Chapter CCXIV: Inhale

October 2, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/one week later

Mexico City, URNA, Earth, Sol System

"Take a deep breath…"

The city outskirts were as ugly as I remembered. As the cities of Pachuca, Puebla, and Queretaro had slowly become engulfed by Mexico City, there had been various different areas that you could consider downtown, but that space in between cities that hadn't once been suburbs was now a bunch of building blocks arranged in different ways. You'd get a pyramidal arrangement here and a kilometer later it would be the outline of a cube followed by a more traditional skyscraper before becoming a slum and then switching back. It was interesting to watch if nothing else.

"So this is where you lived, huh?" Pavel asked. "Why'd you make me come here, again?"

"I didn't make you come here," I reminded him. "You said that you wanted to come here, get a nice breath of polluted air."

He inhaled. "Not even that polluted. Technology keeps it cleaner than it was back in Paris IV."

"Gotta agree with you there. Any news?"

"No. Well, other than the fact that their ship left the system there's no new development. At least they are alive and well. I just want to see them again."

"I want to see Katie too," I said, squeezing his shoulder. "But we have to settle for knowing that they are alive."

Pavel leaned back on his plastic chair and sighed. The chair creaked a little bit at his weight, but it held. The place we were eating could hardly be called a restaurant, with a small kitchen and three tables indoors. Pavel and I were sitting on one of the two tables in the sidewalk while the lone waiter sat inside watching a soccer game while glancing at us to see if we needed him.

So far our table was full of empty plates. This place specialized in tortas, which is basically a massive sandwich with as many ingredients crammed into it as possible. If you wanted to die of a heart attack, you could have it deep-fried or even marinated. We had both started with the house special, which was breaded steak, beans, string cheese, tomato, lettuce, and Chihuahua cheese. It wasn't particularly heavy, which is no doubt one of the reasons why it was so popular. Then we both asked for a second torta and then a third. I'm not going to lie, they were damn good.

"So how are you dealing?" he asked.

"With?"

"Mommy dearest."

"What's done is done," I told him. "It's in the past. Hopefully it'll give me some closure."

Pavel sighed and groaned much like his chair had a minute ago. "Frank, you've never had closure for anything in your life. Whatever you call mourning, it goes from anger, to melancholy, to self-blame, but it never quite makes it to closure. You seal it in and then get a tattoo."

"It works for me," I said.

"I'm just worried man, one day it'll all want to come out and it won't be pretty."

"Well, hopefully I'll be dead by then. Way things are going, I probably will."

"We'll all be dead soon," Pavel admitted. "Hopefully not too soon."

I took a sip of my drink. "Remember when I told you this was going to be a good year?"

He smiled and nodded, raising his own beer in reply.

"And for a few months I was almost right."

"Near miss is still a miss, Marine."

"Easy there cowboy," I laughed. "You sound like my instructor. I don't like being in the same system as that son of a bitch."

"Want to pay a visit?" he asked. "I know I want to tell the 105th DJP instructors that they fucking suck."

"I don't think it's their fault you got overwhelmed."

"I know. I just think they're assholes."

"If you don't think that then they didn't do their job right," I said.

"What's with the tattoo anyways?" he asked. "Some things I can get the meaning of, the rest, seems like you just made shit up."

"Not everything has to have a meaning," I said. "Some things don't."

I looked down at my left arm. Beto had added a thin scroll that went around my forearm in between the three tattoos on the inside and over the knife. It had been a nice touch, especially because it provided the opportunity to write some badass shit in it. The Latin no longer gave me a nerd boner like it had back in the day, but it still had a certain degree of dignity to it. Despite that, the scroll didn't have only Latin in it.

"Brothers in arms are brothers for life," Pavel said, reading along my arm. "True enough."

I flipped my arm around.

"Hey Scarecrow," Pavel said. "Almers, Hanna… Exoriare aliquis nostris ex ossibus ultor."

"Let an avenger be born from my ashes," I translated for the second time. "Pretty badass huh."

