Chapter 25
"Hit a Wall"

"There is nothing permanent except change." — Heraclitus, 4th century BC

Insurrectionist safe house, 0301 hours
Andromeda Galaxy

"It's strange seeing them all again," Sam admitted. "It almost feels surreal, like all of this might be a dream."

John didn't respond. They should be asleep, gaining their strength before the next attack, but there were too many reasons to stay awake. Or, more accurately, there was one reason. As Sam had observed, the pair rarely had time alone together, and when they did, that time was either occupied with a more physical reunion or discussing the mission. This night was different. Neither had articulated it, but there was an unspoken rule underlining their conversation that the Zeniths, the UNSC, and the mission were off the table. Instead, they tried to regain lost time.

"I think I feel so far from who I used to be. The memories feel ever farther. Paul reminded me today that I stole his truck when I was about 13," she recalled suddenly and laughed at the memory. Her chin was propped up on one palm, and she lay partly on her stomach, partly supported by the Spartan. Staring past John to the headboard above him, her eyes became distant. "I'd completely forgotten about that, but when he said it, I could picture it like it was yesterday: Lyra and I had had a fight, and I was a runner back then, so... I think it had something to do with being stuck on Reach all those years. It was a wonder Lyra didn't give up on me. I asked her about it years ago, and she told me some psychiatrist had said that the running was like a post-traumatic symptom. I had claustrophobia at the time too, so anytime I felt trapped or confined—literally or figuratively—something would just snap." She snapped her fingers to capture that sensation. "I had to run."

From what John recalled, the claustrophobia hadn't faded with age in the way Sam suggested it had. She had been pale as a ghost when they emerged from the cramped service corridor back at the Ivanoff Research Station. He wasn't surprised, though, that her pride wouldn't let her own the weakness even now in bed with him. She was stubborn, if nothing else.

"I hadn't felt that way for years," she continued, oblivious to John's thoughts.

The Spartan was content to give her the stage while he relaxed back into the bed. He faced the uneven ceiling overhead but was more attentive to the hand on Sam's thigh, that thumb idly sweeping across the smooth skin as she spoken. One comment, though, tugged his attention to concentration.

"Not until I was with Hiro." Sam was still looking distantly at the headboard and hadn't noticed John subtly stiffen beside her. "The first couple of months weren't so bad. I was too busy healing to really think about what was outside those walls. And then one night, it just happened." She swallowed thickly, and her attention flickered to the Spartan. His face was illuminated by the thin headboard light, and evidently Sam didn't like what she saw because she looked at the headboard again. "I could feel the walls closing in on me, and I snapped. I ran."

Sam laughed in an abrupt, hollow way. "I didn't make it two blocks before I saw Shin standing there. He had this sneer on his face. I wanted to rip out his eyes just to…" The hand on John's chest that had been preoccupied drawing aimless designs stilled suddenly, and the fingers acted like talons as if Sam could reach into that memory to accomplish what her words threatened. Then, as quickly, her hand relaxed again. "He dragged me back—I couldn't even fight him off—and took me to Hiro like I was a dog to be punished… And now every time I look at Shin, I think about that night. He reminds me how weak and powerless I was."

"You're not going back there," John told her.

At this, Sam considered him and smiled weakly, that one expression speaking volumes more than what she shared next. "Back on the Vallarta, you asked what he said to me… He told me, 'Everyone has to pay their debt.' I owe Hiro, and I can't repay that debt."

Despite the light overhead, his face shaded to hear her speak that way. "You don't have to come with me," he decided, "but you're not going back there."

This comment caused a real smile to flash across her features, but as quickly as it came, it faded.

John paused in an indefinite way and then said, "I didn't know it was like that. I would have come." Now that she offered a small glimpse of her time with the yakuza, it was obvious to John that he had somehow known all along. The minute John had learned about Sam's location in the yakuza vacation home, he had identified it as prison, but in the month that followed, he had convinced himself otherwise. She had looked peaceful, happy, and safe in the picture his informant shared with him. John recognized now that he should have trusted his gut. If he had, it was entirely possible Rook never would have gotten his hands on Sam, and ONI wouldn't have had an excuse to break the ceasefire. He stopped those thoughts before they led him in circles.

