Author's Notes: First off, sorry it's a little late, and sorry it's a little short. I was going to do one "recoup" chapter after the battle, but decided to do two of them, so I've got another one on the way that's longer than this one, but not the typical 8000+ (which some of you, I'm sure, are happy about, after my last one...). This one is just for the sake of a little R&R for the Spartans. Next time, they'll get some new orders, and I'll send them off again.

Also, I've gotten a complaint here and there about how long the last couple of chapters were. I would just like to say that I wanted to get everything in, and didn't have a really good spot to split the chapters up. From now on, however, I promise to make nothing that long again. I will find a spot, and I will cut a chapter in two if need be. HOWEVER, if I do this, no one has any right to yell at me for a cliff-hanger, m'kay:)

For now, though, how about the Reviews?

Lord of the Trees: Hey! Glad you liked the action, and could sit through 12,000 words. You get props, my friend. Thanks for your input on the Flood as well. Finally, as to your request: I promise, they'll be fighting next to the Elites in my next "action-segment," in just a couple of chapters. I would've had them do it during the Zulu Battles, but I really wanted them to kind of go "on-their-own." Maybe it's weird, but, regardless, I'll have the split-lip aliens for you in just a bit! Thanks again!

killerman83ca: Hey, thanks for your review and your input on the Flood. Trust me, they'll be in space later on, AND they'll fight the Flood later on. I've got that all worked out...I just wanted to get a little input on whether or not I should give them a taste of the parasite beforehand. Thanks again for your input on that!

WolfyWolf: Lots of explosions, huh? You ain't seen nothin' yet. ;) As for Landon...hehehe, now that you mention it, yeah, I guess he is. Honest, I wasn't thinking of Dom, but you're right, it fits. Also, in regards to the Close Quarters Combat...oh YES, I'm a big fan of it, so I promise you'll see plenty more. Thanks for the compliments, and I hope you enjoy what's coming soon.

Taylor114: Hi, and thanks for your compliments! For what you said about the space-travel...yeah, I'm drooling over here waiting to write it, lol. If I could, I'd skip all the way there, for the very thoughts and scenarios that got me started on this story, but...well, you know, can't really do that, lest I should lose the majority of my readers, lol. I'm curious, which part of Zeke's fight did you like, if there was one? Or what was funny (I like Zeke...that's why I ask...)? In regards to Magnus...you can expect him back...but not soon...sorry. Promise though, I'll bring him back. Last, thanks for the input on the Flood. I think I'm gonna leave them out for now and bring them in later, like I originally planned.

GuardianXAngel: Oh yeah! Full-throttle is RIGHT! lol, I was hoping someone would comment on the heavy stuff. If that's what people like, you can expect to see a whole lot more of it ('cause I certainly like it). Thanks for your review!

Suliac Griffin: Hey, I sent you an e-mail, but I don't know if you ever got it. I was asking you where you got your information as to when the Flood first hit Earth, and if you have a definitive timeline for Halo 3, by chance. It would help me with dates considerably, but I can't find one anywhere. As for your thoughts, since I'm holding back using the Flood for a while...trust me, their first encounter will be doozy. And they WILL do some space-fighting later on, but I've got one more segment first. This is the one on Earth where I pull out all the stops... ;)

Benaia Dre: hehehe, thanks man. I like the ten-word segment. ;) I would put the Flood in, but I think I'm gonna go with majority and stick with what I wanted to do originally: hold them 'til later. Thanks for the compliments though. I hope you like the next few chapters!

Now, for number 24: (NOT the Number 23 (sry, that movie came up in topic today and...just...no. Not here.))

Chapter 24:

- Winning & Losing -

1800 Hours - December 28, 2552

Marine Outpost, Undisclosed Location in Northern Arizona

Blaine jumped out of the Pelican as soon as the other Spartans were out of the way and hit the ground heavily. At that moment, he didn't care about Zulu Training Ground. He didn't care about the Human/Covenant War. Hell, he didn't even care where the Pelican had taken him. All he cared about was when and where he was going to get some sleep.

"The unused barracks are in that building, down the hall, on your left." One of the Marines that had come out to greet them said, pointing to a steel structure twenty meters away. Blaine nodded and fell into step with the other Spartans as they walked toward the base.

They walked in complete silence, reaching the door to the building before Landon broke it. "Man," he said, talking to no one in particular, "we weren't even in combat for very long, and I'm pretty-well spent."

There were mumbles of agreement and Blaine found himself suddenly concerned. It was true: they'd only been fighting for around twelve hours, and, while they weren't completely wiped by the experience, they were tired…too tired. In addition, no one had slept on the Pelican during the four-hour ride from the Training Ground. He knew in his gut that they'd have never made it in a real-life, drawn-out combat experience.

