Chapter CLXIV: Electric Feel

January 12, 2549 (UNSC Calendar)/

UNSC Flawless, in orbit above Paris IV, Paris System

"Do all things with love."–Og Mandino

"And that, Francisco, is why I think there's an empty space in between your legs."–Schitzo

"Give me a prognosis, doc," I pleaded. "And stop sweating me."

"My, is that any way to address a superior officer?" Vinter asked me.

I glared at him through my swollen eyes.

Vinter chuckled and looked at his datapad. He raised an eyebrow at me and shook his head before he started reading through a list of injuries. All of them were minor injuries of course, but the sheer amount of them surprised me. I had a concussion, torn muscles, dehydration, bruising, minor lacerations, and even a wrist sprain. I had hit him so hard that my wrist had sprained, augmentation and all. After those he moved to the more serious ones.

"Your nose is broken, almost completely shattered. You'll need surgery to get it to look like it did before."

I shrugged. "Not the first time I've had to go there."

"In addition to the sprain on your right wrist you've got two metacarpal fractures, commonly known as-"

"Boxer's fracture," I finished with a sigh.

He smiled and nodded. "You've also got two fractured ribs. Your left side was hit hard, if you didn't have those fancy titanium ribs on your right you'd have broken ribs there too if the bruising is anything to go by."

"Which ribs?" I asked.

"Fifth and sixth."

"Anything else?" I asked him.

Vinter smiled again. "Of course. There's severe damage to both of your kidneys and you bit your tongue pretty bad once or twice. It will take a time for the damage to heal, and it'll be pretty painful for a while."

Great.

"There are minor fissures on your cheekbones and your jaw. Nothing too serious, I almost missed them too."
I raised an eyebrow, modern medicine didn't miss much.

He nodded. "Yeah, I know. Fact is, those are going to bother you for a while, but a couple of bone healing injections will take care of them pretty quickly. You've got some minor internal damage on both your kidneys too. Other than that, I'm just worried about the sheer amount of bruising on your body. The cuts on your torso aren't serious, but the bruising underneath will be painful."

"How long am I going to be bed-ridden?" I asked him.

"Without any surgery or meds I'd say little less than two months, maybe more. Fortunately for us, we have discovered space flight and realistic virtual sexual reality. With those two great achievements comes the miracle of modern medicine, so I'll say that you've got about three days on bed and a week of no strenuous physical activity."

I shrugged. "Sounds better than expected."

The doctor nodded. "Frank, I had never seen anything like that in my entire life, you were both so fast… with the punches you and Johnson took, I'm surprised that any of you two made it."

"It takes more than that to bring me down," I assured him.

"He did bring you down," Vinter reminded me. "Twice."

I couldn't help but groaning in annoyance.

"Can I let Hanna in now?"

"Yeah, I just didn't want to hear her say 'I told you so'."

"Reasonable enough."

Vinter turned around and opened the small room's door, letting a very distraught Hanna Lockley come in. Her look went from distraught to pissed and back to distraught.

I like that word… distraught.

"Jesus…"

I was that close to telling her to just call me Frank.

"Jesus," I agreed.

"Frank, do you realize what you look like?"

I shook my head slowly and carefully. "I haven't seen myself in a mirror yet."

"You look like shit," she said, using a word that wasn't common for her. "There was one point where Grigori had to restrain me!"

"So you do care."

"Don't joke about this, there were a couple of times I thought he was going to kill you! I screamed at you to stay down that second time."

Ironically enough, my second knockdown had been a prelude to my ultimately unsuccessful comeback.

Hanna wasn't done. "You need to know when to stop Frank! How could you just keep taking those hits?"

"I don't give up."

"Well, this time you should've. Who knows what's going to happen to your head in the future."

I rolled my eyes. "Hanna, we live in the twenty-sixth century, I'm pretty sure that a concussion isn't that big of a deal."

"Frank, you endured torture out there…"

It wasn't the first time…

"It's not healthy Frank," she said.