"I never would have asked you to do that," she confessed and effectively regained John's attention. "I wanted you to have a normal, boring life without me."

"Normal and boring have never described my life," he returned.

She smiled and tilted her head slightly. "I know. That's why I wanted it for you. You deserve it after everything."

Catching her gaze, he looked past the bruises to the features he recognized. It was a face that had haunted him for months and made a normal, boring life impossible. It wasn't in his nature to say such things, but he admitted in a low tone, "When I woke up from surgery, the only life I could think of having was with you."

The honesty caught Sam unguarded, and that gentle smile stalled and died on her face. She licked her lips nervously. "What if we leave?" She whispered it with a sudden, blunt force. The intensity from her gaze penetrated the muted light, and her sincerity was unavoidable. "We started this. We fought so much already. Let them finish it."

John didn't answer.

Even if Sam knew he would never leave, a disappointment weighed on her. She waited and hoped for the impossible.

"I want you to stay with Lyra," John said instead. "Stay with her until this is over."

All at once, her expression morphed to mirror her disagreement. "We're a team, right? I've got your six. I'm not going to leave you."

John looked up at the ceiling once more as she recited the words he had told her days ago. It was difficult to think of the decision he had to make when she argued with his own logic. It occurred to him that the honorable approach would be to tell Sam now about the team's concerns, but once he said those words aloud, he knew he might lose her. His hand slid from her thigh over her hip and into the curve of her waist.

"It's already 3," Sam realized with a groan. "In a couple of hours, everything goes back to normal."

The Spartan was still avoiding the inevitable when he told her, "Get some sleep. It'll be a long day tomorrow."

Never one to take orders, Sam moved to straddle his waist where she was unavoidable. He gripped her hips and gazed up at her wearing only a kitten smile. "I'm not ready to give this up just yet," she told him, and her hair pooled on his chest when she bent over to kiss him.

O O O

0623 hours

John pushed the wet pieces of hair from his eyes. He needed a haircut and a shave, but being too clean-cut drew attention. His size generally gave him away, but he'd found in the months that he was on leave from the military that the crew cut and clean face often solidified suspicions about his origins; the beard hid many of his scars, on the other hand, and his longer hair made him appear less menacing to the average civilian. Among the many topics they had discussed in place of sleep, Sam had admitted to liking the "new look," which fit with a certain irony. He didn't appreciate the sensation of being so unkempt every morning after a career in the military. It was like an itch just under the surface of his calm exterior. The rebel would naturally be a fan.

The coffee was at least an hour old, but John wasn't especially particular about these things. He appreciated the ritual of a hot cup in the morning to give his days the illusion of some structure. Sipping at the burnt coffee, he was distracted by movement at the front windows. Outside he saw Paul stalking across the front yard, rifle dutifully slung across his shoulder. His head was down monitoring his approach toward the ranch home, so that he didn't notice the Spartan standing in the window. John estimated Paul's route, trying to better understand what the man was doing outside early in the morning armed and walking through the fields. The chief petty officer's behavior felt more familiar than many of the other Insurrectionists John had encountered, and he'd come to realize that often signaled a background in the military. But that didn't mean John trusted the man.

Remembering the security system, John hesitated with his hand on the doorknob.

"Ex-excuse me."

The Master Chief turned to see Paul's son, Willy, standing behind him with two coffees in hand. Unlike his father, Willy didn't sport his rifle indoors, but a pistol was attached to his right thigh. He was strong but thin with more height than weight to balance him out. He was tanned like his father but lacked the lines of age or grey to mature him. He looked no more than 20 years old. Just a kid, John recognized.

When the Spartan didn't move, Willy said, "I need to get by, Master Chief."

John assessed the situation in seconds and exploited the young man's apprehension. He assumed his full height with a serious, stern look that could snap any soldier to attention.

Willy swallowed thickly as he stared up at the Spartan.

"I've got it," he said and took one of the cups. "Get the door."

