Disclaimer: Chief: Lalalalala, I won't say it! Lalalalalalal-Master knocks out Chief. Master: We don't own SO3, or anything we ripped off, either blatantly or subtlely. So don't try to sue us.

Author's Note: Ok, the break is over. Now let's get back to the action! Fayt and Co. have landed smack dab in the middle of the Covenant Empire (the bad guys), and now they'll have to escape!

Author's Note 2: Damn, I just realised I made a major error with the timeline! The Terran Alliance was formed in 2098 A.D, whereas the UNSC was still existent up till 2552 A.D and even later. Ok, just take it that the new eternal sphere data is progressing slower than it is expected to be, hence the development of the UNSC into the Terran Alliance has been delayed, occurring after 2552 instead of 2098.

Pairings Note: My deepest apologies to NelZelpher88, for the AlbelxNel pairing in this story was meant to be a side pairing, as the story focuses more on FaytxMaria. Of course, I will still try my best to include the AlNel pairing as much as possible, but I'm not used to writing about those two...

Chapter 2: Unwelcome Guests

"Unh!"

"Whoa!"

"Aaaah!"

CRASH!

"Ugh…"

Fayt shook his head to clear his vision of the stars that were dotting it, and tried to get up. Unfortunately, he was unable to due to the massive weight that was perched on his back. A familiar voice moaned from behind him, and he turned around as best he could, given his current position.

Maria shifted from her position on top of Fayt and also tried to get to her feet, but due to the combined weight of 8 other people resting on her back, she wasn't able to move much.

Cliff, who was in the middle of the human mound, shifted a bit and groaned, "Does the landing have to be so damn rough?"

"Get off of me, worms…" Albel growled from below Nel, who squirmed uncomfortably at her close contact with the Glyphian's body.

Fayt tried to pull himself out from under the tangled pile of bodies, but he just didn't have the strength. "Guys… get off me. You're heavy…"

Peppita, who was perched at the top of the pile, stirred and got up. "Hmm? Oh, Fayt!" She quickly jumped off Roger, who in turn leapt off Sophia. Nel rolled off of Albel's back once Sophia had gotten off her, and Mirage was free to move once Albel had dashed well and away from the tangled heap of limbs. Adray grunted and moved off the pile once Mirage had gotten off his back, and Cliff immediately got to his feet once his back was free of the weight of a grizzly bear, leaving a crumpled Maria lying on top of a rather squashed Fayt.

Maria had just come to realize what a compromising position she was in with Fayt, and her face practically started blazing when her mind started to wander off to places it was better off not visiting at all. She was on her feet in a flash, and desperately attempted to hide her blush by turning slightly away from the group.

Fayt, completely oblivious to Maria's reaction, quickly picked himself up and started rubbing his sore back in an attempt to relieve the aches.

"So where are we, anyway?" Roger asked.

No one had the answer to that question, as nobody even knew where 'here' was. Looking around, the party realized that they were in a very large chamber that was shaped vaguely like a garden. It would have seemed like a perfectly normal garden, if not for the unnatural-looking vegetation that grew out of the soil, as well as the purple-colored architecture that blended in perfectly with the vegetation, almost seeming part of it. The room they were in wasn't open-aired; there was a huge purple-tinged glass dome that served as a roof covering the top.

Fayt walked over to one of the purple-colored walls and inspected it closely. "This wall isn't just metal or concrete." He stated, "Whatever produced this metal has technology equivalent to that of the Pangalactic Federation. If we're seen by whatever that lives here, something tells me we'll be in big trouble."

"Agreed. Everyone split up and look for an exit." Maria said.

Roger was looking closely at an oddly decorated section of the wall. The outline of it was shaped strangely like a portal, and there were many blinking lights. Noticing a shape that looked like what Fayt called a 'Control Panel', Roger reached out and touched one of the lights that were blinking on the panel.

Immediately, there was a faint rush of wind, and the oddly decorated section of wall split itself in two and rushed into the other parts of the wall next to it.

"Hey guys! I found a door!" Immediately, everyone rushed over to where Roger was standing.

"Far out…" Roger muttered as they stared down the seemingly endless passageway. The corridor was well lit, and there were dozens of doors that intermittently dotted the walls of the corridor.

