A quick thanks to everyone who left a review last chapter! That includes CommissarBS, EQ, and Broman!
A couple quick responses:
CommissarBS: Thanks for the feedback! Actually, my editor, Darkfire7881, argued that I should have kept the chapter, but ultimately I felt I had to remove it because even when writing it, I feel like it didn't connect with the rest of the story very well. With that in mind, I think I'll be able to do a much better job making it more relevant to the plot the next time the chapter returns.
Broman: No worries about the reviews. While I certainly won't object to more reviews, I understand it's not always feasible. I'm just glad you're here :)
As to your question, unfortunately there's not going to be a whole lot more action coming up as my current goal is to start slowing things down as we (finally) reach the end of day 1. However, there's still quite a few more weeks of combat ahead, so there'll be plenty more Covenant killing in the future.
With that being said, I'm a little unsure of what you're asking: when you ask about Drone use, are you asking about having a scene take place from the perspective of a drone/drone operator? Like, an aircraft drone like a Wombat or like an infantry drone? Or are you merely asking for more inclusion of combat drones in general?
Chapter 31
Central Byzas, Thracia Province, Actium
May 6, 2545
2309
Selene
"Hey. Riddle. Get up."
Selene slowly peeled her eyelids open to see Shin crouched right in front of her, shaking her shoulder.
"Shin?" she mumbled. "Did I fall asleep? I don't remember doing that."
In the dim light, she could see Shin bobbing his head. "Yeah, you conked out maybe two hours ago? Maybe more."
"God," Selene said between a yawn as she stretched, trying to get her blood flowing again through her numb limbs. "I feel like this is the tenth time I've passed out today. Why do I still feel so tired?"
"It's probably a combination of the cold, coupled with the stress of an alien invasion, as well as whatever injuries you may have sustained during that stairwell collapse," Shin suggested. "Either that, or the stim pack I gave you earlier is finally wearing out. Usually that leads to a crash afterwards."
Selene dimly nodded, only vaguely aware of the things Shin was saying. She felt she should have been more concerned, but she found she was just too tired to care.
Looking around, she noticed how dark it was, and that it appeared as if the Covenant ship had finally left.
"When did the Covenant leave?" she asked.
"'Bout an hour ago," Shin vaguely replied.
It took Selene's sleep addled brain almost a full minute to grasp what Shin just said.
"What!?" Selene gasped, immediately coming awake. "We could have left this area almost an hour ago!? Why didn't you wake me?"
Shin shrugged. "You looked like you could have used the rest," he replied but Selene vigorously shook her head.
"No, screw that," she insisted. "I can sleep when we're finally safe and sound outside of this city, and the faster we accomplish that, the better off we'll be. Seriously, don't you want to get off this planet?"
"I do," Shin agreed, "but for me, that's not going to be an option."
"And why not!?"
Shin stared at her and even in the darkness, Selene could tell he was giving her a look that said he thought she was being particularly dense.
"I'm a soldier," he slowly explained. "There's a war going on. You do the math."
"Oh..." Selene said, feeling stupid, as she realized what he meant. She always forgot the rules were different for her as a cop versus a soldier: as a civilian, she had no business being on the battlefield but a soldier? Shin would probably just get thrown back into the rotation.
"But, hang on," Selene protested. "Would they really throw you back on the line like that? After everything you've been through?"
"Without a second thought," Shin promptly replied. "Especially if they need troops. Which, given this is the Covenant, they undoubtedly do."
Selene frowned. Well, that explained some of Shin's actions so far. But then again...
"Still, wouldn't you feel better if you were among all your friends instead of being stuck out here with me?" Selene pointed out.
"I would, actually," Shin agreed. "That's not to say you make bad company, it's just... you're no soldier. No offense."
Selene nodded, not offended in the least bit. How could she? There was nothing offensive about the truth.
