This is a piece I've been wanting to do for a while, but I've been delaying it partly 'cause my writing skills have been feeling inadequate and too subpar for this fandom as of late. Like, other people's talent is intimidating, and I kept second-guessing the quality of my own stories by comparison. I had to really motivate myself in order to get this done, so hopefully it's worth the read?

Summary: The Reds and Blues assess their situation and get acclimated to their new surroundings. This goes as smoothly as you'd predict.

Chapter One: Just Blaze

She was with Epsilon when the klaxon went off.

Red light flashed across the gunmetal gray panels counterpoint with the blaring siren. Footsteps clattered across the flooring, raised voices competing with the ship's primary alert system as they echoed through the distant corridors.

"Epsilon!" Carolina turned sharply, stumbling nearly slammed into a wall as a tremor passed through the hull, throwing her equilibrium off. She cursed, bracing an arm and pushing off against the metal. "Epsilon, what the hell's going on?"

Blue pixelated light manifested in front of her visor. "Sorry, my crystal ball's in the shop right now." He emulated a snort. "I was busy. I don't know." More intensified shaking permeated the floors, the walls, and only by reflexively latching onto the closest thing—a copper pipe winding through the ceiling—did Carolina not join the crates that were suicide-ramming themselves into the adjacent wall. "Shit. Talk to me, Carolina. Are you all right?"

"Dizzy," she confessed. Her HUD was a mess of readouts on her own vitals and ambient data that Epsilon was sifting through. He was scanning the ship like a cashier on coupon day. Carolina ran, her attention divided between the ship's epileptic tremors, the sparking lights, and Epsilon's frantic thoughts jumping through her neurons in tandem with her own. "Are we under attack?"

"No," came the aborted reply, his hologram dissolving in a halo of refracted light. Carolina rounded a corner, eyes peeled for a crewman who could tell her more, and where and how to assist. Or any of the numerous shades of red and blue she was responsible for, came the addendum. "It's…it's weird. No external damage, but the ship's shields are critical. Something's wrong with the engine." A pause, before Epsilon spoke again, shriller and more panicked this time. "What the hell are these idiot engineers doing to this thing?"

"Epsilon?" Carolina repeated.

"—access to the Hetairoi's on-board servers locked due to in-process software and bandwidth upgrades?" He made a strangled, hissing noise, as if he'd just discovered the ability to choke on air without a functioning set of lungs. "Simultaneous errors from the engine room and storage bays, incendiary weapon deployment from the flight deck authorized, and our communication systems down?"

This time the entire ship lurched; last-second activation of her grav boots stopped Carolina from being pitched skull-first into a wall and snapping her neck. The lights gave a wan flicker before shorting out, plunging their section of the ship into darkness.

"Motherfuckers," Epsilon screeched, "they're going to kill us, why aren't we—" His diatribe trailed off into white noise, harsh static cutting through her audio feed. "The ship's losing altitude."

"What?" Carolina asked. She skidded to a halt.

"The ship," Epsilon bleated, his panic now upgraded to full-blown hysteria. "Something's wrong. We're descending too quickly. I think we're over a planet but I can't—"

In later retrospect, Carolina would dwell on the odds of their exact placement aboard The Hetairoi when it bisected, and that had they been any closer to the rift, the decompression and wreckage would have sent them plummeting through the stratosphere at terminal velocity until she hit the ground and exploded like a meaty water balloon. It was a thought that took up queue behind adrenaline-fueled instincts and Epsilon screaming at her to move god damn it, as a noise like magnified thunder split through the fuselage.

"—fuck, fuck, fuck—" She was running again, with torrents of air whipping past her and Epsilon's steady cursing a compounding backdrop to her own anxiety. A lifetime ago, she'd been on another falling ship as it plummeted out of orbit in a death-spiral, on a trajectory with solid surface. She remembered the body count.

It was one of the memories Epsilon was spared from when he was still in stasis, in a containment unit awaiting storage at an off-site facility.

Not that it mattered. He didn't need access to her hippocampus to feel her fear spike, her blood pressure ascending at matched rates with the ship's descent. Epsilon clamped down on her nerves and squeezed.

