—27—

There was only so much sunlight that could penetrate the moon's everlasting overcast; but light was light, and Rey was just relieved that another night cycle was over. Fifteen days of sunlight—however dim—would always increase the mood. The kids were playing now, more energetic and boisterous. They chased each other; the boys wrestling and running, while the girls went about their business in casual observation. The parents conversed with each other, passively keep an eye on their children.

Rey marked one of the kids standing on the fringes of the artificial grass field. He was a slender little thing with messy brown hair and sizable ears. The kid was just looking up, seemingly entranced as he peered through the transparent dome of glass and curved metal beams above him. Rey had no idea what the kid was looking at. There was nothing to see, just the dull orange haze overlaying the entire landscape. If you looked hard enough, you could make out Saturn and a glimpse of its rings, but that was all. There were no stars, smears of nebula, or any of the like that Rey once remembered during his time aboard a UNSC vessel. Maybe the kid was just reminiscing on what the sun once felt like on his skin, the smells of the outside. There wasn't a threat of walking outside with the immediate risk of suffocating before freezing to death. The seasons changed within months, not years; the night sky was awash with stars and the moon was a constant guardian and not your home.

Rey redirected his attention, almost embarrassed that the kid's potential thoughts had been his own. Astrid had walked up beside him, eating an assortment of fruit from a small foam cup. She pinched one of the red grapes and popped it in her mouth, shifting her eyes across the field.

"We have real grass seeds and soil in storage," she said. "Vegetable seeds, too. We should think about agriculture. It would be a nice outlet for the children and even the adults."

Rey looked over at her. She was always thinking, always planning. He knew it was ingrained in her after decades, but now it just felt aggravating to him for some reason. He couldn't explain it. Maybe it was her optimism. Did she not realize that they'd be dead in two years? Growing tomatoes and cucumbers wasn't going to change that. It would be a nice distraction. He kept his thoughts to himself.

"Sure, we could add it to the curriculum."

Astrid noticed the mild condescension in his voice and ignored it. Forest for the trees, she thought. She never missed a sunrise here. Even after four years, there was something energizing about it. A nice reset, almost—an opportunity for something new, something different. She imagined Rey thought the exact opposite. With a morning like this, it really made her miss coffee.

"Any updates from Mathison?"

Astrid nearly rolled her eyes at the question. "It's a beautiful morning, Reymond. Take a moment." She wanted to add that needed it, but she knew he could scoff at the comment. He would always think he hadn't done a thing to deserve commendation. "There are plenty of hours left in the day to consider those matters."

"And in 30 days I can see another." Rey didn't take his eyes from the kid. What the hell are you looking at, boy? "I just don't want any surprises."

Astrid took an apple slice between her fingers and sighed. "We have a few severe cases, mostly among the elderly and one child, although he was sickly to begin with. Some autoimmune disorder, I believe."

"Casualties?"

"Mathison expects one percent."

Rey diverted his eyes away from the kid for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck. The hairs bristled against his palm, standing on end from the constant chill in the air. "That's too high."

"Reymond..." Astrid paused, her grip growing noticeably tighter around the foam cup. She tapped her fingers over her knuckles and nibbled on her lower lip. The words seemed trapped in the back of her throat, hung up by the potential fallout. She didn't expect a heated reaction, but it wouldn't be favorable in the least. "Have you considered what we talked about, that our solution could lie somewhere beyond the camp?"

Rey looked over at her with a weary expression etched into his frown lines. He groaned. "I thought you wanted to take a moment, to enjoy the sunrise?"

"Something of which you rapidly rejected."

"I'm not ignoring the possibility. On the contrary, I'm sure it's probably our only choice. But the nearest camp is over 1200 kilometers southwest of us. With our vehicles, over this terrain, that's nearly a 12 or 13 hour drive. We only have the M18 now and it's unreliable at distance. There's also fuel to consider, enough for the drive and back. That's several hundred gallons that we don't have to spare."

Astrid blew a stream of air from her nose. "I know what resources we need, Reymond. It's my job to know these things."

Rey turned to face her. "Then you know the risk. And who's to say that West Camp can help us? Maybe they're worst off than we are. We can't contact them to find out, and it's obvious they can't contact us. It's dangerous, and I've risked enough lives as it is."