"With that being said," Shin continued, "with it just being the two of us, we only get one shot at this, so we need to make sure we do it right. No second chances; anything happens, like we get shot or break an ankle because we're too tired to see where we're going, that's it. We'd be screwed, as there would be no one left to save us. So, no point in rushing things."
Selene bobbed her head as she slowly and painfully climbed to her feet. God, she felt so numb it actually hurt. Without her extra layers, she was freezing. She had to get moving again, if only to ensure she didn't freeze to death.
"So..." Selene began as she wiggled her toes to try and get her blood flowing. "Any idea how we're getting out of here?"
She gestured at the wall behind her that lead to the ground surface. At about four to six meters tall and practically vertical in height, it was way too tall for Selene to try and climb out without any equipment.
"I have, actually," Shin confirmed. "I've been looking around and unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a convenient ladder around however, there's a part of the wall that dips a bit lower than the rest; probably where the staircase had once connected. If I give you a boost, you should be able to make it to the top where there's bound to be something that you could lower down for me to use to get out."
Selene nodded. That was as good of a plan as any.
"Alright," Shin announced as he dropped to a crouch at the base of the wall and cupped his hands together. "Come on then."
Walking forward, Selene carefully placed her foot onto Shin's hands.
"Might need to get onto my shoulders for this," Shin noted. "You ready?"
"Ready," Selene confirmed.
"Right. Well then: brace yourself."
Selene did her best not to fall over as, with a loud grunt of exertion, Shin lifted her straight up.
"Man, good thing you're so light otherwise, this might not have worked," Shin commented as Selene grabbed a hold of the wall. "How much do you weigh?"
"It's impolite to ask a lady that," Selene murmured, more out of habit than anything. More loudly she said, "Not sure. About forty six, forty seven kilograms?"
She could hear Shin laughing.
"What?"
"You are a very small person."
Selene let out an offended huff. She wasn't that small, thank you very much. Sure, standing at about a hundred and sixty centimeters tall, she had been one of the smaller officers in her department. But she had always been able to hold her own!
Despite her petite stature, Shin hadn't been able to push her up all the way to the top. However, at this part of the wall, there was a large number of debris sticking out, giving Selene plenty of hand and footholds. Grunting and straining, Selene was able to claw her way to the surface.
Throwing herself onto the snow covered road, Selene laid there for a moment, trying to catch her breath. Damn cold was wearing out her body faster than she was used to.
"You know," she heard Shin call out from below, "if there was ever a time you could leave me, now would be it."
Selene sighed. What was it with Shin and abandoning people?
"Shin shut up," Selene hissed back. "Not getting into this discussion again."
She could hear Shin shrugging. "Just saying..."
He fell silent, allowing Selene to lay there in peace, watching as her every breath sent puffs of steam into the air.
However, Selene knew she couldn't lay there forever, so eventually, she forced herself to sit up and take a look around. It was dark, which was hardly surprising: at this time during the winter, Ambracia(1) had set a long time ago and with power having been knocked out by the invasion, there were no lights on.
Nevertheless, the lack of lighting couldn't hide the shear amount of destruction and damage that had been caused to this area. The roads were choke full of debris and rubble. All the sidewalks were cracked and the concrete slabs split apart like someone had taken a sledgehammer to each and every single one of them. Blast craters were everywhere, some of which were so deep they were exposing the underground utility conduits and sewage system to the freeze air. Entire buildings had collapsed, leaving the skyline fairly exposed. Fortunately, there were very few bodies, though Selene couldn't help but wonder why. She also wondered what caused all this damage. No doubt the collapse of the subway tunnel had caused its fair share, but surely this wasn't all the result of that?
At any case, at the very least, with all this destruction, Selene was bound to find something, a ladder or some rope, that would help Shin up.
"Shin, I got to go look for a ladder or something," Selene announced. "I'll be back in a jiffy, okay?"
"Take your time. It's not like we've got anywhere urgent to get to..." Shin noted somewhat sardonically.
