Chapter CXXXIII: Reckoning

October 13, 2544 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC Inconvenience, in orbit above Catamaran City, Asilon, Omicron Ebur System

Captain Nosmo Brooks

"I have not yet begun to fight!"- Captain John Paul Jones

I was bored. I didn't really have much to do. The commanders on the ground had insisted that they be allowed to run their own campaign, I was more than happy to oblige, after all, I am a sailor, not a soldier. Other than observe the battle unfold beneath me there was no other source of entertainment. I had gone through the daily reports and authorized whatever I needed to authorize, but Eliza could handle most of the things going on in the ship well enough, that and all of our contingent was groundside, fighting against the Covenant ground forces. A few of the wounded had already been brought back in Pelican ships, and the rest of them would be on board within a few hours.

I walked around the observation room, I had positioned the ship in a way that allowed me to observe the battle raging on in Catamaran City. The various cameras and telescopes mounted around this glass room were all aimed at the former population center. Several different images were displayed in screens and holograms. While the screens had better resolution, the holograms captured the feel of the battle. A few of the images on display were from satellites, some others came from low-altitude reconnaissance drones overflying the city. The most important ones were the ones that came directly from the battlefield. A few of the screens switched between cameras mounted on Hornets or Falcons, others displayed what a Scorpion driver would see. It was really something to behold. One might say that it could be entertaining. I knew better, I knew that men were fighting and dying down there.

Still I took comfort in the fact that we would be leaving soon. Battlegroup Iowa had been dispatched here from Reach a while ago. The distance between Asilon and Reach meant that it would take some time for the ships to get here, but one of the ships in the fleet had left slipspace to send a message into the system letting us know that they were near. The message had arrived a day ago, it said that the battlegroup would be here next day. It contained more information that I could find useful, but most importantly it contained the orders which would allow me and every single marine, sailor, and soldier under my command to leave this system.

The battle was as good as won, I knew that. I didn't even have to be a military genius or even the military type to know that. In every camera I saw UNSC forces slowly overwhelming Covenant positions. The brute leaders fought fiercely, as befitted their nickname, but they only ended up dying. Grunts, jackals, and drones were easy, they had no morale left, they didn't want to fight anymore. Hunters were treated with extreme care, usually in the form of a small-scale airstrike or a couple of tanks. The alien powerhouses proved to be an even match for two or three squads every time. I smiled when I remembered that not even those monsters could prevent us from winning here. Human victories were rare and costly. This one would prove to be an important one for ONI and for population morale.

That is, if you can call over ninety percent of the planet's population dead a victory.

Despite the spectacle of gunfire and explosions going on in the many holo-tables and screens, there was one small screen that kept my attention. It was currently displaying everything that Staff Sergeant Pavel Klaus could see. He and Reaper Squad had insisted on going back down to confirm that their leader was dead. After the charges were detonated prematurely by Yule, Castillo's suit had stopped transmitting. Everyone considered that to be a sure sign of his death until a single transmission came from his helmet. It was garbled and completely unintelligible, but it was there. Odds were that it was simply a malfunction or some malware, but then Staff Sergeant Klaus got to thinking. His suit hadn't given Castillo a flatline even before it had gone dark. Besides, Frank hadn't been close enough to the explosions to be vaporized. That and the body of an elite would've protected him from the blast and the shrapnel. Suddenly, it was a very real possibility that Castillo could be alive.

Truth be told, I was glad about that. Ever since that moment when he first came on board I had noticed something about him. At first I believed it to be simple dislike, and for a while, it was. Then it was just a sense of wonder that he and his inseparable friend would come back alive after all those missions, even when the rest of their squads died. I shook my head at the memory, ONI sending us on those suicide missions for the sake of field-testing gear. Back then this ship had been no better than a mercenary ship, now it was one of the finest vessels in the Epsilon Eridani fleet. Not many captains could compare their combat records to mine, I am proud to say.

Back to the matter at hand, Klaus' camera. It currently displayed Reaper Squad while engaged in an intense firefight. Well, at least I would've called it intense. The ODSTs seemed at ease, occasionally shouting orders and warnings form one side to the other. I chuckled a little bit at the sight of them blowing up grunts with ease. Those men were a fine unit, as fine as I had ever had the pleasure of serving with. Sure they were hard to handle, but that's why we had our beloved Commander Albaf on board the ship. She had managed to keep them in check more than usual lately, and for that I thanked her. Reaper and their borrowed digging machine were making quick progress through the boardwalk going around the coast. They were intent to dig out their friend from the last-known location of his helmet. I hope that they found him alive, something inside me told me that they would.