I had let Beto write that phrase there because it was amongst my fallen comrades. It was from their ashes that the avenger rose, pardon my poeticism. I intended to be that avenger and I think that I had succeeded more often than not, but it would serve as a reminder of one of the reasons I fought.

"And the Spanish?" he asked. "You didn't translate that one."

I looked at my bicep and rolled up my sleeve a little. Separating the reaper from the ram were two different phrases. One of them was in the front, on the top of the bicep. It was originally a quote by Roman general Pompey Magnus. It was a curious quote, mostly because it inverted what all those life coaches told you.

"It's not about living, but about winning," I said. "Roughly translated."

Pavel snorted. "That's our life right there. That quote I like."

On the opposite side, separating the outside of my upper arm from the inside was another separate tattoo. It wasn't a quote in itself, instead it was just four letters. ODST. I hadn't been able to resist. I already had those letters on my right arm, but being a Helljumper isn't exactly something you hide about yourself. You wear it with pride and rightly so.

"And the rest?" he asked, pointing at the two Legendary symbols in my arm. "What's with the grid?"

One of the symbols was on the outside and the other on the inside of the arm, but Beto had suggested something to fill in the space. He had gone for a grid design, using hexagons that were each the size of a quarter. He had filled in those hexagons with what he called stacked cubes and shaded them appropriately to give them a tri-dimensional look. It was pretty good and went from the bottom of the reaper and the ram to the top of the knife and the corpsman insignia, about as wide as my hand. It had hurt a bit when he tattooed my elbow, but nothing I couldn't handle. The only space that had been left blank had been the sides of my forearm in between the knife and the inside of my forearm. The scroll went around two times, occupying most of that space. Beto had suggested a few ideas to fill in those four small areas. I had come up with two ideas that I liked. The top spaces were now filled with the formula for Titanium-A on the left side of the knife and Colonial Cross on the right. Titanium-A had saved my life a million times and a million times again, the Colonial Cross was the highest award that could be issued to anybody and I had earned it.

"You're too much, Frank," Pavel said. "Too much."

"That might be," I admitted. "How are your folks?"

"Angry that I never visited. Still, we kept in contact and they were happy to see me. I'm a bit mad that my dad is still taller than me."

"I'd like to meet the man," I said. "And also the woman that managed to push those shoulders through her vagina."

Pavel shook his head, disgusted. "You're disgusting."

I laughed and waved the waiter over, telling him that we were done.

"We've got another week of leave," I said. "They just told me that at Segundo Terra, so why not enjoy it? Take a vacation or something."

"I don't know… I've been catching up with friends and family."

I sighed.

Pavel laughed. "You're welcome to come, man. They'd love you. So long as they don't get to know you too well."

I smiled and laughed. I had never been to Poland before.

Poland was ok, I guess. People tended to picture sloping green hills. That or cavalry charges against tanks. It had been half a millennia since that event and the world would still not let the Poles get over it. I didn't mind Poland, from what little I saw, it was a lot nicer than Mexico City, namely because not everything consisted of various shades of grey and instead you could actually spot grass here and there. Truth be told, the air seemed a lot cleaner in here.

"Think your folks are going to like me?" I asked Pavel, clinging to his arm and running my fingers through his chest.

"Get off me!" he said, shoving me to the side. "Weirdo."

I smiled and then chuckled a little bit. "I'm just excited about this, feels like a big step in our relationship."

Pavel turned his head to look at me. "Frank, we've seen each other naked and had sex with the same woman."

"Not at the same time," I cleared up. "Plus, that was a long time ago."

"She was really good, wasn't she?" he asked after a pause.

"Oh yeah," I agreed. "A real animal."

So far my experience in Europe had been a relatively good one, but I had only been in one country of the Union so far. Might be interesting to visit the Balkan States now that they had finally allowed themselves to stop fighting over bullshit, but knowing the recent history they'd probably explode into high-intensity warfare within a few years. France wasn't a good place to visit right now either, the civil unrest coupled with the incredibly brutal policies that their army had when dealing with enemies meant that being killed in a riot wasn't extremely hard to picture.

"Did Poland sign that no army protocol?" I asked Pavel.

