Ten Days in Mombasa

by Minds' 3y3

In wartorn Mombasa, thousands of troops and refugees funnel toward an old, rundown hospital in the slums, the last stronghold of a city besieged by an army bent on extermination. Overcrowded and undersupplied, the hospital is not the bastion it needs to be to provide so many people their safety. In what many think are humanity's last days, distrust, fear, and guns rule all.

1. Part 1

Ten Days in Mombasa

By Electromotive Force and Mr. 125

Part 1

"Fourteen"

November 7, 2552

Today Woody and the Brit played cards like they always did, the couple of weeks they've been stuck here in the Recovery Ward.

It's a small space with basic provisions, a series of cots turned hospital beds filled with beaten-down people being quietly strangled by mounds of crusty bandages and gauze. The two threw down cards on the bed that was between them and chatted like they always did, playing across the foot of the thin, stained bedroll because the man who lay in it had no legs. He'd been there longer than either of them and didn't seem to mind them because he didn't really talk at all. He just stared at the opposite wall all day, maybe all night too. They thought he lost his legs in the opening days of the Covie invasion because they used to yell for the nurse when he'd suddenly begin to bleed from his stumps and slowly stain his sheets. They understood it was a slow death to go out like that, but it hasn't happened in a while so the wounds must have healed a bit by now. So his war was done, luckily for him. It was a gross thing to say with him lying here like that but he had been lucky in that exact way. It was sad, dirty luck.

Woody and the Brit were not so damaged—they were Corporal Nathan Woodrow and Private Doll Fraser respectively, Army troops both. He was from a nothing-special outfit out of 25th Infantry, she from a unit called The Highwayman: 906th Brigade, renowned for its actions in hellhole places like Cassandra and Aurelia after that, rumours and stories that had spread by way of soldiers who came and went. She had a bandage wrapped around her stomach and ribs because a red-hot alien spike had taken a bite out of her fleshy side; he had a bandage wrapped around his wrist because he'd opened up his veins lengthwise in the shower when no one was watching—he hadn't told her but she suspected anyway. This happened some time ago and underneath the dressing the skin had already come back together but it was still unsightly. It was still shameful.

Both ended up here. She was on painkillers and he on antidepressants but they both belonged. The recovery ward was just another room in a military complex in the African plains somewhere between Voi and Mombasa and everyone inside knew it as IRIS Station for whatever reason. It was mostly quiet save for the occasional (sometimes predictive) sorties launching and landing here that smothered the entire complex in that thought-drowning wail, or the growling multi-wheeled convoys dressed up like they were war-rigs from some barren apocalypse that thundered inward and unleashed hordes of troops from all walks into the support sectors of the place, their boots barking up and down halls and rooms for days at a time before heading off into the fray again. And then things would get quiet for long periods thereafter. Some stayed, most went.

Just under a month now with the arrival of the 906th plus other elements of the 7th Army, a defensive super-unit, and the base had grown into a massive nerve centre of UNSC operations encompassing every facet of war. Reinforcements, whether they were downed flyboys or plastered leathernecks or Helljumpers who lost their way or doggies like Woody and the Brit, they all got funneled here, and from here sent to get pincushioned or melted or blown up or run over by the Covenant all over East Africa, everywhere there was fighting. They all got shipped back here with whatever was left of them, fixed up to minimally-acceptable standards and numbed up with painkillers and antidepressants and whatever else there was before returning to battle. That was the war at this point, the way things were going.

Meanwhile Woody and the Brit played cards like they always did but today she said to him, "I think my number's come up, Woody. I can feel it."

"Your side's still raw, isn't it?" Woodrow leafed through his fan in no hurry, preoccupied with all things that weren't the war. "Nurses can't seem to plug you up. That'll play I think. You still scrape at it during the night?"

"No matter," Fraser said. "Things've changed. My sabbatical's almost over—they want to empty some beds. They won't wait to one hundred percent, not anymore they won't. They'll call in a bigwig, some fucking Navy quack to cup my tits and declare me fit for duty, send me off with a rifle and an Aspirin. I know it. And there'll be nothing I can do."

"You got hit bad. Anyone can see that."

"It doesn't mean they'll care. You'll get called up too. A week after me. After I'm gone they'll start to look at you like plump prime-rib because you've got two working arms and legs, and everything's gone to shit and I'm dead. They'll send you up to the front, they'll give our dear friend here a set of wheels and ship him out a week after you," Fraser said. Woodrow stared into his palm. "The war isn't over. There's no end in sight, no telling what they'll do to us. They'll get you so doped up and rowdy you'll have no idea where the hell you are."

"Doesn't sound too bad a trade off, then."

"Fuck off, Woody. Listen to me, you think you're doing alright here, do you? If the brassholes prefer men do the fighting, they'll get men. Already had a couple of mates banged up worse than me get rounded up and thrown back into the mixer—haven't heard from them since. When that happens, when they come for me, I know where I'm ending up, and I don't like it. I've got to get back to my own unit. They'll take care of me."

"Where are they now?"

"Mombasa," Fraser said.

"Ground zero," Woodrow said.

"No. Well, yes, but no." She leaned forward, lowered her voice. "Fighting is starting to concentrate somewhere else again and I'm pretty sure I know where. Where the bloodied boys all come from as of late... every single one. I've met them. I talked to them. I've heard the action's shifting west, towards Voi."

"Your unit'll shift right along with it."

"Not what I heard. They went in when Mombasa was still hot. They're still there for the business of saving lives, taking in refugees, playing Mother Theresa for those left behind. They're stationed at a hospital out there, the whole battalion."

Woodrow said, "It's been three weeks. How do you know it's not a crater by now?"

"Supplies are still going out to them. Reinforcements too."

"Reinforcements, or replacements?"

Fraser gave him a black look.

He added, "One and the same at this point."

"Have you seen how it is outside this room, Woody? Have you set foot past the hallway in all this time?"

Woodrow said nothing. He wasn't allowed to piss without the ward nurse standing over his shoulder. Fraser, too, must have known this.

She said, "It's apocalyptic, mate. As much as I'd love to forget that the world's on fire while we mess about in here, I simply am not high enough to do that."

"That's fair."

"So I'm going."

"What do you mean?"

"To Mombasa, I'm going." Fraser glanced at his wrist. It was quick but Woodrow caught it. He expected the next part. "And I want you to come with me."

Woodrow began to shake his head. "God dammit no."

"What'll it take, then?"

"Some quack to cup my nuts and clear me for duty, and fresh marching orders from the top. Get out there and be somebody, Woodrow. Yes, sir! Proceeding, sir!"

"You go back to fight on their terms, you know where they'll put you. You know why the Marines look down on us? It's 'cause units like the one they'll dump you into. Marine Corps plants flags, Army soaks up the bullets. Why? Because they take these kids too scared to join up with Green that they were guilt-tripped into the reserves, the Guard, the Girl Guides, whatever. Now that the Covenant are kicking down our door, they're getting their cards, they're getting called up, and they're going absolutely mental. And everyone ends up here, the epicentre. You don't want to be fighting with those guys, once you're out there. They're a bunch of shit nerves armed with big guns. Forget the Covenant. If you stay, you'll end up back here one way or another: a couple of limbs blown to Serengeti, or all of you in one perfect piece sealed up in a goddamn zipper bag. I guarantee it. That won't happen to me. I won't let it."

Woodrow was silent a long time. But he asked afterwards: "How are we getting there?"

Fraser leered her dog teeth. Always with a plan that one.

---

The sound of crowds cheering further back faded such that the conversation ahead prevailed, soft in volume but ominous in nature. Still, Lieutenant Blake Pennington glanced over his shoulder once again as he trailed closely behind his superior officers, Captain Lawson and General LeMay. The combat uniforms worn by the men and women of the Seventh Army were stained and wrinkled and tattered, a clear contrast to the two men in front. They made small talk while offhandedly discussing how they envisioned future strategies would likely unfold, all the while conceding to one another that anything could change once they met with Lord Hood. The Admiral would have the final say.

While the two senior officers marched on in lockstep toward the elevator, the young LT couldn't help himself, again and again glancing aft as he walked. The sights that beckoned along the Eastern horizon were amazing—horrific and amazing just like Zaragosa was right before the planet's last survivors fled. Just like Reach. But there was no fleeing this time. There was nowhere else to go.

Spooled up engines could be heard idling far below. The Black Cat Sub-Prowler awaited them, and the trio entered the lift. Just before the doors slid shut, Pennington glanced at the scene a final time: past the harmonious chord of soldiers reveling in the sun, a red and black haze lingered above the metropolis, smothering it on all sides.

"Well, anyways, how was your trip, Eric?"

"Boring, I'm glad to say…at least until Reach. And now this."

"And your frigate, the…"

"Thermisticles. One-hundred percent. We were able to sideskirt all hostiles en route. Doesn't look too good topside, I might add. You probably already knew that." Captain Lawson drew a deep breath. "I have to say, sir, it was a little jarring touching down here and getting soldiers on the other end of the line. I was expecting your answer."

The doors opened. LeMay stepped out first and led the way to the stealth vessel lying in wait out in the open, guiding them around the perimeter of the structure. "A little ad-hoc, but it all worked out in the end. And look at what we cobbled together with the help of the Seventh. An Assault Carrier. Who would've thought?"

All three officers then glanced rearward in unison. They saw for themselves the remains of the smoking, shorn-in-half behemoth still veering toward the Indian Ocean, its silhouette completely alight in brilliant, blue plasma belching from its mortal wounds along with the gold light of a setting sun. Despite the back half of the vessel still being under its own propulsion and putting up a fight against gravity, its fate was decided. Though to LeMay, Lawson, and Pennington, its presence seemed so fixed and permanent like its defeat was contested by all the Covenant forces here. Despite its extreme distance to their location, it wouldn't be long before it impacted the water, maybe another five minutes at current velocity and altitude.

LeMay continued, "I mean, how long did it take us to come up with that operation and realize its success, thirty minutes? An hour? I'm sure Lord Hood will have nothing but praise for you and me once we rendezvous. That'll surely give us some clout and put us on the good foot, especially with the ambition of this mission. You still think you can pull it off?"

"Sirs," Pennington quickened his step after them, "What about Mombasa?"

Without a glance behind him, LeMay answered, "Oh, I think the Seventh has that handled. Let's leave them to their mission. Yours is ahead. And it'll be no less difficult than theirs."

---

Colonel Mattis and much of the personnel remaining at the rooftop craned their necks and tracked the departing stealth vessel as it ascended the highest reaches of the Command Post. A fountain of debris racing after it, the ship disappeared beyond a massive thunderhead miles above within seconds.

The outpost became much quieter.

"Wonder if we'll ever see him again." Major Wu remarked, panning his sights back to the city across the plains.

"Doubt it." Mattis answered. "Maybe on a holo-display, if anything."

"Hopefully to coordinate another strike like that." Fontaine said.

"That was pretty epic." Wu smirked at the Chief. "Wasn't it?"

Rion simply nodded, joining Wu in his absent-minded scrutiny of Mombasa. Somehow, he figured that the best moments were now behind them.

"Better start to re-engage." Mattis muttered as the cheers started dwindling. "That small victory is unlikely to happen again." Now, all was silent on the rooftop except for servo motors of auto defense turrets and antennas constantly repositioning. "But it'll put 'em in a lull for a while, so let's capitalize on it."

Soldiers began to file downward into the Support Cell and lower, holding conversations with one another as they went. Mattis stopped Wu at the top of the ramp before he could leave: "A minute, Major. I wanna talk about your coordination of relief efforts in Mombasa."

"Yes sir. Well, more like playing the brigade's supply analyst."

"I understand you capture all of the reports flowing from the hospital." Mattis looked like he'd had something prepared to say, but threw it out and settled for, simply, "How's that going?"

Along with his duties on the base under Mattis, Wu had been working with elements of the battalion stationed there to fly in fresh troops and supplies from the IRIS site. Whenever and whatever they needed to continue existing, he made sure he was able to provide for them. All they had to do was come and get it, and he was all too happy to see them. It meant they were still here—still present and fighting. Except that fewer and fewer soldiers were making their way back to IRIS. And for a time lasting one week, there were no visits. The Covenant air patrols had a tight vigil over the skies these days, and with communications down at the field site in Mombasa, data and messages had to be sent via drone lest pilots felt lucky enough to risk manned flights—which were few and far between the other delivery method. Only as absolutely needed. Canned food and bullets, basically. A bandaid plan was put together that would take another few days to fully materialize: disassemble and ferry pieces of a new comms dish out to the site, one drone delivery at a time. The idea came courtesy of Chief Warrant Officer Fontaine, an ONI specialist attached to this base of operations. It would restore much-needed communication with them and then reports would flow in up to the second, but with Mattis asking for a report like this informally and way out of schedule, Wu knew there was trouble ahead.

"They're making progress out there, sir."

"To expectations?" Mattis asked. "In your opinion. Need brutal honesty, if you'll give it."

Projected outcomes were within a proposal made to Mattis when 7th Army mission-planners conceived of the idea to send troops into Mombasa which had been in a state of shellshock after the October invasion. The proposal that Mattis had signed off on had a set of objectives and deadlines that were to be met conditionally for the mission to keep trundling forward, and perhaps more importantly projected casualties figures that would be too much to bear.

In this they'd fallen far behind. On both counts. Until now they'd had a bit of leeway because from the get-go, the situation in the city was different than reports and intelligence had suggested. Circumstances have changed, Wu had been able to tell Mattis whenever he asked, and business continued as usual; he'd ease off, let them breathe. But now, Mattis, ever sharp—the 906th commander not for no reason—wasn't simply inquiring about how things were going. Wu knew that.

"In my opinion," Wu said, navigating his words, "it's promising progress. The first sign of failure I'll be the first to know after Watson himself. And I'll call it. There have been setbacks, but nothing they can't recover from."

Mattis made Wu uncomfortable with his stare that followed, and the sheer height difference between the two played into a false perception that the colonel literally looked down his nose at the major. But the preconception was invalidated when Mattis eased his stance and said, "All right, I trust you to determine the best use of our resources here because I'd like a full head-count as soon as possible. When should we be expecting communications to be restored at the FOB?"

"Any day now. Maybe tomorrow. Something big on the agenda?"

"Day's about to come where we start migrating troops to, well, where the real fight is happening."

The bombed-out road to Voi.

Wu said, "Mombasa is no less important, sir. In my opinion."

"I understand that. But it's time we start concentrating our efforts, you see. I'm just going to speak straight with you, Major. Something big's about to go down out west. LeMay and the others above us are being coy about it, maybe for good reason, but it's no secret the enemy is amassing closer to IRIS now. The brigade is scattered and I want nothing more than to bring our people home. Can we do that if we needed to right now?"

"The decision to withdraw is yours, of course."

The colonel studied the younger officer. He knew he was putting on a brave face; he wasn't oblivious to the work the major had put in over the weeks they'd been here.

Wu continued, shoulders slumping, "Capabilities need to be re-assessed. I'll task a team to check and double check Watson's capacity for phased withdrawal as well as all-out evac and have an assessment ready for you well before the sun goes down. Any shortfall identified will be backfilled by us when the time comes to pull everyone out of there... if the time should come."

Mattis said, "I know you've got a lot on your plate, but that's what I want. Whether that happens ultimately depends on them—and to a certain extent, you. Pulling out of Mombasa's under serious consideration. I won't lie about that. Most of the Marines and ODSTs have done so already. Those who've been left behind...they're planning separate rescue ops for them and they're nothing too flashy. But they are getting the hell out of there, no matter how you look at it. Maybe it's our turn, with our people. You've done your job, I know you have. I have a lot of confidence in you, but it's Watson and the troops on the ground that need to hold up their end. If that doesn't happen, well..."

"It'll be a tough call for them to hear," Wu said. "They've toiled, all of them, ten times as much as I have. Than anyone here, really—Marines are the ones leading the charge down Tsavo Highway, not us."

"Bashing their heads against it, maybe. Covies have it locked down tighter than a snare drum," Mattis muttered. "Major, the thing of it is, Nine-oh-sixth is being tapped to join a concerted offensive that the heads have been planning for a while. It's the big one. If there's doubt that has any weight about what this brigade is doing, it comes from the very top."

"Sir, when?"

"In a few days."

Wu didn't look pleased.

Mattis held up his hands. "I was told only this morning, so you can see where this...anxiety...is suddenly coming from."

"Work's being done in Mombasa, sir, I guarantee it."

"I need to see that for myself, what they're doing. If there is progress still happening out there—true progress—then I need to be made aware of it so that I can sell it. Otherwise, it's time to start transitioning. We're losing people out there...I've read most of your reports, I know what's going out to them each time. Ordnance—fine, I hope that we're stacking up Covies—but the cost to us in manpower? Food and medicine? It all comes from here, out of our own pocket, Major—allotments, that's all we have, all of us, finite as they come—and we've got our own front to fight on right here. Gearing up for big plans, even longer days to come than these, and we'll be needing to free up those resources when our casualties start coming in—"

"—First Battalion are our casualties." Wu couldn't help himself and regretted it immediately.

But Mattis ignored that outburst. He knew the Major had been the most invested in that operation, so he was very patient when he said: "So let's say we stay in Mombasa for the long-term. To what end then?"

Wu swallowed. It was impossible to quantify. The only way to completely succeed in their objective was to purge the city of Covenant, and given what they had to work with they were in no position to really do so. They simply needed more of everything.

Wu and those he was in contact with in Mombasa had resolved to stay on the assignment until they could no longer, working instead towards an agreed-upon degree of success. Them just being in Mombasa was helping, he had to believe.

"I need to see some sign of life down there," Mattis continued. "I need to see that it's a city still worth fighting for, that there's a reason we're still there. It may come to a point that it's smarter to cut our losses, and we'll need to recognize that sooner rather than too late."

"The reason we're still in Mombasa now is the same reason we went there in the first place. Why it's still worth fighting for," Wu said slowly, "well, that's all in my reports." He recited from memory, "Day one: two-thousand-one-hundred-thirty-nine civilians transferred to the IRIS site. Day two: forty-two-eighteen civilians. By the end of week one: twenty-one-thousand civilians out of the warzone, sir. It goes on."

"And then it plateaus at some point. Gets lower, and has been getting lower."

Wu was silent.

"All right," Mattis offered, "that's not nothing. I can respect you're passionate about all this, and the battalion has done one helluva job so I commend all of them, and you. All I ask is that you try to be objective as well. Crazy as it sounds, I'm flipping both sides of the coin. As commander I have to. Both of us need to accept that the unit that went in three weeks ago is not the same one out there now, given all that they've been through. They went in because somebody needed to—I had no objections then—but it seems to me that their mission now runs counter to Seventh Army's foremost objective: run an efficient, effective defense better than damn well anybody can and offer synergistic benefits to advance the UNSC's war strategy, wherever it takes us. What benefit have we provided since refugee arrivals declined sharply? There hasn't been a single UNSC straggler recovered from either side of Mombasa since last week as well. Can we evacuate more people or take back enemy-held territory, or both? That's what the UNSC heads are counting on. I'd rather have me repurpose the brigade before someone else above me feels the need to. Especially someone who can't even spell our names. As I've said, I'm not the only one getting wind of the latest trends.

"Nine-oh-sixth is not quite at brigade combat strength anymore," Mattis continued. "First Battalion has lost real estate out there, lost people. Unless modern ground warfare has drastically changed in the last few minutes without my knowledge, strength in numbers still applies. We're fighting against what full divisions ought to be. Shouldering that kind of weight with a quarter of the manpower and means...that's not a lot of calculus required for me to draw simple conclusions. Lot of eyes on us as usual, and it won't do to suffer something like the loss of a whole battalion out there. Especially when so many more have already been evacuated from Mombasa. A wholly acceptable number, I might add."

"There's still more. There's always still more," Wu said quietly. "Those civilians we got out of there early on, they flocked to us—to the hospital because it's the best place to go. Sir, it's the only place to go for them. Over there they're still digging people out of the rubble, pulling them out of their homes going door to door if they have to because now most of them are too scared to leave. The streets are a no-man's land. If you'd seen it for yourself..."