I stopped looking at that screen in particular and instead focused on another small screen. This one displayed most of the Rangers. A few of them had been KIA when fighting the elite ambush. Most important of those was Lieutenant Nezarian. He was a fine man and a better officer, the kind of person that every father would be happy to marry his daughter to. His death had been a hard blow to the platoon, but they would get over it, they were good men.

Right now they didn't look like it. Most of them had their heads hanging in between their knees. True, half of them were wounded and pumped full of painkillers, but I could tell that the death of their leader had hit them hard. A few men paced around, chatting quietly with one another, others made sure that the ones too injured to even sit up were fine and without pain. The three current squad leaders were conferring with one another, probably deciding on the next leader. It was a simple enough problem, the ranking NCO was Staff Sergeant Waylon Durant. The man seemed to be a good leader, even if a little bit unimaginative. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, he wouldn't go off and create a terribly complicated plan just for the sake of innovation. He would be a good stand in for the time being. Not that it would matter, the First Ranger Platoon would be pulling back and boarding the ship before they could fight another time. I had seen to that personally.

My eyes went back to the screen displaying Reaper. Two of them had been injured seriously and Corporal Lamberti was still in between life and death. While Lance Corporal Seppa's injury was an unfortunate turn of events, she would get a free prosthetic once we were back in Reach, she might even get a very expensive high-end one considering her service record. Well, the point here was that only four men had gone back to rescue their leader. Klaus, Konstantinov, Avninder, and Agnarsson, were fighting their way through the enemy forces. A few of the Rangers had volunteered to go help them. I didn't recall their names, but it was the only survivor from Nezarian's first platoon as well as the only woman in the unit. Klaus and Durant had talked over the issue and decided against sending Rangers in. They had done enough for Reaper. At least that was the excuse.

"Captain, I am sorry to disturb you, but I just wanted to let you know that our probe has picked up slipspace disruptions at the edge of the system."

"Thank you Eliza," I told the AI's hologram. "Confirm that they are indeed Iowa and then send a hailing."

"Confirming." It took a while, but eventually the AI talked again. "Seven ships, one carrier, two destroyers, and four frigates. Battlegroup Iowa."
"Excellent, how long ago did they arrive?"

"We received the ping just now, sir."

"And accounting for light distance they would be…"

"Just five hours away."

I grunted to myself. Sometimes I wished that we could do intra-system jumps. The Covenant could and it damn well knew it. On the other hand, we had to use boosters to travel through any system.

"Thank you Eliza, anything else that I should be aware of?"

"I don't believe so Captain. I see that you're observing everything that's going on."

"That will be all."

The AI's hologram flickered and disappeared after the woman on display curtsied.

I chuckled a little bit. I had been a captain before the Inconvenience and had command of my own ship before that even. I had worked with quite a few different AIs, but none of them were quite like Eliza. She was a person. There was no other way to describe her, she had personality, friendships, people she liked better than others, she had an attitude, and a whole lot more. I'm pretty sure that she could feel affection for some more than others, something AIs weren't supposed to do. But how else would you explain all those times that she had personally interfered with the battle, or redirected supplies, or done something that bent the rules just a bit to save someone she liked. I was glad to have her on the ship, even gladder that she still had some years left before being decommissioned.

I immediately went back to the holograms. One of the tables was showing me a sector of the city that was already occupied by UNSC forces. I changed it so that it would display this solar system and the relative position of Battlegroup Iowa when compared to us. There was a big timer on the edge of the display. There was still some time left before anything important happened. I could spend it chewing Yule out for risking my men's safety, but technically speaking he outranked me. The stupid asshole had seemed like a nice guy at first.

My only real option was to catch some sleep. I was tired and it wouldn't do anybody any good if I was sleepy and sloppy later on. The bridge crew could handle anything coming our way right now and Eliza could help them. Yeah, sleep sounded good right about now.

It was a short trip from the observation room to my quarters. I considered pouring myself a stiff one before going to sleep, but I just crashed on my bed. My last thought before I fell asleep was that I was lucky to have the softest bed on the entire ship.

"Captain, captain."

"I'm up," I told the AI. "What's wrong?"

"Additional slipspace ruptures have been detected."

"Crap," I grunted as I jumped up from my bed. "Did you inform Battlegroup Iowa?"

"Yes, Captain, I have also sent a warning to gorund forces on Asilon."

