A/N – Hey guys. Sorry for the long break! My writing attention is split between this and another story at the moment, not to mention real-life priorities (I hate exams.) I'll try and write more of this as and when I am able, and when I can think of something worthwhile. Anyway, enjoy the read.

"You want to know why we're orbiting Kholo?" Edmunds mused with no small amount of shock.

"Yeah," Peter leant against the holo-table and panned his eyes across the decrepid city-scape it had created. "Lost in the war, wasn't it? What good Is it to us?"

"Well," Edmunds swallowed hard, reinvigorating his toothy grin. "We don't know!" He chuckled.

"What do you mean, we don't know?" The ODST seethed. All of this, being kept in the dark, it suited ONI agents maybe; but not him.

"After she escaped us last time," Edmund's gaze fell onto Peter's prosthetic, and he grit his teeth, "We tracked her to this world. No idea why; guess you'll have to ask when we bring her in!"

"And why are we bringing her in?" Peter spoke slowly. His patience was waning, and from the way that Edmund's grin sank slightly, and the way his lips crept closer together, so was his.

"Why, don't you jarheads ever listen?"

With that comment, something snapped. Peter found himself vaulting the table, his eyes fixed on Edmund's irritating grin. His prosthetic arm seemed to act by itself as it gripped the ONI agent's collar and tore him up so that his feet were trailing limp across the floor. The spook bleated with fright:

"She's a murderer! You know this! Let me go!" He ordered. Peter brought his other fist up quickly, pulling it away before it met Edmund's temple. Getting the hint, he added a quick "Please!"

"So why do you want her alive?"

"The equipment, it's too expensive, you see-" Peter grunted with discontent, "-Plus, we want to rehabilitate her! Surely you, now, know what it's like to be different? To be something not-fully-human, like her? I want to use you to help her!"

Peter's senses returned. It was as if the responsibility that this gave him made him restrain himself at last. He felt warm; it was a compliment to be relied on so greatly, especially by a spook. Part of him didn't believe him; why would he? Edmunds was strange at the best of times. But most of him desperately wanted to believe that he had a use on this mission, and so could only smile warmly at the officer, who brushed himself off and ironed out the crease in his collar.

"Now, enjoy your time in stasis." Edmund's smile returned, but it was laced with condescension now.

Peter's thankful smile dissolved. He heard heavy boots behind him, heard the cathartic click of a magnum being cocked. He felt the cold iron against the back of his head.

A horseshoe of onlookers had already formed around the hallway, as the security guided Peter out. He willed himself to look. On the left were a field of scolding grimaces, of exchanged, insulting mutterings and concealed laughing. These were the spooks, of course, and to them the machinations and downfall of a disgruntled, barbaric littlejarhead must have been nothing more than entertainment, to break up an otherwise dull routine.

On the right, it was different. Billy stood in the centre of ten-or-so marines, technicians and other assorted people, not attached to ONI. Some of them looked with anger and embarrassment, like the spooks. But most looked disappointed. They hid their faces from his gaze and from the gaze of the boys in black that jeered beside them. Billy, especially, looked traumatised; like a child that's silently begging to be embraced.

He thanked the guards for speeding up to overtake the crowd, because it made him feel like shit. He was busy trying to explain to himself what had happened, and why; it all went too quickly for him. Maybe if he was a Spartan…

As the guards spread out in a large, cold room, each side housing a row of cryo-pods, and beckoned him into one, Peter felt a sudden likeness with that Spartan. He'd got the answers he wanted, at least. He listened to the noise of the cryo-pod closing on him and closed his eyes as his temperature entered free-fall and his body froze up.

-x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—x—

The pod screeched and hissed as mechanisms that had gone dormant struggled back to life. The door swung open and the shock-trooper flopped out, his body limp. His feet caught him at the last second, just before he collapsed to the floor. He stretched his fingers and shook his legs, and looked all about him, as the icey flakes that coated his visor began to recede in the relative warmth. He felt himself gasping in shock.

The hall was empty, and almost pitch black. The only light came from the dance of a deep, yellow strobe light, which spun about the room from the centre of the ceiling. He couldn't make anything out; the light passed on too quickly. Accompanying this was the wail of an alarm. Peter instinctively swung his hand to his hip, hissing in pain; there was nothing there. Of course there wasn't. Shit.

"I see you are awake." A voice spoke in hushed whispers, through the trooper's helmet.

"Lucifer," Peter choked. "What's going on?"

"Oh, I believe Just Peter can answer that himself."

Peter gulped. Of course he could. He wasn't an optimist like Sean; wasn't naïve like Billy. "Lizards or Monkeys?"

"Pardon, sir?"

"What are we dealing with?"

"I don't know, Just Peter." The ODST grunted and kicked the base of the nearest cryo-pod with his foot. A loud clang rang out.

"If Just Peter's trying to die," The articulate, condescending voice mused, "I assure him that he's going about it quite effectively!"

"Which way to the med-bay, Luce?" He caught himself asking that. It panicked him; he genuinely couldn't remember. His memory was like a piece of paper that had holes born through it; he could remember the general things, of course, but not the little things. He didn't know where the med-bay was, didn't know what the name of the ship was that he was currently stood on, no doubt shaking like a frightened child in the blare of the alarm.

The AI gave directions, and Peter began to follow them. He managed to get through the first hall unopposed, and he felt a relief as the sound of the wailing alarm began to fall behind him. He hadn't seen any evidence of a fight, here… but then again, the ship wasn't that big, nor that densely populated. It was possible that he Covenant simple hadn't faced anyone in this section, as isolated as it was from the rest of the ship.

Then, as he approached another door, he stopped. He heard a thick chorus of buzzing, from many sources all at once. He froze, crouching in the corner of the hall, to the right of the door, and planning his next move.