"Is that what this is about, risking lives?" Astrid made a laugh that sounded more like a cough. "Reymond, look around. From the moment this war started, lives have been risked, lost, and saved. Until it's over, it will continue to happen. You think Admiral Cole felt the same after the battle for Harvest?"

Rey sighed with pursed lips. "I'm not Preston Cole."

Astrid stopped eating, her appetite suspended. She wouldn't dare call him stubborn; he was cautious, calculated. But that didn't mean he was above risk. The raid on the Grunts was evidence of the fact. To leave the camp would be a massive undertaking, with so many pros and cons that she had difficulty on where to begin. But the glass wasn't half empty in her eyes, neither was it half full; she simply knew what was in the glass from the start, and she would work with that.
"I hear your concerns. They're valid, sensible. However, and I'm sure you'd agree, that we shouldn't wait until our backs are against the wall to act. It's better to be proactive."
Rey didn't say anything in response. It went without saying that from the beginning of this war, humanity's backs were against the wall. In every engagement with the Covenant, it was usually a reactionary counter to what they'd already done and succeed in. Harvest, Reach, the outer colonies—all fought after the Covenant had dealt a heavy, insurmountable blow.

The only difference now is that they controlled their fate. Aside from the Grunts, who were all but irrelevant at this point, there was no Covenant element pressing down on them. The only pressure was time.

"In two years we're all dead," he said. "But if we take a risk like this and it goes wrong, we lose lives and resources, both of which we can't replace. That makes those two years much shorter when you factor that."

"All I'm asking is for a preliminary manifest," Astrid proposed. "I can consider what we'd need to the exact measure. DEV can assist me."

"Let me know what you come up with." Rey didn't have the stamina to argue. Knowing her, she probably already had a rough draft in the works. He walked away from Astrid's side and casually made his way to the boy. The mother regarded him with cautious eyes, eventually giving a curt wave. He stood next to the kid and looked up with him. "What's the big mystery up there?"

The boy didn't make eye contact. He finally pulled his seemingly everlasting stare from the sky. "The clouds look funny." He rubbed his eyes on the back of his forearm and ran away back to his mother.

Rey watched him go before looking up again. It was the same clump of orange fluff he'd seen for years. Nothing out of the ordinary. Good. He didn't need anymore surprises.

There was no scenario that trained Damon for this. What guidelines were in place that informed you how to handle a person that should've been dead for over a year? He was sure it happened more often than not when the insurgents were the primary enemy; a high-profile target suddenly disappearing overnight, presumed dead, and then resurfacing years later. Still, that was mountains above his rank and pay-grade; but was it so different? He didn't think so.

The evidence was sitting in an adjoining room, unconscious and secured to a metal chair with arms and legs zip tied to the frame. The woman's obsidian hair hung down and obscured the profile of her slender face, the droplets of blood from her mouth now dried on the floor. It had been hours since daybreak and she was still out. That was a good thing in Damon's book; he wasn't ready to ask the millions of questions floating in his head.

Aaron hadn't said much, which was a shock. He sat quietly in the corner of the room, holding a bag of ice to his face with his eyes closed. His nose was back in its original position, crudely popped back into place. There was deep bruising around his eyes and nose, a reddish-purple that he couldn't hide even if he wanted to. He hadn't looked in the direction of the woman since helping Damon discreetly haul her limp body through the camp and into the derelict boiler room in the basement of B Building. If there was anyone who would be singing his own praises, it would be him; but there was nothing for him to say that wasn't blatantly obvious.

But it was Diaz that Damon was most concerned about. Naomi hadn't taken her eyes off the woman. Her glare was transfixed, predatory. She sat atop a table next to Aaron, her legs dangling off the edge. Her fingers were interlaced between her knees, knuckles skinned and bruised. The injuries to her face had begun to swell, her lower lip busted with bruising across the left side of her face. What pain she probably felt had since been numbed by the anger and reopened wounds of the past.

Time had a funny way of coming full circle.

"We need to evaluate our next move," Damon said.

Aaron snorted in laughter and adjusted the bag of ice over to the right side of his face. "That's funny."

"And what's so funny about that?"

"The fact that we've opened pandora's box and you're trying to put the lid back on. Sorry, but there's no closing this one."

"How was I supposed to know this would happen, that all of this would lead to her?" Damon placed his hands on his hips and peered through the smeared viewpoint window that separated the rooms. The woman still hadn't moved from her slumped position. "This just isn't possible."