I was already putting on my boots and lacing them. "Everyone to battle stations," I ordered her. "I want every single member of B and Echo up here within five hours." I was already making my way to the bridge, alarms were ringing around the ship now. "Eliza, I want the MAC cannon heated up and ready to fire, same with Archer pods. How many nukes do we have left?"

"Two Shiva missiles, Captain. Payload is fifty megatons on each one."

"Could be worse," I muttered. "But not by much. What's your estimate on their numbers?"

"Sir, we still haven't confirmed that the disruptions were caused by Covenant ships."

"I'm not stupid Eliza, and neither are you."

"Well, considering the size of the disruptions, I would say at least thirty ships."

"Thirty!"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry."

"Goddamit. I want everybody here in four hours tops, I need you to start plotting jumps in compliance with the Cole Protocol, send messages to Iowa and warn them to fall back. They might have missed the distortions."

"Messages are out, I'll get right to plotting the jumps."

"Make it quick."

The guard at the bridge saluted as I walked by, I quickly returned the salute and went inside, already the bridge was fully crewed. Lieutenants Moses Gallo and Mort Plank served as helmsman and communication's officer respectively. I had Ensign Richard Leif serving as the ship integrity officer. Well, Leif's position was really just another word for damage control officer. Our radar and probes operator was another ensign, fresh-faced Lockie Muggia. He was apparently one of the best out there, but you had to be in order to graduate as a radar operator. All in all, they were a fine bunch.

"Captain, you hear?" Gallo asked me. "Seems like we might be in for some trouble.

"Some is small," Plank told him. "Thirty ships? Not even us can hold out against them."

"Maybe if we funneled them in between a moon and a planet?" Gallo suggested.

"No," I interrupted. "The moon would need to be less than a kilometer away from the planet. We're going to jump out of the system as soon as we have all of our crew and complement on board."

"We're gonna be cutting it close Captain," Leif said.

I didn't say anything, instead just turning to face Muggia. "Ensign, what can you tell me?"

"Right now? Not much, sir. We only have the initial information from the probes on the edge of the system, I already sent a few smaller probes to meet the enemy formation, they should give us a forty minutes heads up." He paused and looked at his consoles. "Anything we can do right now?"

"No," I replied. "We can wait and that's about it."

"Captain, there have been developments on the situation?"

"Which situation?" I asked irritably.

"The one regarding Reaper-1."

"What happened?"

"Some time ago a second signal was transmitted, this one contained a few words that we were actually able to understand. Amongst those words were enemy fleet."

My eyes went wide open. "Are you telling me he's a prisoner of war?"

"Not anymore he's not," the AI shrugged. "Reaper Squad dug through the pile of debris found Francisco, he's seriously injured but alive."

"At least there's some good news," Leif noted. "I just wish it was related to us somehow."

"It's always about him," Gallo agreed.

"I've been here for a few months and even I know that," Muggia added.

I chuckled to myself, sometimes it seemed like that was true. Not here, of course, we didn't have time for anything outside of the ship, we barely even had time for anything outside the bridge.

"Sir, the first Pelicans with wounded have arrived," Ensign Leif informed me. "The other ones will take much longer, some of units in Echo and B are still engaged in combat down there."

I rubbed my temples. "Will you let Yule and Staunton know that there's an enemy fleet headed inbound, they are welcome to hitch a ride on board our ship. Wait, scratch that. Don't tell them that until we have every single member on board. Tell him to pull back his troops." I sighed. "This planet is doomed."

"And after all the effort that we went through…" Lieutenant Plank muttered. "Fucking aliens."

"Language," I said lazily. "You're supposed to be an officer."

"Yes, sir, sorry, sir."

At that time everybody started working on their respective consoles. Tapping commands on their keyboards and occasionally voicing them through headsets. Eliza popped in on occasion to update me on the situation. The evacuation of our troops was going way too slow. Here I was, sitting in my comfortable command chair, the holo-table in front of me displaying our ship orbiting the planet and the estimated position of Battlegroup Iowa and the Covenant forces. At one point I opened a screen to see how Castillo was doing, he looked terrible. It seemed unusual how many times he returned looking like this. The right side of his face was covered with blood coming from a cut right above and in front of his temple, his collarbone was shattered and there was something wrong with his elbow. His left hand was completely devoid of skin and he had broken ribs on his left side. The man was a wreck.