I realized what she was talking about right then. She wasn't that concerned for my physical wellbeing. She was concerned because I had willingly stood up after being hit so hard that any sane human being would've collapsed. Some might call that an admirable trait and an amazing show of perseverance, others would just call it foolishness and reckless disregard for personal safety. In truth it was both, but Hanna was my girlfriend, it was her job to be worried about me, it was obvious she was angry right now.

"Frank, if you don't know when to stop in this… a game, then how will you know when it's the time to retreat, to fall back and accept defeat."

"I've done that plenty of times before," I said angrily. "I know perfectly well what it is to retreat after a defeat."

Hanna remained impassive. "Have you ever done it willingly? Have you ever ran away before all things went to hell and people started dying. Have you ever fallen back without being ordered to?"

I looked away, unable to meet her beautiful eyes. "Nobody does."

She disagreed. "Most know when it's proper to retreat. It's the only reason why we get any victories on the ground. It is our only advantage over them."

"I… I get what you're saying," I finally relented. "But it's not the same thing."

"Frank, if there's something in your head that won't let you give up, that's not good. Not giving up isn't smart, it isn't even heroic."

"I know!" I burst out. "I know…"

Hanna walked closer and sat in the chair next to my bed, taking my hand in hers and holding it softly. "You don't need to prove anything."

"I don't," I agreed. "I don't try to."

"Why do you act like it, then?" she asked sadly. "Just… it's hard enough every time we go down into combat, but it's even worse when it feels like you want a fight, like you want to…"

"I don't want to die," I told her. "I promise you that. Dying is the last thing on my list right now."

Hanna seemed to calm down a little after that, placing her head on my chest and breathing quietly. Much as I disliked what I perceived as her judging, I had to admit that it pained me terribly to see her so upset by my actions. I kept telling me myself that all that fight had been for her, had I not joined the tournament I could've been down on Paris IV, checking every coffee joint and diner in Udinia to see if I could find Katie.

I was perfectly aware that I could be a dick to my closest friends and even worse to people I didn't care about, but I still didn't know whether I'd actually hurt the person I loved the most knowingly.

Didn't seem too far-fetched.

"Hey sweetie, can you hit me with morphine please?"

Hanna chuckled on my chest before finally sitting back up and pressing a couple of buttons on a datapad hanging from my bed. "That ought to do the job," she said. "Sleep tight."

"Love you," I muttered.

I was conscious before I opened my eyes, I felt weird. Not in pain, just… weird. It was a while before I finally allowed myself to open my eyes. It was a lot like in the movies, when the camera blacks out and the character is the in another place. The ceiling was bright white, with a big lamp shining directly over me. The whiteness was supposed to slowly turn into its actual color before I could see clearly.

Only that it didn't. The ceiling was actually white. The ceiling on the Flawless wasn't white, not in the infirmary, not anywhere.

"What?"

I looked around and slowly got back up. My ribs were hurting like hell, but not as bad as they had been before. I looked down and saw that someone had changed me into a hospital gown and had my wrist set in a plastic cast. I wiggled my fingers, eliciting spasms of pain from them. So that was still broken.

After slowly testing my broken hand I looked to my right and saw that I was on a planet if the view was anything to judge by. Paris IV if my memory served me

"Oh crap."

"Yeah, they moved me without telling me beforehand either."

I turned my head slowly to my left to see Avery Johnson, the man that had just beat the living shit out of me. "What?"

He shrugged with some effort. "Damn white coats moved me here soon as I went under. They been telling me about all the shit you made me go through and next thing I know I'm in this nice little hospital room."

"Was it a good idea to put us in here together?" I asked the first thing that came to mind.

"Nah," he shrugged. "By the way, you ruptured my liver, jackass. And you broke like eight of my ribs."

"You cracked my skull in two places and broke three ribs. And I broke my hand punching you."

Johnson raised his hands, they were both encased in casts similar to mine. "Doctors told me it was gonna be a week or so before we're back in fighting condition."