"Brace for impact!" he shouted. No strategies, no calculations. Just his presence permeating her limbs and settling over her nerves, holding onto something, anything, in empty reassurance. Time was a string of missing sequences, of heartbeats and lacunae and the brain trying to rationalize the odds of survival before the crash. Wondering who would find her body in the wreckage, if there would be anything left to find. If victories were measured against tragedies in real-time, and if her legacy would be buried here in the most innocuous way possible, a homebound crew on an earthbound ship, left for dead as they died alone.

I'm still here.

Carolina remembered to hate the matter-of-fact way he said it and the fact he was deep enough in her subconscience to be aware of the errant thought, before the teeth-rattling bone-snapping impact punched her through a wall.

"Any sign of them?"

"Tucker, don't you think if I found something I would have told you?"

"I don't fucking know, dude. You're supposed to be the expert. Wasn't it your job to recover missing people and equipment?"

"Well he must not have been very good at it because Waldo's still missing."

"Oh my god, shut up, Caboose."

"Both of you, shut up and keep looking. Carolina!"

"Church!"

"Marco!"

"CABOOSE!"

"Sorry, sorry."

The voices were there—a staticky soundtrack of familiar white noise filtering through her tissue—but what really dragged her back was the feeling of Epsilon doing…something in her brain. Like a snake, winding and slithering through the crevices in her mind, rearing his head at the stimuli. Coils and coils of heightened panic and frantic motion. It was only when he diverted his attention from her and started to call for help did she realize how tightly he'd been wound around her. That in itself was a little terrifying.

"We're over here!" The power cells in her armor whirred to life. Epsilon was yelling, probably projecting somewhere overhead. "Under the rubble, four feet down! Her leg is sprained and her tibia's fractured, but I have no way of treating it. Her suit's onboard medical suite is garbage. I can't do anything about it or I'd—would you hurry the fuck up."

"Nice to see you too, asshole." Tucker. The claustrophobic weight of galvanized steel and concrete pressed momentarily down on her. "We're digging as fast as we can, all right?"

Carolina could feel the debris shifting atop her.

"Were there any survivors apart from you guys?" She heard the AI hesitate. "How about the Reds? Are they—"

"Alive," Wash said. "Epsilon, is Carolina conscious?"

"She's out-cold right now—oh."

Finally realized I'm here, did you? The dry humor felt appropriate, and was clearly welcome if Epsilon's internal pulse of relief was anything to go by.

Did I interrupt your beauty sleep? Tension laced the halfhearted jab. Try not to move too much. Wash and the guys, they're getting you out. Just hold on another minu— "Jesus!"

Satisfyingly, her rescuers had the same reaction, too, all three of them hopping back from where her hand had breached the surface. Broken scraps of metal and debris cascaded off her armor as Carolina clawed her way out of the pile.

"…minute," the AI finished. "What part of fractured bone do you not get?"

"Carolina?" Wash pressed.

"I'm fine," she said through gritted teeth. Carolina hauled herself the rest of the way out, accepting the hand Wash offered her. "Status report, Wash. Where are…"

That was when she took the time to look up.

Vast swaths of dense green foliage arched overhead, casting dappled light from the edges of the pervading jungle. Tall lianas draped from the trees and cliffs, spilling out into the bowl of the canyon. Rock not bedecked in flora was stark and bleak outcroppings, liked jagged teeth and splinters.

Worst of all was the ship. In a weird way, it looked like it had always been a part of the landscape, even as smoke from the recent crash wafted from the thrusters in ominous dark clouds. Fire still crackled from the fractured hull, spouting energetic puffs of carbon monoxide into the air. Whatever hadn't remained fused to the ship had been chiseled off, strewn about the canyon like bodies in a war zone, metal and crates and so many fucking bodies.

The carnage was staggering.

"Where, exactly, did we crash?" Epsilon asked. His voice was dangerously soft.

"We don't know," Wash said. His line of sight gravitated toward her leg. "I managed to get our ship's coordinates before it locked me out of its systems. Not that it helps, seeing as this planet—wherever it is—isn't on any UNSC records."

"Star system?"

