Authors Notes: Sorry this one has taken so long to get out. I was working on finishing my Republic Commando fanfic. Anyway, this one is now the sole focus of my attention, so hopefully, future updates will show up a bit quicker. I hope you enjoy.

This chapter is dedicated to Marine Recruit Michael J. Durkin, who went to Marine Boot Camp on October 23rd, 2006. He is my youngest brother. Now there's three of us in the Armed Forces. If I were the bad guys, I'd be watching my back very, very carefully…

0423, October 3, 2552, Local Time
Surface of Eridanus II:

"Chief? Chief?" The voice was distant and hazy, and at first, John didn't pay it any mind. It was too far away to concern him for now. He was too busy trying to claw his way out of the black fog that gripped his mind. But the maddeningly familiar voice was persistent. "Chief? Can you hear me?" He latched onto the voice with what little mental awareness he had, and he found that focusing on it helped. He could… almost… move… "Are you guys alive in there!?"

He jerked upright, reaching up to undo his crash harness as he finally recognized the voice. "Cortana," he managed to get out.

"Chief!" the AI exclaimed. The relief in her voice was audible. "Thank goodness! For a moment, I thought we'd lost all of you in there. What's your status?"

"Assessing now. Standby," he replied, managing to keep most of the grogginess out of his voice.

He looked around quickly, trying to take stock of the situation. The Pelican hadn't broken apart in the crash; it fact, it appeared relatively intact, at least from the inside. He shouldn't have been knocked unconscious by the crash, but then he realized what had happened. One of his crash harness straps had failed, and his helmeted head had slammed forward into his control console. There was a gaping hole in the console; it was far beyond any repair, and would be useless to them now. He ran a quick systems check on his armor, and a series of green lights flashed on his HUD.

"I'm good to go," he said to Cortana. "I'm checking the Marines now."

"All right," she replied. "I'm sending Linda over with a medpack to help out. She'll be there in two."

"Copy."

John pushed himself out of his seat, and moved over to where Mitchell was slumped in his chair. Fortunately, the Gunnery Sergeant's crash harness had held, and the man appeared to be merely unconscious. He stirred a bit and muttered irritably as John shook his shoulder gently before prying open the jammed troop bay door.

The troop bay had fared slightly worse than the cockpit. Gear had broken loose and was scattered all over the place, weapons, armor, ammunition, sensor gear, food supplies. It took him only a second to learn that at least one of the Marines was dead. Her seat was on the starboard side of the craft, which was currently almost directly overhead, thanks to the angle at which the Pelican was laying. She'd been skewered with what looked like a support bar that had punched inward into the bay. It had gone straight through her back armor and protruded out of her breastplate by nearly a meter. Her eyes were wide open, and the expression of shocked pain would forever be etched on her face.

A few of the other Marines were stirring, and some were cursing rather colorfully, but John was grateful to hear it. It meant that they were alive and in one piece. He found Sergeant Avery, who was slowly coming around. He pulled the case of shotgun ammo off her lap, then moved on.

At the rear of the bay, he found Lance Corporal Dupont. Her eyes were open and staring, straight up, and for a brief moment, he feared the worst. But then he saw that she was trembling violently, arms clutched desperately over her chest as if she was still bracing for the crash. He followed her frozen, horrified gaze, and realized that she had been seated directly across from the dead Marine, who was now right above her. Droplets of the woman's blood were spattering across Dupont's face and helmet. For the rookie, it was no doubt the most horrific thing she'd ever seen.

John quickly stepped over in front of her, shielding her from the sight of her dead companion. "Lance Corporal," he said quietly, trying to soften his voice just a little. "Are you all right?"

Dupont started, as if she hadn't seen him at first. "Master Chief!" she sobbed in painfully obvious relief. "I – I t-thought everyone was d-dead! I c-can't move… my – my harness is jammed… I…" Her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp as the shock of what she'd just experienced finally overwhelmed her, and blessed unconsciousness took her, if only for a little while.

John had seen it happen before. Plenty of new Marines witnessed their friends get slaughtered right in front of their eyes, but no one he'd ever seen was as young as Dupont. This sort of thing probably made her nightmares look tame. He bent down to snap her harness release with one hand, then gently pulled her out of her seat and picked her up.

Something heavy thumped on the closed troop bay loading doors, once, twice, three times.

"Master Chief, I'm just outside," Linda's voice came over John's comm. "Make sure you've all got your air breathers on, then if you can, get the loading ramp down so I can give you a hand."

"Standby," John replied. "Everyone, get your air breathers on. We're going to have to open the doors." He set Dupont down and pulled hers our of her pack, then slipped it on over her nose and mouth. He made sure the hose was attached to the air cylinder that was strapped to the pack itself, then activated it. By the time he was done and had picked the Lance Corporal back up, the other Marines had finished with theirs as well.

"I've got the ramp," Mitchell said as he stumbled past the Spartan. He hit the loading door release, and then the ramp release. The Pelican's onboard computer took twice as long as it should have to ponder the request, but then it finally initialized the process, and the door groaned open. The ramp refused to extend, but as it was, it didn't really matter. The dropship had buried itself over a meter into the dirt, so there was no clearance between the troop bay deck and the ground.