"Nope," he said. "I think that was only some South East Asian countries, none of them ratified it though."

It made sense. All nations were unified under the UEG banner, which meant that the UNSC was supposed to be the one providing their armed forces, but the countries were still countries and had their own small-scale national interests regarding the planet Earth. Conflicts over colonies were nonexistent, but start talking about a few square miles and shit gets serious. Pretty much every country had a small standing army. In paper they were supposed to be something like police forces, but for all intents and purposes they were an individual armed forces. I feared that all of them would be forced to fight under UNSC command against Covenant forces pretty soon.

"Have you heard anything from the rest of the team?" I asked.

"Not since yesterday. They all checked in where they had to and when they had to, but the extra days of leave mean that they'll be doing their own thing until we have to check in again."

"Run me through their whereabouts again," I said.

Pavel took a deep breath. "Grigori last reported in Cairo. Miranda and Snark in Istanbul. Longworth and Stapleton both checked in in Camp Pendleton and Dotsenko was in Kamchatka. Lady signed her name in St. Petersburg."

"How's Crow doing?" I asked. "Is his face bearable again?"

Pavel sighed and shrugged. "I talked to Longworth, but seems like most of the grafting is done. His face still looks like a truck ran over it, but it looks like a face at least. Next round of surgeries should be in two weeks or so."

"Funny how not a lot of guys are spending their leave together," I pointed out. "Hell, Cam is not even with us right now."

"Well, she does want to see her family," Pavel excused. "And I hear Scandinavia is lovely this time of the year."

"So is Scotland," I said.

"Are you going to visit Rob's family?" he asked.

I nodded. "I was planning on it. Not exactly excited about it, but I think that they'd appreciate it. Why do you ask?"

"Bee was my friend too, I think I'd like to pay Mr. and Mrs. Agnarsson a visit."

"You're welcome to come," I said. "I was planning on traveling there tomorrow, maybe stop by Paris and see if it's as great as they say."

"I don't think being in France right now is a good idea," Pavel murmured. "Maybe Spain? At least you speak the language there."

I shrugged. "We'll see what happens."

Pavel stopped and parked near a four story house. It seemed like a nice enough place, brick walls and tall windows with a large green wooden door. We weren't exactly in downtown Warsaw, but we were near enough to the main body of the city that the apartment seemed a bit picturesque. Sure, it was a lot larger than the other more conventional houses on either side of it, but very old-fashioned if you ask me. I shrugged to myself and walked out of the car, letting Pavel in front of me as he opened the door.

"W sam raz," an old voice said.

"Mama, Tata. Przyniosłem znajomych. English please."

"Hello!" Mrs. Klaus said as soon as she saw me. "You must be Francisco."

"Frank," I said with a smile. "Pavel never talks about you, Mrs. Klaus."

That got me a soft punch to the ribs from my best friend. I chuckled and shook Mrs. Klaus' hand. She looked a lot like Pavel, except her features were softer. She was a tall woman, about 5'9 or somewhere along those lines. She was a tad bit overweight, but not enough to be noticeable. Her eyes and hair were exactly like Pavel's, bright blue and light blonde respectively.

"I've heard a lot about you," she said.

"All good things, I hope," I replied, making a worried face.

"Mostly," she said. "Here, let me introduce you to my husband. Kochanie?"

Mr. Klaus was a veritable giant. He was as tall as Pavel, but his shoulders were even wider than my friend's were. Pavel's dad looked even larger than my friend because in his old age he had acquired some extra meat around the chest and belly, making him look like a bouncer or something, but the man had an impressive physique.

"Mr. Klaus," I said, shaking his hand firmly. "I see where Pavel gets those shoulders of his from."

"Call me Jakub," he said with a broad grin. "So you're Frank, eh? How many times have you saved my son's life?"

"At least the same number that he has saved mine," I replied. "What would that be?"

"A couple dozen?" Pavel replied with a shrug.

"Ha!" Jakub exclaimed before hugging me, trapping my arms against my body. "Any man that saves my son is family. Sit down, sit down, we were just about to eat."

