"Are you shitting me?" I frothed, "you knew and you sent us out of slip anyways?"

Jai stood there, Arianna rolled her eyes.

"The helmsman is crude but he is right. What the hell, guys?" Alex added, "we could have blasted it out of the sky."

"We need to know that it's that ship that has the other end of the connection." Jai replied.

"You know we'll still be dead in the water when they find us, right?" Kohli added.

"We used the juice getting here, they'll be able to board us the moment they arrive."

"Which is why we'll set a trap."

The argument continued but I remained seated, having made my opinion clear. It was all bullshit anyways. One FUBAR revelation after another. Damned spooks set us up. The device that sat in front of me, glowing idly, was a 'forerunner' slip space tracker. Now, I don't know what a forerunner is but I do know the kind of danger a tracker could put us in. Grey Team wanted to pull some kind of stunt to get the other half.

"It's called quantum entanglement." Jai said, looking at the captain.

Adrianna stepped forward, "two particles that make up a whole, like the left brain and the right brain. What you do to one side, you do to the whole."

"That's a terrible analogy" Mike interrupted.

Adrianna rolled her eyes, "I'm not a quantum physicist, you try explaining it."

"What you do to one, you do to the other" I said, slowly looking to Alex, with a grin.

"Why do I get the feeling you're about to say something stupid."

"Destroy it, that'll solve the problem."

Jai groaned, "and it'll make the whole operation void. Everyone who's died for this, will have died for nothing."

"They'll already have our location, anyways" Kohli sighed.

"Wait, you're taking their side?" I asked, exasperated. "At least if we destroy it, they'll vaporise us, rather than board us and torture us to death."

"I'm just saying we should probably trust the SPARTANs. That is what they wanted us to do."

Alex sat for a while, thumbing his beard. "Alright, yes, I said we'd trust you guys. Let's hear it."

"Brilliant!" Jai said, clasping his giant hands, "the plan's simple but risky. Let them board, buy time to reroute power to the slip drive, we board their ship while they're distracted and steal the other half of the device. Then we blast our way to reach, letting the portal take care of the covenant."

There was a pause and I looked around.

"That's stupid." I said, shaking my head. "What's, like, rule one of UNSC naval protocol."

"We'd only have power for one jump" Alex agreed, "we'd be breaking Cole Protocol."

"I would be, as helmsman. Then," I thrust a finger at Alex, "old man Harper can stick me in a dark hole and fill it with plasma."

Jai sighed, "It's a risk but there's not much else we can do."

Alex shot me a scathing look but he didn't fight it, he knew I was right. He could stomp and shout all he liked that it was really him that gave the order but Admiral Harper would probably just use that as an excuse to pin it on me instead, or promote me to a desk job, which would be worse.

"It's not a risk, you're asking the crew to die for this. 709 souls. For a shot at some piece of alien tech. You do hear yourselves, right?" I said before leaning forward towards the captain, "Sir you're not actually buying this, right?"

"It's not that simple, Ollie…" He said, awkwardly. To me, he looks put out for the first time since we'd met. Alex Harper was not a proud man like his grandfather and he wasn't a loose cannon like his sister. In that moment, he seemed to me a shadow looking for a body.

Kohli sat forward, her eyes narrow. "I can't believe I'm saying this but I agree with Van Graff. This whole operation stinks. Why would ONI send us on a recovery op for a SPARTAN team? We're greener than Green for God's sake, the helmsman is literally a pirate."

Mike sniggered at that one but as amusing as it admittedly was, I was silent too. If they knew Parangosky was likely testing me, then they'd probably arrest me. In fact, my protesting seemed a little hollow after my outburst. Afterall, I'd already signed my soul away, now the chickens were coming home to roost and I had to face them.

All 709 of them.

"We already said we'd trust the SPARTANs, Hannah. We made the decision." Alex said, trying to calm the situation.

"You made the decision. Just like Captain's always do. Just like Cole did!"

Silence.

"You talk about trust. How can we trust child soldiers who were stolen from our families?"

I raised a brow, watching as the cogs turned in the faces of those around me.

"I've been staring my long lost cousin in the face for days and they don't know who I am because ONI stole that life from them."

The SPARTANs seemed to recoil as though they'd smelled some kind of meat that had turned a while back. They looked at each other in turn and shrugged. Kohli's eyes landed on Jai. "Commander, I know that you've had a rough past with these sorts of missions but-"

"Don't." she hissed, "Don't you dare. Take off your helmet, SPARTAN."

There was a pointed and uncomfortable silence as they looked to each other, unsure as to what to do. They came up short and looked to Alex, who shrugged.

"She outranks you." he said, folding his arms.

Jai sighed and removed his helmet. I sucked air in through my teeth. There was a resemblance there.

"Cole said he'd help me find you." she said, a tear running down her face. "What happened to you ruined our family. My uncle couldn't handle it and when Cole died before he could help me find out what happened to you… I couldn't handle it either. I know it's pointless telling you this, you won't even know what it is you're missing but you would have been loved, Jai. I remember playing with you, with the dolls our grandmother sewed for us…"

Jai said nothing but the faintest quiver appeared on his lower lip, almost undetectable; it was clear that the SPARTAN remembered it too, because the mask slipped and his eyes seemed to fade with a film of sadness and emptiness.

He blinked, then without hesitation, spoke softly and with an assurance that only a SPARTAN could convey:

"I remember it, too."

Hi guys,

Quick update because I've been busy and unable to update either of my stories recently. Both this and Ghosts are almost finished (I'm further ahead with writing than releases) and updates should come quicker now. The slight issue I have is making sure that Class of '52 is finished before the conclusion of Ghosts as the characters will feature in the ending of that story and in the following release.

Also...

I have enjoyed writing two stories side by side and I will definitely continue to do so because it helps me keep going when I get bogged down writing one story. That being said, I've been toying with an idea for a while and am excited to bring you a new trilogy of stories.

Set in a galaxy far far away...