"We have reason to believe Spartan personnel during the war suffered heavily from PTSD and mental fatigue. Raised to be soldiers from childhood, they suffered emotionally and mentally in that they were never taught how to deal with these issues, only to shove all of it into a little box in their heads, because they were never meant to live long enough for it to manifest as a problem. It worked well for them on the battlefield, but with no war for them to fight, I can't even imagine what the military is doing to heal them."

- Jennifer Hall, Psychologist, August 2553, documentary segment on Spartans: "Humanity's Last Line"

Three hours of staring at the ceiling had done nothing to calm Morgan's nerves, and sleep had been more than reluctant to come to her. The hamster that ran on the wheel in her mind had finally taken a break, thankfully, and it seemed Kat had joined him. For once, her head was quiet, and she let herself focus on the sounds of the ship around her, the ever present hum of machinery acting as the ship's beating heart.

She rolled onto her side, the mattress for her bed feeling too soft, like it would swallow her if she let her guard down for a moment, and her eyes rested on the fresh set of armor she had left standing in the corner, waiting patiently for when it would be used again.

Green eyes narrowed, and her lips quirked down as a frown started to form. Would the armor survive the fight this time? Would she survive it? There was no telling how difficult the fighting would get, or worse, if she never got to fight at all. Would they be spaced in a battle they were sure to lose? Surely the former Covenant ships the Sangheili had brought along would give the UNSC a massive edge, but they could be outnumbered heavily. What would three frigates do that an assault carrier couldn't?

She sighed, rolling onto her back and pinching at the corners of her eyes. Thinking about what ifs wouldn't do anything for her except make the hands on the clock tick by slower, halt the sand in the hourglass.

She hated being stuck on ships. There was nothing she could do to influence how things played out. If the ship got holed, all she could do was move to another section and hope she didn't get sucked out into the void. More than one Spartan had fallen victim to the cruel environment, suffocating or freezing, unable to save themselves. She shuddered. Just the thought of it, slowly drifting until everything went dark. She'd sooner put a bullet in her head and be done with it. When they went through the portal, there was no coming back. For all she knew, it was a one way trip even if they won.

A knock came at the door, and Morgan's frown grew. She sat up on the bed, straightening her fatigues with a passing hand, before she barked. "Enter!"

The door to her quarters slid open, revealing the permanently tired features of one Captain Adam Greer. Brown hair cut almost to the scalp was enough to show the widow's peak against tanned skin. The black fatigues were filled well, and the pyramid-eye of the Office of Naval Intelligence was staring at her from where he stood. The eagle insignia of a Captain perched on his collar, glinting in the overhead lights. "Lieutenant Commander."

"Captain, sir." She stood, her hand coming up to salute him, and it was returned before he waved her back down to where she had been sitting.

"You did well today, despite everything that happened. Things went pear shaped faster than we could respond."

Morgan merely shrugged, green eyes locked onto his own as he took a seat at the desk in the corner. "Make the impossible possible and all that, or die trying."

Greer's eyes narrowed, and he hummed to himself. "Be that as it may, I don't need you, or the Master Chief getting killed during whatever this brings us. You've both become the face of the Spartan presence in the war, and you know as well as I do you're both the best of your kind. Marines seeing a Spartan go down on the field will either fight harder… or they'll break, and I don't trust flipping the coin on that. The order is still in place to mark you both as MIA, but some are bound to realize what happens if either of you drop and disappear from the battlefield."

"You don't have to tell me twice. Do we have any idea of what's on the other side?"

Greer shook his head, his features hardening. "Negative. Sent multiple probes through, slipspace based and otherwise, and all of them cease transmitting anything back the instant they're through. Not even drawn out, it just ceases to exist."

"So we're flying blind?"

"Looks that way. Truth and his fleet went in with no hesitation. Came all the way here and instead of wiping us out on our homeworld, they packed up and left. What's more important than that?"

"Firing the rings and killing us all that way."

Greer's mouth twisted into a frown, his eyes narrowing. "Maybe. What do you think?"

"About what, sir?"

"Cortana."

It was Morgan's turn to frown, and she crossed her arms as she felt the familiar tug of facial scars pulling and tugging against the muscles underneath. "She got me through the last Halo enough that I trust her… but I'm not ignoring the fact I left her on a hive full of Flood that could have corrupted her. The problem is that we don't have any other options. The Elite commander said something about this just being a small contamination, and what do we have to show for it? Years of nightmares and who knows how many miles of glass on Africa." She uncrossed her arms, holding them out at her side. "I'll fight, like I always have. It's all I know."