I laughed and struggled to get some air into my lungs before he put me down. He might've been in his early sixties, but the man was built like a slab of metal.

I slapped his upper arm in thanks for the gesture and then moved towards the table, where a chuckling Mrs. Klaus shook her head and an embarrassed Pavel rolled his eyes.

They were a nice family, no wonder Pavel could go through what I had gone and come out without any emotional scarring.

"That's what a good upbringing will do for you," Schitzo said.

October 4, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/

Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom, Earth, Sol System

I had never imagined that Rob's family would be so large. We rarely talked about our family in Reaper and the situation had been the same in AAG-7. I knew that he loved his home in Scotland, but that was about all I knew about it. I had known the man for a very long time and would like to think that he thought of me as family, but his own personal life on Earth was something that I barely knew about. He knew how my parents had died, but that was about it. He also knew my uncle died in Jericho-VII, but again, that was basically all he knew about my life before Reaper.

Sitting in the living room of Mr. and Mrs. Agnarsson's house were some twenty relatives of Robert. Most of them were not immediate family of course, but there were a few that looked enough like him that I could tell they were at least siblings.

Bunch of redheads here too. A few of Bee's cousins or aunts were very attractive too.

I mentally cleared my throat before redirecting my attention to Bee's mother.

"So you were my son's commander?"

"For most of his career, yes," I said with a small nod. "I don't know if he told you, but we actually came across each other a long time before, in New Constantinople."

"That was his first deployment," Rob's father told me. "We were so scared when we heard that he had seen combat."

"Intensive combat too," I added. "Your son distinguished himself. In fact, a few years later I was asked to put together a team, I requested your son for it."

It was a small lie. Bee bad been one of the several names put into the file but someone other than me, but the moment I recognized him he made it into the team.

"He was always good at fighting," one of his relatives said. A cousin, by the looks of it.

"One of the best," I conceded. "He was like a brother to me."

Rob's mom smiled a little bit. "Funny, by the way you treated him he thought you hated him."

I smiled back. "I'm not a nice man, ma'am, but trust me when I say when I loved your son."

"It would take either family or a dumb man to love him," his dad said.

"Well, fortunately for him I am both."

There was polite chuckling from the family.

"Pavel wanted to be here," I went on, "but his mom was in an accident so he stayed with her."

"Pavel is… Gunny, correct?"

"That's right," I confirmed. "Did Rob talk about us a lot?"

"He left a lot of messages," another of the Agnarsson's said. "Usually directed to the whole family and usually complaining about one thing or other, but he did talk about Reaper and Jaguar Company."

"He was a good man," I said. "He didn't talk about his family a lot though."

"I'm not surprised," Mrs. Agnarsson said. "He often complained about how there were so many of us that he would never be the best at anything."

"Well, I'll be damned if he wasn't the best heavy weapons specialist I ever served with. In times like these, we could use more men like him. He got my team and me out of rough situations more than one time."

After that I got several different questions from most members of the family. A few wanted to know how he behaved, if he was still the same guy that they had known before he left for his first deployment. Some others wanted to know random things about him, but it was clear that despite Bee's constant messages back home, none of the guys here knew him very well.

"Did he still watch those old movies?"

I smiled. "Oh, that he did. He watched old movies and listened to old music. I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, but it caught on in the squad. We had movie nights were he would pick what we would watch and it wasn't strange for him to pick the soundtrack for our missions."

His siblings smiled and shook their heads. That was a trait that they clearly remembered and no doubt had annoyed them in their younger years.

"Lieutenant, may I ask how my son died?" Mrs. Agnarsson asked. The room went quiet and her husband gripped her hand tightly.

"We were in Esztergom," I said. "The city had seen a rough couple of days and our line had been pushed back almost out of the city. Command decided to give our team an assassination mission, put a large number of tanks and armored vehicles with us. Our push went a little bit too well and soon enough our mission had turned into part of a larger offensive to retake the city. We were coming through several blocks that had been flattened to piles of debris and towards some buildings. Rob was driving a Warthog and an elite knocked out his gunner. Natasha." I paused to see if they were all bearing with me. "He jumped out to help her, killing the elite. He picked her up under fire and started dragging her towards the buildings. Pavel met him and they both dragged Natasha, but when they were about to get there an elite marshal jumped down. You've seen the videos, right?"