Scrambling to her feet, Selene dashed across the road to the nearest pile of rubble. It was too dark for her to exactly see what she was doing, so she was forced to work by touch. As a result, by the time she was able to find something she could use, her palms were covered with all sorts of cuts and scrapes, as her winter gloves not being designed to protect her hands from physical damage at all.
As Selene worked, she couldn't help but note how quiet it was. It was kind of creepy actually. Selene had spent many a night shift patrolling the city, looking for troublemakers, so she was used to being out this late. However, like most cities of this size and density, Byzas was a city that never really slept. There was always something going on every minute, every hour, every day of the year. Whether it be commuters on their way to work in the morning, or the late night party animals finally making their way homes, or even the crazy homeless people screaming at the top of their lungs about the latest government conspiracy, there was always something making some noise.
But right now, there was nothing, not even a whisper. It made Selene feel like the city was already dead. She couldn't even hear the sounds of fighting taking place in the distance like she had earlier today, which worried her. She obviously wasn't a soldier, but the lack of fighting couldn't be a good thing, could it?
Nevertheless, it certain gave Selene an incentive to want to work as fast as she could. The sooner she was out of this city, the better off she would feel.
Shoving away the last bit of debris, Selene ran back to what was left of the station with her prize. It was a little hard to tell exactly what she was carrying was, but it felt like some sort of stiff metal fence. Perhaps it was a fall protection fence that had once been mounted on the roof of one of the buildings in the area? Whatever the case was, the fence was long enough to reach the bottom of the hole, light enough for Selene to carry without much trouble, yet strong enough Selene was confident enough it would be able to support Shin's weight.
"Shin? I'm back, and I got something for you," Selene called out.
There was silence.
"Shin?" Selene called out, wishing she had a flashlight or something. She really couldn't see anything.
Again, there was nothing but silence.
"Joshua Shin!" Selene hollered, frowning. Did Shin fall asleep?
Picking up a small rock from the ground, she tossed it down the hole, and she could hear it clattering around, but aside from there, she didn't hear anything else. Now she was getting worried.
"Shin...?"
"BOO!"
Selene let out a loud shriek and nearly dropped her fence on her feet as she practically jumped a good meter into the air. Whipping out her sidearm, Selene whirled around, ready to unload her entire magazine into whoever had managed to sneak up from behind her. Unfortunately, her plan was foiled when she found herself getting deftly disarmed, her sidearm getting knocked out of her hand and landing on the ground some distance away, while someone grabbed her and threw herself into a chokehold.
Recalling all the self-defense lessons she had learned in the Jiu-Jitsu class she had been taking almost a month ago, Selene started to try and break the chokehold but before she could do more than grab the arm holding her in place, she heard Shin's voice saying into her ear, "Relax relax relax: it's just me. It's just me."
Selene instantly calmed down, though she kept her guard up until the person released her, allowing Selene to turn around and visually confirm that it was Shin.
"Shin...?" Selene whispered a bit uncertainly, her heart still racing with fear. Then the anger hit.
"What the fuck Shin!?" she snapped as he burst out laughing. The sight infuriated her and reflexively, she socked him in the shoulder but unfortunately with her frozen limbs, she wasn't able to hit that hard and all her blow did was cause Shin to laugh even harder. "What the fuck is wrong with you!?"
"Sorry sorry sorry," Shin quickly said, even though he didn't sound apologetic in the least bit. "I couldn't help myself: the setup was too perfect."
"Dude, I could have fucking shot you!"
"Not without this, you couldn't," Shin glibly replied, producing her sidearm from behind his back and presenting it to her.
"Give me that," she snapped, ripping the gun out of his hands. She ejected the magazine and did a quick chamber check to make sure everything was still in working order.
"Sure sure," Shin agreed.
"Dammit Shin," Selene snarled as she stuffed her sidearm back into her holster. "That wasn't funny! This is not the time or the place for this... this... childish nonsense!"
"I know," Shin admitted. "But the look on your face! Priceless!"