"Beta-Hydri," he answered, "but that doesn't do us any good. No preexisting-records means this place was probably never visited or colonized."

Tucker laughed, bitter and completely humorless. "Great. We somehow crash onto a planet that the space-army didn't try to goldmine before the alien war. Can't get any luckier than that."

"We're lucky to be alive, Tucker," Epsilon bit off. "So what if there's no five-star resort on this rock? We can still get rescued."

"Epsilon's right," Wash agreed, and this time the sound of his voice was disconcertingly louder in her ear than before. At some point he'd scooted closer. "If we wait it out someone will eventually come find us. In the mean time we can work on salvaging whatever supplies weren't damaged from the ship. Food, medicine." Which was the segue-way he was waiting for, because Wash promptly kneeled and began reaching for her leg. "All right, Carolina, let me see it. How bad is your leg, for real?"

"I already told you, Wash, I'm fine," she sighed, at the exact second Epsilon said, "She's a filthy fuckin' liar, don't listen to her."

The betrayal was almost touching if it wasn't so counterproductive right that second. Carolina glared at him, knowing full well Epsilon could see it through the helmet. The AI was unflinchingly still, his arms folded over his chest. "Epsilon, I'm not dying. I've done orbital drops with injuries worse than this. My leg can sit at the bottom of the priority list."

"Good luck trying to actually sit with all that swelling," Epsilon sniped. "You're not gonna be useful to anyone when you're hobbling around like a geriatric patient. Even some remedial first aid would be better than nothing." He glanced at Wash, who had wisely backed off from ground zero and was standing a respectable three feet away. "Did you find any medics who can take a look at this?"

"Well we did find that one lady doctor from the ship," Caboose said.

"Great," Epsilon sighed. "Where is she?"

"Near the engine room." Caboose paused. "We also found her by one of the wings, and we found her by the big rock near the—"

"Oh Jesus, please stop," Epsilon begged. "I don't need that mental image right now, thanks."

"What about the rest of the survivors?" Carolina asked. Caboose went quiet while Tucker glanced away. Uncomfortable silence hung between them.

"Carolina." Wash sucked in a breath that wasn't there. It crackled in his rebreather. "There are no other survivors."

She remembered the body count.

The walk back would have been a relatively short affair in any other circumstance. It was navigating the debris and wreckage-strewn terrain that took them almost ten minutes to get there, and not the group having to accommodate her limp. Because she obviously didn't have a limp. Because it was not that bad, no matter how many times Epsilon drew attention to her nonexistent stagger.

The Reds, when they reached the foot of the canyon wall, were stacking and propping crates outside the mouth of a cave. The exorbitant amount of bickering was significantly less unusual than the exorbitant amount of clutter they'd amassed outside.

"…no fucking way I'm going in there again," Grif was shouting at his CO. "Those fucking things attacked me! They went right for my face!"

"They went for your helmet, dumbass," Simmons retorted. "Which, by the way, is covering your face. You were in absolutely zero danger."

"The only danger you're gonna be in the next minute is from me, unless you get back in that cave and finish moving the boxes." Sarge cocked his shotgun.

"You know what, sure, I'd rather be out here dodging bullets anyway than ducking the flying hypodermic needles with wings."

"Technically there are only three species that drink blood. The rest are relatively harmless—"

"DON'T YOU FUCKING LIE TO ME TOO, SIMMONS. I KNOW A GODDAMN BLOODSUCKER WHEN I SEE ONE, AND I AM NOT GOING BACK INTO THEIR EVIL LAIR!"

"I'm pretty sure we cleared out the roost." Simmons seemed relatively unfazed by the hysterical screaming. If anything, he sounded bored. "I'm also pretty sure those weren't bats. Since, y'know, bats aren't green. Or scaly. Or have compound eyes and mandibles."

"What are you three doing?" Wash demanded as he strode toward them, his gun preemptively unholstered. Tucker and Caboose followed at his heels while Carolina held back, content to observe for the moment. The part of her sense of humor not bludgeoned to death by Freelancer took a moment to appreciate the art form Wash had made out of corralling the sim troopers.

