2637 Hours, August 13, 2552 (Local Calendar)/
Epsilon Eridani System, Planet Reach, Viery Territory
Spartan B312, Sara, leaned back against the rough cave wall with a tired sigh. She was as invested in picking the proper tactics for their upcoming mission as anyone, but more than six hours' of planning were beginning to take their toll on her both mentally and physically. Add to that the two weeks of near-constant combat since the enactment of WINTER CONTINGENCY and the stress of being reintegrated into a full team for the first time since she was sequestered for the Office of Naval Intelligence, and it amounted to a tiring day.
Her eyelids seemed to be growing heavier with each passing second as she traced the cracks around their chosen cave hideout. She did her best to fight the urge to let them close fully, but the battle seemed ever more futile with each blink. Just as she lost her grip on the last shred of will power left to her, she felt a boot nudge none-too-gently against her leg.
"Six," a woman said urgently, her voice painted by a Slavic accent. "You can sleep when you're dead, Spartan. I need you to take a look at this."
Sara opened her eyes to take in her savior from the fast-approaching sleep. Catherine-B320 - known to her team as Kat - tapped a toe impatiently as she held a datapad under Sara's nose. The Spartan snatched the device from Noble Two's hand and appraised it through bleary eyes. Eventually she focused in on some familiar-looking lines.
"This is the most recent schematic of our target that I could find," Kat explained quickly. "I need you to take a look at it and tell me if there's anything they might have . . . forgotten to include in the official documents that we should be aware of."
Realizing what she was beholding, Sara nodded and began her work. As she tapped away, labeling any potential points of interest that she found that were not clearly listed, she watched Kat hold aloft a second datapad from the corner of her eye.
"Carter," the hacker called out, "I've compiled our plan onto this tablet - come look through it."
Noble One, who until that point had been off in a back corner of the cave speaking in low tones with the team's resident sniper and heavy weapons experts, sighed tiredly as he approached them. "When did you start giving me orders?" he asked wearily. "I outrank you, I'm not some dog for you to give commands to." Still, Sara noticed, he took the datapad and began to do as Noble Two had asked.
"Really? I hadn't noticed." Kat looked at her team leader with a smirk on her face as he rolled his eyes, but still continued reading the tablet. Then she slowly reached up with her left hand and gently stroked the back of Carter's head. "Who's my good boy?" she asked, a mischievous light sparkling in her eyes.
All movement in the cave ceased at once. Carter's back stiffened until it was straight as a board. The repetitive snikt of Emile sharpening his knife against his right shoulder armor went quiet. Jorge and Jun's murmuring tones silenced. Everyone turned to stare in shock and a certain amount of awe at the comparatively diminutive Spartan still smirking at their leader.
Sara was suddenly very glad she was still wearing her helmet - if she weren't, her jaw would most likely have dropped straight to the ground.
Several seconds passed in perfect silence. Even the distant sounds of combat seemed to have faded away. Finally, it was Carter who broke the tension.
"Kat," he said warningly, but that was all he managed to get out before words seemed to fail him again. For a man so utterly unflappable and level-headed in the face of insurmountable odds and life-or-death situations that he had not only earned but commanded the respect of his peers, for the first time since Sara met him he seemed entirely upended.
And if she didn't know better, she might have sworn that the faint tinge of red now coloring his cheeks and neck was a blush.
"Sorry, I keep forgetting," Kat said, disentangling the fingers of her left hand from Carter's hair and reaching instead for her helmet. She went to slide the helmet into place over her head, but paused just before doing so. "Time and place, right, sir?" she added with a wink.
Then her helmet was locked over her face, and with a quick "I'll go scout the perimeter," she vanished into Reach's dark night.
Once again, perfect silence reigned in the cave for several seconds.
Then Carter was sliding his own helmet on in a flustered hurry. "Noble, finish your preparations and then get some shut-eye. We've got a big day coming up tomorrow." Then he, too, was gone, his last shout - "Spartan, get back here!" - clearly meant for only one set of ears.
The ambient sound of the environment slowly creeped back to normal levels. Sara, now very awake, looked through the schematics on her datapad with a renewed vigor. Jorge and Jun went back to their conversation of logistics.
When she finished going over her portion of the plan, Sara leaned back against the cave wall and let her eyes drift closed once more. Unfortunately, curiosity was now keeping her awake. She tried in vain to let sleep take her, but before long she was sitting back up.
"Is no one going to acknowledge what just happened?" she asked.
Jun and Jorge shared a knowing grin before the sniper simply shrugged.
Sara turned to Emile, who had resumed lazily sharpening his blade. "What about you? No jokes or sarcastic comments?"
"Like the big man said earlier, Kat's always had Carter dialed in," he said, smoothly sheathing his kukri knife. "And if I have learned one thing about that, it's that I'm happier not knowing."
"Believe me," Jun added quietly, "we all are."
Noble Six leaned against the stony wall behind her once more, mulling over their words. The rest of Noble Team might have been willing to move on as quickly as possible without further discussion of the matter, but her brain wouldn't allow it. The innate need she felt within her to get to the bottom of the subject was like an itch in the center of her brain that she knew she would need to scratch sooner or later.
Still, no matter how badly she wanted to scratch her newfound itch, Sara willed her mind to quiet enough that she could sleep as she borrowed Kat's own phrase.
Time and place.
Author's Note: So this idea came from a garbage meme I made up a while back that said "Kat calls Carter a 'good boy' when no one else is around, and he's way into it." Then last night at around 1 in the morning I came up with this . . . whatever it is. Anyway. Hope you enjoyed. Leave a review and tell me what you thought!