Ballet secured his helmet and flight armor in the locker, sighing in relief as the constricting feeling of the skintight carbon fiber mesh disappeared from his body. He frowned and brushed a bit of dust off the titanium chest plate; the coating needed to get redone soon.

"Hey, Ballet, what's shakin'?" His front seater walked up behind him holding two steaming cups.

"Oh, Spinner, didn't see ya there. Just thinking about what we saw out there… I mean, we flew during the battle, but I didn't really believe it, you know? But actually seeing that, whole different thing, ya know?"

"Oh, I hear you. Well, they've got drinks going in the ready room. Wanna come?"

"Sure, give me a sec, gotta stow this here vac-gear. I swear, it never fi-"

"Gangway! Hit the walls!"

The two pilots reacted quickly to the shouted order. Spinner flattened herself against the wall while Ballet squeezed into his locker. A cluster of personnel wearing a veritable rainbow of uniforms raced by, crowded around something Book couldn't make out. They passed quickly, allowing him to - painfully - extract himself from his locker.

"Oh, God, the damn lox tank! My back! Uugh… Spinner, didja see what that was all about?"

"Yeah - that was the girl we stumbled on!"

"Really?" Ballet stepped into the middle of the corridor and peered at their rapidly receding backs. "Damn - wonder how she's gonna be?"

"Looked kinda messed up. Scratch that, really messed up. Well, if the tender graces of the HM1 - I mean, HMCS - have anything to say about it, she'll pull through. Hikowa's ego won't let it come to anything else." She looked for a little longer, then shrugged and handed Ballet one of the cups she'd somehow managed to keep from spilling.

A new pair of voices came to their ears, starting quietly but slowly getting louder. "Dammit! We lost them!"

"Don't you have a map?"

"I can't read it, it's too complicated!"

A set of footsteps sounded from behind them. Two girls dressed in UNSC Navy BDU's jogged into the corridor, postures radiating anxiety. One of them held a datapad, turning it every which way and scratching her head. The other looked around at the walls, reading every posted sign with a half-hopeful expression.

"Hey. Aren't those two…?"

"Yeah, we passed them on our landing pattern. Hey! Hey! You two!"

"Eh?" The two jumped in surprise, nearly tripping over themselves. "H-hey there, didn't see you."

"You're Dawn, right? And you're Amber. Or have I got it backwards…?"

"No, you're right. And… I'm sorry, I don't know your names?"

"Oh! I'm Spinner, and this is my lazy-ass, good for nothing Wizzo, Ballet."

"Hey! Don't call me good for nothing!"

"Ahem." Amber interrupted the pilots, holding out a datapad. "Sorry, but do you know the way to the medbay? We're trying to follow our… friend, but we got lost."

"Your friend? Oh, you mean that other girl." Spinner winced at the memory. "Sorry about that. She looked really roughed up."

"Yeah, that sounds like Spirit of Fire."

"Spirit of-" Ballet spewed a mouthful of coffee, eliciting a yelp of disgust from Dawn. "You say what?!"

"Eh heh heh, that was me as well. But in all seriousness, do you know where the sickbay is?"

"Well, yeah, sure! Come on, we'll take you there!"

/UNSC HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL/

/MEDICAL BAY STERILE FIELD - ON/

/LEVEL 4/

"Nanojector?"

"Check."

"Laser?"

"Check."

"Autodoc?"

"Check."

In a way, they were lucky. Being in vacuum meant most of the blood flow had boiled off, leaving behind a residue that formed a partial seal over the wounds. Unfortunately, it hadn't gone quite quickly enough.

"Do we have a match on the blood analysis yet?"

"No ma'am. Either we hit her up with the immunosuppressants or we operate without blood supply."

"No synthetic?"

"We used our entire supply back at Earth."

"Dammit. And you're absolutely certain we need to operate?"

"Collapsed lung. Bone fragments everywhere. Internal bleeding. Contusions on major organs. Yeah, she's basically a sack of skin holding together miscellaneous ground meats. By all rights, she should be dead."

"Fucking shit… just had to get out of fuckin' bed this morning." Hikowa went to rub her temples, but then remembered her presently bloodstained hands and thought better of it. "Okay. We know the music, let's dance the dance. Shevchenko, start up the suppressants."

"Yes ma'am, flow commencing."

"Lee, are the tissue regenerators prepped?"

"Got 'em right here."

"Autodoc?"

"Yes, corpsman. What may I do for you today?"

