1Lt Tilleger, K. Day 1, 1800 Hrs

Lt Kate Tilleger waited for a response over the radio. The group of Marines she was escorting had suddenly dropped silent. She had wanted to at least check in with them before she had to take her Sparrowhawk back to base. Bringing her craft down closer to their last known position, she scanned the ground below.

Seeing nothing, she asked Lt Ansley, "Do you see them down there?"

He took a moment to scan with his own eyes. "Nothing," he said. Then he peered into his controls and viewed the battlefield with the ship's thermal optics. "I got a Marine body down in the street. KIA. Nothing else," he sounded mystified.

Kate muttered a curse under her breath. She sank back in her seat and looked briefly down into the buildings, then back at her own controls. Glancing out of the cockpit and to her right, she observed Immortal Company's position. They were being hit hard. Wraiths and infantry were attempting to overrun them, while battalions of armor rolled right past and into the city. Aside from her, there was no other close air support. The rest of her flight had all been shot down and killed by Covenant AA outside the city roughly an hour ago. Banking hard to the right, she drove her Sparrowhawk forward.

"Get the turret ready Ansley," she told her gunner.

He hesitated. "Uh…Ma'am? We're bingo on fuel…"

"I know. Just get it ready. We'll be on our way back soon."

He shrugged and focused on his controls. Down below, the company of Marines was attempting to stall a Covenant advance. Wraiths hammered at machine gun positions and snipers, while overwhelming plasma fire kept the Marines' heads down. The Sparrowhawk came in low, flying straight towards the Wraiths below.

She shouted, "Fire!" but before she could even get the word out, Ansley was tearing into the Covenant ranks with the minigun. As the Sparrowhawk passed above the targets, Tilleger banked the aircraft enough to fly horizontally across the battlefield. The minigun continued firing. As they broke away, Tilleger kept the craft flying backwards, and Ansley kept the gun firing into the enemy tanks. Just as they were about to turn away completely, the gun spooled up dry, and the ammunition counter over Ansley's feed read zero.

They pulled away and gained altitude, effectively leaving the battle that was taking place in the northern hills. She didn't like to bear the thought, but the Marines on the ground would have to deal with the enemy on their own. The lone Sparrowhawk flew over the valley, heading directly towards the space port, where the squadron's refueling station was.

Kate glanced out of the canopy at the valley below. Unlike the relative calm of that morning, Victory City was now a hotbed of flames, crumbled buildings, pillars of black smoke, and raging firefights. To the west, downtown burned; several AA guns continued to fire into the sky, but their efforts did little to quell the onslaught of Banshees and Seraphs. Looking eastward, Kate saw that the industrial district had taken the heaviest amount of damage in the fighting; factories and tall business centers were engulfed within dozens of separate infernos, burning uncontrollably around the ground troops who fight within them.

The pilot opened her comms and contacted the air traffic controller at the space port. "Tower, this is Talon 2, over."

"Talon 2, this is…" a plasma detonation echoed over the radio, "…Tower. Uh go ahead, over."

"Tower. Requesting landing clearance."

"You're clear!" His voice was shaky as he said, "Be advised Talon 2, we are currently under sporadic fire from enemy artillery."

"Understood Tower. I can't make it anywhere else. Coming in now."

"I see you. Uh…Land at pad one niner, over."

"Affirmative. Landing at pad one niner." She brought her Sparrowhawk in gently, touching down on the tarmac. Just outside the airfield, a considerable distance away, a plasma mortar struck the open field. Kate noticed it but didn't show any concern. She popped open the canopy and both her and her copilot climbed out as various personnel attended to the repair, rearming, and refueling of their aircraft. A Marine came by and received a report from Tilleger about the damage sustained from Covenant AA fire.

The man asked, "Where's the rest of flight ma'am?"

Kate could only shake her head to him as she walked off. Ansley and she grabbed a couple of MRE's and sat down near their bird, watching the repairs as they ate. They were both quiet. She couldn't stop thinking about the rest of the squadron and how they had all been picked off by triple A over MSR Ceasar. She was tired, covered in sweat, her mind numb and nerves wracked.