Greer sighed, leaning forward and planting his elbows on his knees to hold himself up, looking all the more tired for it. "I know, but what do you think that means for us? We either stay here and hope we don't come into contact with more of the damn things, give up any chance of stopping whatever Truth is setting in motion, or we go through and possibly get beaten back anyway."

"What do you think, Captain? You're Naval Intelligence, you've got the strings in your hands. ONI doesn't just give up, and you know that far better than I do."

Greer set his eyes on her, narrowing as if he was trying to focus hard enough to stare holes in her. "What I think, Commander, is that we're stuck between a rock and a cliff. There is no hard place for us anymore. We push back and win, or we go over the edge and everything will have been for nothing."

Morgan pursed her lips slightly, the hard, narrow line of her mouth looking like it had been drawn on with a pen. "So why tell me all of this? I'm just another Spartan to throw into the meat grinder."

It was Greer's turn to cross his arms, and he sat back in the chair, making it squeak in protest. "You've got the rank. Noble One was a Commander, and Noble Two was a Lieutenant Commander. Notes attached to Noble by one Colonel Urban Holland said that he believed higher ranks allowed you the authority to make on site calls in a hostile environment without being second guessed by commanders far from the wire. Spartans are the best of the best, and if we can't trust you to hold the line or break through, who can we trust?"

"That still doesn't explain it."

He frowned, a sigh escaping from his nose. "Because there are too few officers as it is. Hood is staying behind, and our only force that we're sending through this one way trip to Hell is lead by an LC not even 30 years old and accused of nepotism more than once. You've seen more battlefields than anybody else being sent out except for the Master Chief himself, and he's always followed orders. You, on the other hand, are different."

"Different how?"

"You've operated for so long without true oversight that you're trusted to make the calls, not just take them. You've gotten yourself out of more scrapes than I'm sure you can remember. If anybody is going to lead these marines and sailors through the other side still breathing, command seems to think it's you."

"And you, Captain Greer? You outrank both of us, you're ONI."

"That's exactly why I'm not doing it. A team of ONI operatives is embarked on the Autumn, geared in the best we could scrounge up, and they're prepared for extended deep recon, just like you were told to do so long ago, but now you're a force multiplier. We can handle ourselves, but the weight of everything is on your shoulders now."

Morgan's lips curled into a frown, and she stifled the urge to pat at the tugging her scars did. "So, what, you run off on your own with a bunch of other spooks and find what we need?"

"That's about the gist of it."

Her frown deepened, and she stared at him for several seconds, the two locking eyes and holding it. She finally spoke up what seemed like an eternity later. "If you think that's the best way to do the job, I can't tell you no."

"No, you can't, but you needed to know. Only Keyes and the rest of that team know about their role. Keyes said to add you into the loop as the other command presence on the mission. Anything you need to know will be relayed through her. She'll give you more details, but we leave sooner rather than later and I figured it would be best to let you in ahead of time."

He remained sitting, not getting up yet, but Morgan suspected something else. "I get the feeling you've got more to say."

Greer, for the first time, gave her a smile. It was shallow, dark, more like a smirk, but she knew that jaded look. "You'd be correct. We'll make a spook out of you yet, Morgan."

His use of her name for the first time threw her off, and her eyes narrowed, but she was still more than fast enough to recognize what he pulled from his pocket and threw at her.

She snatched it out of the air, feeling cool metal in her hand, and she opened it to look at what it was. The dog tags for Emile-A239 and Jorge-052 sat together on a single chain, bearing the dust, grime, and debris that had been on them when they had died. Emile's tags were stained with blood both violet and red, dried and caked on the raised stamps in the metal that detailed them. Jorge's were cleaner, the big man more inclined to hang back and rely on his heavy machine gun, but they were dirty nonetheless, dust covering the letters from the plains at Viery.

Green eyes went over every detail, before looking back up at Greer. He held his hand up, stalling her from saying anything else. "Those are for you. I kept them on me, originally meant to turn them in at HIGHCOM in Sydney, but plans changed. Figured you might want to carry them into battle with you. Someone has to watch your back, after all."

He stood from the chair, looking into her eyes once more before he broke the contact and went to the door. It slid open with a quiet hiss, and he stepped through, before looking back at her. "Good luck, Morgan."

She stood from the bed, dog tags clenched in her hand as she called out once more. "Captain." He had turned away, but her call had him look back at her over his shoulder. "Don't die out there."

Greer's stony features broke apart into a more genuine smile, showing a hint of bone white teeth, before he turned fully away again, and the door sealed him away from her.

Morgan let her eyes rest on the door for several seconds, each one stretching out until her legs put her back on the bed, and her eyes broke from it to find the tags clenched in her hand. They were already warming under her touch, and she let her thumbs pass over the raised letters and numbers of her brothers. One an older sibling, and the other a cousin but no less a member of the family she had formed, ripped away from her by circumstance and sheer shitty luck.

