air, the Spartan saw the other Hunter adjust its aim. Assault cannon fully charged, it aimed for where she would land.

Raven twisted in mid-air, adjusting her trajectory, and as the Hunter fired she landed silently on her feet, facing the enemy, two feet from where she had originally intended to land.

Sparrow said something that sounded like a warning, but he was a long way away. Raven forgot about the Marines who watched, rapt and terrified, as the Spartan threw her shotgun aside and advanced towards her target. She moved slowly, drawing out the moment of anticipation, and then she and the Hunter both charged in the same moment.

…

A few hundred yards away, a fierce battle was underway. Lance-Corporal Beck bellowed a battle cry to rival the deepest and loudest of the men's cries. She might have been short – hell, according to the medics, she might even have been a little bit fat – but she wasn't about to give up, and she would be damned if she let a few uglies ruin her day.

The Spartan seemed to have forgotten about Beck and her comrades, but it didn't bother the little Marine. Spartans were, in her mind, just a fantasy concocted by the higher-ups to lift morale. If the Spartan wanted to kill a few Hunters, that was fine by her. Beck had bigger fish to fry, namely the enormous Brute at the back of the Covenant force that was attacking her position.

Neither of them knew it, but Beck and Raven had a lot in common. Both were antisocial, both had been orphaned by the war at a very young age, and both were tough enough mentally to fend for themselves against overwhelming odds.

While the other Marines focused on the Grunts and the lesser Brutes, Beck completed a brief check of her armor and weaponry, then bolted out of cover towards the Chieftain. The biggest Brute that Catherine Beck had ever seen raised its hammer, and then a split second later, it struck. All the Marine knew was blood and pain, and then nothing.

…

Raven picked up her discarded weapons, and then glanced back at the Marines, ready to order them to move out. What she saw made her heart stop for an instant, and then kick into double time. Just moments ago, they had only been fighting standard Covenant forces. Elites, Jackals and Grunts… plus a couple of Hunters. Nothing had been even close to where the Marines were holed up in cover.

Now… that bloody insane Lance-Corporal! Raven clicked her comm to order the woman not to break formation, but it was too late. The Marine died at the hands of a Chieftain with a gravity hammer.

Raven moved. She moved faster than she had moved in quite a while, pushing her still-recovering bones to the absolute limit. Sparrow kept swearing at her and reminding her to be careful not to push herself too far, but she ignored him, sprinting towards the Chieftain in a blind rage. She would tear it limb from limb, she would rip it apart piece by piece and enjoy every second of torturing the bastard to death, she would-.

The Chieftain bellowed at her, and raised its hammer again. Raven dropped its shields with a blast from her shotgun, but was now well within range of the deadly concussion weapon. She leapt out of the way but was nearly sent flying anyway, only retaining her dignity by snatching at the Chieftain's shoulder pauldron before she could lose control of where her body went.

From there, she swung up onto its shoulders, weapons again discarded in favor of her combat knife. She buried it in the Brute's neck, and then lost her grip on her enemy's shoulders. The knife's blade snapped off and the Spartan went flying. She hit a tree with enough force that the two-foot-thick trunk splintered and the tree fell, crushing a number of Grunts and Jackals and wounding a few minor Brutes.

Raven freed herself with some difficulty from the several tons of tree, and launched herself at the Brute again. This time, when she swung up onto its shoulders, instead of trying to kill it with a knife, she hooked her fingers into its mouth and pulled with all her strength upwards. There was a brief moment of resistance, and then the Chieftain's flesh tore. Its neck popped and, with a sickening CRACK, the skull came free of the spine. Raven and the headless Brute both fell hard, and the gravity hammer discharged one last time, just inches away from the Spartan's head.

Unconscious, she went flying again.

…

"Raven? Raven!"

"Ugh," said Raven.

"Come on, wake up, damn it all, wake up!"

Raven was awake. She said as much, but Sparrow contradicted her.

"No, you're not, you're only half conscious. Eh well, best I'll get. Come on, you have to move, before they realize you're not dead yet."

The Spartan got awkwardly to her feet and heard a Brute talking to its superior somewhere behind her. She didn't pause to see if she had been spotted – she just took off running.

"The Marines, Sparrow?"

"Dead. You did that, you know. If you'd been here, with them, instead of playing the hero down there, you might have saved a few of them. You can't have forgotten what Devin said about this!"

"No more lone wolf stuff, yes, I know. That was years ago. It's been years since I split off on my own. They weren't even that far away! Easy visual range! It really doesn't count."

"Yes it does, Raven… it counts. You might as well have been miles away, for how long it took you to notice!"

"Well then why didn't you tell me?!"

"I tried," Sparrow said quietly. "Believe me, I tried."

Raven tripped, recovered, and surrendered to the rhythm of her feet. She couldn't concentrate on anything else, if she tried she would lose consciousness again and if that happened she would die…

…

"You're being reassigned again, Spartan," the officer said.

Raven watched him, suspicious. He didn't look quite official enough, this one, though from his insignia he definitely outranked her. "Where to?"

"Reach. You will be the newest member of Noble Team."

Her heart leapt. More Spartans. Finally, she would be working with someone who understood her. "When can I leave?"

The officer laughed. "That's the spirit! It's a quiet posting, you know, but there'll be some action against the local insurrection. I hear it can get pretty hot down there when the rebels come to town."

"Just how I like it," Raven asserted.

"One catch…"

Raven was used to 'catches', so she said nothing, instead respectfully waiting to hear it.

"…you're going to have to leave Sparrow with ONI. He is far too advanced an AI for a Spartan of your new status. You will be henceforth known as Noble Six."

"Yes, sir," she conceded sadly. Sparrow was her last link to those wonderful few years as a member of the team of Saber pilots known as Gold. But, as much as she hated it, orders were orders.

At least her new armor color was finally approved. Raven had opted for blood red with gold accents – the red as a symbol of blood spilled in the course of the war, and of course the gold to forever remind her she was from Gold Team.

…

"Welcome to Reach," Jorge said. "You picked a hell of a day to join up."