Chapter Eight: Tactics

UNSC Infinity, September 5, 2559, 6:02am

Ginger walked into the bridge, Simmons close behind him. Lord Hood and other high-ranking officials stood over a holographic projection of the city, smoke coming from some of the buildings.

"Sergeant," Hood aknowledged, glancing up at the Spartan. Ginger saluted, while Simmons turned and walked away, muttering something about Sarge and Grif might be trying to kill each other.

"Anything new developing, sir?" Ginger set his Recon helemt on the table, propping himself up against a computer terminal.

Hood stroked his chin, before folding his arms behind his back. "Civilian death tolls were minimal, but we easily lost a quarter of our Spartans."

Ginger let out a low whistle. "That's a lot."

"The Arbiter was willing, more than willing, to send us some Sangheili ships to help put down this rebellion," Hood explained as he waved his hand at the three Elite ships hanging in orbit of Earth. "Civilians are quite jittery about them, though."

"That's not what we should be focused on right now, sir," Ginger said. "We need to find out where these "rebels" went."

"They did escape the planet," Hood confirmed. "We tracked them to...take a guess."

"Like I would know."

"It's the one planet that seems to always come into play, no matter what situation."

Ginger groaned. "Requiem?"

Hood nodded. "There is something there that their leader wants, or so we presume." The hologram switched from burning Seattle to Requiem. "We're going to make sure that he doesn't get it."

"With all due respect sir, if that is true, we don't know what it is Deland wants," Ginger folded his arms across his chest. "How would we get it before him?"

Moving his hands from his back, Hood rubbed the back of his neck. "That's the tricky part. We'll have to destroy Requiem."

Ginger nearly fell to the ground. "We don't have the technology, sir! It would take over 100,000,000 Infinitys, with even more power that it has to do that!"

"We can improvise," Hood said. "The Infinity will be reaching the planet in three to four weeks, so get to the War Games, or the Cryo Bay."

Ginger saluted, grabbed his helmet and left to find Destinee. This couldn't be happening. Nothing like this should even happen in the first place. Why was everything happening like this?

Requiem, September 5, 2559, 6:23am

Lasky had his Magnum aimed at Deland's head, ready to pull the trigger if nessesary. He looked over towards the clone of Palmer, huddling in the corner. It had been hard losing her the first time, and he wasn't going to let her die this time.

His eyes filled with rage as he turned back to Deland, who was standing up, blood dripping from the hole in his wrist. "The game's over Deland," Lasky said, raising the pistol at the Captain's head. "Surrender."

"That's where you're wrong, Lasky," Deland smiled, and the click of cocked guns reverberated throughout the cloning tower's main chamber. Lasky turned, and faced a full Fireteam of Spartans, weapon's in hand.

"I will now claim my prize," Deland picked up the blood sample from the floor, a tube with the numbers 117 written on it. "There is nothing you can do to stop me now."

One of the Spartans moved over and took his pistol. He was shoved to the floor, next to Palmer. Lasky's mind was racing for a plan. If Deland cloned the Master Chief, then he could...he honestly didn't know what Deland would be capable of.

But if he could destroy the blood sample, then he would solve that problem, right? But even if Deland, or whatever it was, took over the Master Chief's clone, they wouldn't have the skill that Spartans recieved from their training. But, he could easily use the body of Spartan 117 to influence civilians and whatnot. He could not allow something like that to happen.

Even if it cost him his life.

With a yell of anger, Lasky stood up and ran at Deland who had turned toward the cloning console. Everything slowed around him as Lasky ran, and he barely heard the DMR shots being fired. But he certainly felt the rounds hitting him.

He reached Deland, and fell into a dead-mans-dive on top of the hand that held the tube. Lasky's vison blurred and darkened as he heard a cracking beneath him, meaning that the tube had broken, and John's blood was most likely mixed with his own.

His last thoughts were of Sarah Palmer, and how much she had meant to him. He would be seeing her soon.

Deland stared at the bodies, or rather the AI possesing him was. He reached over and rolled Lasky over, revealing a massive pool of blood. "Separate the Reclaimer's blood as soon as possible," he ordered the Spartans. Then he noticed Palmer's clone in the corner. "Kill her."

UNSC Infinity Medical Bay, September 6, 1:13pm

"What, that's it?" Lachlan attempted to stand up, but his nurse pushed him back down to the bed. "That's not much of a plan."

"Yeah, so?" Tucker asked. "We get to blow something up." He glanced around the room, before his eyes stopped on the nurse's rear. "Perhaps we should send Caboose to help those rebels, or whatever they are."

"Hey, what happen to Church?" Ginger asked, looking at the current members of Fireteam Violet. Caboose was somewhere, and Tucker and Lachlan were here.

Lachlan growled weakly and turned his head to the wall.

"What?"

"We lost him in the fight. Our Warthog crashed, and we got pinned down," Lachlan sighed. "He gave his life to save ours."

Ginger put his hand on his firend's shoulder, and looked a Tucker. "You don't seem too disturbed at Church's death."

Tucker just stared at them. "Why would I be? After all, he's just a..." Tucker realized that he had said too much.

"He's just a what?" Lachlan pressed.

"Classified."

"Tell me right now, or I'll get you court marshalled."

"You know what?" Ginger said, as he left the room. "I'm going to sleep in a nice, cold cryo tube for three weeks, and you two argue over this."

Ginger made his way through the ship, and into the cryo bay. It was relatively empty, so he would have no trouble getting a tube away from everyone.

He walked into the 100-199 tube section, stopping in front of cryotube 117. "What the hell?" he muttered as he lay down in it, and let sleep overcome him...

Caboose's Dream (oh hell) September 6, 1:17pm

Caboose was standing alone, looking out over the box canyon where he had first met Church and Tucker. It was a really nice place, and there was even Sheila in the background, driving here and there.

He looked up as a white flash...flashed, and saw a figure materializing.

"Oh, hello nice lady that I've never met," Caboose greeted.

"Michael J. Caboose, we need to talk."

"What are we going to talk about? How about buttons?"

Smiling the woman shook her head. "Perhaps later. Right now, I'm going to ask you to do me a big favor."

"What is the favor? Does it have anything to do with buttons? I'm good with buttons."

"Eventually it will, but I need you to remember some numbers."

"Uh...okay," Caboose agreed. "Then can I play with buttons?"

"I need you to remember the numbers; 117, 0452-9, and 343. "Can you do that?"

"Um...yeah. Wait, what was I supposed to do again?"