Now, sitting there, and memorizing the ridges of both tags, she felt that sense of loss hit her again. It started off as that same pit in her gut, heavy like lead, before growing into a feeling of emptiness. When they had died, they had taken more than just the Covenant with them.

They had taken a part of Morgan too.

She hadn't known them for very long, only a month, but after years alone and being seen as nothing more than another gun to aim at enemies alien or otherwise, she had grown used to the Spartans of Noble. She had become more than just another Lone Wolf, changing her tactics and her behavior, and for the first time in many years, she had become part of a team again. She had grown comfortable.

Then it had all been ripped away like a bandaid that had been put over a fresh wound. Her hand came to her chest, feeling the still slightly blistered skin, and winced at the touch. Nothing would ever hurt as much as a return to the isolation. Marines had befriended her, and another Spartan was onboard, but there would always be the gap, the disconnect, because they weren't her team, her family.

Green eyes read the letters off on Jorge's name tag. It was little more than her own. A name and a number. Everything else had been censored as a grouping of X's, save for his blood type. Another was on board this ship that she knew would want them, and she debated on it, on offering the tags of the fallen to their next of kin. She had tried once before to give Jorge's tags to someone.

Emile, ever standoffish, had told her to keep them, that he had given the tags to her. Emile said he would honor the big man his own way, and in the end, he had done just that.

A sigh. She took her dog tags from around her neck, opening the link in the thin chain and sliding it through the hole of Emile's tag, letting it slide down and clink against her own several times before coming to rest.

Morgan frowned as she closed it up and slid the chain around her neck once more, the edges of Jorge's tag biting against her skin even when she was barely holding it. Standing, she pushed off of the bed and went for the door.

The armory of the Forward Unto Dawn was clear of the Marines that had inhabited it earlier, all of the boxes of ammunition and weapons categorized and sorted appropriately, accounted for and stowed for the impending transit they would go through.

Two remained, however. The Master Gunnery Sergeant that had been roped into armoring and arming the Spartans, and the person that had become known as The Spartan.

The armor he wore was the same dark green stock armor, little changed save for calibrations and software updates. The golden visor turned around to face her, as did the eyes of the Master Gunnery Sergeant. He put his hands on his hips, looking as if he was about to say something about her showing up without armor once more, but he seemed to think better of it as he saw the thin line Morgan's mouth had made. She played and joked with him, but something told him she wasn't in the mood for it.

Silence surrounded the three, and eventually he seemed to read the room well enough to realize he wasn't meant to be there anymore. "I'll leave you two to sort things out you need," he answered, stepping out of the armory without another word.

Now, alone, the two Spartans stared each other down. One clad in the heavy Mjolnir armor, the other clad only in the armor she had made around herself over the years and thin fatigues.

The Master Chief was the first to break the silence. "Lieutenant Commander, ma'am."

She realized that she didn't much care for the rank or the authority it provided. She had always been more comfortable taking the orders, not giving them. Even on Reach, she had deferred to Jorge, Jun, and Emile, despite all of them being lower ranked than her. It had never been a problem.

Now, under the eyes of a Spartan doing the opposite, she nodded to him. "Master Chief."

The silence stretched on until he broke it again. "Can I help you, Commander?"

"Please, call me Six, Chief."

"Yes, ma'am."

She frowned. He was stoic, stony, more so than Jorge had ever been, almost robotic in a sense. She felt an air of something come over the man, but she didn't have the words to put whatever it was into place in her mind. It spoke volumes of the man, however, telling her that he wasn't the type to engage in idle small talk like Marines, or even the Spartans of Noble.

So she changed tactics. Stepping closer towards the Master Chief, he barely moved, little more than a tilt of the head, and her hand was up in a closed fist, held out to him.

He stared at it, as if it wasn't really there, before he finally held his hand out to her. She put her hand in his and let her fingers uncurl from around the warm metal of the dog tag that belonged to Jorge-052.

The Master Chief watched as her hand pulled back, fell away, and he looked down at it, reading everything that was on it, however little. She had no doubt that he knew almost all of it, even if he was reading just X's.

The silence stretched on again, until finally, he looked back up at her. "Where did you get this?"

"I worked with him as part of a Spartan fireteam, during the Fall of Reach."

"Jorge was killed years ago."

Morgan's eyes narrowed. "Classified transfer then. He was shifted to an Army special warfare group made up of Spartan IIIs. I got transferred in myself right before the Fall."

The Master Chief was quiet for a few moments. "How did he go out?"

