Lasky maneuvered the Pelican out into open space. While I'd been busy dragging Lasky the seventeen thousand miles from the bridge to the hangar, Roland had sent the ship into a slipspace jump, and we were just outside the atmosphere of some planet. Which planet? Fuck if I knew.

"What planet is this?" Lasky asked, sounding vaguely concerned.

"Fuck if I know." I said, staring at the planet as the Pelican descended through the atmosphere.

"Where do I even land this thing?" Lasky shook his head.

"Somewhere populated, hopefully."

He tossed me a disgusted look. "Obviously. But there has to be docking protocol, right? We need to get permission or something."

I picked up the radio. "I'll get us permission."

"Adams, that's a terrible-"

"This is a Pelican, requesting permission to land at the closest thing to land on, I'm a doctor and I have a patient who was recently shot in the leg." I waited for a response, but all I got was static.

I waited for about a minute, then repeated my message.

Still nothing.

"Oh my god, will someone pick up the damn radio and answer me? Are you all out to lunch? Taking a shit? Do you not have radios? Are you too stupid to operate them? I'm trying to politely ask to land on this godforsaken planet and you fucks are all blowing me off like I'm a fucking door to door vacuum salesman, will someone somewhere just fucking answer me and tell me where the fuck to land this goddamned Pelican!" I shouted into the radio.

"Oh, great. Now they're going to shoot us out of the sky because you're being an asshole." Lasky muttered.

"Literally no one asked you."

My tried and true tactic of raging aggression must have worked because the radio finally crackled to life with a voice that sounded as equally irritated as I was. "Yeah, yeah, I get it, calm down already. I was doing something more important than answering you. Head southeast from your position and you'll see something to land on and you can land there." It was a guy. He sounded like he was around my ripe old age of twenty three.

"Thanks bro, I appreciate it. Also, could you tell me what planet this even is? I have no idea." I said into the radio.

"Yeah, this is Terceira. You're landing on-oh, shit." The guys stopped talking.

Dead air crackled softly from the radio.

Lasky and I traded looks. "I don't like the sound of that." Lasky said, his eyebrows furrowing. "I really don't like the sound of that."

I stared nervously out the window of the Pelican. Lasky didn't seem to know what it meant for us to be landing on Terceira. I knew what that guy's "oh shit" had been about. We were approaching the landing platform, and he could probably see that we were in a UNSC Pelican, which was really not a good thing to be flying when landing on Terceira.

Terceira was bad news for anyone UNSC. It was a planet that had ended up becoming a home to the new Insurrectionist movement after the Covenant War, a planet filled with rebels and rebel sympathizers. The UNSC responded very violently to the rebels on this planet, and naturally, the Terceirans didn't appreciate that at all. It was a blood bath. Probably the worst UNSC/Insurrectionist battle that had happened. Eventually the entire planet was seized by the United Rebel Front and the UNSC lost all control of the planet. But I could guarantee there were still some hard feelings against the UNSC on this planet.

And I had the captain of the UNSC's biggest starship with me.

Shit.

"Lasky." I said, slowly. "Take off your uniform shirt."

"What?" He asked, staring at me like I was insane.

"I'm serious. You need to listen to me. Take off the shirt." I said, my tone flat, meeting his eyes with an unwavering gaze to let him know I meant business.

His eyes still held a question, but he slowly obeyed, unbuttoning his uniform shirt and discarding it. He was left in a plain black tshirt that he wore under his uniform. I frowned. It was still too obvious that he was in a uniform that belonged to someone highly ranked in the UNSC.

"You know what?" I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Take off your pants too."

"Adams, I'm flattered, but I'm not taking off my pants unless you give me an extremely good reason to." Lasky snarked at me.

"And here I thought my feverish desire would be a good enough reason." I snarked back. Then I got serious. "Lasky. We're about to dock on Terceira. This planet is home to one of the largest Insurrectionist movements in the entire galaxy. The UNSC slaughtered rebels on this planet. It's under the control of the United Rebel Front. You're in a UNSC officer's uniform. Roland has absolutely fucked us to the highest degree, and if you're wearing that uniform, you're a walking target. Things worse than death could happen to you." I gestured at him. "Take off your pants."

Lasky sighed. "I'm still flying this thing. You're going to have to help me."

I stared at him in disbelief. "Help you? Are you fucking serious? You want me to take your pants off for you?"

Lasky made a noise of disgust. "I'm not thrilled with the situation either, but I'm flying a damn ship and I was SHOT IN THE LEG, which means I'm not exactly capable of taking my pants off before we land!"

"Fine!" I said, exasperatedly.