She took a deep breath in, settling her nerves, trying to enter that state in which she saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing, felt nothing except for the task in front of her. A monomolecular scalpel rested in her palm, the familiar weight giving her an anchor. The part of her mind that screamed holy shit she's the Spirit of Fire what the fuck is happening what the fuck am I doing what the fuck what the fuck ate a mental artillery barrage and shut up; her patient was a patient and her identity didn't matter. What mattered was that there was medicine to be practiced.

"Begin procedure: site one."

/UNSC INFINITY/

"Please, settle down." The air in the cramped room was nearly stifling, the ventilation systems not designed to cope with so many people. Commander Laumer tried to impose a semblance of order upon the herd as "Lieutenant Eichel" fiddled with a holoprojector behind him.

Garcia sat at the front, having arrived early to claim a folding chair for himself. Major Armandez, as nominal commander of ground forces, occupied the seat next to him. And as no chair could accommodate his fully armored bulk, Chief stood in the rear, still as a statue.

"Gotcha!" After much fiddling the holoprojector sprang to life, painting a three dimensional starscape in the air. Its appearance did what the commander couldn't, and a hush settled over the audience and allowing Laumer to begin the briefing.

"Yesterday, we succeeded in breaking the encryption on the recovered files. As our very first intel scoop from an Abyssal capital ship, we acquired a massive amount of information. The gathered data is still being analyzed by dedicated AIs, but they've seen fit to provide us with some interesting tidbits. Lieutenant Eichel?"

"Of course, commander." She stepped forward, gazing out over a sea of faces. A subtle wave of her hand, and the projection focused in on a single star system.

"Tau Primatus 40. Uninteresting, unimportant, unnoticed. Not worth so much as an unmanned probe - at least, until now."

The hologram blurred, the image refocusing and resolving itself. A rumble swept through the crowd as the focus of the briefing became apparent.

The dark, oblong, lumpy shape slowly rotated, suspended in space. Lights flickered along its flanks, small objects flitting in and out of openings hidden within its bulk. It passed in front of the local star, silhouetted against the glare of the red dwarf.

"From the files, this appears to be a minor Abyssal repair and replenishment station, designated as 128819-B. It's host to very little traffic, primarily functioning as a way station on the route between the front and Abyssal staging areas."

"Force deployment files pulled from the boarded Abyssal indicate that the station is currently host to a small flotilla, Abyssal designation Patrol Group 891-G. Composed of six I-class frigates, two Ha-class destroyers, and one Ho class light cruiser, the flotilla is meant to operate in a small region of space and report disturbances back to the Abyssal high command."

"So, in essence, this station and its current inhabitants are unimportant, unnoticed, and weak. In other words, perfect for our needs."

She ceded the stage to Laumer. "Ladies, gentlemen...," he sought for the appropriate word, "... ships. Admiral Lasky has greenlit this target. He believes this will be a good demonstration of our little project's potential for the brass. He's given us Level 5 asset requisition authorization and full leeway to do as we see fit. All he requires is that we get this done."

"Thank you commander, lieutenant." Garcia stood and addressed the room. "Alright people, we have our mission. I want force compositions, logistics requirements, timetables, on my desk by this time in two days. Let's get it done!"

"And in conclusion, that's why Longswords were, are, and will be the best multirole fighters ever devised, and why the Broadsword is shitastic, QED."

"Hey, hey, hey, you can't just diss the Broadsword like that! I'll take a Broad over a Long for aerospace superiority any day!"

"Oh, sure, Mr. 'Muh 30 millimeters are so much better than 50 millimeters', you just keep on dreaming."

"Why you-!"

"Boys, girls, as entertaining as this fight is, we're gonna have to break it up." Acting as one, Spinner and Amber reached out and grabbed ahold of their more hot-headed comrades. A brief smacking together of heads later and the journey to the sickbay resumed, this time more peacefully.

"So…" ventured Ballet, rubbing a fresh lump on his forehead, "You're actually what they say? You know, ship spirits from the Great War and all that?"

"Yep."

"Ah." He chewed on that for a bit. "So what was it like back then? Back when you guys were fighting the Covies?"

"Kind of like now, actually. Running low on everything, scrambling after every glimmer of hope, throwing hundreds of ships at a single planet just to lose them all. Really, the only difference is scale; you guys have freakin' thousands of ships."

"That reminds me, are the Covies still a thing? Nobody's bothered to tell me, I just assumed we'd made a truce with them or something."

