Chapter XXX: Coping

March 19, 2540 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC Inconvenience, Slipspace

Every single hole in the hull had been covered with poly-crete and the area sealed off before we were finally able to leave that system. The sailors that had had managed to escape in the drop pods were picked up right before they hopped on an evacuation ship. The rest of the complement that didn't leave welcomed them. Of the 200 marine soldiers that had remained on board to defend the ship in case of an attack, only 25 remained, that's about 87% casualties on the infantry only, that's not counting the two killed sailors in the bridge and Layla's burnt back.

The UNSC fleet managed to eliminate every last Covenant ship in the system a few hours after the Inconvenience disengaged, at the cost of thirty ships. They hadn't fared well. Over ten thousand bodies were now freezing in the cold depths of space, never to get a proper burial. Layla had been evacuated to the UNSC Charity. It was the large station that served as a mobile hospital. It was basically a large hunk of metal with a slipspace engine and a whole lot of hospital beds. I'm pretty sure that right now they were all filled with wounded soldiers and sailors.

I had been pretty lucky, most of the marines that survived the Covenant boarding attempt had been nicked in one place or other. I was completely clean. No blood in my armor or clothing. Not my blood at least. Pavel had suffered burns to the chest after a blob of plasma hit his armor. At least the armor did its job and dispersed the heat, allowing Pavel to survive. The captain hadn't been hurt, but as soon as the ship was crewed again he started shaking. A nervous breakdown or something like that. Colonel Zavala had been forced by Captain Brooks to evacuate the ship. He was the leader of all the sailors and pilots that abandoned ship. He was smiling when he boarded the Inconvenience, but immediately stopped doing so when he heard about what happened.

Right now I was alone in the mess hall. Everyone else had gone to cryo, to wait out the week and a half of traveling ahead of us. I asked the captain for permission to enter cryo later, and he gave it to me. I walked around aimlessly for a couple of hours before Eliza recommended that I sit down. The AI's programming had some sort of subroutine that could help soldiers with PTSD. The scientists in ONI really think of pretty much about everything.

So there I was, sitting in a bloodied chair, Covenant corpses still in the ship, they hadn't been removed because soon after the ship was crewed again Covenant reinforcements arrived. At least the civilian population managed to evacuate successfully. As I was saying, I was sitting on the chair, which was covered in red blood, human blood. My head between my arms, an empty bottle of some weird liquor that I had never tasted in my life in front of me. That thing tasted like shit, but it would do the trick.

"You want to talk about it?" Eliza asked, no doubt trying to see which course of action would be the best for her to take when dealing with me.

"I didn't save her," I said, my mind clouded by the alcohol. "It's not that I couldn't save her, it's just that I chose not to."

"You did the right thing, if the captain had been killed it is very likely that she would've died, and besides, the doctors said that there was a chance she would get better."

"What would you know?" I yelled at the AI. I knew I was doing the wrong thing, alienating the only thing I could talk to right now, but I was to drunk to care.

"I calculated every single possible outcome about a million times, taking all variables into account. You did the right thing, there is no possible way you could've prevented her from getting shot," the AI stated.

That just made me feel worse. I glanced at the empty bottle before deciding that I'd had enough. I stumbled a couple of times before managing to regain my balance. I must've had a lot to drink if my enhanced reflexes weren't able to keep me walking straight.

"Prepare my pod, I'm going to freeze myself," I ordered the AI.

"It's not advisable to enter cryo when drunk," the AI stated.

"I don't care, just do it."

"As you wish sergeant," Eliza said.

I left my pod after throwing up my anti-freeze fluid. It still looked like vomit and not some technological wonder. Usually, whenever I left the pod I laughed at how fast the female marines got dressed and tried to appear dignified as they left. Male marines usually weren't that self-conscious. We would act like a high school football team in the showers after a successful practice. We would horse around, tell some jokes, you know what it's like. This time it wasn't like that. Over 85% of the marines on this ship were dead, my cryo bay was very, oh so very empty. A mere three soldiers left the pods. They looked shell-shocked. Two of them gave me a slight nod before leaving. I would've left with them, had I not been plagued by the worst hangover in the history of hangovers. And that's a pretty long time.

"Eliza, you could've told my why!" I complained to the room.

"You ordered me to prepare the pod sergeant, and that's what I did. I am programmed to follow orders. Not yours, but I decided to be lenient."
"Stop yelling…" I murmured.