I immediately switched to different cameras that would allow me to personally inspect how the evacuation of our troops was going. Already some of the units on Echo were pulling back from combat, B was still fighting, but the orders had arrived for them to fall back. They'd have to collapse upon themselves and evacuate to the Pelicans. Note that that wasn't really necessary, combat was low intensity down there, but they didn't want to be surprised by a sudden enemy attack. Major Hernandez was playing it safe, as he always had. It seemed unusual that we had an officer that played it safe and was more of a traditionalist in this ship. The Inconvenience was full of crazies that most would call death-seekers. The impressive part about it is that it worked.

"Captain! Slipspace rupture detected, it's close!" Muggia suddenly yelled

"Eliza, get me a firing solution," I ordered. "Gallo, turn the ship around, get us a bead on that ship. Muggia, what are we dealing with here?"

"Initial specs paint it as a corvette, one of the small ones."

I sighed with relief. "Must be just a scout. We can handle it."

"Captain, I have a firing solution," Eliza announced.

"Helmsman?"

"Just about," he replied. "And ready."

"Fire."

The standard MAC that is mounted on UNSC frigates fires 600-ton chunk of depleted uranium at a speed of thirty kilometers per second. I watched on the displays as the giant bullet flew through space and towards the new arrival. It was too far away for a visual image, but its momentum was carrying it straight into the path of the slug. That's the good thing about MAC rounds, they are almost impossible to pin on the screen unless you're the one that fired it.

"We have a hit," Muggia announced. "I repeat, a confirmed hit."

"Eliza, send the Longsword squadron to pick of anything that might've survived, we wouldn't want any Phantoms biting our ass."

"Shoot the lifeboats, got it," Eliza nodded. "Should I also tell them to fall into a defensive pattern around our ship?"

"Yes, we're going to need them."

"Racked up another kill," Leif said, the glee evident in his tone. "How many ships do you think have a record similar to ours?"

"Every single Marathon-class cruiser," Gallo informed him. "Several destroyers, a few of the carriers."

"Shut up."

"Helmsman, reposition the ship above Catamaran City, I want a sustainable orbit, as low as we can go without the need for constant thrust."

"Physics don't exactly work like that Captain," he replied cheekily.

"Well, I guess that just makes your orders harder Lieutenant."

"Look at me, defying the laws of physics, you think they would pay me extra for doing that."

I laughed a little bit at that, knowing full well that it would be the last time I laughed for a while. With an enemy fleet numbering thirty I had no reason to even smile. This ship could hold back a CCS-class battlecuiser for just long enough to fall back and jump out of the system. We could handle smaller ships and unshielded ones with relative ease, but we weren't meant to be in the middle of things.

All we had to do now was to wait. So that's exactly what we did, we waited. There was an occasional status update from someone on occasion, but mostly we just stared at the consoles intently in complete silence. That was the part I hated, the waiting. I know that commanders didn't have to wait before we started deploying warships in space. Sure, in World War Two they were edgy and jumpy because they didn't know where the enemy was. That's just the thing, I knew where the enemy was and knew that they were coming here, I just didn't know when or how. Well, I guess I knew how, thirty of them could only come in one way. With overwhelming force.

"Captain, we're within communication range of Battlegroup Iowa," Lieutenant Plank announced. "I'm opening a channel right now."
A screen appeared directly in front of me. It depicted a grizzly man in his fifties. The caption on the corner of the screen marked him as a rear admiral (lower half). His name was Charles Perry. I promptly saluted from my chair and he saluted back. "Admiral," I greeted.

"Captain, pleasure to see you. Your AI just briefed us on the situation. Gotta say, I've been going through this reports and it sounds like the colonials down there went through hell."

Ah, so he's an Earth-born. I nodded. "Yes, sir. Over ninety percent of the population is dead. The rest is going to be soon if we don't do anything about it."
He sighed heavily. "Captain, I'm afraid we can't do anything. If these reports are right, Asilon doesn't have any kind of slipspace-capable ships. Sure, we might be able to fit several hundred colonists into the ships, maybe even thousands, but there's no way to feed them for the required time, we don't even have that many spare cryo pods."

"I understand Admiral, I came to a similar conclusion myself."

He nodded slowly. "In that case we would be leaving the colony to its certain death."

"Yes Admiral," I agreed. "It wouldn't be the first time that I've been forced to leave a planet behind. Doesn't mean I like it, but my men come first."

"Very well Captain," he replied. "I will position my ships in a defensive pattern. I'll see what I can do about evacuating local military. I'm already sending dropships down there. Think they'll leave the planet?"