The young man hesitated, looking briefly alarmed that he was being asked to let one of the Spartans out of the home. He glanced out the window where Paul was undoubtedly approaching closer. When he returned his attention to the Spartan, John's features had settled further, adding a hard edge to his already intimidating expression. The young man immediately looked at his feet to avoid that intense stare and then moved toward the security key pad on the interior to punch in the code. He opened the door for the Master Chief who stepped out into the twilight.

Dawn had broken about half an hour earlier. He'd seen the first rays peer through the upstairs window and climb up Sam's naked thighs. Despite his rugged appearance, the stale coffee, and the mission looming on the horizon, he had to admit it was a good morning.

"It's alright, Will. Don't worry about the alarm. I'll be in in a minute," Paul said in response to whatever expression his boy wore. The young man had followed John out onto the porch, but at his dad's comment, he retreated back inside and closed the door behind him. Paul kicked the mud off his boots before he took the first two steps up onto the patio. Accepting the cup of coffee, he addressed the Spartan, "Thanks, Chief. Getting cabin fever already?"

"I saw you outside," he responded in explanation. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah," Paul assured him. He eased his way into one of the worn rocking chairs and set his rifle across his laps. "I installed some sensors yesterday before y'all arrived. One of them got tripped. Looks like it was just a coyote. They're getting braver now that the food's getting slimmer."

John had followed the officer over to the pair of rocking chairs. This close he could detect any signs of a lie, but Paul's breathing remained even, he sat relaxed in the seat, and he gave just enough information but not too much. John wasn't entirely convinced, but he was generally careful around new faces.

"I'd think twice about that," Paul said, assuming John's looming presence was due to an internal debate of whether the vacant chair would hold him. "I keep waiting on this one to give out." He paused indefinitely, rocked again, and smiled. "Not yet."

The Spartan ignored the available chair and instead walked over to the edge of the porch, casting his gaze across the open fields. This early in the day, a pale haze covered the fields, the air was still subtly sweet from the dew, and the heat hadn't yet set in. As a result, the cows had wandered out from beneath the trees to graze on the dry grass.

Behind him, John could hear the methodical short creaking of the rocking chair, and likewise, his attention remained divided between the Insurrectionist and the fields ahead of him. To the former, he asked, "Have you heard from Commander Castilla?"

"She's close. Last message placed them here by 10."

"Good."

"Depends…"

The one word hung tellingly in the air, and John turned to face the man in search of the rest.

When their eyes met, Paul continued, "Does she know about you and Sam?"

John was silent, not a man to discuss his private life with a stranger.

The Insurrectionist misread John's silence for a second time. "It's a big house," he said, "but it's not that big. Besides, I've known Sam since she was a kid. I can tell."

Admittedly, John's thoughts had not been on the other occupants of the safe house last night, but he also wasn't explicitly hiding his relationship with Sam. They were on borrowed time. Even a Spartan was wise enough to know not to take the small moments for granted. He only had to recall the memory of Sam lying on her back, bleeding out from under her chest plate, to know how everything could change in a split second. If this mission would be the end of him, he'd take the memory of her from that night with him to the grave.

His shoulders settled when he exhaled slowly, and John replied at last, "She knows." There was a certain finality to his tone, intended to close the topic.

He didn't know Paul well enough to anticipate his reaction, but he certainly didn't expect the man to quirk his brow in an impressed look. "Well, shit, and you lived to talk about it," he commented. "I guess you Spartans are as invincible as they say."

John didn't have much a response to that, and he didn't care to explore the topic further.

Paul set his coffee cup aside to retrieve a pack of cigarettes from his front breast pocket, knocked one out, and lit it with methodical efficiency. After he exhaled the smooth grey through his nostrils, he said, "It's an odd thing living long enough to see her grow up. I want to say I knew she was destined for something great, but none of us had a clue."

"You must have known she was different." Discussion of his relationship with the ex-Insurrectionist was nixed, but John wasn't above learning more about Sam's life before they met. No matter what they had survived together, he could fill an ocean with everything he didn't know about her—or her about him.

