"Ah, shit," Zeke swore, elbow deep in Warthog parts. "This one's not going to start without days of work. I can't even do a hack patch in less than two days."

"Just going to have to go without, then," Nate said. "How did it happen?"

"I don't know. Best guess, the tree it hit on the way down did this damage. That, or somebody's an idiot."

"I'd like to assume it was the tree," Eli cut in. "Best not to alienate the normal people."

"Normal? Them?" Raph eyed a group of Helljumpers. "I think not."

"Shall I clarify? Normal compared to us."

"Oh, well in that case, sure."

"Stow it," Nate ordered. "Enough talking. I know we're still waiting for a few ODSTs to turn up, but if you have time to talk, you're not working hard enough!"

Nate climbed up a tree, the better to survey the area. His sharp eyes picked up a little rebel activity to the east; what looked like a patrol of about six to eight men jogged across a clearing. Nate double-counted and came up with eight. He could easily have taken them all out with his sniper rifle, but opted to leave them be.

The element of surprise would prove useful, if he could maintain it.

Eli joined him up the tree. "Surveillance?"

"I can see for miles, but I can't see through these damned trees. I need someone I trust down on the forest floor, keeping an eye out for trouble."

"I can put Lin and Zeke on it?"

"Good idea. Zeke can't do anything else for that 'Hog."

Eli disappeared for a moment. Nate closed his eyes and listened carefully to the forest, giving himself over to his senses completely. There was a lot of life in the forest, but the only thing remotely close to humanoid was the monkey-like native tree-dwellers Zeke kept calling Triffids. That wasn't their actual designation, but the designation was long and hard to remember. Nate would hear a human coming a mile away. His ears were sharp enough that, given a chance to concentrate on specifics, he could even tell the difference between the sound of a UNSC soldier and the sound of an Insurrectionist.

Eli returned. Nate did not open his eyes, instead focusing more deeply on what his ears told him.

"They're on it," Eli informed him, quietly so as not to overload him.

"Good," Nate said, matching Eli's volume out of habit more than out of necessity. "I can hear someone coming. Two – no, three. Helljumpers, I think. One woman, two men, all experienced."

Eli nodded and relayed the message to the ground teams.

"We got eyes on," Zeke said a few seconds later. "Nate was right, it's Helljumpers. Two more and we're good to go." The tech added the names of the three to the 'present/accounted for' list. That list included two Helljumpers who had died in their pods thanks to turbulence, and another whose pod had landed in a lake. That one had drowned.

The branch Nate was on creaked. He moved to another branch. It had held this long but that didn't mean it wouldn't give way. He sighed. "Eli, keep an eye out up here. I'm headed back down. I can do more good on the ground than up a tree."

"Always knew you was outta yer tree," a Marine said. Nate controlled the urge to laugh, and dropped out of the tree to land cat-like on the ground. Still he kept his eyes closed and used his ears to navigate.

"I can hear two more," he said cautiously. "I can't tell whether they're ours or the enemy… I want you all on alert, weapons ready, but don't fire until I say so."

"Sir, yes, sir!" several voices confirmed. Nate didn't pay enough attention to them to know how many or whose voices they were.

He opened his eyes. The forest was too thick for him to see anything just yet, though he knew that without all these trees in the way the unidentifieds were well within visual range.

"Friendlies inbound," the two approaching humans called on the comms. "Lieutenants Carol Beck and Hanson Firth of the 105th."

"Welcome home, brother and sister," a Helljumper replied warmly.

"That's everyone," Zeke confirmed. Nate watched the 'absent/unaccounted for' list disappear, and a second later, the two new names were added to the 'present/accounted for' list, which also disappeared when he flashed his acknowledgement light green.

"All right, everyone, standard formation. Spartans at the head, then Helljumpers, and then Marines. Form up and move out!"

"Sir! Yes, sir!"

-LATER-

Predictably, the fighting was fierce. Nate and Eli held back, sniping from cover, while the rest of Angel Team fought at or near the front. Raph was a few rows back with his rocket launcher. Cas waded into the Insurrectionist troops and started killing with his knife. Once he lost that in an Innie's neck, the close-quarters expert opted for his bare hands instead. He snapped necks, shattered arms, cracked skulls, and caused mayhem.

The Spartans had the advantage of energy shields and special armor, but the Marines and Helljumpers did not, and as such they fell at almost as alarming a rate as the Innies. Nate frowned and fired off four quick shots. As he reloaded, he muttered to himself about how Command could be completely idiotic sometimes.

"Where's the point in it? We're losing as many as we're killing. Damn it, this was an idiotic tactic, and I knew it… I could have prevented this, all it would have taken was one order to send half the troops around to flank them…"

"That would be insubordination, and Command would be distinctly unimpressed."

"I know, Andi, I know."

"Andi? I like it. You're giving me nicknames now. Am I growing on you?"

"Andromeda's kind of long." Nate kept firing as he talked; he was unwilling to admit it but the AI was right… maybe she wasn't so bad. As he watched the fight, he saw one Helljumper lob a grenade. "Watch out, Cas, there's a frag in there somewhere. Whoever threw that – be more careful, there's a Spartan in there!"