A frown came over her face, one that was barely noticeable, but she had no doubt the Master Chief had seen it. "We had to jury rig a bomb, find a way to get it on a Covenant super carrier. That bomb came in the form of a weaponized slipspace drive. We made it, got it onboard and held it long enough to prepare it, then plan B came into effect. Bomb's timer was fried and the Pelican it came in on wasn't making it out. His armor hadn't been equipped with a reentry pack so… he volunteered to stay, detonate it manually. He gave his life thinking he'd just saved the planet, and even while I was falling back to Reach… I saw dozens of ships jump in."

The other Spartan looked back down at the tags in his hand, and he flipped it over, doing as she had and taking in every little detail, from the dust and grime to the way the letters had been stamped.

Morgan stood and watched for several seconds, before she finally turned and went to leave, but a hand on her shoulder stopped her. The Master Chief had closed the distance between them without a sound, startling her. Nothing snuck up on her that easily.

His hand came out, grabbing hers, and he put the tag back in her hand. The golden visor was impassive as she looked back at him. "I buried Jorge years ago, when I got the call saying he was gone. He gave this to you. I'll-"

"You'll honor him your own way?" She finished it for him, and he nodded. "Someone else said that about him once, and they made good on those words. I know you will too."

Morgan clenched the tag in her hand, closing her fingers around it, and turned to go, leaving the Master Chief alone in the armory.

The halls were empty for the most part, the majority of the crew onloading gear or stowing whatever was left for the trip. Locking the frigates down inside the carrier meant that they were flying everything by the seat of their pants, having never been in a situation like this.

Morgan's tall, muscled frame stretched at the large fatigues she wore, the material skin-tight against her. She had grown used to the tightness, being in a vacuum sealed suit that had become a second skin. It was almost comforting, the embrace of her clothing and gear. It told her that if all else failed, she would have at least something between her and the enemy.

But now, she was with the enemy and not trying to kill them. The enemy had become allies, if only by circumstance, and the war was drawing to a rapid close that was hurtling towards her faster than ever before, but it felt like time only seemed to stretch on endlessly, the end going away from her and leading off into the darkness with the light that would release her from all of it.

Her mind was filled with thoughts that had no place being there. She pushed them back into the box they belonged in, but that box only had so much room for someone that had been given hours to sit and wait, something she had never been good at. Morgan had always been the type to grab the bull by the horns, to charge in and shoot first, ask questions never. Of course, she had never even considered that the war would end any time soon, much less that she'd live to see it. Circumstance had been the deciding factor in her life as of late, and she hated it.

She needed the claustrophobic confines of her armor, to seal her away from all of this and let her be where she was most comfortable. With a passing thought, she realized that was likely why the Master Chief had yet to even take his helmet off, much less the rest of his armor. He had been in Mjolnir longer than she'd been alive, if Jorge was an indicator of anything, but more and more she realized she couldn't compare the two. Jorge had changed during his time with Noble, and he was likely just fundamentally different from the Master Chief, despite the upbringing they shared.

She frowned again and stopped walking, her hand clutching at the tag she had yet to put on her chain, where it seemed to belong. Looking down at it, she turned it over in her hand, musing over it. She needed to stop trying to compare them, to stop trying to look at the Master Chief through a lens that only Jorge was meant to be seen through. She realized that she missed Noble more than her subconscious led her on to believer, and if Kat's haunting of her was anything to go off of, she had grown far too close to them. Even growing up with others, with Kat herself, she had grown so accustomed to being alone that a month with Noble Team had changed her fundamentally, undone years of isolation and a mechanical life devoid of anything more than the next mission.

Her thought derailed itself when she realized her lip was trembling, her hand trembling just enough to notice, and to distort the words she was trying to read on the tag. Morgan stopped herself immediately, both tremors coming to an end and leaving her to relax, before it started up again.

It scared her.

If only thoughts of her old team were enough to bring this on, what did it mean? Would it get worse? Better? Was she going crazy from the high stress life she lived? She didn't know, and she doubted she ever would. Years of therapy were needed to untangle the mess of trauma that was scattered across the years, but Spartans didn't get enough down time to properly deal with it. PTSD had been used more than once in reports she had read, but nothing ever came from it. Nothing meaningful, at least.

I thought I saw a few loose screws in here…

Damn it. Morgan frowned as Kat's voice echoed in her mind. "Don't go poking around where you're not supposed to, Kat."

"I won't."

Morgan spun around, nearly breaking her neck with the speed she whipped her head around to see where Kat's voice had come from, but only the empty hall remained, staring back at her. Kat was nowhere to be seen, but she swore that she had heard the other woman right behind her.

Looking for something?

It was back in her head, back bouncing off of the walls of her skull. Morgan's frown only deepened further, nearly a scowl. She had missed the other woman dearly, never allowed to properly grieve her passing, but Kat being a nuisance wasn't exactly endearing her ghost to the last Noble.

