Chapter 29

Central Byzas, Thracia Province, Actium
May 6, 2545
1900

Selene

Selene came to with a start. She couldn't see anything, but she could sense she was stuck inside a very tight and enclosed space, and that understanding began triggering all sorts of dread and anxiety. As her heart rate began to soar, it took all of Selene's effort not to panic. She took a deep breath to try and calm down, but it didn't really work. She needed to get out of here.

Think. As her instructors at the police academy always told her, don't panic: think. Break it down into steps. What was step one?

Well, obviously, step one was to get out of here, but how?

Could she move?

Experimentally, she moved her right arm but in doing so, she winced as she felt a twinge of pain. It wasn't a pain that was the result of a broken bone, but more a result of a limb having fallen asleep, but it was still enough to get Selene to stop and reconsider her actions.

Perhaps step one should have been to make sure she hadn't been injured...

Selene began wiggling her toes inside her boots. First her right foot, then her left foot. All ten toes responded as they should, which was always a good sign. That meant nothing was broken, nor was she suffering from nerve damage.

Next, she tried moving her legs. This was when she ran into her first problem. Selene could feel that something was lying on her feet, keeping them in place. It wasn't the heaviest of objects as Selene could still move her legs, but in doing so causes the walls around her to wobble. She instantly froze and it took just about everything she had to avoid freaking out as she waited to see if the walls would collapse. They didn't, and after a moment they settled, allowing Selene to relax.

Okay, so she couldn't move her legs until she figured what was keeping her pinned. That was good to know. How about her arms?

As with her legs, Selene started with her extremities. She wiggled the fingers on both her hands. To her delight, she felt them responding. Sure, they were completely numb, but she was pretty sure that was the result of the cold, not because of any injury she had suffered.

Then she moved her arms. Unlike her legs, there wasn't anything keeping them pinned down, so she lifted them up and blindly patted the rest of her body down. Aside from a mass of bruises across her entire body and a few cuts on her face, she seemed remarkably intact despite everything that had happened.

Sighing in relief, Selene gently placed her arms back down on the ground and took a quick break as she tried to figure out what to do next. What was step two again?

Oh, right. Try and figure out a way out of here.

Extending her arms again, Selene blindly began patting the air around her, trying to figure out just how much room she had to work with. By the way things felt, her upper torso was in some sort of air pocket, probably large enough for her to curl up in a ball in, provided she could free her legs...

With that task in mind, Selene set about trying to free herself. Without any lights, it was impossible for her to see exactly what was pinning her down, but she could feel it. It was like... a metal slab and some metal bars? It was hard to tell.

At any case, none of it seemed particularly heavy, the only problem was, every time she touched the stuff, it caused the very walls to shake. Obviously, whatever this stuff was, it was providing the foundation for a bunch of other crap. Unfortunately, her legs were currently incorporated into that foundation.

Patting the air around her, Selene tried to find something that she could use to replace her legs in the wall. Finding some sort of pole with a flat base on one end that seemed about the right length, Selene grabbed it and, after praying it wouldn't cause another cave in, carefully extracted it from the wall beside her head and then waited.

After a few moments of nothing happening, Selene became convinced it was safe to continue working. Jamming the bar at an angle between her legs as far underneath the debris as she could reach, she took a deep breath before hitting the bar with her palm, trying to force the stick to stand up straight so that the bar would be bearing the weight of all the debris, and not her legs. The walls wobbled dangerously around her, but Selene barely noticed. With her being so close to being freed, she was suddenly possessed with a reckless abandon, an absolute urge to GET OUT OF HERE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

As soon as she felt the bar had taken up most of the debris, Selene yanked her legs out. Scooting backwards on her butt until her back hit the wall, she brought her legs up to her chest, finally freeing them from all the debris, and then waited to see if the bar would hold. The entire system seemed rather unstable just in general, and probably wouldn't hold out for long, but that was alright. All Selene needed it to do was hold up long enough for her to figure out how she was getting herself out of this hellhole.

Massaging her legs to try and restore some of the blood flow to them, Selene took a break as she tried to figure out her next step. Obviously, she needed to get out of this hole, the real question was how though?