Eliza didn't answer and I was left in the room all by myself. I managed to put on my pants and socks, but lacing my boots was a real challenge. Every time I seemed to be about to get it another lace would appear out of nowhere and ruin all my efforts. Finally I managed to lace my boots properly and move on to the less challenging act of putting on my shirt. Finally I succeeded, I must've looked relatively well, because no one gave me a second glance. Or perhaps it was because I was wearing the ODST uniform. Sailors thought we were crazy, and marines didn't like us. Usually, the marines weren't a problem, since I worked with some of them every now and then, besides, I held the record for most alcohol ingested on the ship, which also helped my popularity. Pavel, well, everyone liked Pavel, it's impossible not to.

"Yo Frank!" Pavel called. He seemed to be everywhere.

"Yeah?" I asked, my head hurting a lot more than I was used to.

"How you doing?" he asked, this time it seemed he was genuinely concerned for my mental health.

"You know how I'm doing," I answered.

"You did the right thing," he said as he placed his hand on my shoulder. "Now this might sound gay, but if you need to talk about anything, I'm here for you."
I looked my friend straight in the eye before answering. "Gay? I never took you for a homophobe."
Pavel smiled a bit. "You know what I mean," he said. I guess he was glad that I hadn't turned into an empty shell of what I used to be. Layla would have had to be killed in front of me for that to happen, and the doctors had said that she would probably be fine. Still, our relationship was over, she would never be able to look at me and not remember the moment I chose not to save her. I wouldn't be able to look at myself either.

I walked to the med bay, finding several sailors scrubbing the floor and removing dried blood from the walls. The corpses had been moved to the hangar bay so that they could be vented as soon as we left slipspace, which would probably be pretty soon. I arrived at the medical bay and found myself facing Doc Zhivago, unsurprisingly, he was smoking. Inside the place where patients were supposed to be kept.

"I hear those things will kill ya," I said.

He took a long drag before looking at his cigarette. "Nah," he said. "They'll just accelerate the process."

I laughed quietly, but my head started throbbing and I was forced to stop.

"Hangover?" he asked.

"You know me too well."
"You know, you shouldn't really drink before going into cryo," Zhivago said as he searched for headache pills through his cabinet. "Also, you really need to lower the alcohol ingestion level, I can't keep writing 'Sergeant Francisco Castillo, Headache' every couple of days you come all hung over looking for me."

"I'll do my best doc."

"You always say that, next time I'll simply deny you any pills, let's see how that works for you."

I laughed and had to stop and rub my temples. I drank the two pills that the doc had given me before taking a cup of water. Instantly, the pain in my head started receding. Oh, the miracles of modern medicine. I walked out of the medical bay to tour the ship. There were plenty of plasma scorches and needle shards all over the place. Those were being left there until the metal sheets they marked could be replaced. We'd probably be going back to Reach to get some heavy repairing done to the ship.

"Sergeant Castillo, please report to the bridge," the loudspeakers boomed.

"You know where I am Eliza," I called out, "Why don't you just tell me?"

"Protocol," the loudspeakers boomed again. There were going to be some weirded-out people over that. I made my way to the bridge, I could see that that area had been pretty cleaned up already. No shell casings, all the barricades had been removed, same goes for the bodies and blood, the plasma scorching was still there though.

"Captain Brooks," I said as I arrived to the bridge, making a point not to look at the chair that Layla had occupied.

"Ah, sergeant, I needed to have a word with you," Brooks said as he turned to face me. "I just wanted to thank you for saving me. I know that you made a difficult choice, but I believe you made the right one. It might sound wrong coming from me, but if you look at the situation objectively, I think anyone would come up with the same conclusion."

"Thanks captain," I said, not fully believing it yet, even if it was what I deduced when killing the zealot.

"I'm writing you down for the Colonial Cross Sergeant, you deserve it."

The Colonial Cross was the biggest achievement any member of the UNSC armed forces could get, it was incredibly difficult for anyone to get it, only a handful of soldiers got it each year. That means that not a lot of people could sport one in their dress uniform, in a military composed of a couple of billion people, it wasn't very likely to find someone that could brag about getting one. Unless of course, FLEETCOM and HIGHCOM decided my actions were worthy.

"I'm throwing in the arbiter business as well," he said. "Nothing wrong with a few extra points."

"Thank you, sir." I was smiling. I actually was smiling, granted it's not often that you get a chance to receive a Colonial Cross, but I still felt guilty at getting it at the expense of Layla. Well, most of her upper back anyways. The captain shook my hand and dismissed me. A minute later the ship left slipspace. We were actually closer to Reach than we had meant, right in between the third and fourth planets of the system, a bit "up" if that's what you could call it. The ships thrusters rumbled and we were moving.

