Chapter CLXX: Errands

February 17, 2549 (UNSC Calendar)/three days later

Temporary Firebase Scarab, Udinia, Paris IV, Paris

"Boredom is rage spread thin."– Paul Tillich

"That's official!" Sandor exclaimed. "We've been stuck here for three days now!"

"You're free to look outside if you want," Marv said.

Sandor shook his head. "And get my head blown off? No thank you."

He had a point, jackal snipers had scattered all over the city. We could spot a lot of them with the help of sattelites and drones, but the troops that had been dropped a few days ago had managed to set up enough SAM batteries to make flying dangerous. At first I had thought that the covvie ship could've only dropped a couple hundred troops at most, but the ship had apparently emptied its hangar bays as it passed by.

The inside of the Scarab could've been worse. It was strong enough to withstand anything short of massed artillery fire and spacious enough to house my platoon and what was left of Jen's. Not that we were working at full capacity either, seeing as Han and Andy had left with the injured on Lima-One, but we hadn't heard from them since I last saw that IFV turn the corner.

I stood up. My butt was beginning to lose its feeling.

"Going somewhere?" Pavel asked me.

"Checking up on the perimeter," I grunted. "Don't wait up."

I grabbed my rifle and made sure that there was a bullet in the chamber before climbing out the ramp. As soon as I was out in the open I ducked and moved towards the improvised gangplank that connected the Scarab's deck with the building next to it. I ran and jumped inside the window. Fortunately, no jackal spotted me quickly enough to take a shot at me.

"Hey El-tee," Snark called. He was sitting down behind an overturned table, his helmet next to him. On his other side he had an ammunition box for his sniper rifle and a couple of candy wrappers. "Lovely day, isn't it?"

It wasn't.

"Jackals have been quiet lately," he went on. "They've only tried to hit me twice." He pointed at two black scorch marks that looked fresher than the rest. "Best I can tell there are at least three snipers focused on me and the Scarab at all times."

"One on that building across the intersection and two on the one across the street, right?" I asked.

"Far as I can tell," he replied with a short nod. "Hey El-tee, remember how Galván promised to get us a few tanks and a couple of platoons to help with the Scarab?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Whatever happened to those?"

"We took out the Scarab by ourselves, he redirected his armored units to face a unit of Locusts."

"Have you heard anything from him? Or for anybody else for that matter?"

I shook my head. "The Covenant must've put up some kind of jammers, because nothing works."

He patted his own helmet in agreement. Zepeda was a few floors above us right now, no doubt sitting with his back against a wall and waiting for an order to provide sniper cover. The best range my helmet had right now was abouthundred meters. I couldn't talk to anybody further than that without some serious amount of static blocking the conversation. The covvies weren't exactly innovative, still using the same tactics, weapons, and vehicles that they had been at the beginning of the war, but they were just so advanced that it still worked for them.

"Heard anything from Stan?" he asked.

I shook my head.

"I'll go check on him in a while, I guess."

"You're awfully talkative today, Snark."

"I've been alone here for almost two days El-tee, of course I'm talkative."

I shrugged and walked on my hunches to a column across the room. "I'm going to check on our other positions."

"I'll be right here," he replied. "Good luck."

"I'll try not to get myself shot."

After I was behind the damaged column I stood up and walked towards the stairwell. From there I climbed down a couple of floors, stepping over the bodies of two grunts and kicking their heads for good measure. Once I was on the lobby I crossed a part of the building and ran through the collapsed windows as fast as I could. A couple of needles shattered safely behind me as I ran past, but none were close. It was obvious that the Covenant were as bored with this as we were.

After the windows turned into good solid wall I stopped running. A section of the ceiling here had collapsed, but the metal bars hadn't bent or broken, making the ceiling into a ramp that led to the second floor. The only reason that I had taken this route was because the aisle that connected to this section of the second floor was completely blocked by debris from the third floor. Annoying, but there was nothing we could do about it without wasting what little explosives were left.

One of Weller's men greeted him from behind a pair of drawers packed together. "Sir."

