The Staff of Charon
1758 Hours CMT

The telltale whoosh! of ordnance loosed from an M41 SPNKr crescendoed until the rocket streaked into the room. It exploded against the blast door that shielded the room's panoramic window to space, the ensuing concussion wave launching them all against the walls. They landed hard on the floor.

Flat on his stomach, Wash groaned. He pushed himself up to all fours. Such a sizable blast in a confined space had made his ears ring. Still, he thought he could make out approaching footfalls and the percussive rat-tat-tat of—

"Everyone, down!" he yelled instinctively, feeling immediately foolish for doing so; everyone but Carolina still laid prone on the deck. Bullets from incoming fire shot through the open hatch, dividing their group in two.

"I think we found that heavy resistance, sir!" Andersmith shouted above the uproar.

"I think they found us," Wash muttered. He swiftly took a knee and sent fire of his own sailing back in the opposite direction before taking cover beside the door. Pressing his back against the paneled wall, he slowly craned his head around the doorframe, trying to determine the numbers they were up against—

Plasma sizzled past his visor. Too close for comfort. He retreated a step.

They were cornered, the trophy room a dead end. The phrase 'fish in a barrel' sprung to mind.

Without warning, a rush of air sounded as another rocket tore through the space between them. This one, though, was sent outbound. Wash's head snapped round to find Carolina beside Doc, her launcher's barrel still smoking. She sent another flying and Wash could hear the screams that accompanied its impact a second later. Cooly, she discarded the spent weapon and reached for another, a detached calm to her as she kept her gaze focused on the corridor outside.

"Right — everyone that can hold a weapon, grab one and start shooting!" Wash yelled. He popped out of cover and sent a volley at the Charon forces, hoping to at least make them think twice about advancing. He went dry. Andersmith stepped up to relieve him on cue.

As he reloaded, Wash observed Sarge stagger to his feet, using his shotgun as a crutch. Lopez was reinstalling his left arm; it was already clutching an alien rifle. Somehow they were holding it together. That was two he could count on, for now, at least.

The others were no-go's. Tucker was as shell-shocked as Doc, Donut remained out cold, and Simmons was still agonizing over an increasingly languid Grif. He needed to get them out of there, now.

Shit. Shit shit shit.

An abrupt pressure wave suddenly lifted debris from the floor, like an artificial wind carrying aloft leaves captured in its eddies. At first Wash feared another rocket had been sent their way. That thought was shattered when he saw the streak of teal bolt past him, straight out through the open hatch faster than any unaugmented human could possibly run.

"Carolina? Carolina! Goddammit!" he yelled uselessly after her. Wash wasn't sure what thoughts or emotions were running through her now, but he was sure the last time she'd used her speed boost without the assistance of an AI it hadn't ended well. "Everyone, cover her!"

Wash fired, kneeling so that Andersmith could shoot over top of him, while Sarge and Lopez manned the opposite side of the open hatch.

Carolina was a blur, her now active adaptive camouflage flickering only when hit. She gamely ignored it. Wash bit back another curse. He drew a bead on the pirate nearest her while the others took aim at those pouring in further down the corridor. Before they could fire, though, they lowered their weapons in astonishment.

Carolina clearly did not need their support. She was tearing through the resistance like tissue paper.

Wash recognized an opportunity when he saw one.

"Okay, we're moving! Everyone out, now!"

Andersmith tossed Donut over his shoulder as though he weighed nothing, while Sarge wrangled Simmons into carrying Grif between them. Wash watched them pass out of the corner of his eye, his sight trained down the scope of his rifle as he provided cover fire. Doc and Tucker withdrew next. Lopez was the last of the sim troopers to exit.

Grateful for the small advance, Wash followed his team through the hatch. His rifle snapped left and right, firing off powerful bursts at any arriving pirate stupid or sloppy enough to present him even the smallest target.

They all bunched at the first intersection. The wounded were already out of breath. Further ahead, Carolina continued to hold the oncoming horde at bay, a flurry of kicks and punches so seamlessly woven with one type of weapons fire then the next that Wash was having just as hard of a time tracking her whirlwind movements as Charon's forces were.

Then he saw her camo blink again and deactivate. She abruptly stopped, as though she'd hit a wall. She tottered uneasily on her feet.

His forehead crinkling in confusion, Wash opened his mouth to inquire.

"Where to, sir?" shouted Andersmith. He still held Donut at the front of the line.

Wash edged past his teammates to see what the lieutenant was getting at. In the distance, more Charon forces ran in their direction. They couldn't go the way they had come. "F.I.L.S.S.?"

"Projecting alternate route onto your HUDs," she announced. "I am afraid this route is longer and will take more time. I recommend that you—"

"Get a move on, yeah," Wash agreed. After grabbing two grenades from a fallen pirate, he attached them to his armor's magnetic holster. The floor was a treasure trove of unspent ammo scattered amongst the bodies. He afforded himself several seconds to resupply the team. "Here," he said, securing a magazine each to Sarge's and Simmons's receptacles. He turned to pluck an assault rifle from the floor, its ammo counter reading full.

"Enemy. Approaching." The sudden voice from the rifle in his hands was tinny, electronic.

Freckles.

"God," Wash realized with sudden dread. "Caboose—"

Rounds clattered against his armor and sent him and the others diving around the corner for cover. The advancing pirates had them within firing range.

"What are your orders, sir?" Andersmith shouted above the cacophony.