"Merely about to dole out the proportionate amount of punishment for non-compliance," said Sarge, by way of greeting. He aligned his crosshairs on Grif and pulled the trigger, with a gunshot that at close-range was deafening. Proximity sent the shot wide, to no one's immediate surprise, judging by the absolute lack of reaction from the group.

"Was that supposed to be an intimidation tactic?" Grif asked, his voice pitched an octave higher than before. "Vast improvement to the cave, let me tell ya. Oh yeah, I'll learn my lesson about insubordination real quick. Just keep shooting at me if it means I don't have to go back in the god damn cave."

"Grif, calm down. Sarge, please stop shooting." Wash cast the yawning tunnel mouth a wary glance, his firearm trained on the gauzy darkness. "I thought I asked you to start constructing a shelter. Why is everything still outside?"

"Seems this place already has some tenants," Sarge harrumphed. "Has. Had. Well, we chased the critters off; Private Grif made particularly effective bait for luring them out."

"So you were trying to feed me to them. You fucking traitor, Simmons, you told me the cave was empty!"

"No," Simmons cut in, "I told you that the wildlife was probably more afraid of you than vice versa, and that if there was anything in there then they'd stay away from us while we worked. It's not my fault you screamed like a little girl and woke up the whole flock."

"Remind me to not tell you about the jaguar in the bushes the next time you have to pee."

"Actually, that's a good point," Tucker piped up, earning six pairs of eyes for his trouble. He cuffed at the dirt with his boot. "I get we have to do this whole camping out thing until we get rescued, but we don't exactly have any plans for when the bears come out of the woods and try to eat us. Unless we recover a can of Raid that just so happens to be an everything-repellant. Are we sure a cave is the best place to do this?"

"Yeah." Caboose tipped his head to the side. "We, uh, we don't always have a good time with caves. They're usually filled with lots of mean people."

"Staying out in the open puts us at greater risk for exposure," Carolina reasoned. With some angling, she managed to lever and prop herself against a boulder without looking too conspicuous. "For the time being a cave would be our best bet. It can be easily defended once we fortify it, and we'll have a safe place to store equipment. In the mean time we can start scavenging for parts to build—"

"You want us to stay in there?" Grif squeaked. He clutched his gun tighter to his chest. "As in sleep in there? All of us? But what if they come back?"

"While normally I'd have no problem with commandeering a cave from Mother Nature and using it against her in all-out war," Sarge huffed, "I refuse to share quarters with a Blue. Leave me out in the middle of the wilderness with my wits and my shotgun? Fine. But I ain't about to sit around a campfire and start singin' Kumbaya with 'em."

"And the scary jungle monsters," Caboose unhelpfully added. "Like brown, blocky, tentacley things. They could be in there right now. Church, they could eat us."

Epsilon gave a disdainful snort. "You're not gonna get eaten by the Suriname squid. Look, if some alien cephalopod comes along we'll just kill it. Okay? Problem solved."

"Easy for the guy made out of numbers to say," Tucker peevishly countered. "Worst thing you have to worry about is Carolina dropping you in the bathtub."

"Last time I checked they didn't make these partitions gastric acid-friendly. You assholes getting passed through some animal's gut is still as much of an inconvenience for you as it is for me—"

"Enough. This isn't up for debate," Carolina said, ending their bickering. For now, anyway. She could feel the heat of their sullen expressions through the frosted glass, and was willing to bet compliance was more out of exhaustion than agreement. "We'll have rotating sentries during the night. Safety in numbers, which means you will be sleeping together, no arguing."

Sarge muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like kill zone, but was otherwise mercifully quiet.

"This isn't a camping trip." Something jarred in her leg, bone grating against bone, as she pushed herself off the rock. Epsilon flared in the back of her mind—all criticisms and concerns—and she ruthlessly shoved them down. He could save his medical diagnosis for later.

Something stung her in response, an acute needlelike jab in her thalamus. Holographic prick. "Right now our first priority is looking for any and all supplies. Anything from the crash that's still useful. Rations, ammo, first aid kits." She flicked her helmet at the Reds in their little huddle by the cave entrance. "What have you found so far?"