"Lieutenant Weller hasn't moved."

"Thanks," I replied, patting him on the shoulder.

I walked past through the battered aisle, thankful that there weren't any windows here either. Well, there was one window, but it was pretty narrow. Two men were sitting down on either side of it and motioned for me to hold. They both peeked out quickly and then motioned for me to run past them. I ran two long steps and then settled down into a walk again.

"El-tee, come to check on the grunts?" Api asked, getting up from in between a couple of desks that he had fashioned to be his room. He had his useless SPANKr with empty tubes leaning next to him, but I noted that he was keeping his assault rifle closer than he usually did.

"More or less," I told him. "Bored?"

"You have no idea," he grunted. "El-tee, we've been waiting here for three days now. No combat, no reinforcements, no contact with anybody else. I mean, if we wereactually fighting we would at least have something to focus on."

"You'd rather be fighting?" I asked as a couple of explosions faded in the background.

He shook his head. "'Course not… we're just on edge. All of us."

I nodded. "Haven't had any word from Beckel or Serge, I take it?"

"Beckel? No." He shrugged and rolled his massive shoulders. "Serge, I'm beginning to think that the UNSC unit that's pinned down a block that way consists of our two missing squads."

I nodded, only just remembering that Jen had called for her two other squads to rejoin us right before we had taken the Scarab out. The mess that this battle had become only an hour after that had prevented them from reaching us, but if they were just a block away it meant that we could link up with them if shit became serious. I just hoped that Api's theory was right, because Helljumpers beat regular jarheads any time.

I took a step forward, closer to Api, and lowered my voice. "How's Jen?"

"Lieutenant's doing fine, still pretty angry that we lost three men, but she's angry with herself. At least she's not taking it out on us. A little bit snappier than usual, but nobody blames her."

"Is she fit to command?"

"Damn right she is, it'll take more than that to break Lieutenant Weller," Api said, actually sounding slightly offended. I was actually kind of glad that he was loyal to his new lieutenant, but at the same time it also hurt that he seemed to be taking her side against me.

"Good," I said. "Good."

It had been so long since I had lost a man under my command that I was beginning to think that I wouldn't be able to handle it if it happened again. ONI had given me the absolute best to work with when they assembled Reaper Squad. I had handpicked them to suit my needs and commanded them in a way that increased our effectiveness way past what one would expect of a small squad. After that I had moved on to the Flawless and had been made squad leader of yet another top-notch squad. Certainly not as good as Reaper, but they had handled themselves pretty well. Now I was in charge of a whole platoon, and even though I'd lost a man, he hadn't died. Lizzo had lost half his hands but could still fight and Hoff was already walking after having his left all but burned away. Sometimes I imagined that Andy didn't make it to a doctor in time and it pissed me off. If I were to lose someone… well, let's just say that it wouldn't be good for me.

"What are the odds of that unit being Serge and your two other squads?"

Api seemed to consider it for a second. "Pretty high, I'd say. They were supposed to be coming from that direction and they seem to have some pretty nice fire discipline."

"Can we coordinate to take out the units that have them pinned down?"

"Not sure, you'd have to talk to Mei about that."

"Yumiko, right. Where's the sniper?"

"Two floors above us?"

"Three," another ODST corrected.

"Three," Api muttered. "Damn, but that girl can shoot."

I nodded. I hadn't seen Yumiko in action, but from the mission reports and shooting scores I could tell that she was pretty above the average score for a sniper. For a moment I wondered why most Helljumper sharpshooters were that way.

"Elite corps, perhaps?" Schitzo suggested. "But I might be wrong. They did take you in."

"You talk to her," I told Api. "Ask her if it's possible to cause some damage. If it is, send a runner my way and I'll have Snark or Zepeda come on over to provide support."

"A little bit of machine gun support would be nice."

"I already gave you Dotsenko and Lizzo. If you want to approach Sarah just tell me and I'll give her a message from you." A couple of the nearby ODSTs laughed half-heartedly before returning to whatever they were doing. I wasn't surprised to see a man reading a binder of what could've only been boring office documents. I didn't really blame him. I was lucky to have saved a few books on my helmet, even if reading on my HUD was as uncomfortable as it got.