"I think they're going to tell us to go get their families if they have any." I thought about my own statement. "Sir, many of the men and women fighting down there have lost everyone they knew during the initial attacks."

"So you're saying it's likely that they will choose to evacuate?"

"Yes."

"It's a shame that civilian survivors are scattered all over the planet," he groaned. "Otherwise we might have been able to pick up some."

"You said that we didn't have enough space for them."

"Yeah, you're right, you're right," Rear Admiral Perry waved me away. "I just dislike the situation intensely. We thought that we were going to help rebuild a colony, instead we find ourselves leaving it to die."

I didn't say anything, I wouldn't know where to start. Leaving a million people to die wasn't something that any man could live with. At least it wouldn't have been before the war. Now it was common, I knew several officers with pasts like that. The club was becoming bigger and bigger. To top it all off, the only ones that benefited from this were the booze companies. There was no easier way to wash away the anger than alcohol.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I am an alcoholic, I've been trying to stop, but only because it worries my daughter. Ever since Castillo and Klaus saved Claire I've been trying to reconnect with her. If she thinks that I should stop drinking I'll give it a shot. I'll put on a smile if it means I get to spend more time with her. No man should be away from his family for that long. I barely saw her as it is.

"Captain," Eliza came in. "More slipspace ruptures, they're just at the edge of our MAC."

I groaned in annoyance. "How many?"

"All of them."

"Speed up the evacuation, redirect additional dropships to B and Echo, we can leave nonessential equipment behind. What's the status on the injured Rangers and Reaper?"

"They should be able to move."

"Get them out of the planet. Admiral?"

"Yes Captain?" he asked, there was chatter behind his back, Perry looked worried.

"Orders?"

He waited for a moment. "Same as before. I'm sending two frigates and a destroyer in case we need a holding action. Captain, you need to speed up this evacuation, there's no way I plan to go against thirty enemy ships, we don't have the firepower."

"Captain! We have four battlecruisers moving inbound!" Muggia said.

"Dammit, Admiral, I'm going to need those ships to hurry. Eliza, I want you to redirect all Pelicans flying towards us to Admiral Perry's ship."

"Done."

"Plasma torpedoes inbound." Muggia announced.

"Evasive action," I ordered. "Ready the thrusters, heat up the MAC, I need every single Archer pod open and ready to fire."

"Boosting towards the torpedoes, sir," Gallo announced. "We sidestep on your signal."

I looked at the cameras intently, switching to the holographic displays quickly to see the distance between the torpedoes and us. This was a risky maneuver, but our only option in a situation like this. As soon as the torpedoes appeared in the sensors I told the helmsman to get ready. A few seconds later I gave the order.

"First one missed," Leif announced. "Seco-"

The entire ship shook violently, explosions were clearly audible through the hull and I almost fell off my ship.

"Damage report!"

Plank tapped into his console furiously. "Direct impact with our right thruster. Hit the armor plate, it's all gone now. Thruster is still useful, but just barely. Decks-"
Gallo yelled something as he yanked the ship to one side. It fell weird, doing such an abrupt turn and not feeling the change in gravity or the force. The ship just turned at an angel that would've been impossible in atmosphere.

"They're firing at us with plasma turrets."

"Empty our starboard tubes!" I yelled. "Eliza!"

"On it," the AI replied, its voice cool and collected. "Should I fire the Shivas?"

"Yes, get solutions on the nearest cruiser, I want the first detonation to take its shields out and the second one to kill it for good. Get me a MAC solution on the second nearest one."

"Sir, more torpedoes coming at us."

"Gallo, do your best."

He was a good helmsman, a brilliant pilot that could move this ship around like a fighter. Unfortunately, the ship wasn't built for that, we couldn't sustain the full speed for extended periods of time, plus it made powering up our main weapon more difficult.

"First Shiva is a direct hit!" Muggia said. "Enemy ship's shields are flickering."
"Captain, they got the second missile," Eliza informed us all.

"Change target to that ship," I grunted. "Keep firing the Archers at the other two, we're going to need their PDGs and turrets to be distracted."
Right after I finished saying that we got nicked by one of the plasma turrets. It was a sustained burst at full power and it melted away all of our armor on the starboard side. Or thrusters and weapons there were gone.

"Fire the MAC!" I ordered immediately afterwards. The entire ship shook and rumbled. "Damage report."

"Extensive," Leif said simply. He didn't need to expand on that one, our ship was done for.

