Chapter CLXXXVIII: Twenty-five, Fifty-two

January 1, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/one week later

Esztergom (Ezhtergom), Viery Territory, Reach, Epsilon Eridani System

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."– Charles Dederich

I think it must've been weird. At least to an outside observer. Hundreds, well, dozens now, of human colonies all celebrated a single date simultaneously. And I do mean simultaneously. The advent of technology had permitted us to run clocks and watches that accounted for FTL and time dilation. Mining settlements probably celebrated with holographic fireworks, but every colony that had even a semblance of an atmosphere would make good use of fireworks. The simple rockets would streak into the sky at the exact same moment, whistling wildly as they went.

Then, we on the ground would get to watch them explode in colorful detonations. They could last for as long as an hour if you went to the right place, and here in Esztergom they went on for a good long while.

And I was watching them by myself.

"Hey," Schitzo said, slapping my shoulder. "At least it's not AA fire."

"At least…" I murmured quietly.

Palmer had gone someplace or other the morning after our little encounter. Not someplace in the city, it turned out that her deployment to wherever was actually a couple of hours later. It was enough time for what I wanted to do and Montgomery to scream his head off at us for doing it on one of his tables. After a little while he had seemed slightly amused, but to be fair to the old man, I shouldn't have had sex on one of his tables.

"Happy new year," I muttered, turning away from the incredible display of fireworks and heading back home.

I woke up late, but I woke up without a hangover. I had been too depressed to actually bother going anywhere to drink and my personal cache had long since run out. It wasn't an entirely unpleasant situation, waking up sober, but instead of feeling regretful and dedicating all my attention to my hangover I still felt depressed. It's easy to see why alcoholics are alcoholic. It may ruin their personal and professional lives, but at least it helps them forget.

I grunted as I sat up on the bed. "Time," I ordered the clock even as I got up. "Shit."
It was late. It was a lot later than I had expected. I was supposed to report to base along with the rest of my team. ONI had gotten it into their heads that the only way to improve was to keep doing training exercises.

They weren't wrong, of course, but vacations were supposed to be vacations.

A lot of my men would've said otherwise, since they lived in apartments purchased by themselves, apartments which had mortgage payments and maintenance costs. I had the 'luck' to live in a place bought by somebody else that had been left to me. The money my parents had had been left entirely to me and my uncle's modest fortune had also found its way to my pockets. That in turn meant that I had enough money to spend on alcohol for the rest of my life.

Less than a minute after I had woken up I had fatigues and a shirt on and was looking for my boots.

"Where the hell are you?"

"Right here," Schitzo said, lifting them from the floor and swinging them. It had been a long time since I had stopped wondering how I could grab them from the air when he wasn't even real to begin with.

"You're going to be late," he warned.

I ignored him and got on the elevator while still putting my boots on. My armor was on the car as was my rifle. That looking ahead was courtesy of my sober self last night. It took only another minute to get inside my pathetically tiny vehicle and set a course for the base. I didn't even have the luxury of a breakfast because I was in such a rush.

When I finally arrived I got a lukewarm reception.

"You're late," Captain Flatt said dryly.

"Sorry ma'am," I apologized. "Happy new year."

The officer scoffed and rolled her eyes. She was the ONI officer directly in charge of my team. Whatever her reasons for being in that position, it was quite obvious that she didn't like it much. Despite that she was still quite competent as an officer and usually took my concerns seriously, provided those concerns were related to the wellbeing and effectiveness of AAG Team 7.

"Did I miss anything, Captain?" I asked.

"Fortunately for you, no. Head back to Red Base in the training grounds. I'll meet up with you in a couple of minutes."

"Is my team already there?"

"Yeah," Flatt said. "You'd do well to get here before they do. It's good for morale."

"I'll try," I said, not really meaning it.

"And Lieutenant?"

"Yeah?"

"Kick their asses."

I smiled and started jogging towards the training ground. If AAG Team 4 was nearly as good as we were then it would prove one hell of a challenge.

"Happy new year, El-tee!" Bee greeted the moment I walked through the doors. "I see you didn't engage in too much drinking."

"Yeah," I said, shoving him slightly. "And you did?"

"Yes, sir," he said proudly. "I'm a Scott, you see?"

"No, you're a Rob," Andy said, shoving him a lot harder.

I walked through my men and into the dais designed for the squad leader or officer in charge to speak.

"Now why did I not get a salute?" I asked loudly.

"Atten-shun!" Pavel shouted loudly, if only to humor me.