"Out of your chain of command and you're still ordering me around," Api mused. "Oh well."

I really didn't want any more complaints from subordinates who still thought that I was a noncom so I just walked past him. The few windows on this side of the building were mostly covered with planks from desks and cushions. The few that Jen had left intact didn't have glass anymore and were only used to discourage enemy movements with occasional sniper fire or machine gun bursts.

The place was a mess. Three had ripped cushions from chairs and sofas to turn them into makeshift beds and a few of them had started burning desks and documents to keep warm. The city wasn't cold enough for snow this time of the year, but it still gotpretty cold. I hadn't really felt the cold on the FOB's barracks or the courtyard itself. There had been reports of small-scale orbital bombardment, but it might've been a little bit soon for the dust to cool down the atmosphere. Who knows, I'm not a scientist.

I walked past another two ODSTs warming their hands over a small fire. I was tempted to step on it, but I controlled my baser instincts and instead went around. I noticed the holes in the wall. Some were from regular bullets, but others were from beam and needle rifles. It was kind of unnerving to know that if a jackal decided to try its luck I could find myself with an additional hole in my body.

"Banshees, heads down!"

I ducked and pressed my back against the wall, covering my head with my hands. I could hear the screaming from the craft before the plasma bolts and fuel rods hit. The pilot must've missed with the heavy explosive, because I could feel the shaking from below me. The regular plasma bolts hit the wall and made it shake. A couple of the more stable plasma bolts managed to punch through sections of the wall that had been weakened beforehand.

"Anybody hurt?" someone asked.

I waited for everybody to confirm that they were indeed safe and sound before standing up.

"El-tee?"

"I'm fine," I replied. "As you were."

Everybody returned to normal, a trio of ODSTs returned to their card game after straightening the cards on the floor and another two Helljumpers resumed their conversation like nothing had happened. It wasn't an unusual sight. For the last few days we had been constantly harassed by the covvies. Mostly it was limited strikes and some small raids, but as soon as the danger passed everything returned to normal.

Jen was in the large corner office that had been fortified to serve as a machine gun nest. Her squads had piled up the sturdier pieces of furniture against the windows and stuck them there with anything they could find. The barricade was held up with anything ranging from recycled nails to scotch tape. I could see that by the time they were about done with the barricade they hadn't even bothered with taking apart the furniture. There was an intact chair piled over a broken desk.

"Frank, what are you doing here?" Jen asked. She had her helmet off and was checking some hand-drawn maps. There were several discarded sheets of paper on the floor around her. It seemed like she had tried to get the perfect map before settling for the one she was using.

"Good to see you too," I replied. I glanced at the discarded paper and gestured at it with a small questioning shrug. "Not much of an architect, are we?"

"My dad wanted me to be a doctor, guess that didn't work out to well for him," she replied without glancing up at me. "Hey come and tell me what you think about this."

I approached her and looked at the map. I was actually kind of impressed. Lots of straight lines and enemy positions were clearly marked. She had even taken the time to draw the cars and trucks on the neighboring streets.

"We're here, right?" She pointed at the Scarab and the section of the building under our control. "This part right here is unsecured, but to get there the covvies would have to get past them." She pointed at the two gunners that I had lent her.

"Dotsenko, Lizzo," I greeted them. "How's the hand?"

"Getting better," Lizzo replied, raising his left hand to show that the digits were still missing. "I'm beginning to think they might grow back." Dotsenko elbowed him and they both went back to aiming out the windows with their machine guns.

"As I was saying," Jen resumed, "We're pretty much safe from anything short of a dedicated assault. We're good on ammunition and have enough food to last a couple of weeks."

"Yes…" I said, motioning for her to go on.

"I think that the unit right across the intersection–"

"That they are your two other squads, yes. Api told me."

"Well, if they are, we could stage a small strike on the covvie platoon in between us and have them come over."