"Hell yeah. Kid fought like a damn Marine," the man replied and chuckled to himself. "There were questions, but Commander Castilla would just say she found Sam on the streets. If anyone got suspicious or too curious and tried to look Sam up, they wouldn't get far. We all knew there was more to the story, but we accepted it."

John recalled the picture he had seen in Sam's file of her as a child with blunt bangs and a round face. He tried to envision that girl fighting with Paul. It was outside the bounds of his imagination, so he wondered instead, "What are reactions now that people know the truth?"

"You'd think there would be some kind of backlash for that many years of lying," Paul responded and seemed to answer John's underlying question rather than the one voiced. He looked at the Spartan then and flicked the ash off the end of his cigarette. "But she's a hero. She survived, and she fought back. She's inspired a whole new generation of fighters."

"I've seen the news." Constantine remained at the front lines of the battle between rebels and the UNSC. If the Spartans were still on duty, he had no doubt they would have been deployed to snuff out the fire before it spread. While he'd developed enough sympathy for the Insurrectionists to tolerate their presence, John wasn't going to enlist in their cause.

The man took another long drag before he warned, "That doesn't even scratch the surface... If she wanted to, Sam could lead a war against the UNSC."

This comment abruptly focused John's attention and told him more than anything else Paul had shared. Keeping his tone even to hide his concern, he asked, "Is that what the Insurrectionists are hoping for?"

Here, Paul smiled and revealed he was more adroit at reading the Spartan than John cared to admit. "Don't look so put off. At least we're consistent. It seems like the UNSC can't decide if it wants to fight its own soldiers or the rest of us."

John wasn't unaware of the hands grappling for control, and Sam was a powerful piece to play. People wanted to have her in their ranks. Once again, he reflected briefly on the question of whether to leave her with the Insurrectionists or not. The idea that they could use her to take on the UNSC didn't sit well with the Master Chief. What he did know about Sam, though, he shared: "Sam doesn't want a war."

Once more, Paul chuckled with an omniscient glean to his eyes. That one look promised that he had known Sam many more years than John had. "Maybe the Sam you go to bed with says that," he admitted. "But the Sam who put out that transmission, she has a different agenda."

It was true that John saw a side of the woman that few others did. In private, she had shown a softness and a vulnerability far removed from the Insurrectionist lieutenant who had rescued him from the Infinity months ago. Before John could respond, he stiffened with his head jerked over his right shoulder. A familiar voice yelled shortly. John dropped his coffee cup on the porch and sprinted for the back of the house.

He rounded the corner in time to see Sam kicked Shin in the gut. The blond man stumbled back with a grunt, and Sam rolled onto her feet. She punched, but Shin caught her forearm, holding tightly as he kneed her twice in the ribs. She caught the blows her left arm, but even so, the impact visibly shook her.

Paul arrived less than a minute later and took aim with his rifle, but John placed at hand on the man's chest to hold him back. His grey-blue eyes narrowed watching the fight gain momentum, but after what Sam had shared with him earlier that morning, he stood down. The rest of the Spartan team and Insurrectionists had been alerted and were funneling out of the back door.

"Give her space," John commanded, and despite tangible tensions, no one moved to disobey him.

Shin's next kick swept Sam's legs out from underneath her, and he released her arm as she landed with a sharp exhale on her back in the grass. At the last second, Sam lifted her arms to block Shins' heel aiming for her head. She deflected the blow to the side, using the momentum to roll onto her feet again. She didn't hesitate to punch again, but Shin caught her arm, spun back over his heels, and swung. Sam narrowly ducked the attack. But Shin still had a grip on her arm, and when she sprung up again, he grabbed her neck, forcing her head back. She gasped dryly as he bore down on her throat, adding tension between the arm in his grip and her neck. She stumbled back, trying to keep her feet under her, but Shin was applying more pressure to make her neck bend at a painful angle.

Dust stung at her eyes from her last fall in the ground, and the first rays of the sun were beginning to edge over the roof, blinding her eyes. She exhaled shakily through her nostrils, aware of the spectators watching their fight, when the memory of Shin's face that night flitted through her mind's eye. She could picture the off-center sneer with acute realism. The raw, hot rage chased the image, and in a second, Sam had yanked her arm out of his grip, twisted, and kicked Shin in the back. It knocked him off balance long enough for Sam to catch her breath now freed of his grip.