"What is this place?" Sophia asked, completely bowled over by the utter alien ness of this place. Even the bizarre interiors of the Vendeeni ships she was held captive in didn't surprise her as much as this.

"Well, the only way we're gonna know for sure is to go down that corridor and find out." Maria replied before setting down the corridor.

Everyone looked at their leader for directions, and Fayt shrugged. "It's not like we have anywhere else to go, anyway. Let's follow her."

The first door that Maria opened didn't reveal much, just a chamber that seemed to be some kind of quarters, though the 'beds' didn't seem shaped for human-shaped life forms, and the chair didn't seem to be designed to support a human's backbone.

In short, Maria didn't think that humans live in wherever-they-were. The next door she opened revealed a large, spacious room with several racks lining the walls. Most of the racks were empty, but a few were occupied by rows of claw-like devices that glowed either blue or green from the inside. They looked a lot like weapons, but Maria didn't intend to find out by grabbing one of them. Who knew what kind of security mechanisms this place had…

Unfortunately, Roger didn't have Maria's sense of caution, and he reached out to touch one of the devices. Maria, who was leaving with the group through the door, noticed Roger's absence in the party and looked back into the 'armory'.

The sight of Roger with his hand holding one of the devices and about to lift it off the rack was more than enough to send Maria lunging forward, ready to tackle Roger to the ground just to get him away from the rack of devices.

Too late. Before Maria even reached Roger, he had already lifted the device off and away from the rack.

Immediately, a high-pitched warning tone issued from the walls of the chamber.

"ROGER!"

"I didn't do it!"

Albel had the little Menodix up in the air, holding him by the scruff of his collar. "You just screwed us up big time, little maggot." Albel growled.

"Albel, enough!" Nel snapped at him. Albel glared resentfully at Nel before he reluctantly dropped the cowering Menodix to the ground. Roger immediately scurried away from Albel the moment he hit the ground. (A/N: Well... I don't know if this really qualifies, but it does hint at AlbelxNel since if anybody else other than Nel had told Albel to drop the little runt, he would have sliced Roger up into little pieces instead.)

"Get ready guys. I think we're about to have some company." Maria stated as she trained her pulse gun on the doorway.

The party immediately took up defensive positions inside the room. Fayt and Albel planted themselves on either side of the door, backed up by Cliff, Mirage, Nel and Adray, ready to eviscerate anything that passed through. Sophia positioned herself on the other side of the room next to Maria, her weapon trained on the doorway. Roger and Peppita were busy hiding behind Maria and Sophia.

And they waited. And waited. And nothing came.

"Maybe it wasn't an alarm after all." Roger piped up.

The moment he said that, the doors slid open, and an alien creature stepped inside.

It stood a meter and a half tall, a biped. Its knobby, scaled skin was a sickly, mottled yellow; purple and yellow fins ran along the crest of its skull and its forearms. Glittering, bulbous eyes protruded from skull-like hollows in the creature's elongated head.

Perhaps it was the creature's sudden entry; or perhaps it was the creature's appearance that shocked the party so much; viscous and unclean like a carrion bird. But whatever the reason was, the party was caught off guard and stunned for a moment.

The alien also stood there, frozen for a moment – staring at the human interlopers. Then it screeched and reached for something on its belt, its movements darting and birdlike.

It never got a chance to draw whatever served as its weapon. Cliff and Mirage pounced from behind the creature, tackling it to the ground. Fayt, Albel and Adray immediately followed-up the attack by driving their blades through the creature's back. The alien screeched in pain and struggled to release itself from the firm holds the two Klausians had it in, but it wasn't able to. A bolt of energy from Sophia and a pinpoint shot from Maria's blaster slammed into its head and ended its life. Thick blood oozed from the open wounds in the creature's head and on its back.

"That was easy," Fayt remarked. He nudged the creature with his boot. "They sure aren't as tough as the Vendeeni or the Aldians."

"Let's hope it stays that way," Nel replied.

Maria pulled out her quad scanner and took a moment to run a quick scanning diagnostic. "I'm getting a radiation reading this way," she said. She stepped out of the armory and gestured deeper into the construct.

The party continued down the corridor and took a side branch. They stopped at another set of doors. Roger punched the same button he had punched before and the doors slid apart.