The nineteen members of Team 7 clicked their heels together and saluted me. A lot of them looked hungover and most of them looked like they hadn't had a single minute of sleep. I could only hope that the opposing team had a similar handicap.

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen," I said.

"Good morning, Lieutenant," they replied.

"Today is a beautiful day, cold and snowy. Perfect New Year, wouldn't you agree? Anyhow, it's my ass on the line if you guys fucking mess this shit up, ok?" I liked lacing my speeches with just the right amount of swearing on occasion. I never really did like it before I noticed that SO-3 Krieger would keep rolling her eyes whenever I cursed. It was amusing really, seeing our Lady live up to her nickname.

"Today's exercise is a simple one," I went on. "Deathmatch. The first team to completely eliminate the other team wins. As you know, I'm a big fan of capture the flag and other similar objective-based games, but today we'll have to settle."

I noticed that most of my men were already armored up and a few had even managed to get all their pouches full of practice magazines.

"No cheating," I furthered. "Mata, Pitcher, that goes double for you two."

"Isn't this a forest scenario?" Pitcher asked.

"Yes it is," I agreed. "Can you lift a branch?"

"Uh… yes."

"Then that means that you can also put it in front of you to stop paint bullets," I snapped. "I want the win, but I don't want it to be marred." I paused to let that settle for a moment. "We go in standard fireteams and two squads. I'll lead Reaper and Gunnery Sergeant Klaus will have command of Predator. That's it for now boys."

I let my men get back to whatever they were doing before I got here and started putting my armor on.

"Tough night?" Pavel asked me quietly.

"Nah," I said. "No drinking."

"That's not what I meant, Frank."

I sighed. "Yeah, tough night."

He slapped me in the shoulder. "Sorry. That being said, you're an imbecile of superior category. She's good for you Frank, and every time things are getting better with you two you go off and fuck it up."

"I know that," I replied. "We've been over this."

"You just don't seem to get it," he sighed. "After this I want you to go to her house, apologize profusely, and get your shit together."

"After this?" I asked, taking in Pavel's advice. "And after she forgives me? And I hurt her again?"

"You won't," he asserted. "Because you're better than that. You're going to get clean, stop drinking so much, and then you're going to have a nice life with her. Ask her to marry you after a couple of years, have a lot of sex and a lot of babies."

"I like the sex part," I said, slamming a magazine into my rifle.

"I'm not joking," Pavel said. "You can't keep going on like this."

I sighed and checked my rifle's safety before slapping it over my shoulders and onto the magnetic clamps on my back. "New year, huh?"

"Yup," he agreed quietly.

"Resolutions… I guess I can try."

"To you Hanna was worth it," Pavel said. "And I damn well think that Katie is too."

"You're too good with words for me to resist, Pavs," I told him. "I'll try. I promise you I'm going to try."

"Good," he said.

"Twenty-five, fifty-two, huh?"

He nodded and smiled, lifting his M247L. "I can tell this is going to be a good year."

The exercise was already half an hour in and none of my team had reported contact with the enemy. The forest was dense and there was plenty of shrubbery and ferns to interfere with line-of-sight, but even then it was an uncomfortable amount of time. It made me feel like we were running into an ambush.

"Sir," Mata murmured, approaching me.

"Yeah," I said. "I know."

"Have you done exercises here before?"

"Not in this grid," I replied.

"From what little information we were given, I know that there's a decent rise about three hundred yards west. Not prime defensible ground, but that means that they might've bypassed it," Mata said.

"It's the might've that worries me," I replied. "Who's quiet?"

"I'd say Lady is our quietest asset right now," he said thoughtfully. "Longworth is pretty good at not making noise, too."

I rolled my eyes at that. "Is there anything that guy isn't good at? I swear, he's just like Marv."

"Sir," he said in as non-committal a way as possible.

I almost chuckled. "All right then, send them both as point."

"Lady, Longworth," Mata called out over his shoulder. "Take point, fifty meters."

"No fornicating in the bushes," Payat called after them.

The whole squad chuckled.

"Shhh!" I urged half-heartedly.

We started moving again. With limited technological support I didn't know exactly where Pavel and Predator were, but they had to be somewhere off to our left flank, going in a wide semi-circle. Or they could've been ambushed and forced to surrender. Not likely, but still a possibility.