"You know, you were funnier when you were alive."

There was no response, Kat seeming to have preferred to go back into hiding, ready to come back out whenever Morgan was least expecting her. "Damn you, Kat..."

"Come again?"

Her mutter had been answered, and she swung around again, rounding on the figure of a Marine in front of her, wearing the flight suit and light armor of a UNSC pilot. 'Hocus' was written in big bold letters across the right chest of the flight suit, and the woman that it covered raised an eyebrow as her deep drawl sounded. Quickly, she slipped Jorge's tag into her fatigue pocket.

"You alright, ma'am?"

Morgan's eyes locked onto the other woman's, and her frown tightened into a thin line across her face. "I'm fine. No problems."

The look Hocus gave her spelled out disbelief, the pilot not in the least convinced, but she didn't push it. It wasn't her place. "O-kay," she said, drawing the o sound out. "I was just coming to find you. Wanted to know if you wanna grab some grub before they pack away the kitchens."

Morgan nearly said no, her mouth opening and forming the shape that it needed to make the sound, but it didn't come out. She looked like a fish out of water, hesitating. "I'll join you."

Hocus smiled, looking pleased. "Good! I'll have to wait on the drink, but I got to see what's under the helmet, at least."

Morgan felt some of the tension drain away, ready to come back some other time. "If you didn't know what I looked like, how did you know it was me?"

She snorted, gesturing for Morgan to follow her as the two started walking. "You're the only woman your height on the ship, likely in the entire Corps, and you're basically the Hulk. 'Sides, if there were more of you, I'd just keep asking around. Knew I'd find you eventually."

"You seem awfully confident in thinking you'd find me if I didn't want to be found."

Hocus hummed. "Maybe so, but this close to jump off, I knew you'd be doing something or another to get ready. Either in your quarters, an armory, or the bridge, and I was on my way to the closest armory first. Saw your friend in there. He's not real talkative, is he?"

"The Master Chief?"

"Mhm."

"I don't think so. Then again, nothing to really talk about."

"Nothing at all?"

She shrugged. "Nothing important." A lie, given that she had just brought something important up with the

Hocus frowned. "Y'know, here I thought you two would be gossiping like two birds in the morning but I guess not."

Now it was Morgan's turn to snort, a chuckle making its way up her throat. "You think too highly of us, Hocus."

"I love to flatter, ma'am."

The Spartan knew those thoughts would be back sooner or later, finding the key every time she changed the locks on that box of hers, but it was easy to push it all back inside and lock it up.

Hocus chattered on about this and that on the way to the mess area, with Morgan barely responding, content to listen to the other woman drone on. It was better hearing the pilot's words than the sound of her own voice in her mind.

The mess hall doors opened before them, with Morgan taking a seat at one of the tables in the corner. Hocus called out to her, pointing at the food that sat waiting to be eaten, but Morgan only waved and shook her head. No more for her. Not yet.

When Hocus sat back down, a tray full of food in hand, she went to work both on it and the Spartan sitting in front of her. The sound of a fork scraping across plastic trays grated on Six's ears, but it lowered in volume as she got used to it, frowning nonetheless.

"So, no idea what's going on with the higher ups, but they said to be ready just in case for the transition. Orders from Flight Ops said Alert Five is standard until we go through the portal, that either it'll be quick and we'll be ready to launch immediately, or we stand down an hour or two later. What do you think is gonna happen?"

Morgan's frown deepened. "I don't know what I think. Slipspace portals aren't exactly something I'm interested in experimenting with."

Hocus shoved another fork full of food into her mouth, her cheek bulging as she pushed the food over and tried to talk through it. "I don't think any of us are, but it can't be helped now. What about the squids? They've got a whole fleet and we're working with… scraps."

"The Elites are our allies. I don't see them causing trouble for us now, if they went so far as to ally with us. They've spent 27 years trying to put us in the ground, and they've always gloated about honor this, honor that. They wouldn't try to pull the wool over our eyes this late."

"Maybe you're right, but still… I don't trust it."

"None of us really do, but we don't have much choice. Besides, the Arbiter seems to hold a lot of sway over them, and he was the first one I saw when I got back. He was pretty pissed about the whole thing, judging by how he's been fighting, but I haven't seen him much since Crow's Nest blew."

Hocus's frown grew to match Morgan's own as she slowly chewed and then swallowed. "If you say so. I trust you, Commander."

Morgan gave her a shallow smile, one that didn't quite reach her eyes. She was being logical, but she knew that it sounded less than convincing. "I appreciate it."