Another of the creatures was there. It stood in a circular room with crystalline control panels and a large window. This time, however, the vulture-headed creature didn't scream or look particularly surprised.

This one looked angry.

The creature held another one of those claw-like devices in its hand – leveled at Fayt.

Maria, Adray and Sophia fired. Pulse blasts and energy bolts filled the air and splashed against a shimmering barrier in front of the creature.

A bolt of green heat blasted from the claw. The blast seemed similar to some form of plasma, and right now it seemed to be very destructive.

Cliff dove forward and knocked Fayt out of the blast's path; the energy burst caught Cliff in the side. The reflective coating of his customized Ablative Armor flared, and he fell, clutching his side.

Maria flicked her pulse gun to 'full-auto' and sprayed pulse fire at the creature. The blasts peppered the alien – each one splashed against and dissipated over the energy shield.

Maria glanced at her ammo counter on her pulse gun – half gone.

If someone doesn't take this thing out quick, it's going to kill us one by one. She thought.

The alien kept up a stream of answering fire – energy blasts hammered into Cliff, who fell to the deck, unable to defend himself.

Albel immediately sent forth an Air Slash that slammed into the creature's shield and knocked it out of line. Fayt saw his chance. While the alien was still trying to recover its balance, Fayt instantly warped behind the alien with Dimension Door and sliced its head clean off.

The vulture-like head parted from the creature's shoulders and spattered the floor with blood and bits of neck bone.

Mirage quickly helped Cliff up to his feet.

"I'm okay," Cliff said, holding his side and grimacing. "Just a little singed." The reflective coating on his ablative armor was blackened.

"You sure?" Mirage asked concernedly. Cliff tried to wave her away, but Mirage pulled his hand away from his side. There was a hole the size of a fist in Cliff's ablative armor, and beneath that, the skin was blackened and cracked. Cliff smiled, but his teeth gritted in pain.

"That's nothing." Mirage said. "I'll get you patched up in no time." She quickly pulled a first aid kit out of her pack and started tending to Cliff's wound.

Meanwhile, Fayt paused over the headless body of the alien. He spotted a glint of metal, an armguard, and he picked it up. He tapped one of the three buttons on the device, but nothing happened. He strapped it to his forearm. It might come in useful sometime.

Once Mirage had finished bandaging Cliff's side, the party entered the room. The large window was a half-meter thick. It overlooked a large chamber that descended three stories. A cylinder ran the length of the chamber and red light pulsed along its length, like a liquid sloshing back and forth. Under the window, on their side, rested a smooth angled surface – perhaps a control panel? On its surface were tiny symbols: glowing green dots, bars and squares.

"That's got to be the source of the radiation," Maria said, and pointed to the chamber beyond. "Maybe a reactor, or a weapons system of some kind… I think we're aboard some kind of ship."

Another alien marched near the cylinder and spotted the group. Instantly, a silver shimmer appeared around it. It screeched and wobbled in alarm, then scrambled for cover.

"Trouble," Albel said. "Let's move!"

The party darted out of the room and took a right turn once they reached the corridor that they came from, continuing on at full speed.

After few seconds of sprinting down the corridor another one of the doors opened, and out stepped a completely different looking alien. At first they mistook it for some kind of huge monkey, as it had its back turned towards them, but as the being turned around, they quickly dismissed that notion.

It sure as hell wasn't the same species as the bird-like alien they saw previously – this one vied with Adray in musculature and was over seven feet tall. It wore shoulder plates, a bandolier over its barrel-chested midsection and had a curved, shiny metal helmet covering its head. Its mouth was lined with razor-sharp teeth, and its red eyes burned with hate as it saw the party. It's blue-gray skin looked leathery and extremely tough.

The new alien grunted in surprise as Cliff, who was closest to it, lunged forth, about to deliver a quick punch to knock its lights out.

Unfortunately, this alien was even faster than the other one. In a flash, it's right arm blurred upwards and it caught Cliff's fist just as it was about to impact with its face.

Then, it slowly started to force Cliff's fist backwards.

Evidently, this was a contest of strength. The strain was evident on Cliff's countenance as he struggled to keep his fist from being forced too far back. Desperate for an advantage, he threw his other fist forth, but the alien caught it and forced it back as well.

The alien was even stronger than the Klausian. Cliff knew he was fighting a losing battle, so he pulled his fists back and attempted to dodge backwards, but he never got the chance to.

