Greenhorn V2

by acceptmyusernamealready

The old sailor's adage puts it this way: treat your ship well, and she'll take care of you. Of course, everyone knows they're just referring to basic reactor maintenance, equipment checks, and keeping the fuel injectors clear. Everyone knows that thinking the ship is actually alive is crazy. Right? Well, a certain Charon-class frigate and friends have something to say about that.

3. Chapter 3

"This is Jutland, Hostile Charlie-19 hit with two torpedoes. It's venting atmosphere, appears unmaneuverable, over."

"St. Petersburg requesting support. I'm under fire from several hostiles, over."

"This is Rokossovky, abandoning ship and requesting pick up for lifeboats—"

"CruDiv 3 is not responding to comms, over."

"All units, fall back to secondary perimeter at time T plus five. Repeat, withdraw to secondary perimeter at time T plus five. Peregrine, Condor, fall back immediately and assist Rokossovky, over."

UNSC ships fell back, rank by rank, as the skies over Reach pulsed with fire. In their wake floated a trail of debris comprised of hundreds of destroyed vessels, UNSC and Abyssal alike, the remnants of either a relentless pursuit or a desperate, running delaying action depending on one's perspective. The sudden appearance of just over a thousand Abyssal warships had left no time to organize a counterattack; hell, it was only through the efforts of Turul's static defenses that the Abyssals were held up long enough for the mobile units to regroup. Now, though, the moon's guns were silent, and it was all the fleet could do to maintain its battleline in the face of enough firepower to crack a planet clean in half. Retreat was embarrassing and dangerous, but the alternative was to be crushed where they stood, and a dead ship cannot shoot.

Admiral Thomas Lasky steadied himself against a console as Infinity shook from a salvo of battleship main battery rounds. The rounds crashed into six meters of heavily angled armor, blasting away tons of metal in a flash of released kinetic energy. When the flash and debris cleared, Infinity's armor sported a fresh, deep gouge, but held together while her shields rebuilt.

That didn't make it any less rattling. The CIC was buried deep within her citadel, but each penetration made it a little harder to maintain confidence in Infinity's plating. Energy projectors seared away at her sides while pulse laser arrays burned steadily through heavy ablative plating. A constant torrent of kinetic rounds either bounced off or smashed straight through her broadside while her point defense suite fended off a swarm of missiles and plasma torpedoes, sheathing her in a halo of metal and fire while she heaved her bulk through a turn.

"Splinter damage to MAC loading equipment, five secondary power lines cut. Estimate ten minutes to repair. Firing mechanisms are operable."

"Shields restored to eighty-four percent."

"Understood. Complete our maneuver and angle against incoming fire, eight degrees starboard offset from hostile formation Alpha." Captain Henry Shen, Infinity's CO, glanced over through the plastic of his vacuum mask at Lasky. "Admiral, Infinity is on station."

"Understood." Infinity's engines brought her to a bow-on position, menacing the Abyssal fleet with her main battery while other ships finished maneuvering into their new stations. Her energy projectors fired, spearing an Abyssal frigate at 50,000 kilometers and cutting its attack on battleship Gabriel short. The battleship returned the favor, using her three MACs to blow the bow off of a cruiser while hostile energy projectors dissipated fruitlessly against her powerful frontal shields. "All units, on completion of current maneuver assume formation Delta-Three, orient on Infinity."

Roland materialized on a nearby holotank, pilot's helmet askew. "Admiral, I can't get through to HIGHCOM. Permission to dispatch Cormorant as messenger?"

"Granted. Detach CruDiv Five to cover her." Lasky manipulated the battlespace display, turning it to get a better angle on the action. "Roland, any signal from the Turul beacon? Those surface batteries could put a serious dent in the Abbies."

"Negative, moon's still dark. Haven't heard a peep or seen a shot fired in… fifty minutes." Roland sighed and rubbed his temples. "A fleet transport landed on that rock. Anyone still alive is hiding in a deep, dark corner."

"Thank you, Roland." Lasky studied the display for another moment, then tapped several UNSC subformations. "Let's shake this up. DesDiv Eight and Four, CruDiv Six and Seven, BattDiv Three, form Task Group Bravo. Perform a dark burn towards Sector B5A and flank the enemy." The powerful task force immediately responded, turning and lighting their main propulsion as one. Their course would take them wide around battlespace, giving them a commanding angle from which they could hammer the Abyssals in their flanks. "Prepare to execute a De Grasse Switch in coordination with Enterprise. Enterprise, prepare to deploy torpedo bombers."

"Acknowledged, Admiral. On your command, over."

"Very well. All other units, concentrate fire on Hostile Formation Delta, over."

Roland arched an eyebrow. "Ballsy. You know, if this goes wrong, Bravo is dead."

"Very helpful Roland," Lasky growled, "now give me—"

"Already done." A timer appeared on the display, counting down the seconds until Lasky needed to order the maneuver. "It's a close shave, but possible."

"That's all I need."

"MAC online! MAC loaded!"

"Projectors charged."

Captain Shen rose from his chair. "Fire!"

Infinity belched fire and light, firing MACs and energy projectors in salvo at an Abyssal battleship. The majority of the salvo dispersed wide as the fire control systems refused to acquire a solid lock, but together with rounds from battleships Vulcan, Ea, and their accompanying divisions, more than enough hit to tear the tough alien vessel apart like a pack of wolves traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Even Abyssal armor and shields couldn't hold up under the fire of dozens of ships at once, though they did their damnedest as seven other ships exploded, graced by the merciless fire of System Fleet Eridani. In the rear, Reach's ODPs hammered away nonstop, sending a deluge of 4000-ton slugs raining down upon the Abyssal fleet, forcing them into evasive maneuvers and preventing them from getting shots on withdrawing UNSC ships.

Just because they were retreating, though, didn't mean the rest of the fleet couldn't bite back. Magnetic impellers hurled missiles from the fleet's silos, wave after wave of them forming a thick, angry cloud which hurtled towards the Abyssals atop the blue flame of fusion drives. Sheets of plasma bolts and pulse lasers flickered through the gaps accompanied by railgun rounds from secondary batteries. Energy projectors, those which could be aimed rearwards, unleashed carefully shaped and guided maelstroms of brilliant plasma, and this barrage slammed into alien ships still reeling from repeated main battery hits. When the smoke and debris cleared, the Abyssals had lost another ten ships, scrambling to rebuild their formation while corvettes, drones and piloted bombers darted to and fro and lobbed ordnance into their ranks.

If the closest approximation to the fist of God that the UNSC could deliver had rattled Abyssal gunners, they unfortunately didn't show it. Return fire tore through the smoke with accuracy Lasky could only envy, striking Infinity's shields and penetrating in a couple of spots, most glancing off her armor. Other ships weren't so lucky. First to go were a pair of frigates, wiped out by energy projector crossfire. An obscenely large kinetic round crumpled UNSC Maximilian Kopev like a soda can. Michael Cabot and Sarah Akane threw themselves into sharp evasive maneuvers, but the throng of missiles following them stayed on target and turned them into smoldering wrecks. Pinpoint salvos tore Green Glass Sea, Utopia, and the rest of Cruiser Division Two apart in the blink of an eye, too fast for their crews to even scream.

Lasky gritted his teeth as the casualty lists flowed in. A bloody nose in exchange for a black eye. "All units reporting critical status, retreat and repair. All other units, assume formation Delta-One at time t plus five, mark, over." As the reports crystallized and Lasky got a good look at the damage to both sides, his heart sank. The Abyssals were hurting, yes, but they'd exacted their pound of flesh and the aliens had quite a bit more meat to spare than the UNSC. "Concentrate fire on enemy formation Alpha, fire when able."

There was a lull in the battle as both fleets licked their wounds and reloaded. The remainder of the fleet completed their withdrawal and settled back into positions, staring the Abyssal horde down across thousands of kilometers of space, and Lasky used the opportunity to check Task Force Bravo's progress. Unnoticed in the fighting, propulsion silent and trusting their course to Newton, the small detachment took up a flanking position. Maintaining radio silence, the formation did not signal success, but Lasky knew the division commanders personally and knew they would be ready. The plan seemed to be working, the Abyssals too distracted by the tavern brawl in front to notice the stiletto about to plunge into their sides.

A little too generous there, Tom. More like a pair of safety scissors than anything. Smiling wryly, he glanced at the still-running timer, than gave the go-ahead. "Task Force Bravo, commence your attack."

The Abyssals noticed the task force the instant they opened fire. Rapid-fire MAC rounds made up for in numbers what they couldn't in precision, eviscerating a destroyer group then moving onto a frigate pack with similar results. Salvo after salvo worked over light Abyssal units, metal and energy breaking shields and penetrating armor through sheer weight of ordnance. A light cruiser exploded in the middle of a turn, prompting a shout of delight from Infinity's bridge crew. Lasky nodded in satisfaction.

"Nicely planned, Admiral," Captain Shen complimented. Lasky nodded tersely, watching and waiting for any sign of response even as the fire moved onto a battleship, raking its outer hull and battering it down through sheer weight of ordnance. "Although — damage control, put the fire out! Come to one-tenth forward thrust, bow up five degrees, initiate reload cycle on aft point defenses — I hope Enterprise has enough firepower for the second half."

"Even the Abyssals fear our torpedoes at close range," Lasky assured him, "and Captain Nomura's pilots have pulled off tighter jumps than this."

"As you say, sir." As several Abyssal formations turned to face the new threat on their flank, Infinity trained her main battery on a heavy cruiser being subjected to withering fire from DesDivs Four and Eight. Half of the salvo missed, a last-minute distortion in the fire control solution scattering two shots wide, but with its entire shield capacity focused on absorbing the energy hitting its bow, the ship had roughly zero chance of surviving the other two shells that entered its port side and carried its reactor out the starboard. "Cease fire, new target Delta-Ten."

"Yes sir!"