"I've been at war half my life, Mister," Mattis said, voice lowering to a rasp. "I've seen it. Seen at least a dozen Mombasas, hard as it is for me to say, and they all end up the same. Can't overturn every stone in the city, Wu. Much as you or I would love to try. Time's running out. We may even come to realize that the mission never had a chance at completion. Some would realize that a week in. Some might never, and never leave. I won't say when to kill this thing myself, though I strongly think we've crossed that line already. I leave it up to you to make the call. I will say something, though, Major, and it's that Allan Watson and I have known each other for over a decade and a half. If that isn't something like a friend then I don't know what is. So, I'm close to the matter too as are the rest of the people in my brigade that have friends stuck over there currently and that's how they see it, stuck. But you and I know the Covies aren't the ones keeping them there...it's us. You, specifically, but they'll see it as me and I'll bear it with nary a fuckin' word because this is my unit—I take full responsibility. I always will. So all that said, if there's a chance I get to make sure they don't all get wiped out, then I'm pulling them out. Every last soldier of mine whether they like it or not—whether you like it or not. If that makes me selfish, then so be it. But that's the way I feel about it."

"I'll make the right choice, sir," Wu said. "When it comes down to it."

Mattis merely nodded.

In this cordial way the matter seemed settled, but only for now.

Rion Fontaine, who had left to grab a cup of coffee, returned to the rooftop and unrolled his flex-display. He navigated toward the 906th IMINT portal where he was presented with up-to-the-minute satellite imagery and whatever data the drone patrols were processing at any given instant. "Hey, gents," he called out, "if anyone needs to ferry anything to the FOB, better do it now. Hostile aircraft have vacated. No telling when they'll be back, though."

Mattis told them, "I have work to do, gentlemen. Major, I'm assuming you have a shipment outbound to Mombasa in the works?"

"I do. Those birds should be nearly done prepping, sir."

Mattis nodded that skeptical nod again, still scrutinizing the man. "Let's get them out quick. I'll keep an eye out for your report."

"You'll have it."

Before he walked away, the colonel murmured, "Bills are racking up over here, Major. There's a reason, you pull the plug."

Both men watched the colonel go.

Rion gave Wu a sympathetic grin. He'd caught the tail end of that conversation and guessed the rest. They fought their own very different kind of war on the base every day.

"Good looking out, Chief." Wu patted Chief Fontaine on the back and scurried as fast as he could down the ramp and into the shadowy Support Cell. Dozens of officers and enlisted followed right behind him.

No more mistakes. Not now. Not while Mattis was watching.

---

Like there were silent alarms that began to go off all over the military complex, warning of possible imminent disaster, men and women flew down hallways with a rehearsed sort of frenzy. They all understood how precious these next few moments were. They needed to do their jobs and everyone needed them to perform. They'd done this for a while now but it was never always the same—too much could go wrong and usually did. They were the support staffs of a dozen units moving a hundred different pieces to a unified end: getting birds in the air.

Outside, the staging area too had lost its heat-swollen lethargy. Men who lazed around in easygoing groups were yanked to their feet, helmets shoved into their uncoordinated arms and made to march on stuttery, scared legs. These were men in dusty, sun-bleached looking fatigues and freshly stitched ones all the same. They were everything from big eyed to resigned drooping ones, and those were incredibly dark and subtly unpredictable but unquestionably done with this war.

Huddled tankers with greasy, bristly faces finished their cigarettes and dumped out their coffees and crawled into their cramped steel holes. The air cavalry regiments based here fired up their squadrons of pelicans and sped through pre-flight checks while men and cargo were muscled deep into their troop bays. Ground fighting vehicles were secured in place and those transport pilots moaned about their growing tonnage, the desperate and hasty overburdening of their machines that wasn't going to let up because the fact was fewer and fewer aircraft were making it back at the end of each day.

When the Covenant first arrived, the IRIS site was the head and the heart of operations, its reach far and undeniable, but that was changing. They were losing their grip, every supply run shot down another deadened vein and a useless flopping limb somewhere out there that threatened to become septic.

So Colonel Mattis would keep the region supplied, keep pumping fresh blood into the exhausted and wavering shield-arm in Mombasa, and keep looking for the big payoff when there very well might never be one. There were four pelicans they'd managed to wrangle away from the rest of the flock, and it was the last one in the group Fraser and Woodrow snuck aboard. She knew someone she spotted in the troop bay, a man himself recovering from a wound but getting outta here regardless, and he told her to come on up with a big grin. She told the soldier she owed him a beer once they got out there.

Woodrow escaped from the recovery ward when Fraser came to grab him in a rush. She told the beleaguered nurse the legless man was bleeding again and the two dashed off when she wasn't looking because Fraser knew the call had gone out—men were shipping out, she'd heard. And they knew just as it happened before (and had somehow become a more prevalent occurrence in the past week) someone would send an officer, a doctor, and a few beefy MPs to recovery to cherry-pick the least bad-off looking guys to throw back into the war and sometimes these men dug in with fingernails and would have to be forced to go, scratching and biting, so the nurse already had that in the back of her mind. Losing track of Woodrow would mean nothing to her right now. They weren't friends or friendly ever and she had probably been wishing they'd hurry up and come and take him out of here anyway because he wasn't even fucking hit, Woodrow had thought.

Down here Woodrow and Fraser were invisible and as good as disappeared already. The dust-choked grounds were filled with people on their way out, mobilizing in such a defeated way. They heard about the Covenant warship that had been taken down and while it was a sight everyone said they enjoyed, they suspected all those stars, bars, and oak leaf-types deep inside the base appreciated the victory much more than the men down here really did. One scrapped vessel didn't mean a day off for them to get liquored up and forget about the war for a while—almost nirvana as far as they cared, true bliss—instead all it amounted to was this greedy window of opportunity to get more bodies to the frontline and back into action quicker. For the men who'd been waiting around for the skies to clear of Covenant, now it was time to grab their shit and get moving once again. It was like a toxic shock to the system and it was only getting harder to do the longer they remained.

When the two, Woodrow and Fraser, had slunk towards their readying transport they watched clean and clean-shaven soldiers without rifles being packed into any empty seats while master sergeants scribbled down service numbers to catalogue later, making them official replacements and not stowaways. The grey-faced men already aboard shifted to give the younger guys space but said nothing to them and didn't offer them any cigarettes. At one point everyone heard a shout and saw a scuffle break out when one frazzled soldier shook his head no fucking way he was going back out he was done; he tossed aside his rifle and began to undo the straps of his gear when a few others from his mortified chalk mobbed him. They had to tear his sidearm from his hands but he wasn't aiming it at anyone except his own hand or foot, whatever he could manage because he was desperate and shaky. They choked him out, dragged him up and strapped him into his seat before the base MPs could make their way over.

The whole thing drew a crowd of hard-looking Marines who laughed at whatever the hell was going on but when they strutted off there wasn't a man who didn't fear the future secretly because they were all going to the same place soon. Out there. East Africa was a large swath of all different kinds of fighting but the Covenant was about the same wherever you went and it made everyone equal that way because they all knew by now it was easy to die or watch someone else die. There were few here who actually wanted to go but mostly everybody sat or stood meekly where they were supposed to and stared at each other with their own helpless looks.

A lieutenant and a crew chief clambered into Woodrow's pelican and this must have been who they were all waiting on because the engines kicked in under their seats immediately and the other three Mombasa-bound pelicans followed suit.

The lieutenant helped the man heave the door gun up onto its pintle mount. As the crew chief screwed it in, the officer bent down and opened up a tin of linked rounds to load it.

"Anything you can to get us out of here fast, really appreciate if you did it now," the lieutenant said to him. "Wu already pulled strings. If all is right, we're highest priority outbound."

"Gift from God," the crew chief said, "days like today."

"Man's a damn treasure, the major. Mission'd be scrapped weeks by now if he hadn't kept pushing for it." The lieutenant eased shut the feed cover and racked the gun. "It'd be good of us to get him some results—by way of a thank you."

As he passed through, the crew chief whose name was Harris knocked on the large supply crates tethered to the floor of the troop bay. "Then this oughtta help. Sate a terrible hunger."

Those crates were fully loaded with weapons and precious ammunition. Another lifeblood that nourished the region.

"We gotta get there first," the lieutenant said.

Harris talked with the pilots briefly while the lieutenant took a seat. He glanced over at the men who surrounded him. Woodrow felt he held his gaze on him longer than the others and it made him nervous, but that was because he didn't belong and felt like everyone knew. But the lieutenant said nothing because it was almost impossible to know. Woodrow comforted himself with the thought that at a glance he wasn't too out of place; the other pelicans were stuffed with replacements the lieutenant couldn't know either, after all.

Outside the hatch, a column of heavy armour lurched by, their commanders' helmeted heads the only visible parts of them, poking up timidly. They picked up speed, bucking through their gearshifts; their antennas jittered and swung back and forth, their holey saddlebags jostled, threatening to burst apart or come loose. One tanker had piled on sandbags and instacrete barriers—the ones they used to line highway medians, he'd just kept them all together with huge looped chains and steel braces—all lashed over the top and frontal armour of his: in theory it was just more material to burn through before the superheated material that flew his way reached and disintegrated the hull and turned the entire thing into a gooey heap. It was wishful and unproven though. His tank looked like it hadn't been directly shot at by Covenant cannons yet because most that did never made it back off the field.

The crew chief returned and gave the lieutenant a thumbs up. "Green."

The lieutenant turned from the creaking column and nodded at Harris. "All right, seal her up."

Woodrow saw only black then murky red as the hatch closed up. The lieutenant, face splotchy with shadows, looked more uneasy than when he looked at him in the light. The whites of his eyes glowed.

There was that weightlessness like falling and sticking to the ground at the same time in his stomach as the pelican broke contact with the airfield, jerkily rising up one side then the other then leveling off. Through the tiny viewport built into the hatch, Woodrow could make out the huge formation of pelicans and vehicles and men still on the ground as they pulled upwards and away, too many to count. A force that big and they weren't going where he was going, and he wondered if that was comforting or unsettling. Fraser beside him crossed and uncrossed her legs and mostly just stared at her lap letting the drone of engine noise and vibrations of turbulent air fill the need for talk of remorse, for any convincing that this was a bad idea. Woodrow too had no idea why he'd let himself be taken by her crazy impulses, but in truth it might have been a very uncomplicated reason why: she, vibrant and adventurous and who there was hardly a dull moment around ever, said no matter what she was going and so, then, what the hell, so was he.

---

"Any word yet, sir?"

First Lieutenant Pennington glanced upward to only fleetingly meet the eyes of a man who looked desperate for answers, one of Lima Company's newly-promoted non-commissioned officers. The Lieutenant could surmise in an instant that the junior NCO was eager to dig in somewhere, anywhere, and take action against the invasion. Get a set of orders to follow to whatever end. Likely close quarters combat, the kind that hardcore Marines favored such as Sergeant Ryan Haze. Mombasa: that's where all those birds were flying.

Haze had been tracking them for a few minutes now like they were old friends he'd mistakenly fallen out of reach with or abandoned.

But Captain Lawson's orders were simple as they were clear, and even Lawson was just another link in a chain.

Pennington flicked a half-smoked butt to the ground in his crouched position and said, "Nothing new yet. Awaiting further orders."

Haze scoffed under his breath, about-faced, unsure of where to go, what to do. He could be seen clenching teeth and fists as he scanned the Easterly horizon. Brazenly, he asked, "And what was discussed in your little meeting with them?"

Pennington was cool-headed, wasn't required to even entertain an enlisted man's queries but did so anyway.

"Where to re-assign assets following Red Flag's stand-down, mostly. I wasn't privy to all of it."

"And they're going to continue holding everyone here until they know what to do with us?"

"Aye, for now."

"Excuse my wording, sir, but fuck that. We're able to make decisions in the absence of orders, yes?"

Master Sergeant Rios, Lima Company's First Sergeant, stepped into the middle of the group ready to put Haze back in his place but Pennington saw him and waved him off, refocused on Sergeant Haze. "Captain said wait. So, we wait. That simple."

"Look at that out there, sir." Haze said, pointing as he stepped toward the ledge. "That's where everyone's going and we're needed."

"What would you have us do over there?" The Lieutenant then stood. "Get into some skirmishes? Grease a few Covies? It'd be ineffectual and only get people killed. There was a time when all we did was patrol and fight, but that's not our mission."

"Yeah, Lawson was the one who saw to that."

"Aye, he did. He saw to that, and Kleiner saw to that, and Gunny Smith saw to that, and so did a couple million Zaragosans too. Lima goes after the big fish now."

"Red Flag is over, sir."

"Haze, relent."

"What about this world? This city?" Again, he pointed. "There's no way you can see what I see and just look away. Who else remains when they're all gone? Where we gonna run to when Mombasa falls and they don't stop? Haven't we witnessed enough elsewhere? We at least owe it a fly-by, see if it's worth fighting for."

"The unit stationed here has that under control. Again, it's not our mission."

"I think Haze is right." Another NCO in the unit spoke out.

Until this point, all of Lima Company had been silent. A few more troops then gaited closer toward Sergeant Haze, taking their places by his side and wordlessly signaling a statement to their Lieutenant. A moment of this repositioning and it was apparent to Pennington that a clear majority aligned themselves toward the more interventionalist mindset of Sergeant Haze.

Rios himself looked unsure. He faced their way and was about to speak out against the discord, but a junior NCO beat him to the punch.

"There are sensitive UNSC assets out there. ONI field HQ, regional weapons depot, and a lot of supply caches that Covie should not be getting their hands on." He spoke, reading from HUD text. "They already blew up the only space elevator, sir."

In that very instant, the Lieutenant got the message he'd been waiting for—ultimately his saving grace in front of the troops. He held up a hand, withdrawing out of earshot from his unit. His stare turned blank as he listened into a transmission intended solely for him.

"Yes, sir. I'm here. Need orders."

The young officer's neural net was synced with that of his commander's in near-real-time, the transmission originating from some orbital station where the naval Captain had rendezvoused with other higher-ranking officers.

"I've got bad news, Pennington. The strike mission we'd hoped for has not been salvaged and ONI's deep cover asset hasn't reported in for some time. They fear the worst. They've got only occasional signals on the vessel's whereabouts. It's been making random jumps like they know someone's onto them. Until ONI can pin down its location, we're stuck at Earth for the time being."

"Is Lima Company still to be hunkered down out here, sir?"

"No. You're mobilizing the whole unit. The General is tapping whatever manpower and resources he can to help with Lord Hood's counter-offensive."

"Where do you need us to be?"

"Take the Company to the Army hospital in Mombasa."

"Say again? Mombasa?"

"I know—by all rights we belong at the front, but that won't be happening, not for the foreseeable future. My hands are tied on this one. General LeMay sold us all up the river so that he could get his clutches on Nine-Oh-Sixth firepower and reposition them at Voi."

"So, why Mombasa then? What's its significance in this counter-op?"

"LeMay wants that place secured so they can depart with minimal casualty...before the fight gets redirected westward. Voi is shaping up to be the next major battle ground. The Nine-oh-sixth is holding things down out in Mombasa, but probably won't be for much longer. Mattis has sided himself with LeMay because he wants all his people involved in the counter-op as well, I suspect because he feels Mombasa is old news. IRIS will be the rally point. Them getting back to your current location is the challenge."

"They in bad shape?"

"Hard to say myself, but it's a dug-in battalion so already I know that them readying themselves for an all-out evac will take considerable time. You need to hasten that withdrawal."

"How do we assist?"

"Get yourselves there for starters, and find Lieutenant Colonel Watson. Inform him Mattis is going to pull the entire unit out of there. Watson will figure out how to do the rest."

"Why doesn't the general tell them himself? Is he not in their chain of command?"

"He's not, but Mattis already agreed in a roundabout sort of way. Regardless, this is an invasion. The general gets discretion. And though I'd love nothing more than to see a general negotiate directly with the people stationed in Mombasa, there was an in-air slipspace jump from an enemy ship a little while ago. Knocked out all their long-range comms so they are effectively blind out there. Wouldn't be prudent to go behind the colonel's back in any case."

"Understood, sir."

"Bottom line is they need to fallback to IRIS HQ so they can stage enough forces to help strike back. The city will have to fall. Don't let anyone else know about this. Tell only Watson of the plan. I'm sure you'll understand why in due time."

"Aye-aye, sir."

"Pennington, my greatest concern is the readiness of Lima Company and our weapon. If the original mission should get re-authorization, we're outta here. And I mean with haste. I don't want you or Spartan Zero-Seven-One exposed to any unnecessary hostilities."

"And the company?"

"They are yours to command, as I've said, but do ensure your unit is in fighting shape should we resume."

"I understand, sir."

"I'm having Hood call in a wing of Longswords to pave your way over there. I'm not taking any chances. In general, Lima Company should take on an advisory role with limited assistance to Watson."

"This was supposed to be a favor for a favor, right? Advise and assist is a hard bargain to sell to a commander in the middle of a war zone."

"I predicted this much. That's one of the reasons you're now promoted to Captain."

"I know I should be honored by your decision, but is extra rank prerequisite going in there?"

"It's not that I don't think people would follow you. It's that I don't want people looking down on you. You may very well be heading into a snake pit. I know about Seventh Army, how they operate. They've been known to throw their weight around, especially on their own turf. Their MO is to spearhead and commandeer anyone and anything. That cannot happen to Lima Company. And if anyone takes issue with that, tell them to take it up with General LeMay. That should shut 'em down."

"You can count on us to be ready when the time comes."

"Good. I'll be aboard Cairo station with the General and Lord Hood until it's our time. Just so you know, I would've made you Captain earlier, but taking baby steps was better for the unit. Good luck, Pennington. Lawson, out."

A moment later and the newly-promoted Captain reconvened on the unit's position at the center of the rooftop.

He drew in closer, saying, "That was Lawson."

That gained everyone's attention.

He paused a moment, the look on his face indiscernible but clearly something that signaled a small bout of preponderance on his part. The unlikeliest of outcomes had just transpired for them all, and now he had to choose his words carefully.

He kept it simple.

"We're going into Mombasa." He said. "Prepare for combat."

There was no hesitation. The Marines of Lima Company enacted their pre-battle inspections upon Pennington's command. The troops were completely silent as they readied their equipment, though a wordless understanding permeated throughout the unit as they prepared, the many faces glancing over one another with telling eyes that outshined from even the steadiest among them. Ever since they fled their homeworld in defeat, there was not one of them that didn't harbor at least a small twinge of spite or rage after everything they'd lost, and the only thing that could rectify this was revenge—maybe even the kind of revenge that's never truly satiated. Minutes later, all of Lima Company had discarded any containing equipment they arrived with, the contents within either donned by them or hoisted in their arms. Captain Pennington gave a cursory glance at the lot of them as his insignia emitter auto-updated itself to a set of chromed double-bars.

"Fall out."

The Marines double-timed toward the levels below, making their way to a squadron of Pelican transports lying in wait outside.

"Sergeant Haze," Pennington beckoned, "a word with you."

The NCO broke off from the group just as the last of them began the descent into the steep, shadowed slope.

"Sir, Sergeant Haze reporting as ordered, sir."

"There's a bit of a snag that Lima needs to address before heading out there. I need a steady NCO on it."

"Anything for the Company, sir. And congrats on the promotion."

"Look, Sergeant Blunt isn't needed or wanted in the combat zone. I'm sure everyone would agree."

"I sure as hell wouldn't trust him to watch my back."

"And I can think of no better man to take charge of him than you."

"Wait, you're pulling me out of this op?"

"Not just you, of course. You won't be alone. Select two members of your squad as escort."

"I can't believe what you're saying. You know how much I need this."

"But I need you here. Not just for Blunt, you see. Comm relays out at Mombasa are down. If they get fixed, I need a relay man here to liaise between me and the Nine-oh-sixth team. I can't be everywhere at once, so I need you to be Lima's messenger. I'm not keen on crossing lines of communication with these Army officers given the sensitivity of our own mission. And you'll be our eyes and ears on this side of the map too. It'll be every bit as important, you know. We may very well need you in a pinch."

"Fine, sir. I'll be the babysitter."

"Good. If it's any consolation, I don't foresee our foray into Mombasa lasting all that long, either, so don't get too comfy."