The moment he pulled away from the alien, it kicked him in the midsection. His armor took the brunt of the attack, but the blow had enough force behind it to send him flying backwards and into the party.

Maria quickly dodged out of the way as Cliff came flying towards the party, and now that she had a clear line of fire, she had the alien's head in her gun sights in an instant. This target didn't seem to have any kind of energy shield: an easy kill.

Pulling the trigger, her pulse gun kicked back against her hand as the bolt of energy flew forth from the weapon's barrel. The bolt impacted dead center on the creature's forehead, and the helmet was blown clean off. There was an evident heat burn on the creature's face, but it hardly seemed fazed by the wound.

Ok, perhaps not an easy kill…

It howled in anger and leapt towards Maria. Knowing that the alien was stronger than Cliff, and that to let that alien up close would be a fatal mistake, Maria instantly dodged backwards, barely avoiding the massive alien's body slam. Cliff, who had recovered from the alien's blow to his midsection, sprang onto the alien's back and tackled it to the ground.

Once on the alien's back, he scissored his legs wide and pushed against the floor, leveraging his body to keep the massive alien pinned. He grabbed onto the thing's wrist and pulled it backwards as far as he could. The creature's elbow joint was pulled back, far beyond the point where a human's elbow joint would have snapped. The alien, hardly seeming as though its elbow joint had just snapped, growled and attempted to push itself and Cliff up with its one free arm.

"No. You. Don't." Cliff grabbed an EM bomb from his belt, flicked the arming pin – reached around and under, and thrust it into the creature's belt – then withdrew, sweeping out its one arm holding them up.

The alien dropped to the floor and screamed with rage.

Sensing the coming explosion, the party swiftly withdrew from the two combatants.

The EM bomb detonated, and lifted both combatants a meter into the air, and they landed again… this time accompanied by a wet, pulpy smack as the creature's dead hulk slammed into the ground. Cliff got off the alien's corpse and dusted himself off.

"Man, that thing is strong!" Cliff said sourly as he rubbed his sore knuckles.

"Just be grateful it didn't crush your fists, fool." Albel muttered as he pushed past Cliff and continued running down the corridor, taking a left turn the moment he came to a side branch. The party followed suit, and soon enough they could hear the familiar sounds of booted feet impacting against a floor. Seems that they'd finally caught some attention.

"We've got company!" Mirage announced. "On our six!"

"I'll handle that." Sophia said. Immediately, she started murmuring symbol invocations, inclining her wand towards the turn in the corridor that was a few meters behind them. Just as the first few of the pursuers turned around the corner, Sophia shouted out "Deep Freeze!"

A large block of ice materialized at the turn, trapping the aliens that were already turning the corner, and blocking off those that were behind.

"Let's go, that won't hold them off for long." Fayt quickly led the party down the corridor, which started to slope upwards. At the end of the passageway, they came to another set of doors. Roger rushed forward and stabbed the controls at random; the doors slid open after about fifteen button presses.

The party quickly dashed through the doorway, and Maria sealed the door behind them, frying the control panel with a point blank shot from her blaster. "That'll keep them busy for a while," She said. "Let's get going."

Fayt nodded and was about to continue on when he finally noticed what a huge chamber they were in.

The party was standing on a walkway that ran across a huge chamber that seemed to function as a hangar, given the many bulbous-shaped objects that looked like aircraft. Some of them were large enough to carry quite a number of people; others were much smaller and looked to be designed for one person only.

At one end of the chamber, there was a huge silvery shimmering barrier that encompassed the entirety of the wall… or where a wall was supposed to be. Past the barrier, the group could see the inky blackness of space, covered with the tiny pinpricks of white that were stars.

Cliff let out a long, low whistle.

Fayt grinned. "This could be a lucky break," he said. "This place seems to be some kind of hangar. We might be able to escape from here."

The party started down the walkway, but when they were only halfway across, a loud explosion rocked the walkway, knocking everyone off-balance. Fayt glanced over the railing of the walkway, and he noticed several of the aliens he had seen earlier – both types – crowding on the lower levels. They all had their weapons trained on the party, but only a few were taking potshots at them.