They all nodded.

"Marshals are the best of the best that the enemy has to offer. They carry swords into battle and have shields that are incredibly hard to break. Your son had killed a few of them. Well, this elite slashed at them with his sword, Rob jumped back, letting go of Natasha and avoiding the cut. Pavel grabbed her and dragged her to safety. We all tried to help your son, but the buildings hadn't been cleared yet and we were under fire. I myself got hit in the chest. Your son bought Pavel just enough time to get himself and Natasha to safety, firing his rifle at the elite at point blank distance before the elite stabbed him."
There were a few seconds of silence.

"Was it painful?" his father asked.

I shook my head. "He was dead before he hit the floor. Mr. and Mrs. Agnarsson, in my line of work people die from horrible ways and often without any chance to fight back or even knowing that the enemy was there. I know it's probably not any consolation, but your son died during one of our most successful offensives in Reach, an offensive that wouldn't have happened without him, and he died saving the life of a teammate."

Mrs. Agnarsson broke down into tears at that point and his dad just looked at me and mouthed a quick thank you before hugging his wife. The rest of the family seemed unsure about what to do before Bee's siblings came over and asked me if I wanted to have a drink. I nodded and went with them to the kitchen, where they made some small talk with me.

"Thanks for doing this," one of them said. "When they got the letter they didn't really know much."

"That was partly my fault," I apologized. "I had to write it in a hurry and sometimes ONI censors some things. I should've been more forthcoming about what happened."

"It's not your fault," another said. "Our brother admired you, you know."

I shook my head. "He shouldn't have. I am good at my job, but that's about all I'm good at."

One of them shrugged. "He admired you nonetheless. It's good to know that you cared for him."

"He was like family to me," I replied with a small shrug. "We went through a lot together."

"Lieutenant, can I ask you something?" his sister asked.

I nodded.

"What is going to happen with this war? We hear rumors, and if Reach fell…"

I sighed. "The war isn't going well," I said in an understatement. "We are losing. We are losing badly. I've given the best I could and still I've been overwhelmed, the UNSC is doing the same, but the Covenant is too strong."

"What should we do?" one of the brothers asked.

"Leave Earth," I said. "Take a year-long vacation. If nothing's happened before then, then it should be relatively safe to come back."

"That bad?" he asked, taking a long swig from his beer.

"That bad," I confirmed.

October 5, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/

Barcelona, Spain, Earth, Sol System

I cracked the knuckles on my right hand with a loud noise and went to crack those on my left before stopping. After my chat with the Agnarssons I realized that there Bee had earned himself a spot on my body. I would not allow another artist that wasn't Beto to add to the sleeve itself, but I had gotten a small something from another artist here in Barcelona. She had drawn an ODST drop pod that went from my knuckles to my wrist and filled it in with yellow and black alternating lines, like a bee. On the right side of the pod stood a SPANKr rocket launcher, on the left stood a Spartan Laser. Bee's weapons of choice.

I cracked the knuckles on my left hand carefully, making sure not to disturb the bandage.

"So long as you don't start getting tattoos on your face, you can do whatever you want," Cam said. "I do think Bee would've liked it though."

"Hope so," I replied, drinking from the beer in the table and looking at the beach. "I don't understand why this nude beach fad isn't more popular."

"No nude beaches on Jericho-VII?" she asked, sipping from her own beer.

"Not that I was aware of," I admitted. "Otherwise I would've spent a lot more time there."

"Did you know that nude beaches first became popular in France?"

"Leave it to the French," I said, letting my eyes linger on a middle aged woman with a very firm body. There was something about nudity in this situation that took most of the eroticism from it, but that's not to say that I didn't enjoy looking at naked beautiful women.

"Men," Camilla snorted.

I smiled and shrugged lightly. "Nice place. Glad I came here."

"Another month later and we'd be wearing jackets," she said. "Or at least long sleeves. No nude ladies down on the beach, that's for sure."