Another alarm started up, though with the constant ringing and blaring on the bridge Lasky wondered if it had ever stopped in the first place. "Incoming missiles, detecting high-yield nuclear payloads. Retasking point defenses now."

"Status on our EW suite!" Shen demanded.

"Electronic countermeasures are fully deployed," Roland responded, appearing on a nearby holotank. "For your information, while you weren't looking I convinced a good part of the inbound missile hive that there were some juicy targets about a thousand light years above the galactic plane, and another few hundred or thousand missiles received self-destruct instructions which, whoops, they didn't bother to authenticate." He shrugged and did a small half-bow. "And the crowd goes mild."

"Thank you, Roland. Keep up the pressure, and keep trying to infiltrate their battlenet. There must be a weakness there."

"Will do, sir. By the way, TF Bravo reports that the enemy is engaging them in force. Right on schedule, it seems," Roland finished, glancing up at the timer still running on the main display. "You might want to get on that."

Mentally berating himself for losing situational awareness, Lasky whipped his head back towards the battlespace projection dominating the center of the bridge. Tired of the thorn in their side, the Abyssals were redeploying a significant portion of their forces to crush the small squadron. The fleet's sensors registered energy spikes corresponding to charging slipspace drives throughout the Abyssal battleline, indicating that they were preparing to make a precision jump. "Get me Enterprise," he ordered the comms officer. After a moment and a nod, he continued. "Captain Nomura, are your squadrons ready?"

"All squadrons are launched and ready to jump, sir."

"Understood. Enterprise, TF Bravo, prepare to execute the maneuver on my command. All other units, intensify fire on enemy formation Charlie. Keep their attention on us!" Sweat beaded on Lasky's brow — timed right, his strategy could leave a good portion of the Abyssal fleet as irradiated dust. Timed wrong, and he had just signed the death warrant for dozens of pilots and warships. Status reports showed that every ship in the task force had its slipspace capacitors charged, carefully maneuvering to secure clear jump vectors. Wait for it… wait for it…

"Cherenkov spikes, enemy units are initiating precision jumps." With Mark 4 Jump Interdiction Beacons — slipspace jammers — in place in regular intervals in low Reach orbit, the Abyssals could not be aiming for a crippling strike to the fleet's rear. They could only be going one place.

Just as planned. "Bravo, Enterprise, immediate execute De Grasse Switch!"

The battered ships of Task Force Bravo needed no further encouragement. Already wildly maneuvering to avoid fire, it was trivial for them to throw themselves through slip space ruptures, just as even more portals turned the space they occupied into a massive clusterfuck of space-time distortion. Four Abyssal cruiser divisions and a battleship division emerged, determined to crush the irritating humans with overwhelming force. However, blinded by their transit, they did not realize their targets had just barely given them the slip, and in the place of flat-footed warships the alien vessels found a swarm of bombers buzzing angrily around them. Their bloodlust turned quickly to dread as they analyzed the energy signatures emanating from within the UNSC weapon bays, and then to panic as the swarm paused for the barest of instants, almost like it was regarding the predators-turned-prey caught in its midst, then fell inwards with a cloud of furious wasps.

"Successful jump. Commencing attack now, over."

Point defenses barely had time to acquire targets before the strike craft formed their squadrons and entered attack runs. There were thirty squadrons, each comprised of six bombers, one human-piloted and five drones, covering forty-seven Abyssal ships. Even the most skilled pilot would have balked at the raw volume of point defense fire present, but for the networked AI cooperating with the human squadron leaders to direct the strike it was only a somewhat thorny math problem. Recognizing that not every ship could be hit, targeting protocols picked out priority targets as the nimble single-ships wove through flak fields, micro-missiles, scything pulse lasers and plasma fire as dense as anything the Covenant had ever produced. Losses mounted as the bombers pressed the attack home, but without fighter cover of their own and up against the overwhelming electronic warfare capabilities of the fleet's AIs the Abyssals could not shoot down more than one or two per squadron of the constantly and erratically maneuvering strike craft.

Close enough to the point where the sheer bulk of the Abyssal ships interfered with their own fields of fire, weapons bays opened and payloads began falling. First were clusters of EMP devices, exploding in storms of electromagnetic fury which disrupted the particle matrix and caused portions of the field to fall amidst arcs of crackling electricity. The localized disruptions were regenerated within seconds, but seconds were all that were needed for the second phase of the attack to hit. The loadouts of the squadrons were divided for redundancy — each craft carried EMP warheads as well as two torpedoes. These were not small affairs meant for raiding commercial shipping. Each torpedo was identical to the ones found in the silos and launchers of UNSC frigates and corvettes, the ones which had savaged Abyssal capital ships in the skies of Roseport. Launched right behind the EMP warheads, the torpedoes slipped in through the gaps in they created, and as the bombers fled for Enterprise's slipspace ruptures amidst a vengeful hail of point defense fire they hit home.

Embedded in the core of each torpedo was a tiny, unassuming crystal which pulsated with an eerie blue light. They were poor imitations of the slipspace shards used by the Forerunners in their translight engines; by comparison, as black powder was to C-7 explosive —incredibly crude, highly unstable, but good enough for what they were designed for. With the help of an intense burst of x-ray radiation, the unstable crystal generated a highly unstable, irregular slipspace rupture which didn't damage anything it touched so much as bypass armor and internal shielding to shunt whatever happened to be within its reach into the endless void of slipspace, to be spat out in some distant forgotten corner of the universe. Oversized fusion drives pushed the torpedoes past the minimum range of Abyssal point defenses within the blink of an eye, and in seconds six Abyssal battleships and eighteen cruisers were reduced to nothing but drifting hunks of metal with gaping wounds as if some giant cosmic dragon had decided to take a few bites out of them.

"Enterprise, attack successful. Strike craft returning to base."

"Excellent work, Enterprise. Continue to conduct standard strike and interdiction ops." Lasky nodded in satisfaction as the bridge crew gave up a cheer. "All forces, concentrate fire on the remaining enemy forces in Sector B5A. Destroy them before they recharge their slipspace drives!"

"What's Abyssal for 'ouch'?" Roland asked as Infinity unloaded her guns on the disoriented survivors of Enterprise's bombers. "If I were them, I'd be having second thoughts."

"I hope so," Lasky replied, anxiously studying the display. Indeed, the Abyssal fleet appeared to pull back just a bit, no longer sending out as many probing frigate and fighter squadrons or advancing its battleships and cruisers. For the time being, they seemed content to just sit at range and lob rounds, and Lasky was perfectly happy to let them do so. At this range their accuracy was questionable at best, especially since the UNSC formation left room for evasive maneuvers. Of course, thanks to Abyssal sensor blurring UNSC precision was downright atrocious, a full fleet salvo scoring maybe three or four dozen hits, but he didn't care about inflicting damage so much as drawing out the fight, buying as much time as possible for the evacuations. "Roland, how many of our forces are currently engaged?"

"All divisions are actively engaged. No word on reinforcements either, HIGHCOM is still on lunch break."

"Understood," Lasky said, gritting his teeth as missile spam overwhelmed an isolated destroyer division and they disappeared from the display. "All units, check your separations and maintain point defense overlap! Roland, time to evacuation completion?"

"Evac command reports another twelve hours to get all ships away."

"So we're stuck in for that long…" Lasky nodded his thanks and turned back to the display, shuffling around his formation to give the more beleaguered ships breathing room. "It doesn't make sense," he muttered, just loud enough for Roland to hear.

"Credit for your thoughts, sir?"

"Look," he replied, pointing at the red blob of the Abyssal fleet. "They outnumber us two to one. It's taking all we have just to hold them back. If they really push they could overrun us, so why haven't they…?"

Roland looked thoughtful, tapping one finger against his holographic chin. "Well, they did hit Turul before moving onto us, and their line is still anchored there." He gestured to the moon in question, colored the deep red of 'overrun'. "Maybe they're looking for something there and can't afford to concentrate their full attention on us?"

"Well, whatever it is, it's convenient. Anything that lets us evacuate more people is good." Even as he finished speaking, though, Lasky couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong. He cast his eye over the display, and as Infinity shook from another main battery discharge he allowed his focus to wander away from the main battle. Even as Abyssal and UNSC ships continued to pound each other to dust, more status lights blinking yellow, then red, then off, he tried to see beyond the obvious. The Abyssals weren't dumb, they wouldn't commit to a battle of attrition like this when they had the numbers to roll right over the UNSC, so what were they planning? Where was he leaving himself open…?

"Incoming transmission, Manassas Station!" shouted the comms officer, startling Lasky out of his reverie. "Large Abyssal formations emerging on the other side of the planet!"

"What?! Show me!" The display spun to Reach's other side, hiding the main battle from view. Several ODP clusters, guarded by a few cruiser, destroyer, and frigate divisions, hung there, a footnote to the main battle. Manassas Station in particular guarded the titular city's spaceport, a focal point for the steady stream of evacuation ships getting offworld. Lasky thought them safely concealed while the fleet held the Abyssals' attention, but now a freighter filled to the brim with civilians split in half in a flash of light as four Abyssal cruiser divisions and a dozen destroyer divisions made their presence known. "Where did they come from?!"

"There was no sign of them, they didn't jump! They must have gone dark at the very start and coasted their way around." The ODPs and rearguard forces immediately moved to engage, but it was a losing battle from the start. His first instinct was to immediately detach a task force to reinforce them, but any attempt to move away from the fleet or gain distance for a precision jump would surely result in being focused down and destroyed.

Lasky suddenly understood the trap he'd fallen into. "Why did they concentrate their forces against this orbital arc? They know that they outmatch us ship for ship, but that we can match them with concentrated force and ODP support. So they nail us down with a force that's small enough to let us match them from a defensive position, baiting us into a static fight, but big enough so that if we spread out our defense they can easily isolate individual ships and destroy them. And while we're all grouped up and pinned down like this, they trade fire to keep our focus on them, while they can afford, with their numbers, to sneak ships around our flank and hit our rear areas. And we can't do a damn thing about it, because our ships will be blown out of the sky as soon as I detach them."