"That brings another thing to mind, though. The real reason I was looking for you." Setting her fork down with a gentle scrape as the two plastic materials made contact, she made sure her mouth was clear. "Command said you'll be flying escort for us as soon as we jump in. They want you running alert with us, so I need to make sure you're up to speed. Problem is, they brought out something they're calling a prototype. Bleeding edge."

Morgan's left eyebrow crept up her face, a dark shape contrasting heavily with her pale skin and tugging at a shallow scar, something that Hocus caught sight of but quickly brought her eyes back to the other woman's. "They want me flying? It's been a while since I was put behind a stick." A lie. Only a few months, or weeks to her, had passed since she'd been in control of a Sabre during UPPERCUT. Since she lost Jorge. The feeling of the last remnant she had of him weighed a hundred pounds in her pocket, and she slipped her hand into it to hold it once more under the table.

"Command said you'd be up for it, that it's pretty close to what you've had experience with in the past. What was it?"

Her response was quick. "Classified, Hocus."

The other woman sucked her teeth, tsking at the response. "Damned clearance levels. Fine. I'll let you gear up and meet you in the hangar. Sound good to you?"

Morgan nodded slowly, pulling her hand back out and standing from the bench. "Aye. I'll meet you in 20. Thanks for lunch."

Hocus snorted. "You can take me next time. I'll be waiting, ma'am."

With that, Morgan bid the pilot farewell as she took her tray to the counter, the Spartan slipping out while she could and making best time to her quarters. Her armor sat waiting inside, ready for whatever was next to come.

She stopped in front of it, looking directly into the face plate and seeing her reflection staring back at her. Her eyes locked onto those that her reflection owned. She had a feeling of deja vu, of seeing this before, but she couldn't quite place it. She had been given more augmentations after CHRYSANTHEUM, told she'd be getting better armor, being deployed alone.

Her hand reached out to brush against the chest plate, feeling the smooth, cold metal beneath her finger tips. S-312 was etched into the right collar, where the bolts met the rear armor segment, and her fingers traced the letters as if trying to commit them to memory, when they were already burned into it.

Looking back into the face plate, she tucked a few errant strands of dark black hair behind her ear, frowning, and undid the tight bun that it was in. It fell to the base of her neck, on line with her chin and jaw, and she pulled it back into another savage bun. She needed to cut it off, get rid of the whole factor like Kat had done, but she didn't want to.

There was little more to do besides suit up now, and she didn't want to keep Hocus waiting. Slipping out of her fatigues, she set them on her bed. She went for the armor, but something told her to stop, and her eyes were drawn to the fatigues again, or more specifically, the dog tag still hidden inside one of the pockets. She bit the inside of her cheek but grabbed them and rummaged through the pockets to pull it out, sliding it onto the tag on the opposite side from Emile's, her own sandwiched between them.

Satisfied, she turned back to the armor and started the process of getting it on. 15 minutes later, she was fully armored, once again clad in the heavy armor of Mjolnir, the gel layer undersuit clinging to her with that same, cloying feel of safety. Something was different about it. There was a feeling in the back of her mind, one that told her to be careful, to not trust her armor as she always had. There was no reason not to, but her instincts had never lied to her before, and she had long ago learned to trust that gut feeling.

Closed away from the world, she left her quarters, filling the halls despite being wide enough for her to walk abreast of herself three times over. Marines and other sailors ran into her, but none said a word, all going quiet at first sight of her.

She paid them no mind. It didn't matter if they continued their conversations or if they gawked at her. She had grown used to both throughout the years, and she had more pressing things to worry about as a very busy hangar opened up in front of her, metal bulkheads sliding apart and letting a torrent of noise in.

Mechanics were hard at work making sure everything was up to snuff. Fuel lines snaked across the decking and bomb trucks were scurrying about with ammunition loads to fill Pelicans, Longswords, Shortswords, and more with their weapons and payloads. All of it was familiar to her.

All but one.

An angular fighter sat on the deck, two wide wings protruding from the rear and massive intakes sat at the edges of the wings. Twin vertical stabilizers crept up from the wing roots at a tilt, and a pair of nasty looking autocannons flanked the cockpit. Two launch bays closer to the wing roots, tucked into a hollow area where the wings split to support the intakes were being loaded with what could only be SAIM-400 Medusa Missiles. Internals were exposed through removed paneling, showing the launch racks already half full with more of the missiles, and two carts were loading hundreds of rounds into the ammunition storage bins for the 30mm cannons.

Morgan was surprised. They had actually gotten a Sabre onto the Dawn just for her, it seemed. Everybody else who could pilot them was likely dead or far away, so of course she'd be left to it. Question was, how had they gotten one? In the end, it didn't really matter. She knew the bird, and she knew it would do her well.