Wash risked a glance at the inbound pirates. Too many for his team to blow through. That left retreating into the dead-end trophy room, following F.I.L.S.S.'s recommended route to the Pelican via the corridor to the right, or guessing blindly which possible way Caboose could have disappeared to.

"Sir?"

A moan from an even more feeble Grif painfully reminded Wash of the need to choose, and choose quickly. The injured were hanging on, but they wouldn't last forever. They needed medical attention, ASAP.

But he couldn't just leave Caboose.

Shit. Shit!

"Sir! Your orders!"

Wash saw Sarge tighten his grip on his shotgun, Simmons steadfastly ignore his wound, Tucker persevere as best he could through the pain.

They were strong. Any adversary who hadn't learned that lesson by now was a lucky fool. But they were stronger as a team: that they had proven time and time again. Losing another member of that team was not an option, not while he was still standing.

He just needed them to hang on, for just a little bit longer.

"Andersmith," he instructed, securing Freckles to his back, "see that they get to the Pelican."

To his credit, the towering New faltered for only a second. "Solo, sir…?"

"You can do it. Once you're there, make sure Dr. Grey stabilizes Grif. Then set up a perimeter in the hangar bay. Watch the hatches. Use Jensen to help you. Put a gun in Matthews's hands if you have to."

"But—"

"Hold that position until I get back and do not lose that Pelican! We lose that Pelican and we lose any chance of evac."

Andersmith realized his protests were falling on deaf ears. "Very well, sir."

Sparing a look at Grif, Wash relayed his final order. "Give me 10 minutes. If we're not back by then, get them back planetside. Ten minutes, not a second longer."

"I understand. And sir?"

"What, what is it, what's wrong?"

"When you find Captain Caboose, tell him… tell him I'll radio ahead to get that Kool-Aid in the water fountains."

Wash couldn't help the amused lift of his brow. "I'll be sure to do that." He glanced at the other agent in the corridor. "Carolina, do you think you can anchor here? If this goes like the rest of the day has gone, Caboose and I will be hightailing back. We could use some cover and a clear exit."

With the briefest tilt of her helmet in his direction, Carolina took off down the intersection, the freshly arrived round of pirates toppling like bowling pins. Her barely discernible form zoomed back to their group, stopping only to fire off rounds before she speed-boosted back into the trophy room to collect more ammo.

"I will take that as a yes," Wash decided. "Andersmith," he addressed, nodding down the intersecting corridor, "there's your route. Good luck, LT."

"Same to you, sir."

Wash watched his team limp and stagger in retreat, safely withdrawing through a hatch. He didn't have that option. He set a 10 minute countdown timer in his HUD. A hefty gamble.

He only hoped he hadn't just condemned the entire operation and the lives of his friends to ruin.

The ping! of small arms fire against his forearm bracer refocused him. He took a step further into cover.

"Okay, Caboose, tell me where you went," he voiced under the klaxon of his recharging shield. It wasn't uncommon for Caboose to hide when upset: under Tucker's bed, behind General Doyle's office drapes, in Sarge's footlocker. But there were thousands of places he could hide on a warship.

His sight scanned the immediate area for clues. He didn't know what he expected to find, some bright blue arrow pointing one direction with the words "This Way to Your Teammate" in neon lights—

Oh. Crackers.

Of the many things Wash had seen during firefights, crackers had never been one of them. Still, his heart leapt at the unexpected sight. Caboose always brought oyster crackers wherever he went in case Church ever got hungry. A small cracker for his small friend. Armonia's mess hall consistently had a surplus because no one dared try what was advertised as clam chowder, and Caboose's personal stock always remained untapped because…. Well. Hologram.

Suppressing a miserable laugh, Wash's vision traced the line of crackers as they disappeared across the intersection and down the passage. His earlier misgivings that came with guessing blindly which way Caboose had gone evaporated in an instant. He had his trail of breadcrumbs.

The Freelancer peeked around the corner. He spied the pirates a dozen or so meters beyond. He could make it.

"Carolina, cover on my mark. Three, two—"

Before he had even reached "one," a now unmistakable blur blazed past him. She jumped headlong into the fray, rearmed and redoubtable. Still, her adaptive camo blinked spasmodically like a capricious chameleon. Her speed boost engaged in fits and starts, making her the star of some bizarre, low frame rate stop-motion film. He knew the issue was not with the tech, but with the operator.

He pushed his concern to the back of his mind. One problem at a time. While he wasn't sure he could trust her rationality, he was sure he could trust her tenacity to see her through the next 10 minutes.

With a deep breath, Wash clutched his BR to his chest and darted across the main corridor. He made it mostly unscathed; what damage he did take was minor enough to fully assess later. As he continued down the smaller passageway, feet following the crackers before him, he keyed his radio.

"Caboose, it's Wash. Talk to me." As before, there was no response. The sound of Carolina waging unforgiving war faded behind him until there was nothing but his own footsteps. "It's time to get going. So why don't you tell me where you are and we'll meet up with the others — how's that sound?"

Wash stopped and held his breath, afraid he'd miss a weak reply. He knew Caboose took every opportunity he could get to talk on the radio. He loved it, usually to the chagrin of everyone else on the line. The fact that he wasn't answering now….

He mentally kicked himself for temporarily losing SA on the sim trooper. What the hell had he been thinking?

He forced his legs onward.

"Listen, Caboose, if you're out there…." He eased air out through his nostrils. "Please tell me you're out there." And as desperate as he was sure that sounded, the words that looped in his head were far worse.