"Told me the same thing," I replied. "How's your head?"

"Got the worst goddamned headache I've ever had."

I nodded. "Second worst," I told him. "But it's throbbing."

"You're welcome."

"Asshole," I grunted. "When can I get out of this room?"

"I asked the same thing, docs didn't want to answer."

"Maybe they like you."

"I do have myself a beautiful face."

I looked at him. With his swollen cheeks and black eyes he didn't look exactly beautiful. Even with his skin tone I could tell that there were bruises under his eyes. Other than that he still had a mustache that I found annotying. He did look a lot better than the last time I saw him, with a face swollen beyond recognition and injuries that mirrored my own. I hoped that I looked as good, I'd probably have the black eyes for a couple other days and my nose would remain swollen for a while, but I wouldn't look like a victim of a gang beating.

I didn't talk to him and he didn't talk to him. It was pretty obvious that we wouldn't like each other after having beaten each other half to death. He was watching something on his datapad and in turn I started reading the news while trying to forget that I was within driving distance of Katie Ayers. Despite my best attempts I found myself thinking about which way was the shortest to the diner she worked, or used to work, in.

The door slammed open and a young female doctor appeared.

Damn.

At this point Johnson and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. She was attractive.

"Why the hell am I here?" I asked.

"What he said," Johnson echoed.

The doctor seemed at a loss for a moment, looking confused. "I… uh," she stuttered. She cleared her throat and then remembered that she was a smart, successful, and attractive woman before regaining some of her confidence. "Sergeant, Lieutenant, you are in the Huerta Memorial Hospital."

"Yeah, there's a sign right there," I pointed. "But why wasn't I told we were going to be moved? From orbit at that."

The doctor seemed at a loss for a few moments before she opened and closed her mouth several times in rapid succession. "Well, I don't know."

"Leave the poor girl alone," Johnson said.

I smiled and shrugged, but nodded. Seeing her so confused and out of it had been slightly funny, even if it had been mean. Still, pretty funny though, it was like indirect revenge towards all those pretty girls from my school that saw me as the poor kid form Earth who was weird and talked about guns a lot. Thinking about it, that was probably the main reason why I was successful with women, I had been forced to meet other girls from other schools and do the most of less time. In a way, I probably had to thank them for that.

"They're all dead Francisco, Jericho VII was glassed, remember? You were there," Schitzo reminded me with a roll of his eyes.

"As I was saying," the doctor started carefully. "Both of your bills have been paid in full by the UNSC Marine Corps and-"

"When can I leave?" Johnson and I asked at the same time. We looked at each other uncomfortably before returning our attention to her.

"My recommendation is that both of you stay abed for two more days given the extent of your injuries."

"Lady, I'm not going to stay here two days," Johnson said. "No way in hell."

"I hate hospitals," I grunted. I had been inside them far too many times.

"Oh. Well, at the earliest I'd say that you can leave in three days."

I shook my head. "What time is it?" I asked her.

"Ummm, eleven thirty, that's two hours before midday."

I nodded. "I'm familiar with timescales in this planet. I'm going to be leaving here tomorrow morning… Where are my clothes?"

"You can't leave so early!"

"Listen, doc, I appreciate all the good work you did. I take it you fixed my nose and skull?" She nodded. "Thanks for that by the way, but I hate being in hospitals and I can handle myself with a broken rib or three."

"And I'll be damned if I let some uppity Helljumper leave before I do," Johnson said.

A military doctor would've told us to quit our dick measuring and yelled at us in a maner befitting a drill sergeant until we agreed to stay on bed until he deemed us fit to leave the hospital. This young girl wasn't a military doctor, she wasn't even a very experienced doctor. So she took half a step back and nodded slowly before quickly telling us what we should do in order to have our injuries heal faster and reiterating that she thought it was a bad idea that we left.

I shrugged and thanked her after Johnson did the same, telling her that nothing she said would change my mind.

"As you wish," she said before finally leaving.