Shin took the offensive, swinging with a powerful right hook. Sam ducked and caught his next punch, but it was a distraction to lift her guard so his knee collided with her side unimpeded. She choked out a groan of pain at the impact, and he took advantage of her daze to avoid her guard and land a solid punch across her face. Her top lip split under his knuckles, and she spun on her heels, twisting to kick him square in the gut. Shin backed off, but he smirked when he saw Sam wipe the blood from her mouth. His reach was longer than hers, and she needed to get closer so they were on equal footing. But she also was out of shape, already injured from their escape away from Murikami, and needed a moment to gain her bearings.

"Kick his ass!" Elewa growled suddenly.

Shin glanced at the woman, and Sam lunged for him. This close they grappled in quick succession. The man tried to place some distance between them to regain the advantage, but on his next punch, Sam grabbed his arm and rolled with him onto the ground. She instantly had him trapped in a triangle choke. He struggled to break her hold, but every muscle in her body flexed to hold him. The blood warmed his face. His eyes became glassy. A few more seconds and it was clear the man would be unconscious, but Sam abruptly released him. His breaths rapped loudly through his dry throat. Sam forced him onto his back, straddled his waist, grabbed the front of his shirt, and began punching him again and again and again.

Shin's head was rolling under the force of her hits when John caught her arm and stopped her. "That's enough," he said

Sam's arm flexed but couldn't overpower his strength. Instead, the Spartan forced her to her feet, and she was shaking with her irregular breaths. She managed to explain, "He was calling Hiro. He was telling him where we are."

Shin's nose was broken, and Sam's punches had smeared the blood across his face and into the tips of his peroxide blond hair. He rocked over onto one elbow to spit out blood on the ground next to him before he managed to get up on one knee, the other foot bracing him. His right arm cradled his gut, but the hand reached under his jacket.

"I don't think so," Elewa intervened. A self-important grin lit up her features, abundantly pleased by this turn of events, and she pointed her pistol at Shin's head. "Hands up, Blondie."

Shin looked at her from under his brow, those pale green eyes sharper than anyone had seen before. Gradually, he lifted his hands in submission. The gesture opened up his jacket to reveal his holsters were still empty; his weapons had been confiscated shortly after his discussion about the drugs with Sam and crew. Rip approached with a zip tie to corral the man. As he was slipping one side onto Shin's wrists, in a flash Shin was on his feet and had placed the barrel of Rip's pistol to the man's temple.

"It's been fun, Sam," he said, not sparing a grin with his bloodstained teeth, "but I'm done playing soldier. Anyone follows, and I'll shoot him." Already he had begun to back away with Rip firmly in his hold, and he was watching the Spartans and Insurrectionists with hawkish eyes for any signs they would try to disobey him. "I'll let him go once I'm out of range."

He barely spoke the last word before the gunshot rang off. Shin had fallen crippled by the shot an inch above his knee cap, and the Spartans sprang into action. Linda had him disarmed and in her custody in a blur of motion.

"Good shot," Elewa commended Paul who lowered his rifle, but there was an unmistakable disappointment that she hadn't been the one to fire.

In the aftermath, Kelly had identified Shin's phone in the grass and destroyed it under her heel. Her attention swung from the shattered phone up to the Master Chief. The warning dripped from her eyes, and in that moment, John could read her thoughts: We need to leave.

To Sam, Kelly asked, "What exactly did you hear?"

The brunette was cradling her right forearm to her chest. As the adrenaline wore off, the pain began to settle into the bones, and she could feel it radiating. Her wrist and hand were already beginning to swell. Bum arm, she cursed inwardly but kept the hurt from her voice when she answered, "I saw him sneak outside, and I followed. He told Hiro we were in the Andromeda Galaxy. I stopped him before he could say anything else." Looking to John suddenly, she said, "They could have tracked the phone."

