Location: Celestina's office, Starwave Base
Chicago, Illinois, Earth
October 7th, 2552
2:13pm
"Come on! Talk to me! I'm bored! Celestinaaaaa, I know you can hear me. Stop trying to pretend that I'm not here. I am here, little kitten, and I'm not going anywhere. Hey. Earth to baby girl. You're breakin' my heart."
"It's not real. It's not there. It can't hurt you because it's not real. Nothing it's saying is true because it's not real..."
"... What's that, baby girl? You wanna say that a little louder for your precious little psycho, as you loved to call me?"
Celestina was on her leather sofa, putting all her focus into her datapad, wanting to plan tomorrow's sniper rifle training. However, it was proving to be a great challenge at the moment due to the major distraction sitting behind her desk, yelling at her.
"I'm not going to leave you alone, baby girl, until you answer me."
"SO IF I ACKNOWLEDGED YOU, YOU'LL LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE?!" And her datapad landed on the other side of the sofa as she got up.
"Emile" was taken aback at that outburst, almost falling out of Celestina's chair. "Woke up on the wrong side of the bed? Damn..."
"You're not Emile. Just go away!" She turned her back on him and folded her arms across her chest.
"What if I don't want to go away?" She heard him get up from the chair. "Come on, baby girl. Be honest. You don't actually want me to go, do you?" He questioned in a playful yet so cruel manner. "You miss me. You miss me so damn much. You want to tell me how much I meant to you, looking out for you like a bigger brother. But you can't."
Celestina shut her eyes tightly, her head slowly hanging.
"You had many chances. You could've told me at any time. But you can't now."
She was almost shaking with anger and regret, and he could see it. Although it didn't matter to him.
"Deal with it."
With much swiftness, Celestina drew her sidearm from its holster that was attached to her right hip. She spun around with it tightly in her grip and it was aimed at Emile, who was now standing right behind her. The gun was merely inches away from the center of his forehead.
And he was not to be intimidated. "Whoa now, baby girl-"
"Stop... calling me that..." Tears were threatening to fall from her eyes at this point. "You don't get to call me that. Only Emile gets to call me that! You're not Emile so shut the HELL up!"
Emile used to have this smirk that he'd give to his enemies before ending their lives. Now he was giving her that exact same one. He used one hand to lower her hand. "Calm down. You'll be on your way to the crazy ward if you start shooting at something that's not there."
He... He's right... It's not real, so it's not there. Control yourself, Celest. She lowered her hand completely and turned her head away.
"Go get some help or something okay, baby girl?" That one almost sounded sincere. She still refused to look at him, even as he walked past her.
When she knew he was no longer standing in front of her, she looked up and then looked around. She was all alone in her office, with her magnum in hand and yelling at nothing like a lunatic. I've dealt with this before. I beat it and kept myself from losing my mind.
But how long more? I'm trying so hard. They just keep on coming...
Location: AMBER Base
Beaumontia, Epsilon Eridani system
January 6th, 2549
8:41pm
"Times like this, I wish we were in our armor! HOW did the Covenant find us?!" Celestina then shouted a little louder, "Come on, you guys! Move it!"
"One problem at a time, Celest," Rhonda glanced through the scope of her sniper rifle. "I've got eyes on two more phantoms."
"Two? SHIT."
That made it the fourth phantom guess far. The first two dropped its garrison a good distance away from AMBER base and used its plasma cannons to destroy the fences surrounding the base, just enough for the Covenant to enter and start killing. Celestina and Rhonda had been escorting the base's technicians to the pelicans so that they could escape.
The girls were worried about the two phantoms - whether it would play a part in the escape of the pelicans. And the base turrents were getting demolished by the second.
"Celest, I'm going to get a rocket launcher and try to take that phantom out. I need you to stay here and make sure the rest of these people get into the vehicles and leave!"
"The turrets will get them! You'r-"
"That's an order, Celest, and those turrets can't last forever! I'll be fine really!" Rhonda hurriedly handed her sniper rifle over to the Lieutenant and headed for the nearest base entrance.
"IF YOU DIE, I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU, RHON!"
"GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!" Despite the situation, Rhonda still delivered that line with humor.
Celestina had no idea that her sentence didn't make sense.
"Get these Pelicans moving! Go, go, go!" Celestina screamed over the gunfire. Bullets and plasma were flying everywhere. Shadow Four struggled to keep the Pelicans safe from ground forces while Banshees were giving her trouble from above. That was when the sniper rifle that Rhonda left her proved to be a huge help.
The last pelican finally took off, leaving Celestina to finally breathe a little... until that Pelican exploded in mid-air.
Celestina hit the dirt, dropping the rifle. "No!" On her knees, she turned her head to see the burning pieces of the pelican. "No, no, no!"
Another phantom. And it was facing in her direction.
That was when two shots from a Rocket Launcher landed on it. Rhonda was doing her part, and the Covenant aircraft was in slight disarray.
Celestina waited for more shots, but they never came. "Come on, Rhon... Could use a little bit of help here..."
By then, the Phantom had regained control and sent bolts from its plasma cannons to Celestina's direction. She made tracks for the interior, barely grazed by the shots. She had already received a nasty slice on her upper left arm from an energy sword wielded by an Elite on the ground. No way she was getting any more burns.
Now to find Rhonda.
Celestina hastened to meet her at the rooftop, where she had been firing that rocket launcher at phantoms. For some reason, she stopped and Celestina needed to find out why.
Bursting through the door leading to the rooftops, she got her answer: Rhonda, armed with a lone combat knife, was engaged in combat with two energy sword-wielding Elites.
"HEY!"
It worked: the two Elites had become distracted by Celestina's fearless cry, giving Rhonda the chance to stab one of the two Elites in the back. In retaliation, the other grabbed Rhonda and tossed her to the ground.
Celestina, armed with both her combat knives, targeted the already-wounded Elite. It had dropped its energy sword out of pain so when she came up to it, it tried its hardest to fight back with its fist, while at the same time fighting the intense pain in its back. When it missed its punch, she reached up and stabbed it under its jaw.
It was then that Celestina picked up a shrill cry - Rhonda had been impaled by the second Elite's energy sword from the front.
"NO!"
The Elite used its huge foot to push Rhonda off its blade and then taunt Celestina with a mighty roar. It headed towards her, sword raised and that was when she threw one of her combat knives at it and it caught it in the center of its chest, completely breaking through the shields.
Celestina was not done; she jumped onto top of the Elite and used her other knife to repeatedly stab it in the face until it was no longer moving.
Celestina finally came to her senses and stopped herself. The knife slipped through her hand and landed on the ground next to the Elite's face. She crawled over to her Lieutenant Commander, tears already forming in her eyes. "Rhonda!"
Rhonda's back was on the ground; she was facing the star-studded sky with a distraught look on her face. Blood was trailing down from her mouth as her hands struggled to cover the wounds on her chest and abdomen.
"Rhonda, hey! Hey!" Celestina cupped her cheeks. "Look at me! Look at me!" And she did, though she appeared as if she was trying to say something. "You just keep your eyes on me, okay? Keep them on me! I'm right here. I'm right here, sister. That's what I am, right? Your sister? Well I'm not going anywhere. You just hang in there, help is on the way for you!"
Rhonda was losing blood by the second but Celestina did not want to admit it. She did not want to admit that another one of her friends was going to leave. And when it was under her watch again.
In the midst of coughs, Rhonda only managed to get one word out: "Ryan..."
"You're gonna see him! You're gonna see Ryan again! Once we patch you back up, you'll be good as new!" And her tears began to fall from her hazel eyes one by one. "Heck, because you're that determined, you'll probably get back into fighting mode that quickly that he won't be able to tell that you were hurt! That's how strong you are, Rhon, and it's always so awesome to see! So I need you to be just as strong, oka-"
It then dawned upon Celestina that Rhonda's brown eyes were now staring into nothingness.
"Oh no... No, no! No!"
The gunfire around Celestina sounded distant at this point. "Rhonda, please! You can't! Not you too! Don't do this!" She lowered her head and began to sob heavily.
"I don't want to have to tell Ryan... Please, Rhon..."