All Selene did was growl in response and Shin reached out and gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder.
"Light up, will you?" Shin commented. "It was just a joke."
It took just about everything Selene had to not pull out her gun and shoot him right then and there.
"DON'T FUCKING SAY THAT TO ME...!" Selene started to scream but quickly restrained herself. As much as Selene wanted to give Shin a piece of her mind, she knew this wasn't the time and place for it, as they were still very vulnerable to Covenant patrols and they had already made too much noise as it was. Plus, Selene needed to maintain her professionalism as one of the two of them had to be the adult of the group and Shin's so-called "prank" clearly showed he wasn't going to be it.
"Men: they never grow up, do they?" Selene muttered darkly under her breath. "Almost makes me wish I had left your ass there, god!"
Shaking her head, Selene did her best to turn her attention to other matters.
"How the hell did you get out of that hole without any help?" she asked instead.
"Yeah, about that... Well, it turns out there was a ladder on the far side of the room," Shin said, pointing. "Or, least the rubble collapsed in a way that formed a sort of makeshift ladder. Must have missed that the first time around. Whoops," he sheepishly added.
Selene couldn't help but feel that much more disgruntled.
"Spent all that time looking for something to help you with," she grumbled as she felt her heart finally start to return to normal. "Fucking - nearly gave me a damn heart attack. Least I know how Kingsley felt."
For some reason, Selene noticed Shin giving her a confused look.
"Kingsley...?" he asked.
Selene blankly stared at him. "Yeah, Kingsley. You know, my friend who - "
"No, I know who Kingsley is," Shin interrupted. "I was just trying to figure out the con... on, right. I get it now. Never mind."
Selene gave him an odd look, trying to figure out what he had been about to say, but now that her adrenaline rush had ended, exhaustion was now settling back in, leaving her tired and cranky.
"Well, now that you're done scaring the shit of me," Selene began, trying to mask the bitterness in her voice but failing, "we're both out of the hole: now what?"
"Now, we keep moving," Shin confidently replied, sounding very much like the professional soldier he should have been a moment ago. It was astonishing, really, how quickly Shin's attitude changed, and it almost made Selene forget about the giant man-child she had been dealing with a moment ago.
Almost.
"By the looks and sounds of it," Shin continued, "the Covies have vacated this area of the city. For what reason though, I couldn't tell you, as there's no obvious reason for them to abandon this sector, and that makes me nervous as that means the Covies could return at any moment. So, our best bet to make ourselves scarce. We don't want to keep walking all night though: in the dark, it's too easy to injure ourselves and plus, it's cold enough as it right now; it will only get colder as the night wears on."
"And you are not properly equipped for that," he pointed out as Selene involuntarily shivered.
"So, what's the plan?" Selene asked, rubbing her hands together to try and restore some feeling. She noticed she was bleeding slightly from one of her cuts, which was a problem because she hadn't even feel it opening up again.
"First, we got to get out of here. Maybe walk some four or five blocks; long enough our footprints we're leaving in the snow will be covered up. Then, find some shelter, hopefully some extra clothes for you, and then call it a night."
"Sounds good to me," Selene said. "Which direction."
Shin hesitated. "Ah... about that..."
"What?"
"Um, I don't have a compass, the sun's set, and obviously there's no landmarks," Shin said, gesturing at the destroyed city that surrounded them. "In a word: I'm lost. You know this city better than I do: any suggestions?"
Selene sighed as she took a look around. Realistically speaking, without any landmarks, she was pretty much in the same boat as Shin. But it was true she was more familiar with the city than he was, so even an educated guess on her part would be better than a wild guess on Shin's part.
"You said we had to go north, right?" she asked as she looked around the area for something that seemed familiar.
"Well, technically I said it was our best bet but sure, we'll go with that."
Selene was too tired to even bother rolling her eyes.