I nodded. "We could always use the extra men, but if we leave this building–"

"We'll be under attack from every direction, yes," Jen finished. "I've been trying to come up with some plans. We could reach them like this…" She traced an L-shape from our position to a building across the street and then to a building that was in a diagonal from this one. "But we'd increase our time out in the street and Mei tells me that there are snipers down this street."

I nodded. "Going directly across would expose us to fire form here, here, and here?"

"Yeah. Here too."

"Which would be bad."

"Very bad."

"So we can't approach directly or indirectly without suffering casualties," I said.

"And we can't take out all the sharpshooters before they start shooting back."

Dotsenko turned halfway around. "Sewers?"

"Not all sewers are big enough to walk in," I reminded him. "Some are big enough to crawl through."

"I checked, you could barely fit a large man in the ones that run directly below us."

"And a small man?" Dotsenko asked.

"No way anybody is going to volunteer for that, Sasha," Lizzo said.

"Will you two please be quiet?" Jen asked.

"Dotsenko, Lizzo, shut the fuck up," I said at the same time.

The jerked their heads back and resumed their watch-towering.

Jen smiled slightly and nodded at me in thanks. "We need something that can provide cover from at least two sides."

"The Warthogs?" I suggested.

"They'd just shoot the engines."

"If we had some welding equipment we could just weld some metal desks to the back and have someone push the cars. I wish we still had a Tortoise or a 'Dillo…"

"You're not the only one," Jen said in agreement. "I'll try to come up with something. Are you going to stay here?"

I shook my head. "I'm headed for the Warthogs," I told her. "Gonna check on the guys."

She nodded. "Keep your head down."

"I'll try not to get myself shot."

I walked back through the hallway and down the ceiling/ramp. Instead of running through the section with the shattered windows I turned around and went through a supply closet. I exited on the inside of the building, happy that there were at least two walls in between me and the Covenant. This part of the building looked almost like it would on a normal day. There was a thin layer of dust covering everything, but other than that everything was in perfect order.

Two Warthogs were parked inside one next to the other and the other one was positioned so that its turret could cover a hundred and eighty degrees. If Snark or Zepeda saw any movement they'd radio down to whoever was down here and tell them. These three machine guns were one of the main reasons why the covvies stayed well clear of us.

Right now Miri was down here. She was sitting down on a small chair, looking like she was about to fall asleep. Dana and Carver were both using the two spare 'Hogs to rest in. I was certain that they were asleep. I slapped Carver's head to wake him up.

"What?!" he exclaimed, shocked.

I grabbed his grenade launcher and shoved it at his chest. "Don't fall asleep again."

Dana had been woken up by the noise and promptly jumped down from the Warthog and grabbed her assault rifle. I could see her Spartan Laser on top of the Warthog's hood. At least she hadn't left it lying where she couldn't reach it.

"Wake up!" I shouted. "You're supposed to be watching one whole flank!"

Miri shook violently, fumbling with her rifle before managing to calm herself down. "Geez lieutenant," she muttered. "Scared the hell out of me."

"At least I'm not running an energy sword through you," I told her. "Don't fall asleep again Miri."

"But I didn't!" she complained.

I waved my hand and she promptly shut up. "Whatever. Have you had any trouble?" Miri shook her head. "Bamber, what can you tell me?"

"Ummm, right. We haven't had much activity lately. The snipers haven't tried to shoot at us ever since Carver took two of them out yesterday. They can't hit us from any window above the third floor, and the ones below are well within our range."

"I know that Dana, any new developments?"

She shook her head. "Not really."

I nodded. "How are you? All of you."

Miri and Dana glanced at each other in that way that women often do and Carver just shrugged.

"I'm really bored," Carver said. "I haven't gotten to shoot at anything since yesterday."

"Do you really want something to shoot at?" Dana asked.

"It's preferable to being shot at," he snapped back.

Miri supressed a snicker. "We're bored," she said.

"And sleepy," I muttered. "So none of you have any mental conditions I should be worried about?"

"Oh, the irony!" Schitzo shouted loudly.

