EPILOGUE¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

0600 Hours, February 12, 2535 (Military Calendar)/ Lambda Serpentis System, UNSC destroyer Resolute, in orbit above Jericho VII

Plague's pelican docked on the destroyer and he and his red team piled out. All of them were silent. They had just lost the planet to the covenant, and the whole system with it, despite their recent victory at the theater of operations.

Plague went to the armory to store his weapons, and picked up a view screen. He opened a camera view of the planet. The covenant ships were surrounding it, systematically boiling it's oceans and making sure that every last inch was turned into a hard, glass-like material.

He had seen this done numerous times, but for some reason, he wanted to watch it again. He knew of course, that the ship would jump out of the system on a randomized vector, and make a series of random jumps before heading back to either Earth or Reach. He wouldn't get to see the whole thing.

However, after a couple minutes, he realized that they weren't going anywhere. He wasn't sure why, but he was glad. There was something that he had to see. For some reason he wanted to see that it was gone.

Wrench had died to save that planet, and it was hard to accept that he had died for nothing. However, in the few weeks since, nearly all of the civilians in the system had been evacuated. Had Wrench not given his life, covenant reinforcements would have arrive much more quickly, and there wouldn't have been time for an evacuation.

Wrench had died for something, even though they hadn't won in the end. Perhaps even in war, winning wasn't everything.