Fayt noticed that one of the brutish-looking aliens hefted a large, wide-muzzled device on its shoulder. The Brute aimed the device at the walkway again, and fired.

The device spat out a large, green oval-shaped discharge. Fayt was certain that it was anything but plasma, and that it might be pretty damn explosive.

"Everyone get down!" He yelled out before throwing himself forward onto the floor. Sophia, Cliff, Adray and Peppita did likewise, whereas Maria, Albel, Nel, Mirage and Roger leapt backwards.

The empty space on the walkway that the party had just vacated vanished in a green blast of radioactive energy, and soon there was none of that section of walkway left.

Knowing that they were sitting ducks if they stayed where they were, the two groups immediately scurried in opposite directions.

Fayt's group clambered into the open hatch of the nearest large bulbous craft, and Cliff slammed the hatch closed once all of them were through. Dumping himself into the pilot's seat and strapping himself in, Cliff stared in bewilderment at the alien controls before him.

Come on, think, Fittir, think…there must be a way out of this mess! Cliff didn't see any other solution to his current dilemma, so he did the first thing that came to mind.

He pushed several buttons at random, according to what his latest and most recent hunch told him.

The first button he pushed was a large one that was at the center of the panel; the lights inside the interior of the alien craft flickered on, and the engines hummed to life.

"Uhh… Cliff? Do you know what you're doing?" Fayt asked nervously as he strapped himself into the co-pilot's seat next to Cliff.

"Relax, kid. My hunches are telling me what to do. Trust me." Cliff replied with a rather fake-sounding laugh.

In truth, the Klausian was terrified. What if he accidentally pressed the wrong button and activated the self-destruct sequence? Praying that his hunches wouldn't fail him, he continued to punch buttons and flick switches at random.

The latest button he pressed brought up a video display of the hangar outside, and a few symbols appeared on the display.

Grasping onto what seemed to be the control joystick, Cliff moved the symbols over to the nearest alien that was still taking potshots at their craft, and pulled the trigger.

A series of red-white energy blasts issued forth from the five cannon systems that were attached to their craft; the alien disappeared in a flash of light, and soon there was nothing more to mark its passing than a pile of charred ashes.

"Not a bad shot." Fayt remarked as he watched Cliff move the symbols over the enemies in the hangar, gunning them down mercilessly.

However, the doors of the lower levels opened, and in flooded even more of the aliens.

"Uh oh. I think we've bitten off more than we can chew." Cliff muttered as more of the large, wide-muzzled devices were brought in and aimed at their craft.

"Get us out of here, Cliff." Fayt said.

Cliff quickly yanked the control stick to the right and pushed the throttle to maximum.

Before the aliens could open fire on their stolen ship, it had already turned tail and fled out of the hangar.

On the other hand, Maria's group was having problems of its own. Pinned down behind a group of pillars, they could do little but hide behind the narrow pieces of architecture as plasma fire intermittently splashed against the pillars.

"So, maggot, got any bright ideas to get us out of this mess?" Albel growled next to Maria.

"Yes. Why don't you go out there and draw their fire while the rest of us escape?" Maria replied sarcastically as she leaned out from behind the pillar for a split-second and took a quick shot at one of the vulture-aliens.

The unfortunate alien hadn't put up its energy shield, and the pulse shot impacted against its side and knocked it off-balance. The alien had made the poor choice of positioning itself close to the edge of the balcony it was perched on, and it fell forward, off the balcony and to a messy death on the hangar floor, screeching all the way.

"Bah. As if I would be foolish enough to let them take potshots at me while I can do nothing to fight back." Albel sneered back at her.

Suddenly, several of the aliens were cut down in a barrage of red-white plasma blasts. Maria stepped out from behind the pillar to check out what was going on, and noticed the large, bulbous craft that was unleashing a hellish wave of plasma-based destruction on the whatever aliens were still in the hangar.

All right! Cliff! Maria silently thanked the Klausian as she quickly signaled her group to follow her into the nearest craft before more aliens flooded into the hangar.

Just as the next wave charged through into the hangar, Maria and Mirage had the craft powered up and ready for flight.

They exited a few moments after Cliff's ship had fled, but they were slow enough to allow some of the aliens to take potshots at their craft with some of their shoulder cannons. Radioactive ammunition impacted against the hull of Maria's stolen craft, but they did little more than scratch the paint.