Not you, too. Christ, not you, too.

The clock on his HUD ticked down past nine minutes.

Right. There was no time for speculation, not now, not in the middle of an exfil.

"I could really use your help right about now, buddy. As much as I enjoy playing hide and seek in the middle of an ongoing battle, this would go a lot faster if you could…."

The line of crackers abruptly stopped.

"Dammit," Wash breathed. Struggling to remember the layout of a Halberd-class destroyer, he was fairly certain there were few remaining compartments into which his teammate could have fled.

He glanced at his HUD's motion tracker. Its beam pulsed outward from the center triangle that represented himself, but otherwise the scope was clean. He stretched its range to 25 meters. Still, nothing.

"Come on, Caboose, give me some movement…."

Wash stepped over a knee-knocker, through an open bulkhead, and swept around the next corner. He maintained a continuous scan as he advanced: eyes out, rifle sight, motion tracker, eyes out, rifle sight—

His motion tracker flared to life. Movement — slight, but definitely there. A single dot on his tracker, two o'clock, 23 meters. Yellow. A friendly IFF tag.

"Caboose!" Wash announced to no one in particular before taking off in a dead sprint. The motion had settled, the symbol now disappeared, but Wash had already burned the relative location into his brain. He barreled through the tight passageways, he skidded around corners, taking some too fast, bouncing off the opposite walls like a pinball. But he refused to slow.

Estimating he had closed the appropriate distance, Wash kicked in the first door he came to and snapped his rifle to bear. An empty compartment. He kicked the next one down. Empty. Hoping there was some truth to that "third time's a charm" adage, he tensed his leg muscles and lashed out at the next door with an uncharacteristic bellow of frustration.

His boot was halfway to its target when the telltale thud of dropped armor wrenched his BR 90 degrees left.

In its reticle squarely sat a blue soldier.

"Caboose, thank god," Washington soughed with relief. He let his rifle clatter to the deck and dropped to his knees in front of his teammate. As the terror uncoiled itself from around his heart, Wash confessed, "You really had me going there for a second."

If the Blue heard him he didn't acknowledge. He was tucked in the corner against the next bulkhead. He clutched his head firmly and murmured something indistinguishable, rocking rhythmically in time with the thrum.

Wash felt some of his relief tip back toward worry. He crouched to get a better look at his friend's face, hidden beneath brown curls and trembling fingers. "Why is your helmet off? Jesus — are you hurt?"

"No. No no no no…" Wash finally was able to make out.

"Caboose. Caboose, whose blood is this?"

"… no no no no…."

"Let me see."

"No."

"Caboose, let me see—"

"No!" The Blue jerked away from Wash's outstretched hand.

"Caboose, listen to me, we don't have time for this! We have eight minutes before the—"

"Church is gone!" As soon as the scream escaped his throat the sim trooper quieted. He looked up at his team lead, dropping his hands from the sides of his head. "He is gone. Dead. I think… I think it might be for real this time."

"No, you don't know that—"

"I do know that!" Caboose rammed his back once against the bulkhead. Tears, snot, and spittle mixed with the grim and sweat on his face. "I do know that."

He was doing it again, Wash realized, placating his teammates, attempting to spare them a horrendous pain, the cause of which he wished he could somehow undo. The horror, though, they already knew to be true. The pain they were already were feeling.

Caboose shared one thing in common with Carolina: he didn't need the assistance of any Recovery equipment to know his best friend of seven years was gone.

Exhaling heavily, Wash propped his BR against the wall and sat cross-legged in front of his teammate. With a pop-hiss! of the pneumatic seal, he removed his helmet and placed it on the deck beside them. In any other situation he would have felt ridiculous: a half ton of the most advanced armor system ever made, contorted on a destroyer's deck in the middle of an armed conflict like he was in kindergarten. Now he felt only concern.

Caboose was not Tucker. Caboose wouldn't respond to direct orders or ultimatums. The only way to get Caboose to do something was through patience. Satisfied his teammate wasn't injured, Wash gave Caboose the time he needed. He wasn't sure it was time they could afford.

"I tried to find him," came the eventual explanation. "I tried using his favorite crackers."

Wash felt the corner of his mouth tug upward into a wry smile. "I saw that."

"I ran out."

"I saw that, too. It made you really hard to find, bud."

"I know. I didn't want to be found."

"Caboose, don't say that," Wash insisted.

"Why not?" Caboose mumbled down at the floor. "It's true."

"Because we need you. Everyone is waiting for you onboard the Pelican."

"Not everyone."

"No. Not everyone," Wash conceded. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment. "You did a really good job disabling those Mantises and fighting off the bad guys. Now all that's left is to find Hargrove and—"

"I don't care about Hargrove," Caboose grumbled through gritted teeth.

"That's fine, that's okay. You just leave him to Carolina and me. But we can't go after him until you're on that Pelican with the others." Glum silence was Wash's only response. "Listen, Caboose. Grif is hurt, pretty bad. The others aren't in too good a shape, either, but Grif's critical."

Caboose looked up at Wash with large, fearful eyes. "Grif got hurt?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe you could tell me. Any info we can relay to Dr. Grey will help."

Dropping his head, Caboose admitted, "I don't know, either. Didn't see anything."

As he suppressed a natural sense of disappointment, Wash quickly assured, "That's okay. It was pretty dark in there—"

"It's because I ran away."

"Oh."