"Ruptured liver, huh?" I asked Johnson. "How's that feel?"

"Fuck you," he said in a growl. The tone stopped me from making any further comments and I went back to reading the news on the datapad.

"Lieutenant."

"Yes?" I asked.

Johnson positioned himself so that he was facing me before deciding that sitting up was more comfortable. "Have you ever done work for ONI?"

The question was asked right out of the blue, I had no idea why. "Yeah," I admitted.

"Are you involved with them closely?"

"More than I'd like. Why? You?"

He nodded. "NAVSPECWAR," he said simply.

That certainly explained why he was so good at hitting people. At least part of it, it didn't explain why he was so fucking fast or strong.

"Does the word ORION mean anything to you?"

The way he said it I knew he didn't mean the constellation. "Not really, no." I peered at him intently. "You ask a lot of questions. If you know anything about ONI you should know that it only draws unwanted attention."

Johnson nodded before shrugging. "I was never one to cower to spooks," he told me. "And I was just wondering how you are so goddamned strong."

"I was wondering the same thing about your speed," I replied.

We looked at each other in the eyes for what seemed to be an uncomfortably long time before both of us nodded slowly and returned to our business. The memory of pain was fresh in my mind, pain inflicted on me by Johnson and by ONI scientists.

Could he… nah.

"Damn Francisco," Schitzo said with regret in his voice. "Asshole."

I couldn't argue against that, especially considering that the first thing I had done after I left the hospital had been to catch a cab to the diner where Katie had worked as a waitress. It hadn't occurred to me that I should've called Hanna to tell her that I was fine and on my feet. That's what friends were supposed to do, I owed that and more to someone who was actually my girlfriend. These kind of things always dawned on me a little bit too late, and by that time either I didn't care or I couldn't get out of it.

"Here we go," I muttered under my breath. It has been over four years, she probably doesn't even remember you.

I hoped she did, I hoped that she would feel just as I had.

Four years Frank. What the hell?

I just want some closure.

"Closure, please. She's probably not going to be here," Schitzo said.

He's got a point.

I groaned. I was arguing against myself and I was ganging up on me. Scarecrow, some help?

No reply.

I decided to walk inside the diner before I went any crazier than I already was.

The place had changed a bit, but that was to be expected. The general layout was the same, with booths next to the wide windows and stools in front of the bar. It was the classic American diner layout. Other than that I could tell that they had changed the color on the booth seats and added a couple of screens on different corners so that everybody could watch one without having to snap their neck to look.

No sign of Katie.

It's for the best.

I sat down on the same booth that I always used to sit on four years ago and examined it carefully. It felt different somehow.

"Hey there sweetie, what's it gonna be for you?" a middle-aged woman wearing a waitress outfit asked me. I looked at her, but couldn't place her face. I guess she must've been hired in the past couple of years.

I smiled at her. "I'll have a special hamburger and a vanilla milkshake, please."

She raised an eyebrow as she jotted down, actually wrote down, my order. "Didn't peg you for a milkshake kind of guy." She finished writing down my order and read through it. "You want fries or onion rings?"

I hesitated. "Fries please."

"All the condiments?"

"Yeah."

"Be right up sweetheart."

I leaned back and stretched my leg underneath the table, resting it on the other side of the booth. The view here wasn't a particularly good one, but I had noticed that if I pressed my head against the window and looked directly up sometimes the sun would bounce of off the contaminants in the air and color the sky in unnatural colors. Some people were of the view that it only served to remind them how badly contaminated the city was, others just thought it was pretty.

Either way, I liked looking at the rainbow-like pattern of colors.

I thanked the waitress when my meal got here and hungrily hunched down the burger before ordering another one. The meat was good, the artificial flavor-enhancers that they added to it took something form the experience, but the improved taste was certainly worth it. The milkshake was as good as I remembered. In fact, everything was just like I remembered, down to the level of greasiness on the fries. Everything save for Katie that is.

It's for the better, I reminded myself.

And it was, had she been her I might've done a bad thing.