"Huh." Ballet snapped his fingers. "About that. Spinner, didn't you go big game hunting on Doisac once?"

"Yeah, had the Brutes' heads and everything back home before home got glassed. I also hear Jackal meat tastes like chicken."

"Same, it's a delicacy back on Earth. Got a lot of hype when the first restaurants opened. I think we've got the Grunts slaving in the gas mines."

"True that. Little buggers finally making themselves useful, and for half rations at that. I think we feed them with Drones."

The kanmusu exchanged a surprised, if satisfied kind of smirk. "And the Prophets?"

"No one actually knows. ONI put a curtain around the system, nobody gets in or out. We don't ask, they don't tell. And frankly, I'm not sure I want to know what goes on in there."

"Well, that's pretty cool. Any news on the eli-"

"Move! Out of the way!" For the second time that day the pilots hit the walls. The kanmusu were not so quick on the uptake and thus found themselves on the receiving end of several hundred pounds of marines in a hurry.

"Pah!" A fresh size-10 regulation bootprint on her face, Dawn struggled to her feet, nursing the red mark. "What in the-"

"They're headed for the sickbay! Something's happening! Quick, let's go!" All pain forgotten, the four broke into a sprint, running down corridors which buzzed like a beehive sprayed with a hose.

"Hey-"

"What the-"

"What's goin-"

"-ere are yo-"

20 meters from the sickbay entrance, they skidded to a halt as a marine came flying out, slammed against the wall and slid to the floor in a daze. The sudden transformation of a fully armored soldier into a glorified ragdoll put a stop to their headlong dash. Ballet rushed to the marine's side, pulling him away from the doorway and propping him up.

"What's going on in there?!"

"Girl… fighting… can't control… too strong…" He trailed off and slumped into unconsciousness. Ballet cursed and slapped a medical beacon on the marine, marking him for pickup by the medics. When he looked up, Spinner had pressed herself against the wall beside the sickbay entrance, motioning for Ballet to stack up next to her. Maintaining proper breaching discipline, he took up a position on the other side of the door. He had to force down a lump in his throat; he was a pilot, not a marine! His job wasn't to clear rooms! It wasn't his job to deal with the source of those shouts, screams and thumps!

Spinner risked a peek around her corner, holding her head out for two seconds before whipping it back, face white as a sheet. Her expression wasn't doing anything for his nerves; just to check for proper placement, definitely not to comfort himself, he placed his fingers on the butt of his pistol.

His copilot jerked her chin towards the door. You go.

What? Frantically whipping his head back and forth, he pointed at her. No, you go!

You go!

No fucking way!

I'll tell Plushie about your comic stash!

… You wouldn't.

Try me!

Okay! Okay! I'll do it, I'll do it, just don't tell her! Jesus, anything but that!

As Spinner relayed the plan to the kanmusu, Ballet fit his hand around the grip of his pistol, flicking off the safety but keeping his finger far from the trigger. A quick eject confirmed 17 rounds of 12.7 mm SAPHE securely loaded in the magazine. He slapped the bullets back in, racked the slide back and held up three fingers.

"Three, two, one, go!"

He swung into the open as an empty biofoam canister sailed past his head, hitting the wall with an empty metal clang. He had no idea what to expect; perhaps a pysch patient had snapped and was attacking the medics. Perhaps someone had messed up a dose, or given the wrong drug and there'd been a bad reaction. Maybe a fight had broken out; really, even with modern medicine, there were so many things that could go wrong with a human body it was impossible to account for them all.

"What's going on i-"

"You! Get over here and help!"

"I-wha?" Blinking confusion, he lowered his pistol. The corpsman glared at him, gesturing violently.

"Are you brain-dead?! Get in there and fucking help!" The man turned back to helping his friend, slumped against an operating table with a trickle of blood running down the back of his neck. Not knowing what else to do, Ballet holstered the pistol and jogged towards the corpsmen crowded around another operating table.

"Um, hey, I was just wondering what's going on, is there anything I c-"

"Grab her arm!"

"Huh?" A corpsman grunted in pain, falling to her knees and clutching her stomach, opening up a space for Ballet to shoulder his way into the scrum and finally allowing him a clear view.

"What the fuck is thi-" A fist, wrenching itself loose from the hold of a marine, whipped towards his face. Uttering a distinctly unmanly squeak he caught the blow on his forearm, rattling his bones and leaving a mark that would be there for quite a while. With a savage lunge the soldier caught hold of the offending limb and pinned it down with Ballet's assistance.