Roland's eyes nodded in agreement. "Suppress and flank, it's a textbook maneuver. So simple I didn't even consider it."

Lasky nodded stiffly, rage and frustration clear in every fiber of his body. "And I fell for it. Damn them to hell!" he growled, slamming a fist against the holotable, mind racing for a way out even as the rearguard began to fall ship by ship. "Halt the evacuation now, ground all ships in atmosphere, forces in the area will cover those ships already in orbit and ensure they can jump!"

"Yes, sir!"

As if he didn't have enough to deal with, the sensor officer piped up as well. "Enemy forces are advancing en masse. Energy spikes — they're charging weapons, swinging wide to envelop us."

And so the other shoe dropped. If not for professionalism and discipline instilled by years of fighting, Lasky would have screamed in frustration. His options were to either stay defensive and be overrun, flee and abandon the evacuation, split his forces to be hunted down one by one, or order a counter-attack and charge into the waiting maw. He was trapped, with no one to blame but himself.

"Admiral, do we have orders?" questioned Captain Shen, finally showing some nervousness in a furrowed brow. "Abyssals are entering mid-range." Left unsaid was that their shooting was getting more accurate by the minute. Battleship Ares fell out of formation for a brief moment, just long enough for focus fire to put three of her four main guns out of commission and turn her bow armor into a cratered ruin. Advancing to cover her, two cruisers managed to score hits and disable one of their Abyssal counterparts, taking enough fire off of Ares to prevent her complete destruction before being destroyed in turn. A frigate squadron hurled a final torpedo salvo as the enemy line overtook them, fragile hulls popping like soap bubbles while the Abyssals concentrated on battering several heavy cruisers into scrap. Carrier Essex's escort was caught off guard by the sudden advance and left her uncovered for a few moments, just enough for energy projectors followed by dozens missiles strikes to turn her hull and hangars into flaming scrap.

Damage reports and requests for assistance steadily mounted in frequency. Lasky tasked Roland with sorting them out, too busy trying to figure out a strategy. Unconsciously, he reached up to the shards of Hunter armor, worn smooth over the years, and the set of dog tags around his neck. Time slowed as his eyes flicked back and forth across the display, searching for a way out. He could push out just enough to clear the ships for a slipspace jump. Hell, he might even preserve most of the fleet that way. But that would mean abandoning the planet, abandoning the evacuation, not only of Reach but of Tribute, Circumstance, and all the other worlds and colonies of Epsilon Eridani. Could he justify sacrificing ships and sailors to perhaps buy them that chance? "Captain Shen."

"Yes, Admiral?"

Lasky ground his teeth together, forcing the words out. "If you faced a choice between being guaranteed your survival… or giving many, many others the chance to see another day… which would you choose?"

"… sir, it is your decision," Shen stated flatly, seeing straight through his hedging. Lasky started to nod in resignation, but Shen continued. "However, I do not believe that I could, in good conscience, take the selfish option in this case."

"… thank you. And…" Lasky looked around the bridge. Every officer met his eye, and he could see nothing but determination in their gazes. "I see." His fist tightened around the armor shard, then relaxed. "Very well. Captain Shen, make your ship ready for close combat." Shen turned away with a grim nod and began issuing the relevant orders while Lasky reached for the fleet broadcast, a plan forming in his mind's eye and on the display in front of him. He breathed deeply, praying that his words would not fail him.

"Attention all units. Our primary battleline is untenable and the evacuation zones are under direct threat. As such, the primary objective is now preventing enemy reinforcements to the attack on our rearguard while increasing our defenses in those areas. Assume formation Whiskey-Sierra-Five and prepare to advance on the enemy. BattDiv Three, CruDivs One, Ten, Twelve and Eight, DesDivs Two through Ten, fall behind the main line of advance. Once you have sufficient separation, jump to intercept the enemy forces attacking our rear and shield the evacuation." He waited a moment to let acknowledgments blink from across the fleet, then began sending out his maneuver plan. "On our approach, stay close to overlap point defense and coordinate maneuvers to escape focus fire. Soft launch all remaining nuclear ordnance on my mark along with a conventional missile salvo, timed to hit when the distance between us and the enemy is thirty thousand kilometers. Use the EMP cover to close to effective main battery range. We'll aim to intercept the right wing of the enemy line, then swing around and continually bring our full strength to bear on small segments of their fleet."

"The secondary objective is to preserve our fighting strength, so don't throw away your ships, but if escape is unlikely then take as many of the bastards with you as you can." A breath to calm his nerves. "The Abbies are out for blood; use that against them. Bait them out of formation, distract them, isolate them. No matter what, stay on the move."

"It has been an honor fighting by your side. Don't stop firing until the last round is gone. Good luck. Lasky, out." The incoming fire intensified as he signed off, battering away at Infinity's shields. Even as the fleet got into position, Abyssal fire wiped out another two destroyers and a light cruiser, briefly exposed in the shuffle. If they didn't advance soon, the Abyssals would close the distance and all momentum would be with them. It was now or never. Looking around, he met Roland's gaze and gave a nod that carried all the words he didn't have time to say. The AI smirked and nodded back, then dematerialized to focus all his processing power on coordinating with other AIs across the fleet. Lasky continued to stare at the display, waiting for all his ships to get in formation, finger hovering over the fleet broadcast. "All units, prepare to launch covering salvo in ten seconds—"

"Wait!" Roland rematerialized, throwing out a holographic arm. Lasky nearly bit his tongue cutting off his orders. "Something's happening at the Abyssal rear — hold on, they're slowing down. Their formation is disintegrating!"

"Belay previous orders! All units stand by, repeat, stand by." Lasky squinted at the display. Sure enough, the monolithic Abyssal battleline was breaking apart, ships turning to scatter from the center like a swarm of ants dodging a raindrop. Individual vessels and sub formations maintained their position and continued to bear down, but as battleships swung their massive forms through wide turns while lighter units flitted around them like minnows, it was clear that unit cohesion was coming apart. While his brain tried to catch up to his eyes, he managed to stutter out, "What's going on? Why's this happening?!"

"I don't know, it's like something's hitting them from behind! I don't have a visu — wait, incoming transmission from… Turul?"

"Turul? But… patch it through," Lasky ordered. As the transmission appeared on the display, he continued without waiting for it to clear up. "This is Admiral Lasky, UNSC Infinity. Who am I speaking to?" he asked, trying to ignore the rising tide of anxious murmurs, questions, and confused chatter on Infinity's bridge as well as the dozens of comm requests coming in from across the fleet.

A harried, exhausted, but pleased voice came back over the radio. "This is Captain Garcia, UNSC Scorpia, sir. My apologies for the lack of communication, our comm array was down."

"How are you alive?" Lasky questioned, silently signaling for Roland to confirm the transmission's authenticity. "Turul is overrun."

"There's no time to explain, sir, but I think Lady Luck is on our side for a change. I'm sorry Admiral, but things are moving fast so I'm going to patch someone else through. I just need you to order the fleet not to fire on a transponder reading 'Forward Unto Dawn'."

"Forward Unto — Captain, what is going on here?!" Lasky held back a curse as the line cut off, only to be replaced by a new comm request, routed through the same array but from a different source. "Roland, security analysis."

"I didn't detect any intrusion attempts piggybacking on that transmission, and the voice sounded genuine. If it's a fake, it's a lot of effort for something pretty pointless."

"What is even happening anymore?" The universe didn't appear forthcoming with answers, so he resigned himself to accepting the request. "This is Admiral Thomas Lasky. Identify yourself and the purpose of your transmission."

"Admiral Lasky?" Lasky blinked at the voice that came through. Young, and much too chipper given the circumstances, but also hiding a well of experience and sadness much too deep for its age. "My name is Forward Unto Dawn. I was told to speak to you sir."

Taking a deep breath to compose himself, Lasky responded. "'Forward Unto Dawn'? Who are you and what are your intentions?" His mind raced, trying to figure out how to incorporate this new factor into his strategy while his hands hastily repositioned the fleet into a defensive formation and took advantage of Abyssal confusion to dispatch reinforcements to the evacuation zones.

"Well… the first one is going to take a while to explain, sir, but the other should be clear enough if you glance over at my transponder." Right on cue, a small grey icon marked 'Forward Unto Dawn' appeared on the display near Turul. Ignoring the potential time paradox that presented, as well as the poorly disguised stares from the bridge crew, Lasky glanced over. Nothing happened for a moment, and he was about to point out as much when the transmission continued. "… aaaaaand, there! Take that!"

Lasky would later reflect over drinks that, in a battle with so many twists and turns, he really shouldn't have been so surprised by what happened next. As it was though, he couldn't help from finally letting loose a single, loud, 'fuck' as the radio frequencies erupted into chaos when in a sector of space none of Lasky's ships were targeting, an Abyssal cruiser quietly and abruptly exploded.

---

A stream of shells burst against the shields covering Echo-4. Cursing, the pilot wrenched the Rapier's controls to starboard and up and slammed the throttle to WEP, snapping the nimble fighter into a roll and flipping it end over end into a deceleration burn. The weapons officer behind him toggled the lock-on and loosed a pair of missiles. They burned hard and corkscrewed into an impact with the pursuing Abyssal fighter whose own shots flew wide, thrown off by the sudden maneuver.

"Target, confirm, nine o'clock!" Another Abyssal swooped in on the Rapier's port side, cannons blazing. The pilot wrenched the fighter around to face its new opponent, calling for a missile lock—

Only to see the alien craft disintegrate, sawed apart by a stream of shells. The pilot breathed a sigh of relief even as the debris washed over the Rapier's shields. He still wasn't used to having such potent point-defense support so close at hand and doubted he ever would. Peering out the virtual canopy, he looked around for the source of the lethal shot.