"You gonna order the third burger sweetie?" the waitress asked me.

I glanced at my empty plate. "Yeah, why not?"

She smiled and called to the kitchen to make me another hamburger while I finished what was left in my massive milkshake glass. This was good, I got some minor degree of closure and a great meal out of it.

"I take it that's all?"

"Yeah," I told the waitress. "Thanks, as good as I remembered."

"You've been here before?" she asked.

I nodded. "Long time ago, best milkshakes I've ever had."

"Judging by your appetite I would've thought you'd say best burgers."

I smiled in return. The best burger I had ever tasted had been grilled by my dad in this little grill we had on our backyard. I honestly don't know if it was the taste or just the memory, but having my whole family there, mom, dad, brother, and myself… It was one of those few truly happy moments from my childhood. He had ruined half of it, and right after that both my parents had died.

But damn could my dad make burgers.

I decided that it wasn't the memory, that he actually had a skill when it came down to grilling shit. I remembered so little about him, it was good to remember something that he had done well and enjoyed it.

The pollution rainbow flickered and disappeared and I decided that it was time to go back to Hanna.

"You know, I never did figure why you did that?"

Shit.

What.

Shit.

I turned around as slowly as I dared. I didn't want to face her, but there was no way out of it, I was physically cornered against a wall and it just wouldn't do for me to walk away. I could do it I guess, ignore her and walk away from her like a coward. I had been called many things in my life, even a coward. The people that called me that didn't keep their teeth for long after they said it.

"Hi."

"You silver-tongued devil," Schitzo complimented loudly, slamming his palms on the table.

"Hi?" Katie was of a mind with my subconscious.

I shrugged. "You look great." She did, four years wasn't that long when it came down to it, but Katie still looked as beautiful as the time I had first noticed her.

Katie wasn't smiling. She wasn't frowning either, her face was perfectly neutral. It was terrifying.

She took a deep breath before beginning. "You never called."

"I… I know."

"You didn't even bother to write," she replied, sitting down on the opposite side of the booth. Only then did I notice that she was wearing the same waitress outfit that I had first seen her with. "You…" she clenched her fists and took another deep breath. "How could you?"

I opened my mouth and closed it when I couldn't come up with anything to say. "I don't know." At least it was the truth. I owed her that.

"You don't know," she echoed, leaning back. "Do you know what you put me through? I waited one year of my life before I finally realized that you weren't even going to bother with sending me anything. One whole year."

"I-"

"But that wasn't all. Then I figured that perhaps you had been killed in action. I hated myself for hating you then. I looked your name up on all the casualty lists that I could find. I did that for another couple of months."

"Katie."

"Don't," she broke in. "Don't. You took almost two years of my life away from me Frank. Two years and you didn't even have the good grace to write."

"I'm sorry," I said finally. It had never occurred to me that it might be this way. At worst I would've guessed that Katie was angry for a while and then just decided to get over it and start seeing other people. It would've been better that way.

We had only actually gone out once and been a couple for about a week. There was no way that she could've taken things that seriously with something that could be regarded as an extended one night stand. Four years was a long time to get over your anger, but Katie still had some in her.

"Bah, you're criticizing her but you still have feelings for her after the same four years," Schitzo said.

Damn…

"You're sorry," Katie scoffed. "I wish it was enough."

I couldn't say anything. There was nothing to say. The fact was that I had hurt her pretty bad and I could've avoided it with a simple note.

"Why are you here?" she asked me after a short silence.

That was a good question. "I don't know. I guess I just wanted some closure."

"Closure? I wanted some closure for the past four years."

"Katie, I'm sorry. I did what I did, or rather didn't do anything because I thought it was for the best. I live all the way to Reach and half the year I'm not even there. You know that it wouldn't have worked that way. I made a mistake and I'm willing to admit that, but at the moment I thought it was for the best."

"Frank, I would've abandoned my whole life here for you if you had just asked. I wanted you to ask." She was on the verge of tears.