As she sat there, she also tried to figure out what the hell had happened. She knew the sequence of events that led up to her being stuck in a hole in the middle of the ground; she obviously remembered the tunnels, the station, the light of salvation at end of the tunnel and the light of doom at the other, and then finally the staircase collapsing; but what she couldn't figure out was what triggered the entire incident. What had caused the entire subway tunnel to collapse in the first place? Obviously there had been an explosion, but was it the result of an accident? Or was it deliberate? And if it was deliberate, why would the Covenant blow up the tunnels if their own troops were inside? And if it wasn't the Covenant, then why the UNSC blow up the tunnels?

Perhaps Shin would know but then again, Selene didn't even know if he had survived the explosion. And if he had, it was more than likely he was trapped under this debris like she was. She had to figure out some way to help him, but first, she needed to figure out to save herself. So, brushing off her legs, Selene got up to get back to work -

- and immediately froze. Did she just...?

Leaning back ever so slightly, Selene wiggled around until -

Yes, she had! Well, that would certainly make things easier for her.

Blowing out from a small hole in the corner was a slight breeze of fresh air. Given how cold it was, there was only one place it could have come from: the surface. And the fact she was feeling it so strongly had to mean she wasn't buried as deeply as she had feared. Which meant she actually had a chance of getting out of here!

Invigorated by a fresh sense of excitement, Selene began carefully digging around the hole, trying to enlarge it and see just how far beneath the surface she was. As she did, faint light began flooding her hole making Selene even more excited as it proved that not only she was close enough to the surface to actually pick up that light, it also helped illuminate the area just a bit, allowing her to actually see what she was doing.

Moving aside one chunk of sheet metal, Selene paused as it revealed that she was perhaps a little less than a meter below the surface. But not only that, there was sort of a small tunnel just outside of hole that led straight up. It was rather small, but it seemed just wide enough for Selene to wiggle through. But in order to accomplish that, she would need to have flexibility to her body. And in order to achieve that, she would need to get rid of her armor.

Selene frowned. She would have preferred to keep her armor. Not only was it more than likely the reason she had survived the collapse of the tunnel without serious injury, it was also helping to keep her warm due to the extra layering it added. Without it, she wasn't sure how long she would last in the sub-zero temperatures on the surface, especially without any shelter.

But then again, that wasn't going to be something she needed to worry about if she was still trapped underground, now was it?

With a bit of reluctance, Selene began stripping. First were her arm guards, then her knee and shin pads. Then she removed her holster and sidearm and attached it to the inside of her waistband. Finally, she removed her vest and shivered. Already she could feel the cold penetrating her uniform. This was going to suck. But what other choice did she have?

Grabbing one of her knee pads, she used it as a sort of makeshift shovel to excavate the area around the entrance to the tunnel was. Enlarging it until it was just wide enough for her to fit, Selene took a deep breath. Already her claustrophobia was being triggered just by looking at the tunnel, but she swallowed her fears, stood up, and began climbing.

The tunnel was smaller than she had initially realized, but in some ways that was a good thing as she didn't have to worry too much about falling back down. There were all sorts of protrusions sticking out from the walls, rebar and chucks of masonry, that kept snagging her clothes, but conversely they acted as handholds for her to grab hold of and use to pull and wiggle herself up. It was hard work, trying to get up, and every time she moved, dust tumbled off the walls and into her face, choking her breath, but the more she climbed the brighter it got, so she kept moving. She wondered if this was how a snake felt as it wiggled across the ground. Or perhaps an earthworm would be a better analogy.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Selene was nearly at the top. The only thing separating her and the surface was a slab of concrete. But as she tried to move the chunk, she found it refused to budge.

Frowning to herself, Selene shoved it as hard as she could, but she had no leverage and the slab went nowhere.

No...

She tried again, this time finding some footholds for her feet and pushing with all her might but again, the slab refused to move.

Nononono, she was so close!

She began pushing and shoving and punching and clawing at the slab as panic slowly began trickling in. She was stuck! Oh god, she was stuck in a hole in the middle of the ground! She was stuck, and there wasn't anything she could do and she was going to die here and no one would ever know and ohgodohgodohgod SHE DIDN'T WANT TO DIE!