Dawn fired a burst of deceleration from her thrusters, drawing up alongside the battered fighter. It waggled its wings at her and she threw a thumbs up in return, point defense turrets already rotating towards the next target. A wave of missiles bearing down upon her fell one by one, turned into smears of light and dust by accurate, efficient bursts of tungsten. She threw out a salvo of her own in response, savoring the feeling of being able to properly employ her full capabilities. After spending hours upon hours fighting through the confines of Turul's corridors, rooting out god knew how many Abyssals while a constant deluge of bullets and shrapnel set her ears to ringing, assisting in dangerous repairs and rescues, and just generally incurring all sorts of bumps and scratches, it felt good to stretch her legs. She might have taken more time to indulge the feeling, but there were bigger fish to fry.

"Watch yourself out there." Unbidden, Captain Garcia's parting words of advice came to mind. "Small-arms seem to bounce right off you, but there's stuff being flung around that's literally ten times bigger than you are." Concern had glimmered in his eyes as she stood in the airlock, a pair of technicians doing their best to check over her equipment. "Take your orders from Admiral Lasky on Infinity, though I imagine he'll be a little too busy to direct you personally." Turning to leave, he'd added, "Try to keep in contact, alright? Don't die before I get a chance to properly thank you."

"Sorry, Captain, I don't think I'll have time for phone calls," she muttered, reading her sensor outputs. "What a mess… well, can't go wrong if I just shoot the aliens. Comm, analyze the chatter, give me a priority target!" Without up-to-date protocols, her systems weren't automatically discerning priority targets from general naval communication. It took a long, frustrating twenty seconds, but eventually her officers came through.

Friendly forces are concentrating fire on priority target battleship Bravo-6, two hundred k klicks.

"Understood," Dawn said, focusing her sensor suite on the designated Abyssal ship, suppressing a shiver of revulsion as she got an up-close look at the twisted designs and roiling, malevolent, nauseating energies covering and billowing off of the vessel. Iverson's short prison-cell history lesson and Garcia's hasty mission briefing hadn't exactly given a full picture of what awaited her, and the reality of her new enemy and her new war started to sink in. "This ain't just Covies 2.0… what in the world have I gotten into — holy shit!" Streaks of light slammed into the thing's shields, dozens of them, covering the barrier in a cloud of explosions. "Were those MAC rounds?"

Negative, sensors indicate missiles.

"Some fast goddamn missiles, then." Dawn's Archers suddenly felt quite sluggish in comparison to the high-velocity ordnance flying back and forth. "Um, okay, status on target?"

Damaged but highly active.

"Alright, let's finish it off! Prepare the main battery!"

Machinery whirred, bringing her shoulder mounted MAC down from stowed to ready. Now this, the worn metal, scratched paint and scorched muzzle, this hadn't changed at all. Settling into a familiar posture with a smile, Dawn activated her targeting array, a ghostly green set of crosshairs, a lead indicator, and a maneuver prediction cone floating in her vision. As electricity filled the capacitors she maneuvered to place her crosshairs over the lead indicator, small bursts of thrust settling the unwieldy cannon into a tracking position. The charge filled quickly enough, and the round was loaded soon after, leaving only the fire order left. She licked her dry lips, double checked her aim, and…

"Fire one!" A brilliantly silver bolt lanced outwards from the storm of energy discharge at the muzzle. The recoil sent a jolt of pain up her arm, nearly throwing off her aim and making her hiss a curse. The shot was true, though, and as Dawn tracked it in she willed the Abyssal not to turn, not to slow, not to speed up, to continue on its straight steady course on an intercept with 600 tons of metal drawing closer, closer—

The Abyssal's damaged armor put up little resistance to the impact. In an instant, the shell smashed dozens of compartments to bits and opened more up to vacuum. Encountering the thick, shield-reinforced internal citadel plate, the light round lacked the penetration to get through and broke into large fragments which ricocheted in all directions. A large portion hit the main armor belt on their way out, and without the energy to tear through it again, bounced back into the battleship's internal spaces, shredding through more compartments and systems. One managed to find the unarmored back of a missile pod and touched off the plasma warheads therein, causing a plume of flame to spew out.

Confirmed penetration!

"Okay, keep it up!" Though frightening to look at, Dawn knew from experience the damage was only superficial. She could smash and burn auxiliary compartments all she wanted, but until the engines and main battery were out that battleship was still dangerous, as it proved when it turned, fired, and put UNSC River Whisper permanently out of commission. "Come on!"

MAC, reloaded.

Firing solution acquired.

"Fire!" Her second shot went out, traced a bright silver line across the darkness, and missed. Dawn swore, working the loading mechanisms as fast as she could to load heavier ammunition, but now another wave of missiles bore down on her and a group of fighters close behind them. The turrets mounted in a ring around her waist and on her upper arms seemed to traverse in slow motion as she retasked her secondary batteries and point defenses, hastily stowing her MAC and preparing for evasive action—

"We got them." Her fighter escorts repaid her earlier favor, diving on the missiles before her point defenses even got in range. The fast-approaching warheads could not even hope to dodge in time, and the nimble Rapiers tore them apart in one pass. They then turned to engage the incoming fighters, intricate maneuvering systems enabling dizzying spins and pinpoint turns that put a Longsword to shame. As Dawn's point defenses fired into the melee, they ran circles around the overwhelmed Abyssal fighters and soon her sensors detected only debris. "Just keep shooting, we've got you covered. Give 'em hell!"

"Roger that, thank you!" Making a mental note to thank Garcia for updating her IFF systems, she turned her attention back to her main battery. Her hasty actions had interrupted the MAC loading sequence. As the capacitors once again built up energy, Dawn reacquired her target, calculated the lead, and drove a shell into its broadside. The heavier round, designed to penetrate several dozen meters of earth, concrete, and metal in orbital bombardment, proved just as effective against the battleship when the alien vessel's spine snapped and it broke in two. "Bravo 6 is down, give me another target!"

Understood, new priority target cruiser Echo-8, three hundred k klicks.

Main battery ready.

"Target cruiser Echo-8!"

Target acquired.

Dawn tightened her grip and braced for the recoil. "Fire one!" The capacitors discharged an instant later, releasing a silent rush of energy that rocked the cannon carriage backwards into her shoulder. A 600-ton slug shot in the opposite direction, forcing an Abyssal destroyer squadron to maneuver and spoiling their attack run on heavy cruiser Scarborough Fair, sailing past a doomed battleship spewing munitions and escape pods as it broke apart into fiery chunks, blowing past a pair of frigates before they could so much as blink and slamming into a cruisers's shields with a brilliant flash of kinetic energy.

Yes! Target hit!

"Don't let up, fire two!" The cruiser, alerted to a new threat, stopped firing on a heavy cruiser and began accelerating to dodge, but its bulk worked against it; Dawn's second shot hit in much the same place the first one had, causing the Abyssal's shields to flicker dangerously. "Two for two, keep 'em coming!" Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she slapped another round into the MAC's breech, closed the chamber and sent another round on the way. "Fire three, reload!" The third round hit, finally breaking the cruiser's shields. Sensing danger, its escorts maneuvered to shield it, but they were just a little too slow. "Fire four!"

The cruiser's armor provided little resistance to the mass of metal which tore into its broadside. Bulkhead after bulkhead, deck after deck failed as the slug burrowed deep into the ship. It almost paused upon meeting a thick internal armor plate, as if unsure whether or not it still possessed the energy to make it through, but the instant passed and armor and slug broke as one, shredding the reactor plant in a storm of metal and engulfing the cruiser in a chain of explosions.

The blast registered on her sensors, but Dawn had no time to celebrate as she fell into a rhythm of aim, fire, reload, aim, fire, reload, motions smooth and automatic as she pumped out round after round after round, as ship after ship fell, all while her fighter friends kept up a constant stream of encouragement and shot down missiles and strike craft which came her way. Hull stress warnings, easily ignored, sounded as another cruiser exploded under her ministrations, pinned in position by a harassing frigate squadron and unable to evade. She idly wondered whether the Abyssals even knew where they were being hit from as she used her speed and small stature to gain the rear of a battleship caught in a duel with its UNSC counterpart, hammer down its weaker aft shields and place a nuke into its propulsion systems. They seemed a little slow on the uptake, or perhaps their command just couldn't believe the evidence of their sensors — which, honestly, she could understand, even as she turned her fire against a series of what looked like navigation or comms beacons, floating in space just behind the main Abyssal line. There seemed to be more chaos than organization in their lines, but it appeared individual ships were catching on, though, as scattered return fire forced her to constantly stay on the move, but she didn't mind so much because each easily dodged round was a shot, a salvo not being fired at her allies.

While she dodged and shot, her thoughts raced, trying to process everything coming through her sensor suite at once. It was... a bit overwhelming, honestly. To start with, the sheer size of both the human and alien fleets was on a scale she never imagined possible. The biggest Covie fleet had numbered in the hundreds, and now she was facing thousands?! In addition, the sight of beams of plasma steadily pulsing out from human vessels, whose designs were familiar yet foreign at the same time, was a bit unnerving. Those looked like Covie weapons... what kind of relationship did the UNSC have with the Elites? In the distance, the blue-green orb of Reach floated, vibrant and glass-free, completely divorced from the smoldering ball of ash she'd last seen it as. That sight almost got her to stop and stare for a minute, but then her attention flitted away. There was just too much, how could she stay on one thing for long? Were those shields covering UNSC ships? Were there any Longswords, or had they all been replaced by those Rapier things? Not to mention the thing's she'd seen, fighting in Turul's narrow hallways. The weapons, the uniforms, the armor, the people, even the aliens whose blood now covered the floors, they were all just different enough from her memories to make her feel like she was half a step out of line with the universe. Captain Garcia had tried to explain all the changes she'd missed, but he'd had so little time and so much to cover. So much had changed in barely thirty years; it was enough to make her head spin.