Haze saw the Captain off as he jogged down the ramp.

Over the shoulder, he shouted, "Do us proud, Sergeant!"

"Fuck me, now I'll never score any kills."

---

Woodrow and the Mombasa-bound formation flew for about thirty minutes and those inside the troop bay didn't know where they were on the map when they were attacked. Plasma fire strafed the blood trays before the pilots reported they were under fire, like a sniper shot that slyly beat the sluggish noise to its destination.

Inside the pelican, the floor blistered and blew inward and the rounds went where they would—nobody moved but to flinch in panic because where they were, in what they were in, there was nowhere to hide and get out of the way. The air seemed to lose all of its oxygen. Steam vapours burned their skin and Woodrow's mouth became instantly dry.

Below his feet the pelican pitched, taking evasive action but there was only so much manoeuvrability in an aircraft like that, and even less so given the range it had been engaged at—shots fired from at least a kilometre away. The second burst finally got someone across from Woodrow a few seats down. The enemy fire was from an anti-aircraft gun nestled somewhere below that couldn't be seen until it lit up the sky, and the size of the shot that punched through the floor made it so it was not impeded at all by the transport's armour when it killed the man suddenly and everyone knew he had been killed although they couldn't see much. They smelled it mostly but everyone just sort of understood, even those who hadn't even seen combat or ever seen somebody die.

Nobody screamed or anything but froze in their seats, mouths open, the dangerous numbness coming sooner than it would have if they were somewhere they could run away and hide, feeling the safety of ground they'd press themselves to so they wouldn't be shot at. With that little bit of power stripped away, strapped in and dead in the firing line, there was nothing to do but shut down.

It was after another unpredictable volley started a fire in the overhead stowage netting did the lieutenant scramble to action, leaping from his seat and putting it out with a nearby extinguisher. The compartment became hazy with ash, painful to breathe until two soldiers pounded on the cockpit door and yelled for the pilots to pop the hatch. There was a hiss, then liberating sunlight. Fresh air rushed into the bay, stoking embers and creating a swirling cloud that trailed behind the pelican as it continued forward.

Woodrow's vision came back, blinded for a second, and he came back to the sight of crumbling, misshapen Old Mombasa rushing past below. It stretched to the coast and in one blink Woodrow took in its crooked city streets and garbage-filled alleyways, its rooftops with sagging clotheslines, highways of burnt cars, whole buildings smashed by artillery fire with wreckage that lay in outward circles almost neatly around those points of impact—three weeks of skirmishes, airstrikes and shelling in a city that hadn't yet been fully evacuated (and possibly couldn't be)—and then in the distance flickering bluish light where the shots were coming from. Two positions at least, their shrill, crackly rounds chasing the convoy doggedly.

The crew chief had gotten on the door gun and was spraying return fire but it was hard to say that it was all that helpful. They were a much bigger target than the concealed Covenant soldiers shooting at them. All Harris was doing was making noise, replying to the Covenant question with the UNSC's fifty-cal solution but that was about it. The staunch thumping noise though was comforting in its own way, resist resist resist.

Then the pelican following them went down. In Woodrow's view out of the open rear, flames and fizzling white-hot fragments exploded from the damaged pelican's troop compartment after it got hit, then came inky dark smoke, and after floating serenely a moment, gravity took hold and it went into a shallow, veering off-course dive below Woodrow's pelican and out of his sight. They all heard the crash and saw what had happened later as they rushed over the path it took: through the top floor of an apartment building then into a row of storefronts in the street leaving a stream of rubble and broken glass. The twisted up, seam-split pelican itself was a burning cage. There was no suggestion of stopping to check for and go back for survivors from anyone and they all quietly hoped nobody would speak up and say it, or worse, convince the lieutenant to do it. Now especially it seemed foolhardy to even think about turning back.

The lieutenant whirled around, contemplating something, a rescue maybe but something else too. Whatever it was Woodrow could tell it was a tough fifty-fifty for something awful, the way he stared, and a nearby thunk of a glancing shot off the hatch that made him duck and retreat seemed to hurry him in making this excruciating decision: he pointed at the supply crates and shouted, "Toss 'em!"

There was no movement or seemingly almost no understanding of what he'd just said until he withdrew a Helljumper knife he had somewhere on him and began to saw at the criss-crossed tethers keeping the crates stuck in place. "Come on!"

He looked directly at Woodrow and that was enough to get him on his feet. He began to unhook the straps from the D-rings recessed into the floors, as did others. They all looked so conflicted like the lieutenant did just before, especially those who weren't new at this, who knew what they were being asked to throw away, stuff worth killing for and to actually risk dying for. But one lucky shot on the Covenant's part and it'd cook the entire troop bay, critical aircraft components, maybe the pilots too depending on what it was they were carrying. So they let them go, pushing them out off the ramp where they tumbled to the streets and the roofs one after the other. Not wanting to suffer the same fate, the men in the other pelicans began following suit, dumping their cargo loads as the lieutenant watched at the end of the ramp, looking like he was witnessing a belaboured death before him but that wasn't inaccurate. From what Woodrow overheard earlier, this was a vital supply mission. They were failing.

One crate landed, tumbled off a ledge and spilled open but it was too far away to see what had been inside. They could only wonder and imagine and feel each dropped one come to a halt messily like unrelenting body blows. Plasma tracers still hunted them, rifling past the hatch and the man standing there.

The lieutenant squinted into the daylight, and they all heard it at the same time, the otherworldly alien wails so sharp they got underneath the engine noise without overpowering it. He'd seen two black spots in the bright sky bearing on them, gaining on them. These things opened up as well and their fire took whole chunks out of the formation.

Woodrow and the others got low but it wouldn't help, just like taking anti-aircraft fire from the ground. The Covenant fliers, Banshees, would run them down because they had hotrod speed and maneuverability the pelican was not designed for, and rip them apart aft to fore in one pass from above or below or maybe both. The fleeing pelicans were already in bad shape, all of them shredded, and at least one of them with a bum engine that was hacking smoke and dying. The Banshees would close within a minute, and thanks to the marvel of Covenant engineering, one was more than enough to obliterate the entire limping group with its deadly speed and rapidfire autocannons. Two of the fliers was sure death—the way things were going—there only to ensure there were no survivors once the pelicans were forced to the ground and that's when the fuel rod guns came unleashed.

The lieutenant yanked his rifle from the overhead stowage. Into his radio he asked the pilots to reduce altitude, get them low. They started to do so, and the ground rushed up towards them while they swooped. The crew chief Harris looked over from behind the fifty, hanging on tight as not to fly out of the shaking, rattling aircraft, and bleakly asked what they were going to do. The lieutenant with his Helljumper knife and rifle who faced down two Covenant death machines that might vaporize him in thirty seconds told the man equally bleakly: "Jump."

II

The Banshees would have killed him and all the others if they had existed a few seconds longer. Missiles streaked at them passing narrowly over Woodrow's pelican and met the two alien fliers, outright destroying one and wounding the other farther away. It was still in a frantic, fiery roll when they violently pulled it apart with their autocannons—the two Hornets that roared past the pelican's rear hatch on the attack. Once satisfied the falling enemy aircraft were as good as scrap, they waved off and came back alongside the Pelicans in escort formation. They were out of range of Covenant ground fire now and together they climbed with new confidence.

The lieutenant dropped down into his seat with a crooked, disbelieving smile that he immediately stuffed a cigarette into the corner of and lit up. He offered the rest of the pack to those closest to him, Harris who slumped over the door gun and wheezed a breathless "god damn," and to the soldiers he didn't know including Woodrow. All of them—even the non-smokers—needed the nicotine hit and took them from him gratefully.

"Days like today," the lieutenant said to Harris, "I am thankful as all hell Tenth Air-Cav is part of the brigade now."

"Nine-oh-six sure seems to be where the party's at. You're welcome, on their behalf."

The lieutenant regarded the rest of the troops around him, their tense faces. It could have gone worse, a situation just like that. They kept cool. It was unsaid too but they were still alive for now—it might be worth learning their names finally. He looked them each in the eye and said, "I'm Reed. Dog Company, Second Platoon. Welcome to Mombasa, animals."

Later, the brawlers and the beaten-up haulers descended into designated landing zones on top of a very wide, stout building: the hospital Fraser had told Woodrow about. Sandbags and riveted sheet metal had been laid down to create vague parapets and firing ports on the ledges. Barely adequate cover from snipers that snuck around the city. A painted sign read: "Don't feed the animals—heads and hands inside the bus!"

Shirtless soldiers manning heavy machine-guns pointed at the street below couldn't take their eyes off the aircraft that were miraculously still flying. Woodrow could barely believe it himself—he hopped off with everyone else and noticed just how shot up every pelican had been. Their pilots walked around them only in a brief prowl because no way would they be taking them out again without extensive repairs—their armour plating replaced or failing that patched up with spot-weld beads that were good enough. The man who died aboard Woodrow's pelican was lifted out on a stretcher, his torn upper body covered up with someone's jacket. In the light it was easier to see how far his blood and bone had gone when he got hit. It pooled all over the blood tray below where he'd sat and dripped out of the big holes burned into the floor; it had splattered Woodrow and Fraser. Their pelican had been luckier than the other two transports—still-warm bodies came out of one in limp piles, dragged out and laid down in body-bagged rows, then from both a few wounded that needed to be rushed to surgeons downstairs, all worse than anything suffered in Woodrow's pelican comparatively—numberswise.

Other than that, those pelicans were empty. Well, not all. Somebody made a call on one to save a supply crate or two, probably the least hazardous of ordnance. Food maybe, or water, but even that was dangerous if Covie plasma boiled it, flash-steaming everyone like Mumma's old pressure cooker. It was a gamble to keep flying loaded up like that and Reed wasn't convinced he made the wrong choice. They all took Covie fire just the same, and despite the supply predicament out here it was preferable to getting a face full of fire and shrapnel in an enclosed space. If you decided to run it, you made it or you died. Still though, in a better world he would have liked to have half of those casualties—acceptable, not ideal—and all of their cargo. Two boxes of anything was a better count than Reed's who had nothing to show for all that trouble except more mouths to feed, more hands to expend ammo they were already running low on.

On the roof already waiting for the arrivals were—he was surprised to see—officers Captain Stern and Major Montclair, Watson's number two. Stern was unexpected, but Montclair he needed to explain himself to about what went wrong. Just like Wu, he had let her down. The whole battalion, too. But he was alive and there was nothing else to do but try again soon.

For now he approached the two officers and asked, "Who do I owe a cold one?" He motioned to the two Hornets that were parked nearby. "If I had one to give."

"All Stern," Montclair said. "Scout platoon out of Shield spotted trouble twenty klicks out. Sent word back as quick as they could. Tenth Air was snoozing. Stern near threw 'em off the roof."

Reed shook Stern's hand. "Appreciate it, sir."

"You do owe me, Lieutenant, but I'm a simple man to please. Company could use some new toys to play with—before the rest of the battalion, yes?" Stern said. He looked around for the haul Reed was supposed to be bringing back. He frowned when he didn't see men unloading things like they were supposed to.

"Need to talk to you both about that," Reed said. "Way here we had to dump the ammo and explosives. I made the call, I'll take the lashes. And sorry for the bad news."

And it was a dreadful thing to hear. Be that as it may, the major still had that spark of hope in her eyes when she asked, "Comms gear? We're desperate to get some flight requests out to IRIS, clear out all these civilians. Not to mention we need to clear out our reporting backlog."

"If there was any such equipment along for the ride, I'm afraid it would've suffered the same fate."

Montclair's mouth tightened and Stern said nothing, but they were no strangers to catastrophe. Another day, another mountain. It didn't make it less troubling news though, this late in the evening of a long winter day that only got darker.

Reed continued, "Route in's getting more and more crowded. It's been a problem a while now, only getting harder and harder every day. Do believe Covie is onto us."

Montclair looked at her watch and said, "I'll believe it was hectic up there. Lay it on me, Lieutenant. Watson is waiting on my report."

Stern said, "How about bodies, Reed? Any of these boys worthy of a home with me?"

"There's a manifest somewhere. We got 'em logged, combat records and all. If you want to hold auditions I won't stop you, sir. Might say you earned it, in my book."

"That I get the approval of almighty Reed pleases me oh so fuckin' greatly."

Reed looked over the dazed soldiers who hung around weaponless and patchless, waiting for assignment.

The returning 906th men had already shuffled off to find their buddies and platoons. They were men and women who had gotten hit early on and missed out when 1st Battalion had redeployed to the hospital. Not wanting to be sent elsewhere, attached to the other battalions or god forbid another division entirely, they found their way back to their own people. Sometimes, all it took to undergo a forced reassignment back at IRIS was for some iron-chested O-4 to storm into a ward and start pointing fingers at patients fully healed and they were escorted outside into a waiting troop transport to be hauled away to some other front. That happened to the youngest troops—the ones who didn't know any better. If you were seasoned or at least a good couple years into UNSC service, you could look that major dead in the eye and staunchly say something like no sir, my unit's waiting on me. Find someone else. And that would at least buy you some time, let you saddle back up with your own unit again before the eleventh hour.

It was good to see the patch on people he recognized only kind of but who were nine-oh-six just the same, but they were undoubtedly still recovering from some kind of injury: burns that weren't too severe plus the skin grafts that sometimes came with them (they arrived with bandages that did all the work to hold together their slimy skin that might slip off at any time), or ricocheted spiker rounds that hadn't fully penetrated their ballistic vests but they caught the tip of, like knife wounds. Arms in slings, rolled ankles, torn ligaments. They were all heavily medicated. This would be an issue in the coming days. Reed didn't have to see the future to know this. The army doctors would keep men breathing here but they lacked the variety of happy-good-time drugs found back at the IRIS site where they were supposed to be shipped for the months of recovery their injuries warranted. Nothing was turning out the way it was supposed to.

Montclair studied a map while Reed did his best to explain the sequence of events based on landmarks he remembered. How far out were they when they first got hit? Where, when the man in Delta One-One... Tomlin... was killed? When One-Three bought it? What happened there? It'll take too long to query the flight data recorders, so spit it out. Well to the best of my recollection, ma'am...

Meanwhile, Stern spoke to the newcomers in his way—always personable and fatherly—full of advice and encouragement and asking them how they were holding up after all that. Terrible ride, boys, he said. Scary, right? You did fine, you came back all right dincha? Good man. You too, all of you. I know your unit, son—they're out there somewhere, we'll get 'em back. Guaranteed. Say, where're you from? I know it well. Why'd you sign up? What about you? And you? Hell of an answer, soldier. Hell of a fuckin' answer—that's what I like to hear. You know, I could use a man like you in my company...

Stern's company, Shield (really Company A of 1st Battalion but nicknamed Shield during training and was called so ever since, even by 906th heads), distinguished itself through its actions first during war-games and demonstrations, then later on in its first real combat against the Covenant. The name carried clout with those outside the brigade along with those in it, who would jump at the chance to be folded—out of desperation—into the battered, burdened Shield at its hour of need to pull through amazingly, heroically they hoped. Un-killable Shield...that was the good word that went around.

The captain got to Woodrow, shook his hand, and said, "I see a unit patch, Corporal. You've been in the fight a bit if I'm not mistaken."

"Yessir I have."

"Infantry in Beletzkov."

"That's exactly it."

"No-prisoners-taken Covie grudgematch, if I'm correct."

"Not too different from here, I've been told. Hell of a lot colder though."

"Well I'm sorry for what you suffered. But you got through it. Says something about you."

"All good things I hope."

Stern showed his coffee-stained teeth. "Man makes the unit, unit makes the man. Chicken 'n egg sort of thing, don't think they solved that one yet. Both important, is my point. How'd you like to come fight under me, fight for Shield Company."

"I think that'd be swell, Captain. Provided—"

"—Woodrow, tell you what, I'll give your name to the Major and she'll make sure your paperwork is in order. Shouldn't be a thing."

"Only fair I let you know..."

"What is it?"

"I'm not on any list," Woodrow admitted. "Jumped aboard straight out of recovery. I don't think they know I'm gone."

"Well alright. Doesn't bother me. That's somebody else's problem to worry about. If my boys never returned to the fight I'd be all out of good men. They crawl on their bellies if they got to, to get back to the comp'ny."

"There's a soldier here I'd like to stick with, if that's all right. One of you. Got me here in the first place, and it'd be good to have a friend to watch my back. If not here, I'll prefer to go there, wherever that might be."

"Fine, fine, Corporal. I hear what you're saying. I can always take on another good man. Where's he at? What's his name?"

"Her name. Private Fraser, sir."

Stern crossed his arms and gave Woodrow a drawn-out, overly sour look that puzzled the Corporal. His eyes aimed themselves at Woodrow's like they were a couple of parallel bullets shot out at him, and he asked, "Where'd you meet her? IRIS?"

"Yeah, in recovery. I was...wounded, sir. Some time ago."

"You say she's here with the battalion? Now?"

"Yes sir, flew in with me." Woodrow nodded in her direction.

Fraser had been milling behind the group of replacements, half-hiding, her cap tugged over her eyes. She hadn't left with the other already sworn-in, wounded 906th men because Stern had personally greeted them back home as they trudged towards the door off the roof. Like Reed, he liked to see familiar faces (or at least the old patch of a quality soldier, a battle-tested soldier). Fraser, though, had not wanted to see him.

Stern, upon spotting the woman, abandoned Woodrow entirely and moved in on her, pushing past the other replacements he hadn't got to yet. She was already in a defensive position, hands protecting herself. He said to her, "You are one stupid bitch."

"Hello Captain. Small world."

"Don't get comfortable. I'm going to have the lieutenant mail you back and make Brigade H&S pay for postage. Have it read 'RTS: this fuckup isn't ours.'"

"If you've another bird capable of getting in the air simply lying around somewhere, please, materialize it. Wow me. I'd love to see it."

"You stick around, I am gonna bury you."

Fraser grinned. "Put me up in Shield again. That'll do it quick."

"You shut your mouth."

"Or you can hit me, Daddy," she cooed. "We'll call it even."

With the commotion of crescendoing voices, a circle of men gathered with curious smirks. Montclair stormed over. Her eyes popped from her bony, dark-skinned face and her voice became rough and croaky when she barked, "Captain!"

Stern tensed up and even cool-hand Reed followed her gaze, noticed Fraser for the first time there. He forced back a chuckle. He hadn't forgotten her. The scene wasn't so different than the one she made before she left—forced out by Stern. He'd get a word in with her, catch up a little before she was inevitably locked up.

Montclair stared Fraser down. She knew her like Stern did. Scornfully and with no subtle amount of suspicion, the major asked, "They sent you here, Fraser?"

The question was so simple, yet loaded. The major was testing her, seeing if she'd lie because—dammit—everyone already knew the answer. With the major here, now Fraser looked humiliated. It was like she'd disappointed someone she thought was alright by her. That made it somehow worse. Most everybody liked Montclair. Fraser lowered and shook her head. "Snuck in, ma'am."

"I see. If you were First Battalion, I'd let it slide. But you're not."

Now Woodrow, who was confused before, was completely thrown. He should have seen it coming, he found himself thinking later, but in that moment he suddenly felt the whole thing was some crazy mistake. He'd been seduced in a way by the idea of her, and now there were untruths being uncovered. She said she was Nine-oh-six and clearly she was, but what she hadn't told him was her unit here in Mombasa wasn't really her unit anymore for reasons she had kept to herself. He hadn't known enough about the Brigade to ask for specifics, not wanting to doubt her—too good to be true Doll Fraser.

A damned liar, but Christ did she always make things interesting.

"Second Battalion's deploying to retake Voi soon, if I'm not mistaken," Montclair continued, "and you should be with them."

"I was hit on the line, ma'am."

"You're well enough now I see."

Fraser had nothing to say to that. She wasn't sure if she wanted for any kind of sympathy but she sure didn't get any.

Montclair looked at Reed, who was doing a lousy job of trying to stifle an ear-to-ear grin, then she looked at the Pelicans just behind them. They looked somehow sorrier now than before. The memory of the harrowing flight collectively forgotten, she said, "But I think you're stuck with us for the time being."