"Magazines, firearms, mostly equipment," Simmons rattled off. "We haven't gone near the ship yet—"

"On account of it being on fire and all," Grif interrupted.

"—so we don't have any idea if the stuff onboard's still intact," he finished, with a hard stare at his teammate. He glanced off in the distance, where thick plumes of smoke were still lethargically drifting through the canopy.

"Well," Grif said, "at least all the MREs will be cooked."

"The fires should extinguish petty soon," Wash commented. His back was to the group, helmet moving back and forth as he read over the label on the side of one of the crates. "The trees aren't as dense up there so I don't think we'll have to worry about any forest fires. We'll head up and do inventory when it's safe."

"Or now, if you like," Sarge offered. "Grif would be a perfect candidate for this little venture. He's completely flame retardant. It's genetic. Runs in the family, apparently."

"For the last time, just because my mom worked at a circus does not mean she jumped through flaming hoops." Grif took a precautionary step away from Sarge, toward Carolina, of all people, as if she could shield him from his CO's homicidal inclinations. "Could you literally wait ten minutes before you try to set me up to die again?"

"Just seems like I gotta compensate," Sarge sighed. "Seein' as the ship was such a missed opportunity and all."

"We're wasting time." Reluctantly, the group shuffled their attention back to her. "Tucker, Caboose. I want you to help me and Wash bring back supplies. Tool kits especially."

"Why?" Tucker asked.

"You want to build a radio tower," Wash inferred, with a sidelong glance at his fellow Freelancer.

"Yep." Carolina was silently glad that there was someone else with her who'd read the script. Who knew the procedures, even if their source material was dubious at best. "We can repurpose parts of the ship if we have to. On the off-chance the UNSC didn't receive our last transmission we'll still be able to signal for help."

She didn't miss the way Wash's body tensed, that stance he always got when he wanted to protest. Carolina beat him to the chase, before he could start on her, too. "When my suit's back to 100% I'll let it take care of my leg. Right now resource acquisition needs our full attention, especially before nightfall sets in. I'm not sitting this one out, so save it, Wash."

"…Fine," he relented. "Just. Just don't overdo it."

"Look who you're talking to, dude," Epsilon scoffed. "Try asking Tucker to become a celibate. You might actually get further with that."

"So if you guys are going to be dragging back supplies, then what are we supposed to do?" Simmons asked, before Tucker could prolong their Douchiest Comebacks Contest.

"What you were doing before," answered Wash. "Make sure these caves are empty, and continue moving things inside."

"Are you sure I couldn't just trade jobs with one of the Blues?" Grif asked. His voice was hitting optimal squeakiness. "Please? I'll do anything, just don't make me go back in there."

"How about going on a diet?" Epsilon taunted. "You know, maybe it's a good thing no one else survived the crash. Otherwise we'd have to worry about not having enough rations for you and, well. Just you, actually. Huh. Maybe we will starve after all."

"Knock it off," Wash said, purely on reflex.

"You're going to be fine, Grif." At this point Carolina was confident enough with making that assessment and not feel like she was lying about it. A squad that should have been dead fifty-seven times over deserved a bit more credit than that, sim troopers or not. She turned on her heel toward the open canyon, Epsilon already running scans and a mental shopping list of supplies that they needed and probably didn't have. "If you do find anything," she said over her shoulder. "You can always run away. You're already pretty good at that."

Nightfall, as it turned out, came a lot earlier on this planet than they'd expected.

An hour after they'd set to work the dark crept in, forcing them to retire to their base. Minimal supplies and no time to collect provisions from the ship. Frustrating, but manageable. In the end, the risks and unknown dangers posed by the terrain outweighed any attempts at burning the midnight oil. Hunger was a feeling Carolina had learned to suffer through during her military career, and the knowledge of simply having survived gave her less reason to complain.

A shame the same couldn't be said for the sim troopers, whose bitching was now EPA-certified noise pollution. It had taken an additional thirty minutes of Sarge decreeing which side of the cave was "Red side" before they'd agreed to settle in, and then another ten to mollify Grif's chiroptophobia. In the end, she'd relinquished Epsilon to him with the expressed promise that he would keep watch with his thermals.