"Sir," Muggia said. "Three UNSC ships are jumping into the fight."

Maybe not just yet.

"Good, fall back and get in line with them, I want every single person on board to make way for the escape pods, I want this ship empty before- Holy fuck."

Holy fuck indeed. It wasn't very often that one saw an assault carrier up close. It was even less common to survive and tell the tale. The Covenant ship was five kilometers in length and ten times as deadly as the smaller battlecruisers. It quickly went to action. Two plasma beams flew directly at the cruiser, the heavyweight in our small wolf pack flotilla. The ship detonated as its armor boiled away, there wasn't even a final transmission.

"Muggia?"

"No pods released."

"Shit, fall back," I ordered. "Tell those two frigates to retreat, we can't do anything here!"
The ship was slowly turning around and speeding away. We had no choice, even with only one thruster we might still have a chance. One of the other frigates got bisected by the plasma turrets. The other one turned around and left. I hadn't even gotten around to talking to their respective captains, and now we were fleeing.

"Faster helmsman."

"I'm going my best, Captain. They hit us pretty good."

Come on.

"Plasma missiles on our tail!"

There was a moment of silence in the bridge. Well, alarms were blaring and consoles were giving warnings, but nobody said anything for a couple of seconds.

"Let 'em blow

Let 'em blow"

Gallo started singing, the tone in his melodic voice contrasting the situation we found ourselves in right now. It wasn't long before the rest of the bridge crew joined him.

Let the four winds blow

Standing tall looking good

Ought to march in Hollywood

Hold your head and hold it high

The UNSC Navy is marching by

We're in the front and not in the rear

That's the way we do it here

By the end I found myself singing along. I had learned the cadence when I was in officer training school back in Luna. It brought back good memories that song. I smiled and nodded at the bridge crew, smiling at them. I stepped from my chair and stood up straight before saluting them. They all stood up and saluted me in return. It was a gesture of respect that I initiated the salute. They were good men, it was such a shame.

Warrant Officer Marina Bogdanovic

Things were supposed to be simple. Simple and straightforward. In fact, they were supposed to be so simple that I wouldn't need to be involved. Zekalwe would pull Reaper out and I would run sorties, evacuating the guys from B and Echo. It had gone well, things usually started out that way with Reaper missions. I had been part of so many of them that I should've known better, something always disrupts the flow. It is usually something that relates to their actions a little bit more, perhaps that's why I wasn't prepared for this.

B Company had been almost completely evacuated by now, ever since we got the heads up that the covvies were coming for us we had been working like crazy, speeding from here to the Inconvenience and back again, trying to get everybody off-planet. The only problem is that now the covvies were dropping reinforcements. By keeping Captain Brooks distracted they had managed to sneak in several Spirit dropships. With most of our troops being pulled back, they couldn't have arrived at a worse time.

"Marina, the Inconvenience is redirecting us to the carrier," Sheppard told me. "Sounds bad."

"Nothing we can do about it Vince," I replied. "Are there any other units in the vicinity that we can evacuate?"

"Negative, most of the remaining units are slated for pickup by other birds."

"That's it then, we're out of here."

"Good call ma'am," Vince agreed. "They're dropping reinforcements now, don't want to stay around for too long. Sucks for the locals."

"Indeed it does."

My pre-flight had already been done, but I still re-checked everything quickly before going. I didn't call them and ask Shep for confirmation, but I did glance at all my instruments before taking off. The rock under my wheels crunched as the weight of my girl was removed from them. The ruined husks of buildings around me were all that remained of Catamaran City. That and a big-ass crater now filled to the brim with muddy water, which in turn was filled with corpses.

The roar of the engines was somewhat comforting, but it couldn't take away the fact that we would be leaving behind hundreds of thousands of human souls behind. I could live with that, I just don't know for how long.

"Shit."

"What?" I asked.

"Comms went down, they're blocking us."

"All comms?" I pressured, checking my instruments again for any sign that something was wrong.

"Negative on that one, just the long-range ones, can't communicate with anything outside of the city."
"That includes satellites and high altitude recon drones," I groaned. "Vince, get me long-range radar and try to set up a network with other dropships, they wouldn't be jamming us if they didn't need to."

"I'm working on it," he said as he worked on his consoles.

I piloted the Pelican at a low altitude and low speed, the new developments could mean that we had Covenant reinforcements inbound. They could hardly mean anything else.

"Shit," Vince repeated, this time louder and with more frustration. "We've got bogeys, dozens of banshees all over the place."