"I got scared and I ran away." Suddenly jolting as if struck by lightning, Caboose snapped his head up in panic. "Is Grif going to die because of me?"

"No, no, absolutely not," Wash affirmed. "No one is going to die."

"But what about Tucker? I saw him fall and I think he hurt his head and — and then everyone got scared, and I got scared, and so I ran away and I — I—"

"Hey. Hey. Listen to me, Caboose. Tucker's a little beat up but he'll be fine. You know how thickheaded he is," Wash added with a crooked grin, pleased to see it allay the sim trooper, if only a little. "What happened back there wasn't your fault, understand? Everyone gets scared from time to time."

"You don't."

"Sure I do," Wash admitted. "I got scared when I didn't see you with the others. Real scared."

"Because you thought I was gone? Like Church?"

"Yeah," he breathed, preparing to admit aloud for the first time what was already so hard to admit to himself. No more placating. No more explaining away. He took a deep breath. "Gone. Like Church."

There it was. And it hurt. God, it hurt. It hurt far more than he'd been ready for.

"I just…" Caboose reasoned aloud. "I don't get it, Wash. I know I am not smart. I know I don't understand a lot of things. But Church was smart. So why did he have to go away? How come… how come he didn't figure out a way to stay?"

"I… don't know, Caboose. Maybe there wasn't a way. Maybe there was a malfunction, or an accident."

"A malfunction. An accident," Caboose echoed, voice hollow. His face contorted with anguish. "He was my best friend."

"I know." Goddamn did he know and what the hell could he do about it? Nothing. Nothing but admit he failed Caboose, and Tucker, and Carolina, and everyone else who had come to depend on and respect and fucking love that stubborn asshole of an AI. Who had forgiven him, and had never told him. Who had watched him glitch for months — years — and had done nothing.

No. This wasn't a glitch. There had been no malfunction or accident. Wash knew it now with certainty, the same way both Carolina and Caboose knew, more feeling than fact and inexplicable to anyone who didn't. He knew it because he had known Epsilon. And it wasn't fucking fair.

"Caboose, I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry." He felt a lump growing in his throat and told himself it was the frustration. "I should have… if I had just — I don't know. I should have figured out another way to take down those Mantises, or scrambled the Pelican sooner, tried to get up here faster and — and help you guys, done something to… and then maybe Epsilon wouldn't…."

Caboose cocked his head at him quizzically. "You… you think that Church is gone and that it's your fault?"

Wash tried to laugh off the accusation but the intended incredulity instead came out as a pained sob. He inhaled deeply. "What I think is that we've got to get you out of here—"

Bullets and plasma rattled and sizzled off the nearby bulkhead. They had been discovered. Wash slammed his helmet on and shifted to shield Caboose, who, for his part, didn't seem to notice or care about the intrusion.

"Caboose, buddy, I hate to rush you, but we really have to go now."

"You can go. Everyone goes," Caboose lamented, staring at the floor. "First Captain Flowers, then Sheila, Tex, the first Church, the first Church again, now Church for real. Forever. Gone. Nobody stays."

Suppressing an aggravated groan at these pirate's absolute piss-poor timing, Wash centered himself. He had come this far. He wasn't about to give up on his teammate, bullets and plasma be damned. Pushing the racket of the battle away, he drew Caboose's focus to him.

"Look at me, Caboose. I'm staying. I'm staying, right here at bulkhead—" Wash swiftly searched for the placard — "B61S if I have to." Repositioning, he did his best to still provide physical cover for Caboose while drawing a bead on the one-, two-, three-man squad that had them cornered. He leaned out and fired off a couple of bursts before ducking back down. "I know I'm not Church, and I know I wasn't there back in Blood Gulch, but I want you to know that you still have me. For whatever it's worth, you still have me, and I am not going anywhere."

"But what about the bad guys?"

"It'll take a lot more than an old megalomaniac and some alien weapons to scare me away."

"He is pretty bald."

"That's… true, if not strictly relevant.…"

The sudden break in rifle chatter caught the Freelancer's ear. He could hear the pirates strategizing, though the details remained indecipherable. Whatever they were planning, Wash preferred not to be around when they executed it.

"Listen. Grif, Tucker, Carolina, they're going to need you." Wash tore his gaze from down the corridor to meet that of his teammate. "I'm going to need you, now more than ever, a lot more. I promise you, we will talk about this later, for as long as you want, but right now we—"

Letting out an involuntary bark of pain, Wash crouched protectively over Caboose as a new volley rained down on their position. Shots pelted his shield like hail on a tin roof. As if to drive home the point, the alarms blaring inside his helmet let him know that Charon wasn't letting them go without a fight.

It was pure spite that had Wash's hand pulling the pin on a grenade and sending it sailing in the pirates' direction. It didn't land at their feet, but it didn't need to. It only took a moment for them to recognize they were within the kill radius. Wash waited patiently for the most panicked of them to flounder out of cover before — rat-tat-tat! — he made the pirate pay for his mistake. The two others saw what befell the first and darted the other direction, successfully avoiding the grenade's blast.

"Right now we have to get back onboard the Pelican," Wash ground out as though their conversation had never been inconvenienced. He grit his teeth against the newfound stinging in his torso. "What do you…" he gasped between ragged breaths, "what do you say?"

As Caboose uncurled from a ball beside Wash, his anxious glances shifted from down the corridor to his team lead's right side. Wash followed his focus, did a double take. Tentatively, he touched two fingers near the edge of his armor's upper chest piece. His glove came back slicked in blood.

