Chapter 31– Unus

May 14th, 2545 (13:45 Hours – Military Calendar)

Aquilla System, Actium

High Mediolanum, Republic of Pavia

EnRoute to Covenant Dark Zone

:********:

Other than the hypersonic rumblings outside indicative of atmospheric reentry, the Pelican's cargo bay was mostly silent, much like the last time Duncan went into the dark zone. He was strapped in the rearmost seat on the right-hand row with an MA37 in hand along with an M319 Grenade Launcher on his harness. Both weapons were handed to him in order to protect the only other ODST in the bay.

Sitting opposite him at the rear was Private Reece. The trooper had just an SMG attached to his back harness. It was all he would need to ensure he stayed light enough to make a run for their upcoming delivery.

Held in both of his hands was what looked like a metal football. It was the right size and shape to be one, although throwing it was the very last thing anyone would want to do with it, or probably ever would do if they were insane enough to try.

The Mark 2521 Medium Fusion Destructive Device was an excavation-grade HAVOK tactical nuke. Being the second oldest model of a series of four variant generations, the Mark 2521 was 35 centimeters long, 18 centimeters wide and 19 centimeters high if stood up. It's relatively small size did well to hide the fact that it possessed a 30 Megaton thermonuclear yield, a number that became far more startling when compared to weapons of the past.

The atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima was only 15 kilotons. In comparison, this HAVOK variant possessed a yield strength that was, in no uncertain terms, 4,000 times that amount, yet Reece was tossing it between his hands like it really was just that; a football.

Despite his helmet's own internal temperature controls, Duncan was sweating bullets simply watching him. His sole relief was that there was a thin slot on the unit's upper face for a detonation key to be inserted. It wasn't primed yet, and their contact receiver on the ground would be in possession of said key. There was no real risk of him setting the thing off if he dropped it. Still, he was uneasy seeing the culmination of thousands of years of human weapons development being treated like a pastime toy.

But he had no choice. After all, he'd purposefully avoided carrying it. It made him tense just being in the same room with the device during what was a very quick briefing in one of the Babel's hanger bays. Reece had no such reservations so the job of carrier fell to him.

Mars-Actual had explained the details of their mission. The 6 ODSTs were to break up into 3 teams of 2 troopers each. One would carry the nuke while the other protected him until he reached the contact receiver in the assigned brigade. He then had the pairs chose who would serve what roll in less than five seconds. Duncan hesitated, Reece didn't. Once that was done, Mars-Actual handed out the HAVOKs from a set of armory lockers. The pairs were given their designations. Group 2, Mars-Actual and a trooper from Echo Company, one Lance Corporal Stacker, would carry their HAVOK to the 2nd Brigade at the northwestern staging ground. Group 3, comprised of the two ODSTs from the 22nd , would deliver to the 3rd Brigade at the northeastern staging ground.

Group 1, Duncan and Reece, would head to the 1st Brigade fighting at the southwestern staging ground. The location of their contact receiver was sent to their HUDs, identifying him as Colonel Mentieth himself. With that in mind, and considering the ever-evolving situation on the surface, Duncan was intent on not keeping the colonel waiting. Then again, he was essentially delivering the device by which much of the 53rd Armored Division would be annihilated: a mass suicide weapon. That notion was what really made him hesitate in the hanger, knowing he was delivering the tool that would cause the direct deaths of thousands of men and women of the UNSC. People in uniform, like him, probably with thousands of families waiting for them to come back to them, like his. In handing it over he would be doing no better than signing off on their deaths, making it so that those loved ones would never see them again.

And all it would take was a simple handover.

How easy it actually was made him feel sick. He held in his revulsion to keep his head clear. Yet it felt heavy on his soul throughout the ride down.

No, he thought, this wasn't on him. Everyone now on the ground chose to be there. And the higher-ups were the ones that chose to give the go-ahead with the bomb, so what was about to happen wasn't on him.

He found himself breathing harder as he thought it over, marveling at the crushing weight of the decision that he was only now realizing he hadn't thought fully through.

The blood couldn't be on his hands. Then again, who was really to blame for something like Hiroshima? Was it the Truman types that signed off on it or the Paul Tibbets types that actually made the delivery?

He found something to relieve his beleaguered mind at remembering that either Mentieth or someone on the ground would be the one to actually detonate the device. Not him. He was just handing it over.

To his ever-living amazement, Reece didn't seem to be having any dilemmas at all. His visor was depolarized so that he could see how calm he was. If anything, he was eyeing the nuke being tossed between his hands with a kind of reserved curiosity. While Duncan didn't personally know him all that well and hadn't gotten the time to either, he at least wanted the answer to a single question.

"How come you're so lax with that thing?"

Reece stopped juggling the device to look at him. "Just thinking about something. That's all."

"About what?"

Reece eyed the bomb, as did Duncan though with much less casual interest.

"You know, this isn't the first time we did something like this to a colony world."

Duncan didn't know what exactly he was going for so he let him continue.

"Ever heard of Far Isle?"

"You mean that colony the UNSC wiped off the map? Yeah. Innies were the cause, right?"