She froze as she felt the trickle of something warm sliding down her cheeks and reached up to touch it, only to find she was sobbing like a little child. The realization electrified her, and forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down.

"Calm down Selene," she said to herself as she closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was talking to a panicking child that had just been rescued from a bad car accident. Or an apartment fire. Or from the arms of their dead parent. "Everything is going to be okay. You're safe now. No one is going to hurt you. Shhhhh. Everything is going to be alright."

Reciting these words over and over to herself, Selene readied herself to try to move the slab once more. Digging her boots into the wall, she bent her legs ever so slightly, then launched herself upwards and began shoving at the slab with all her strength.

At first, nothing happened. But just as Selene was about to start freaking again, there was a slight creak, and the slab shifted ever so slightly.

Hope began blossoming inside her bosom, and Selene prepared herself to try again. Gathering her strength, Selene slammed into the slab once more. This time, the slab definitely moved, shifting to allow even more light into the hole.

Almost there...!

Blinking the dust out of her eyes, Selene gathered up all her strength once more...

...and hurtled herself at the slab, shoving it out of the way completely. She was free!

Almost sobbing with relief, Selene wiggled her way out of the hole and onto the surface. Throwing herself onto the ground, she laid there, gasping for air and just basking in the fact she was no longer trapped. She had made it...

Eventually, her euphoria wore out and reality settled in. She may had gotten herself free, but she was still stuck in the middle of a city that was under attack by an extremely dangerous and hostile alien force, with no chance of a rescue, and only a rather sketchy acting man for help. And, depending on whether she could find him or not, she might not even have that.

Sitting upright, Selene took a look at her surroundings. By the looks of it, she was sitting inside what was left of the subway station. The roof and the walls had survived intact, but the floor had completely collapsed. By her estimate, Selene was probably a good four to six meters below the surface. The sunlight from the outside shined through the open entrance to the station, acting as sort of a beacon of salvation for Selene, and she was so tempted to start trying to find a way out of here, but she couldn't leave. Not without Shin. He may have been a rather suspicious looking character, and despite his assurances, there was something about his demeanor that caused the hairs on the back of Selene's neck to stand up straight, but there was no denying: if it wasn't for him, Selene would not have made it this far. She owed him.

But even if she didn't, she still would have tried to rescue him. It was the right thing to do and not only that, despite everything that had happened so far, nothing could change the fact that Selene was a police officer, and it was her job to do everything in her power to protect the citizens of this city, whether they be actual residents or tourists that happened to be passing through. She had to find him and at least try to save him.

But the real question was, where would she start?

Selene looked around. Shin had been in front of her when the stairs had collapsed. Assuming she had fallen straight down, then theoretically, Shin would have ended up maybe within a meter in front of the hole she had found herself in.

Climbing to her feet, Selene began pacing the area where she remembered the staircase as having once been.

"Shin?" she softly called out. She wanted to be loud enough for him to hear her underground, but not so loud as to attract some unwanted attention from the outside. Who knew how many aliens were in the area?

"Shin?" she tried again. "Joshua Shin! Can you hear me?"

She was tempting to start stamping her feet in the hopes Shin would hear the noise but remembering how unstable her hole was, Selene just barely managed to catch herself in time. "SHIN!"

Selene froze. For a moment, she thought she had seen something move out of the corner of her eye...

She slowly turned around. Jutting out of the ground was a small pipe that she swore hadn't been there a moment ago.

"Shin?" she called out again, and nearly squealed in delight as the pipe moved.

Dashing over to the pipe, she glanced through it, though it was obviously too dark for her to see anything. Cupping her mouth over the end, she called, "Shin?"

"Yeah..." came Shin's muffled and slightly strained voice. "Who's that?"

Barely managing to avoid letting out a cry of joy, Selene replied, "It's me, Officer Riddle."

For a moment, there was nothing but silence and Selene frowned. Had Shin hit his head? Did he not remember who she was?

She needed not worry though because a moment later, Shin called out, "Selene?"

Grinning with relief even though Shin wouldn't be able to see it, Selene nevertheless bobbed her head. "Yeah, it's me! Are you alright?"