Stern looked ready to protest but he didn't. Not over a fuckup like Fraser. He was smart around Montclair, and Montclair didn't hate him yet nor his methods either. Stern performed. Stern got results. Stern did the 906th proud. Stern did what he did so she didn't have to. She knew the rest of the battalion should be thanking the man for what he put his unit through every combat mission so that the other companies came out of the shit in better condition than what had been expected or what was acceptable—which was, in many cases, nothing short of decimation.

But she hadn't been with 1st Battalion since the inception of 906th Brigade in 2549. Neither had she been with them through the jungleworld Cassandra and the talked-about history there, their first large-scale engagement. She came in soon after that—when another major before her sustained injuries that precluded him from joining the frontlines. Montclair came in to fill a role and watched carefully, listened to her subordinates who did know more, who had more history than her, and eventually won them over. She had her own judgments, one being that Stern was a good officer. The battalion could use another like him, but no more than that. And they should have no more power than a captain, period. That was her analysis. She didn't know where those beliefs put her in the order of things or if the men under her found that out they'd think of her differently. Everyone had their own opinions. When it came to her opinions and the opinions of officers in general, everything was politicized and she knew it.

In this matter though, she was at least there the first time when Fraser had been disciplined and ultimately transferred out of her unit for boozing too hard and clocking Stern in the mouth sometime between the 906th's second deployment after Cassandra, the five-month long slugfest Aurelia, and their arrival to Earth. It was Montclair's idea and Stern played along and agreed with the decision because 2nd Battalion, while still 906th, was a different breed from them and hardly fought in the same trench as them. Neither seen nor heard, she had been exiled. They'd washed their hands of her then. The matter should have been put to bed with that.

But in this particular instance, Montclair said to Fraser, "You're only here because we can't get rid of you. You better believe that. It's up to Captain Stern what happens to you now."

Stern would take this one—graciously, mind you—and took a quiet pleasure in it. He nodded his thanks to the Major. "She isn't coming back to Shield, ma'am. No way in hell. If she's abandoned her team, in their time of greatest need no less, then clearly she hasn't changed her ways."

Montclair said to Fraser, "Then that's the end of it. We'll find somewhere else to put you."

Woodrow caught up to Stern who started to march away with an annoyed scowl. He said, "Captain Stern? Looks like I'll be needing a unit, sir."

Stern looked him up and down but his dangerous association with Fraser had already damned him. Either she'll come with him or he'll go to her, all right. To the major, he said, "Wherever Fraser's going—and I'm confident it'll be the goddamn chain-gang—take this sumbitch with'er."

Fraser, unable to shut her damned mouth, said, "Disciplinary? What the bloody hell for?!"

Stern barked, "You're supposed to be halfway to Voi!"

"You can't punish me. I committed no crimes against any of you."

"I am a commissioned UNSC officer. It is morally-incumbent upon me that I do punish you knowing full-well what you've done to your own people by coming out here. And you—" He pointed at Woodrow. "—God knows where you're supposed to be, but it's probably not here. So, technically neither of you are where you're supposed to be in a time of war. You dumb shits just made yourselves deserters."

Fraser and Woodrow shared a solid glance with each other—one that was sheepish, guilt-ridden, irritated, but also amused at the entire thing, that they might laugh if one broke first, all of this at once from both of them. They couldn't help it. Woodrow looked at the lieutenant, Reed, for help but all the man could give him was an apologetic grimace. The captain and the major thundered away with their heavy, angry strides. As Reed marshalled the newcomers who all claimed Stern wanted them in Shield, Fraser leaned over and said to him, "I didn't think I'd be seeing you today, Lieutenant. Dog Company? Second Platoon?" She said the words like she was gagging on them. "They made you their milkman, did they?"

"Never call me that. And it's good to see you too, Doll."

---

Montclair met with the commander of 1st Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Watson, in his makeshift office he'd been given in the basement of the hospital. He was a husky, greying man, white with a kempt white beard that ended above his throat. He had a good record, having been with the unit since the start, batting two and oh so far. Mombasa might change things, of course, but Watson had made no blunders on his part every time they saw action. So he was competent and in Colonel Mattis' good graces like Stern was. With a gung-ho company commander like that nearby Watson hadn't been the one sending men and women up and over the top with their bayonets fixed—he and Montclair kept their hands clean. He got the benefit of coming off as cool-headed and tactically sensible, only giving the green-light to Stern's flights of fancy when he knew the way the deck was stacked and then they'd both come off for the better because of it.

But here, three weeks in, Watson had done his job the way he was supposed to. It was a barely coherent mission from the start that sounded straightforward: evacuate Mombasa.

Only once you got to the damn place did you realize how daunting of a task it really was. Of Marines, ODSTs, and Army units deployed in the opening days of the invasion, there were people still here ranging from single, scattered troopers whose units left them behind, to entire battalions that'd been routed, trapped in rapidly closing pockets when the Covenant drove through initially. They were somewhere in the city and every day Watson sent patrols out into the red zones to establish contact with them again—coordinate a defence if they could. This was a secondary objective because civilians came first: refugees who trickled in every so often or were found by the patrols and brought back to be saved. There was a growing population of them still in the hospital and it was beginning to grate on the battalion of soldiers so that was another thing Watson needed to contend with. Montclair just made sure he wouldn't have to worry too much about the goings-on in the various companies under her.

But right now, she had nothing good to tell him. She cleared her throat and said, "News from HQ. You're not going to like it."

"Anything to do with today's incident?" Watson asked.

"I can't say for certain, sir. Awfully fishy, though."

"What is it?"

"Drone dispatch from IRIS. Order came down grounding all planes to and from the hospital."

Watson rested his chin on interlocked fingers. "That's not too good for us, is it?"

"It is not."

"Is Mattis hanging us out to dry?" Watson was blunt, but it was a possibility he and Montclair had discussed for a while now and it was an explanation that made sense, sadly.

Montclair scanned her notes. "They say it's temporary. Just until the air-corridor can be properly maintained and defended again."

"No timeline on when that'll be, I'm guessing."

"They'll keep us posted."

Watson said, "Evacuation without being able to actually leave doesn't seem quite like the way to do things. Not how I would do things, at any rate."

"I did tell them that, sir." She caught herself—corrected more impotently: "I've written a strongly worded letter."

"Good. Because it's something they should know." Watson glanced at a map of the city he had projecting upward from a holo-emitter. The air corridor was marked in red, a line that cut proudly through any immovable obstacle every bit like the epic railways of the once-untamed Old West, or the resourceful and resolute Tokyo Express that was simply indispensable. An asset like that and they were being forced to abandon it... it was a crippling shot. They were already an island. Without it they would lose their ability to keep the troops' morale and fighting spirit at its best.

And—god dammit—Watson remembered now there was a flight scheduled this afternoon to get a group of civilians to the IRIS site. So that was out—although with their pelicans in the shape they were in, he doubted they would have gone forward with it anyway. Another promise that had to be broken.

"This place is going to fill up awfully damn quick," he said.

"Problem is, they cannot get aircraft from the IRIS site to the city. They just can't get to us," Montclair said.

"Or, the problem is they don't want to," Watson said. "Look, front's shifting. I know that. Mombasa doesn't mean much in the long run, anymore. Covenant's fascination with us is long over and the UNSC's chasin' em to somewhere. Only reason they're still here is they want to kill us all with extreme prejudice. Grand scheme of things, that doesn't really mean all too much, just that however many of them left will be movin' in slower. CENTCOM priorities will focus elsewhere and we'll fade away. Maybe already we have. We're Mattis' investment—he can cash out any time he wants if that's what's best. It's looking like he'll do so at a loss, though, so maybe that's what's been keeping us alive all this time—he'd wanted to ride it out. When you look at it... there are solutions, there are always solutions. Just need to want to carry 'em out. They could airdrop, set up an LZ somewhere we could get to, meet them halfway, if they really wanted. But they don't by now. And if I were anywhere but here I might feel the same."

"That's disheartening to hear, sir."

"Hell, that's war," Watson said with a withered smile.

There was a knock on Watson's doorframe and the soldiers turned. A woman in a dark, businesslike skirt and jacket stepped through the threshold. This was Dr. Lea Faroush: leaving middle-age, brown haired, brown eyed, and with a just barely contained fierceness about her physique that was hardly tempered by her calm demeanor. Despite being in a warzone she always looked put together. The doctor was the administrator of this hospital, Abigail Aki Memorial (the soldiers took to calling it the Abby over the radio), and to her credit she had stayed on along with her entire staff even though she had every right to pick up and run like everyone else did three weeks ago. But all of her colleagues would testify gun to their heads she was nothing if not stubborn and she'd probably die for this place if she felt she had to. She had a history here. Built her ward proudly like the place and all its own history were hers well.

She said, "I'm interrupting."

"Not at all," Watson said. They'd had a sit down scheduled for a few days now, and they met every so often to go over issues Watson could maybe take care of (or issues the doctor could, conversely). He didn't look forward to this meeting, but it had to be done. The battalion had taken over the hospital, it was only fair they made living arrangements work. To Montclair he said, "If there's nothing else, Major."

"That's it. I'll get a reply sent out to Wu. We'll see if he can't make any forward progress on his end."

"You do that. Thank you, Major."

"Sir." Montclair saluted and left. Faroush took a seat across from the lieutenant colonel.

"How are you, Colonel?" she said.

"I've got bad news for you, so not all that great," Watson said. "I can't move your people out just yet. I apologize. Sincerely."

Faroush kept composed, but her frown said everything. As the voice for the civilians in the hospital, it made her look weak when she didn't get her way. The military was always secretive, doing things that benefited them first and foremost. The needs of the mission always dictated, that was their shield against outside scrutiny. Justifiable, but to a damned extent. While most civilians assumed the military machine took what it needed for their mutual protection, Faroush didn't like the feeling of even being unintentionally stepped on, disregarded like the oncoming driver that couldn't keep a straight line and forced you off the road. She had obligations of the most extreme sort. This was her hospital, her place of safety and sanctuary before they rolled in and decided this is where they'd set up, and the Army men needed to know that. It was fine for refugees to take the lifeboat away. All the better. But for those here, it would only get worse if they either didn't or couldn't flee. She had that gut feeling. She said, "There were forty names on that list, Colonel."

"And now there are forty people to feed and house instead of forty less. It isn't ideal, I know."

"The wards are becoming very cramped," Faroush said. "More people means more problems."

"Can't be helped, unfortunately. There was an incident today."

"I've been informed. Your wounded have been stabilized. They'll all make it."

"You've got my thanks, Doctor," Watson said, "truly. I wish I could return the favour but it's become clear we can't sustain the air route out of here any longer. The order didn't come from me, I can assure you, but all flights are suspended for the time being."

"Including military ones?"

"All flights. You can go ahead and chance it if you'd like, but I'm not too keen on losing a few birds and bees. And I don't think those aboard would be too keen on dying. We'll try again, when we're able."

Now Faroush came out swinging—politely. "A lot of these people were supposed to have left weeks ago, Colonel. Some of my staff...they have families to get back to. And too many refugees who've been here much longer than they should have been are causing their own chaos. They were bumped from flights in favour of your people, or Marines who'd been here less than a day. All this, more than once."

"Action is elsewhere and all over. As much as I'd like to see your people get out safely, the folks calling the shots, making the decisions, they'll always want fighters first. My hands are tied on that one, Doctor. I came here to evacuate Mombasa and I intend to keep doing just that—the admiralty, however, has other plans and we don't figure in them. Having no air-corridor hurts us too."

"I'm sure. Are you working on another plan of evacuation?"

"Weighing our options. We'll just have to see."

"I can't keep these people here like prisoners. I'd appreciate haste, Colonel."

"Always." He drummed his fingers on his desk.

Faroush retrieved a notepad she had tucked inside her jacket and put on a pair of reading glasses. She click-click-clicked a pen and folded her legs. "My staff are feeling overworked. They haven't had any days off since the city was hit. A lot of them were looking forward to spending time outside the city." She paused, as if to ask: what are you going to do about this? How are you going to make this right?

Watson said, "If it'll help I'll tell them the same as I told you. It's a tough situation but we'll just need to make do. It's no one's fault but the Covenant's."

"And with the refugee population growing, we're a bit shorthanded. Those coming into the hospital aren't always in top health. They're malnourished, and need to be monitored. If you can, I'd like some assistance from your medical unit... just to handle the workload." She made it sound like the number of refugees at the hospital was Watson's doing, because he couldn't keep up a steady flow of outbound transportation. It was out of his control, true, but he could at least reconsider priorities. She wasn't wrong, of course, and Watson couldn't help but notice his focus had gradually shifted from the well being of the refugees to his own people as the mission wore on. He couldn't let her know that, though. Now that they were bargaining, as they always did.

"I'll put together a team," Watson promised. "My casualties will be their first priority, but I'll put them to work when it's calm."

"Excellent. Thank you," Faroush said. "Another thing to note: I've noticed food supplies to my people and the refugees being unfairly portioned. There almost isn't enough to go around, but I've seen your mess hall. Always stocked and full of hot food. If I had the means to feed them I would, but we've been running low. We're relying on your supplies."

"Which will be an issue, with the primary—maybe only—route cut off. There are drones that can supplement with modest...very modest deliveries and that idea has been floated. But until we can get some outside aid coming in, I can't say anything more than I need to keep my men fed. A hungry soldier makes for a poor soldier," Watson said.

"Likewise, a hungry doctor is not ideal. We've all got our jobs to do.."

"I can't argue with that. I'll see what can be done."

Faroush moved down her list—Watson could only imagine what else she had to gripe about. She said, "Now, I've also heard complaints from my staff that you've blocked off parts of the building for your people to use at their leisure."

"I wouldn't say at their leisure. If this is happening, I didn't have a say in it. But there must be a reason. This is a military base now, after all."

"Partly," Faroush said through bared teeth. "It's still a civilian hospital mostly and that's precious space we could use. We've crammed all the refugees into a multi-purpose hall and conditions are becoming appalling. Like I said, more people means more problems. They can't be expected to sit around all day while your people can just walk around freely. They're growing agitated. Restless. You don't want a population this size—your soldiers included—growing restless."

Watson, very diplomatically (he was becoming good at this), told her, "I'll look into it." In the early days, when the battalion had just moved in, military and civilians kept to themselves and ignored each other. Troops arrived, refugees departed. They were small enough groups to live separately. But with that number of refugees constantly becoming larger and more unwieldy over the weeks, they could no longer afford to pretend the other didn't exist, especially as transport vectors to the safe zone were increasingly unsafe and less traveled. That was back when ground convoys were still a viable option. So while Montclair dealt with the war outside these days, Watson found himself increasingly stuck wandering the halls, asking for favours of his people, making compromises, cutting deals... all to appease Dr. Faroush. This was his war now. Quite a different one than the one he'd signed up to fight.

He cleared his throat. "What's next?"

---

Woodrow and Fraser had been conscripted into hard-labour company, or the disciplinary part of Dog. Instead of rifles they carried shovels and pickaxes. They were men from every other company who were serving some kind of time for offenses like drunkenness usually. They were slackers and misfits who were rowdy and got in fistfights. Fraser fit the bill, but she was never dumped in this outfit. She was kicked right out of the battalion, and that felt more shameful than this. Right now they'd been assigned cleanup detail—scrubbing down the blood trays of the shot up pelicans. With soapy hands they mopped and sponged and their buckets of water turned a blossoming red. They picked up leftover pieces of people and tossed them in a pail, keeping down their vomit although with no great difficulty. They were no strangers to dead bodies.

"I'm annoyed with you, Woody," Fraser said, stooped over, furiously scratching at the ripped up floor with a stiff brush.

"The hell for," he said back. He manned a stained push-mop.

"Putting Stern on me. He would've lost interest in you long before he ever saw me. Those boys won't last a day in Stern's company. I could have slid back in with some of the lads from Charlie because Alley likes me well enough. Nobody'd be the wiser. Instead here I am on my hands and fucking knees."

"You tricked me into coming," Woodrow said. "This isn't your unit. The hell were you expecting?"

Fraser increased her speed and said nothing.

"You didn't want to go to Voi," he said.

"I got shot with Second Battalion. I'm not going back."

"You're scared. And you thought Mombasa would be a safer bet."

"Fuck you, Woody."

"Fuck you right back. You dragged me here. I didn't sign up for this. I shouldn't have to take this."

"Fuck it, it's done. It's done and I can't change that. I didn't foresee this and I certainly didn't drag you anywhere, let's get one thing straight. I convinced you and you came your goddamn self. For what it's worth, that I am sorry for."

"Yeah, alright."

"Maybe they would've left you alone, back at IRIS. Maybe you'd be nice and safe and they'd let you wait this whole thing out. Or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they'd march you off to Voi so I could get to say I told you so. But it doesn't matter. We need to focus on getting out of here now. Don't know how, but we've got to. We're in a bad way, Woody. If we weren't deployed we'd be scrubbing out bogs. Now that we're out here, they'll make us lay down wire, dig holes, play hopscotch through minefields. We're the real frontline troopers. Patrols will send us out first, then the engineers next. Snipers'll use us for target practice, set us up for bleedin' out so they can lure in another. It's a goddamn death sentence, this."

---

Elsewhere in the hospital, Reed caught redheaded, straight-backed Staff Sergeant Erica Lake in a stairwell. She led 1st Squad, 1st Platoon in Shield Company and had since the start. He tossed her a fresh apple he'd nabbed from the mess at the IRIS base.

"Magical old Saint Reed, always bringing me the best presents."

"Naughty or nice, last one you'll get for a while," Reed said. "Hi, Lake."

"Reed," Lake said, smiling. "Hey, you."

They sat on the steps. He supped on steaming, black coffee, she munched on her fruit, savouring its crunch and sweetness.

"You okay? After what happened?" Lake said.

"Wasn't hit so that's a win for me," Reed said. He wiggled his fingers and toes. "Nothing's fell off so far. Not the issue though. I made a call today, and I'm not sure if I was in the right. Wu can't be happy about it, neither. He was counting on me."

"He'll get it. Cross for every officer to bear, the weight of failure."

Reed made a face like she'd pinched him. Lake half-chuckled into her apple.

"Speaking of—Dog Company, huh, Lieutenant? How's that working for you?"

"You know, being an officer ain't all it's cracked up to be. You're still taking orders, and the ones you give make the men hate your guts even though you're just passing words down the line. Death marches, all of them. Even if you win, you feel like you lost."

"Bet you were all grins when they made you lieutenant, though."

"Sure was."

"I'll get a platoon, Reed. Just you wait," Lake said.

Reed nodded but that was all. Lake had changed after Cassandra, their first action as a unit. She'd been under Stern too long, and Reed could swear the brash, single-minded captain was rubbing off on her. Every time she opened her mouth, he couldn't shake the feeling. Like she was slipping away unnoticed, a head of hair through a crowd who never looked back because you gazed upon her once and only once and you will forget each other later this evening. He couldn't bear the thought of looking one time soon and not seeing her be there, even if she was talking to him just like this. But the war raged on and he alone could not stop it. He dreaded the word "eventually." The inevitability that came with it, like it couldn't be resisted or overcome.

Lake scored a promotion after their second deployment to Aurelia, but it was Reed who got a battlefield commission partway through when a lieutenant from Shield got splashed by plasma. He left Shield Recon, his old commando unit (Reed was a Helljumper before this, remember) and became a commissioned officer sworn in by Stern and Montclair, and Lake had been jealous. Well that other man, the wounded lieutenant, came back to Shield after the campaign, and then there was no place for Lieutenant Reed anymore unless he wanted to go to another battalion and join a rifle company there.

Dog Company, however, 1st Battalion's Heavy Weapon and Forward Support unit needed a man to look after supply and acquisitions so that's where he was placed, simple as that. The role hadn't been strenuous or overly demanding during steady-state operations. Lately, they were seeing more enemy aircraft. It made these supply runs riskier. Today had been the worst of days. If he couldn't get the hospital much-needed supplies, what good was he?

"Stern treating you okay?" he asked her.

"He's fine. Patrols go out, patrols come back in. Not much glory in it so Stern's taking it easy. I don't think he's thrilled with the mission."

"Doesn't help that it isn't going too well, either," Reed said. "Stern'd much rather be out west in the thick of things."