"We wouldn't want that," I admitted. "What time is it?"

"Still early," she replied. "Why, are you getting hungry?"

"A little bit," I said. "But I feel like we've been waiting for a while now."

"We were both early. And trust me, you'll love this place."

"If you say so."

It didn't take much longer for Snark and Pavel to get here. Cam had offered Grigori an invitation, but he had politely declined, citing errands that he needed to run. It took a moment to hit, but by the time Snark sat down we had all that was left of Reaper Squad in the same table.

Scarecrow had been the first to go, then Angel went AWOL, and now Bee was gone too. There were four of us in this table, half of what we had started out with. Grigori was still alive and well, but it was easy to forget that he was also part of the team, especially in times like these, where we weren't in combat.

"Nice place," Snark noted. "Some of those ladies down there must be feeling a bit chilly."

Pavel shook his head and chuckled.

"How's your mom?" I asked.

"Embarrassed still," he admitted. "It's not often that you break your arm in four places by tripping down the curb. At least she's being a good sport about it, once the pain was gone Dad really started laughing at her clumsiness."

"Four places?" Snark asked. "That's actually really impressive."

"How was Istanbul, by the way?" Cam asked. "I've heard great things about it."

"I didn't know whether to call it Byzantium, Constantinople, or Lygos."

"Surprised you didn't mention New Rome," Cam said, waving over the waiter. "We'll have–"

"Three of everything in the tapas menu," I cut her off in Spanish. "And some wine, I'll leave that to your better judgment."

"En seguida, caballero," the waiter replied in that Spanish accented Spanish. It wasn't very often that I heard the Spaniards' way of speaking the language. It always made me want to smile. It seemed slightly ridiculous and a little bit pretentious. Kind of like British English would appear to Americans I presume.

"What are we getting?" Pavel asked.

"Tapas," I said. "A bit of everything."

"Did you know-"

"Yes, I do," I interrupted Cam for a second time.

"But they don't," she shot back. "Did you know that tapas are called that way because back in the day when patrons would come to restaurants to drink wine the glasses would be covered with a flat bread in order to keep flies from landing on it? Cooks began adding to the flat breads in order to get more costumers and eventually the tapas became even more important than the wine itself."

"What does tapas mean?" Snark asked.

"Lid," I said. "Top, covering, the thing you cover something else with. Cap, lid."

"Thanks," he said.

The waiter needed some help when he brought the tray, I told him to set all the dishes in the middle of the table and then listened to the obligatory explanation regarding the wine. I wasn't one to dine on fancy places, but on the strange occasion when my uncle had taken me or when I had wanted to impress a girl enough that I would spend some serious money on her I made sure to know how to behave. Wine wasn't my thing, when I drank alcohol I wanted to get shitfaced and wine gave a horrible hangover. However, I had to admit that sometimes those pretentious douche bags had it right. The wine did bring out the flavor of the meal.

"Someone shoot him," Schitzo grumbled.

"Take a pick and eat," I said. "We can do seconds later."

Everybody seemed to enjoy the meal. If the check was any indication of course. Cam had heard of this place through someone or other, but I was quite satisfied with her choice. By the time we were done the sun had long since disappeared and the beach was pretty much empty except for some youngsters that were ten times as drunk as we were. We split the check in equal parts before slowly standing up. A lot of young people were walking through the boardwalk and I found myself walking slowly, listening to the ocean. It reminded me of Jericho-VII. I got the urge to strip into my underwear and swim in the sea for a while. Unfortunately for the ladies present here, I opted against it.

"Well, I've got an early flight tomorrow," Cam said, stretching her hands behind her.

"Where were you going again?" I asked her.

"Cairo," she replied. "Station. Just for a couple of days."

"That's what you get when you're a spook," I told her. "Constant debriefings."

"Yeah," she said. "I'll stay in touch."

"What about you Pavs? Going back to Poland?"

He nodded. "Gotta catch up. What about you?"

"I've got nothing going on," I said. "Maybe go back to Mexico, see if a tour helps out."

"Tour of the country?" Camilla asked.