My day was going wonderfully. I had lied to the love of my life, committed treason, shot a friend in the wrong appendage and now I was going to take off the pants of a UNSC starship captain and drag him onto an Insurrectionist planet in his fucking underwear. I'd learned my lesson. Never cause a diversion unless you carefully plan it ahead of time, because if you don't, you'll end up committing treason and someone will end up in their underwear.

Lasky struggled to land the Pelican on the platform as I struggled to take his pants off. I wasn't very good at taking anyone's pants off. Thel aways polite enough to take off his own pants, as well as mine, and taking pants off a patient in a combat situation usually meant just cutting them off.

Lasky jumped as I finally started yanking them off. "What?" I demanded, pulling harder on the stupid pants.

"You touched my dick!" He yelped, wiggling his legs to try to help me get them off faster, but all he did was make it harder to pull them off.

"Oh my god, stop making this weirder than it already is!" I hissed, grappling with the stupid pants. "And stop fucking moving!"

"I'm making it weird? You're the one who touched my junk!"

"Christ Lasky, you jumped like I stuck my finger up your asshole, you're the one making this weird!"

"Your hands are all over-"

Our spat was interrupted by the radio crackling to life again. The guy sounded stressed this time. "So, uh, you can't land here."

I fumbled with the radio. "Yeah, too fucking late for that. Shoot us out of the sky or don't, we're still landing here." Don't tell me what I can and can't do, random radio man.

I heard what sounded like a laugh come over the radion. "No, I mean you can't LAND here. You have to crash the ship thing."

I blinked. "Uh...I'm sorry, what?"

"Crash the ship. Trust me, it'll make things better for you. Crash the ship."

Lasky, who was now clad in his black tshirt and a stylish looking pair of flannel print boxers that I had thanked every deity I could think of that they weren't an old pair of tighty whities, shrugged. "If that's what he wants, then I guess we'll do it." Lasky glanced at me. "Its your turn to take your uniform off."

Oh my god. We were both going to leave the Pelican in our underwear. This day just kept getting better.

"Would you mind waiting until after I've disrobed to crash the Pelican?" I grunted, unbuttoning my uniform shirt.

"Of course. Would you like me to return the favor and help you take your pants off?" Lasky threw the Pelican into a wild spiral.

I fell back against the passenger seat as I threw my uniform shirt over the top of the seat, the motion of the Pelican sending it straigh back onto me, and I struggled with it for a brief second. "Oh, yeah sure, knock yourself out, I wouldn't even mind if you touched my dick in the process."

"Fuck you, Adams."

"Hard pass." I whipped off my pants and threw them on the floor. Thank god I'd had the vaguely psychic foresight to wear a pair of boxers myself, and not like a thong. The thought of walking onto the surface of a hostile Insurrectionist planet simultaneously amused and terrified me. All the exposed ass would make things very, very awkward, but maybe the shock value of all that exposed ass would've worked in my favor. Too bad I'd never know.

Lasky and I were going to crash a Pelican in matching black tshirts and complimenting boxers. What a beautiful moment in our friendship this was. A moment of bonding I'd never experienced in a friendship before, and one I was definitely never going to repeat in any other friendships. No thank you.

The Pelican hit the docking platform. It was like falling off a building then getting hit by a freight train, then being hit with four baseball bats.

I was thrown out of my seat and against the front window, which shattered on impact. Lasky had put on his seatbelt but was still wildly whipped about as the Pelican started to roll.

Shit. I was not in a good position.

I grabbed one of the metal frames of the front window and propelled my body through the openeing, managed to take an extremely off kilter step that was just enough to set me up to jump free of the Pelican as it rolled over. I hit the ground, hard, the wind getting knocked completely out of me as I rolled like the Pelican with the force of my own impact.

I laid on the cold cement, my chest heaving, my lungs completely unable to haul in any air, every inch of my body screaming in pain and the panic of not being able to breathe.

After what seemed like an eternity, two things happened. The first was I heard the Pelican creak as it came to a slow stop, and the second was that I was able to take a tiny, gasping breath.

As the air started to come back into my lungs, I was vaguely aware of someone approaching me, and then hands started to grab my body. Whoever was grabbing my ribcage, my forearms, my ankles, and various other body parts was talking and saying something my brain wasn't comprehending because I was still stunned from hitting the cement so hard.

I did a quick mental check and started to move my body. Nothing seemed broken. Bruised, absolutely. Maybe a cracked rib or two. But nothing else broken.

I slowly started to sit up and started slapping away the hands that were grabbing me. "I'm fine." I choked out, "I'm a doctor, I'm fine." I struggled to my feet.

"No, no, no. You need to sit back down, now. God, are you freaking insane? Why did you jump out of the ship!?" It was the same guy who I'd been talking to on the radio. I recognized his voice.