"I think so," Shin replied, sounding distracted. "Not exactly a lot of light in here to tell for sure, you know?"

Selene reflexively nodded. "Hang in there Shin! I'll get you out!"

"Hey, take your time," she heard him drily reply as she ran off to go find something to start digging with. "I'm not going anywhere."

Finding a large piece of rebar with one end that sort of hooked upwards, Selene hurriedly dashed back to the pipe.

"Shin, I'm going to start digging," she informed him. "But I don't know how stable everything is. Let me know the moment things start to shake or fall down so I can stop, okay?"

"Sounds good to me," Shin agreed, and Selene could almost hear his shrugging his shoulders.

"It's going to be alright Shin!" Selene yelled as she started to work. "Everything is going to be okay! Just stay calm and I'll get you out as soon as I can!"

"Does it sound like I'm freaking out?" Shin replied and Selene had to admit, Shin sounded remarkably calm. In fact, if anything, he almost sounded bored, as if being trapped under a pile of debris after a really big bomb had exploded was an everyday event for him. And hey, for all Selene knew, maybe it was.

Selene started by moving as many large chunks of debris out of the way as she could before she started to dig. As she worked, she tried to think of something to say to keep Shin's mind occupied as he waited for rescue.

"So, just how far down are you?" she found herself asking.

"No idea," came the immediate response. "It's not like I got a tape measure to check."

"I was probably about a little less than a meter underground when I came to," Selene reported. "You were higher on the stairs than I was when it collapsed, so you got to be closer to the surface."

"Not necessarily."

Selene paused in her digging. "Come again?"

"I said, 'not necessarily,'" Shin replied. "Depending on how far back you were, you might have been running right over the stair's foundation, so you wouldn't have had that far to fall. Meanwhile, I know I was running across the part of the staircase that was unsupported because when I fell, I fell straight down to the ground. So, I might be twice as far as you were."

That gave Selene pause.

"That's... that would not be good," Selene admitted. "I don't know how long we were unconscious for, but there's a chance the Covenant are still in the area. We got to get you out of here as soon as possible. It is possible for you to dig your way up and met me halfway?"

"What do you think I've been doing?" Shin replied, sounding disgruntled and Selene realized if she listened closely, she could actually hear him digging. "And we might actually have a bit more time than you think."

"How so?"

"It's about nineteen hundred hours right now."

"So?"

"So that means we've been out for nearly three and a half hours."

That gave Selene pause. Three and half hours? That could not be good for her health. Didn't she read something about if a person had been unconscious for more than a few minutes, it would require a full-fledged doctor to make sure there wasn't permanent damage done to their brain? Or something like that? Obviously, Selene and Shin didn't have the ability to get checked out by a doctor right now, so she could only hope they would be okay.

"What the heck happened anyways?" Selene asked, changing the subject.

"A really big bomb went off. That's what happened."

"No, I know that," Selene replied. "What I meant was, well, what was that?"

"Well, I'm no EOD, or even aircraft ordnance, but if I had to guess: it was a BLU-327(1)."

"A fuel air explosive," Shin replied, answering Selene's unvoiced question. Not that she knew what a fuel air explosive was either. No, her main concern was -

"Who set it off?"

"We probably did."

"...what?"

"We." Selene could hear Shin move and she could only imagine he was pointing at his uniform because he continued, "as in: we, the UNSC."

Selene paused in her digging. "Why would the UNSC want to blow us up?"

"I doubt they were targeting us specifically," Shin assured her. "More likely they were trying to destroy the entire tunnel network. Hence the use of a fuel air explosive as opposed to a conventional bomb. As to why they would want to do that, well... you saw how many Covenant soldiers were down here in that one small stretch of a tunnel. There were probably dozens more patrols like that within those subway tunnels. Maybe even hundreds."

"But if we were traveling down here," Selene slowly began, "it stands to reason other civilians would be down here. And if they weren't anywhere near a station when the tunnels blew..."

"Yep. There's probably a couple dozen civilian casualties mixed in with the rest of the bodies down here. Who knows, maybe even a couple hundred? Honestly, who can say just how many people decided to flee down here when the invasion began?"

"But, all those people..." Selene said weakly.

"Collateral damage," Shin dismissively said. "It happens."