We moved through the dense forest slowly, spread out and making good use of cover and concealment. Normally we weren't this careful even out in combat, but another AAG team was certainly something to be feared. And if the covvies killed you that was it, if you were killed in a training exercise then you'd have to take the taunts and insults that the other team earned over you. No, this was some serious shit right here, and I didn't intend to lose.

A single gunshot rang out and we all immediately dropped to the ground and rolled to the nearest piece of cover.

"Where'd that come from?" I asked quietly, grateful that none of the men in my team had shouted or done anything to give away their position.

"That wasn't from our front," Tank said behind me.

"Where's Mata?" I asked.

"Over here," he replied, somewhere to my left.

"Who's hit?" I asked.

"I am," Ramirez said, saving us the trouble of doing a countoff. "Shit."

"Kill shot?" I asked him.

"Yup."

"Sorry, you know how it is."

"Yup," he repeated. "Good luck."

"Thanks. Anybody see where it came from?"

"Somewhere to our left," Tank said. "Judging from the sound I'd say it was forty or fifty meters away from us."

"That's damn close," I complained. "We crawl forward and meet up Lady and Longworth. We can take care of the shooter later."

"Yes, sir," Tank said, relaying the whispered order to those behind him.

Crawling through muddy and snowy ground is as fun as it sounds. I got my armor dirty and my lack of undersuit meant that the snow wet all my clothes, making me shiver. I would've used my winter gear, but the thick clothing meant that sometimes the paint bullets wouldn't completely penetrate. Plus, they would ruin the expensive snow clothes.

"What was that?" Lady asked when we met up.

"Sniper," I replied. "Or sharpshooter. Did you see where it came from?"

"Negative," she said. "Only heard it."

"Longworth?"

"Same thing," he shrugged. "Sorry, sir."

I sighed. "Tell me about that raise."

"Four meters prominence, trees and boulders all around that can be used for cover," he reported.

"Is it clear?"

"Appears to be," he said, "but I can't be sure."

I nodded understandingly. "Take Serge with you and make sure it's clear. We'll be right here, wave us over if it's clear."

"Yes, sir," he said.

The Frenchman walked up and rolled his neck before switching his assault rifle for his preferred shotgun.

"You scare me sometimes," Longworth joked. "Let's go."

Half a minute later Longworth waved the all-clear.

"Ok, let's move," I ordered.

"Sir," Longworth said when I arrived. "People have been here."

"How do you know that?"

"Tracks."

"Is there anything you can't do?"

He shrugged, trying to make it seem like he felt awkward, but it was a shrug I was familiar with. It was the shrug of someone trying to hide the face that he was pleased.

"I used to go hunting with my dad."

"Yeah," I muttered. "How many?"

"At least two," he said. "But it could be as many as five."

"Ours?"

"Could be, but Predator wasn't supposed to be in this area and we haven't heard anything that would make them move."

"Kid's got a point," Mata said from behind. "Could be that sharpshooter has a spotter."

I nodded. "All right, we bunker down here for three hours, if nobody comes by in that time then we move for the creek, see if we can find those suckers."

My team nodded and spread out over the small hill. There were still enough shrubs around that we would be easily concealed from prying eyes, but I needed at least one pair of eyes outside.

"Andy," I said. "You're up."

She mumbled something and approached a large pine tree with plenty of foliage. "Cover me."

"Cover her," I ordered.

She climbed the tree astonishingly quickly.

"Should I fire if I see anything?"

"That should be enough warning," I replied, cursing our lack of radios for the duration of the exercise.

I sent a couple of my men down to the base of the small raise and told them to keep guard while the rest of us hunkered down and tried to get some rest. Unfortunately for me it only took ten minutes for Andy to spot a viable target and shoot it. The gunshot was as loud as the real deal and soon enough we were all alert and ready to face a squad of badasses.

"There's at least four of them," Andy called out in a loud whisper. "I got one so there's three left."

I nodded. "Hold your ground. If you see any movement, kill it."

That movement came in the way of two men leaving cover and firing at Andy's position with sustained automatic fire. My men got one of them, but Andy was hit several times and we revealed out positions to what turned out to be a full ten-man squad. With two casualties on out side and two on theirs we were evenly matched.

"Fire, fire, fire!" I ordered as soon as more paint bullets started bursting all around our position.

Things got fucking annoying when those guys turned out to be as good as we were.

"Serge and Tank, go around the right," I ordered. "Longworth, I want you to cover them and only them, ok?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Go," I urged the two men. "Don't get spotted."