"Out of my way, I have to get-" I stopped. I couldn't say his last name, the guy might recognize it. He knew we were UNSC, but he didn't need to know who, exactly, Lasky was to the UNSC. "-Tom." I hastily spat out. "Tom's still in there."

I limped as fast as my gangly half Sangheili frame could carry me over towards the Pelican. "Tom!" I yelled as I got to the wreckage. "Tom, talk to me! Are you okay?"

"No, I'm not!" He said, practically whimpering.

My body went cold. Oh no. "What's wrong?" I shouted back, limping around the wreck, my heart pounding.

"Someone shot me in the leg!"

I swear to fucking god I was going to kill that man, mark my words.

Turning to the guy from the radio, who'd followed me over to the Pelican wreckage, I eyed him. He was tall, slightly taller than me, which put him at about 6'1". He had brown hair, green eyes, and there was something about him that looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it. "Come on, help me get him out of there."

I hoisted myself up onto the wreckage of the Pelican and saw Lasky squashed halfway between the seat and the console, upside down. I reached in through the window and gestured wildly. "Give me your arms, you petty piece of shit." I growled at Lasky,

"Only if you promise to crawl in here and grab those pain killers." He grunted, struggling to extricate his arms from the contortionist position the crash had left him in.

"I will, they're in my-" Oh, fuck. They were in my pocket. In the pocket of my UNSC uniform. The one I was no longer wearing. In the pocket of the thing that I couldn't mention, because if I did, the guy here would know that we hadn't arrived in our underwear and would definitely know something was up because no one crawls out of a Pelican crash in their goddamn underwear if they don't have something to hide, like UNSC uniforms that could get us something worse than dead on an Insurrectionist planet.

Lasky stared at me, and I gave him a wild eyed look, trying to communicate to him that if I finished the sentence that it would create a whole lot of suspicion that could lead to bad shit, like an awkward situation of having to explain why we willingly showed up in our underwear.

Turns out treason was the easiest and least awkward thing I'd done all day. This entire fiasco was really putting things into perspective.

Lasky hastily said something about him remembering I'd said I'd given him the last bit of painkillers on the way over, but the guy next to me interrupted him. "I have painkillers here somewhere, we'll get you something. But first we need to get you out of here."

The guy and I managed to extricate Lasky from the Pelican with no small amount of effort. He was a heavy dude, and I'd had enough dragging him around to last a lifetime.

Once Lasky was safe on the ground, I turned to the guy with us. "Who the fuck are you?" I all but demanded.

He really did look familiar. I felt like I'd seen his face before, but at the same time I'd never seen his face before.

He offered his hand. "I'm your welcoming party." He eyed the Pelican. "I just didn't know you'd be showing up in a very blatantly UNSC ship, so I had to improvise a little to dispel any suspicion." He looked both Lasky and I up and down, then his brow furrowed slightly. "Why are you both-"

"You know, there are some things in this life that can't be explained. And there are some things that shouldn't be explained. This is one of the only things that fits both those categories." Lasky said, waving a hand.

The guy mulled this over for a second, then inclined his head. "That's fair. I'm not really sure I want to know anyway."

He really didn't. There wasn't really a way to explain the underwear thing without explaining the starship captain thing without explaining the treason thing without explaining the Chief thing without explaining the Cortana thing without explaining the Guardians thing without explaining the...Let's just say I wasn't exactly willing to go through almost twenty years of history just to explain why two assholes showed up in their underwear.

"Anyway. Like I said, I'm your welcoming party." The guy said, gesturing to the two of us. "I was given a very brief explanation of a vague situation, which I'm hoping the two of you can eventually clarify." He then glanced at me. "I'm also supposed to tell you that this planet is probably your new home, as it's probably the only planet where you can seek asylum from the UNSC and be warmly welcomed."

What? How did he know I was going to need a planet to give me asylum for when the UNSC inevitably came looking for me? Who told him anything? I swear to god if it was Vale, I was going to risk being sent to prison to rot just to kick her in her perfectly augmented shins for being enough of a raging dunder head to tell someone. If it was the Chief who'd told him, I'd risk rotting in prison for the sake of finding him and giving him one of my signature Adams Kidney Punches, ones known for being particularly swift and painful, known for striking when the owner of the kidneys would least expect it.

I eloquently communicated my concerns to the strange man in front of me who knew too much. "Wait, what?"

"Yeah, you're supposed to stay here with me, until your name gets cleared or until you die, whichever comes first, and you dying will definitely come first if you try to leave here." He gave a halfhearted smile. "That's what Chris said, at least."

I stared at him. "Chris?"

"Christy." He gave me a full smile. "I'm Danny Jamison, Christy Jamison's brother."