"I think that is Logan Circle," Selene finally said after several minutes. She pointed to her left at a traffic circle on block down. "Which everyone always gets lost at because the signage is so bad. Which means north would be..."
Selene looked around before pointed forward. "That direction," she said with as much false confidence as she could muster.
"I think," she couldn't help but add.
Shin shrugged. "Good enough for me. You lead, I'll follow, 'k?"
Selene nodded.
"Then let's go."
They took off walking the street. The going was slow; with the road torn up the way it was and without any lights, Selene wanted to make sure she didn't accidently tripped and break an ankle, which seemed rather likely to happen given her rather stiff limbs. As she walked, Selene also made sure to look around, trying to spot some sort of landmark that would definitively tell her where she was. Unfortunately, no matter where she looked, all she saw was more destruction. It was as if an entire horde of giant toddlers had been unleashed on the city, and said toddlers had proceeded to do what toddlers normally do: grab at everything and break it. Buildings were cleanly knocked aside and rubble was all over the place.
Surprisingly though, for as bad as things were, there were absolutely no bodies to be found. It was almost as if someone had gone around the city, cleaning them up, which made Selene wonder if the Covenant had been the ones to do that, though she couldn't figure out the why. Based on everything she had heard, the Covenant didn't seem the type to give the dead their due respect, especially dead humans, so she it didn't seem likely to her the Covenant were the culprits. At the same time, who else could it have been?
"Shin?" Selene called out after several long minutes.
"Yeah?"
"Why aren't we seeing any bodies?"
"You know, I just wondering about that myself," Shin admitted. "Truth be told, I'm not sure why. Only thing I can think of: whatever the Covies were searching for earlier, might have been a person. And if it was, the Covies might be collecting bodies to make sure they hadn't already gotten him."
Selene nodded to herself. That seemed as good of an explanation as any.
"Either that, or it's feeding time for the Jackals."
Selene stopped dead in her tracks.
"What?" she exclaimed.
Shin cocked his head. "I said, 'maybe it's feeding time for the Jackals.' You know, those vulture-like aliens?"
"No, I know what a Jackal is," Selene said. "What I mean was: the Covenant eat humans?"
"Some of them do," Shin informed her. "Actually, most of them do come to think of it: Jackals, Drones, Brutes, and some Grunts I think. Probably not Hunters. Maybe even the Elites though I have a feeling they think they're too good to eat us."
Selene stared at him, unsure if he was being serious or not.
"Are you... pulling my leg?" she asked, suspiciously.
"I wish. I remember there was an incident on Draco III a couple months ago. Bunch of civilian that somehow failed to get evacuated in time literally got eaten alive. Saw the videos. Wasn't pretty." Shin gave her an odd look. "Covies are pretty well known for that sort of thing. How have you never heard that before?"
"I mean, I have," Selene admitted as she started walking again. "It's just... I thought that was just ONI propaganda! Kind of like, back in the day, it was all, 'We need to stop the Huns!' Or, 'Watch out for the Reds!' You know, that sort of thing."
"Well, I'm sure it's been exaggerated somewhat," Shin allowed. "But every lie should have some element of truth to it; that's what will makes them so believable after all. But in this case, no, it's all true."
Selene shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. That was just another reason she had to get out of this city as soon as possible.
Distracted as she was, Selene barely noticed the bundle sitting in the middle of the road until -
"Woahhh!" Selene let out a cry of alarm as she abruptly tripped over something that sent her sprawling to the ground.
Spitting out some of the snow that had somehow ended up in her mouth, she quickly patted herself down, checking for injuries, before looking back to see what she had tripped over. Part of the snow had been knocked over, revealing the outer edge of a blanket. Laying under that blanket was -
"Holy crap!" Selene yelped, rearing back in alarm at the sight of the body that was lying under the blanket. She fumbled to pull out her pistol. "Fuck. Fuck!"
Shin marched over and roughly grabbed her by the arm. "Calm down!" he snapped. "Stop screaming. Stop screaming! It's just a body, it's not going to hurt you!"