"My eyes are irritated," Miri said. "But other than–"

"Having red eyes is not a mental condition," Dana noted.

"If you approach it from a metaphysical standpoint it is," Carver chimed in. "Or maybe she's just stoned."

"For the love of God," I muttered. "Just don't fall asleep. I'll send your replacements later."

"Yes, sir," Carver said.

"Thanks Lieutenant," Bamber replied.

On the way back I almost got hit a couple of times. In fact, one of those times I was so close to being shot through the balls that I had Yumiko take out the jackal that shot me. I mean, the hair on my balls had been burnt by the beam, figuratively of course, I hadn't had the time to trim down there in ages. Yumiko reported success and I walked back towards the Scarab.

"I see you still have all your limbs," Snark noted. "I heard Mei shooting, a jackal's beam got uncomfortably close?"

I nodded. "Fuckers are good when it comes to shooting, I'll give them that."

Snark nodded. "Something about being able to slow down their heart rate… and something about being able to hold their breath for a very long time. I think that they also have eyesight twice as good as ours, but I guess that they need that to keep up."

"We get it, you're better than them," I said, rolling my eyes. "I don't have to remind you that I'm better than them too. Oh wait, I am. Funny thing, you're not that unique."

"Well, thanks Lieutenant."

"You're welcome," I replied. Sometimes my men needed someone to knock them down a couple of pegs.

It might've been a bit of a dickish thing to do, but my men needed to be reminded that they weren't as good as me. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't the only one that did that. It was a popular Helljumper officer technique to constantly remind their subordinates that they had been through everything that they were going through and survived. It served to keep the underlings' respect. People were more likely to follow a man they considered… well, harder to kill.

The catwalk to the Scarab proved to be sturdy enough and I walked back inside the control room. The inside was illuminated enough in account of the luminescent panels and some holographic terminals that were still functional.

"Hey Frank, glad you're back," Pavel said, standing up and approaching me. "Hey, we've been thinking."

"Well that's a new–"

"About," Pavel cut me off, "something important. You know how the holograms are still flickering?"

"Yeah, they keep me up at night."

"Well, if they work it means that at least a section of the Scarab should be intact. I know it's a long shot, but we could try to get this thing moving." Pavel cracked his knuckles. "You know, I've always wanted to drive one of these big boys."

"Pavel, we don't even know how to drive this thing."

"I know, we just hit random buttons until we know what each one does."

I looked up. "Sure, why the hell not."

"Wow, really? I thought you'd say no."

"What can I say? I'm bored as hell too."

Sandor and Marv were beginning to get up and some of the other men in here also seemed interested.

"Pavel, you drive. I'll radio everybody about what we're attempting to do and make sure that they know it's your fault when we fail horribly."

"Ha-ha," Pavel muttered as I radioed in our intentions.

"…so don't be surprised. Here we go."

"Captain's Log, Entry One. First attempt with captured enemy walker," Pavel said. "Here we go."

He tapped a glyph on the main hologram terminal to no result. He muttered something and attempted to hit another button. After three failed attempts Marv suggested that maybe he needed to turn the thing on before trying to move it. There was some scattered laughter around the control room and Pavel promptly ordered everyone to shut up. He examined the glyphs with more care this time and stood in front of the largest one.

"That's probably the fir–" I began.

The front cannon whirred and the entire thing shook violently as a long stream of green plasma flew directly into the building in front of us. I looked around nervously and heard the rocks falling on the other side of the street.

"Snark, Stan?" I asked.

"Damn El-tee, Pavel knocked down half the building," Snark told me. "And at least two jackals with it."

"Hit it again," I ordered.

Pavel laughed. "This is awesome."

The next blast shattered the other half of the building. According to Snark at least.

"We need to see what we're shooting at."

"Hit more buttons," Sandor suggested. "That always works."

I was surprised then the third button that Pavel tapped turned on a holographic screen. It looked grainy, probably from some minor damage to the systems, but it looked like there was no wall in between us and the outside world. I had always wondered how they managed to see out of these things, let alone steer and fire them.