Looking over at Ansley, she saw that her red-haired second lieutenant was noticeably disturbed. He stared out past the men working on their aircraft and watched the field as Covenant artillery continued to sporadically detonate in the distance. With a blank expression, he ate slowly from the contents of his MRE.

Kate felt more saddened at his current state of mind than hers. They were both grieving, but neither of them did much to show it. She told herself that she could handle it, but she was worried about Ansley. After a few more moments of silence, she decided that because he was her subordinate, it was her responsibility to say something to him.

She spoke slowly at first, "Ansley…"

He turned and looked up at her, his expressionless face betraying the smallest hints of his sorrow.

"We should…" she paused as she spoke, sighing and recollecting her thoughts, then speaking again, "We should visit their families when we get back to Reach."

He nodded solemnly, turning again to look back out into the field. "Yeah," he quietly said after another moment.

They sat in silence again until finally she got up and said, "Ansley. Stay near the bird and get some sleep. I'll be nearby." He complied, folding his arms and leaning his head back against a wall.

Kate got up and took a short walk around the terminal they had landed in. She made sure to keep her radio on and not to wander too far, as they would need her to be able to get into her aircraft at a moment's notice. But she was unable to simply sit in place and do nothing while the memory of her fallen teammates was so fresh. So she took a walk; she would've taken a run had there been time for it.

Exploring the interior of the terminal, she walked around various crates of supplies, munitions, and aircraft parts. Dozens of other squadrons had made the terminal their temporary base of operations. From dozens of separate launch pads, AV-18 Hornets, D77-TC Pelicans, UH-144 Falcons, and other AV-22 Sparrowhawks took off and landed, coming to and fro from various missions. Even an AC-220 Vulture was parked outside, its crew rushing around the hull running maintenance checks as it powered itself up for take-off.

She had wandered for roughly twenty minutes before coming outside to the opposite end of the terminal. Unlike the one being used as a makeshift military airfield, the other terminals in the distance were tall, extensive structures which spanned a length large enough to house a Halcyon-class cruiser between them. Instead of housing warships however, the buildings provided boarding gates for dozens upon dozens of civilian transports and freighters. All of which, Kate presumed, carried hundreds of innocent souls aboard.

Nearby, a column of transport Warthogs sat idle. Dozens of Marines were loading ammo crates off pallets and into the vehicles. Having nothing else to do but wait, Kate stood outside the terminal and vacantly watched the Marines work.

A female Marine came up to her. "Smoke?" the stranger asked, holding out a cigarette.

"No thanks," Kate said. The Marine lit her cigarette and took a drag, blowing out a stream of smoke. They stood in silence for a while before Kate spoke up and asked, "Where are you guys headed?"

"Firebase White," the Marine replied. Kate looked at her for the first time. Her rank was a golden bar: second lieutenant. The name tag on her body armor read Grey. Lt Grey continued talking, "There's a lot of troops in contact in the industrial district."

"I noticed that," Kate agreed.

"It's gonna be hell taking all these supplies there and getting through unscratched." She puffed out more smoke from her cigarette.

"The fighting's getting worse everywhere," Kate told her, "Up in the hills? The Covenant are in force." She motioned in the general direction of MSR Ceasar.

Lt Grey nodded, "We tried to get up there to resupply the infantry company holed up in that Covie ship."

Kate perked up her ears and turned to listen to her, asking, "What happened to them?"

"I don't know," the lieutenant said, "Our escorts from the 1/15th couldn't break through. I think they're still up there fighting though." She stomped out her cigarette and donned the chin strap to her helmet, getting ready to leave.

"I see. Thanks," Kate told her. Somehow she felt relieved talking to the other officer.

"No. Thank you," Lt Grey told her. "Matilda," she said, offering her hand.

"Kate," she said as she took it and shook.

"Good luck lieutenant."

"You too."

As Lt Matilda Grey turned to her Marines and ordered them to finish loading the vehicles and prep to step off, Kate heard the rumbling of engines coming from the spaceship terminals. A single transport rose steadily into the air, it then turned and angled itself upward, accelerating high into the sky. Several more ships of various classification followed suit until the few terminals that stood before her remained empty. Turning abruptly, Lt Kate Tilleger reentered her terminal and began walking purposefully toward landing pad 19.