Shin's voice somehow managed to cut through Selene's panicking mind, allowing her to calm down and realize what she was doing. Her heart racing, Selene nevertheless shut her mouth with a mute click, and lowered her firearm.
Normally, Selene wasn't too bothered by the sight of a dead body. She'd been a cop long enough and this city was big enough where the discovery of a dead body, while saddening, was hardly shocking any longer. However, given the environment, coupled with everything that was going on, plus the fact she and Shin had just noted there were no bodies around whatsoever, to unexpectedly see this one had really caught Selene off guard.
"You good?" Shin demanded, and Selene nodded. Her heart was still racing, but at least she was calm enough to be rational.
In the meantime, Shin had walked over to the body and was currently giving it a cool look. Reaching down, he grabbed hold of the blanket and ripped it off the ground, revealing the body in all its glory. Curious, Selene walked over and joined Shin by his side.
At first, Selene thought the body was that of a woman's, given how small it was, but one look at the body's face instantly disabused her of that notion: no, the body was definitely that of a man's, only a really short one. In fact, the man looked almost as small, if not smaller, than Selene was.
Next, she noted the uniform the man was wearing. It had been torn to shreds by something, but it was very clearly that of a UNSC uniform. All the man's equipment was gone however, and his body armor had been destroyed to the point of uselessness.
"Hmm," Shin commented as he poked at the body with his foot. "UNSC Army. But not from one of the local garrisons."
"How can you tell?" Selene asked.
"He's wearing the standard brown fatigues of the UNSC Army," Shin noted. "But all local garrisons would have switched over to white camo already because of winter. Might have been on leave."
He suddenly bent over and plucked at the dead man's sleeve
"Well, you're a long way from home," Selene thought she heard Shin say.
"What do you mean?"
Shin half-turned to show Selene the patch that had been crookedly sewn onto the sleeve.
"This here is the divisional patch for the 222nd Airborne Division," he told her. "They're garrisoned out of Skopje, which is a long way from Actium. Though, last I heard they were on Newsaka."
At the mentioning of the man's unit, a memory of a conversation Selene had with Shin very early in the day suddenly played in her head.
"Didn't you say your Innie friend joined the airborne?" she asked.
"Did I say that?" Shin vaguely replied. "I don't remember."
Selene was about to say more when Shin bent over and began looking over the body.
"What are you looking for?" Selene couldn't help but ask after a few minutes.
"Jump wings. These paratroopers are all alike: they got to let people know they're paratroopers. It's like, yeah, okay, we get it: you know how to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Good job. It's only so easy a corpse could do it," Shin grunted, before withdrawing his hand. "Huh. No jump wings. Maybe he was a mid-tour replacement?"
He lifted his hand, revealing a single dog tag on a ball chain.
"Well mister paratrooper," Shin declared. "Reveal to me your secrets."
He activated the tags and a holographic image of the corpse, looking very much alive, appeared in mid-air.
"Griffin, Job," the hologram said in a slightly accented voice. "Seven six three five niner dash two one five four seven dash Joker Golf. Blood type: A positive. Religion: none."
The hologram promptly froze, leaving the image of the former Job Griffin hanging in the air.
"That didn't really tell us much," Selene noted.
Shin glanced at her as he deactivated the tags. "That's the pretty standard information on the Army's tags. What more did you expect?"
"I thought dog tags gave more information than that. Like, I don't know, date of birth, allergies, time of death?"
"Ah. Yeah, they actually do, but I didn't play that information mostly because I already know all of it."
"What? Really?" Selene asked, astonished.
"Yeah," Shin confirmed. "He was probably killed in action what, four, five hours ago based on how stiff his body. Cause of death: some sort of explosive device based on all the shrapnel sticking out of him. Explosion was powerful too, otherwise his clothes wouldn't be all shredded like that."