We kept at it with the enemy squad for a while until I heard the sound of a shotgun coming from somewhere to our left. I smiled as Serge fired again and then let myself grin when an MA5 joined the cacophony. My grin was wiped from my face when the fire intensified and I realized that they had been made far too soon.

"Longworth!"

"On it!"

Before he could fire he was hit in the chest with an SRS round.

"Ah shit," he muttered, sitting back down.

"Sniper!" I shouted, urging what was left of my men to duck underneath the bushes and trees. Despite their best efforts Payot was hit in the shoulder as well. The SRS was considered a one-hit kill in these kinds of war games. He grunted something and sat down, tossing his rifle away in frustration. Still, the second sniper shot was good enough for me, giving me the location of the shooter.

I stood up and switched to full-auto, firing even as I went. It took almost half my magazine to zero in on my target and then some more to hit him, but I hit him in the legs before he could hit me and then another shot to the neck was all it took. I smiled as I ducked back down before I was hit. A shot to the neck was a dick move, it hurt like hell because there was no real armor protecting you there.

"They're spreading out," Mata warned me. "With Tank and Serge down there we need to fall back.

"Agreed," Pitcher said, reloading his rifle. "Behind you!"

I turned and almost emptied what was left on my rifle into Serge's face, but the guy remained impassive.

"Shit," Pitcher muttered. "Give us a holler or something."

"I don't need another mute," I said in agreement. "Did they get Tank?"

He nodded.

"How many did you get?"

"Three."

"Not bad," Sergeant Mata complimented.

Serge just shrugged.

"We're down to five," I said. "Us four and?"

"Me, over here!" Miranda said.

"Miri, get back up here," I ordered. "Cover her!"

Miranda climbed to the top of the raise with fire hitting all around her, but miraculously enough she managed to make it to the top unscathed. She took a few deep breaths and looked at me expectantly.

"Since we're at fifty percent strength I suggest we link up with Predator," Mata said.

"My thoughts exactly," Pitcher said. "Should we?"

"Yes," I said. "Full-on retreat. I want sprinting, ok?"

"Yes, sir."

"Follow me."

The last time I was running through a dense forest I believe that I was being firebombed. Things like this happened a lot to me, but not on New Year and especially not because ONI wanted us to do training exercises to see who was better. A few bullets whizzed past us, but by that point we were too far away and their only sniper was toast. This brief exchange had been a lot deadlier than the past couple of deployments we had had against the Covenant.

"So that's five of us dead," Pitcher began in between deep breaths. "Plus three of theirs. Plus the one that Magnet got."

I smiled at Andy's nickname. It was black humor at its finest.

"And then there's the one that the El-tee got," Miri added. "I think I got another one, but I'm not sure."

"So they matched us evenly?" Mata muttered. "Not a pleasant experience."

I agreed silently. "There should be a clearing two hundred meters that way," I said. "A creek passes through the middle, we can hunker down there. There's open ground on either side, nice defensible location."

"Let's go then," Mata urged. "These guys seem like the kind that like taking the initiative."

The clearing was large enough that I felt uncomfortable walking through, but not a lot of people would be stupid enough to put themselves in the open like we were doing right now so none of the two teams had positioned a unit to ambush any imbecile that attempted to cross the clearing.

I jumped down the creek only to find the barrel of a SAW aimed right at my face. I moved to the side and deflected the barrel with my hand, but before I could raise my rifle to fire at the opponent I saw that the outline was a familiar one.

"Dotsenko?"

He nodded slowly. "The one and only, sir."

"What happened to Predator?"

"Most of it is still together. I know that Snark took a hit and is out."

"We didn't hear any gunshots," Pitcher noted.

"Neither did we," Dotsenko admitted, sitting back down. "They're muffling their shots somehow, not silencers, otherwise they would've gotten us all."

"Nature silencers?" Mata suggested. "Grab a hollowed out branch?"

I shrugged. "I'm not sure. I guess we'll have to be extra careful then." I turned back to the burly machine gunner. "Why are you here alone?"

"There wasn't only one enemy shooter, I was targeted and had to run before I was flanked and here I am."

"Did you get any of them?"

"Not sure," he said. "I think Marv might've gotten one. Knowing him he probably did score the kill."

I nodded slowly. "Well, we wait here. The river's frozen, so we can rest up some."

My small team nodded and sat down on the ridge that the creek had dug out. It was only high enough to cover our chests, but it was better than nothing.

"Who keeps watch?" Miranda asked.

"You do," I said. "Thanks for reminding me."