"Huh," Pavel mused. "Go figure."

Pavel hit several more buttons and spun a circular hologram. Apparently that's whatever turned the tail cannon. Pavel was beginning to get excited about this. I'm not going to lie to you, if we managed to get this thing under our control we would bust through any and all covvie defenses without a scratch.

"Careful now, don't want to shoot our own building," I warned Pavel. "Might want to take it easy."

Pavel nodded and started prodding and pressing a several buttons at the same time. After about fifteen minutes of careful experimentation the Scarab whirred and stood taller.

"This is it, this is it!" Pavel exclaimed. "Here we go!"

The Scarab took a step forward and its legs shook. After another step I was beginning to imagine the city burning under our feet. Perhaps not UNSC troops or refugees, but it was a pretty appealing image. If you think about it the idea of a Scarab it's pretty cool. Most of the time you only think about them as an enemy. If only we had our own Scarabs.

The walker took one more giant step before something metallic groaned and the whole thing slammed down flat on its belly.

I grunted and pushed myself up from the floor. "Damn Pavel."

"Captain's Log. Mission is a failure, I repeat–"

"Shut up," I groaned. "Snark, how bad are we?"

"Hold up," he said through heavy laughter. "Actually, it's not that bad. One of the legs is stretched all the way into the building. Should provide cover if you want to come here."

"Well, that's not that bad," I grunted. "What about the other legs?"

"The rear left leg is also stretched out, could provide some cover if we move a couple of cars to finish up the wall… the front right leg is underneath the body and the left one looks like it snapped."

"Why the hell did it fail?" Pavel asked. "It was all going so well."

I only just resisted the urge to hit him in the back of the head. I would've certainly done it had Ramirez and d'Arc not been here with us. He wouldn't have liked me undermining him in front of his men. Instead I shoved pushed his shoulder back down and forced him to try and get up again. It was less embarrassing that way.

"Damn Sarge," Ramirez said. "I thought you were a good driver."

"Shut it," Pavel snapped. "Fuck…"

I groaned loudly and sat back down on the floor, taking off my helmet and placing it on its side to use as a pillow. "Pavel, you get watch on the Warthogs with Ramirez and Sandor. Switch with Dana, Miri, and Carver in thirty minutes. If they're sleeping feel free to hit them as hard as you want."

"And you?" Pavel asked.

"I'll be sleeping, because I'm the lieutenant."

"Right," Pavel muttered, shrugging. "Does Marv get to watch the ramp?"

"Yup," I replied. "Marv, you heard him."

He sighed. "Right."

I sighed, echoing Marv and closed my eyes. It was hard to admit to myself that I was susceptible to boredom as my men were. My eyes were beginning to hurt, and I was tired as hell. I wanted to catch some sleep, but every time I dozed off some problem came up. I hadn't really organized my men because we didn't think we would be here this long. I understood the confusion, but if twenty grown adults couldn't get organized without my supervision… well, then we had a problem.

Right as I began to fall asleep I heard a familiar click and the sound of static. It was coming from my helmet.

I sat up and put my helmet back on. The HUD flickered on and I noticed that several channels that had been offline for three straight days were working now. Three seconds later the whole net was flooded with chatter. I winced from all the different voices, but then my helmet started blocking off the ones not addressed to me. Eventually I got two different lines. One of them was from Battalion One from the Flawless, with Lieutenant Commander Becker and Captain Galván exchanging their current situations. At least they were both alive.

The other line was from my own company. Captain Hayes and Yas were talking about something that I didn't understand, probably their current situation. I blocked that line and interrupted Becker and Galván.

"Commander, Captain, sorry to interrupt."

"Castillo, glad to see you're still alive," Galván said.

"Likewise Lieutenant," Becker added. "Need anything?"

I thought about it. "I hate asking for party favors, but we could really use four or five Tortoises. If you can't spare those a pair of Scorpions to clear the area would be nice."

"I'll see what I can do," Becker said. "But you'll owe me one."

"Of course, Commander."

"No problem, now, if you could give us some privacy…"

"Of course, Castillo off."