"Shit." A bullet must have snuck past.

"You are hurt, too?"

Wash could hear the fear behind the question, the guilt. He could relate. He grabbed Caboose's arm for support and braced himself in a crouch, trying his best to ignore the fire in his side and — goddamn did it hurt. "Just winged, pal. Don't worry. I'm gonna get you out of here, I promise. Look, we are so close to winning this thing, so close, but I am not leaving this ship without you."

Caboose dropped his head. "Why not."

"Because I'm not losing you, too!" Wash swallowed, relaxing his clasp on the team's youngest soldier. "I am not losing you, too."

For all of his idiosyncrasies, Caboose was by far the most perceptive of the sim troopers. He keyed in on Wash's remorse. Nodded once. "Okay."

Washington balked. "Okay? Just… okay?"

"Okay I-am-ready-to-go-now okay," Caboose clarified helpfully, before adding, "I trust you, Agent Washington. I know you will get us home."

And damn if that wasn't exactly what Wash needed to hear. Feeling an ember of determination, and maybe a little fondness, stoke within him, the Freelancer clapped his friend on the shoulder. He was goddamned right he would get him — all of them — home.

Taking a moment to peek from cover, Wash noted the remaining two Charon combatants were up and at it again, laying down fire at their tiny alcove. He had one grenade remaining, which meant they realistically had one opportunity to suppress and eliminate the enemy unless a kamikaze run was to be considered, and Wash liked to think he had left his Article XII days behind him.

Squatting low, Wash unclasped the assault rifle from his back and pushed Freckles gently into Caboose's arms. "Here. Hold him tight, okay? Helmet on." He fingered his lone grenade. Risking one final glance at the pirates, he spoke over his shoulder to his teammate. "On the count of three. One, two—"

"Yaaarrr!" came the battlecry that replaced the remainder of his countdown. Wash felt the grenade being torn from its slot as Caboose hurled vague and nonsensical indignities about pirates, voice deep and almost theatrical. The Blue trooper hurled the grenade next.

"No, Caboose, you have to pull the pin before—!" Wash tried before giving up, swearing once, and just shooting.

"Engaging. Targets," announced Freckles before the AR lit up in Caboose's hands. Caboose charged forward in a rampage. A constant stream of yelling about Church and crackers and walking the plank crossed midair with streams of plasma and kinetic fire, and it was all Wash could do to keep his head on straight.

The madness was short-lived. The pair of pirates were downed within seconds.

"Hostiles. Eliminated."

Wash stood slowly as his eyebrows made a beeline for his hairline. "Okay," was all he could manage. "Just… okay."

The clock in Wash's HUD pulsed as it passed through the four minute mark, pulling him back into their present predicament. He ran through open hatches and around corners, ensuring Caboose kept at his six. He rounded the final turn that would set them on a straight path toward the intersection Carolina was, god willing, still holding when he burst straight into a waiting ambush. A torrent of laser fire, pink needles, and turret rounds exploded across his visor, sending him scrambling backward into Caboose.

Their return route was a no-go.

"F.I.L.S.S., I need a vector!"

"I am sorry, this is the only route back to the rendezvous point with Agent Carolina."

"Yaaarrr!" rang out the now familiar battlecry. Caboose bounded into the fray, large and anything but lumbering. He grabbed the nearest of Charon's hired guns and flung him bodily into his associate before setting off at his next target.

A string of curses filled Wash's mind. He launched himself after his teammate. The resonant thunder of his BR85 pounded within his chest in time with his own heart beat. He sent the pirate nearest Caboose to the floor. Ducked. Spun. Fired. Two o'clock, 10 o'clock — Jesus!

A particularly brazen pirate lunged at Wash, his combat knife unsheathed. Wash brought his rifle up to block. The clang! of metal on metal reverberated down the barrel and into his gloved hands. He drove away the pirate with a powerful kick to the chest only for another to swing down her spike grenade at him, large like a club in her hands. Wash dodged and brought down the butt of his BR against her head before finishing off her partner with a three-round burst.

It was mayhem.

Caboose streaked across his vision with a speed that nearly rivaled that of Carolina. It was all Washington could do to keep up with him — not that they were making stellar forward progress. They'd been stymied, Charon's goons perched comfortably behind the stout steel frames of a pair of open blast doors that spanned the width of the corridor. They fired at the two Blues almost leisurely, confident in their position and numbers.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end — that uncanny sixth sense for which North had always praised him — and Wash immediately hit the deck. He felt a current of air ripple over his head before he flipped to his back. The reminder that his attention was probably better paid closer at hand hulked into view. Wash slowly craned his head upward.

The pirate had to be near seven feet tall, clad in standard black armor that stopped at the elbow. His brawny, bare arms cradled a T-25 grenade launcher — no, not a T-25 grenade launcher, the T-25 grenade launcher, the very weapon the Meta had used against them. Wash remembered complimenting his then-friend when he'd first acquired it all those years ago in a building that no longer stood. Wash remembered Grif taking ownership of it long after that friend had ceased to exist, after the shell he had become had turned on him. After the Reds and Blues hadn't.

Grif had wailed when the UNSC had confiscated his 'Grif Shot' before, evidently, handing it right to Hargrove. No doubt it had ended up in that cursed trophy room next to the Chairman's other spoils. That it had somehow made its way here, in this man's hands….