Alarms snapped her back to the here and now as a squadron of Abyssal destroyers veered off from the battle line and sprinted towards her in a long overdue response, propulsion tracing long streaks of plasma across the inky backdrop. Dawn's fighter escort scattered a she slammed her propulsion to full ahead, taking off with the alien ships in hot pursuit. She grit her teeth as particle beams licked out, slicing glowing gashes into her armor, burning away bits of uniform and leaving large, raw patches of burnt skin wherever they got through. Her point defenses went to work while she juked and dodged around a hail of railgun slugs, putting her reactor through its paces when she wove and bent around a trio of missiles in a series of maneuvers that would have snapped her old titanium hull in two. The PDCs made short work of the rest, and the growing debris field shielded her from some fire and allowed her to toss a handful of Moray mines behind her. Trap set, Dawn accelerated hard, leading the Abyssals on in a rocket-powered game of cat-and-mouse. In their single-minded desire to catch her, the destroyers plowed straight into the debris field, unaware of the mines until nuclear detonations blossomed all around.

Dawn let out a wordless whoop of excitement as she decelerated hard enough to feel her eyeballs rattling in her skull, flipped over and rammed a MAC round straight through a destroyer's bow. Stripped of its shields by the Morays, the destroyer convulsed as the slug penetrated and tore through its interior, going dark before internal explosions consumed its hull. The rest of the Abyssals fell into disarray, breaking formation to avoid the debris even as Dawn flew circles and rained hellfire upon them, taking them out one by one as fast as her weapons could cycle. Their secondary batteries tracked her, but presented with such a small target maneuvering erratically at high speeds in close quarters their shots poked holes in vacuum. She felt a grin grow on her face and a strange, floating sensation fill her chest as targets fell off her sensors one by one — was this what it felt like to be a Covenant ship, smiting puny humans while deciding on lunch?

The sudden thought sobered her, but only a bit, as the last destroyer went dark and her weapons spun down. Coming down off her high, Dawn became aware that she was panting, of a deep aching in her arms, legs, back, everywhere, of UNSC vessels pressing the attack against a broken enemy formation, and of dead silence on her comm. Suddenly self-conscious, she keyed her radio. "This is Forward Unto Dawn. Uh, apologies for getting out of position. Requesting new orders, over."

"…Understood. Stand by, over."

Dawn snorted. "Stand by, he says. Stand by where?" She winced and put a hand to her chest as it ached, right where the flesh was still red and raw from her healed bullet wound. "Gotta cool it with the high-g maneuvering." She absentmindedly took a potshot at a distant battleship — miss — and rubbed the sore spot until it stopped twinging, wondering where her fighters were. Then alarms blared, warning of incoming fire, and she took off like a rabbit. "Infinity, this is Forward Unto Dawn, there are three destroyer squadrons, a cruiser division, and — good lord that is a battleship on my six. I could use some help, over!" Any response was lost when multiple EMPs sent her communications suite into a seizure. Dawn quickly boosted sideways, avoiding a thicket of nuclear fireballs by mere kilometers, close enough to feel the radiation prickle her skin and taste lead on her tongue. She squeezed her eyes shut instinctively, and so was caught by surprise when a kinetic round glanced off her helmet.

Funny how it only ever took one little mistake for everything to go sideways. Time slowed and Dawn was a passenger in her own body. Her head snapped to one side, neck bending to a degree she was pretty sure necks weren't supposed to bend. The shell gouged a deep furrow through her helmet and sent fragments of sensors and antennae spinning away into space. Pain filled her skull before a chilling, paralyzing numbness replaced it, along with a shrill ringing in her ears and a dull leadenness in her limbs. Plasma beams flashed by as she fought to regain control of herself, succeeding just in time to for several missiles to engulf her in flame and shrapnel.

Hull breaches in all sectors, venting atmosphere fast!

Fire alarm, multiple decks! Fire in the reactor room!

Compartmentalization failure, Frames 15 through 37!

"Fucking—!" Dawn went evasive on instinct, weaving from side to side as salvo after salvo came uncomfortably close. Alarms went off continuously, filling her ears with a cacophony of warnings and alerts. Flames licked out of gashes in her hull, feeding off venting gasses. Half of her point defense guns were gone, reduced to smoldering wrecks, the port armor belt was dangerously compromised, missile silos were not responding and all in all it was a miracle that her left arm and leg, blackened and burned, were still there. It seemed like her very blood was on fire, cooking her from the inside out as it bubbled up from her wounds and boiled off into the vacuum. Throughout her chest and upper back it felt like her bones and muscles were going through a very nasty divorce. Red tinged the peripheries of her vision and she bit back another scream, applying thrust to spin herself head over heels and snap off a one-handed, barely aimed MAC shot that blasted a destroyer's internal machinery out of its dorsal armor belt, combined with a volley of secondary fire and every single nuclear warhead in her magazines which swallowed another two destroyers in fireballs that only one, heavily damaged and with only one engine left, emerged from.

The incoming slackened a bit, but Dawn questioned whether it was really worth it when her injuries clearly disagreed with that maneuver. A wave of agony like a dozen energy swords stabbing through her nerves caused her to black out for several breathless seconds, and it was only through sheer luck that an incoming railgun round punched straight through her chest cavity without hitting anything major. Damage control immediately started patching the holes, among the thousand other holes, fires, torn and burst lines, structural fractures and leaks on their list, and but the short, sudden jolt was enough to snap her back into the present. "Shit, I can't — die — here—! Mayday, mayday, declaring emergency, requesting support!" The universe evidently did not care about her intentions, because her functioning sensors overrode the dozens of other alarms to warn of incoming plasma torpedoes, twisting and homing in despite her best evasive maneuvers. Dawn closed her eyes and cringed, waiting for scorching, melting heat to envelop her.

"…get clear, over." In a pain-induced haze, Dawn almost thought the cut-off transmission was an auditory hallucination. Her comms officer, however, quickly confirmed it was not, and Dawn blindly fired her starboard emergency thrusters, flinging herself hard to port just as a slipspace portal tore open with a torrent of Cherenkov and Hawking radiation. Out charged a heavy cruiser, filling her sight with titanium and plasma exhaust, and threw itself between her and the torpedoes. Electricity crackled as they, unable to swerve around the cruiser's bulk, crashed against her shields, broke through, and splashed against her starboard armor. An enormous mass of bubbling, melted hull came into view as the cruiser rolled to spread the damage, vaporized metal boiling off into a hot, dense mist. Dawn gasped as a faint, pained groan hit her ears, despite the complete lack of atmosphere around her, and as more slipspace portals opened up, disgorging frigate wolfpacks, destroyer squadrons, three entire cruiser divisions and two battleships to form a protective shield around her, a shield bristling with MACs, missiles, lasers, point defenses, and fully willing to use them on the suddenly outmatched Abyssals. IDs began to appear in Dawn's HUD — Brahma, Fujin, Vanguard, Crimson Sunset, Duke of York, Field of Poppies, and the cruiser right in front of her, Hope Springs Eternal — and she nearly cried in relief when she realized what had happened. She was saved. Saved.

"All units, this is Brahma, concentrate fire on the battleship then detach for free maneuver, over."

"Understood. Scarborough Fair is advancing to engage, over."

"FrigDiv 23, commencing torpedo runs on hostile formation Bravo-Three. Requesting covering fire, over."

"Enemy is falling back, keep up the pressure!"

As the task force engaged the backpedalling Abyssals, her radio crackled. "Forward Unto Dawn, can you receive this transmission, over?"

"I-I— dammit." In her haste to respond, she'd forgotten to actually key the radio. "Yes, I receive. Thank you for the assist… over," she replied, trying to match the professional tone of the transmission and keep her voice from quavering.

The response was faint and staticky, the best that her damaged communications arrays could produce, but clear enough to understand. "Copy. Match course with Hope Springs Eternal and prepare to meet an escort, over," the operator said, still in that utterly cool and disinterested voice.

"W-wilco. Out." Repair parties were slowly bringing the damage under control, lessening the pain and slowing the bleeding with each extinguished fire and patched penetration, but her voice still trembled. "T-terrible bedside manner," she added after the radio cut off. Her MAC was still loaded and charged, so she added another shell to the barrages pouring out from the main guns of the UNSC ships, hitting a cruiser and turning its propulsion systems into a mess of twisted metal. She quickly regretted taking it as her abused shoulder screamed bloody murder in protest.

She massaged the sore, perforated muscle as best she could while her damaged thrusters pushed her alongside Eternal. A speck of light detached from the cruiser's side and quickly drew near, allowing Dawn to identify it as a Pelican. A small wave of nostalgia came over her at the familiar shape; at least some things hadn't changed. The rear ramp dropped as it decelerated to a relative stop twenty meters away, letting light spill out and silhouette the five people inside, two of whom wore tethers and booster packs. They pushed off towards her, and she gave a small burst of thrust to meet them halfway.

"Hold on," a crackly voice came over her radio, "I got you— oof!" Confused at the reaction, Dawn quickly realized the full weight of her equipment — had to be at least a ton, despite how light it felt — had just plowed, however gently, straight into a completely ordinary human sailor. Embarrassed, she concentrated hard on dispelling it, figuring it had to be simpler than the process of summoning it in the first place. The layers of armor and equipment mounted on her disappeared with a flash of light. Their departure came with the feeling of a great deal of strength rushing out of her body, leaving her feeling even weaker and more exhausted than before. To her great surprise, however, the state of her injures, already slowly healing thanks to the efforts of her repair parties, instantly and visibly improved. Burned areas faded from angry red and black to a light pink and no longer wept fluid, the pain in her back and chest lessened, and her cuts no longer bled as much.

Before she could think further on the implications of that, a pair of hands pressed a vacuum mask against her face. "Just breathe, you're okay." Dawn breathed in sweet, smoke-free, oxygen, using both hands to put the strap in place and press the supple plastic tighter to her face, taking deep, calming breaths as the tether crew secured their grips on her. "Shit, you're really hurt!"