"Jesus!" He stared at the scene laid out before him upon the table. Corpsmen, attempting to administer to their patient, wrestled legs and arms into submission, trying to clear a path for their comrades to aid their inexplicably uncooperative patient. Blood pooled everywhere, the result of scalpel cuts gone astray from the girl's thrashing. One use nanoinjectors lay scattered and forgotten, sedative doses expended in vain.

The huddle across from him parted to admit Spinner and two kanmusu. Medics looked askance at the sudden interlopers but accepted the assistance they offered anyway.

"Ballet, what the hell?!"

"I've no idea, don't ask me, ask them! She's their friend, they should know what's happening!"

The corpsman in charge, face obscured behind a surgical mask, finally got a tube down Spirit's throat, flicking the switch to start oxygen flow. Holding the flaps of skin and flesh apart with clamps, she pressed a nanoinjector against what appeared to be a lung, delivering its payload of medibots into the battered organ.

"Oh, thank fucking God that's done. Autodoc, clean up site one and move on-"

The medics nearly lost control of Spirit's limbs, clasping their ears as the head-splitting shriek of the biomonitors threatened to rupture eardrums. Her back arched upward, one final convulsion seizing her body before it fell back, still. Readouts spiked erratically, her vital signs giving the monitors seizures with activity.

"What the hell?!"

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck-"

"Adverse reaction, adverse reaction, she's rejecting the nanos!"

"Corrin, suppressants all the way up! Schmidt, isolate that area and trigger breakdown!"

Stepping back and watching the proceedings, Amber could already tell that they were futile. Conventional treatments weren't working; Spirit's physiology was simply too foreign, her injuries too severe. The playbook had nothing, no strategies, no tricks, nothing for the corpsmen to go on. Amber could see what little life remained trickling away.

Luckily for them, their playbook was not the only one around.

Damage control, on station!

DAMCON Team Five slumbered, wrapped up in standard issue UNSC blankets. They slept with one ear open, always ready for the blaring of the klaxon. Firefighting gear was never more than ten meters out of reach, and respirators seemed to be a permanent fixture around their necks. If the alarm sounded, they'd be fully awake in three seconds and geared up in two minutes, ready to patch breaches, put out fires and rescue the wounded. Now, though, there was no battle, no damage to repair, and so they sl-

ALERT

ALERT

DAMAGE CONTROL

MAN YOUR BATTLESTATIONS

In an explosion of movement, the fairies lept from their bunks and sprinted for their lockers. They grappled with the thick, white, fireproof fabric of their suits, wriggling into the protective outfits with practiced ease. Bulky atmosphere tanks and repair kits bouncing on their backs, they ran for their stations, feet pounding out a steady rhythm on the deck.

Skidding to a halt at their battle stations, they swung repair kits onto the ground, pulling out sealant, cutters, nanofiber mesh, collapsible airlocks and fire extinguishers. All keyed up and ready to go, the fairies searched for the fires, the holes, battle damage they were supposed to be putting right.

But there was none. No atmo leaks, no fires raging out of control. Unexpectedly without a purpose, they dropped their tools and stood around, confused and more than a little bit irked at having their rest interrupted. Several, seeing no work to be done, began to head back to their warm, soft bunks, cursing the officers who pulled the stunt.

Those officers suddenly made their presence known. With diagrams and holoprojectors they briefed the DAMCON teams on their actual mission. Confusion turned into understanding and irritation into determination. The fairies took possession of the charts, assessing the situation and hashing out the details. The more inexperienced among them took one look at the magnitude of the problem and declared it lost.

One fairy, considering the repairs that would be required, came to an unpleasant realization. He made eye contact with his group leader; she'd come to the same conclusion. The officer in charge nodded and handed over a small key.

Another fairy accepted the item and, along with the commander, stood in front of a pair of recessed slots. As one they inserted the keys and turned, popping open a heavy metal panel and exposing a large vial of green glowing liquid.

"Admiral Garcia?"

"Yeah?" He looked up from the datapads spread out on his temporary desk. "Oh, you two. What's up?"

"We're here to talk supplies, hm~?"

"Supplies?" His stomach climbed into a drop pod and fell from high orbit without retro rockets. "W-well, Admiral Lasky has given us access to the supply depots, but I don't how much we have on hand…"

"It's not that. I, well, Autumn?"