"How the hell did they get here so fast?" I growled. "I'm going to need you on the gun, strap yourself."

Vince groaned loudly and stood up from his chair. "Just don't do any barrel rolls, last time I almost threw up."

"Just get over there."

"Yes ma'am."

I looked above and to the sides, trying to spot the bulbous shape of a Banshee. My radar showed nothing, but sometimes they could sneak past long-range warnings. Sometimes I wish I had an in-atmosphere fighter, those things could take Banshees out without the need to be on the same time zone. As good as the Pelican could be, it wasn't a bird designed to engage in dogfights. At least it had some fairly tough armor.

"Marina! Marina, you copy?"

"I copy Zekalwe, what's wrong?"

"Got a bunch of covvie fliers on my ass, won't be able to make it to Reaper like this."

"Want me to take 'em out?"

"Negative, I can shake them, just pick up your ex for me, will ya?"

"You know, you don't have to refer to him as my ex every single time you mention him," I told him.

"Sorry, pick up Cas. Gotta go." He cut off the conversation and the cockpit went uncomfortably quiet.

The displays on my consoles told me that half a dozen enemy fliers were pursuing Zekalwe's bird. He was good, but nobody was that good. I shook myself from those thoughts and instead floored it, speeding towards Reaper Squad's evacuation point. They were near the coast, supposedly meeting in a small roundabout that was just large enough for my ship to fit in. This wasn't good, Frank was probably missing all of his limbs and I didn't have any additional medical equipment on my cargo hold, Zekalwe was the one with all the medics in his blood tray.

"Reaper Squad come in, this is Mary's Little Lamb."

"Marina! I copy," Pavel came in, he sounded beyond tired.

"Pavel, Zekalwe won't be able to make it, you guys are stuck with me."
"Is he ok?"

I glanced at the radar screen that showed his ship. "For now." It was only a small lie.

Pavel sighed heavily, I could almost picture him doing his trademark shrug. "We're almost at the evacuation point, we should be there in a minute or two."
"Hot evac?"

"Nothing you're not used to," he replied. "Do you have any kind additional medical equipment?"

"No, just the scanners and standard kit."

"Scanners should do it, believe it or not Frank is mostly intact. Well, that would probably be stretching it, but he's surprisingly good for having had a couple of tons of rock dropped on top of him."

"Rather unsurprising if you ask me," Rob said in the background.

"Quiet Bee, keep carrying the board. Marina, thanks."

"No problem guys, it's not like I'm keeping count." I actually was keeping count.

None of the banshees broke off to pursue us, making my life a hell of a lot easier. I just kept my craft close to the ground and avoided buildings or exceptionally large piles of debris. I opened the rear hatch and heard Vince cock the gun on the back, he was pretty gun with the chaingun, I hoped that he didn't need to use it much.

"Marina, this is going to become a hot evac," Pavel came in. "Very hot."

It wasn't long before I saw what he was talking about. I could see four moving silhouettes, two of them were carrying Frank on a backboard. I couldn't spot the digger that they had taken with them. If the covvies had managed to destroy it then it meant that they had some serious firepower. That meant that my ship was vulnerable. I looked further back and saw what they were running from. Three Ghosts were in hot pursuit and Rob was reloading his rocket launcher. I fired one missile at each scout vehicle and watched as they blew up. Pavel waved a quick thanks at me and kept running. Behind the five men were at least fifty enemy footsoldiers.

"Vince, I'm flipping her around, targets should be painted on your helmet!"

"Locked and loaded ma'am," he replied loudly. "Just give me the angle."

I flipped the ship around and kept it hovering at ten meters while Sheppard unloaded a little storm of lead on the pursuers. I could hear the weapon roaring loudly just behind my back. I tried to keep my eyes on the screens and on my dashboard in case I had to pull up or something. I felt a couple of hits on my ship, mostly small ones, but if they were targeting us then I had to get out of here a whole lot faster.

"Marina, they're close enough now!"

"Got it!" I replied, hitting the controls and bringing the Pelican to the ground.

"Hop in, hop in!" Sheppard urged Reaper. "Come on, we have to get- oof!"

"Sheppard? What happened?"

"He's hit!" Snark replied. "Pavel, the gun!"

I heard no reply, but the heavy AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun on the back started firing again.

"Get us out of here!"