"The shockwave from an explosion is more than enough to tear a human body to shreds," Shin replied, answering the unvoiced question. "Clothes don't stand a chance against something like that. That's why after a really big explosion, you'll sometimes see corpses that are completely naked."
Selene was impressed. "And you picked all that up just from looking at the body," Selene commented, incredulous.
"Well, yeah. That, and some other clues in the area."
Selene snorted in amusement.
"Okay Sherlock Holmes, now I'm curious. What other clues?" she asked, but Shin shook his head.
"Not Sherlock Holmes," he insisted, and then in a low growl he said, "I'm Batman."
Selene stared at him blankly.
"Batman? You know, the galaxy's greatest detective?"
Selene shrugged.
"Bruce Wayne? The fictional trillionaire? Moonlights as a masked vigilante? Any of this ringing a bell?"
Selene shook her head. Shin sighed
"Never mind. Point is, Griffin here wasn't alone when he died."
"How can you tell?"
"Aside from the fact we found him covered up in a blanket which if he was dead, he wouldn't have been able to do? These dog tags come in pairs. One to stay with the body for identification, one to update the database. Plus, soldiers aren't normally issued two helmets," Shin explained, pointing at a spot just behind Selene.
She turned around and spotted a lump of snow she hadn't noticed earlier. Kicking it slightly knocked most of the snow off, revealing a slight more intact version of the helmet Griffin was currently wearing.
"There was the same amount of snow cover the helmet as there was Griffin here," Shin noted. "Meant both got placed here at the same time."
"Huh," Selene commented. "See, this is why I could never become a detective."
Picking up the helmet, she glanced inside and happened to notice a name written in small letters on the inside.
"'Shen,'" she read out loud before glancing at Shin. "Think you might know him?"
"Doubtful," Shin replied. "First off, the etymology behind the two names are completely different: 'Shin' with an 'i' is Korean, 'Shen' with an 'e' is Chinese or Japanese, can't remember which."
"Besides," he added. "That's a super common last name. That's like asking if you know every 'Riddle' in existence. How many billions and billions of humans exist now?"
"Fair point," Selene admitted. "Sorry, didn't mean to offend."
Shin waved his hand dismissively. "No worries."
"Still, that was a pretty impressive analysis," Selene complimented as Shin climbed to his feet."
"Well, I am a cop," Shin replied with just the barest hint of arrogance, which Selene opted to ignore.
"So am I," she pointed out. "But I couldn't have picked up even a third of the stuff you just did."
Shin shrugged in response.
"Still," Selene began after a few moments of silence. "I just have one question: why is this guy still here?"
"Come again?"
"Clearly there was someone else here at some point. Why didn't they take their friend's body with them?" Selene clarified.
Shin shrugged again. "Could have been for a number of reasons. It's too hard to say without more information."
"That's got to suck," Selene noted. "You sacrifice everything for your people, including your life, only for your body to be left out in the street to be picked apart by scavengers."
"I get what you're saying," Shin replied, "but you got to be pragmatic about things. 'No man left behind' is all good and everything, but not if it's going to cost more lives trying to recover a dead body."
"Plus, being picked apart by scavengers was probably always going to be this guy's fate."
"What makes you say that?"
"His accent." Shin lifted the man's dog tags and gave them a good shook so they jingled. "Places him as having come from Mamore or maybe the Iberian region of Harmony. Either way, both those places are shitholes, full of street rats like him, who join the military if only because that's the only option they have left for them."
Upon hearing that, Selene couldn't help but feel even more sad. She had known a few people whose story had ended up like that.
"But wait," Selene said as a thought occurred to her. "Why didn't the Covenant grab him then? They took everyone else?"
"That, I have even less of a clue," Shin admitted. "Best guess is that he was killed after the Covenant already finished sweeping this area of bodies and they haven't been back yet. Which would be good for us. Other possibility could be Covies already found what they're looking for and don't need the bodies anymore. Either way, makes me really wish I had a hand grenade right now."