At the same time, it didn't seem fair not to count their last struggle as "real-life." They'd been attacked after only a few hours' sleep and had lost one of their own almost immediately. Afterwards, they fought nonstop for twelve hours, getting only miniscule breaks in between the slaughters.

Samuel, at the front of the line, reached the door to the barracks and opened it up, holding it open for the rest of the Spartans as they filed in. Blaine nodded to him as he stepped inside and heard the door close behind him. He looked around to see almost two-dozen single-size beds, all of them empty.

Finally, he thought, finding two of them and sliding them together. He tried to lie down, but realized that, even with two, the beds weren't big enough. The Spartan got up, grabbed another, and slid it next to his makeshift king-size bed. He unlatched his helmet and felt the weight lifted from him as he took it off and set it on the bed next to him.

"It's over." He whispered quietly, thinking of the last sixteen hours. Deep down, Blaine couldn't believe how close they'd come, and how many times. He shook his head. One time, they hadn't just come close, they were caught off-guard, and Chris paid his life for it. "It's over." He said again.

A moment later, he barely caught Zeke's voice from across the room. "It's not over." He said.

The next morning, after the Spartans had slept through the day and night, the Corporal sent a pair of Marines to wake them up early for breakfast, the first meal they'd have had in almost two days. His plan was to call them in to eat, and then give them the death-toll from the battle at the Training Ground.

Personally, he was hugely impressed. Apart from losing Chris to the sneak-attack on the barracks, the Spartans had had no casualties and Covenant losses were estimated to be in the high six-hundreds. Granted, it was nowhere near the level of slaughter the Master Chief had inflicted several times in the past, but, for their first time being on the defensive, Zulu Company had done a better-than-average job.

When the seven super-soldiers arrived in the mess hall and sat down to a table full of food, the Corporal walked up to them from the front of the room, clapping his hands quietly as he did so. Immediately, the Spartans stood up and saluted, perfectly still until he told them otherwise.

"At ease," Charles said cheerfully. "You guys have earned a good meal, so why don't you have at it while I give you the news?"

Zulu Company's hands all fell and the seven Spartans sat down to their meals.

"Great," the Corporal said, grabbing a piece of toast from the table and taking a huge bite out of it. This was his first meal as well.

"So," Blaine said in between bites of a pancake, "what's the final score from the Training Ground?"

The Corporal smiled. "Right now, the unofficial score is 680 to 1."

A few of the Spartans smiled and nodded confidently. Some, however, only looked to the floor, shaking their heads.

"Six-hundred-and-eighty to one," Samuel said, gritting his teeth. "We lost."

Ezekiel had taken a huge drink of water and couldn't stop himself from spitting it all over his plate. He turned to Samuel, his eyes full of disbelief and his mouth open. "How do you figure?" He asked. "Last I checked, we're still here, and they're not."

The Corporal thought about saying something, but decided against it. This was a team-lesson that was going to have to be learned eventually.

"We lost," Samuel said, "because we lost one of our own." He sighed and shook his head. "We lost the battle the moment we lost Chris."

Zeke shook his head, and Charles watched as Landon, Blaine and Stephanie did the same. "We took out better than half-a-thousand Covenant." Zeke said. "Granted, they took one of ours, but does really constitute calling the whole battle a loss?"

Samuel nodded without an ounce of hesitation. "Think about it." He said. "Even if we'd killed ten-thousand Covenant, there were only eight of us. Did we kill one-eighth of the Covenant army?"

The Corporal smiled despite himself. Samuel was a better leader than he'd ever given him credit for in basic. Somehow, even though he'd only been through a few real conflicts, the Spartan had learned to look at the big picture and see things exactly as they were.

Zeke shook his head. "That's ridiculous." He said bitterly.

"He's right." Landon said, gulping down what remained of his water. "We earned our first real victory yesterday. Yes, Chris is gone, but that doesn't mean we failed."

Ezekiel stood up. "We may not have taken out an eighth of the Covenant's soldiers, but we sure as Hell got the message across that the Earth's not their little playground! We took on-"

"Chris is dead!" Victoria said suddenly, jumping in. "We didn't win anything!" She paused as Ezekiel looked at her, dumbstruck, then added, "and even if we did, even if the statistics didn't show a loss, Chris is still dead."

"Yeah," he said, "I'm well aware of that." His tone went from bitter to downright sardonic. "Something you all need to realize, however, is that no amount of whining or talking about it is going to bring him back. The fact isn't lost on me that one of our own is dead, but neither is the fact that, in this war, at this point, winning is all that matters."

"Winning isn't everything." Samuel said, frustrated.

"I know," Zeke answered, "it's just the only thing that counts."