"Of the city," I replied. "Important places in my past, revisiting everything. Not sure to be honest. I'll come up with something by tomorrow."

October 20, 2552 (UNSC Calendar)/two weeks later

Mexico City, URNA, Earth, Sol System

"Pavel, it's too early," I grunted. "It's not even- It's just past midnight, what the fuck?"

"This one's worth it," he assured me. "They woke me up for this too."

"Not at midnight," I grunted. "What is it?"

"The ship that they're on just jumped into the system."

"Katie?" I asked.

"And Amber and Lavanya," he added eagerly.

"That's great!" I exclaimed, jumping up from my bed. I haven't gotten laid in a month.

"I know!" he shouted back. "They should get here within a few hours!"

"Finally," I grunted. "It took them long enough. Do you know where they're making landfall?"

"Not sure, probably in one of the refugee camps in Central Africa," he replied. "I'll get more details later, but for now we-"

"Pavel? Pavel, you there? Pavel?"

"Lieutenant Castillo, do you copy?"

"Flatt?" I asked. "Captain, what the hell?"

"Bad news Castillo," she said.

"How the hell did you patch into my call?"

"It looks like the Covenant have found us."

"What?" I asked.

"It looks like the Covenant have found us."

"Shit."

"Agreed," she said. "I'm contacting all your men, we're meeting up in New Mombasa."

"Why there?" I asked. "Italy makes more sense."

"Most bases are already beginning to flood with troops, there are not enough Pelicans to get contingents into orbit. HIGHCOM is trying their best to get troop complements into the ODPs and Army is already mobilizing. Some of the standing national armies have already begun cooperating with the UNSC."

"What's our role here?" I asked her.

"Your unit and some S-III squads are being moved to cruisers and destroyers. We don't expect you to be needed, but if we happen to need a rapid reaction force somewhere on Earth we'll have you and several ODST battalions ready."

"Why Mombasa?" I asked again.

"That's the closest orbital elevator to the Covenant's predicted approach. You're asking too many stupid questions Frank."

"Sorry," I apologized. "I'll get my things."

"Hurry up Frank," she said. "Your men will be there to meet you when you get there."

"What are you?" I asked the three teenagers. "Fourteen, fifteen tops?"

"It's classified," the leader replied.

I chuckled and leaned back on the Pelican, stretching my arms to either side and cracking my neck. "You guys look different without your armor on, you know that? Gammas I take it, otherwise you'd be older?"
I didn't really have to have this conversation with them, but for some reason I liked to display my knowledge of classified matters as often as possible. It gave me a small degree of satisfaction. The three Spartan-IIIs looked at each other before the leader turned towards me and gave me a curt nod.

"I worked closely with Falcata during Reach," I said. "Good team."

"You knew them?"

I nodded. "Professionally I guess."

"We stopped hearing from them after that business in Aszod."

"They made it out," I said. "They were on the same ship I was. The Obsidian. Well, at least most of them were there. Jonah was MIA before we took off."

They all nodded almost in unison.

I sighed and leaned back against the seat. The pilot had given us an ETA of ten minutes and I had already put on most of my armor, leaving the chest piece and helmet for last. I rolled my neck and shot the unarmored Spartans another look before turning my attention to the rear hatch. The pilot had opened it as we began to slow down. I could see the outskirts of Mombasa as well as the old city in the mainland. We were headed almost straight towards the orbital elevator, but I couldn't tell from this angle. As the pilot gave a warning we all stood up and waited for the craft to land.

"Frank," Pavel greeted me with a grunt. "Good to see you."

"Likewise," I replied. "Everybody here?"

"Snark was the last to get here, but he beat you by a few minutes. "Cam is geared up and ready to go with us."

"That makes ten," I noted with a smile. "Good. Nice round number."

"Yeah. By the way, you should've seen Lady when she got here. She was wearing an evening gown."

I raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Only Crow and I got to see it."

I chuckled with him. "Should've taken a picture. Anyways, we're headed up, a destroyer will pick us up there and we'll be a backup rapid reaction force."