"Here." She felt around behind her neck and, with a small chink, pulled out a small metal tube. Garcia's eyes followed it down to his desk - where had that thing come from? He eyed it suspiciously, unwilling to make physical contact with a manifestation of sparkly magic anime shipgirl bullshit.

"That's my last Archer. And when I say last, I mean last, hm~?"

"She's right. I had an inventory done, I'm the only one with something like full magazines."

He groaned, letting his head fall into his hands. "Well, what do you want me to do about it?"

"Just lettin' you know. If we go in as we are, we could probably take them, but it's gonna hurt a helluva lot more than if we had ammo."

"I'll be sure to take that into account. Thank you for letting me know."

"Sir!" They each snapped a quick salute before turning and disappearing into the crowd. Garcia was left with another problem on his quickly mounting pile of problems.

"Goddammit. And where the hell am I supposed to get the ammo from?"

"Hand me an 'Italian' wouldja?"

"You can tell the difference?"

"No." Dawn caught the meal pouch and tore the cover, activating the embedded heating strip. Thirty seconds later steam wafted up from the spinach ravioli. She shook open a synthetic cheese packet, poured herself a cup of water, sat down against a counter and tucked into the filling, if not exactly tasty, meal.

Choking down another mouthful of pasta, she peeked over at Spirit's immobile form. A forest of IV lines snaked around her arm, delivering precious fluids into her bloodstream.

"Hey, do you have any chocolate in yours?"

"Shit, sorry man, all I got is these shitty little taffies."

Dawn perked up from her food. "Taffy?"

"Yeah… why?"

"Trade you this mochi."

"Done!" She slid the rice cake over and took possession of the little candies. Popping one in her mouth, Dawn savored the sweet stickiness, rolling it around with her tongue and trying to shape it with her teeth.

"Well, I don't know what the fuck was in that needle, but it seems to have worked. Magic sparkly anime shipgirl bullshit or not, count yourself lucky I didn't have you shot as soon as you pulled out that needle." Hikowa threw her surgical mask on a table, grabbed a meal pouch and ripped it open. She took a look at the contents and blanched but poked her fork in anyway, extracting a piece of… what was allegedly "meat".

"When do you think she'll wake up?"

"Who the fuck knows?" Despite the blunt words a worried look shaded her countenance. "Whatever you jabbed in seems to have stabilized her condition - actually, more than stabilized. She's knitting herself back together faster than anything I've ever seen before; even nano doesn't work that fast." Her eyes lit up a little at the mention of the instant repair liquid. "You know, I'm going to need a sample of that sometime. For science, you understand."

"Right…" Tuning out the buzz of conversation, Dawn let her head fall back against the cold metal of the counter and closed her eyes. The hum of the ship forging its way through slipspace made its way into her bones, the pulse of the reactor and the rumbling of the thrusters producing a kind of background bass that settled her mind and body. With so much free time on her hands and nothing really to do with it her thoughts began to wander, dangerously so.

What were they supposed to do now? They'd protected Earth, repulsed the Abyssals, but only momentarily. The momentum, the initiative was on the side of the alien juggernaut. Everything that had happened was only a temporary setback for the xenos and unless they could capitalize on their small successes the Abyssals would roll right over them. Dawn hoped people smarter than her were coming up with some good plans because, from her perspective, with no ammo, no numbers and no backup, their situation was pretty fucking hopeless.

"Ugh…" Heads snapped around in shock. Hikowa dropped her meal, mouth gaping.

"What-how-how is she awake?!"

Failing to sit up, Spirit settled for letting her head fall back against the pillows at an angle that permitted her to see the room. Dawn strained to hear her whisper in a weak voice which barely carried over the shouting of the medics swarming around her.

"Where… where am I?"

It was said that the UNSC sourced its coffee from the pits of hell, grown in the fields of torment and roasted in rivers of hellfire then passed through Cerberus' digestive system like some kind of demonic kopi luwak. It was said that no man knew true suffering until he had gone through Spartan augmentations, survived a plasma grenade, and tasted UNSC coffee.

That, reflected Berlin, was being too kind to the foul brew in front of her. She made a mental note to have Washington seriously investigate the possibilities of using the sludge as a bioweapon and tossed the entire thing into a recycler. The machine got to work breaking the thing down into component atoms, the normally quiet disassembly mechanisms emitting a groan that sounded almost disgusted.

"Blegh. Gonna need mouthwash from the PX."