"I see it," Cas said. "Hm, nice throw."

The grenade exploded, along with a good ten or fifteen Innies, and set off a couple of grenades that were on dead enemies' grenade belts. Blood and dirt was flung in every direction, along with a few relatively intact body parts.

"Ugh," Cas grunted. "Guts on my armor. Lovely. I take back what I said about a nice throw."

"Be sure to hose off before we get out of here," Eli said.

"He'd-" BOOM "-better." Raph reloaded his rocket launcher for the tenth time. "Last two rockets, guys. Gotta make 'em count!"

"Shoot for the back, if you can get an angle," Nate said. "I can see the target, but I can't get a good shot."

"Nah, I'm too low down, gotta go for the front. Where's Eli sniping from?"

"A tree to your five o'clock. Eli, do you have an angle? I'll mark the target in your HUD." Nate did so.

"Not quite, but I can hurt him from this angle. Perhaps badly enough to kill him. Depends on how fragile he is." CRACK. "Got him. Yeah, really bad angle. I might've hit one of his kidneys. He'll be in a world of pain, but he won't die for a while… not until he bleeds out and that's only going to happen if they don't have biofoam."

"I'm going forward," Nate said, and started leaping from branch to branch, tree to tree.

"Careful. If you get hurt, we can't get you out."

"I know. I've got this."

"If you get to this place," Andromeda said, placing a marker in Nate's HUD, "you will have an excellent angle for a headshot. At this range, with your training, it would be impossible to miss."

"Thank you, Andi." Nate wasted no time in getting to the indicated position. The marker disappeared. He turned back to the fight, located his target, and fired.

"Nice shot."

"Thanks. You helped." Nate slung his rifle across his back and pulled out his knife, leaping down from the tree a moment later. He was of a mind to emerge from the battle with red armor, mostly to confuse the hell out of Anderson who would be expecting Cas to be the only newly-bright-red Spartan.

Immediately, he was surrounded by Insurrectionists who were either too brave or too stupid to keep their distance from a Spartan wielding a large combat knife. Nate leapt, ducked and dodged, jabbing enemies with his knife as he did so. Before long, blood slicked the handle, and his vision was obstructed by a splatter across his visor.

"Zeke," he said.

"Sir?"

"I need the stats."

"UNSC casualties fifty-two and rising steadily. Enemy casualties, uncertain. Likely in excess of one hundred. Rising quickly. Percentage chance of a UNSC victory is 96% and holding steady. We will, however, suffer many more losses before this battle is through."

"Projected estimates?"

"We will do well to have fifty survivors, sir. General Anderson was painfully correct when he said this would be a bloody engagement."

"We'd all be dead by now if the bombers hadn't taken out all the gun turrets," Lin reminded everyone.

"Watch out, they're making another run," Zeke warned.

"Cas, fall back to minimum safe distance," Nate ordered. "I won't have any of my Spartans lost in this conflict."

"Sir!" Cas confirmed. Nate could easily see the big Spartan, who stood two and a half feet taller than the tallest normal human on the battlefield. Cas was just shy of nine feet tall, and shoved enemies out of the way, snapping all manner of bones as he went. Nate was in the middle of the enemy forces, but already outside minimum safe distance, so he kept on fighting.

Death fell from the sky. The ground exploded and sent Nate flying. He somersaulted in midair and landed on his feet, but slid backwards six feet and nearly lost his balance. He had to step backwards to keep himself from falling flat on his back. Blood and dirt coated everything in a fine layer, so that the world was a bright-and-somber mix of red and black-brown.

Nate and his team led the surviving ODSTs and Marines in mopping up the last if the Insurrectionists. Operation BLITZKRIEG had indeed lived up to all expectations of being a swift, bloody and dangerous operation, and based on orders, was a success. Nate could not bring himself to feel satisfaction at the outcome. Too many good men and women had been lost in the course of the battle.

"Is anybody hurt?" Lin asked over the comms. "Anyone at all?"

Not, Nate thought, in a way a medic can help…

"Don't take the blame for this."

"It is partly my fault."

"Could you have directly disobeyed orders from the Admiralty, Nate?"

"No."

"Then how is it your fault?"

"I could have done more. I should have done more."

"It's not your fault. Don't you dare blame yourself."

"Andi…"

"Fine. Don't come crying to me when you fail your next psych eval."

"Andromeda, for the love of peace, stop it. Stop trying to control how I react to things. My reactions are mine, not yours." Nate unslung his rifle, partly to keep himself from punching something, and partly to keep himself from ejecting Andromeda's chip and throwing it away. That would not go down well with ONI.

"I'm… sorry."

Nate ignored her.


AN: Didn't take quite the turn I expected... next chapter, then, the surprise! Sorry, another bad one. It's nearly 6am and I haven't slept... BAD ARIANE BAD! -kicks self-

...Anderson DID say it would be quick and bloody...

As always, please review! Tell me what you like, what you don't like, if you see any continuity/grammar/spelling errors... what you would like to see in future chapters... the works. Cookies are still available for the person who correctly guesses the surprise, when it eventually comes!

Halo en't mine. Story and characters are.