I immediately unblocked the company line. "This is Castillo coming in, what just happened."

"Castillo, I see you're still alive," Hayes said. The contempt she felt for me was quite evident in her voice. "My platoon and Two neutralized the Covenant jammer."

"Thanks Captain," Dom came in. "We've been in the dark for ages. What's the situation on the city?"

"Reports are still coming in, but it seems like we managed to hold on to most of the city. "It looks like they landed mostly on the contested sections of Udinia," Yas said. "They wanted to reinforce the remaining Covenant units."

"Their mistake," Dom said. "Weller, you there?"

"Yeah, half my platoon's holed up with Five. Give me a moment will ya? I need to confirm whether the rest is still alive."

Jen disappeared from the line and Dom started reporting his situation. He had been forced to repel several attacks on the Onager cannon he was defending and after that they had been redeployed in the suburbs to help with the evacuation of a refugee camp that had come under attack. He had seen mostly low intensity combat and his unit was fine.

Yas and Hayes had managed to stick together throughout the three days of radio silence, but they had each lost a man each and had several injured. They didn't have the advantage of a fortified position and had to keep moving. They had been very proactive and when they localized the jammer they immediately took it out.

"Three and Five are fine," I reported. "We holed up in the Scarab we took out–" I loved saying that, "–and held here. One of Jen's squads was almost wiped out by a chieftain, Api is the only one still here with us. My own men are fine, couple of scratches."

"We're still at full capacity then," Hayes mused. "Well, mostly at least. Apparently Battalion One is fine, but I hear that Two got hammered pretty hard. I'm not sure about their situation yet, but it doesn't look good."

"Can we contact Command?" Yas asked.

"They'll contact us," Hayes replied. "They're probably reaching out to division right now. They'll contact us as soon as they need something done. We'll wait until they do."

"Sir, Becker might be sending a unit my way in order to link up. If he does Three and Five will probably provide support for them."

"You didn't contact me beforehand?"

"Uh, no. Sorry, sir."

Hayes groaned. "Damn. Understood, any priority missions coming our way will be done by Dom's platoon."

"And you owe us big time," Dom said.

"Not up for the challenge big boy?" I taunted.

"I thought you were the special platoon," he quipped back. "Wouldn't want to rob you of your glory."

"Enough!" Hayes ordered. "We need to get ourselves reorganized. Command won't be too happy with the situation and if I'm reading this right then they'll want to strike back immediately,wipe out the Covenant presence on this city. Castillo and Weller, link up and help Becker with whatever he asks, next time you volunteer for helping another unit without asking me first I won't be so lenient."

"Yes, sir," I said.

"Of course, sorry," Jen said.

"Hayes out."

"Good luck everybody," Dom said before leaving the channel.

The rest of us promptly left it as well. It wasn't long after that when Lieutenant Commander Becker called to tell me that he was sending a small armored force to pick us up. In return he was asking for us to stick with it and work with them in retaking a small park that had been turned into an enemy base of operations. It sounded like a reasonable exchanged so I agreed.

"So we're going to jump right back into action?" Pavel asked. "It will do us some good to loosen up our legs."

"Yeah, Sandor looks like he's about to bang his head into the wall."

"Without a helmet," Pavel added.

I nodded. "Hey, does the tail cannon still work?"

Pavel smiled broadly. "I can try it."

Ten minutes later there wasn't a single jackal within range that wasn't trying to desperately get away from our field of fire. The superheated plasma punched through rock and steel with ease, to say nothing about the jackals themselves. Pavel and I were laughing by the time he was done, but Sandor was rolling on the floor. He seemed to find it highly ironic that we were killing jackals with stolen equipment. I'll admit that there's some irony there, but not nearly enough to warrant his outburst. The guy was most certainly a psycho. The last thing my squad needed was another one of those.

"Frank, should we meet up on your position?" Jen came in. I could hear the happiness in her voice. Murdering covvies always warranted a small degree of happiness. "Or somewhere else?"