She sighed and stood at a half-crouch, only the top of her head showing. Whether she saw them coming or they saw her she would be a fair warning.

"It's been two hours," Miranda said after precisely two hours.

"Yes," I agreed. "Dotsenko, you're up."

"Yes, sir."

In the last two hours there had been one exchange of gunfire somewhere south of us. I hated not having a radio. We could've coordinated so much better that way. Unfortunately we were now stuck here, with no way of knowing if our whole unit had been wiped out already and we were only delaying the inevitable.

"Oh shit," Dotsenko cursed before firing full-auto at someone. "Got him!"

His head jerked backwards and he fell right on his ass.

"I bet he probably said the same thing," I replied, shaking my head and standing up. "Fire!"

The four men I still had with me all stood up and started firing at the three assailants, taking down two of them before the other one took cover behind a comically tiny rock. I did some quick math in my head. If the other team had divided itself much like we had then there was something wrong. Four seemed like a pretty random number for a fireteam. At least to me.

"Sir," Serge began.

A flash of Army green appeared, hitting me in the back of the head and firing two shots, hitting Miri in the side. The enemy turned and fired another two times, but Mata managed to somehow duck underneath the two shots and then disappear around a curve in the creek. Serge kicked the assailant in the chest and at me. I grabbed her and made sure to secure her right wrist and her sidearm.

"There's no hand-to-hand!" I said, banging her hand against my knee with every word. "Christ!"

When she dropped the pistol I shoved her forward and fired twice with my own sidearm, hitting her in between the shoulder blades.

"Any particular reason why you didn't shoot her when I had her?" I asked Serge.

He shrugged.

"Mata?"

"I'm good," he said. "Please don't mention that I ran away."

I chuckled. "I'll try. Come on, let's grab their ammo."

All of the opposing team members were unconscious. The numbing agent in the bullets usually knocked you out after a few seconds, but sometimes a glancing hit took a little bit longer to take full effect. Some people liked taking advantage of that, taunting their killers or giving plain disinformation. That was allowed, but the moment you asked for information then it was immoral. At least it eliminated the temptation.

"We're down to three," I said. "Suggestions?"

"I thought that was your job, sir," Mata noted dryly.

"Serge?"

The Frenchman shrugged.

"Thanks," I replied. "How deep is the snow around here? I'm talking maximum depth."

"About four feet in some places," Mata said doubtfully. "Sir, we don't have winter clothing, we can't hide in the snow."

"You have a point," I ceded. "Let's keep moving. Try and make contact with Predator or whatever's left of them."

Both of my underlings shrugged simultaneously and waited for me to lead the way. I sighed and made sure that neither Miranda nor Dotsenko had any usable magazines on them. I wasn't about to lug around another long and heavy weapon in addition to my BR. The weight was annoying, but what really killed me was just how uncomfortable it was to have to carry two different sets of ammunition and magazines.

"What's that over there?" I asked, mostly to myself.

"Body," Mata said. "Can't tell if it's ours."

"Check it out, Serge," I ordered. "We'll cover you."

He nodded and went off to the body, turning it over. "It's Bee."

"Damn," I muttered. "Predator shouldn't be too far off then."

Someone decided that things had been too quiet for the last few hours because the moment I finished that sentence a massive firefight erupted not thirty meters away. All three of us ducked until we realized that we weren't being fired upon. I silently gestured for Mata and Serge to spread out and make contact with the shooters. As we closed in on the firefight I silently hoped that we were on the side of the enemy, if that turned out to be the situation we would smash them from both sides and finish this war game in time for dinner.

My hopes weren't for nothing and a mere five minutes later this whole charade was over.

"Five of us left," Mata muttered, pointing at Marv and Preacher over some trees. "Could have better odds."

"Agreed," I nodded. "Marv, where's Pavel?"

"Over here," he said, pointing at the ground. "He got hit just as you finished up. Thanks for that, by the way."

"Your performance reflects upon me," I said simply. "He unconscious?"

"Not yet."

I walked towards Pavel and kicked him softly in the waist. "What's up?"

"Ha-ha," he mumbled, his eyelids drooping.

"Twenty-five, fifty-two, eh?" I asked him.

"Good year," he mumbled, sounding like a boxer that had seen one too many fights.

"This is going to be a good year," I said, but Pavel was already unconscious.

Thanks for reading this chapter.

It was slightly shorter than usual, but that's only because after this you're going to get a healthy does of Reach. Important shit is going down.

Stay strong.

-casquis