In a flash, both ships containing the human interlopers were out of the hangar.

Cliff thoughts they were out of the woods once they had cleared the hangar, but his hopes were dashed the moment the radar screen in front of him pinged multiple incoming contacts.

"We've got incoming! Brace yourselves!" He shouted to the group back in the passenger compartment as he immediately began evasive maneuvers.

Nobody had buckled himself or herself to a seat, so they grabbed a hold of the bulkhead, bracing him or herself.

Adray was hardly fazed by the rocky movements that managed to throw the rest of the passengers around like ingredients in a blender. Peppita slammed into the bulkhead above before she impacted against the sidewall and slid to the floor. Sophia was thrown off her feet and landed hard on her rump as their stolen ship turned sharply upwards.

Fayt doubled over in his seat and held a hand to his mouth. "I think I'm gonna be sick…" He muttered, his face already turning green.

"Hang in there, kid!" Cliff said to him as he pushed the ship into another sharp right turn, narrowly avoiding a stream of plasma cannon shots.

Cliff usually wasn't one to panic in a hectic situation, but this was way too unbelievable. How the hell was he supposed to escape if he barely knew how to fly this ship?

He banged his fist on the console in frustration, his fist depressing one particular button.

By some fluke of nature, Cliff's seemingly random action saved the lives of the entire group.

There was a strange beeping sound, and a synthetic alien voice warbled out some incomprehensible speech they couldn't understand.

(Translation: Slipspace drive engaged. Input coordinates: Sol system. Destination: Earth)

(A/N: Slipspace is kinda like Gravitic Warp Space)

Instantly, the starry void of space, along with the pursuing craft, vanished, replaced by an inky blackness.

Outside, their stolen ship accelerated in a sudden burst. Pinpoints of light appeared around their craft that elongated and smeared. Their ship vanished from sight.

"What the… how did they do that?" Maria exclaimed as she watched Cliff's ship vanish from sight.

"I think they made some kind of transition. Maybe they're in this universe's version of Gravitic Warp Space," Mirage replied. "We'd better try and do the same thing." The ship rocked as several plasma cannon shots slammed into the hull.

"And quickly!" she added as her eyes frantically scanned the controls in front of her, searching for anything that resembled the controls for a Gravitic Warp Drive. She spotted a likely looking panel, and quickly punched the buttons.

Instead of accelerating, their ship grinded to a complete halt. More plasma blasts slammed into their craft, scorching the hull and raising the internal temperature a few degrees.

"Damn it, Mirage, you just pulled the handbrake!" Maria huffed as she reached over a pressed the buttons again. Their ship rocked again as it rapidly accelerated, and they dodged out of the way of the next salvo of plasma bursts.

"Let me try." Maria swatted Mirage's hand from the panel just as she as about to press another button.

Maria quickly scanned the panel in front of her and pushed another likely looking button.

This time, the lights inside the ship flicked out, and the high-pitched whine of their engines died out. The ship started to drift, silent and powered down in space.

"Don't say a word." Maria muttered threateningly as Mirage struggled to keep herself from falling into a fit of hysterics. Maria quickly pushed the button again, and the ship powered back up.

Nel believed that Maria would probably end up pressing the self-destruct button instead of activating the Gravitic Warp Drive, so she decided to take matters into her own hands.

"Stand aside, you two. I'll give this a shot." Both Maria and Mirage were taken aback as Nel stepped forward, her hands hovering over the controls. Closing her eyes and picking out a button at random, Nel pushed her finger down on the button.

A beeping sound issued from the 'speakers' of the ship, and an alien voice warbled out several indistinguishable sounds that made absolutely no sense to them. It sounded slightly different than the announcement that Fayt's group had heard, though.

(Translation: Slipspace Drive Engaged. Input coordinates: Classified. Destination: Delta Halo)

The pursuing craft behind them unleashed another hellish wave of plasma, intent on demolishing the final stolen ship, but before the plasma shots could reach their target, light boiled around the stolen craft, and it winked out of sight.

Fayt had plenty of time to think during their journey to wherever-they-were-headed. The rest of the group had turned in for the 'night', and three were fast asleep on the deck of the craft, since none of the crash seats in the craft's passenger compartment were designed to support a human backbone.

