I'm sitting in my room, when I suddenly get another bad feeling, this time worse. Unable to ignore it, I get up and walk to the F.I.L.L.S. terminal.

"F.I.L.S.S." I say, "Can you give me a status update on North and South?"

"Of course, Agent Nevada," she says, "Agent South Dakota, status normal. Agent North Dakota, status critical. Agent Carolina has been sent in to extract, and all agents are now returning."

"Shit," I mutter, "Get medics to the landing bays, and tell them what kind of injuries North has. Tell the bridge they'll need to provide cover."

"Done."

A drowsy-looking Wash stumbles into the rec room. "Wha's goin' on?" he slurs, voice thick from just waking up.

"North's wounded," I say, "I'm heading to the hangar to help get everything ready for the medics."

News of North's wounds instantly brings him out of his stupor. "What?! I thought this was an easy one!"

"Apparently not. Now I know why I had that bad feeling earlier."

As I'm running down the halls, I feel the ship shake twice; several people fall over, and many stumble. "F.I.L.S.S., what the hell was that?" I ask.

"Main cannon has been fired," she says, "Two Insurrectionist fighters have been destroyed."

"And the twins?"

"Pelican designated as Eagle Four Seven Niner is entering the hangar bay now."

I sprint onward, determined to get to the hangar bay as quickly as possible.

I arrive to see several medics coaxing North onto a stretcher. His chest plate is riddled with holes, and some parts of his armor are smoking. South and Carolina step off of the pelican. "What happened?" I ask Carolina.

"An Insurrectionist fired on South with a turret," Carolina says, "North threw her out of the way."

I hear shouts as the medics try to squeeze the stretcher through the crowded halls. "I gotta go help with that."

"How?" Carolina asks.

"By clearing a path."

I make my way in front of the stretcher, and say to the lead medic, "I'll clear the halls for you guys, so stay right behind me, understood?"

"Yes, sir," the medic says as he hooks a couple of monitors to North's suit.

I jog down the hallway at what would be a running pace for a regular person. I shout, "Stretcher coming through! Everyone clear a path, NOW!" The loudness of my voice causes several people to wince, but soon I hear the call being repeated, and see people move to the side. I rush ahead, faster than the medics can run, and start pushing those slower to react aside, gently so as to not hurt them.

I run around a corner and come to a halt. Several ODSTs deliberately stand in my way, effectively blocking the hallway.

One of them smirks, "Why should we move? To save one of your Spartan buddies?" he practically spits the words.

Not having time to worry about how they knew about me, I stop and say, "Okay, listen. When the day comes that you wouldn't go to hell and back for one of your teammates, then you can criticize. You know exactly what kind of position I'm in, and I'm fairly certain you've been in it before. Besides, he isn't even a Spartan. So quit being a hypocrite, and get out of the goddamn way."

"Oh, look at that," one says, "The big bad Spartan is pretending to have feelings. Cut the act, you inhuman fuck."

"Alright," I say, "I'm done with this bullshit. I, Lieutenant, order you, Sergeant, to take your troops and get lost. NOW."

The ODSTs grudgingly begin moving aside. "This isn't over," the sergeant says.

"The hell it isn't," I mutter. I take a note of the leader's ID tag, so I can report them for insubordination and endangering of friendly soldiers. I realize reporting them may be a bit extreme, but so is blocking a hallway when a stretcher's coming through. Also, insulting the Spartans, my fellow Spartans, is unacceptable in my book.

We eventually reach the medbay, and the medics rush the stretcher in. "Sir," one of them says, "Would you mind helping with the surgery? From what I hear, you have medic training and faster reflexes than anyone, so you could be a real help."

"No problem," I say. "Get me some gloves."

Several hours later, I crash down into one of the rec room couches, exhausted after hours of careful surgery. All of the others except for Carolina and, obviously, North, gather around.

"How is he?" South immediately demands.

"He's fine," I say, "He should wake up tomorrow. The rounds all missed his major organs, and the burns from using his equipment weren't too bad. He'll be fully recovered in a couple of days."

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

"However," I continue, "I need to file a report with the higher-ups."

"Why?" York asks, "You weren't on the mission."

"Yeah," I reply, "But when I was clearing the way for the stretcher, a squad of ODSTs tried to block off the hallway. Called up the old Spartan-ODST rivalry."

"WHAT?!" South yells, "I'm gonna castrate those-"

"South," I interrupt, "Calm down. Being a Spartan, I have a lot of pull in ONI. I'm filing for insubordination and endangering of friendly soldiers. Those guys'll get demoted and be in the brig for months, and that's if they're lucky."

"I thought the sentence was two years," muses Florida.

"Well," I say, "It is, but with the Innies taking ground, we need every boot on the ground we can get."

"And those rumors of aliens on Harvest," Maine adds.

I look down, remembering burned and broken planet.

"What's wrong?" asks Wash.

I sigh, "A little while back, my squad was sent to Harvest to investigate why we lost contact, along with three ships. When we got there, most of the planet had been glassed, except the northern polar region. When we left, it was only with one ship."

"Glassed?" asks Wyoming.

"The Covenant, as we now know them, have high-tech plasma weapons. The main cannons on their ships are capable of turning the surface of a planet into glass."

The others are stunned.

"What about the people?" asks C.T., "Last time I checked, Harvest had over three hundred thousand people on it."

"About half of the population made it to the space elevators. The recovered survivors numbered under one hundred thousand."

The room is silent. Some people have tears in their eyes, others turn away, and a few clench their fists in rage at the needless slaughter.

Maine suddenly turns and punches the wall, denting it heavily. He rushes into his room and slams the door, locking it.

"He's from Harvest, isn't he?" I ask quietly.