"This keeps up, I think I would too. We're wasted out here."

Reed said, "Mombasa hasn't quieted down just yet. Still danger to be found, you look hard enough. You hold onto yourself, Lake. Change is coming."

"Whatever that means. Man, I'm glad you're back."

"Thanks for saying. I think."

"Hell I mean it," Lake said. "There's not a lot of us left who came first. Cassandra wasn't great, and we took Aurelia on the chin—I mean we won that fight but we came out of it with a busted up chin however way you slice it. I'm still worn out from it, for god's sake. Feels like we were just there. And Mombasa's been nothing but a slow bleed. Three weeks now and what do we got to show for it? Just..." She shrugged. "...death."

"What's the number like now, d'you know?"

Lake said, "It feels like it, but today wasn't the worst ever, taking into account action on the ground. Someone calculated. Averages to about 60 casualties a day, 1st Battalion alone."

"We're out of replacements now. If I'm my cynical self, we'll be wiped out in... what's that, 10 days?"

"Ten days." Lake nodded.

"Best we get to not dying, then."

"To better days ahead," Lake said. "Well, not worse ones." She put her eyes to the ceiling. "This level of bumfuck, if it please you, Lord."

Reed reached the gritty dregs of his paper cup and Lake gnawed on her brown apple core, both enjoying the silence the narrow stairwell bestowed.

"Fraser's back," he said.

"I've missed her."

Just then, a man from battalion communications burst through a door on the top landing and shouted down the stairwell, "Lieutenant Reed? You here?"

Reed got to his feet. "That's me. Who's up there yowling?"

"I have a drone delivery from a CWO Fontaine. It's for you."

Reed knew him. They'd spent time together in the IRIS site when the brigade deployed to Earth—God, over a month and a half ago now. But they'd spoken again this morning because he paid a visit to Major Wu and he'd helped get his supply convoy get off the ground. "Pass it over," he said. The comms tech tromped down the steps with the data chit he'd retrieved from the drone's chassis and offered it with an outstretched arm. Reed took it, slid it into his HUD's receptacle.

An audio message, thankfully. Reed always disliked the eye-strain of HUD text.

"Lieutenant, you might want to grab some people and start gearing up. I patched into the satellite feed and picked up movement inside the city not ten klicks from your position. Heavy force."

"There's that happening every day, Chief." Reed murmured to himself.

The recording went on: "You might want to note: they're not a couple blocks from where a pelican went down today. They might be yours. They're holed up well but they're pinned down. They're leaving a trail of bodies and attracting a lot of attention. Covie reinforcements are mobilizing. If you want to get to those people, you'll need to hurry. By the time this reaches you, you'll have to make the call quick."

Reed looked at Lake who hadn't heard anything but gave him an understanding nod. He handed the chit back to the tech for recirculation into the next outgoing drone, and thundered up the stairs on a beeline towards Watson's office.

III

Lieutenant Colonel Watson met with Reed and Montclair, he heard the lieutenant out and then quickly denied him his rescue op. No taking things under consideration or getting back to Reed later, but he said—and this is very important—he wouldn't stand in his way if he was still eager to do it. He'd need men—but there was another provision... only if their company COs allowed them to go. Feeling the pinch already, Reed knew every captain would be stingy with their people. Because if they were given a task by Watson tomorrow, it wouldn't matter that they didn't have enough healthy people to carry out their orders to the battalion commander's satisfaction, that would be on them and no one else—maybe Reed, if he got their soldiers killed. Reed was nothing but a troublemaker to them, and Stern told him as much. Stern, too, was a changed man from Cassandra. But maybe it was because he knew that Watson hadn't ordered it and it was Reed's tiny, unimportant op anyway.

Gung-ho Stern was out, and Sword (Baker) and Charlie Company commanders thought Reed was nothing but a Shield goon out to get their men murdered because he had a reputation—neither did they actually know who was out there fighting for his life, if they were Nine-oh-six or if they were nameless, faceless replacements. Nobodies. There was a comparative worth on human beings, out here. But Dog's CO, Captain Ovarsson, gave Reed free reign and full permission. The gentle, bushy-bearded officer had a record as a combat engineer and Dog was rarely included in frontline manoeuvres, so it occurred to Reed that possibly Ovarsson didn't know what he was getting himself into. Dog had by far, three engagements in, the lowest casualty rate of the battalion. Reed wanted to keep it that way.

But there was another issue: the men in Dog he approached didn't actually want to volunteer. Who was he now? Second Platoon commander, that's all. Not Reed from old Shield Recon, which was some kind of honour to fight and die alongside so they believed. Lieutenant Reed was a supply officer, did shipping and handling. The men in 1st Platoon and even his own goddamn guys said sorry, sir, no thank you. They were regular people, regular soldiers who just wanted to do their jobs and go home and they thanked their gods every night they didn't catch a stray Covie round. They loved their wives and husbands and children, and Reed understood. But he couldn't believe he actually missed Stern's get-up-and-start-walking charm, who could talk a man out of any rotting trench because God was on his side even if he didn't believe in all that.

So that was why Reed ended up on the roof with men from Dog Company's 4th Platoon: the chain gang. Today they cleaned out oil drums with their bare hands, their bare backs slick under the African sun. They lifted construction supplies—sheet metal, timber beams, sacks of instacrete and rolls of razorwire—from one end of the roof to the other; they staggered under heavy ordnance that looked like it could go off suddenly with any sharp knock. To those men, that looked preferable to being slowly crushed under boxes of it for hours and they cast ugly looks at anyone with an officer's insignia. The master sergeant watching over them, McCann, lazed in a lawn chair in the shady cool of a patio umbrella and smoked. He had a loaded rifle leaned up against the arm.

Reed moved through the groups of hard labouring men and women, looking for someone in particular. He found her and Woodrow inside one of the pelicans, soap suds clinging to their faces, their shirts and shins soaked through with bloodied, slurry water. All they had done was make the plated floor slippery—they needed proper tools to really get the job done, a hose and a pressure washer to get rid of the guck. But that wasn't really the point of chain-gang, now, was it?

Seeing Reed at the aft hatch a few feet back, Doll Fraser tossed her sponge into the stained mop bucket and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. She said, "Don't play around the enclosures, little boy. The animals in here are vicious." She outstretched a hand towards him, dripping fingers curved like claws.

"Fraser, I'm gonna break you outta here. What do you say to that?"

"Good. You distract the sergeant and I'll snap his fat neck."

"But you'll need to return the favour. Like, now."

"Alright, yes, what?"

"There's men trapped in the city, the ones who were shot down today. You saw. I'm going after them."

Fraser was silent. She looked away and said, "Well best of luck to you, Reed. Sounds like fun, it does, but work is... my boss is a real slave driver. I simply can't get away."

Reed said, "I can't do this on my own."

"Let me guess—you've struck out everywhere else. Even with your pal Erica. And she idolizes you, you know. Nobody else is fool enough to say yes to you, have I got that right?"

"You're not wrong, no. But Fraser, it's me. I'm asking you."

"There's people a lot more desperate than us. Try some of these other crazies here. See how far that'll get you."

"Sir, I'll go," Woodrow said.

Reed looked at the man, and so did Fraser—she looked betrayed. Woodrow set down his mop.

"I figure a job like that's more my speed. I'll go," he repeated.

Reed remembered him from the pelican. First to stand and help eject their precious supplies because he'd asked him to. He took him in at a glance now, taking into account his bandaged wrist that was no longer hidden by a long sleeve—nothing like a battle wound but he knew it was something he'd gotten on account of the war. Maybe he could work with him. He knew a man like that before and he turned out okay. Reed didn't have anyone, the fact remained, and he'd take anyone now who knew how to shoot a rifle. So he pointed at him and said to Fraser, "That's one. Don't send us out there alone. Likely to die, if that's how you still feel about it."

Woodrow joined Reed at the back. Fraser still looked unconvinced, but she glowered at Woodrow. She'd badly wanted out of hard-labour company, but this was not a step up. This was inching closer to dying than anything else you could be doing, galloping starkly into the heart of the wasteland and as stupid as that sounded it was accurate. She liked Reed as a man but she knew the kind of person he was in this army, a muddy superstar who always went first and crashed out of the tall grass to come and save the day when you never expected him, who always smelled like twigs and shrubbery and firewood. Good old Reed. That was when he also had a team of tough, highly-trained super-men who went feet-first through the stratosphere to pad out the line-up and watch his back. Where were they now? Reed wasn't foolish or overzealous, but it didn't change the fact he took on the toughest assignments he could in woodsy Aurelia, found flanks where there shouldn't have been any, when Fraser was a sergeant in Shield Company and saw firsthand. Fraser always knew him that way, but she heard from Lake sometime after, during their downtime, that he wasn't always like this, that he's changed—Cassandra changed him.

Reed and Woodrow started to walk off when Fraser yelled for them to wait. She said, "If I come with you, I'm out of this outfit, yeah? For good? Stern won't cry foul and toss me back here again?"

"Montclair gave me her blessing," Reed promised.

Fraser kicked over the mop-bucket and hopped out of the flooded pelican. Reed rounded up a handful more, enough for more than a full squad—men who'd give anything to be anywhere but here (even out there), who tossed down their weighty loads and strolled off towards their conditional freedom, calling McCann a lazy fuck one by one as they left.

McCann told them he didn't care if he never saw any of them again and hoped the apes would take their time killing them because they probably deserved it. Anyone could have told Reed it was a bad idea, taking these men from the disciplinary platoon. They were all here for reasons that weren't unreasonable—nobody incarcerated on false charges. They weren't murderers or rapists (at least Reed didn't think so and didn't ask) but they'd all been taken from their normal, functioning squads and platoons and dropped here to toil in the sun and repent for their past behaviours. Combat would be the true test of their worth—if they were ready to return to the fold as good soldiers.

Or they'd die.

---

Reed and his dozen or so loaded up into three warthogs Major Montclair had freed up with haste and they headed out. Chief Fontaine had given him approximate coordinates to where he'd seen enemy troops moving, and Reed was going to drive straight into it.

They passed through the battalion's forward line, a raggedy perimeter set up far enough out where they couldn't see the hospital anymore. Their warthogs drew no attention from the sleepy-looking soldiers who sat behind sandbagged emplacements with their machine guns and huge, legged anti-tank TOW weapons and watched for any shimmery flickers of movement down the road. Not a city block from where they were positioned was already considered hostile territory where Covie could come at you from any which way because you could get lost, disoriented in a space that was so vast and so cluttered all at once.

The three warthogs wound through the messy street that was formless, avoiding gaping shell holes and abandoned cars, some of which had already been bulldozed off to the side. This wasn't unknown territory—there were visible signs of fighting all over, mounds of bullet casings, charred wrecks of fighting vehicles—the road was just unsecured and abandoned, conceded to the Covenant because it was too much work to look after and hopefully the Covie troops had felt the same so that it truly was no man's land. But maybe they hadn't. Maybe they'd moved right in and found some advantage here the UNSC forces didn't. Reed and his cohort would be the first to find out, if that was the case.

Everyone aboard the steady, trundling warthogs kept their eyes focused on the chipped, concrete mass housing that lined the streets and looked like brutal air-raid bunkers, their obliterated sliding doors and empty balconies that rose into the sky and used to be jammed full of people just living. The rest of the city looked like this too, now: chipped away at, left behind, and full of used-to's. Or brought to the ground in a gravelly pile, unrecognizable. This was the place they were scrapping over, if you could believe it. It was ugly, bombed-out and ruined and neither side really wanted it. They just wanted to kill each other and maybe push further on after enough death would grant them their triumphant passage.

They all smelt the pelican crash that hung in the air: that mix of burning, synthetic material that could waft throughout the city indefinitely and was a clear indicator that they approached something bad. They drove past the scene of the crash and they all got a good look so they could murmur and deduce what probably happened to the pelican that lay sagging and distended, cracked open from the impact of its landing. It had only been an hour since it was shot down so sedate fires still simmered inside and around it. There were bodies that crawled a short distance away or had been pulled outside of the wreckage but Reed didn't make the suggestion of stopping and checking for a pulse. Fontaine had said there were survivors farther down and they must have left these ones behind because they were being hunted. They rolled on and sure enough, they heard the distinct sounds of Covenant weapons fire over the engine noises. They were still a block out and didn't see anything but the men hugged their rifles closer and kept glancing at the rooftops and windows. Reed looked behind him and motioned for each warthog to get a man on the gun now—they were slow enough moving he wouldn't lose his balance and tumble out if they hit a bad dip in the road.

They could hear those plasma rifles louder now, more crackly and unnerving like snapping live-wire electricity than anything else. Just around the bend to go...

Wait. Reed twisted around again and made a hand signal to kill all engines, stop-stop-stop. The men were all tensed up, mentally preparing themselves to get back into the fight they'd been away from, stuck in hard-labour company. They'd been shot at on the line most of them recently, shovels in their hands, but now they were shooting back, now they were going to have to chase down any Covenant and kill him because there was nothing else to do, no other job to get done.

The lieutenant had a pair of field glasses he gripped, staring out over top of the windshield but the problem wasn't distance—Covie was nearby and anybody here could tell you that—it was diving into a situation he knew nothing about. Fontaine had said some men were pinned down, needed help now and quick. It'd taken him closer to twenty minutes to get out here and as much as he hated to admit it, Covie worked fast. Starving you out was never how they operated..

To the men in his vehicle, he said, "Need somebody to scout ahead before we move."

Woodrow volunteered. Another man, Delonge, also raised his hand. Fraser pretended not to hear.

Reed tapped the back of his seat. "There's an S2-rifle back there. One of you take it. Can you shoot?"

Woodrow and Delonge glanced at each other, a silent, frigid conversation. They didn't know each other. Neither wanted to get killed if the other didn't know what he was doing, and the Covies had long learned their ways: the humongous anti-materiel rifle made you a target more than always and when the Covies placed you, they stopped at nothing to take you out. The men didn't know if either had the skill, or the restraint, or was not a moron in any way. They'd both ended up in chain-gang after all.

"I can shoot," Woodrow said finally. Delonge had a look like festering, uncertain regret for not speaking up first but grabbed the spotter's equipment anyway. Woodrow slung his own weapon and lifted the big rifle with both hands and most of his arm strength.

"Okay," Reed said, peering forward again. "Get up there, Recon. Get me eyes somewhere, anywhere, just paint me a beautiful picture with words. Let's do this right."

Woodrow and Delonge jumped out and headed into the blown-out front of a cafe just off the road, skirting knocked over chairs and tables on the sidewalk. A staircase took them to the apartments upstairs and they took each step with tender movements. This was Old Mombasa. Nothing was built to modern code and the whole place was rocked, the wood feeling like it was about to give out spectacularly with both of them on it at once. Three dusty floors up and they found their vantage point. A large section of the apartment had been demolished so the place was uncomfortably blown wide open, and they snaked their way around the back of the room where the floor was not drooping into the toothy hardwood maw. Delonge unpacked his spotter's scope while Woodrow found a kitchen counter to rest his S2-rifle. Bipod deployed, chunky mags laid out nearby and easy to reach. He could shoot. He was good at it, even. He'd been a sniper back in snowy, muddy Beletzkov.

Delonge swept carefully, professionally, one eye pinched shut. He relayed back to Reed: "Covies in force. Looks like a squad, no more than two—bout a hundred metres out. Breathers and birds, two of 'em. Hairy officer calling the shots."

Somehow Woodrow took solace that some Brute led the force. The other, more common sight was the Elite—far more skilled and practiced.

"How's it look out there?" Reed asked.

"Market square, I think. Not a lot of room to manoeuvre the hogs—cars parked around a fountain in the centre. Might be a cramped entrance. You could chance some drive-by shootings, but they'll catch onto that after the first or second pass. And uh, I see bodies, sir. Human. Piled outside a pub 150 metres from my position, compass bearing three-two-seven. Those shots we heard..."

"Fuckin' firing squad."

"Or a defensive position. If our boys are holed up anywhere..."

"It'd be there." Reed noted the position with his own compass and passed along the info over his radio. "Nobody put fire into that building. You can't control your shots, you move your ass, you get a better angle on 'em. I don't want no blue on blue today. Last thing I need, goddammit."

The lieutenant climbed down from the warthog and the rest of his men dismounted as well, falling in line. These people, about ten behind him, had been in Mombasa for a while now, some with the battalion for years. They had skill and knew how to take orders even if they were fuckups. If they were nervous about heading back into combat, nobody said a thing or showed it. And despite the city's ragged appearance, it was still recognizable and human, not a foreign world they took in wide-eyed. It had a lulling effect. Dangerous, that. They approached the street corner and Reed said to Delonge over comms, "You tell us when."

"You're clear."

Reed told the lead warthog to set off, and the convoy inched out. A man lying prone at the corner poked his head around it and began to fire off his assault rifle while another man stood over him and joined in. Their shots smashed into the cars surrounding the fountain knocking out glass everywhere but some hit Covies too. The alien soldiers unscathed spun and scrambled for cover. Reed gave a couple others a shove and they moved out before he followed them at a cautious march. There was plenty of debris, piled junk and collapsed walls strewn across the square they could hide behind. They spread out and Reed fired his own rifle blindly before ducking down behind something, a blasted-up concrete barrier used to line the gently curving street. More of his people followed, taking up positions, picking off the Covenant who began to break and fall back. The punch of their gunfire pounded off the buildings and reverberated again and again, drowning out everything else and making it seem like there were three times as many of them as there were.

From that shattered apartment, Woodrow watched the men gain ground, firing and moving in turns, attacking the besieged jackals from two directions, these men knew all the steps. He'd fired the S2-rifle once at Delonge's called target, punching cleanly through the armoured brute soldier that looked like it was making a break for the pub the moment Reed's troops began shooting. The anti-tank round split the alien apart, the wound a giant V-shape that hewn everything from shoulder to neck. The gunshot deafened both men in the room for a moment so Woodrow couldn't hear Delonge when he confirmed the kill afterwards but few Covies ever survived the power of the chambered cartridge that was meant to penetrate hardened vehicle-plating.

He took his finger off the trigger once the warthogs navigated around the corner and slipped into the shootout, exposing themselves fully now. Their gunners only needed to fire a short while before the dispersing Covies were shot dead, disemboweled by those tri-barreled fifties—anti-aircraft guns that made holes in just about anything you wanted them to. The Covies who didn't want to budge from their hiding places were eventually flushed out with grenades and after those concise explosions had faded, the men hollered "clear!" to each other across the square. Engines rumbled idle. Gunpowder smell clogged lungs.

Delonge let go of the spotter's scope that hung around his neck and picked up his rifle. He nodded at Woodrow for a job well done, and the corporal began to secure his gear again. He got to a knee and carefully placed the unused mags back into his ruck. Delonge stood by the edge of broken floor and kicked a piece of rubble down it. Woodrow heard it plop somewhere below.

At this moment, the Covies who were laying in wait (who had been all this time) took this lull for themselves, to turn the tide and catch Reed's men in the street unaware. White-blue tracers of an alien gun screamed and rocketed from the top-floor window of the pub and obliterated two men who had been making their way over to the building. Everyone who had been milling around looting the dead and peering into ground-floor windows dove down like they were caught in an artillery strike—the attack had come at their most vulnerable and from on high. Some had no cover and lay down beside the Covenant dead because getting up and running guaranteed you getting blasted and strafed a couple more times for good measure.

A second sustained burst angled towards the lead warthog and melted sections of its armour when it struck. In a cloud of vapour and fumes, its gunner rolled off and out of the bed and took cover behind the vehicle, the sheer heat of those projectiles making it impossible to remain in place. The warthogs began to reverse clumsily, seeking the protection they'd had before they rounded the corner. The second and third LAAG gunners put desperate rounds into the top floor of the pub only to cover their retreat. The blue stream of fire did not lessen. The men in the square, pinned down, stared bug-eyed after the vehicles that were seemingly leaving them to die.

They all looked at Reed too because he'd told them not to shoot at the pub and now that meant nothing. From his own cover he glared at the warthog column but their pulling back wasn't a move of cowardice. Panic, maybe, though for good reason—that Covie machine gun was capable of reducing those lightly armoured vehicles into fiery metal and molten rubber and then they'd be even worse off and left without a ride back to the hospital.