Schitzo chuckled. "One week and you broke her… seems like she broke you too."

"I-"

"So it was just a game for you? Make the naïve girl fall in love with you and then just walk away? Was that all it was to you, a one night stand?"

"Don't say that," I replied, a little bit of anger in my voice. "You meant everything for me. I did what I thought was best for you, not for me."

"You were wrong."

"And I'm sorry." I was pleading with her now. "I am, I really am."

She seemed to have relaxed now. Not all the way, but she was certainly a lot calmer than she had been a few moments ago. "You should've called."

"Yes," I agreed.

I couldn't keep apologizing, if I did it would start sounding insincere, and I wanted her to know that I hadn't meant to hurt her. I took advantage of the silence to look closely at her. Despite her red eyes and a couple of tears running down her cheeks she looked beautiful. I had always considered her one of the prettiest women I had ever met, but there was just something about her that made her… more.

"Why did you come?" she asked again. "What where you expecting? Did you think I would be waiting for you and would be happy to just jump into your arms?"

The thought had crossed my mind. "Not really. I just… it's complicated."

"I've got time," she said, leaning back on her seat.

Wow, back when I had first met her she had been all flowers and rainbows with me. It made sense, seeing as she liked me and wanted to get me to ask her out, but right now she was being pretty damn assertive and behaving like you would expect a scorned ex-girlfriend.

"Hell hath no fury," Schitzo lamented.

I sighed and mimicked her movement, getting myself comfortable. "It's a story you're not going to like." For a moment I realized that I was actually about to tell her everything. I was ready to explain to her that I had been seeing Hanna and I had cheated on my girlfriend with her.

"Why won't I like it?"

At that moment I lost my nerve. There was no way I could tell her the truth. I was already an asshole to her; I didn't need to ruin myself in her eyes more than I already had. I cared about her and whatever Katie thought about me would affect me whether I wanted it to or not.

"Some might even call it love, Francisco," Schitzo chided.

I glanced away, looking at the cars and cabs that drove by at ridiculous speeds. It reminded me of that one time that someone in HIGHCOM had considered linking all Warthogs and Mongooses to a single AI designed to drive them, but the sheer unpredictability of humans at the wheel had outweighed the benefits that a super-fast artificial intelligence could provide. It was not the case in the city, where every car was driven by a specialized program and all of the cabs were controlled by the city's resident AI.

"What happened to the store across the street?" I asked.

Katie didn't seem surprised by the change in topic. "The owner was drafted into the Marines, she was killed and her husband had to join in order to provide for his kids."

"Is he still alive?"

"He came to visit both his kids a few weeks ago."

"That's good."

"Yeah."

"Were you friends with the owner?"

Katie shook her head. "Not really, she and her husband came here occasionally, talked to them some, but we weren't really close."

More silence.

"What have you been up to?"

Her question surprised me, I hadn't expected her to act normal all of a sudden. My surprise must've showed, because a second later she told me that she still expected answers from me.

I nodded, it sounded reasonable. "Mostly just doing my job," I told her. "Planet hopping and kicking alien ass."

She smiled a little bit. "Girflriend."

"Yeah."

"Is it serious?"

"Pretty serious."

Katie shrugged. "How long have you been dating?"

More than five years… since before I met you.

"A while," I replied instead.

"Do you love her?"

"Damn, she's a sneaky one," Schitzo said with a wide grin.

I was at a loss of words, of course I loved her, but if I told Katie that she could just chew me out for even showing up here. "I do."

"Then why the hell are you here?"

And there it was. "I told you before," I said. "I…" I stopped myself right there. I had told her that I didn't know and I had told her that I would explain later. I couldn't go back on my word. "I guess I was hungry."

"And this was the first place you found?"

I shook my head.

"Let me ask another question, why are you on this planet?"

The reason I was on the system was technically classified, but I could tell her why I was on the planet easily enough. "I was on the hospital."

"What happened?" There was enough worry in her voice to give me a small degree of satisfaction.