Hocus stood on the right side, talking animatedly with one of the crew chiefs. She spotted the Spartan and turned back to the crew chief, a slicing motion ending the conversation. Had the hangar been less noisy, she could have picked the words out, but it was over a moment later.

Stepping up to Hocus, the other woman put her hands on her hips. "Just what did you do to get yourself something like this? Chief says most of his men have never even seen one of these, and the rest only know the shared parts with other craft. Rest of it is a black box to them."

Morgan tilted her head. "Classified."

Hocus only rolled her eyes. "Is that true or just an excuse?"

It was an excuse. Morgan didn't want to have to explain it all, not when she barely knew how it worked anyway. It was easier like this. Neither of them could do mechanical work anyway. She made a point to send a message to Keyes through the ship's intranet to release the rest of the Sabre documents prior to jump off, having her armor send it with a few blinks and chin taps. Even if Keyes couldn't, Greer could.

"It's a surprise." Morgan stepped past Hocus, the tanned woman frowning. She ran her armored fingers across the steel gray hull, as if trying to find any issues through touch alone. The cockpit hung up, hinged at the rear of the cockpit glass. Inside, a pair of seats sat resting on a roller mechanism. When she got in and closed the canopy, it would slide the two seats forward to the front of the cockpit pod. The rear seat acted as a RIO interface, allowing a second pilot to handle all weapons and sensors and permit the pilot to focus solely on flying. She had always flown alone, save for once. Jorge had been her last RIO, if only for a short time, and he had been more along for the ride than anything.

She looked back to Hocus. "I think I'll be able to get used to it without too many problems, but if you wanna get me integrated into your net, I'll wait."

Hocus shrugged, more than willing to trust the Spartan at this point. They had never done anything to jeopardize the mission before, why start now? "If you say so, ma'am. I'll have you connected soon. You're still plugged in to external power, so you'll get my ring ricky tick."

Morgan nodded, turning away as Hocus left her on her own. Grabbing the first recessed handhold in the Sabre's hull, her fingers fit perfectly, and she hauled herself up to the next one, and then the cockpit lip was under her fingers. The heavy Mjolnir didn't even budge the massive fighter, and she slipped into it like it was just another suit of armor.

The pilot's seat deformed well under her, matching all of the shapes of her body and armor, and she left the canopy up, pulling up on a small handle on the left side of the seat. It rolled forward to the console, a single red light blinking in the center.

Flipping a few switches and pressing a series of buttons, the consoles came alive, multiple screens flashing and showing sensor outputs and ship diagnostics. One remained dark, the radar being left off to prevent frying anybody that was too close. Comms powered up and connected to her suit automatically, no channels selected or squawking at her yet.

She went through the motions, making sure everything worked. It was like riding a bike, a very heavily armed bike capable of spaceflight. It was almost comforting, and she took a few moments to sink back into the seat, golden visor reflecting the consoles in front of her and to the sides as she let her fingers gently wrap around the flight stick and the throttle. It was that familiar sense of comfort that she never gave words to. Like being held for the first time in a long time.

But she didn't quite remember that feeling, only that it felt fuzzy, warm, something to strive for.

A series of chirps sounded, breaking her out of her reverie and bringing her back to the world. A comms hail was inbound, and she accepted it quickly. The canopy lit up in front of her, the clear material that made up the HUD showing numerous readings and other bits of data needed in the heat of combat. Hocus' callsign appeared in the right of the HUD, her name underlined by a changing audio bar that bounced and jumped with every word.

"You're connected to our battle net now, Commander. Callsign assigned is Noble, no numbers. Flight roster says you're escorting me and mine – Sierra – with a couple of the new model of Broadswords, callsign Ranger. You're with them but you've got command authority if you need it. Commanding is Lieutenant Marcus Gibson. Good pilot, plenty of experience, so don't worry about him being green. Ranger and Sierra are first rotation on Alert Five, 30 minutes on, hour off. So unless you need to grab anything, might wanna get comfortable."

"I copy all, Hocus. I've got your back. Noble out."

Cutting the channel, Morgan slid the seat back, but left the electronics on. She wouldn't be gone long, and made sure to let the crew chief servicing the craft know. He gave her a thumbs up over the increasing engine noise filling the hangar from fighters and bombers being tested left and right. The Sabre would be next.

Leaving the hangar behind, Morgan made her way back to the armory she had seen several times already, finally completely empty. She went straight for the weapons rack, grabbing a BR-55HB Battle Rifle and slotting it against her back, where it latched on with no problems, filling her ammunition pouches with as much ammo as she could. With a full combat load, she would be more than ready for an extended fight if it came down to it.