I immediately moved forward, gaining altitude and only just clearing the buildings surrounding the roundabout. Some colorful plasma flew past my cockpit, but nothing significant hit us. I kept on throttling it, headed almost directly up, I wanted to get out of this planet's atmosphere as soon as possible. I closed the hatches on the rear and sealed the Pelican before we were halfway through.

"How's Vince?" I asked, concerned for his fate.

"Needle to the belly, it detonated inside."

"Goddamit!" I exclaimed. "Will he be ok?"

"I don't know," Caboose replied, "I'm working on him, but it's a mess in there."

"Shit," I cursed. I said nothing and kept my eyes on the display that showed the status of the comms. It wasn't long before we broke out of the enemy jammers and could communicate with the Inconvenience. "Eliza, this is Warrant Officer Bogdanovic, what's the situation over there?"
Nothing, just static.

"Eliza! Come in!"

Again I heard nothing but static.

"Warrant Officer Bogdanovic!" an unfamiliar voice came in. "This is Specialist Winchester, do you copy?"

"I copy Specialist. What the hell happened?"

"The ship's gone, only a few of us made it out, and most of those are landing on the planet," the woman on the line sighed. "I'll make this brief. We need someone to tow our escape pod, we have five KIAs inside."

"Five? What happened."

"Explosion right before we left. Shrapnel got the pilot and I have no idea how to handle this thing, nobody else does."

"I guess I can make the detour," I muttered, checking her position in the display. "Any additional pods that might need to be helped?"

"Not that I know of," she admitted. "We thought we were goners before we picked up your transmission."

"Stay put, we're making a small detour," I told the guys on the back. "Shouldn't take too long."

It didn't, we were able to move quite fast in a frictionless environment. I nearly crashed into the escape pod, flipping around and matching speeds with it. It wasn't moving very fast, thankfully. Otherwise I would've had to make calculations and it would've taken a very long while to get away from there. I used the magnetic clamps on the tail of my Pelican to drag the pod behind. If it hadn't been for the lack of gravity, my girl wouldn't have been able to pull the weight.

"We got you," I told the occupants of the pod, even though they already knew that. "UNSC Iowa, this is Warrant Officer Marina Bogdanovic, do you copy?"

"This is the Iowa, we copy. Are you a member of this battlegroup?"

"Negative, I'm a pilot on board the Inconvenience, requesting permission to land my Pelican on your ship."

There was a momentary pause. "Permission granted, you've got baggage with you."

"Affirmative, an escape pod, Bumblebee-class. Only four survivors inside."

"Copy that," the radioman told me. "Opening Hangar Six, don't scratch the paint."

I smiled at the playful banter before the reality of what had just happened hit me. The Inconvenience had been destroyed. If what Winchester had said was true then most of the soldiers and marines had been killed with the ship. The evacuation was almost complete when the ship was gone. The ship was gone. The Inconvenience was gone. It hardly seemed possible. After all this years of managing to stay alive through everything that could be thrown at us, up to and including a monstrous supercarrier.

And now it was gone.

Along with most everybody in it.

Vince had a hole in his gut, Frank was beat up, his two friends were on the verge of death and had probably been killed on board the Inconvenience. They weren't the only ones that would be MIA. This sucked. It sucked really bad.

Thanks to Sniper Fodder for proof-reading this chapter.

Damn, it got worse.

This chapter consists of POVs from two characters that had never been protagonists. I wanted to do one on Brooks because he's every bit as much of a hero as Reaper Squad and then some, he just never gets enough credit given to him by Frank. Marina may not be as heroic, but her role and opinions are very important in the story. That's probably the main reason why I chose those two characters.

The Inconvenience is probably gone, and with it most of the crew. We know that Reaper, Marina, and maybe Shep survived. Specialist Winchester also snuck a ride on board an escape pod, so she's good too, but Hardwick, Zekalwe, and even Hanna are all unaccounted for. Who else made it? All that and more on the next episode of... THE LIFE!

Sorry, I just had to do that. Regarding General Yule from two chapters back, who would've thought that such a reasonable authority figure would end up being such a dick? Now, why exactly is Frank alive and mostly intact? The answer is simple, because a story without a protagonist isn't exactly interesting. Oh, and because he's lucky. Luck is a recurring theme in the Halo series. John-117 has always been told that he is lucky and in every game, book, or graphic novel someone beats the odds. Frank usually does just that with style. Right now, not so much.

I'd just love it if you guys took the time to review the chapter and tell me what you think about it. I particularly liked the last section on Brooks' POV, perhaps a bit cliché, but heartfelt nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed this.

Stay strong.

-casquis