I pointed at my black eye. It wasn't swollen anymore.

"You got into a fight?"

I smiled and shook my head again. "Boxing match," I said. "There was a tournament organized on board my ship, I decided to join and in the end I got more than I bargained for. You should see the other guy."

"Did you win?"

"Nah, the other guy really did a job on me. He was pretty beaten up too."

"Oh my gosh, are you Lightning Helljumper?"

"What."

Katie seemed to catch what she had just said and had the grace to blush a little bit. "I– I mean, there's this video of an Army–Marines boxing match that's been circulating around the net, a lot of my friends are talking about it. Somebody uploaded into YouTube. I think it's called Lightning Helljumper vs. Thunder Jarhead."
I smiled, not really knowing how to react at that. I had all but forgotten that the encounter had been televised. "You're kidding."

Katie shrugged. "I shit you not, mister."

I did what any reasonable human being would've done. I yanked my cellphone form my pocket and immediately looked up the fight. There were already several versions of the video on YouTube. I quickly picked one that claimed to have the best moments of the fight on it and watched. The first thing that I thought of was that my latest gym routine had really worked for my triceps. The second thought that I came up with was that ONI would be pissed. Both Johnson and I were moving a little bit too fast. To the untrained eye it would seem like we were both really talented boxers, but the problem was that we weren't really pro material, we were just very good and more than human. Now that I was watching it from the outside I realized that I had a relatively sloppy technique, even if I was fast enough to surprise even the most hardened boxers.

"Wow," I said. "I'm famous."

"YouTube famous," Katie corrected.

"Of course," I conceded. "I still lost."

"I wouldn't feel so bad, I heard a couple of guys say that given a few more minutes and you might've won."

That was certainly a possibility, but he could've knocked me out just as easily. I had collapsed the same as he had when the fight ended.

Guys…

"Are you seeing anybody?" I asked her.

"Why so curious?" she asked. "I thought you were in a relationship yourself."

I nodded. "Just curious."

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not seeing anybody."

"That's… well, I guess that sucks for you." I had been close to saying that it was a good thing, but it wasn't supposed to be, even if it felt that way.

She shrugged and I couldn't help but interpret that as a sign that I had an opportunity. What the hell is wrong with you?

"Listen, Katie, it's getting late and I have to report to my CO before sunset. If you still want answers you'll get them."

Katie inched her way out of the booth while I swiped my card on the table, paying for my meal. "I… I want to understand Frank, I loved you, I did."

"I did too," I said.

"Funny what can happen in just a week, huh?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "But you had a crush on me for almost five months before that, didn't you?"

She smiled. "More or less."

Here we were, both of us had been on the verge of a shouting match just a few minutes ago and all of a sudden we were as close to flirting as you could get. Katie was a great girl, not for the first time I wondered how things would've turned out if I had met her before Hanna. Maybe I would've ended up cheating on her and not the other way around. The only thing I was sure of was that I would've found a way to screw it up.

Katie walked me to the door and stood there with me for a moment.

"It was good seeing you," I told her. "Despite everything."

"Despite everything," she began. "I'm glad to see you too. And that you're still alive."

"Thanks," I scoffed. "I'm happy you're alive too."

"You know what I mean," Katie replied.

Before I could reply, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. "Did you feel that?" I asked her.

"The electricity?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "What-"

Every single light inside the diner and down the street as far as I could see went off at the same time. I turned around and brought my hand to the back of my belt, gripping the hilt of my knife. Hanna had been thoughtful enough to send it down to the hospital with me. She was too good for me.

Focus.

"Frank, what's happening?" Katie asked.

"It's probably just a blackout," I replied. I knew it was a long were a thing of the past, the last recorded accidental blackout had been over three hundred years ago, the only ones after that had been due to terrorist attacks or power station workers going postal. I realized a moment too late that my statement wouldn't reassure her in the least.

"All of these buildings have backup generators in case of a terrorist attack," Katie said. "They should be coming up right now."
The lights were still off. This wasn't good. "They're not."