"My deepest condolences."

"Geh?!" She jumped and spun, landing in a half crouch, ready to fight or run at a moment's notice. Her surprise sympathiser put his hands up defensively, backing away from her like one would from a hissing cat.

"Easy there, ensign. I mean no harm."

"Oh, Jesus, don't scare me like that! Sorry, I'm just a little jumpy today."

"Oh I understand. We all have jobs to do, don't we?" An eyebrow arched over a green tinted projection visor. "Still, it would be nice to have a vacation. I hear Berlin is nice this time of year."

A shiver ran down Berlin's spine. It could have been a coincidence, but the mention of the German capital held held more meaning behind it than appropriate for casual conversation. As evenly as possible she replied, "Yes, I suppose so."

"Indeed. My family is in Beijing, but I spent my childhood in Berlin. Have you ever been there?"

"Once or twice. I have a friend there, she works for Occupation Networking Innovations."

"Does she?" His face remained expressionless, but Berlin swore she could sense smugness hidden behind that visor. "Well, Agent, I think that I would like to meet this friend of yours sometime."

"Is that you, Beijing?"

"Quite so. I'd imagine our dear Wash told you about me?"

"Yeah, though he didn't give me specific details, just said you'd find me."

"Good to see that boor is finally exercising some basic discretion." Beijing produced two cups of steaming brown liquid and proffered one. "Shall we, as they say, walk and talk?"

Berlin took the cup and sniffed, inhaling a rich aroma a world away from the weak smell of UNSC instant. The coffee was like a starburst on her tongue, and she nearly cried from the strong, smoky flavor.

"Ahem." Snapping out of her caffeine-induced ecstasy, Berlin hurried to catch up to her fellow IntSec operative, taking careful sips from the cup.

"How are things back home? It's been awhile since I've been back."

"Same shit different day. Ration lines still long as fuck, people are getting drafted left and right and seems like there's a new Innie bombing every week. The cops kick down a door every other day - hell, couple months ago I got dragged into the questioning room. Would still be there if Paris hadn't been in town and bailed me out."

"In essence, as good as could be hoped for?"

"Right in one." Her coffee didn't taste as good anymore now that she remembered how scarce the food was back on Earth. The flavor now carried with it a tinge of guilt as she recalled the ration lines winding through the streets and the cries of the hungry children in her apartment building.

"You should feel lucky. Earth is far better off than most worlds. Many planets would consider standing in ration lines a privilege." He polished off his beverage and tossed in a recycler. "Trust me when I say we are the lucky ones. Now, I'm sure you realize this is more than a courtesy call."

"Does it have to be?"

"Yes. Lasky's pet project has been ruffling some feathers back at base. You know the tall, brown haired, vulgar one?"

"Oh yeah, Everest. Why?"

"Osman's been fuming ever since Hood pulled her out of Sydney." A slight smile broke Beijing's impassive facade. "'Twas quite a sight to behold. Unlike most, however, she has the resources to make something out of that grudge."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Well - actually, let's have a demonstration." He made a beeline for a sailor who'd just emerged from a compartment, Berlin trailing in his wake. "Hello there, sailor."

"Oh, hello! What's up?" The sailor's friendly expression turned suspicious as Beijing drew close. "Hold on, you're ONI, aren't you?"

"I suppose I am. I also suppose you wouldn't mind having a little chat, as a fellow spook?"

The sailor turned pale. "I-I don't what you're talki-"

"Spare me." Beijing's arm flickered, a movement so fast Berlin couldn't follow it. The sailor crumpled to the ground with a choked gasp, hands clutching his neck. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell still.

Beijing knelt down and took his pulse. Whatever he came up with, it seemed to satisfy him. "Help me get this lout somewhere more discreet."

Mutely, Berlin complied, picking the sailor up by his feet. Together they carried the insensate man into an empty supply room, sealing the door behind themselves.

"Thank you." Working quickly, Beijing flipped the sailor onto his front. With some deft needle work he extracted a blood sample and plugged it into his TACPAD, nodding at whatever came up on the screen. "As I thought." He tilted the screen for Berlin to look.

"What's this… Tyler Osbourne… CLRINT55… Section Three?"

"Osman's on the warpath. She's going to sabotage this program if it's the last thing she does." He looked down at the body at his feet with a rare sneer of contempt. "And since Washington can't be bothered to off her himself, it's our job to stop her. So come on. Help me get this trash into the recycler."