Author's Note: Penultimate chapter everyone! Special thanks to kpmh2001 and Just a Crazy-Man for your reviews of the last chapter. I hope this one lives up to expectations!
0317 HOURS, APRIL 25, 2559, (MILITARY CALENDAR) /
VALLEJO CITY, PLANET BALLAST, EPSILON ERIDANI SYSTEM
Discarded equipment clattered to the ground, thrown from a tabletop to make room for a holoprojector to display a schematic of Alex's device. "Our first priority is finding a sufficient power source," the engineer said. "I can expand the effective field to fit the Pelican, barely, but without power it won't do us any good."
The ONI team and half a dozen civilian techs gathered around the projection. "We could attach it to the internal power system," one of the civilians offered.
Luisa Fazio, the woman who had taken leadership of the ONI team after Graham's apprehension, cut in. "What, and risk shorting out the whole dropship?" she asked snidely. "Are you trying to get us all killed?"
Then they broke into arguing. Again.
Fred couldn't exactly blame them. Ever since the Dusk's transmission had come in, cutting their mission time by nearly 30 hours, tensions in the bunker were so thick it was like wading upstream in knee-high water. The slightest pin drop was liable to send someone into a nervous tailspin. It was understandable that such a scenario would be a breeding ground for dissent and argumentation.
Understandable or not, there was no time.
"Enough!"
Alex's voice rang out over the din like the crack of a rifle, and all eyes turned to her. Though she was shorter than most of the room's occupants, she seemed to tower over her sheepish colleagues.
"If you can't do more than argue with each other, you're wasting time we don't have. Anyone who can't get over their egos and work together is politely invited to leave." She fixed each of the technicians and engineers around her with a steely glare, finally rounding on Fazio. The dark-haired woman lowered her eyes slightly and nodded in concession.
"Good," Alex said with a satisfied nod of her own. "Now, the Dusk will be in orbit in thirty minutes, which means we have ten to solve our problem; we can't risk attaching the cloak to the Pelican's central power grid without endangering the entire ship. We need an independent power source that can survive the strain the cloak will put on it."
"How much power does it require?" Kelly asked, surprising everyone. Like Fred, she had been watching the group of bickering technicians in silence. A few of the engineers even flinched when she unexpectedly broke that silence.
Alex tapped her chin thoughtfully before responding. "Just long enough to get us into orbit. That shouldn't take much."
"In that case," Kelly answered. "I happen to know someone whose best friend could help us out here." She nodded at Ellsworth, leaning painfully against a work bench behind Alex.
Alex's eyebrows pinched together in confusion as she turned to face him. "Your best friend?" she asked. "Who on earth is that?"
Ellsworth's brow was similarly furrowed as he and his wife shared some non-verbal conversation, though the confusion melted from his face and was quickly replaced by a large grin when the answer dawned on him.
"Sheila."
With that, the young man excitedly hobbled away from the group of technicians. Alex followed him, her steadying hand on his shoulder in an attempt to keep the injured man afoot, and the pair quickly made their way to another of the work benches scattered throughout the hangar. Ellsworth began throwing things from the bench's surface – seeming to Fred like he was taking a somewhat childish delight in the mess he was creating – before letting out a triumphant exclamation and dragging a large black case back toward the brainstorming scientists.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he grunted in a mixture of pain and boyish flair, "allow me to introduce to you the girl of your dreams." He kicked the case open, revealing the antiquated Portable Vehicle Battery housed within.
The technicians looked unimpressed.
"What's an old PVB supposed to do for us?" Fazio asked, grumpily putting her hands on her hips. "That thing looks ancient; I doubt it could even link up with our equipment." The others near her murmured similar thoughts of confusion and distaste.
"This . . ." Alex cut in as she knelt next to the case, "this could actually work." She popped to her feet and scurried toward the holographic display. "This is our twelfth prototype, and we were running low on materials by the time we put it together. We had to get a little creative with older stuff, and relied on a lot of old wiring that we pulled out of nonessential systems from the bunker itself."
She scanned the rotating schematic of the device for a few seconds, then shouted out, "There! If we open the casing right there we can get access to some wiring that should actually sync up with the PVB."
"Sheila," Ellsworth corrected.
Alex rolled her eyes, but acquiesced. "Sheila should work perfectly. I'll just need some help making sure we can match up resources between the two. Luisa, Thomas, I'll need your help. Everyone else give us some room."
Fazio and one of the civilian techs remained by her side while the others dutifully distanced themselves from the table. Fred and Kelly backed up enough not to crowd the trio, and Ellsworth returned to his perch on the workbench with a groan.
"Don't everybody move too far," a voice called out.
Fred looked over his shoulder to see Eason, standing next to the Chief, calling everyone to form a circle around her. He sent a yellow light to John's HUD, probing the situation. In response, the fellow Spartan returned with a green status light and subtly touched his thigh plate twice with his index finger before drawing a small circle in the air. Stay close.