"What could do this?"

A high-end weaponized EMP. "I'm not sure."

My pocket started vibrating and I pulled out my phone.

"How do you have signal?" Katie asked. "Frank, what's going on."

The phone's caller ID showed Captain Hayes' official UNSC picture. She looked damn good in it, even with the serious face and all. "Captain?"

"Castillo, where are you? You're not at the hospital."

"No, I'm not," I replied. "I'm right outside Duck's Diner, on Almonte street."

"What were you doing there?" Hayes asked.

"Eating," I replied. "Sir, what's this about?"

Hayes' sharp breaths were audible through the speaker. "The Covenant arrived. They jumped at the edge of the system, by the time we saw the light from their arrival they had already done a microjump. They're right behind Paris IV's moon, some of them got past the defenses."

"The battlestars?"

"And the six Super-MACs."

"Are they still in working order?"

"All but a couple of the battlestars. One of the stations was destroyed and another one damaged when the ships punched through."

"What class?"

"A small flotilla, an assault carrier and four CPV-class destroyers."

CPV-class destroyers… those were the ones with a bulbous front and two leg-like appendages on the back. They were not exactly the cream of the crop when it came down to space combat, they would have a hard time standing against a Marathon-class cruiser or a pair of heavy destroyers, but they were designed for planet occupation. The huge bulbous heads on their front were filled to the brim with ground forces and equipment. It was an occupation force while the rest of the Covenant fleet tried to take out the sizeable defense force.

"Shit."

"Indeed," Hayes agreed. "Two of the destroyers are damaged, but they can still do their job. Command has already alerted Army HQ and Marines all over the planet are preparing to mobilize."

"What about ship-borne forces?"

"The admiral has already alerted every last Marine on board the battle group. We're ready to move as soon as we know where they're landing."

"It can't be that long."

"Correct," Hayes agreed. "Castillo, it's not definite, but…"

"One of the ships is headed here?"

"Correct, one of the intact destroyers."

Then the raid sirens went off.

Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proofreading this chapter.

Well, Silas pointed out that a person with more than one broken rib would probably not be allowed to leave the hospital so quickly. He has a point (and a good one too), but sometimes I take for granted that the story takes place 500 years in the future and forget that some of you guys forget about that. A few friends have complained about the miraculous recoveries, but you have to remember that medical sciences have advanced a long time since the 21st century. The time for healing broken bones would be reduced drastically with the use of my invented "bone-healing fluid." That and Frank is getting close to becoming a gorram Spartan! Mostly I just use the bone-healing thingy to have the guys back in action quickly as opposed to having them take a realistically long time to recuperate. I just wanted to remind you guys about that to clear things up.

Other than that, Frank meets Katie again and is debating with himself (literally) about his feelings for her. Does he love her? Does he love her more than he does Hanna? He still cares for her, that's a given, but what exactly is going on with him? All that and more on the next–wait... nope, the covvies are attacking so that means that this sentimental chat won't be finished until later.

Johnson's still a badass but is a real gentlemen too. Frank is a big eater but also kind of a dick. Katie is as pretty as usual but also seems to have revealed character traits unfamiliar to Frank, testament to the short amount of time that they actually spent together. Oh, and Hayes was actually kind of nice to Frank for once... that was weird, it felt weird writing it.

On other less important news, I'm going to the Swedish House Mafia concert on Saturday night. I'm a big fan of them and some of you might recall that I used their song Greyhound on a previous chapter, the one with the paintball and whatnot. It's going to be awesome. Like all good teenagers I'll avoid listening to my parents and will most certainly get very drunk on cheap liquor (tequila, of course) during the concert. I'll hate Sunday a lot, but hopefully I'll have lots of fun. The reason I'm telling you this? Dunno, maybe I just want you to know that I'm hardcore and get drunk and shit, gangsta style.

Hope you enjoyed this chapter, I certainly had fun writing it. Leave me your thoughts and opinions about it.

Stay strong.

-casquis