Cliff had dozed off in the pilot's seat, while Sophia and Peppita were sound asleep, curled up on the deck. Adray sat up against a wall; his head lolled to the side and snoring like a bear.

And so that left Fayt to his own devices. Were Maria and the others able to escape as well? Fayt knew that they had deserted them when they took off in their own ship, but he was certain they had managed to find a ship of their own.

Still, what if they hadn't been able to escape from their pursuers like his group had? The probability was low… but Fayt knew that Maria was a survivor.

And as he continued to ponder over what had happened to the others, more and more often he found his thoughts wandering back to a certain subject/person, named 'Maria'.

Fayt shook his head, wondering why was he thinking so much about the beautiful bluenette. Yeah, sure, he was concerned about her welfare and all like a leader and comrade should be, but wasn't he supposed to feel the same way for his entire team?

Fayt tried to put a stop to those kinds of thoughts, but the subconscious part of his mind proved to be stronger than the conscious part. As his consciousness fought to expel any and all images of Maria from Fayt's mind, the subconscious continued to spam unwelcome thoughts, especially the kind that focused on some of Maria's more… physical attributes.

An image suddenly came unbidden to his mind...

Fayt had Maria pinned against the wall, his arm encircled around her waist as he whispered something into her ear…

Damn it, Fayt, snap out of it! He mentally slapped himself. What a time to be fantasizing about Maria!

Deciding that sleep was the best escape from such thoughts, Fayt closed his eyes and let his head roll back onto the headrest. The last thought he had before dozing off was a brief flashback of what Cliff had once said to him. "The last thing I wanna see is us losing because you didn't get enough sleep."

And Fayt slept, his dreams riddled with images of Maria…

Unbeknownst to Fayt, what he 'fantasized' about had actually happened. As Maria unbuckled herself from the copilot's seat and moved back into the passenger compartment where Nel, Albel and Roger had bunked up in, her mind once again started to replay the events that had happened in the Manor de Blair.

"Was it really just the alcohol making him do that? Or was he actually trying to tell me something through that drunken haze?" Maria thought to herself as she sat down onto the floor.

His last sentence did get cut off, after all, since he had passed out. Maria wondered what it was that he was really trying to tell her, and she believed she had a hint of what he meant.

"Him? Love me? Even like me? Hah, not a chance. He probably sees me as only a surrogate sister. Besides, he's got Sophia already, why would he need me? Fayt could never love me…" Maria thought bitterly as a few tears threatened to escape from her eyes…

"Wait a minute… tears? Oh no, I can't be so infatuated with him..." But try as she might to deny it, Maria could not push away the facts brought about by her recent revelation.

She was in love with Fayt Leingod. A Fayt Leingod that probably didn't feel the same way about her.

It amazed Maria that she had kept such a fact hidden from herself for such a long time, as she realized that she had fallen in love with him not just a few days, or even weeks ago, but ever since she had first met him on Elicoor II. Of course, she hadn't been aware of her feelings when she first met him in castle Aquaria, so she treated him like any other member of the group.

But, as she reflected over her actions as time had passed, she realized that her emotions were slowly and steadily revealing themselves during the course of the party's journey.

Maria realized that throughout all this time, she had been in denial. Sure, as the saying goes, ignorance is bliss. As far as she could recall, she had never felt like this when she didn't acknowledge her feelings for Fayt.

Maria couldn't bear to keep her mind on such matters any more, just thinking about Fayt and the unacceptably high probability that he would never love her made it feel as though a hole had been ripped through her heart.

Deciding that sleep was the best escape from such thoughts, she laid herself down onto the space on the deck next to Nel, closing her eyes. Within a few scant moments, she was fast asleep.

Tears leaked out from under her tightly shut eyelids as her dreams were plagued by nightmares of rejection.

A/N: You'll have to bear with me if the romance scenes seem a bit third-rate, but I'm just not used to writing this kind of stuff… This story is my first attempt, you know.

Well, there you have it. The party got split up, but they've escaped. Fayt's group is heading to Earth to meet up with the Master Chief, while Maria's group will meet up with the Arbiter at the Delta Halo.

For those of you who don't know much about Halo, don't worry. You're just about as lost as Fayt and the rest are. So essentially, you'll learn more about the Halo universe along with them.

This is the Chief, signing out.