Selene growled. She always hated that phrase.

"But did it have to?" she argued. "The UNSC could have, I don't know, given us a warning before they blew everything straight to hell."

"How?" Shin asked with a grunt. "By calling everyone over their phones or radios? We don't have either of those things and we'd be the most likely people to have them, being an Airman and a cop. If we didn't have a radio, chances are, anyone else down here wouldn't either."

"Well... a megaphone or an announcement or something -"

"Would have tipped off the Covenant," Shin pointed out. "See, here's the thing about being in the military you have to understand: at some point in just about everyone's career, they will be faced with a question: is it better to try and kill a large amount of enemy combatants, even if it comes with the risk of causing an undetermined amount of collateral damage? Or is it better to try and save as many civilians as possible, even if it means risking the enemy would get away?"

"You - " Selene started to say, but Shin quickly interrupted her.

"I know what you're going to say," Shin declared. "You're going to say: 'save the civilians,' weren't you? It wouldn't surprise me; that's the cop's answer after all. That's literally your job. But you see, the military is different. Our job is to kill the enemy, no matter the cost. And if this war has taught us one thing, it's that if you've got the Covenant in your sights, you start shooting and you keep shooting no matter who might be in the way. Because you see, everyone left on this planet is already doomed to die. There's no changing that. But the more Covenant we kill here, the less soldiers the Covenant will have in future invasions, thus potentially saving even more lives in the long run."

There was a long stretch of silence as Selene tried to absorb all that.

"That's a really coldhearted way of looking at things," she finally said.

"Is it?" Shin asked, sounding genuinely curious.

"Yes, it is. These are people's lives you're talking about here. They aren't, I don't know, numbers on a sheet of paper or dots on a screen. These are living, breathing, human beings."

"Well, the breathing part is definitely no longer true," Shin quipped, causing Selene to snarl.

"Do you think it's possible, for at least one second, for you to be respectful about somebody's death!?" she snapped.

"Sorry," Shin replied though he didn't sound apologetic in the least bit. "Dark humor is usually how we military folk deal with this subject. But, honestly, you need to understand something: this is what being a soldier is all about. We do the terrible, horrible things. We make the hard choices. We coat ourselves in blood and we live with the nightmares so that people like you can sit around, judging us for the decisions we made. But, try to remember the only reason why you're still around, able to do that sort of thing, is because these 'coldhearted' decisions are what ensured your survival in the first place."

That gave Selene pause, and she quickly turned back to digging to buy herself some time to gather her thoughts to formulate a response. For the next few moments, there was nothing but silence before Selene finally spoke up.

"If we can't look at ourselves in the mirror after everything is said and done," she softly began. "If we cast aside everything: all sense of justice, all sense of righteousness, everything that makes us human, in the name of survival... if we do all that and more... then what exactly was worth saving in the first place?"

Selene never got to hear Shin's response because at that moment, the ground beneath her makeshift shovel abruptly gave way, and she jumped back in alarm.

"Shin? Shin?" she called out in a panic, afraid she had accidently caused a cave in. She could hear him sneezing and coughing, which was good sign, but still, Selene found her heart was racing.

"I'm okay," she heard Shin yell. "Just... give me a damn warning next time you do that!"

"Sorry," Selene quickly said. "But I didn't expect that to happen." She paused. "Hang on - how can I hear you so clearly?"

Carefully walking back to the hole, Selene glanced down to see that, somehow, due to the way the ground had collapsed, it had created a small tunnel that extended all the way to the hole Shin was cooped up in. He looked up and owlishly blinked, and all Selene could think to do was say in a cheerful tone, "Hello there!"

"Huh," was Shin's response. "Well, that'll make things easier I suppose."

Selene absentmindedly nodded as she studied the new hole. "You think this hole is big enough for you to climb through?" she asked him.

She could see Shin carefully considering the question.

"Maybe. Maybe not," he finally said.

"Why not?" Selene countered. "That's how I was able to get out of my hole."

"Yes, but in case you haven't noticed, you're a lot more slender than I am," Shin drily pointed out. "What's wrong with continuing to dig me out?"