"No, really!" she ground out between her teeth, trying to keep her blood from staining his vacuum suit and failing. "I guess I hadn't noticed, in between being shot and blown up."

"Fair enough, you've been through the wringer. Can you stay awake?" She could only manage a nod in response, but the man seemed to understand. "Okay, reel us in!"

There was a light tug, and then the winch mechanisms attached to the tethers began to pull her into the Pelican, her two rescuers keeping a tight hold on her the entire time. Once in, they wasted no time in pushing her into a seat and lowering a restraining bar over her lap and chest. "Is it too tight anywhere?"

"No, I-I'm good."

Another voice broke into the channel, presumably the pilot. "Strap her in, there's too much heat for us to stay outside." Shrapnel rattled off the hull, perfectly punctuating his statement.

"Done, get us outta here." One of the sailors turned and placed a comforting hand on Dawn's shoulder. "Hang on a little longer, okay? Doc's gonna check you out."

"W-will do." Acceleration pushed her back into the seat as a corpsman knelt in front of her. In clipped tones, she asked if Dawn could hear her, did she know where she was, where her injuries were, was she dizzy, nauseous, sleepy, et cetera, on a scale of one to ten how much did it hurt. Dawn answered as best as she could through the haze of pain and weariness clouding her thoughts, but she must have said something weird because at one point the corpsman did a double-take at something on a data pad and sent an inscrutable look her way. "So… what're your names?" Dawn asked, trying to be conversational.

The other occupants of the cargo hold glanced at each other, as if trying to decide who would go first. Finally, with a cough, one of the still-tethered sailors went first. "I'm Crewman Ho."

"Crewman Watkins."

"HM3 Lee," said the corpsman, now poking an IV drip into Dawn's forearm doing her best to dress the burns and lacerations littering her body. "Hold still so this doesn't go somewhere it's not supposed to."

"Petty Officer Abigail Pierre."

"Crewman Jenkins."

"Ho, Watkins, Lee, Pierre, Jenkins." Dawn leaned back in seat and managed a small but genuine smile. "Thanks for the assist. I don't think I'd have lasted another minute out there."

Pierre gave a short chuckle. "You helped yourself, taking out those slipspace jammers. That let Admiral Lasky jump us in behind Abbie lines and pull your ass out of the fire."

Dawn vaguely remembered firing on and destroying a series of what she thought were comm beacons. "So that's what they were," she said softly. "Times sure have moved on, haven't they…?"

At that, the sailors shared another glance — all except Lee, applying some sort of soothing salve to Dawn's burns. "Is it true, what they say you said?" Watkins asked, "That you're really…the Forward Unto Dawn?"

"… hmph. I did bring that on myself, didn't I?"

"I'm sorry, it's just all so… so unbelievable, you know? We all talk as if ships have personalities, but it was never meant to be literal! And then you come in here, casually name-drop THE Forward Unto Dawn, then back it up by kicking ass and taking names…"

Jenkins broke in and cut Watkins off. "What he means is that we'll make sure the floors get mopped extra squeaky clean from now on."

A round of laughter went around the Pelican, and to her surprise Dawn found herself joining in. It was a strange feeling, but pleasant, and over too soon. "You better," she shot back, "But really though, you should come back to that. I haven't stopped asking that myself." That got another round of chuckles, but before more questions could come the pilot interrupted.

"We're closing in on Eternal now. Prepare for landing." The sailors barely had enough time to brace before deceleration hit. The g-forces were far less than those endured under combat, but Dawn still grunted; she'd gotten used to her own powerful inertial dampers, and the ones in the Pelican were a miserable affair in comparison. Moments later, the Pelican landed with a thud and the rear ramp dropped. The sailors undid their restraints and helped Dawn out of hers, then kept her upright as she stumbled down the ramp, out of the cramped, quiet, dim cargo bay into the spacious, noisy, and so very, very bright hangar.

It said something about the situation that hardly anyone gave Dawn a second glance. As she was led off to one side, Lee still fussing over her, she saw the Pelican being unceremoniously taken away to make room for incoming fighters. Fuel lines and ordnance carts snaked their way across the deck, preparing yet more fighters and strike craft for launch in the familiar frenetic yet steady tempo of combat flight operations. A few sailors swore at her for getting in their way, but nobody really paid attention to the exhausted, bedraggled, bandage-wrapped girl looking as lost as a newly transferred midshipman. It was, strangely, a little comforting; somewhere, in the back of her mind, lived the fear of being stared at like some sort of circus curiosity.

Fortunately, Dawn wasn't left standing idle for long. A beeping horn caught her attention right before a pair of Mongoose-looking vehicles pulled up next to her. "Is this her?" the lead driver asked Pierre, pointing his chin at Dawn. At her nod, he motioned for Dawn to get on the rear seat. "Come on, we've got places to go. Captain's orders," he added, flashing a data pad when Lee tried to protest.

"O-okay, if that's alright with you…?" Pierre looked over at the corpsman then nodded, albeit reluctantly, and Dawn went to strap herself in before her wobbles sent her to the floor. "Are we going to the medbay?"

"No, CIC. The captain will meet you there." A million questions rested on the tip of her tongue, first of which was shouldn't I see a doctor?, but she only managed a farewell wave to her rescuers before the driver gunned the motor and whisked her out of sight, the other vehicle close behind. "Hang on back there, we're going fast!" True to his word, the Mongoose hung a right into some sort of wide central service corridor, then accelerated hard enough to leave Dawn's surprised yelp in its dust. "You alright? Sorry 'bout not going to the medbay, but this is important."

"I-I'm good! It's just — ugh! — just a flesh wound!"

"If you say so!" Heavy thuds sounded from behind. Dawn looked up and noticed thick, armored blast doors closing to seal off the corridor behind their passage. She shivered and prayed that one didn't fall on her head.

"Hey, here!" Squealing brakes nearly drowned out a shout from the other Mongoose. The marines riding it parked off to the side of the corridor and hurried to Dawn's side. "CIC is this way. Let's not keep the captain waiting." More questions died in her throat as they practically frogmarched her through a side door and into a dizzying blur of passageways and junctures which seemed deliberately designed to confuse her — or an enemy boarding party. Eventually, they came to a stop in front of another pair of blast doors, guarded by machine gun turrets in the roof. Dawn eyed them warily as the marines input a code to open the doors. "Captain's waiting for you in there," one marine said, gesturing for her to go in. "Hope it goes well."

"We're rooting for you!" With an encouraging little push at her back, Dawn stumbled over the threshold. The doors shut behind her, abruptly cutting off the rest of the ship, and the atmosphere of the CIC washed over her.

Well, less washed over and more hit her like a nostalgic train. The pure, aching familiarity of it all wrenched out a small gasp. The quiet murmurs, officers delivering reports, blue battle lighting, softly whirring fans, blinking displays, the occasional concerning shudder as Eternal fired or took a hit — when she closed her eyes, she might have been back in 2552. For the first time, she felt like she could breathe free. For the first time since waking up, she felt at home, and she latched onto that feeling like a suffocating sailor to an oxygen bottle. It was enough to make her smile and let out a genuine laugh.

"Ahem."

Dawn whirled around, face flushing red. Somehow, she hadn't noticed the group of officers gathered around the center display, all looking at her with varying degrees of raised eyebrows. Oh shit, she'd actually laughed in front of them! Some of the CIC staff sent irritated looks her way, oh God, protocol, protocol, protocol— "A-apologies!" She snapped into a salute, back ramrod straight and gaze fixed on the back wall. "Forward Unto Dawn, reporting! I was told you wanted to see me?"

For a long moment nobody said anything. Dawn awkwardly held her salute, wondering if anyone could see the sweat breaking out on her forehead. The display flickered as it updated, casting odd shadows all round the room. "Hmph. At ease." An officer stepped forwards, waving her down. "You're not part of the UNSC, technically speaking, so there's really no need for that."

"Y-yes, sir." She lowered her hand and stood at perfect parade rest. The officer looked her over a little more, eyes appraising, like a scientist would look over an interesting set of data. Dawn almost looked away, but she steeled herself, determined not to seem weak or, worse, unprofessional.

Then, suddenly, his demeanor changed. A small smile appeared, followed by an extended hand. "Captain Khalid, CO UNSC Hope Springs Eternal. A pleasure to meet you, Forward Unto Dawn." His eyes flicked to the bandages wrapped around her arm. "You're injured. Lieutenant Somers, please tell the medbay they'll have a priority case soon."

She blinked dumbly at him for a moment before hastily returning the handshake. "Oh, I, uh, you can just call me Dawn, sir." Khalid smiled again, nodded, and stepped back into an at ease. "May I ask what the big hurry's for?"

"Well — one moment. Match course with Los Angeles and bring us alongside to transfer repair parties. Point defenses will remain on high alert, main battery will target hostile Charlie-28 in coordination with Hellmarch and Gimlet Eye. Weiss, remain on alert for further net intrusion attempts, targeting disruption and psychic interference." A chorus of 'yes sir's came from around the room, including an icy blue AI who manifested too briefly for Dawn to get a good look. "My apologies. Where was I? Ah, yes. Well, naturally, I just wanted to meet the hero of the hour."

"Hero?" Dawn laughed nervously, rubbing the back of her head. "That's an exaggeration, isn't it?"

"Not at all. I'll spare you the boring details but — do we have safe capacity — no, then divert main battery supply to the shield generators and cooling coils — ahem. The Abyssals had us in a real bind, but you threw a nice, big, wrench into their formation. That let us counterattack and regain momentum, and kept us from being run down."

Dawn let out a deep breath. "Thank you. But there's more, isn't there, sir?" Asking so many questions to this officer suddenly reminded her of another, and the promise she'd made to him. "And, um, I know it's out of the blue, but do you think you could contact Captain Garcia? He's stuck on Turul, and I promised I'd keep in touch."