He nodded. "Captain Flatt briefed me. We're last in line, HIGHCOM wants the Spartan-III units up in orbit first."
I shrugged. "Whatever makes them feel better."

Raid sirens started blaring loudly just as I opened my mouth to begin speaking to my men.

"The hell?" Crow muttered.

The first thing I noted was that his reconstructive surgeries were still not finished, but he looked pretty well compared to how he had last time I saw him. The second thing I noticed was that the alarms that were blaring weren't exclusively military ones, they were also ringing throughout the city. Not a good sign.

"Grass?" I asked, drawing a small shrug.

I put on my helmet and tried contacting Captain Flatt as soon as possible. I would've made contact with another officer closer to me, but I still wasn't strictly sure where I fell in the chain of command.

"Captain, you copy?"

"Give me a moment, Lieutenant," her voice snapped. "Hold… Ok, bad news. An assault carrier broke through the ODP network."

"What's that mean for us?"

"For starters, you're staying groundside, it's headed for Mombasa."

"Fucking hell."

There was a short silence as Flatt processed everything and presumably worked furiously on a datapad or a terminal. "Ok, situation is bad, but it could be worse. The city is defended by the 17th Marine Regiment as well as the 12th and 13th Rifle Battalions, those last two are Army."

That was less than 8,000 troops total. Not a good look, especially considering the fact that the Covenant ship that had gotten through was a fucking assault carrier.

"What about NMPD?"

"They might enter the fray," she said. "It's too soon to tell. They're going to have their hands full with the civilians."

"Where do we fit?" I asked.

"You're going to fall under Colonel Omondi, of the 17th, he'll be giving you orders from now on."

"Roger that, ma'am," I replied.

"Patching you through," she said.

"Colonel?" I asked.

"Pleasure, El-tee," a gruff voice replied. "I'm sending a Pelican your way. Captain Flatt tells me you're the best there is, so you won't have any problem being in the thick of it."

"I wouldn't have it any other way, sir."

"Good, you're on standby for now, you'll get further objectives as the situation develops."

"Yes, sir."

The screaming began in earnest once the assault carrier got close enough that we could see it with the naked eye. It wasn't too hard, the thing was five kilometers of death and plasma. The ship slowed itself down and then hovered almost directly overhead, occupying the northern end of New Mombasa. I could see it shoot out individual pods as well as dropships almost immediately.

"Here we go," Schitzo sighed sadly.

Thanks to Colonel-Commissar2468 and General TheDyingTitan for proofreading this chapter. Small side note, in last chapter I made a joke about Colonel-Commissar2468 not delivering the proofread chapter, which he actually did. For some reason I didn't get it (whether I deleted it by accident or something on his end), but the did in fact proofread it and believed he sent it, so it wasn't his fault at all. Just putting that out there.

Snowboarding was fun, if anyone cares. Other than that I've had a weird week, some good stuff for the most part but a bit tiring. coming back from spring break was a tough one, but it's good to see my friends again. It is also good to see you guys again, you're looking good, but the light from your computers makes your skin look pasty, you should have that checked up by a doctor. Or go to my good homeland of Mexico for a nice little tan. At least those of you that are from the United States. Everyone else can do that too, but I'm not sure how your spring break equivalent works. In Mexico we had two weeks of vacation, since everybody is Catholic we would have Easter Week and Holy week, which was pretty fucking cool. My friends are going on vacation in a few weeks I think. Good for them. Assholes.

Chapter-wise, it was once again a series of vignettes to move along the time. While nothing really important happened here, I did do some things that I feel like Frank would do. Namely go to Bee's family and get a tattoo especially dedicated to hi (props to Mike for reminding me). I also had a small Reaper reunion, no biggie, but it shows that they are more than just coworkers. They are friends. They actually tolerate each other enough to split the check on a meal. An expensive meal mind you. Spanish food is amazing, but more often than not those tapas restaurants will drain your money like nobody's business.

It was a short chapter, for that I apologize. The best is yet to come. Earth is the last bastion of human power, but we all know that the important stuff doesn't happen in our little blue dot. The fic might be coming to an end, but it is going to end with a bang.

Stay strong.

-casquis