He hit his comm and shouted, "Recon, shut that fucking thing down! You copy?"

Delonge and Woodrow had both thrown themselves to the floor when they heard the Covie gun because they had no idea where it was or what it had been aiming at in that moment and it could have been them. There wasn't much for Delonge to hide behind so he jumped back into the stairway while Woodrow got comfy behind the counter.

Reed's call came in and Delonge yelled to Woodrow from across the apartment, "Hey! Take the shot!"

The S2-rifle was still on top of the counter and Woodrow made no motion to stand up and grab it. He should have known, the way the brute was hauling ass towards the pub before he killed it. They'd already revealed their position up here and there was no way to leave the wide-open apartment except back the way they came. And from the window Woodrow had set up in, there was no angle on that particular Covie—he knew that to be a fact. He shook his head at Delonge. "It's not safe. Just stay put. I'll think of something."

Delonge looked at him like he was crazy. "Lieutenant said take 'em out!"

"I open up it'll be us who eat it next, buddy. Covies aren't playing with that gun."

"So kill it, god dammit. Target's right there," Delonge said. "They're killing our guys!"

"Don't you move. I mean it. I need a minute. Just give me a minute."

Over comms Reed repeated the order again, agitation straining his voice and Delonge scowled. "Mother fuckin'..." He glared at Woodrow and made up his mind. "Gimme that rifle!"

Delonge rose to his full height and fell back down again because a Covie sniper-shot snickered from somewhere and popped through his chest and left some of him on the aft wall. Now on his back, straining his neck, Delonge wheezed a gurgling moan and moved his arms weakly and looked straight at Woodrow and Woodrow could tell just by looking back at him, listening to him, it hadn't been a shot intended to kill. Delonge had a shot-out lung and he was bleeding out, which was the point. Woodrow had a canister of biofoam in his ruck and that could save the man but he made no move to grab it either. He was trapped behind this counter and the apartment was laid entirely bare so he watched Delonge slowly die—the man was clawing his way over to Woodrow leaving bloody palm prints on the ridden floor when he finally stopped moving.

There was a time he would have run out and risked it because it was the right thing to do and he would have emerged from the ruined cafe with Delonge draped around his shoulder just barely hanging on, eternally grateful for his quick thinking and selfless action... he knew better now. He knew Covenant tricks. So now Delonge was eternally dead. A more patient shooter would have waited for Woodrow to take the shot, waited all night if he had to, but an equally patient, ruthless bastard shot the man who was easy and waited for his friend to show up and try to pull him to safety—or oftentimes a medic, prime targets for the Covies in the Beletzkovs of the galaxy. But Woodrow didn't know Delonge. He listened to him choking and half-pleading for Woodrow's help as he died but he could feel nothing. He'd seen many men and women suffer deaths a hundred times more painful than Delonge's. This was nothing to him. Delonge was nobody to him. He felt him slip away and still he didn't move.

The Covenant machine gun fired only sporadically now, searching for targets but everybody remained motionless, pretending to be dead. They couldn't stay this way for much longer they knew; there was already movement in the other windows, more hiding Covenant, who'd come and check their corpses. They all heard stories that they ate people if they got hungry enough, if the conditions were brutal and bitter enough. Reed peered over the top of the barrier and glanced over to where his recon element was supposed to be. They'd gone silent and he hoped it was to get a better position on the Covie MG.

Fraser was hiding nearby and Reed said to her, "Something's wrong. Recon's dark."

She took it in stride, shaking her head and muttering "fuck's sake" but nothing more than that.

She was steely in her own way, and only Woodrow knew she had chickened out and skipped out on deploying with 2nd Battalion to the large-scale air-land war over there that annihilated whole platoons in minutes given the type of firepower they were slinging at each other. To Reed, though, she was as hardened as anyone who survived an engagement in Stern's company. So Reed thought nothing of it to ask her to run back to the warthogs who had just pulled around the corner (they were waiting to be called back into action as soon as their lieutenant had his shit together and wouldn't get all of them blown up and killed) and recover that anti-materiel rifle if Woodrow had been incapacitated because there was Tungsten-tipped incendiary ammunition tucked away somewhere in those hogs and they needed to be shot at that MG now or soon.

Fraser balked at the order but she knew Reed could kick her ass back to disciplinary if she refused—left behind again, maybe shipped back to 2nd Battalion on a red-eye out (flight ban be damned; a favour from Mattis to golden-boy Stern) because there would be no one around who cared to be around her at the hospital, who'd fight on her behalf to keep her with them and had the actual power to do so. The bums she called friends were nobodies themselves, line company privates—alkies, smackheads and punters all those cunts off the battlefield, so Reed was a bridge Fraser could not burn. She was getting out of hard-labour company a free woman or dying here.

On Reed's go, he shouted for every man to lay fire down on the upper floor window. Those who were out in the open sprang up and ran for better cover, firing on the move, just putting shots in that direction. The front of the pub splintered and cracked and dust sprayed everywhere and the Covie MG was slow to return fire, so Fraser didn't hear it start shooting until she was halfway gone and it didn't bother with her so she managed to escape.

Around the corner she found the warthogs, the hood popped up on the lead one. A couple of soldiers from the other warthogs were elbow deep into the vehicle's engine block and they nearly reached for their rifles and shot her as she came streaking out of the alley.

She said to them, "You there, what's the problem? Quickly now." Her time as a non-com was coming back to her she felt, and she stared down each soldier as if they were hers.

One wiped his hands on his pants. He was skinny, like his jacket was too big for him, and he wore glasses and looked too bright a kid to be in a shit situation like this. God would Fraser love to know what he was doing in chain-gang in the first place—what kind of dark, terrible deed did he commit to end up here. He said, "She took a few hits. The casing stopped most of it but she's too hot. Cooking up under there. We're seeing what else got hit."

"And?"

"Still looking."

Fraser said, "But it'll run?"

"If she cools off."

"Then make that happen. We're taking it out."

The kid said, "What the hell for? Other two hogs are just fine. This one's beat up."

Fraser took a step forward. She was taller than him by half a head. "We're going to get shot at, that's why. Better this one than the others, yeah?"

He looked over at the others milling around and said, "Somebody get me water."

Fraser said, "Save the water. There's no telling if we'll be stuck out here all night. Think."

"Then—"

She yanked his helmet off and shoved it into his gut. He clutched it like a bowl, flustered. "You'll figure it out, Boy Scout. You'd better. Before I get back." Fraser climbed up into the warthog and rooted around the equipment netting until she found a box of what Reed was talking about, that thick and potentially glorious 14.5x114mm API ammunition. But no empty mags around so she'd have to deal with that later on. She headed into the cafe they'd last seen Woodrow and Delonge enter. She moved up the stairs and instinctively slowed when she saw the top of the steps open up into nothingness, all hazy orange Mombasa sky. The roof and wall had been ripped away. Where she was hiding with Reed she hadn't gotten a good look at this place from down below in the square.

"Woody!" she hissed, creeping up. "Are you alive?"

"Yeah! Don't come up!"

Fraser nodded to herself. A welcome confirmation to hear his voice, nothing to get overjoyed about though. They were still in a predicament and one or both of them could still get murdered by Covies in the next little while. Nothing was guaranteed. "Are you hit?" she said.

"Sniper has me zeroed in. Delonge's dead."

"Reed's going to need that rifle in play, Woody."

"I know."

"I need you to make the shot."

"I know."

Fraser crawled out just far enough she could just see a bit of Woodrow, sitting there underneath the counter. Delonge bled out in the distance somewhere between him and her and she could see his boot sticking out. Sure enough he looked dead.

"Woody, Reed asked me to give you these. You'll need to pack them into a mag of your own." Fraser opened up the box of ammo. She couldn't toss it to Woodrow but she could try something else. She stuck her hand out into the open and began to chuck, one by one, the high-explosive rounds at the wall between them, hoping they'd hit and drop somewhere nearby him.

They plinked and rolled on the sloping floor, some right off the edge, and Woodrow could see their bright tips clearly now and he almost jumped up, startled like there was an unexpected bug crawling on him. "Jesus! Careful!"

Then there went the box. She tossed the cardboard away and she shouted, "Did you get any?"

"Delonge stole most of 'em."

"Ask him if you can have them back. I haven't got any more."

Between Woodrow and Delonge was a space of a few metres, plenty of room for someone to nail him with a high-powered precision weapon if he took his chances. If Fraser's explosive rounds hadn't rolled off the edge into the pit below they pooled around Delonge's body.

"I need to go, Woody. You need to take out that MG," Fraser said. "I'll draw their fire, all right? Wait for me."

"Okay. Good luck."

"Woody, wait for me."

When Fraser returned to the warthogs, the blackened one's hood had been lowered back into place and the poor kid was scouring his hands with sanitizer. She tugged on his sleeve and said, "I want you in the driver's seat, luv."

The disdain never left his face but now he began to look scared. Before he could ask why she told him, "You're little. I'll bet you can't even see over the top of the steering wheel. That might just save your life. But it won't be you they're going to be shooting at anyway."

Nobody else volunteered, they just wished the guy luck and stood back. They all wondered who would be in the second seat. Even though Fraser's jacket read "Private" they just knew she carried the power of Reed's lieutenancy herself in this instance and if she said get on the gun, they'd have to.

But Fraser said "just keep her under control" as she climbed into the truck bed. The group of men gaped—some looked relieved, others slightly ashamed. She'd wanted to point a finger and strap someone else onto the gun but she didn't know these men, slackers maybe like herself, a far cry from the eager and hungry members of Shield Company, she couldn't trust they'd do what she asked. Timing was everything. Who was to say the men she picked wouldn't cut and run the moment there was trouble? So she'd do this one herself. God dammit Reed had better not been lying about getting her out of chain-gang. He'd owe her one. That was all she was thinking about as she tugged huge welders gloves over her hands—she could barely move her stiff fingers but all she needed were her thumbs—and draped someone's fire retardant coverall over the front of the fifty-cal's plate shield. It wouldn't stop a burn any better than how bare skin held up (it didn't at all), but layers were layers, and in theory it'd help with the indirect, radiant heat.

"Reed," Fraser said over the comm once she was ready. "Our man will take the shot. I'll provide base of fire. Be ready to regroup your men."

"All right, I got you. Standing by."

He'd fucking owe her one, all right. She slapped on the last piece of her gear, the welder's mask from the onboard toolkit where she found her gloves and drew it tight around the back of her head. She was sure she looked ridiculous. Not that she'd survive a direct shot to her face but Covie plasma was vicious in all ways, and it was easy to be burned when it impacted close by and spackled like a hissing liquid spray.

She told the men by her to mount up in the other warthogs. Be ready to follow her in, depending on the situation. Sort whatever needed to be sorted now. She hoped Woodrow was ready as well because it was now or never.

"Nice and gentle now, Boy Scout," she told her driver. "Softest kiss you can give the throttle."

The warthog set off with an unsteady jolt. Her heart was going nuts in there, her skin felt prickly. Her breath resounded through the shell of her mask; fog flared up on the bottom of the visor. She reached forward and pulled the coveralls up past her forearms and kept as low as she possibly could.

Out from behind the corner now. Sunlight. And she was clear.

She spun up and unleashed her fire, her tracers spurting at that window for a good five seconds, relentless, so prolonged she thought she might even have gotten the fucker.

Then it returned fire and plasma enveloped the front of the warthog and all around her. The windshield blew inward and her driver let out a pained cry through clenched teeth. Those flame-resistant coveralls caught on fucking fire and smoke billowed directly into her face and nose under her mask, but still she traded shots back and forth with the MG and didn't let up on the mashed-down trigger bar no matter how much it hurt to breathe. She couldn't see much with the smoke and moisture steaming up her visor, creating a rippled, watery image before her, but during all of this Reed rallied his men not wasting a second. He darted forward and urged them all to their feet just beneath her field of fire. They ran to cover haphazardly, all stumbling and tripped up, shooting blindly from the hip as they went.

Fraser felt like she was choking, like she might pass out, so she finally ripped off her mask and let out a savage yell—agonized, because her face and lungs stung and her eyes were tearing, but also somewhat charged and exuberant, exhilarated, honestly, but only a tiny bit.

Woodrow heard her voice over the moaning roar of the fifty and that was what moved his ass. The sniper could still be there and he might have waited (he caught himself thinking, who was Fraser to him?) but she screamed and sounded like she was dying and it frightened him. The enemy sniper would miss or it wouldn't, and Woodrow made his peace with that; he lifted the S2-rifle off the counter and stepped out into the open.

He placed three shots into the top floor of the building rapidly burning off the rest of the rounds, not aiming for anything in particular. He had his reason. After ejecting the spent mag, he had just enough time to scurry forward and throw himself onto the floor next to Delonge and reach out for that explosive ammunition when hot Covie plasma blew apart the wall above him but he'd forgotten how much it hurt his skin to be this close to it, like it clung to him—he felt like he was choking too, drowning in sticky moisture-boiled air—so he lost his nerve and rolled to get away. Damn everything else. He went over the edge of the hole in the apartment floor and prayed for a short drop.

It was short enough because he hit something protruding on the way down first and that slowed him. He landed on his side on the ground floor, winded, on lumber and drywall and bits of window—no spindly rebar or anything like that but it still hurt. It was a huge pile of rubble he fell into and it protected and hid Woodrow when the MG followed his descent. Its fire kicked up huge plumes of powder and particulates, lighting up the whole pile. Woodrow's anti-materiel rifle was empty now, and his spare mags were in his ruck that was still in the apartment above. But looking around, his gaze was suddenly drawn to those yellow-tipped rounds that stuck out in the debris scattered around him that might as well have glinted like pure gold.

Everyone in the square heard Woodrow's hurried shots and Covie fire tracked him and demolished everything in the upper level of that building. In the brief opening this allowed, Fraser shrugged off the steaming coverall that was still smouldering and told her driver to gun it—they were going to smash right into the centre of the square.

Reed must have seen what she intended because over the radio net he shouted: "Get those hogs in there! Right now, right now! Light up that floor with everything you got!"

As Fraser continued to fire, she was joined by the other two LAAGs coming up behind her. Their tracers drilled through the walls and window sills. The sheer sound of their combined fire sounded like they would never stop dishing it out—it drowned out everything else for blocks probably. Covie return fire was uncoordinated but still there, still hanging on. Reed feared any moment now they could turn their gun on the warthogs once again and then it'd be over for good.

But Woodrow had manually chambered one of the yellow-tips that he polished off with a sleeve and a bit of spit he miraculously conjured up from his parched, gritty-feeling throat, and crawled to where he could just see the top of the MG position. The window lit up, searching the debris pile for him, ignoring the warthogs for now. Plasma vaporized things metres away from where he lay. He lined up his shot but he didn't need to be too accurate this time, either.

The rifle kicked his shoulder and dust jumped up everywhere around him, and the side of the pub ripped open in a flash of fire. Smoke escaped through every window of the darkened, roiling top floor. Woodrow reached up, hand-fed another, and delivered that one as well. Another explosion on the opposite side of the building, now. There was no more Covenant fire anymore, and the warthog gunners also quit shooting one after the other as their drivers came to a halt around the fountain. The gunners trained their barrels on the windows, wary eyes squinting through the dust and cordite that strained the sun.

After the first detonation, Reed was out of cover, on his feet running. He and others put fire into the ground floor of the pub because they'd seen Covenant shoot at them from there too. Woodrow's second shot overhead showered them all with ash and burning bits as they approached but they stormed the pub and tossed their grenades unhindered. They went room by room. A crackle of gunfire here and there. Woodrow relinquished his aim and then and rolled over onto his side to catch his breath. His ribcage had begun to hurt.

Ears ringing and still feeling the heat of the explosions from where she was, Fraser slumped down in the truck bed. She laid her head back and slung an elbow over the tailgate. The kid in the driver's seat blew out an amazed "holy shit!" and turned to the lady behind him whose eyes were serenely shut.

He said, "I'm Riz."

She said, "I don't care."

Inside, Reed took to the stairs, his rifle set to full-auto. His men shot any Covie they came across, kicked down every door and broke into closets. On the top floor, it looked like what you'd expect after being hit with two bursts of those particular type of S2 rounds. Blackened Covenant dead or dying with their shrapnel-split skin and choked noises. The machine gun position had been cleared out and that was all that really mattered. Among the Covies, though, Reed also found the bodies of men in their Army jackets and boots. Some had unit patches, but most didn't. They would have become Nine-oh-six men if they lived. Plasma wounds had mangled them before Reed's force ever got there. Fontaine's intel was solid, they'd just been too late and had gotten suckered into this ugly fight. This was just another group of men and women wiped out before his eyes in this war. A squad, a company, it didn't matter, it all stung. Reed was getting tired of it just as much as he was already numbed from it.

He came down the stairs, cigarette tucked in his mouth, rifle cradled under his arm, and as he passed his men he told them to gather up the dead—they were coming back home with them.

IV

Reed was silent the drive back. He sank into his seat and stared at the barren, sunken city passing by. Fraser and Woodrow crossed their arms and slouched over the rollbar above him, half-standing in the bed, leaning and bobbing in tandem with each movement the warthog made. Going back the way they came, around the abandoned cars and fallen streetlights along the deeply bombed-out streets that exposed whitish caved-in sewer mains in parts the way bone might show through rubbery, lacerated flesh.

They'd gathered up all the dead soldiers: the butchered replacements who never made it to the hospital, the ones who died in the pelican crash too, then the two from the battalion's chain-gang who were cut down by the Covie machine gun they never saw, and the man who'd gone up to scout ahead with Woodrow. They arranged the bodies on the floor of the warthogs but there simply wasn't enough room. They laid some of them across the hoods of the warthogs, heads and faces covered up, bungee-corded in place so they wouldn't fall off and only stacked them when they had no other choice. The disciplinary unit men had made room awkwardly: standing and hanging on like Fraser and Woodrow, or sitting perched on the edges of the beds, legs dangling off the sides and rear bumper. The bodies stunk and leaked onto the floor and got on their pants but everyone kept their complaints to themselves.

When they pulled up to the front of the hospital, Montclair was waiting on the steps having a quiet smoke. They'd of course radioed in long before showing up so there were no surprises. She grimly looked at the warthogs that were loaded up with twice as many bodies as when they had left, only half of them still breathing now. Even though most of them were replacements, they would have been 1st Battalion, their own, if they'd lived. It hurt to see. Soldiers with stretchers nearby got to work while Reed's people helped pass the dead down. The lieutenant himself eased out of the vehicle, leg by leg, and plodded towards Montclair.

"You found them," she said, consoling, or at least it was an attempt at doing so.

"I did," Reed said. "Y'know if we'd just went in by air. Maybe. Just maybe..."

"Resources we just couldn't spare," Montclair said. "I'm sorry, Reed."

"Nobody out there but nobodies, right?"

Montclair said nothing to that.

"Like to think that it's Covie's fault. That they're soulless and hellbent and there's nothing we coulda done. But maybe it isn't really. Maybe it's that bastard Mattis' fault, I could find myself thinking."

"That's a dangerous road to travel down."

"Well I'm down it just the same. If he doesn't see the point of what we're doing here, mission in Mombasa, guess I'm just finding it harder to make him. He's the one starving us, isn't he?"

"You can point your fingers all you want, Reed, and I'll let you today, but you know it's not that simple."

"But it should be, right?"

"If there were any justice in this world," Montclair said softly, "fuckin' rights it should be."

They watched her people called up from the forward medical support company ID the soldiers and unfurl their body bags right there outside the hospital. They'll put them in a cold dark room somewhere in the basement until that time they could ship them back to the IRIS site. Reed's men from chain-gang hung around watching too, making small talk, waiting for whatever came next. They survived but that was all. No backslapping or feeling like they showed Covie what was what. They'd all been fighting too long for that.

Montclair said to him, "You did a good thing out there. Might not seem like it now, but there was nothing to do but try. Game was rigged against you from the start."

"So does this one count for us or against us? Playing from behind and all."

"Pity points don't count. Would have been nice, you bringing them back alive, but that's not the way this goes I suppose. I might leave this one out in my report to Wu."