Dozens of boxes of the chalky protein bars were already waiting for Marines to gear up and latch onto them before deployment, and she dedicated a pair of pouches to them. Water supplies were full and fresh, and oxygen tanks were showing no problems. Her armor was ready to go, and so was she, but she made sure to check everything completely. With one thing left to do, she initiated the shield discharge test.

The golden lattice around her shattered, the HUD turning red around the edges and alarms blaring in her ears for several seconds before the low warble of the shield recharging replaced them, emitting a single high pitched beep as it completely filled again. Satisfied, she was ready.

The trip back to the Sabre was short, more and more Marines and Sailors flooding the halls to get ready for jump off, only half an hour away from now. She wasn't stopped by any of them, nothing to be said between people rushing for their last preparations and checks.

Morgan stepped through the open bulkhead into the hangar once again, her Sabre filling her gaze as she locked her eyes onto it. The paneling that lined the sides and hid the missile racks away had been reinstalled, and the multitude of cabling had all been pulled away save for the power cable that was still hooked in through the ship's auxiliary power unit and a final fuel line that was feeding fuel into the massive tanks hidden away in the midsection.

The climb into the cockpit was the same as before. Pulling the battle rifle from her back, she slipped it into a rack on the right side of the cockpit, hearing the satisfying click as it was clamped into place. It wouldn't be going anywhere now.

Something new was in the cockpit, an M-Spec Reentry Pack had been slotted into the backrest of the seat while she was gone, and maneuvering herself into place, it locked onto the back of her armor with another click, several bolts tightening the fit before a notification on her HUD pinged, showing that she was ready and the pack was engaged. Now, if she needed to bail out or drop out of orbit, it would make sure she survived reentry.

Above her, the cockpit closed on itself, sealing the interior away from all of the noise and pandemonium. Marines were filling the hangar bay now, all of them loaded for bear and ready to go, squad leaders and other technicians directing the groups to the appropriate Pelicans.

All of them were covered in the shadow of the green giant following close behind them. The Master Chief, an MA5C assault rifle slung across his back and an SRS99D Sniper Rifle held across his chest by two heavily armored hands, waded into the throngs of Marines, stepping into the open rear bay door of the Pelican just in front of her, 'Hocus Pocus' being stenciled across the left side of the troop bay next to the landing gear strut recess.

She watched as the Master Chief slid the rifle into an overhead storage rack and sat down in one of the seats, his armor giving away nothing about what he was thinking or even his facial expression. He was waiting, just like the rest of them.

The flood of Marines slowed down until it had thinned out to nothing, and one more figure came through, a cigar clenched tightly between white teeth. Sergeant Major Avery Johnson was deploying again, never one to miss the fight as he ducked into the bay of Hocus Pocus, stopping and exchanging a few words with the Master Chief that she couldn't read.

Morgan frowned slightly, eyes narrowing as Johnson disappeared into the cockpit of Hocus Pocus. Was he Hocus's copilot? Why was he going out in a Pelican when he'd be more effective commanding?

She shook her head. It wouldn't do to start asking questions that she had no answers to, and she didn't plan on asking Johnson about it. Not yet, at least.

The minutes passed slowly, Morgan checking every system again and again, going through the motions in her head to make sure everything was going to work. Ten minutes before the jump, she put power to the engines, the intakes hissing loudly, like hot metal being quenched in water, before the confident rumble and roar of the engines filled her ears, lowering to an idle rumble.

More procedure, more waiting, more checking. She wasn't completely confident, given the situation, but it didn't matter. She shoved all of it into the back of her mind, like she always did, and she waited.

Her comms gear activated, an open channel being heard by every device in the UNSC combined force as the now familiar voice of Fleet Admiral Sir Terrence Hood sounded in all of their ears.

"The sun sets on the Earth, and I see the stars still shining in the sky. I'm sending all of you, our bravest and our best, into those stars, and I think to myself I may never see any of you again. All of you are journeying into the pitch dark of the unknown, with no moon or stars to guide you, and I pray deeply that you will use the light of your brothers and sisters in arms to light the way. Never give up, men and women of the UNSC, even when it seems like there is no other choice."

Hood's voice stopped for a moment, and Morgan swore she could hear him draw in breath. "I have one order for all of you. Survive. Come back to us victorious. Win this, this one last fight. But most importantly..."

The decking under the Sabre shuddered as the assault carrier fed power to its massive engines, angling up and into the portal as its nose began to disappear into the portal. "Do not go gentle into that good night, my friends."

The signal cut, and the world went dark as the light was sucked away, and Humanity's final effort was sucked into the long, dark night, and the chime of bells filled Morgan's head as Kat whispered once more into her ears, her Slavic accent rolling like a gentle hill as she spoke to her sister one more time.

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.