"I guess this is the part where things get uncomfortable," Eason began. She slowly paced within the small circle of onlookers, looking each of them in the eye as she spoke. "As I'm sure you're all aware, there are a limited number of seats available on the Pelican. After the Spooks and the Spartans, it only leaves eight seats for the rest of us. That means that most of us aren't getting off-world. As per our earlier arrangement, it's been decided that the remaining spots are to be divvied out by straw draw."
She patted John on the arm as she continued to pace. "Since the Master Chief has offered his services, and those of Blue Team, to ensure that the straw draw be enforced, I've asked him to do the honors of presenting the draw to each of us." She then produced a handful of wires, each cut to varying lengths. "A wire longer than ten centimeters," she said, holding up an example, "means that you have a seat. Anything shorter than that means you're sticking around."
Eason handed the wires to the Chief and turned to face the others. "Are there any questions before we get this over with?" she asked. Though her tone was far from menacing, it didn't invite much discussion.
"I actually do have something, ma'am," Alpin's voice carried over the crowd. The fiery-haired man awkwardly made his way to the center of the circle and stood in front of Eason.
The mercenary leader regarded him with pursed lips, her dark eyes looking him up and down. "What have you got for me Scott?" she asked. Her voice was cold, but not uncaring. It seemed to Fred that she looked at the younger operative with an almost matronly emotion peeking through her eyes.
"Well, ma'am," Alpin began slowly, "I was speaking with one of the locals and we realized that they have almost the same number of people hoping for a ride out of here as we do." He pushed his thumbs through his belt loops, adopting his customary apathetic expression.
"What's your point?" Eason asked, curiosity seeping into her guarded tone.
"We did some math. There are eight seats, eight of us, and seven of them. We gave four seats to the locals, four seats to our people, and then put who gets a spot on the Pelican to a vote." Alpin carefully watched Eason's expression as he spoke.
Fred wondered at who this mystery representative of the locals might have been. Almost instinctually, he scanned the hanger for the young police lieutenant. The Spartan was less than surprised to discover Ellsworth, still leaning against a bench between Alex and himself, steadily watching Alpin's explanation.
"Where did this idea come from?" John asked, leaning forward to look Alpin over.
The smaller man didn't take his eyes off of Eason. "It was my idea. No disrespect to the people who thought up the original plan, but I didn't like it." He finally turned to look at the Spartan looming above him. "I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to put all of my people's lives to chance."
John nodded. "Everyone else knows whether or not they're boarding the Pelican and has agreed to honor this arrangement?" he asked, receiving confirmation from the gathered crowd. "In that case, ma'am," he said, handing the wires back to Eason, "it looks like things don't have to get uncomfortable after all."
Though Eason took the wires from him, she paid the Spartan no mind. "That's quite the stunt," Fred heard her say as the crowd of mercenaries and civilians dispersed. "I know you, Scott. I'm staying behind with you."
Alpin shook his head and offered a rare smile. "I'm afraid you were unanimously voted aboard, ma'am. You can't stay behind. Besides," he said, gesturing toward the gunship, "the UNSC is going to need all the help it can get. You're far more valuable up there than any of the rest of us."
Fred stepped away from the pair, deeming their conversation benign enough to be afforded privacy. Slowly, and with somewhat unsure feet, the Spartan made his way toward Ellsworth. He was led to the young man's side for a myriad of reasons – he wanted confirmation that Ellsworth was, indeed, the other half of Alpin's plan. He wanted to be close enough to provide support to Alex should she need help preparing her device for takeoff. He wanted to ensure the civilian and ONI scientists were working together to make their exfiltration possible.
Mostly, Fred realized, he was being led to Ellsworth by his gut. He trusted that to be enough.
Just as Fred made it to the young officer, Alex shouted for joy. She ran to Ellsworth's side, speed-talking about their success with linking the PVB to the cloaking device.
"We did it!" she exclaimed, grabbing onto Ellsworth's hand with both of hers. "Sheila matched perfectly. The power source should be more than enough to cloak us clear to orbit."
"You're a genius," Ellsworth responded with a smile. "So now what do we need to do?"
"I need to get it secured in the troop bay," she said, nodding to where her two companions were carrying the recently married devices. "And then we're out of here!"
Ellsworth smiled again, then suddenly pulled her to him by her hand, planting a lingering kiss on her lips before releasing his grip.
She smiled tenderly at him. "What was that for?"
Ellsworth slowly shrugged. "We're getting out of here. I'm excited." He looked past her at the technicians waiting within the Pelican and ushered her on. "You better get going. I'll be right behind you."
She nodded again, squeezing his hand before releasing it and jogging to the gunship.
Fred watched the pair, head cocked in curiosity. There was a sense of finality to the young man's action that Alex hadn't seemed to notice.
"You didn't draw a seat, did you?" he asked, though it was more of a statement of fact.