The pirate had been there, in the trophy room. He'd fought against Wash's team. He'd hurt them. Hurt Grif.

Wash felt something inside him give. He decided right then and there that son of a bitch would not be leaving the corridor alive with that weapon.

The giant brought the blade down with unexpected speed, but Wash was faster. He rolled once. The sharp metal cut into the deck plating as the Freelancer sprung to a crouch. Wasting no time, Wash brought his rifle to bear. He depressed the trigger without hesitation but the bulky grenade launcher worked as an effective shield in front of the pirate's head.

Swiftly, Wash secured his BR to his back and drew his pistol — one, two, three powerful shots as he advanced purposefully on his target.

Abruptly his head snapped left at the gut-wrenching sound of Caboose wailing in distress. A pirate had him pinned against the wall, knife at his throat.

Wash made it a single hurried step in his teammate's direction before the concussive waves of grenades exploding at his heels threw him off his feet. He landed roughly on his injured side, stifling a yelp as searing pain radiated into his ribs. Still, his pistol remained secured in his hand. He thanked his lucky stars for small victories.

Rolling to his back once more, Wash raised his head and sighted the M6 past his toes. The giant pirate anticipated the move, once again lifting up the Grif Shot for cover.

But Wash wasn't aiming at his head this time.

The Freelancer emptied his clip into the pirate's exposed legs. Horrified screams let him know he'd hit his mark, but Wash didn't have time to celebrate. In one fluid move he flattened himself on the deck, unsheathed his combat knife, and sent it sailing backhanded up past his helmet. It found its target in the other pirate's neck. His upside-down view of the world showed the man stumbling away from Caboose, sputtering, hand to his own bloody throat.

The pair of Charon soldiers hit the floor in unison. They would bleed out, Wash knew, slowly and painfully, and he couldn't think of a more deserving fate.

Pushing to his feet, Wash tucked in behind a bulkhead frame for cover. "F.I.L.S.S., you've got to get me a way around these guys!"

"I am afraid there is no way around, Agent Washington," the AI advised. "You and Captain Caboose are on the ship's portside perimeter, adjacent to the hull — oh."

"Oh"? Wash groaned inwardly. Doctors and AIs had one thing in common: he didn't like it when they suddenly declared "oh."

As he reloaded his sidearm, he afforded himself exactly three seconds to assess Caboose, assess their six, and assess the way ahead. Pirates still fired from the behind the yawning blast door frames.

Not for long, he avowed to himself. He holstered his magnum. With a brisk inhale, he stepped out, BR raised — only to take a grenade launched directly into his chest. The combined propulsive and explosive forces sent him slamming into the opposing wall before gravity took over. He collapsed to the floor in a pile. He figured he would have cried out in pain this time had he not lost consciousness for a split second.

At least he thought it was a split second. When his eyes fluttered open, the hulking pirate loomed large in his vision, shambling toward him on bloody, mangled legs, posture taut and radiating fury.

Wash couldn't believe it. Still in a haze, he managed, "Oh, you have got to be fucking kid—"

Charon's brute wrenched Wash up by his armor's collar like he weighed no more than a feather, David in Goliath's grasp. His feet, now fully off the floor, kicked freely.

In the fog, instinct took the place of tactics. One hand wrapped desperately around his captor's hold. His opposite reached for his sidearm, fingertips brushing against the back of the grip, when he felt the pirate draw him back like a boxer winding up before a punch. Craning his neck to the side, Wash glimpsed the wall behind him. He realized exactly what was coming.

Just as the giant was about to bury his smaller opponent in metal plating, Caboose careened into them both. The trio bounced off one another like billiard balls. The odd attack resulted in no tangible damage, but it had successfully knocked Wash free of the pirate's grasp. Wash stood there stupidly, still dazed.

"Explosions detected. Closing blast doors B58P and B59P," announced F.I.L.S.S. over the ship's 1MC.

At once, all eyes locked onto the ceiling mounted speaker.

One pirate voiced what they were all thinking: "Wait. What?"

Wash looked down at his feet, saw that they straddled a recessed latching mechanism that spanned the width of the corridor, and immediately knew the answer to that question.

Instantly the fog lifted.

Summoning all the reserve strength he could muster, Wash sprung into the air in a powerful jump and kicked hard at Goliath's chest with both feet. The Freelancer landed weightily on the floor with a muffled mmpf in time to witness the pirate stagger backward into his comrades. The blast door above began to plummet like a guillotine. Wash swore and rolled twice toward Caboose.

The ka-chunk of the large titanium structure slamming into the floor latch was met with an identical clatter from its twin. The pirates were now trapped in between.

"Opening exterior hatch E59P for venting."

Washington could hear the "no no no!"s, muted by six inches of metal that now separated him and Caboose from Charon's team. A rush of air was followed by screams and then… quiet.

Stupefied silence fell over the corridor.

"Closing exterior hatch E59P. Explosive hazard evacuated." This time there was a tinge of evil delight to the AI's voice. She opened the two blast doors, revealing absolutely nothing: no pirates, no weapons, not even a single spent shell casing.

A light breeze carried air from the passageway into the evacuated volume. Wash stepped forward with it, surveying the AI's handiwork. "Doors and turrets," he marveled.

"Neat," Caboose agreed. His voice was still preposterously deep.

It made Wash's face scrunch in bewilderment. He reminded himself it was hardly the oddest thing that had happened that day. "Come on," he said between labored breaths, "let's go."