Which was the exact second Caboose began peppering her with questions about whether or not he needed a bathroom buddy, in case he had to go in the middle of the night.

It gave Carolina the amusing feeling of tucking in children, and a newfound appreciation for what Wash must have gone through as he adjusted to non-PFL life. And Florida, although she banished the thought before it conjured up any more ghosts. It wasn't something she was ready to contemplate on some noctivagant patrol.

It still made her chest hurt. Spasming muscles and tightness of breath and layers of sweat that had nothing to do with the humidity.

The limestone scraped against her armor as Carolina made herself more comfortable. Just slightly above the cavern mouth, she could make out the smoldering glow of the ship from her vantage point. Enough of the smoke had cleared to give her an unobstructed view of the sky. It was a tapestry of blues and blacks, embroidered with swirling nebulae and sequin stars.

When you were in space, you got used to walking through spaceships and going for minutes without seeing the stars. And when you did see the stars, you were trained to avoid them, because the reality of it was that an up-close view meant hull breaches and the vacuum of space and O2 levels depleting in your suit. Fear desensitized you to the universe.

"First I thought it was just Tex and Wash, but I guess all you Freelancers are insomniacs."

The gruff drawl startled her—not enough to make her jump, but close.

Sarge was standing at the base of the boulder, clad in full-body armor and surprisingly bereft of his signature weapon.

"I'm on first watch. I'm supposed to be awake," she answered. "Can't say the same for you, for that matter. Go back to the barracks, Sarge."

"And maybe I'll quarter and lynch myself too, just for giggles."

"What?"

To her surprise he began to climb up, before she could deflect any unwanted attempts at company. A second later he hauled himself over the rim of the rock, and proceeded to settle in beside her.

"Ma'am, Master Chief could descend from outer space right now in a gilded ship with an alien's decapitated head in his outstretched hand, order the same damn thing, and I'd still say no." He made an inarticulate, contemptuous noise in the back of his throat. "Do I look suicidal to you?"

Considering who he was sharing ledge space with, quite possibly. "I thought you negotiated a temporary truce years ago?"

"Emphasis on the word 'temporary,'" Sarge replied. "I refuse to voluntarily put myself in a position to be killed in my sleep by those dastardly Blues."

It was dearly tempting to just shove him off the rock. Carolina smothered the impulse. "Your weapons are stored separately from where you're sleeping. We did that specifically for this reason. Sarge, you're not in any danger."

"Clearly you underestimate the killing capacity of a pillow. Just place it over Gri―I mean, someone's face, and watch 'em suffocate. And don't even get me started on dental floss. Makes terrific garrote wire."

"Look." Inhale. Exhale. "The last thing we need is for anyone to be wandering around outside at night."

"Except for one, I'm not wandering, and two, I'm not by myself." Had it come from anyone else it would have been smart-mouthing. From him, it was an infuriating level of logic that somehow transcended body language-reading skills.

"I'm asking you to return to the barracks for your own safety." And to give her some peace of mind, though she didn't voice that particular sentiment. Carolina sighed. "Don't kill your teammates. That's an order."

The old ODST rocked back into a more sprawled recline. "Clearly we're not speaking the same language, because I think you just said please lie on your back surrounded by wolves with all your squishy parts exposed." Sarge grunted. "And team kills are more of Caboose's thing."

"Just. Do it."

He rolled his neck back, head tilted just enough to scrutinize her out of his periphery vision. Measuring the conviction in her words. "Tell you what," he said. "Why don't you go keep my spot warm in there, and I'll keep your spot warm out here."

He sounded surprisingly amicable. She was starting to wonder how sincere his blue-induced paranoia was, and how much wasn't an excuse to just talk. She was starting to wonder if she was getting too acclimated to her new team.

"I'm on guard duty," she reiterated, a little less unfriendly this time. "You need to be getting some rest. We've got a long day planned for tomorrow."

"You ain't looking too bushy-tailed yourself." There was a surety to his words. "Can't run on adrenaline and sheer tenacity forever."

He startled a little when Carolina threw back her head and barked a rueful laugh. "I'll sleep when I'm dead."