"I feel for the guy."

"If anyone can bring back the air-corridor it'll be him," Montclair insisted.

"Hour's getting late in the war. Like to think there's a miracle in store but maybe I've become like Watson as well."

Montclair smiled a bit but Reed wasn't looking at her so he didn't see it. "If that's your idea of a miracle, Reed, clouds just parted and Heavenly light just shone down upon our hovel. You'll shit your damn pants."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Reed said. "The first part, I mean, not—"

"—We've got a few new arrivals to the hospital. Come from on high. I think you'll want to meet 'em. You come on inside now," she said.

Reed motioned for his people to follow him. Although Woodrow stayed behind to help move the bodies because he didn't mind the work—they were just bodies to him, he didn't know them.

Reed said to Montclair, "About this squad... they did well when it counted. Never been in combat with each other before and they made it work. That's more than I can say for a lot of units."

Montclair glanced over at them. "I'm glad."

"I promised them they'd be out of disciplinary if they fought, and they did. Would be a kindness if you were to reassign them... grant them a pardon, if you will."

"Just give me a list of names," she said.

Reed nodded appreciatively. Hard to find anyone who didn't like the major. If you were having a fight, it was you who was letting her down, causing her upset.

Inside the hospital, the two officers walked past the reception area and waiting room to where it opened up into a grand, marble staircase that bisected two floors, the entire lounge seemingly crafted with opulence and Catholic reverence in mind. An old elevator, its outer gate intact, stood off to the side—still operable, Reed was happy (gleeful, even) to report. There was a larger, modern freight elevator a little farther down, a decidedly more recent addition.

The windows had all been barred off but that was done before the war came to Mombasa. Abby was an old hospital in one of the city's slums, repurposed from a centuries-old museum (nobody would ever design a hospital with this much wasted space), which had been in turn repurposed from something else way back when—a hotel, maybe, because there was a ballroom inside it that now housed at least 140 civilian refugees. First Battalion troops were billeted in hospital rooms or housing outside, abandoned buildings and apartments on the street. Military vehicles were kept and maintained in the yard out back beside the ambulances.

The lounge was kept tidy, almost no sign of military presence save for a some scattered personnel, coffees in hand, going where they were supposed to. Their eyes all, however, traveled up that staircase to the landing and some even stopped to stare (Reed certainly did) where Lieutenant Colonel Watson stood with a Marine and—clad in gleaming, spectacular olive-drab armoured plating—a Spartan.

The supersoldier was expectantly the tallest in the group huddled around Watson, dwarfing him. Its golden gaze was aimed right down at him, seemingly intent to take in whatever info could be offered by the man. The other was a young officer, a captain already. It was too early to tell if he was a bookish type, a 90-day wonder, with his boyish face and unsullied uniform. Or was he like him, tried by fire, made an officer because Covie killed the man he replaced?

Watson leaned against the banister, arms folded casually. He spotted Reed and Montclair climbing the steps. "Hello again, Lieutenant. Glad you made it back."

"Colonel," Reed said. "Don't know if you heard—"

"—All that can wait, son. Like you to meet our houseguests: Captain Pennington and, uh, Spartan Oh-Seven-One."

"Amy," she said.

Reed set pieces of his armor ensemble down on a nearby step as he ascended and they exchanged handshakes. He was grimy and had blood smears across his shirt but nobody said anything about it and some didn't even notice.

"You've met my company commanders," Watson said to them, "but here's someone you might be shoulder to shoulder with out there, in the thick of things, especially anything involving supply runs. Lieutenant Reed outta Dog Company."

"You here to help us fight?" Reed asked them, like he was suspicious. They could have just been passing through. He took nothing for granted these days.

The Spartan deferred to Captain Pennington without hesitation, glancing his direction.

Pennington hesitated, looked like he had just reconsidered what would have been his first response. He settled on offering Reed a smile and a nod and said, "You just let us know if we can be of any assistance."

Reed became attuned to reading the people in his midst over the years, and tried as best he could to examine that statement without taking too long. "Glad you're here. Looking forward to working with you."

Pennington again nodded.

"Say," Reed said, "how'd you swing getting a ride over here? Air traffic's been halted, far as I know."

"It still is." Watson cut in. "This one comes from the top. General wanted it done so it got done. Quite a character, that LeMay."

Reed and Montclair detected the hint of bitterness behind that. If Pennington did too, he didn't show it.

"We're Lima Company. Newly-formed special warfare unit under LeMay."

Reed just listened, offered no reaction.

"If they'd send anybody to clean up a mess, it'd be a Spartan I have to imagine."

Reed ignored that last remark. He couldn't tell if it was simple small-talk or a critique of how things were perceived by newly-arrived outsiders. Reed couldn't help but glance down at his own uniform, though, noting its deterioration. He was surely eligible to receive a fresh-enough set from the supply orderly. And who could've missed that stampede of medics and their cargo earlier?

"Were you shot at?" Reed asked Pennington. "How's the situation up there?"

"Hostile aircraft vectored in but disengaged pretty quickly. We had numbers on our side, happy to say."

"A wing of fighters deployed from a UNSC warship," Watson winked at Reed. "Can't remember the last time anyone laid out the red carpet for us like that."

Reed replied matter o'factly, like he'd seen it for himself in times before, "Navy looks after its own." He then turned to face Pennington. "You must be a joint-force unit."

"That's right. Army one-star at the top, and people of all other branches working for and with him."

"You work directly under a general?" Reed's brow cocked to one side like Pennington was peddling something. An air of superiority? No, that wasn't it. Eyes were too kind. False hope for his war-weary hosts? Even if so, Reed wouldn't ever pine for something like that. Far better for his troops to grasp reality as it was dealt than to meander in a delusion. But Pennington wasn't pushing for anything. No put us in, coach! or anything like that. In fact, he seemed well-reserved to Reed. The ex-Helljumper couldn't know for sure, though, couldn't judge him fully after only five minutes. All he knew was what Watson said a moment prior: this group of marines was assured safe arrival here.

"How many in your unit?" Reed queried. "You said you were just a company, right?"

"Exactly one-hundred. Average numbers for a marine company. Add another twenty-five if you count the scientists..."

Pennington fell silent for three full seconds just then, his breath held in, a Freudian Slip that Reed was certain only he picked up on—maybe the Spartan as well with the way she almost glanced him.

"LeMay heads the agency," Pennington recovered, "but due to our extreme distance away we never heard of him until recently. Captain Lawson is our boss."

"A captain. Your boss is equal to you?"

Pennington chuckled. "Way above me. Navy man. Oh-six."

"Under the wing of an eagle, huh? Well, this here is a particularly dangerous place outside the nest you come from."

"You don't have to tell us. We've seen it before, elsewhere. We're from Zaragosa."

"Zaragosa…" Reed took a moment to place it. "That in the outer rim?"

"Aye."

"Long way from home, Lima Company is."

"Zaragosa fell."

"Couldn't save it?"

"Wasn't our mission."

"Then what is your mission?"

Reed and Pennington stared each other down and it was Watson who offered respite to the conversation and thus the entire room full of people witnessing it. "...Lima Company volunteered to come here and shore up our defenses." He then turned to the new Captain with what could be perceived as a polite, though suggestive plea. "...And hopefully join us as we advance our boundaries farther out."

Captain Pennington said nothing, only nodded.

With a quick glance at the Spartan, Reed came back with, "Maybe you folks are our salvation after all, then."

Watson added jokingly, "Saving strangers has been fine and all, don't get me wrong. Sometimes, everyone needs a little saving once in a while. No one's above that."

Pennington chuckled but he'd begun to feel the overbearing weariness behind the man's words that were only weakly veiled by his offhand cracks about his superiors, and from the other man, Reed, whose wide-eyed attentiveness and desperate fishing for any kind of good news was painfully obvious. It looked like they'd suffered today. Even though there was a Spartan here to come and help with the situation on the ground they were fixated on issues that were their own. There were hard feelings and bones to pick. It seemed like he'd wandered into a snake pit, but he hadn't been here these past weeks. He couldn't know what they'd been through beyond just catch-up briefings from their commander.

"At any rate, welcome," Reed said.

He was still undecided about the newcomers. He hadn't seen a Spartan in action yet with his own eyes, but if it was between a pelican full of soldiers like the one he'd failed to save, he'd take his own any day. It was illogical, he knew, but her presence didn't salve the disappointment he felt about today's events as much as he knew it should have. And the size of Mombasa, how much of it was contested at the moment and how much of it had to be abandoned simply because there were too few troops in the Battalion that it was for lack of a better word, impossible, to win back. He didn't know how much a single Spartan could actually change things in this quagmire. Ever skeptical he was and sure as hell that hadn't lessened, these three weeks in. And after what he just came back from, it felt like this night and every night after would drag on with or without their aid, like the sun had just burned out. Thinking back to those times Watson had muttered curses under his breath about leadership decisions back at IRIS—back when the situation here started to worsen—and how it felt as though people back there were waiting for the Abby and all its souls to crumble and just break down, give up. That would be easier on everyone, right?

That was just steam, Reed knew, but subconscious out gassings from superiors were credible innuendos from time to time. War is an incredibly nuanced experience, not just the visceral and hard-hitting combat.

But it was Montclair who brought Reed out of his own spiral of doubt, saying, "The Captain and Spartan Oh-Seven-One should be praised for coming this far, taking their people with them. Brought a whole company of fighting marines."

That was true enough. It was said that the ones pulling the strings clear on the other side of the desert plains directed this company of marines to show up here, so it had to mean something. But what? Newly-formed special warfare unit, okay. "What's here?" Reed asked Pennington and Amy. The question was incredibly direct and even caught the Lieutenant Colonel off guard, his eyes starting to wander. But it was a loaded question, a test.

The Captain easily deflected it. "Honestly, we were hoping you'd tell us," he replied, looking from Reed to Watson.

Montclair stepped in, said, "Major Wu and Colonel Mattis must've reached out, caught the ear of a flag officer. It's obvious they asked for help. Gotta hand it to them, they went to bat for us."

Reed looked at her as if to ask if that were true.

Pennington was quick to affirm her words. "Our CO, Captain Lawson, he got the note as well. Guess he was convinced."

Pennington wouldn't reveal the true reason they were ordered here. Not yet, at least. There'd be a proper time and place for it, he knew before coming to Mombasa.

Continuing, Pennington said, "Your boss, Colonel Mattis, he spoke with General LeMay and ran it by our chain and then we were on the move. I hope we're in the right place, but it looks like just about anywhere on the ground's all right. I know my NCOs would say that much."

Reed, prior-enlisted, said, "Covie's here. Needs to be stopped, nothing else to do but stop him."

"I'll drink to that," Pennington said.

"Like we talked about in our briefing," Watson said, "we send patrols out on a schedule. I'm thinking you could ride out with them some time. Nothing too glamorous."

"Understood." Amy answered him. "We'll get with your team leaders for the next mission planning session and learn what we can do to help find more survivors."

This drew all eyes onto her.

While Captain Pennington seemed to corroborate her offer with a firm nod, all others of the 906th present stared at her a few seconds as if she were wholly out of place suggesting what she did.

"Lima Company's handled evacuations before," Amy added.

"Not quite sure you can call it that anymore," Montclair said.

"Why's that?"

"See now, you want to leave, all you got to do is call home and Daddy Lawson would swing by and pick you up. My bet is he's got himself a gussied up hotrod, too. Lights up the block. The rest of us, well, we take the bus."

Watson added, "And transit union's on strike."

"First we need to push them back, the Covies," Montclair said. "We believe some of them took notice of our efforts and've been tryin' to get closer, not to mention the zipline back to IRIS has been cut and wheeled convoys across the hardpan have long been outta the picture. Unless you can spring another escort like the size your folks put together, if only to offload our current horde of refugees..."

"They would not be dumb enough to take on a whole battalion occupying entire city blocks worth of spread-out buildings. That would be nothing but suicide," Amy said.

"That's just it." Montclair squinted her eyes at the Spartan's visor, hoping to see beyond the golden glare and connect in a way people were used to. "They don't know we're here, and frankly we'd like to keep it that way."

Following Amy's impassive stare, Montclair gave up at eye contact with her, looked away.

"Correction," Watson said, "they do know we're here but not exactly where. They know the UNSC is doing a hell of a job at recycling its people and equipment, and they're intent to put a stop to that any chance they get. Reports consolidated from all the patrol squads make it clear: they're going to find this hospital eventually. And if all those enemy units posted around our circumference are talking to each other and coordinating, that cuts the time down even more. Quite significantly, actually. We're looking at days in that scenario, not weeks."

Montclair concurred with a firm nod. "Even with that level of escort shepherding your way earlier tonight, no small amount of luck got you here. I believe the only reason we're not all fully engaged at our perimeter this minute is because of that assault carrier they shot down. This right here is a luxury...and we should all be sayin' our thanks to whoever orchestrated that because I don't think we'll be gettin' that lucky ever again."

"Yeah," Pennington drawled out, "about that…"

"So, send out ambush teams to take them down before they can zero this place and report back to their bosses." Amy said. "Lure them in one by one, guerilla style. At the very least, it will buy you some time."

"That's already being done, but they're gaining ground with each person we lose, you see."

"That means you're close. You're coming within thresholds."

Montclair gave a stiff shake of the head, brow furrowed like she took the assessment personally. Admitting that the Battalion was inching closer to a failed mission at a proportional rate to the Covenant's advancements was like suicide itself. Ask any of them and they'd swear by their vows—to self and other—to hold that line. They knew what was at stake for those behind them if they balked under a general order. Offline, in private quarters, maybe she'd let the Spartan continue until she was done, but not here, not now. She mustered a diplomatic sort of cautioning back at her. "Don't assume too much about us."

It was true enough, though.

Reed intently listened in as the Spartan continued.

"It comes down to old-fashioned attrition in my view." Amy furthered her assessments, disregarding the Major's cues either out of conviction or honest unawareness. No one could know because of her smooth, level tone and that opaque stare the helmet gave off. "Supply routes are cut off, both ground and air, and this proxy army of theirs has set up shop in your neighborhood and is expanding. Steady pace, am I right? Once they get your location, they'll most likely just wait you out until you're ripe for a swift, easy attack."

"Not Covie's typical style." Reed said.

Amy replied in an instant, "Depends on who's leading the force."

Reed thought about that a moment.

Could it be possible a very high-ranking officer was coordinating the skirmishes against their teams in the city? Higher than what was necessary?

Most of the fighting had migrated away, the latest intel briefs had suggested prior to them altogether ceasing—when all comms went dark. The city blocks further out were already picked clean, barren, a daily reminder of how mostly-forgotten this place was. Only reason there were still outgoing patrols was to maintain a steady rotation of fresh troops to and from the edge, to maintain the unit's protective sphere (and early warning system) and to welcome friendlies inward, send them on their way to wherever or absorb them if they were uniformed combatants. The one leading this Covie force probably thought the entire area was merely host to UNSC stragglers just trying to bust their way out of a desolate Mombasa and get to where they were needed, or just batten down indefinitely and ride it out. Whether lining the streets with its troops or surgically going building by building, this leader would obviously deny them any escape. Not overly smart, the enemy's tactics were. Shots were traded, both sides took casualties. The Covenant had their usual advantages, but Abby's presence in fact lasted this long and there was still enough real estate and people to repel something fierce should it decide to power through and make a charge against the forward HQ itself if they found it. Total enemy numbers were unknown, but 906th still had a wide radius. Wide enough to position assets in a reasonable timeframe and keep turf controlled, but not so wide that it would be cumbersome to do so.

Though, maybe Watson was onto something. Maybe it was possible the enemy units scattered about on all sides of 906th's defenses were not acting solo—that maybe they were in regular contact and working toward a common objective. Was it just a city-wide manhunt, or it was something more?

Wide, indeed, the 906th line was. The enemy units out there would require comms of their own to be in cahoots across so much distance, and just as well maybe their systems were disabled after the slipspace jump. The two SIGINT soldiers posted here at the Abby never came forth with any news on the matter, never received anything interesting on their scopes, so either Covie was just as blind as 906 or their transmissions were inaudible to UNSC ears. It was easy for Reed to just assume the worst, chalking it up to "superior Covie tech" that was hidden out there but always working against you.

And to think that something like a Zealot or Commando was behind it all was unsettling, if not terribly interesting. He hadn't thought of these things before. The focus was establishing a sphere of control—done—and taking people in to get them safe and where they needed to be—ever a work in-progress.

The Spartan seemed to be a step ahead, brainstorming a more offensive posture for them to consider—something Reed both admired and envied this moment. With ten more like her, he could circumvent all the red tape and win back the entire city. But it was a pipe dream. Even if the unit was endowed with such assets, he knew the OIC would never go for it. Too ambitious and too risky a plan for them. Not properly budgeted for it in any aspect. Reed would get shut down, get told they weren't equipped for that type of sustained conflict and it just wasn't their MO. Some other unit was better-suited for it.

He glanced at Pennington, then at the Spartan who was actually already watching him. He saw his own reflection and it was crystal clear and centered inside that visor.

She must've seen Lieutenant Reed pondering along similar lines as her, continued with, "So, either you all turn the tide or there will be a point when whoever's in charge makes the conclusion that pulling back to IRIS is smarter than staying here. The time to choose is now."

The immediate response to that was nothing.

Total silence.

Montclair glanced sidelong at her superior, that look on her face a curious one—curious if Watson could seriously consider that notion in this hour. Were they at that point? She had an idea of the broad scope but only a fraction of the understanding Watson possessed. The whole thing was dismaying because Spartans—the most respected types of humans in a galaxy full of war—wielded immense implications by words alone. She wouldn't be here weighing in unless she thought it was paramount to UNSC success. Maybe she was just confirming what many of them were slow or too stubborn to acknowledge—the Harbinger of the Abby.

Abandoning the mission was always an option reserved for the highest ranking on-site, but that course of action being taken was one that couldn't be taken back. Once vacated, the hospital—the epicenter of evac operations for most of Mombasa—it would be a fallen star. It was always about more than just the ones doing the saving, Montclair certainly believed. At this point in the battle for Earth it was a symbol, the beacon of hope.

Such a statement was like sacrilege to the Battalion—at least the ones who'd volunteered for assignment here and taken it seriously despite all manner of qualms people had about it after the best was behind them. They had to believe their investment had been paying out after so much loss these past weeks, determined to see the mission yield the righteous dividends—the kind that couldn't be valued against anything else because in the end a life saved was a priceless thing. Montclair's response was cordial nonetheless, if just a little bit punchy in kind. After all, Highwaymen could tolerate an outsider saying something like that. Just barely.

"The insight is appreciated, Spartan. Thank you. Bear in mind we're the ones who'll be lookin' all these people in the eyes when that time comes, if it comes. In the meantime, we don't hide our faces."

A faceless sight, that supersoldier, Montclair couldn't know what Spartan Amy was thinking then.

"Look, if the worst should happen here," Pennington told them, "there'd be contingencies in place. Not just for us. For all."

The 906th soldiers studied Captain Pennington, unsure what exactly he'd meant by that.

Pennington quickly added, "Stakeholders back at IRIS have assured me of this. We may be cut off temporarily but, hell, we're not alone. We got here."

Despite the Captain's quick wit and consolation efforts, this drew only more attention onto him. Everyone in the room knew damn well that his Lima Company was a special asset to be looked after and protected. A full wing of escort craft and a Spartan among them. Exactly why, only two people in the room knew. To openly question this young Captain's motives any further would not be good hospitality, and the Abby hadn't fallen into such a state of affairs...yet. Reed had already prodded him enough and subtleties were just about fully exhausted. At any rate, Montclair was right about the newcomers: they'd been shepherded here in confidence by sheer numbers—a huge gamble to run that kind of presence up and down a failed air corridor despite superiority. But how could anyone in the room not deduce the conundrum taking shape? Lima Company itself had no investment here. Only time would tell what amount of sweat their Captain would have them put into this volunteer effort he'd claimed to.

"Well," Watson spoke to placate his own tribe, "let's continue our discussion as Lima Company gets settled into the Abby and gets a meal." He turned to face the guests. "We'll plan the next mission together and you can tell us in your own opinion if we're falling behind in any particular area. Hopefully you'll be able to lend your expertise in those areas if you feel that we are not ourselves capable."