Selene took a moment to try and figure out the correlation between the two but eventually she gave up. "Why?"
"So I could prime it and place it under this dude's body. Next person that comes by and disturbs the body is getting a nice hot potato," Shin explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Probably won't bag anything important as Grunts are the ones responsible for doing all the bitch work, but a couple dead Grunts is far better than no dead Grunts."
Selene was shocked. "You would desecrate the dead like that?" she exclaimed.
"Uh, yeah? Why the fuck would he care? He's dead. Plus, now his dead ass would at least be somewhat useful."
Selene shook her head. "Exactly, he's dead. Can you just let the dead rest?"
To Selene's immense irritation, Shin actually burst out laughing.
"Can't get any more restful than that," Shin said, casually giving the dead body a good kick, much to Selene's outrage.
"Stop that," she insisted. "Even if you don't care about giving the dead their due respect, surely you can see how it would be a bad idea booby trapping bodies!"
"Yeah? Give me one reason why this would be a bad idea."
"Well..." Selene hesitated as she searched for an answer. "You wouldn't... that would rather indiscriminate. You would have no guarantees that it would be the Covenant picking up the body. It could be other civilians, maybe even some of your fellow soldiers. Heck, we were the first ones to disturb this body! If someone else had booby trapped him, we'd already be dead!"
"Meh, their loss," Shin dismissively said. "It's a moot point at any case because I don't have any grenades on me."
"Thank god for that," Selene muttered under her breath as Shin gathered up the blanket, but instead of laying it back across the body, he offered it to Selene. "What are you giving this to me for?"
"It's a thermal blanket."
"Yeah...? So...?"
"So take it."
"...but that was covering the poor man's body."
"And...? Are you worried about this thing smelling? Because you really don't. It's way too cold out here for the body to have started rotting."
As if to demonstrate, Shin brought the blanket up to his nose and took a deep breath. "There. Smells like ice."
Selene felt like she shouldn't have been surprised by Shin's lack of comprehension, especially given what he had been suggesting to do not even a minute ago but yet, she was. "The blanket was covering this poor man as a sign of respect. We should leave it that way."
Shin sighed, and Selene could tell he was getting impatient.
"Look," he said, gesturing at Griffin. "Do you see this guy moving? At all? Even just to take a breath? You don't because he's dead. You're not. But if you continue to walk around in the damn cold like that, you will be soon. And unless you've got some alternative clothes, take the fucking blanket."
Selene jumped and reflexively took the blanket, caught off guard by the rather abrupt change in Shin's tone. It was weird, how quickly Shin's mood seem to shift. One moment, he was a giant man-child. The next, a professional soldier. And now? A very pissed off man.
"There," Shin noted as Selene carefully wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. And just like that, Shin was back to normal, giving no hint he'd been all but shouting just a few seconds ago. "Don't you feel better already?"
Selene didn't want to admit it, but she did, actually.
"Good," Shin said as he began stretching. "Come on then. We've already wasted enough time hanging around here. We got to keep moving."
Before Selene could say anything, the sound of gunfire suddenly rang out from nearby -
FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!
"What was that?" Selene asked, startled.
"Needler fire. That means Covenant. We got to go!" Shin exclaimed, before taking off, with Selene following in his footsteps.
Needler fire continued to ring out as the two of them took off down the street in the complete opposite direction, but Selene's thoughts weren't on the Covenant. Instead, she was focused on the man running in front of her. Despite having been together for many hours at this point, Selene still knew very little about the man they called Joshua Shin. And while that by itself wasn't a problem, his sudden mood swings and casually ruthless nature was enough to make Selene feel a bit wary about him. So, even as she ran, Selene reached down to feel the comforting feeling of her sidearm. If worse came to worse, Selene would not hesitate to use it.
Even if it meant killing the one hope she had to getting out of this city.
1. As a reminder, Ambracia is the name of the star in the system (hence the name, the Ambracia System.) This is not a canon system.