Caboose sped ahead as Wash reached down to recover his fallen blade. A throbbing ache from where the Grif Shot's grenade had exploded against his chest plate caused him to wince. "That hurt a lot less the last time," he muttered to himself before jogging after his teammate.

It was a short haul to the now familiar intersection. Wash could hear the bedlam before he laid eyes on it. Charon forces assaulted the strategic point and the lone woman who still held it, and that lone woman was doing her best to make each and every one of their lives a living hell. She flipped, jumped, and kicked effortlessly — part acrobat, part mixed martial artist, all beast.

As soon as he was within range Wash pitched in to the fight. A pirate dashed across the intersecting corridors, giving him all the target he needed. A single squeeze of the trigger and the pirate went down.

Carolina blazed in trail, disengaging her speed boost as she caught sight of Wash. He closed the distance, pulling up just short of the intersection.

The scene was even more brutal than when he had left it mere minutes ago. To his right was the trophy room, his left their initial path of ingress, and ahead the way he had sent Andersmith and the others. All three were now strewn with the corpses of those foolish enough to take on the teal Freelancer. She had been more than effective; those still alive were confined entirely to the left. The secondary route to the hangar remained clear.

Just as he was about to ask for status, Caboose shot across their sightlines, barreling through enemies, swinging Freckles like a baseball bat, and roaring all the while.

The two Freelancers looked on in befuddlement as the Blue's haymakers transitioned into a bizarre helicoptering assault. Carolina glanced to Wash for an explanation.

Wash cleared his throat. "He's working through some things. Carolina, we have to make it to the hangar, the Pelican leaves in" — he clocked his HUD — "two minutes, shit!" His plan to collect spare ammo from amongst the debris would have to wait. "Caboose, we gotta go!"

Steadying from his impression of a Falcon with an engine out, Caboose teetered for a moment before escaping down the same corridor the rest of his team had minutes prior. Wash covered Carolina as she followed, she herself returning the favor as he ran across the intersection.

"F.I.L.S.S., waypoint! And close the hatches behind us as we go!" Wash shouted.

"Transmitting waypoint for the hangar bay," the AI confirmed, and all three of them witnessed the new nav point as it was projected onto their HUDs. "Closing bulkhead hatch H53S."

He could hear the bullets and maddened yells echo against the closed hatch behind them. Wash couldn't find an ounce of sympathy to spare.

The trio tore through the maze of passageways that eventually wended their way back to the singular chokepoint they had passed through previously. The corpse of the uncooperative pirate still laid facedown on the deck near the keypad. Those of his comrades laid nearby. Caboose, Carolina, and Wash paid them no mind as they sprinted through the still open hatch.

"Closing blast door B29S," F.I.L.S.S. informed 100 meters later. They were back on course, running their initial route backwards. The colorful utility pipes guided them along their way.

Wash was thankful to hear F.I.L.S.S.'s figures continue to tick downward, the door numbers like mile markers on a highway. Thankful was he, too, that the minimal resistance they encountered was easily dispatched. The team must have done an exceptional job clearing the way.

He wouldn't have expected any less.

The team. He checked his clock. Forty-seven seconds.

It was at that moment Wash knew they weren't going to make it. They were still two minutes out, easily. His heart sank. Fear and doubt took hold of him again as his thoughts turned to the others. He'd made a calculated decision, risking all of their lives so he could recover one, and he hadn't, not in time, anyway. Just like North. Just like York. Oh god, he hoped he hadn't just signed Grif's death warrant.

His feet were leaden weights by the time they cleared the remaining few knee-knockers. His stomach lurched as the countdown clock passed through zero and started ticking upward.

He'd made the wrong call.

They burst into the hangar bay with "closing bulkhead hatch H13S" announcing once they were fully inside. Wash's mind raced a mile a minute as he searched the voluminous area for the next play, the next step, the—

Pelican?

"Andersmith…" Wash summoned on TEAMCOM.

"Sir!" came the gung-ho reply.

"Why is the Pelican still here? Why are you still here?" And then he realized the team might not have made it to the Pelican. They could have been ambushed, forced to retreat or scatter or—

Jensen poked her head out the open cargo ramp. She flapped her hand at them. "Hi there, Agthent Wathington!"

The two Freelancers slowed as they approached the aft end of the dropship. Caboose bounded up the open cargo ramp. Wash spied Jensen, Andersmith, and Matthews tucked just inside the Pelican's troop bay, as well as Dr. Grey, Tucker, Sarge, Simmons, Grif, and Donut further inside, all accounted for.

Fear was replaced by bafflement.

Wash looked from visor to visor. "Nobody started a timer?"

Those lucid enough to share a look did. Andersmith cleared his throat. "We, uh… we sort of forgot. Sir."

"You forgot?!" Wash's screech would have turned into a full-on military dress-down of the finest caliber if he believed the excuse to be untrue. He had to remind himself: for all of their bravery, they were, after all, still green.

And those that weren't were just idiots.

"Andersmith only remehmbered when he goth to the Pelican," Jensen explained, "and by that pointh no one really knew how mucth thime had passthed, so we justh decthided to go off Matthews's besth guessth."

"I swear, it only felt like a minute, tops," Matthews assured.

"Matthews wasn't even there!" Wash shrieked before squeezing his eyes shut in exasperation. He could feel a headache sprouting from the deepest part of his brain.

"Mom always said I had great timing."