Ellsworth smiled, though the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. He shook his head. "I didn't throw my name in the running," he said as he watched his wife begin working within the Pelican. "There's someone more important that I wanted to make sure had a place on the bird."
Fred nodded. It wasn't exactly unexpected. People did whatever it took to protect those they loved. He had no doubt that Alex would have done the same in her husband's position.
"You know," Ellsworth said distractedly, "you would have made a pretty good detective. My dad was a great detective. Inspired me to be a cop in the first place." He glanced at Fred out of the corner of his eye. "Sometimes I wonder if he wasn't too good at his job."
The Spartan felt his lower back tighten. "What do you mean by that?" he asked. His voice came out low, menacing even. He didn't mean it to, but he wasn't exactly repentant that it had.
Ellsworth shrugged again, this time turning to face Fred. "Dad went on this kick for a few years, investigating a few dozen cases of healthy kids suddenly taking sick and dying around the time his brother did. I remember him saying once that there was a theory that those sick kids had been abducted by the government for some nefarious purpose."
The knot in Fred's lower back tightened. The theory had come up before, though every time it resurfaced ONI had quietly put an end to it one way or another.
"In the end, the trail went cold," Ellsworth continued. "After all, it's not like one detective on a small tourist colony could do much more than look at news clips and obituaries, and there were way too many for Dad to sift through. He finally decided that it was better for everyone to believe that his brother was gone and was watching out for our family from the other side."
Subconsciously, Fred's hand trailed to the sidearm on his thigh. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked.
Though they remained open and friendly, Ellsworth's eyes hardened as he searched Fred's faceplate for his eyes. "If you run into my uncle out there somewhere, Sierra, tell him to keep her safe." He leaned forward, staring intently at Fred.
"I'll see that your message gets out, lieutenant. But I've got to correct you on one thing," the Spartan said. "I don't usually go by Sierra. My friends call me Fred."
Fred extended his right hand. For a moment, he felt his pulse quicken as he waited for the younger man's response. He didn't know why. It wasn't as if the revelation of his name would have any great consequence on the galaxy. Any link between the pair was pure conjecture, no matter how convincing the circumstantial evidence might have been. Despite knowing all of this, however, the Spartan couldn't help but notice that his chest had tightened, and he felt a nervous tingle in the small of his back.
Slowly, a wide grin fill Ellsworth's face. He clasped Fred's outstretched hand and shook it.
Suddenly, a single shout clawed its way through Fred's ears.
"Perimeter breach," Alpin screamed. "Launch, now!"
At the far end of the bunker, the elevator door burst inward. The empty doorway was quickly filled by charging Prometheans, the Soldiers dashing into the hangar. The mercenaries and local security forces scattered throughout the bunker began firing on the constructs, and a thunderous crack from Linda's rifle cleaved one of them in half.
The constructs began to retaliate, escalating the ordeal into a full-fledged firefight. Fred took the sidearm from his thigh magmount and returned fire into the dust.
"Get out of here!" Ellsworth shouted beside him.
Fred was torn. He knew protocol. He knew his orders. Still, a part of him wanted to ignore orders and force the young man aboard the dropship.
The Spartan nodded and passed his sidearm to Ellsworth.
"Look after yourself until we settle this mess and she can come find you," Fred answered.
Ellsworth grinned tiredly and offered a painful salute. He lifted the weapon and screamed, from pain or in defiance Fred wasn't sure, as he began shooting into the swarm of incoming Soldiers.
Fred ran for the gunship. Kelly and Linda stood at either end of the gangway, doing their best to assist the embattled defenders.
"He's here," Linda shouted toward the cockpit. "Take off!" The three Spartans entered the troop bay and quickly strapped themselves in while John acknowledged with a green status light and surge of the dropship's jets.
As the Pelican began to lift off the ground, Alex suddenly started frantically scanning the troop bay.
"Fred?" she asked, her voice small. Then louder. "Fred!"
In a flash she was free of her seat harness. The young woman flew across the hold to the still-closing bay door. Angry voices cried out as she scrambled over the other occupants. Eason reached out a hand to stop her, but the tech sidestepped her. Alex wasn't slowing.
Fred slapped the release for his restraints and lurched to his feet, catching Alex just as her feet left the ground in a desperate bid for escape from the Pelican. He placed her on her feet and wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her tight against him as the bay door closed and the gunship burst away from the camouflaged hangar.
"No, let me go!" Alex cried as she ferociously beat her hands against his armor, surely bruising herself against the immovable titanium alloy. She leaned her head back and glared into his faceplate with red eyes. The tears brimming beneath her eyelids suddenly started to spill over, and she dropped her head against Fred's chestplate. Her shoulders shook as she cried.
He wanted to comfort her but didn't know how. He wanted to say something but didn't know what. He wanted to do something, but there was nothing he could do for her. He couldn't bring Ellsworth back. He couldn't leave her behind. He did the one thing that he could.
He held her.