John wondered internally what threat Hiro posed to this mission when in fact it didn't matter. Their location had possibly been compromised, and that was enough to get the Spartans in motion.

Fred confirmed this when he decided, "We can't risk it," from John's side.

The Master Chief had to agree. His attempt at rescuing his team with the help of the Insurrectionists had blown up in his face. He'd forgotten the instability of working with rebels: They were unpredictable and often unreliable. "Commander Castilla will be here in a few hours," he said to the team. "We'll resupply and head out."

O O O

0954 hours

Lyrenne Castilla arrived with a punctuality that spoke to her meticulous command. The Insurrectionists and Spartans alike were on their feet in the common room on the ground floor of the ranch home prepared to meet her. Tensions remained high in the wake of Sam's confrontation with Shin. The latter had his wounds tended to and was restrained to a chair in the basement. The former had her right arm bandaged, and her busted lip cleaned. She stood toward the back of the room, dwarfed by the Spartans around her. Like everyone else gathered, she was eager to leave this place behind. Too many eyes on this mission meant too many opportunities for someone to slip. They should have cut Shin loose after he gave them the drugs. It was too late for these thoughts, though, and the team would need to answer for the oversight.

When the front door opened, the tension reached its crux. Two officers entered the room ahead of their commander. For her reputation as a fierce, methodical rebel leader, Lyra was surprisingly petite in size. She had a shapely figure even in her uniform that suggested in part how she had seduced and manipulated her ex-husband, the late UNSC Admiral Preston Cole. Her feline blue eyes, feminine oval face, and pale strawberry blonde hair completed her striking features. More intriguing, though, was the magnetic, powerful way in which she held herself. She gazed across the group of Spartans as if she were unimpressed.

In the wake of the silence she created, Lyra asked, "Where is she?"

The Spartans, Fred and Sasha incidentally, opened a space between them for Sam to step forward. Her heart was running a marathon in her chest, and the thin atmosphere caused Sam to feel the erratic pulse drumming in her temples. She feigned an ease when Lyra's blue eyes found her in their sights. Sam paused in front of Lyra and smiled weakly.

In the next second, a crack echoed within the room. Sam exhaled sharply, a sign that even she had been surprised. Lyra had slapped her so hard that Sam's head was twisted over one shoulder, and strands of her brown hair fell across her face. No one spoke or moved—except John who took a step closer in preparation for something. Then, just as abruptly, Lyra grabbed Sam and wrapped her arms around the woman. Sam was stunned and limp in her embrace.

"I could kill you…" Lyra warned in a shaky breath, only to release Sam again, beckoning, "Let me look at you." Despite the initial strike, there was a gentleness to Lyra's touch as she swept Sam's hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ears. Her blue eyes searched Sam from toe to nose in an agitated path that betrayed her otherwise cool and powerful presence. Lyra, the infamous Insurrectionist commander, had all the trappings of a worried mother in that instant. She sighed densely and hugged Sam again, stroking her hair as she held her close.

Gradually, one arm and then the other wrapped around Lyra, and Sam buried her face in the woman's shoulder to hide her trembling lip and the tears in her eyes.

The reunion was cut short once Lyra looked past her adopted daughter to the team scattered nearby. There was an unofficial semi-circle of space allotted to the commander, and only one person had stepped beyond it.

"Master Chief," she identified and released Sam who stepped to Lyra's right. Despite having let her out of the embrace, Lyra kept a firm grip on Sam's left forearm like the woman might suddenly decide to run.

"Commander," he returned evenly. "I'd like a word in private."

"I just got here, and you already want to get me alone?" She lowered her chin toward her chest. "This should be interesting."

John didn't say anything further, and in his silence, Sam explained, "There's been a problem."

"Takeda's man?" she assumed when her attention strayed to the younger woman. Sam nodded stiffly. The commander exhaled a leaden frustration. "Gangsters can be so messy… Fine. Paul, keep an eye on our guests. No one leaves or moves until I say otherwise. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," the chief petty officer replied.

To John, she said, "Take me to the prisoner."