"Nothing!" Selene quickly said. "It's just, if you could climb out, it would probably be a lot faster than me trying to dig you out. And safer, I would imagine."

She could see Shin skeptically studying the new tunnel, before shrugging.

"Supposed the worst thing that could happen is I can't get through," Shin said with a shrug. "Guess I could try it."

"Might need to remove your vest first," Selene noted. "That was the only way I could do it."

Shin nodded, and Selene could see him shedding his police vest as he rubbed his hands together and stood up.

"Well, here goes nothing," he declared and started to pull himself up.

Selene stood there and watched as Shin did his best to shimmy his way up through the hole and onto the surface. It didn't look easy. For one thing, Shin had been much lower than Selene had been, by at least twice as much. Plus, as Shin had pointed out, he was a lot bigger than she was, meaning he had a much tighter fit. The one thing he had going for him was the fact he had a lot more upper body strength than Selene did, but given the tight squeeze, it didn't seem to help much.

"Do you... do you need my help?" she finally asked after a few moments of watching Shin struggle without much progress.

"No. I'm good," he told her and Selene nodded as she watched him continue.

"Are you sure?" she said after another few moments where he didn't move at all.

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"...cause I could totally stick this stick down there and help pull you up - "

"Officer Riddle," Shin interrupted.

"Yes?"

"Please shut up."

Selene closed her mouth with a mute click. Stepping back, she watched as Shin made his way up to the surface, stopping every now and then to either take a breath or get his clothes unstuck. Eventually though, he was able to make it to the surface, and had just gotten his head and left arm out, when he finally ran into trouble.

"Uh-oh."

Selene looked up from that patterns she was boredly drawing into the snow.

"'Uh-oh?'" she echoed. "What happened?"

"I think I'm stuck," he admitted.

"What?"

"Whatever I was standing on just gave way," Shin admitted. "Which really sucks because this hole ain't exactly big enough for me to fit my shoulders through, so I was just planning on ramming it, but that's not possible now if I have no footing."

Selene inhaled sharply as her heart rate picked up as adrenaline started racing through her veins once more.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Grab my hand and try to pull me out."

Tossing her stick aside, Selene dashed over to Shin. Grabbing his hand, she planted her feet on the ground and nodded at him. "Ready."

"Okay, we both pull at the same time. On three. One, two... three!"

Selene began pulling as hard as she could -

- only to find herself nearly getting pulled off her feet as Shin yanked her towards him. For a moment, the two of them stared awkwardly at each other.

"You know," Shin glibly commented, "this would be so much easier if our roles were reversed because, uh, you're not exactly as strong as I am."

Selene climbed up her to feet, feeling her face flushing even though she didn't know why. While it was true she was probably stronger than most of the women of her age and size, she didn't exactly come close when measured up against some of the other male officers in her department, even those who were about her size or even smaller.

"Well, that didn't work," Shin noted as Selene recovered herself and tried to think of what else to do.

"Hang on," Selene said as she regarded the pole she had been using as her shovel. "Maybe I could..."

Selene abruptly trailed off as her ears suddenly picked up on what seemed like the sound of a jet engine in the distance, only this was so alien sounding, she knew it had to be a Covenant aircraft. "Do you hear that?"

She glanced at Shin, who nodded. "Yep."

"That's a Covenant aircraft, isn't it?"

"Yep."

"And it's getting closer?"

"Uh-huh."

"Shit!" Selene hissed. "Why would the Covenant be coming back here after this many hours?"

"It certainly isn't because they're looking for survivors," Shin agreed. "So... who knows? And who cares? You should go."

"What?" Selene turned to stare at Shin in astonishment, who looked back without a hint of fear in his face. "Why would I do that?"

"If that Phantom sweeps in front of the station," Shin jerked his head in the direction of the station entrance that was still wide open to the general area, "they're going to see us. And if they see us, they're going to kill us. I can't go anywhere right now, but you can."

"I can't just leave you!" Selene exclaimed, half shocked and half outraged by the suggestion.

"Why not? It's the logical choice."

"But not the right one!" Selene reflexively snapped back.

"Well, the two aren't mutually exclusive," Shin calmly replied with a shrug. "Seriously though, get out of here. Save yourself."