Linda stepped inside, carrying the medpack in one hand. She immediately started toward the dead Marine.

"Don't bother," John said quietly, and his counterpart stopped in mid-step. "She's gone."

Linda nodded solemnly, her expression hidden by her helmet, and she stepped over to another Marine that was still stuck in his seat.

John stepped out of the troop bay onto the dark, barren surface of Eridanus II. He glanced around carefully, searching for any signs of danger. Since it had been glassed, the planet itself could now be a threat, he realized. Most of its atmosphere had been burned away in its destruction, and the current air levels wouldn't be able to support a Human for very long. That was why they'd donned their air breathers. The equipment would be vulnerable in a fight, but it ensured that the Marines would actually be able to fight should the Covenant threaten them.

He spotted the Longsword, intact and sitting level on its landing gear less than a hundred meters away. The Marines that had been onboard had formed a perimeter around it, and were watching the surrounding terrain warily. He saw nothing else.

"Put her down," came a voice from behind him, filtered through the small speaker of an air mask.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Sergeant Avery regarding him heatedly.

"I said put her down," she repeated. "She's a Marine; we take care of our own."

John glanced down at the girl in his arms. She was stirring slightly now, apparently suffering from no permanent harm. He set her down carefully on the hard packed obsidian that passed as the planet's soil now. "Relax," he said to the Sergeant. "I wanted to get her out of there before she came to again."

"Yeah, well, she wouldn't have been in there at all if it weren't for you and your Navy's stupid secret mission," Avery snapped. "I think you've helped quite enough."

Linda approached from behind Avery, and started to kneel to take a closer look at Dupont before John could warn her off. The Sergeant rounded on her. "Back off!" she all but shouted. "I'm taking care of her!"

"Stand down, Sergeant," Mitchell said firmly as he stepped out of the Pelican's troop bay. "Let her help. She's got the right gear."

"I can take care of her, sir," Avery answered heatedly.

"I said stand down," the Gunnery Sergeant returned. "That's an order."

The look in the woman's eyes was pure hatred as she stood and stepped back, openly glaring at Linda.

"Go help Trace with the ammo, Sergeant," Mitchell said. "Now," he added as Avery started to protest. He shook his head slowly as she headed back into the Pelican. "She'll be all right," he assured the Spartans. "She's just shaken up."

John watched her go, hoping that she wouldn't prove to be trouble further into this mission. He understood her anger, and even her pain, but people with her attitude made it hard for teams to work together, and teams that didn't work together died together. "Make sure everyone's ready to go in ten minutes," he said aloud. "Linda, once you're done with Dupont, take a look at what weapons we've got left. We need to know what we're working with." He glanced at Mitchell. "Come with me. Let's take a look at what we're up against."

The Master Chief and the Gunnery Sergeant drifted away from the others, headed for a jagged outcropping of obsidian.

"If there're still any Covenant left alive onboard that thing," Mitchell said quietly, "it's a good bet they know we're here." He crouched behind the outcropping next to the Spartan, sighting through the scope of his battle rifle toward the warped hulk of the Eternity. "Our entrance was kind of hard to miss."

John brought his MA5B up, making his own study of the wreckage. The iridescent purple hull was just outside effective range for most of the Marines' weapons, but it was possible that a skilled Covenant could still pick them off with a plasma rifle. There were no signs of life amid the remains of the ruined starship as yet, but it was still intact enough that he would be surprised if that continued to hold true for much longer.

"We'll find out soon enough," he replied. He spared a quick glance back over his shoulder. The Marines were mostly recovered from the crash landing, relying on their training to stave off the shock of their brush with death. Even Lance Corporal Dupont was now stoically insisting that she was fine. "Cortana, what's our status?" he asked over his helmet's com.

"Just about done here, Chief," her voice came back. "As soon as Linda's done sending me an inventory of our serviceable weaponry, I'll have one of the Marines bring my chip to you."

"Copy." He turned back to Mitchell. "We'll have to leave a couple of your people here to watch the Longsword. The last thing we need is for the Covenant to take our only means of extraction."

The Gunnery Sergeant nodded. "I'll pick two. That's about all we can spare."

"Marksmen, if you've got them," he suggested. "We won't have much need for long range shooting inside the Eternity."

Mitchell nodded again, then eased out from behind his cover and hurried back to where the other Marines were finishing their last minute preparations.

A few minutes later, they were ready. A Marine brought Cortana's chip to John, and he installed it to his helmet. "All set with weapons, Chief," she reported. "We didn't lose anything we can't live without."

John opened up a com channel with the rest of the Marines. "If you're not locked and loaded, do it now," he said. "We're going to advance on the Eternity under the assumption that the Covenant know we're here and are watching us. It's mostly open ground between here and there, so move fast, use what cover you can, and watch for incoming fire. A ship this size usually as a compliment of Banshees onboard, so watch the skies." He paused to make sure there were no questions. "On my lead."

He brought his rifle up, making one last check to ensure it was loaded. "Ready?" he asked Cortana.

"You know it," she said, far more cheerfully than any human could have managed.

John glanced to his right as Linda stepped up next to him. She nodded at him to indicate she was ready, and he nodded back.

"Move," he said, and stepped out into the open.