Reed looked off to the side of the lounge while Montclair and Watson were just about to conclude their chit-chat with the two. Initial goodnights were said, and he knew there'd be at least one follow-up goodnight with the amount of awkwardness lingering. They'd trade war stories, like everyone did or was expected to. For his part, the conversation had lost relevance. It seemed there was nothing more of use to be said. The hospital's spacious and accommodating interior was to him a false sense of security just like the relative calm about the city following the enemy carrier's demise. What had once been fewer and fewer arrivals that needed saving was now becoming a slowly shrinking sphere with Covenant on every tangent just waiting for the right opportunity to close the loop. They needed to be denied that opportunity day in and day out.

Shield Company held the line good and long, but like all Covenant invasions he experienced or studied the enemy was always superior in technology, firepower, and numbers. Seventh still had formidable assets and most importantly turf advantage but territorial exploits against the Covenant were brief, quickly countered within days or hours and eventually suffered loss of effectiveness as with any occupation. His relatively recent Basic Infantry Officer course taught him extensively about battles that devolved into a melee of all against all, with ranged weapons as well as close combat, and how a group's fighting power increases as the square of its size. As much as he hated to admit, the Spartan was correct: his battalion either needed something new or needed to evac because the majority of skirmishes out there were now starting to cost them more and more ground, and more people. Obviously, it wasn't his call to make but he surmised that if they were still here this long it meant they were committed at least a little while longer, and therefore he had to help find a way forward.

Reed stared outward while the others carried on. In what had been left over from the hospital's days as a museum, there was a blown-up aerial photograph of the old city about the size of an entire wall, hung up on the wood paneling and sheathed inside a pane of protective plastic that was yellowing more and more by the day. Comparing satellite imagery of the area, not a lot had changed except that New Mombasa, in the photo, was a fledgling development. The old city, its alleyways, deteriorated streets, ghettos and historic landmarks had been there for a long time—forever, as far as they were concerned.

Over the course of their time in the hospital, soldiers had taken to their own graffiti on the plastic overlay, at first doodles and dicks and even some Kilroy homage, and some squad leader had traced in the day's patrol route before they broke their huddle and headed off. Then a team of logistics personnel had mapped out feasible supply routes (and crossed all of them off) and the air-corridor that cut down the centre with ease—or it used to—was still there as a perfectly straight band of bright, waxy red tape. Nobody had peeled that off yet because then things really did look hopeless. It didn't help either that it became a trend for soldiers to scribble down the names of squad members who were KIA in the city, pinpointing the exact street corner they went down, and soon the pane was riddled with names spread out all over the city, hundreds at least, some in greater clusters than others—like Lake had said, they'd had a few bad days—a growing, tortured scrawl that consumed the placid photograph.

But what made Reed take a few steps down the stairs were circled colour-coded areas of the map he knew to be unit designations. Detachments of Marines and ODSTs that higher ups sent in about the same time as the 906th. They'd fallen out of contact with many of those units because the Covenant had been surgical and snipped away at parts of the city, cutting each unit off until everyone was isolated.

Partly it was luck the hospital and its surrounding area had been stable up to this point, partly it was excellent planning and organization—Shield had dug in its heels and not given an inch until only very recently. The hospital made for a good evacuation centre with its spacious roof and facilities, its location equidistant between the new and old cities, and refugees naturally gravitated towards the area. When 1st Battalion came to the scene initially, it was already full of people in the midst of packing up their lives, looking for anywhere to hide because Dr. Faroush had welcomed them all in and promised them protection and life's necessities. It had been the Marines and ODSTs' job to repel the Covenant invaders and establish safe routes to evacuation centres for refugees and now they were just as scattered, themselves showing up at the hospital piecemeal so they could be whisked away to safety and back to war eventually. Even stragglers searching for their chain of command were sent to the IRIS site and thrown back into the blender but they usually ended up away from Mombasa, maybe somewhere on the road to Voi. It was as if everyone forgot about Mombasa or liked to pretend there was nothing left here so they didn't need to think about it that much. The beeline back to IRIS was the key—it ceasing to function seemed to be the final nail in the coffin. And soon they'd all suffocate.

But those unit markers, Reed noticed, dotted a colourful highway (another scrapped supply route) that traveled through the city. It had been abandoned in planning, presumably because the Covenant had cut it off just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The logistician had crossed out the road and thrown his marker at the floor and given up.

Reed looked back at the senior leadership, Watson and Montclair, and said, "We need a way out, right? Keep people moving so they don't all get bunched up here? Think I found it."

They stopped talking and focused on the lieutenant. He paced quickly to the foot of the aerial map and craned his neck to take it all in, eyes navigating the network of roads. He said to them, "Groundwork's all here. Just need to put in the hours."

Watson said, "You're going to need to explain this one to us, Lieutenant. What are we looking at?"

"Air-corridor cut clean through everything, didn't it?" Reed said. "Some of these roads, they're... all over the place. The routes zig and zag because of prior engagements or even just sightings; Covie might be hiding here or there. So these lines, they sometimes go wide to avoid danger. Sure we have satellites and drones at our disposal but Covie is wont to surprise us, and every time our people go out that far there's a chance they'll run into things unforeseen. Too much of a damn chance."

"So we adapt. We always do," Watson said.

"There's a very fine line between adapting and playing catch up. You can get pulled into that pitfall of always taking two steps forward and three back, don't catch onto that until it's just too late. Need to be wise about where and how we commit force." Reed chewed on his lip. "We can tell Mattis and Wu all's fine, Shield's doing god's work out here, all we want. And maybe we are faring better than the Marines and ODSTs, but it's plain we all know we're still a leaky body. Not hemorrhaging, but we're a slow death away. The air-corridor made us dependent, like someone needs his fix. Well, we're cut off. Maybe Mattis is sick of our mission, wants us to move out and leave him and Mumma Wu alone, but I don't think he's leaving us for dead. We have all the tools we need to build a raft off this desert island and this here's a roadmap."

Reed looked around the bottom of the display pane, searching for something. Montclair produced a marker from her breast pocket and flipped it over to him. With it in hand, he reached up and began to highlight the route he had in mind for everyone to see.

Watson stared at it, thinking it over. "Just off the top of my head, Lieutenant, you're taking us into untamed land—Covie country. Even if we had eyes on, how the hell do we get guys out there to help if or when something goes awry?"

"We'll be there every step of the way. Route will be clear, we'll be certain of that. And it'll run like clockwork. No waiting for the skies to clear, no rain checks. Just a freeway up and down the line."

Watson turned and said to Montclair, half a smirk on his face, "Tell me he didn't hit his head today."

Montclair didn't take her eyes off Reed. "Likely he did."

"Lieutenant," Watson said, "we're a battalion, remember."

"We're more than that, sir."

"We can barely manage the city blocks we've got. You'd need nothing short of an army."

Reed pointed at Pennington. "You said you had numbers on your side today, right? Only reason we're closed for business is 'cause we don't." He circled the colour-coded unit designations of Marines and ODSTs dispersed throughout the map. "There's your army."

Watson said, "I admire that optimism, Lieutenant, but you're forgetting one thing... they're out of contact. They're broken. Covies overran their positions weeks ago—only we remain on firm ground."

"They got pushed. They didn't get wiped—a fact I'm sure of. They're still in the city and the city still has structures so we have to assume they're holding some kind of ground 'cause they got nothing else to do but fight for their lives," Reed said. "It's what we would have done."

A sobering silence.

"It's almost what we're doing now. And it's happening every day out there. We just have more people and tools to make it last as long as it has. You might even say those troops out there that ain't ours have been bearing the brunt of the war, softening it up before it makes its way toward us."

Watson couldn't argue with that and Montclair didn't want to. The Lima Company members too were fixated on Reed's spur of the moment proposal.

In that free moment, Reed said, "They're out there, same as the civvies we're trying to bring back. We just need to find 'em, reposition 'em... let 'em know they're not alone out here, and we'll keep them supplied and oiled if they meet us halfway—help them's who want to be helped. City's dangerous, sure, and it'll cost us to get to 'em, but when we do the gains will outweigh those costs—that I believe. Hell, they sent a Spartan." He looked at Amy. "You want to make a difference in Mombasa? Slice off Covie's hands he's got 'round us and put a dagger through his fuckin' heart." To the others he said: "Let this be it. Let's unite us. All of Mombasa, East and West."

The corners of his eyes creasing with realization, maybe even reverence, Watson said, "Railroads of old closing the frontier."

Reed turned back to the wall, satisfied. He could work with that. "Abby will be the grand hub: everything comes to us just as planned, all corners of the city if they got to, and IRIS—" The command base was not in the photograph, but Reed ran his marker off the northwest edge of the pane anyway, an escape free and clear of Mombasa and its clutter of names of the deceased and those angry, crossed out lines of failed plans and the encroaching Covenant forces strangling them here, this perilous place. He stepped back to look at his work with a resolute smile. "—IRIS will be the end of the line."

---

While Reed spoke to the senior leadership one floor below, Captain Stern leaned over the sculpted marble railing in one of the many stonework alcoves that overlooked the whole lounge, cigarette pinched in his fingers. Fearless, untouchable Fraser waltzed right up and joined him, clasping her sooty hands together as she leaned on the railing too.

"I'm hitched to a new man, Skipper," she said to him. "Big and strong, he rescued me away from a hard knock life, oh lawdy yes he did."

"So I heard."

"You were asking after me?"

"I did wanna know why it was you weren't at your post. Gettin' a tan. Breakin' bricks."

"Would you have watched me toil away?" Fraser wiggled her eyebrows. "You would, you sadist. You missed me."

"Maybe I damned well jumped for joy when I heard that Reed whisked you away to go play in Mombasa traffic. You and the rest of Suicide-Club. Maybe I did a little dance. You think about that?"

"I know you didn't."

"Why not?"

"'Cause you're old and creaky."

Stern laughed. It was a rare sound, truly, but Fraser had heard it before—he'd let her hear it. She liked it, maybe even loved it. He said with a tiny shake of his head, "Fuckin' Doll Fraser blowing back through my little town. I thought I got rid of you for good this time."

"I couldn't stay away, my lovely."

"You want round two, that it?"

"You never know. But you can rest easy tonight because I am going to be enjoying my freedom while I have it—I worked hard for it, believe it or not."

"That'll be the day."

"I'm serious. Woman of the hour. Ask Reed."

"Oh I know better than to do that," Stern said. "Thick as thieves, you two rabble-rousers. It's collusion all the way down. If I'm smart I'll stay far, far away, thanks."

"We're amazing, thanks," Fraser scoffed. "You'll see, old-timer. We'll whip this unit back into shape, me and Reed. Your beloved Shield's on its way out. It'll eat you up to know."

"Can't say I'm too concerned," Stern said. "There's two ways soldiers like you and Lieutenant Reed end up: in chain-gang or dead."

"Give me that." Fraser inaudibly snapped her fingers at Stern's cigarette. He passed it over and she said, "Now, me, I rattled your pearly whites not long ago—"

"Don't think I've forgiven you just yet."

"—but what did mean old Reed ever do to you?"

She took a drag while he said, "Look at you, looking for prime kiss'n'tell to get your rocks off."

"Mm." (Expectant; go on.)

Stern paused a moment. "Recon has its lead man."

Fraser blew out her breath. "One who isn't named Reed."

"Need no other. Company can run without him, is all."

When he said no more, Fraser said lightly, "And me, apparently."

"Especially you. You're lazy and you're a drunkard."

"Guilty on both counts. What else?"

"And you're goddamn proud of it all, ain't you."

"Got me again." Fraser grinned.

"And still you're walking around here like you're doused in flames and this place's got a roof like tinder, and you don't see the problem. And I think you never will. You go where you want because Doll Fraser gets her way, nobody else matters."

Fraser's smile had faded. "I've a right to be here. I belong here. You kicked me out."

"Over nothing that wasn't your own fault."

"Did I knock the other half of that story out your skull? You're just as much to blame."

"Yeah, I got a real piece of you—got your poor knuckles real hard with my chin. It's boney, I been told."

"That's not what I'm talking about."

"Nothing else needs to be said. Isn't that what we agreed? Just blow on through, Fraser, blow on through and keep going," Stern said. "I know you. This place isn't anything to you. Just somewhere to lay low for a while. Nothing's changed. You haven't changed."

She said slowly, "Yeah you've got me figured out. Same old Fraser, fucking up everything, right as always, James." She took a resigned step back from the railing.

He didn't turn around. "The hell you going?"

"I've got a reputation to uphold, Skipper. I don't want to disappoint. I'm going to find myself a drink and laze around like old times, go looking for trouble. Saw that coming, didn't you? Me, fucking up? But look, I'm a forgive 'n forget sort of gal. Big on the forgetting part. If I'm lucky I'll forget this conversation ever took place, my name and everything else tonight. Then if you want to try your luck, you know where to find me. You always did. 'Coz that'll be the only way."

Fraser left Stern with his wet and dumpy cigarette and about a hundred things he wanted to say back, cruel words and words like I'm sorry—maybe all of those things but especially that. Sullenly and silently, though, he just watched her descend the staircase with her swaggery, outlaw walk, her oversized boots clomping carefree on the scuffed marble surface all the way down.

---

In a dim section somewhere deep inside the hospital, Dr. Lea Faroush punched in a four digit pass code on a secure door and slipped into the room. It looked like a storage closet with its shelves full of old hospital equipment and boxes of old forgotten paperwork. Faroush approached the man who sat in the back at a desk, head bowed in concentration. He was a nurse called Button and he was in the process of counting and sorting pills, weighing them, scribbling down their values and punching figures into a calculator.

Faroush put her hands on his shoulders. "Relations are improving with Watson. I'll have a request put in for an inventory bot."

He merely shrugged, kept on working.

"How are things?" she asked him.

"Considering what we've had to deal with, it's still better than nothing."

"Do we need to put a hold on this?"

Button looked over his notes and said, "Not just yet. Word is a lot of supplies never made it here this time, and they've always been haphazard about exact amounts leaving the base on their end. Surplus amounts. This just makes things easier. Nobody will miss it because they'll never know it was here—that it wasn't tossed with the rest."

"Can I see?"

Button handed her a vial. It was sealed up and the label declared it to be antibiotics, whatever wonder-drug that cured the sick and dying only a doctor would know.

"They would have dumped it," Button reported, "but our guys were there. They saved it from going over. It was quick thinking."

Faroush scrutinized its contents under the light, but she was satisfied with just reading the label that declared it to be UNSC-issued property. While it was intended for the Army doctors for use on military personnel, Watson had been good about sharing and there were many more boxes of medicine in Faroush's possession just like the one she was holding in the hospital's stores—those belonged to Abigail Aki Memorial and that was the way it would stay: for use by all that the hospital's protection extended to, military and civilian both.

This particular vial she held was different though. It didn't come from Watson, it was not bestowed upon her in some grand diplomatic gesture, that waltz they did. And thus it belonged to Dr. Faroush, not the hospital. It is important to make that distinction.

"The asking price did go up three-fold, however," Button said. "You've got final say."

"I expected as much." Faroush pondered for a moment. "If there really are no more supplies from the military base coming our way, we'll need to be especially careful with how we manage what we have. We'll likely need to open up our stores to the soldiers if their doctors run out in the coming days." She tapped the vial with a fingernail. "If there's more of this, Adam, exactly this—kept under the table, of course—we pocket it. Give them what they ask for. Incentivize them."

The man nodded. No skimming necessary this time, no futzing with numbers for their fair share—not that they were under any scrutiny by Watson's people though, they had more important things to worry about. He passed her a list, an inventory. "I already did the math. Here's what's going out, then."

Faroush skimmed it. Painkillers of all kinds. She had no pretensions about what this was for—good times and fleeting happiness, to be chewed and swallowed, smashed up and snorted, however way they wanted to get it inside their bodies and brains. The hospital had an overabundance of these over-the-counter drugs and despite the disproportionate deal she'd just okayed, the fact was it'd barely put a dent in their stock. The current reality was favorable in the most critical aspect: soldiers' requirements in those life-or-death situations were to a significant degree sustainable all on their own thanks to basic, standard-issue items. Field-injectables had improved leaps and bounds in just the previous decade alone. Lightweight, portable, expanding to quadruple their original form in the presence of air, UNSC 'biofoam' was the medical staple of the infantry unit. She handed the list back to Button and said, "All's fine."

They could have ended up with nothing if it weren't for the ever-present need to maintain that destructive, uncontrollable hunger that existed in many of the fighting men. Those antibiotics had proven too valuable a cargo to abandon somewhere over Mombasa because the fear of not being able to experience that bliss that took them momentarily away from this place was too great. She wouldn't play hard-ball with them and hold their desires hostage. She'd reward those who delivered medicine to her especially after today's disaster, who could still deliver to her in these desperate days when there was no readily available source now that the air route was cut off. It was only fair. As far as she was concerned, the soldiers needed their hazy escape more than her people or the refugees in her care did, having to deal with that kind of stress. It was a mercy, really. But nothing came free, so they would trade. Their medicine for our drugs, that's how it was from the start. She didn't ask questions about where it came from, but she knew. She knew everything that was going on in her hospital.

There'd be a time when all of this would pay off—of that she was certain. All the signs were there and she'd made promises to herself a lifetime ago that needed to be kept and now was ideal—the world was coming to an end soon.

---

Lake found Reed sitting on a waiting-room chair down a hallway, studying the design of the wallpaper opposite him, lips partly moving, like he was trying to read something out loud but there was nothing there. He looked up at her as she strolled towards him.

"You look like you're in trouble," she said.

"Well I am, kinda," he said.

Lake didn't follow.

"Dog Company CO's a couple doors down," he explained. "I gotta tell him about the guys who died, who rode out with me today. Their names were McCarthy, Wells, and Delonge. The latter two, they were with us since before Cassandra. I didn't know that 'til an hour ago. I didn't know them when they got shot. I certainly don't know them now."

"From disciplinary, right? Didn't think Dog was their home—Ovarsson wouldn't take it too hard, would he?"

"They were in Dog when they died, goes on the books that way," Reed said bluntly. "They were his, and they were mine. Captain said take anyone you want, if they wanted. Only one who did."

"They wanted to go," Lake pointed out.

"I know. But I've had better days, run better ops."

"Worse ones, too. Don't carve out your gut in shame on me now. Casualty count high as it is I'm running out of people I actually like."

"Stop trying to cheer me up—make light."

"Sure, but I meant what I said."

"I'm dealing. This one's on me. They died in Mombasa and for what I don't know. Trying to come up with an explanation I guess. Still working on it."

"Can I wish you good luck in there?"

"I'll allow it." Reed took a breath and stood, all nerves. He'd long lost them in combat funnily enough. He was not prepared for this.

Lake nearly walked by him but she stopped and turned. She said, "Third Squad just got back home. Don't know if you heard. They brought back fourteen people with them—refugees. A family, among them. Three little brats, the whole thing. Can't believe they lasted this long."

"Might say that makes up for the boys who died today," Reed said. "Might not."

"You know, it'd better," Lake said. "Because why the hell else are we here? We're from line companies, you and me. There's a man—I'll let you guess as to who it was—who told me some time ago that we were good for one thing and one thing only... what we're here to do in this war. Just to kill, he told me. Just to die. All we're here for, just... death. And he's not wrong. More than that, he's pretty much right. Because there's been a lot of it. It's been a long year and nobody's okay. And I don't doubt there's more of it to come.

"But out of all the shit we do because we have to, this time I'd like to believe we're coming out ahead, you know? Adding to the count, not taking away. And that's the mission. The real mission. Nothing more to it than that, and to me it feels... right. Like there's nowhere else we're supposed to be so here we are. No matter how much they kill us, how much they take away from us, we're still here. Maybe that's just me. I could be crazy, but maybe I wanna hear it from you that I'm not."

Reed just stared at her with a contented look spreading throughout his face and said nothing for a long while. She didn't walk away or anything and he was glad she didn't.

Hi, Lake. There you are. Still here.

Reed. She smiled.

God he could have stood here forever. Days like today.

"Fourteen's a good number," Reed said.

END OF EPISODE

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