The hornet touched down on the steel floor and Ruse, Ironwedge and Lay jumped off.
"Listen, I want this to be short and sweet, we go in find the survivor and get out, got it?"
"Sir! Yes Sir!" Ironwedge replied.
Lay looked at him, "Quit that shit."
"Yeah, I don't put my life before any of my men's and I don't consider my self anymore important either." Ruse added.
Gunshots were heard, "I think we found our survivor."
They turned a corner to see a spartan huddled into a crouching position, holding his assault rifle close to his chest, there were a few zombie corpses surrounding him and green ooze everywhere. There was a motionless spartan body behind the huddled spartan. The spartan turned to them and pointed his gun at them, he then paused, lowered it and began to sob.
Ruse walked over to the Spartan, crouched next to him and quietly said "Rodrigez?"
The spartan looked up and handed Ruse some I.D tags, "Lime told me to give you these before..." He shook a little, "Before he died."
Ruse looked at the motionless body of Lime. His green and pink armor had faded, with dried blood leaking out of the cracks. His visor was cracked and he was also missing a foot.
Rodrigez looked at the corpse and said "They took it while I slept, his foot, I woke up and they ran." He whimpered, "I was so close to killing myself, but Lime saved my life when my squad was attacked so I decided to protect him...even though he was gone."
Ruse stood up, "C'mon were leaving here."
Rodrigez looked up and said "Wh...What about Lime?"
Ruse said softly, "He's gone now, I'm sorry, but we can't transport his body, he was a brave soldier and he died in honor."
Rodrigez bent down and put his hand on Lime's chest and whispered "Thank you. You saved my life, but I couldn't save you..." He inhaled, "I'm sorry, but I'll avenge you. I'll never forget you and what you did for me, goodbye Captain, it was an honor."
He stood back up; Ruse was on the radio talking with UNSC Head Quarters. "Yes, we have the private, err should I say newly promoted Sergeant Rodrigez, requesting a ride for him back to HQ; he's been through a lot."
"Roger that! Oh! And general, would your Squad be willing to scout out a recently discovered area? We have gotten Intel that it might serve as a good base setup. But we need it to be scouted."
"Yes, we'll accept just send a hornet to Base 427 to pick up Commander Watt and Commander Dindin to meet us at the rally." Ruse replied
"Roger, over and out."
A zombie scream echoed in the empty metal structure. Ruse, looked at the rest of them, "Ok, men, let's get out of here."