"Shin, shut up," Selene snapped as the sound of the Covenant engines grew louder and louder.

"Look, I'm just saying: it's better this way," he told her. "Hell, you could even leave your sidearm: I'll slow them down while you make your escape. It's what I would do."

"Well I'm not you Shin," Selene snapped. "Nor am I soldier. I'm a police officer which means my job is to make sure everyone survives: the good guys, the bad guys, and the victims! But if you want logic, how's this for size: if the Covenant find you and kill you, what makes you think they'll just leave? Chances are, they'll start searching the area, just in case there's more than one human around. It's what you would do, it's what I would do. Basic cordoning off an area one oh one!"

Shin cocked his head, as if he hadn't considered that.

"That's true," he allowed. "But it doesn't matter, does it? I can't get out, and you can't get me out. So, we're kind of screwed no matter what."

"No, we're not!"

Selene grabbed her stick. Finding a hunk of concrete nearby with rebar sticking out, Selene hooked the curved part of her stick to one of the protruding pieces, making sure it wouldn't slide off, and handed the other end to Shin.

"What do you want me to do with this?" he asked.

"It's like you pointed out," Selene told him. "Of the two of us, you would be the only one strong enough to pull you out. So... pull!"

Shin started pulling. At first, Selene was concerned he would be strong enough to move the concrete slab, but the slab was so big and heavy, it was acting as an anchor. As long as Shin kept pulling as hard as he could, eventually something would have to give: the ground or the slab. And Selene didn't think the ground was nearly as tough as a reinforced slab of concrete.

Sure enough, Selene could see dirt starting to pile up as Shin began pulling himself out from the ground. But he wasn't going fast enough. At this point, the noise of the Covenant engines were practically on top of them, and looking up, Selene could start to see shadows forming: the result of the bright light of their engines.

"Come on Shin, you can do it!" she urged. Shin was turning red in his face and just about every one of his veins was popping out, but he wasn't free just yet. "Come on, pull!"

In an attempt to help, Selene ran over and began tugging on the back of his jacket. She wasn't sure if it was helping, but it sure wasn't hurting as Shin's other shoulder began emerging until the ground abruptly shifted and his right shoulder was finally free. With both arms now available, Selene let Shin go as he reached out, grabbed the stick with both hands, and completely yank his body free from the hole.

And not a moment too soon as a shadow fell over the entrance and Selene looked up. To her horror, a massive spaceship was landing just outside of the entrance to the station

"What are they doing!?" she started to ask, but Shin grabbed her shoulder and shoved her in the direction of the wall. They hastily took cover at the base of the wall just below the entrance as, with a loud thump, the spaceship touched ground.

From the shadows being casted onto the ground by the lights from the spaceship, Selene watched in terror as three aliens hopped out of the ship and landed on the ground in the entrance above her. Based on their shadows, it looked like two Grunts and an Elite, but given Selene's lack of weapons and training, they might as well have been a pair of Hunters.

The Elite began yelling something, but given that it was in their alien language, Selene had no idea what they were saying. However, it sounded really angry and that made her nervous. Had they seen her or Shin?

She glanced over in Shin's direction, only to see a slightly relieved look on his face.

"You understand what they're saying?" she mouthed.

Shin lifted his hand and made a 'sort of' gesture.

"They're speaking in Sangheili," he whispered. "I'm not fluent, but I did take a couple of classes. Basically, from what I can tell, the gist of what the Elite is saying is, 'hurry up you idiots. Finish the repairs so we can resume our... hunt? Search?' I don't know the exact translation. Point is, they're search for... a demon?"

"What? What does that even mean?" Selene whispered. Shin shrugged.

"No idea. The point is, they're not here for us. It's just a coincidence they landed here. That's the good news. The bad news is?"

They both looked up as sparks began raining down from above.

"They could be here for a while," Selene finished.

"Yep. As long as we don't give them a reason to look down here, we should be fine, though it could be for a few hours. In the meantime though..."

Shin glanced in Selene's direction and to her immense surprise, he had a massive grin on his face.

"You got a deck of cards?"

1. BLU-327/C: this is a designation I made up for an Air Force fuel air explosive as shown in chapter 4 of Missing in Action.