Aaron stood up with an extended groan, the pain dissipating in his groin but still actively present. He walked over beside Damon and rested his forearm on the base of the windowsill. "There's a rational explanation for this, I'm sure; but I agree, she should be dead in that most complete since."

Damon looked over at Aaron. "You're loving this, aren't you? Go ahead and say you we're right."

Aaron only grumbled. It was the furthest thing in his mind. "Am I loving the fact we just apprehended a person that, just over a year ago, tried to kill us and is now back in our lives? Oh yeah, man, I'm just juiced up from this."

Damon sighed. "How in the hell are we gonna spin this to Rey? He's gonna to flip."

"Let's dial back the French, buddy. That's your problem to explain it to him. Best to rip the bandage off now. Waiting only compounds the problem."
Damon shook his head. "No. I can't go to Rey with this until we have something. We need to know how she's still alive. Once that's established, then I tell him, not before."

He stepped back from the window, hands curled into fists in his pockets as he turned his back in thought. Many questions pricked at him, none of which could be fully answered until she woke up. He wouldn't even know where to start. More than that, would they even be able to stomach talking to her? There was no casual conversation, and this wouldn't be a standard interrogation by his standards. Would she even talk to them in the first place? Something else struck Damon.

"I can't shake the idea that if she's alive, then isn't there a remote possibility that the others are alive too?"

Aaron shifted his eyes over to Diaz. She was still rubbing her hand over her knuckles, but her head was down and she seemed disconnected from the entire conversation. He wondered what was going on in her head. "I can't say for certain, but I think it's unlikely. We checked every room in those tunnels and none of them showed signs of life, except hers. But like I said, there's no certainty." Aaron set his ice pack aside and sighed. "It's bad enough one of these psychos is alive, so let's just focus on her. I'd rather not think about adding more. Baby steps."

"We exiled them, Aaron." Damon said it as if he needed to convince himself, to ensure that reality wasn't being stretched in front of him. "Every last one. We gave each them 24 hours worth of supplies and booted 'em. I'm no mathematician, but 24 hours of survival doesn't extend another 364 days without something happening in between."

"I'm just spitballing here, but maybe she was here the entire time," Aaron theorized. "Think about it. Who's to say she just didn't sneak back into the camp after a few hours? We've been here four years, but I can admit that I don't know every nook and cranny in this place. Hell, we didn't even know about those tunnels until recently, but she did."

"Yeah, but that doesn't explain how we eventually found her," Damon countered. "The fence, the blood, the food. All of that was recent. If she had hid out for an entire year, then why the evidence all of a sudden? We would have known at some point."

"Not necessarily. She's an innie. Worst yet, she's a survivalist innie. They lived out in the outer colonies for years without detection; and when the Covenant showed up, if they weren't killed, they dug in even further. She's probably just a victim of the double C's—she got comfortable and complacent. And that's how mistakes happen."

"Perhaps, but if she's hiding out, there's no reason for her to leave the camp. Why cut the fence and..."

"This is a waste of time."

Damon and Aaron ended their exchange and turned in the direction of the voice. Naomi was looking up now, seemingly more pissed than she was earlier. She stepped down from the table with a forceful impact.

"There is nothing to discuss , nothing to dissect, and nothing to raise an alarm over. We have one very obvious solution: finishing the job. I'll do it myself. It'll be quick and humane. But if that disturbs your delicate, UNSC sensibilities, then I have more practical methods."

There was a look between Aaron and Damon. A nervous chuckle got caught in Aaron's throat, shut down by the undeniable fact that Naomi wasn't being humorous.

"We're not going to kill her." Damon felt silly for having to state the obvious. Was it that simple for Diaz, to casually decide to end someone's life without a second thought? Did she not see the bigger picture? "She has potential answers that we need. It's only after that we decide what happens to her."

"Then we've got nothing else to talk about." Naomi turned around and proceeded to leave, marching toward the door without an ounce of hesitation.

"Hey, where you going?" Aaron called out after her. "This is still a volatile situation. We need to assess this."

Naomi turned within the doorway with her hand on the frame, the profile of her face riddled with bruises and micro cuts. "I need sleep. Find me when you've come to your senses."

Naomi left out and shut the door behind her.