"We'll meet up with the Warthogs," I told her. "Go out together from there."

"Roger that, we'll see you there."

I turned around to look at Sandor. "Everybody, out," I ordered. "Now!"

My men heard the edge in my voice and started moving out as fast as they could without looking too desperate. I stopped Sandor, grabbing his arm. After everybody had left the Scarab's control room I lightly pushed Sandor backwards.

"What is your problem?" I asked him.

"Sir, what? I mean… I was just laughing."

"You weren't laughing, you were on the floor and couldn't breath. Listen, I understand that you enjoy killing aliens, God knows I do too, but don't you think that you're taking it a little bit too far?"

Sandor's face immediatelywent serious. "Sir, those bastards killed my family and burned everything I ever knew. As far as I'm concerned nothing that happens to them is bad enough."

"You know what? They killed my family and burned everything I ever knew too. I saw my uncle's body with spikes in his chest. I heard my home burn even as we retreated."

Sandor looked away.

"And I feel a rush every time I kill a fucking covvie, believe me, I do."

"Then why–"

"Because," I stopped him. "Because your team members look at you weird, they think you're nuts, and with good reason."

"I don't care what they think," he replied. "I'm just–"

"You should care," I replied. "This isn't high school. This is war. If they don't trust you to watch their backs do you think that they'll watch yours? Oh, they won't just let you die, but they won't make you a priority. I'm sure it won't be on purpose, but the time might come when they won't put saving your life as the first thing on their list."

Sandor opened and closed his mouth, trying to say something.

"Nobody wants that to happen," I went on. "Not me, not them, and especially not you. Sandor, you'll keep being your usual self and shout cocky insults at the Covenant. You'll get giddy when we talk about explosives and you'll make sure to thoroughly kill every covvie bastard you come across, but if it ever starts to look like you're only into this for guilt-free killing… Well, I won't try to get this lesson through your thick head with just words. Ok?" I let the threat hang in the air for a second.

"Yes, sir."

"You're a good soldier Sandor, I'd hate to see your friends lose their trust in you."

"Yes, sir."

"Off towards the Warthogs, I want you behind the Gauss cannon."

"Yes, sir."

He left and I rolled my eyes.

Schitzo laughed and mimicked Sandor's way of walking before stopping right in front of me, his nose almost touching mine. He seemed to have gotten somewhat bigger. He looked stronger than before.

"Being a leader without losing your horrible personality. Pure genius Francisco. Embrace it. You'll be just like me in no time."

"I'm not like you," I growled.

"Oh, no. We're just similar enough that it frightens you."

Someone called in to say that the armored column was arriving and Schitzo disappeared, leaving me with a strange urge to punch someone's face until it was an unrecognizable mess.

Thanks to SilasWhitfield for proofreading this chapter.

It was kind of a slow chapter, not much action in it. Mainly it consisted about Frank walking about and talking to his men, but seeing as you got this far I think that you already knew that. I enjoyed the part where they had fun with the Scarab, but it would've been too much if the thing could work, Frank and Co. would've killed every singly alien in the entire city and the whole Paris IV arc would've been a whole lot shorter. Anyways, I hope you appreciated the attention that some other minor characters got. There was a fairly long conversation with Api, whom I always liked, and some appearances by Frank's platoon members.

Fun stuff.

MVPredicon: I liked your idea, I had been thinking about Palmer, but why should she be the only one to get a chance to shine?

SpartaLazor: Worry not, Noble Six will most definitely be in The Life, but it won't be during this battle.

ultimate idiot: I'm not sure about Omega, they are certainly canonical, but they could be any of the other Spartan-IIs just using a different team name.

I want to thank all of those who reviewed for taking the time to do so, but as the story gets more and more readers it means that I have more people to please. Don't get me wrong, I love getting reviews for the sake of having more reviews, but I also want to know what you think about my story, my strong and weak points as a writer, so that I can improve on that and make this even better for all of you.

Don't think I missed anything for this after-chapter author's rant/note. Hope you had a good time while reading through my ever-better attempts at literature.

Stay strong.

-casquis