I stopped to stare at a screen representing Reach as we made our way. We would be there in a couple of hours, so I was mostly just burning time.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

I turned to look at the source of the voice, which happened to be none other than Marina Bogdanovic, ace pilot and source of temptation, and right now, she only made me feel more guilt.

"If you say so," I replied.

"Pavel told me what you did," she stated.

I didn't say anything, I was debating whether I should call her out on it because now Layla was out of the equation for her or whether to insult her or something like that. Ultimately, I decided that she wasn't to blame in any of this, so no insults or calling out for Marina.

"What do you think?" I asked her.

"It doesn't matter what I think, it matters what you think."
Now that's some serious psychological shit right there. I couldn't help but chuckle. I pictured Marina in a large leather couch asking questions to traumatized patients. In that brief vision I had she was wearing an outfit that no self-respecting psychologist would wear. I'm an asshole. I looked at her more carefully and realized she was dressed as provocatively as ever, granted, you can't get really provocative when you're on board a military spaceship.

"What's so funny?" she asked, probably annoyed because she thought I was laughing at her.

"Nothing, just the way you said it," I told her.

"How'd I say it?" she asked.

"Like a shrink," I explained.

"What's so bad about that?" she asked.

"I hate shrinks," I said.

"Both my parents are shrinks."
Now, when you face a situation like this, there are only two things that you can do. You can either say that you know and that you were just messing with her, or you can keep on going with your previous statement and make a joke out if it. You can also apologize, but that always makes you look like an idiot.

"Well, I most certainly would never like to meet your parents," I said.

"My parents are both dead," she said in a low voice.

Oh crap.

I must've stood there like an idiot for around an hour and a half, because I couldn't come up with anything to say.

"Nah, I'm just kidding," she said as she punched my shoulder. "Both of them are living happy lives in the Balkan States."

I must've given her a deadly glare, because she ran away laughing. I considered chasing after her, but decided against it for two reasons, not to give off the wrong impression regarding Layla, and because it would've looked incredibly childish and stoopid. Yes, with two 'o's.

Marina called out a couple of times before she disappeared around the corner. "You should've seen the look in your face."

"What look in your face?" Pavel asked. I jumped. I swear to God that that man was able to walk through walls. I have no idea how he managed to sneak up behind me. With my heightened body and all.

"Nothing, just stop sneaking up on me like that," I warned.

"Gee, sorry, I thought that you, as an ODST would have bigger balls."

That ignited a debate in my head, punch him or simply don't. I would've beaten him, I was better in hand-to-hand than Pavel was, especially with my new super badass reflexes. It wouldn't be much of a challenge really.

"You're taller," Pavel said with a surprised tone. "Does that have to do anything to do with that time that you were missing?" he asked.

Pavel might've not looked like it, with his big arms and wide back, complete with a face that could've been in a Spetsnaz recruiting poster back when Russia had its own army. Technically speaking, it still had, but then again, most countries hadn't bothered to edit their constitutions to compensate for the UNSCDF that were composed of people from all nationalities.

"I can't answer that Pavel."

"I'll take that as a yes."

I couldn't keep secrets from the big guy, he was perceptive, besides, it's not like I wanted to keep secrets from him. This man was always fighting by my side, the more he knew about me the more likely he was to save my ass. And vice versa.

A few hours later we docked in some refit station whose name I can't pronounce. The ship would have to be repaired extensively, so that meant that the rest of the crew and me would enjoy an extended leave. We'd also get reinforcements, and I heard that the captain had mentioned something about getting a contingent of rangers, which was good. Rangers were almost as badass as us ODSTs. Almost. I left in an Albatross shuttle along with Pavel and the rest of the Marines on board the ship. There would be no partying for us, most of us would try to forget what we had just lived through with some pretty strong liquors, the rest would try to do the same with narcotics. Hey, to each their own.

We landed in New Alexandria. Pavel told me he knew a pretty nice place, since I had nothing better to do I decided to follow him. The pretty nice place he mentioned happened to be a pretty nice place. I was surprised; Pavel had the tendency to exaggerate things a lot. We got a couple of seats at the bar and started talking; we mostly talked about interesting or funny stuff that had happened while we were in the UNSC. Within minutes, we were joined by a bunch of Marines and Army and Navy types. We all told a couple of stories each, it made for a pretty memorable evening.