Groaning, because the other option was physical violence, Wash pushed past the lieutenants and into the cargo hold. Immediately he made for Grif. The orange trooper was laid out on the forward floor, armor off. Wash had never seen the trooper's face so ashen. He looked bad.

Squatting next to him was Dr. Grey. Wash watched her hands flitter over equipment and supplies. IV bags connected to plastic lines that fed into Grif's arm, while bandages dressed his wounds. He no longer thrashed. In fact, he was frighteningly still.

The Freelancer swallowed. "Is he—"

"Alive," Dr. Grey chirped, her typical enthusiasm waning only slightly as she added, "barely."

Wash nodded, allowing himself a short exhale.

Simmons perched on the edge of the nearest seat, the gash on his face forgotten as he gaped down at his comatose friend. Sarge hovered nearby as well, a compress applied to his injured eye, held in place by gauze wrapped several times around his head. Doc tended to a still unconscious Donut as best as his own frayed nerves allowed. Lopez was the only absent Red, already in the cockpit programming their return route to Chorus.

Turning, Wash checked on Tucker next. The aqua Marine sat apart from the others, slumped heavily against an open crash harness, helmetless in the Meta's suit and wearing a thousand-yard stare. Wash approached, ducking his head. He looked down at his teammate, wishing like hell there was something, anything, he could do or say that would make any of this better.

Caboose shuffled over cautiously. He sat down quietly next to Tucker, eyes wide and full of concern. Had this been the end of a training op, the Blue would have been chit-chatting happily with the lieutenants. But this wasn't training. This was real.

And they weren't finished.

"Kimball, status," Wash radioed.

"Washington, where the hell are you?!" the general shouted.

Wash heard the desperation in her voice. He also heard the fierce firefight raging in the background. "The Reds and Blues are…." He wanted to say "safe" but as he looked at the lot of them, covered in blood, beleaguered, unconscious and at death's door, he knew they weren't out of the woods yet. "Present and accounted for. We're at the Pelican. Please tell me you have Hargrove."

"The bastard ran for it! He gave up on the escape pods and he's headed for the bridge!"

"Dammit…" Wash muttered. Capturing an enemy destroyer was not what he'd had in mind for his Thursday evening. Then, to Kimball: "We'll be there soon. Wash, out."

"Oh no you don't," Emily protested, "not before I take a look at those lovely little wounds of yours first."

They didn't feel particularly little. "I'm fine. Though I don't suppose you can spare any biofoam."

"This Pelican's emergency supply went faster than a turkey in November with these junkies, but I think I have one canister left in my med kit."

Sarge grunted in pain.

Wash pulled his mouth into a thin line. "On second thought, save it."

"I could stitch you up, give you a pret-ty lit-tle bow. Crochet or cross-stitch?"

Suddenly Donut awakened in a fit. He shot upright from the Pelican's floor, screaming at the top of his lungs as Doc tried to calm him and check him for injuries at the same time.

One thing was clear: they needed to evac, now, before Hargrove decided to do anything stupid.

"Raincheck, Doctor," Wash told Emily. He stood aside to let her attend to her new patient, shouting up at the cockpit, "Lopez!"

The robot leaned out of his seat behind the pilot. "Sí."

Wash held his index finger in the air and made three rapid circles. "Fire her up."

"Sí."

He felt Tucker crumple with the directive. He didn't want to leave, not without Church, and had Caboose not been sitting beside him Wash suspected the trooper would have allowed himself to completely break down. He gave Tucker's shoulder a conciliatory squeeze.

Stuffing gauze rather crudely under his armor, Wash turned to the only able-bodied fighters in the Pelican. They may not have been good at remembering orders or solving problems, but they had grit, and that was the only thing that would get any of them through what was about to come. "Andersmith, Jensen, I hate to ask this of you, but—"

"We're in, thir," Jensen said, standing tall.

Andersmith gave his nod of agreement.

With a pang of pride, Wash vowed to buy the lieutenants a round of beer after this was all over. Provided they were old enough to drink.

"Matthews," Wash addressed next as he rummaged through the overhead for the C-12, "still interested in helping?"

Matthews would have jumped out of his seat had his burns not kept him immobilized. "Yes, sir, Agent Washington, sir!"

"As soon as you break atmo, you get on the horn to every Pelican, every civilian transpo, every goddamn trash hauler with gas in their tanks and you tell them to get their asses up here, ASAP. Anyone who can still hold a weapon I want them on those ships. Understood?"

"You can count on me, sir!"

"The rest of you," Wash said, trudging backwards down the cargo ramp as the engines rumbled to life. He looked at the sim troopers. He felt his throat tighten, and whatever he had been about to say died on his tongue. "I… I'll see you soon."

"You make sure of that."

The reply came from an unanticipated source: Sarge. The Red team leader straightened against the open harness that propped him upright. Despite the hasty compress that had been secured over his injured eye, his stare remained fixed upon Wash, pinning the younger man in place until he received an answer he liked.

Wash nodded self-consciously, the best he could do. He had people. He supposed one day he'd get used to that.

The unexpected moment now past, Wash joined Jensen and Andersmith on the hangar deck. He let the Pelican roar into the black of space behind him, unwilling to watch his friends depart. He wondered if he'd see Grif again. He wondered if he'd see any of them again.

Clipping the explosive pack to his back, Wash nodded to the lieutenants. "Ready?"

Two enthusiastic "sir!"s were his response.

"F.I.L.S.S."

"Transmitting waypoints to the bridge."

"Good. Everyone? Move out."