"Alright," the Corporal said, deciding to stop the discussion before it became any worse. "That's enough for now. The only other numbers you need are these: we lost forty-six members of the Zulu Training Ground staff, including Marines. On the plus-side, twenty-two Covenant Anti-Air Wraiths were destroyed, along with sixteen Banshees, twenty-one Ghosts, eight Brute Prowlers, seventeen Choppers, and, finally, twenty-four Covenant Phantoms."

"Damn," Landon said. Jason whistled.

"Regardless of which side you take as to whether or not you won the last battle, you need to know that you inflicted major casualties on the Covenant's forces near here and that everyone at HIGHCOM is very impressed with your performance." He paused. "Also, and less importantly, I too am very impressed. You've all become greater soldiers than anyone thought possible."

No one said anything, but the Corporal could see glimpses of smiles on a few faces in front of him. Suddenly, Jason looked up.

"Sir," he said, "I was wondering about something."

"Yes?"

"What happened to the General?"

The Corporal felt his heart skip a beat. He'd been unfortunate enough to learn precisely what had happened to General Malone. Charles took a deep breath before bothering to answer.

"The General…" he started, but trailed off. It took him several seconds to regain his composure. "General Malone is dead."

It was eerie, how none of the Spartans even moved in response to the answer. They only stared, waiting for more information.

"He was taken by a handful of Covenant Brutes that left via a support Phantom long before the anti-matter charges were ever placed. Malone is assumed KIA." He fell silent.

Or worse, he thought, shaking his head subconsciously at the thought of what Brutes did to human prisoners.

Finally, Victoria broke the silence. "So," she said cautiously, "when are we holding funeral services?"

Charles checked his watch. "In about forty minutes," he said.

An hour later, the Spartans were gathered with the half-dozen remaining Marines from the Training Ground and thirty staff-members of the base they were at, somewhere in northern Arizona. Ezekiel was in the back of the group, arms crossed, contemplating the discussion from before as the Lieutenant offered words of praise for the fallen and words of encouragement for those still alive.

We're still alive, he thought. That's hardly cause for so much anger and depression. He couldn't lie, even to himself. Losing Chris had done a number on him when it first happened. Even while his fellow Spartan was still struggling as he was being pinned to the wall by the huge, spiked wheel on the front of the Chopper, Ezekiel had found that he could do nothing. He was stunned, as they all had been.

If they had been thinking, actually doing something, perhaps the Spartans could've stopped Chris' death from occurring. But, as it happened, no one but Chris had been prepared for the attack, and that very bit of awareness had cost him his life.

Ezekiel clenched his fist, furious both with the Brute that had been driving the Chopper and with himself for doing nothing. "I stood and watched," he growled under his breath.

"There's nothing to be done about it now." Blaine said, suddenly beside him. "None of us could've stopped it."

"We could've tried."

Blaine nodded. "Yes, we could have."

"So why didn't we?"

"I don't know." He whispered, shrugging. "We weren't ready. That's what it really comes down to. We were taken by surprise, and Chris put his own life on the line for Samuel's." He paused before continuing, with more than a hint of mockery, "while you're right, and no amount of whining will change it, you should know that no amount of dwelling will do so either."

Zeke scoffed. "I'm the smart-ass around here." He said.

Samuel listened attentively as the Lieutenant read through the list of the soldiers who were killed at the Training Ground. There were quite a few of them, and he waited anxiously for the man to reach Chris' name.

"General Irvin Malone spent the last twenty-six years of his life with the Marines." The Lieutenant said, apparently finished with the seemingly-endless list of doctors and Private-level Marines lost. "He was a good man, and a greater soldier…"

Samuel suddenly tuned the man out. The General had been anything but a "good man." He'd tried on numerous occasions to have members of Zulu Company killed or otherwise decommissioned, and even after they succeeded in thrashing the Covenant in Phoenix, he still refused to acknowledge them as real soldiers, worthy of his time.

"Finally, we have the last soldier on the list." The Lieutenant said, snapping Samuel from his thoughts. "He died early yesterday morning, in a sneak-attack made by those cowardly soldiers above us, hiding in their ships and behind their shields."

Samuel sighed. Even if there hadn't been only one soldier left, he'd have recognized the description without even trying.

"And let everyone know, that this man, this Spartan, fought bravely in the name of humanity and refused to let another soldier fall, even at the cost of his own life. His name was Christopher Stryker, Spartan 010. He was one of the best, and serves as an inspiration to us all."

Samuel closed his eyes. "Amen," he said.

Author's Notes: As said, this one was pretty short. Please put the torches and pitchforks away (lol), 'cause I promise to have the next one up pretty soon. Thanks for reading, and don't hesitate to tell me what you think!