"Wait here," John told the Spartan team, although the commande didn't need to be spoken. He said it more for the Insurrectionists should they get overly excited. He then led the commander into the basement where they would have more privacy away from other ears. It wasn't the ideal location to begin a discussion about the team's next steps considering it had recently gained a new function as a brig for their prisoner, but John was more concerned with timing at this point. He'd get his team off the planet and address the rest later.

Lyra had at last released Sam from her grip to face the conversation with the Master Chief alone, but she was distracted by the blond man tied down to a chair. "This is him," she acknowledged. "What's his name?"

"Shin," John answered. "He's Hiro's right-hand man."

Lyra hummed under her breath and approached the man in the same enigmatic way she had the Spartans. "Look at those beautiful green eyes," she commented softly while she took his chin in her hands.

He wasn't gagged, but admittedly that hadn't been a concern for the crew considering Shin's penchant for brooding silence. The same eyes Lyra was admiring stared emptily up at the commander. His chin jerked to remove himself from her grasp, but her nails dug into the skin, meeting bone beneath that flesh.

She calmly twisted his head to view the right side of his face, bloodied but free of tattoos. It gave her an idea of his potential. "What a waste of a handsome face."

John didn't have time for whatever game Lyra was playing, and he promptly explained, "Our location has been compromised."

"To the yakuza," she understood in a distant tone. "Who did this to him?"

"Sam."

Lyra smiled, gazing down at the man's bloodied face and swollen broken nose, and might have been admiring a child's painting for the pride in her eyes.

"My team needs to leave," John said to regain control of the conversation.

The commander had acquiesced to speak with him, but she had a unique talent for maneuvering outside of his grip. It was difficult to articulate how or why she did this, but it gave the impression that she was unaffected or untouchable. Still looking at Shin, she decided, "Gather what you need. Your team will head back to my ship when night falls."

A tremor of impatience settled behind John's eyes as he stared at the commander's back, and he repeated, "My team needs to leave—now."

Finally, Lyra turned to face John with her feline eyes narrowed. "You'll leave when I give the order."

The commander had never been particularly fond of or warm toward John. Their working alliance was a result of sheer necessity, but in their previous contact, he hadn't known her to be so unapproachable. Instantly, his mind formulated reasons, and it seemed there was only one possibility. "If this is about Sam—"

"I helped you find her in that yakuza compound. You told me she was safe there, and look what happened. I almost lost her again because you miscalculated," Lyra interrupted in a sharp staccato. When John didn't respond, the woman squared herself off opposite him to continue, "And again, I help. And again, the yakuza are involved. I'm not here to put out your fires, John, and I sure as hell ain't your sugar momma."

"I know," he replied. There was no way to articulate that the mission had become sloppy after her Insurrectionist soldiers were involved, or that she brought in too many people on the mission. Instead, John maintained her cool gaze and said, "But if you want to protect Sam, we need to leave."

Lyra laughed in a hollow tone, almost seeming impressed that John would try to use her daughter to motivate the commander into providing what he needed.

He didn't give her an opportunity to rebut his latest comment, but he did catch her eye and tell her, "Let us go, and Sam will stay behind with you."

The woman was all at once caught unaware by John's offer, enough that her condescending smile froze on her face.

That didn't stop the Master Chief. He was resolute when he continued, "And I wouldn't wait until nightfall to get her on a ship out of here, Lyra."

Author's Note: Ouch. Sam kinda got her ass kicked this chapter between Shin and Lyra, and she's about to get a sucker punch from John with this news... But weren't we all a little bit happy to see Shin get what was coming to him? Next chapter the team's go their separate ways, and new opportunities are made available :)

Thanks to my girl lyndakey1 for the review! Aren't you smart? And since you gave me permission, you'll know that I'm not misspelling your name, just outsmarting the system haha I also appreciate your thoughtful prediction. Like you noted, Sam is a hot commodity, and once John leaves, she might find her hatred for the UNSC is reignited. There's no telling what she's capable of doing. Whether she'll get help from Sasha, though, is up for debate, and we'll also have to see what Fred and Boone think about this plan. Bahahaha I'm so excited :D I hope you liked this chapter, lovely xx