A couple of the others nod solemnly. "His family lived near Utgard," Wash says.

"Damn it," I say, and get up and knock on the door. "Maine. Listen man, I'll do what I can to get you a list of survivors, see if your family's on it. Alright?"

All I hear in response is a roar of rage, and objects flying around the room.

I turn around and face the others. "Wash," I say, "Take my bunk for tonight."

"No," he says, "I'm the best friend he has here. I need to be there for him."

"And you will be. But right now, he needs time to cool off. Since his family was near Utgard, they probably made it to the space elevators for evac." With this, I turn and walk over to the F.I.L.S.S. terminal, pulling a chair with me.

About half an hour later, I knock on Maine's door. "Maine?"

A muted growl from the other side.

"Hey, I managed to pull a list of survivors out of the ONI data banks. You want to see it?"

After about a minute of silence, Maine finally opens the door. The room is a mess; chairs, a table, and countless objects lay scattered like leaves in a storm. He holds out a hand for the list, and I notice his hands are covered in blood.

"Come out here. I need to get some bandages on your hands."

He shakes his head and holds his hand out further.

"Maine, don't make me pull medic authority."

He hisses and grudgingly steps outside. As we sit on a couch, he takes the list, leafing through it for a good five minutes. Suddenly he freezes, eyes locked on the paper.

"Maine?"

His eyes are fixed on a set of names reading "Recovered, caught in later Insurrectionist attack." All of them, except one, share the same last name.

A roar of pure anguish fills the rec room. All of the other Agents come running out of their rooms to see the problem.

"What's going on here?" demands Carolina, having returned from reporting to the Director.

Washington looks at the names on the list. "Oh, no," he says.

"What?" Carolina asks.

"His family and girlfriend made it off of Harvest, but were killed afterwards by Insurrectionists," Wash says. The rest of us gasp, shocked at the brutal irony.

Maine is now staring at a ring, previously unnoticed, on his right ring finger. He's sobbing, but no sound comes out.

"Oh my God," Wash says, "Maine, were you two...?"

"Yes," Maine whispers, "We were getting married next month."

Everyone gasps again, this time in sorrow. Most of us now have tears in our eyes.

"She brought out the best in me," he continues, "She made me something other than just a big man with anger issues. She was what made life worth living." He looks up, his eyes now filled with fire. "I'm going to kill them all. I'm going to kill every last Insurrectionist, and when I find the ones responsible for her death, no words will describe their suffering."

Wash steps closer and puts his hand on Maine's shoulder. The latter looks up at him. "Maine," Wash says, "We're all behind you on this."

"Hold on a minute," I say, "Let me see the date on the attack." Maine hands me the papers. "Huh. I remember this attack. The Insurrectionists attacked a military base where the Harvest survivors were being held. When their plan for evacuation went sour, they took hostages, and used them as leverage to get away. I was to be sent in to deal with the situation, but we couldn't stall them long enough to get me in there. I did get a look at the hostages, though. Do you have a picture of her?"

Maine gets up and disappears into his room. A few moments later, he comes back out with a framed photo. His bald head is about a foot above that of a small brunette girl, his brown eyes joyful as she embraces him and locks her blue eyes on the camera. Her brown hair is long, down to her shoulders, and Maine's left hand is reaching behind her back and up to her left shoulder to play with it a little. His massive frame, highlighted by a white and brown muscle shirt, dwarfs her. Both are laughing, and both look as happy as humanly possible.

My eyes widen in recognition. "That's her. She was one of the hostages. I have a near photographic memory. I know it's her"

Maine's face contorts with rage. "How can I find her?" he asks, voice dripping with unconcealed loathing.

"Before the Innies left, I managed to slip a small tracker on their ship. We tracked them to a small base on a nearby planet, but we were ordered to not pursue. Damn bureaucrats."

Maine gets up, knocking Wash over in the process, and storms into his room. Seconds later, I hear clicks as he begins assembling his armor.

"Maine," I say. No response. "Maine!" Still no response. I rush in, and grab his hand as he goes to put his shoulder plate on. He growls, looking like he wants to gut me. "Maine, listen to me. I know you want to storm in there and kill everything until you find her. But we need to do this right. If we mess this up, she'll be dead before we hit the dirt. If you want her back, we need to do this carefully."

After a thirty-second standoff, he nods and lowers his hand. "Good," I say. He takes off his armor and heads back into the rec room.

We all pull several of the couches and chairs into a circle and sit down. "First," I say, "We need intel. We need to know the base inside-out. Layout, defenses, garrison, everything. We also need current data on what's going on with the base at the moment. Then we need a plan, and permission from the Director to go through with this."

"I'll talk to the Director," Carolina volunteers, and goes to leave the room.

"Carolina," I tell her as she leaves, "Make sure to mention the incident in the hallway with the ODSTs. Tell him it was the squad commanded by one Sergeant Olovsky."

"Got it," she says, and leaves.

"I'll take care of the logistics," says C.T.

"And Florida and I will scout the base," Wyoming says, "Pending the Director's permission, of course."

"Alright," I say, "And remember: communication is critical. If Wyoming discovers something that invalidates some of C.T.'s intel, we need to know. I can safely say that if this goes belly-up, I won't be able to sleep at night. I'd bet you feel the same. Got it?"

I receive a resounding reply from every Freelancer in the circle, "Got it."

Maine cracks his knuckles and says, "Let's get ready to go hunting."

Everyone in the room shouts their agreement.

Author's Note: I know you think I'm being mean to Maine, but trust me, it'll have major implications later.

Also, I've been talking with other authors like UnknownNemesis98 and Anna1795. So get ready to see their OC's sometime in the near future.