"All in good time." Dawn nodded glumly and his expression turned serious. "You're right on the first count though. Are you patched into the command net?" He tsked at Dawn's headshake. "Then you won't have seen this yet." Khalid stepped back to the display table, giving quiet commands to officers along the way, and motioned for Dawn to come over. "Observe this. Weiss, please queue the replay."

"Of course, sir," the AI responded. The display split into two portions: one showing the current situation, and the other a battle playback.

"Thank you. Now, before we start, listen closely to your surroundings. Do you notice anything strange?" Being lead around in circles was starting to get very irritating, not to mention a large mental drain on her last reserves of stamina trying to figure where this was all going. Biting down an urge to be a smartass, Dawn closed her eyes and tried to extend her senses, not expecting much thanks to her lack of practice using them. As she concentrated on that familiar mix of noises, the muttering, the mechanical humming, the tap-tap-tap of fingers against screens, the occasional muffled curse, all faded away until she was left with only one sound — or rather, the absence of it.

"The ship — she's not shooting," Dawn murmured. "The battle, though…" She looked again at the display, exhaustion replaced by curiosity. "Sir, what is…when did… "

Khalid nodded approvingly. "So you noticed. Weiss, start the replay." The display began to shift, showing the disposition of UNSC and Abyssal forces approximately 45 minutes ago. "Right as we jumped to assist you, the Abbies began pulling their battleline back to the proximity of Turul." A small blue blob disappeared from UNSC lines, only to appear behind the Abyssal fleet. The red mass representing the alien fleet stopped its slow advance, then withdrew back in on itself, reforming around the moon. "Moments later, all ships in the fleet received a transmission originating from what we assume is the Abyssal flagship." An inset appeared on the display, showing a close-up image of an Abyssal ship. Dawn frowned as she got a closer look.

"Looks just like an ordinary battleship, sir. Wouldn't their flagship be something… bigger?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? Like that big bastard at Roseport…" Khalid murmured, then shook his head. "Forgive me, just memories. But there's been significant uptick in signals traffic coming from it, so we're now operating on the assumption it's the command ship."

Dawn nodded slowly, leaning against the display table to get a better look. "So…what's going on? Are we attacking?"

"No, their position is too strong for that. With Turul as an anchor, they can rotate their damaged ships into hard cover and outlast any assault we can throw at them. Admiral Lasky is using the stalemate to clean up the Abyssals who snuck around our line, so we're not wasting the time."

"Well, that's all fine and good, but… sir, my apologies, but I don't understand what this has to do with me?" Dawn ended on a hesitant tone, not wanting to sound impertinent. To her surprise, Khalid nodded, looking pensive.

"Well, you're right. It wouldn't, aside from using you as a battering ram to crack that shell they've built. However, the contents of the message make this another matter entirely. The admiral is holding a conference in five mikes to discuss it but for now, just have a listen." Khalid nodded over at a comms officer, who then pressed her console a few times. A moment later, a scratchy, distorted recording began to play.

"Human forces." Having played it over and over for the past half hour, all the officers were intimately familiar with the hollow, echoing voice that sounded from the speakers, and so looked over with some concern Dawn gave a small, strangled gasp of surprise. "At the time of this transmission, our forces will withdraw to the orbit of the largest moon of this planet. We will not engage in combat for seven hours from the time of this transmission. Within those seven hours, you will send us the one known as Forward Unto Dawn to parley. Should you comply, we will cease operations in this system and withdraw."

"Should you fail, however… your world burning will be the least of your concerns."

---

"Signal strength five by five. Tightbeam secure. Good to go, Captain."

"Thank you, Verdant." Garcia straightened his posture and collar, squared up with the desk in front of him, and hoped the rips and burns on his uniform would go unnoticed. It was an inevitable result of combat but still rather embarrassing. If four years at Luna OCS had taught him anything, it was that fresh clothes tended to be desirable in the presence of the fleet commander.

And on that subject, why the hell was he even part of this conference? Sure, the background info came with the invite so he understood the purpose of it, but he was only a captain, a destroyer captain at that! It wasn't like he had any particular insights to provide — hell, he'd only gotten power restored to all facilities on Turul a few hours ago, forget strategizing! What was he doing in the presence of admirals and generals and division commanders?

And that message… to Garcia's knowledge, this was the first instance of dialogue with the Abyssals, ever. He supposed it counted as a momentous occasion. All the same, the contents instantly put him on guard. To start, seven hours? That was enough time for most of the evacuation ships to get away, especially after the Abyssals attacking them withdrew. So that indicated the Abyssals were no longer interested in disrupting the evacuation, which in turn suggested something much bigger had come up, something they were willing to trade one of their primary objectives for.

That something was obviously Dawn, and to be sure she was a massive development, but still, to throw off their entire battle plan for her when they still had every chance of regaining momentum and steamrolling the fleet… he was too tired to figure out what that implied, but he definitely didn't like it. The conditions of their offer were obviously designed to let them neutralize her without a fight, but it was too obvious, the equivalent of writing DEFINITELY NOT ONI on the side of a Prowler. Certainly there had to be another layer, but what? And did the UNSC really have any choice but to accept?

The conference began, cutting off further musings. The screen in front of Garcia loaded into a row of faces, some of which he recognized: Admiral Lasky, naturally, 8th Army commander General Kim, Captain Khalid from the Hope Springs Eternal, and evacuation commander Captain Liang. There were a few others, but not many, and all eyes were on Lasky anyway as he spoke. "Alright people, before we start, I'd like to acknowledge that it's been a rather interesting day." That got a few seconds of tired laughter. "Jokes aside, though, I'd prefer us to keep philosophical and existential debates out for the moment. There'll be time for truth-seeking and questioning reality as we know it later. For the moment, we take things at face value, understood?"

"Yes sir!"

"Very well then, straight to business. At present, we still cannot contact HIGHCOM, so we're on our own here. Understand?" A round of nods answered him. "Good. Now, we've got ourselves, at present, just over six hours of borrowed time to sort this mess out. I assume you've all heard the message by now?" A chorus of confirmations sounded; Garcia had managed to listen a few times, enough to burn that eerie voice into his brain. "So the question is whether or not we accept the offer. I'd first like to hear all of your opinions."

Kim went first. "It's a trap," he growled. "It's load of bullshit, and the way things are going they can't back it up. The Abbies know we've got them on the ropes, so they're trying to get us to hand over one of our only advantages without a should hit them hard, now, while we still have it."

"Well, hold on," Liang countered, "it's true we did push them back. However, they still hold massive numerical superiority, and according to Captain Khalid's latest report, the medical report for Forward Unto Dawn is not good. She won't be able to support any effort we make."

"That's true," Khalid said. "My medical staff claim it's a miracle she's still awake and responsive. The initial evaluation showed evidence of plasma burns over forty percent of her body, lacerations, internal contusions and bleeding, and hairline bone fractures." He coughed at the slightly queasy look on a few faces. "I will add, though, that they also report that the observed injuries appear to be healing at a greatly accelerated rate. Skin and muscle are literally knitting themselves back together. They can't explain it, but think MediGel on a triple dose of steroids."

"All the same, those sorts of injuries won't just be combat effective within a few hours," Liang shot back. "Maybe in a couple of weeks, but not within the time we have. I think our best shot at buying time comes with taking their offer."

"You're not seriously suggesting just handing her over, are you?" Kim asked incredulously. "Whatever questions remain, and there are a lot of them, the fact is she single-handedly destroyed two dozen ships in just over an hour. That's better kill efficiency than anything outside of a NOVA bomb, and you want to let the Abyssals have that for free?!"

"I'm not saying that at all! But we have to face facts. Even though she is powerful, we cannot risk deploying her in a full fleet action in her state. And without her, the fleet alone cannot prevent Reach from falling!"

"Now just what are you saying here—"

Other officers began chiming in in support of both sides. Minding his position, Garcia kept his mouth shut, as he noticed Khalid doing as well. Lasky let the debate go on for a few seconds, until everyone had had at least a say, and then broke in. "People!" he said, stopping the argument in its tracks. "Let's stay focused here. I think it's clear that we're in a bind. We obviously can't hope to defeat the Abyssals in a fleet action. However, letting them take our only trump card without a fight is also absolutely off the table. So the questions now are these: can we afford not to take the enemy offer, can we fight our way out when things go south, and do we have any other means of buying time for the evacuations?"

Someone Garcia didn't recognize, probably a division commander, spoke up. "This is the first time the Abbies have offered to talk. As General Kim said, they're obviously shaken up, and if we bluff correctly we could work out some kind of truce. I don't think it's a trap, either, it's just too obvious."

"No way you're trusting those alien bastards. They're just using this time to regroup, we would be idiots to fall for this! We should strike now, while they're still limping."

"We can't attack, our losses are too heavy! We'd be chewed up before we got within eighty thousand klicks!"

"Well, do you have a better plan? Don't forget that they asked for Forward Unto Dawn specifically. What's to stop them from putting a knife in her back as soon as she steps foot on one of their damned ships? Then we're right back to square one!"

Lasky nodded slowly, then raised his voice just enough to cut across the chatter. "That's a good question, actually. Captain Garcia."

Garcia started. He honestly hadn't expected to be included in the discussion at all. "Y-yes sir!"

"You've been a witness to Forward Unto Dawn's close quarters combat abilities, I presume? How would you rate them?"

"CQC? Um…" He thought back to the way she'd literally waded into corridors full of Abyssal troops and come out the other side no worse for the wear. "Pretty impressive. At least S-IV level in power, though technique-wise a little lacking…" A thought occurred to him then. "Why don't you ask her yourself, sir? Captain Khalid, Forward Unto Dawn is in your medbay right now, isn't she? Can you patch her through?"

Khalid glanced over. "Yes, I could. Admiral Lasky?"

Wearing a world-weary expression, Lasky nodded. "I suppose it would be best to hear this from the source. Bring her on." Khalid nodded and spoke to someone offscreen. "In the meantime, Captain Liang, how long until the evacuation is complete?"

"We've managed to step up the pace, but it'll still take ten hours." The captain shook his head and let out a sigh. "We could get it down to eight, but we'd have to cut a lot of safety checks and protocols."

"If we don't get those ships out fast, they're all dead anyway. Do it, captain." Liang nodded and disappeared briefly to issue the orders. "General Kim, if the Abyssals get through, how long can the ground forces hold out?"

A muscle worked in Kim's jaw. "As much as I'd like to say as long as needed… this isn't the place for that. Two, maybe three weeks maximum. Not long enough for a relief fleet to bail us out." He looked up, eyes narrowing. "All the more reason for us to tell the Abbies to piss off. I accept that we can't fight them off, but Reach was never going to hold forever, so all we'd do by giving in is make sure they come back later to finish the job without interruptions. What's the most talking would buy us, a month at most?"

Liang sighed, massaging the bridge of his nose. "More than that, actually. By delaying their attack, we're given more time to evacuate industry and manufacturing capacity. It's not so cut and dry as that."

"Hmm…" Lasky's brow furrowed in thought. The mood seemed to be shifting in favor of Kim, and even Garcia found himself agreeing with his logic when Khalid returned.

"Excuse me, sir. Forward Unto Dawn is on the line." Not for the first time, Garcia considered just how odd it felt to say that. Sure, the needs and pressures of battle took his mind off it somewhat, but if— when this was over, he'd need a few days and a few drinks to sort through the ramifications. Hell, just her claim that ships had actual souls, and the fact she could back it up… it made him think back, trying to remember if he'd ever kicked Scorpia's walls in frustation. That alone was enough to give him a headache, forget the fact that he could casually talk with the manifestation of the legendary frigate Forward Unto Dawn herself. But those were issues for another time, and copious amounts of alcohol, Garcia told himself as Khalid stepped to the side but continued speaking from offscreen. "Admiral Lasky has some questions for you. Answer to the best of your abilities."

Garcia suppressed a wince as Dawn appeared in Khalid's window. The ill-fitting medbay-issue T-shirt poorly concealed the limp in her stride, as well as her heavily bandaged arm and fingers. A faint but large bruise spread across the side of her head and mixed with the light pink of a recently healed burn wound. The light of pain in her eyes shone through the haze of pseudomorphine. But she was alive and awake, and for that he could breathe a sigh of relief. "Sirs," she greeted, drawing herself up into a stiff salute. "I don't know how much help I'll be but… I'll do my best." Her gaze flicked Garcia's way and a small smile tugged at her lips, but then it was gone and she fell into parade rest.

"Thank you for joining us." Lasky seemed to take no notice of her injuries, though how much of that was just a facade Garcia couldn't tell. He, at least, seemed to be handling the impossibility of the situation quite well. "Have you seen the message?"

Dawn nodded like a condemned man. "Yes, sir. If you want me to surrender myself, I'll do it. I understand we don't have much of a chance otherwise."

"Now hold on, no one's decided anything yet." Garcia leaned forward against the desk, shooting a pointed look Lasky's way. "We need some more info from you before we make a decision."

"Mind your place, captain," Lasky warned, "you're treading the line. Though you are right." He seemed satisfied when Garcia bowed his head in apology. "Forward Unto Dawn," he continued, and the girl shifted her eyes back to Lasky, but not before sending a grateful nod Garcia's way. "How do you evaluate your current combat abilities?"

"Hm…" She experimentally stretched out her shoulder and neck. "I'd say I'm at about forty percent capacity right now, sir. In more concrete terms, I could probably fight an ODST to a draw, but add another one in and my as— excuse me. I'd be beat. Why?"

"We're debating accepting the enemy's offer of parley. However, they've made it clear that they'll accept only you, which puts us in a bit of a bind if they break their word and jump you." Lasky's tone made it clear just how much stock he put in the good faith of aliens. "I'm loathe to say it, but you are our trump card and we're not about to just give you up, but at the same time you're obviously in no shape to join the battleline and the fleet can't win on its own. If we sent you to talk, could you fight your way out when it comes to that?"

Dawn mimed a punch followed by a block, then winced as something twinged. "Well, it'd help if I knew what I'd be talking about, sir. If they're just going to be making demands things could go sour quick, but if we're actually talking truce I could get something going."

Lasky shrugged helplessly. "It's not like the Abbies set an agenda or anything. I suppose you'll just have to go in and improvise. At the very least try to talk some useful intel out of them, or just stall them with small-talk. Of course, if you do manage to talk out a truce… but that's probably a pipe dream. As long as you fulfill their terms and get out of there, I'll consider that a success."

Nodding her understanding, Dawn chewed her lip in thought. "Give me a dose of rumbledrugs and I think I might be at seventy percent for a solid few hours before I metabolize it out. At that level, I could raise some hell."

Kim frowned in distaste. "Rumbledrugs? That stuff is—"

"Terrible for me, I know, sir. It'll eat away at me from the inside, and at a high enough concentration it'll drive me insane. I have the manuals in here." She tapped the side of her head. "But I can stay cool for a few hours with a low dosage, just enough to blow past the pain."

"She's right," Garcia added, starting to come around to this plan and recalling something that could strengthen the argument. "She has some kind of accelerated tissue regeneration factor. Besides the obvious speedy recovery from combat, she worked for an hour without protection in a high-radiation environment to stabilize Turul's reactors, and only came out with a mild burn. I think a little chemical exposure won't cripple her."

"It wasn't all that special…" Dawn murmured, rubbing the back of her head in embarrassment.

Still looking dissatisfied, Kim continued to voice his objections. "That's all well and good, but what about the mental effects? There are records of Insurrectionists snapping and turning on their own; can you guarantee that won't happen to you?"

Unfortunately, the general raised a good point. Looking at Dawn, Garcia could tell she didn't know the answer herself. Ultimately though, it wasn't Kim that they needed to convince, but Lasky, and he knew the admiral to be more amenable to compromise.

This time, as Garcia tried to think of a solution, Khalid put in his two cents. "I have an idea. My corpsmen can rig up an auto-injector that can provide the drug as needed, as well as a monitoring system that will prevent any ill effects from happening. In addition, they can modify it to send data back, so we can consider this an intel-gathering mission as well. After all, nobody's ever gone this close to an Abyssal ship before. They produce some spooky effects at a distance, who's to say what happens up close?"

Dawn nodded in agreement. "That'd work. I can link it in with my own systems to give more accurate readings. Besides, I don't think it'll come to that. Worst comes to worst… I won't let it." The steel in her eyes dissuaded anyone from questioning her conviction.

"Hmph. That does make sense," Kim conceded. A glint in his eye told Garcia he wasn't done yet, but his next question still caught everyone off guard. "And how do we know you won't just sell us to the Abyssals to save your own skin?"

"Why you—" Garcia started angrily before biting his tongue. Thankfully, it appeared his outburst had gone relatively unnoticed in the outbreak of muttering. He wasn't sure why he was feeling so defensive of Dawn, only that he couldn't stand to have Kim question the loyalty of someone who'd already bled for the UNSC. That, and he was afraid that Dawn would snap back, and that kind of a display would only prove the general's point.

Luckily though, she showed more restraint than he'd given her credit for. "You don't know," she admitted in a weary, subdued tone. "You don't know." Then she lifted her gaze and made eye contact with Kim. "But when you think about it, what have you got to lose? If I'm a double agent do you really want to keep me in the fleet, where I can keep spying and sending back intel? Or would you want to be rid of me as soon as possible? Honestly, I've made my presence known for what, a few days? What could I possibly have learned in that time that could change the situation here? It's not like I've had access to any high-level databases or—"

"If it's that much of a concern, we can rig up an explosive collar or something along those lines," Khalid quickly cut in. Dawn looked slightly queasy at the prospect but nodded her consent anyway. "Any further questions, general?"

"Thank you, that is quite enough." Kim waved his hand dismissively, then leaned closer as if to study Dawn. For a moment, nobody spoke. "For the record, I'm still not comfortable with the risk here. But there is a slight chance talking could prove productive… in the end, it's your decision, admiral."

"Thank you, General. Captain Liang, anything else to add?"

"Only that we should try to avoid further battle as much as possible," he said, reappearing in his window. "People and aliens alike tend to say more than they should if you just keep them talking. This could be a golden opportunity for intel; don't blow it by being stupid."

Dawn nodded her understanding. Lasky nodded as well, a determined set to his jaw. "Alright, then. I wish there was another way, or someone else we could send, but… Forward Unto Dawn, I am ordering you to meet with the enemy and attempt to negotiate a truce. Failing that, you are to fight your way out and regroup with the fleet. You will be equipped with monitoring devices, both to gather intel and to ensure your loyalty. Understood?" She nodded again, subtly fidgeting and obviously eager to get moving. "Very well. The rest of the fleet will be on standby to intervene if something goes wrong. You are all now dismissed." Garcia was about to log off when Lasky called out. "Captain Garcia, may I have a word?"

"O-of course." Lasky waited until the rest of the conference went dark before turning his full attention on the nervous captain.

"Don't think I didn't notice that outburst. Forward Unto Dawn is still an unknown factor; you'd be wise not to get too attached."

"Y-yes sir, of course."

"Good. That said, I know the Abyssal terms, but I'll be damned if I'm sending her in without any support at all."

"Well, I feel the same, sir, but we can't get a ship within eighty thousand klicks and they'll only play along if she goes alone, right?"

"Right, but I believe that we actually have one more card up our sleeves, one that the Abyssals might have forgotten about. Captain, how many nukes does Scorpia have left?"

"Nukes? Eight, I believe. Do you have something in mind, sir?"

Lasky smiled an enigmatic smile. "It may just be a good thing you're stuck on that moon, captain. A very good thing."