Reece flipped the HAVOK into a fast rotational spin and let it land comfortably in his palms. "That's what they say, but I think the old-heads at HIGHCOM just didn't want to bother disentangling the terrorists from the tourists...in my opinion." He seemed to remember something as he brushed a hand over the nuke's grayish surface. "My dad was from there. He met my mom on a construction contract in Charybdis. He moved just a year before it happened. Despite that everyone he knew was gone, he still fought for the UNSC as an ODST later in life. I don't even know why, he never told me, never got to either. Hell, I did the same thing and I don't even know why I'm doing it nowadays."

Duncan found himself realizing that he had a lot more in common with the notoriously boisterous and braggadocios ODST than he initially thought. It was a little uncomfortable but he dared press further. "Why do you think he did it?"

Reece leaned forward, his voice changing to a low whisper. "Well, between you and me, I don't think it's because he was loyal to the UNSC. I think it's because he was smart about it. He knew there was no fighting them like the Innies did. To spare other planets that fate he must've figured it'd be better to break down the Innies before they got too out of hand on another colony. That way HIGHCOM wouldn't have to consider the nuclear option again." He rolled the HAVOK in his hands. "It's called killing the few for the sake of the many. Now I might be about to help us do the exact same thing he tried to keep from happening." He paused with the nuke still in hand, eyeing it like he was suddenly holding the object of his disdain. His gaze locked with Duncan's. "It still didn't save him though. In the end, he got killed by another UNSC weapon. Remember that story I told you guys about a Spartan that murdered a few ODSTs at a shipboard gym? Well, one of them was my dad. Everyone else can have their doubts about it but not me, no. I have the telegram to prove it. Imagine saying something's so real that it shattered your dad's skull and no one even believes you." He leaned back in his seat and breathed in deep. "Well, that's what happened anyway."

The additional weight of what Reece had so unceremoniously shared made Duncan feel like he was getting crushed. The idea that his dad was killed by a Spartan was nothing to scoff at. If it really happened then it explained why Reece was so hostile towards them back at the HMPD. Still, it was hard to imagine someone like 058, 104, 087 or even the Master Chief going out of their way to purposefully murder a group of ODSTs. It seemed to be real enough for Reece, which was why it almost floored him when the trooper spoke again.

"I almost wish they were here though; the Spartans. The Chief could've probably done this faster than we could-"

"Wait-wait, why the change?"

"Huh?"

Duncan leaned in. "You just said one of them killed your dad. That's pretty serious. Now you're saying you wouldn't mind if we had one tag along?"

Reece perked up at realizing something. "Oh yeah, I never actually got to know my dad since he was always on deployment. I just didn't like the Spartans because it was their fault that I'd never get the chance to. But..." He drifted off in thought and glanced at the small window in the rear door. Past the reentry flames was the Tower of Babel's diminishing figure and the rest of the fleet. "...They saved us after all."

The memory came back like a chucked brick. Duncan saw viscerally the moment when they were in that C&C on the seafloor. After they'd escaped the trap, the Master Chief broke down what they needed to do to survive. He'd looked specifically to Reece when he said: 'I want as many of you to make it out of this as possible. But to do that we'll have to run the risk of none of us getting out of here at all. Our mission comes first. Is that understood, Helljumpers?'

"That's why?"

Reece finally turned back to him. "They made sure we all got out of there even when they could have left us." He seemed to struggle with something deeper. "I-...don't know why or how they can kill ODSTs one day then go out of their way to save our lives, nearly at the cost of their own the next. That's the part I can't wrap my head around." He stopped messing with the nuke and held it in his underarm like a genuine football, his face a mask of feigned reluctance. "So, it's not like I like them now or anything. It's more like I wish they were here to keep us from getting knocked off. That's all."

Unless he was wrong, Duncan thought he heard a hint of mutual respect slip into the private's tone. It made him forget everything else to return a knowing smile. Reece noticed it and tensed up. "Hey, I said I don't-"

"You liked 087 didn't you?" Duncan mocked.

Reece' face dropped into shock, and slight embarrassment. "You kidding? I'm not into guys."

"Pretty sure she was a girl."

"...Well, with that armor you could've fooled me. I'd rather not mess around with any girl that could bench-press me like I'm part of her warm-up routine."

"She was pretty strong. She saved me back there too. It would've been good if we had them here for sure. I bet you two would've made a good couple."

Reece jabbed a finger at him. "I swear Iris, you deserve whatever's coming to you. You hear me?"

"Mhm." Duncan's attention shifted to the cockpit where much of the light from the reentry flames outside were illuminating the bay. His momentarily playful demeanor evaporated as the flames faded away to reveal a cloudy sky. "Let's just hope it's something good."

Reece looked as well. There was a brief silence. Then his voice fell again to just above a whisper. "You think you'll walk away from this in one piece, man?"

Duncan swallowed the rock growing in his throat. "That's what I'm aiming for. You?" He glanced over.

Reece's expression had changed. His earlier reluctance had died away into something that could only be described as a quiet acceptance. Though acceptance of what, he couldn't say. Reece noticed and offered a smile, one with an earnest tiredness Duncan had seen before.

They both saw the moment that the clouds parted to reveal Actium's surface.

Aquilla's afternoon sunlight was now struggling to maintain balance against the flashes of harsh blue light that rhythmically overpowered it, repeatedly changing the colors of the clouds from white to cyan. Below them, the Sabat Mountain Region was in chaos.

He could generally make out where UNSC forces were clashing with Covenant in the airspace above. The same couldn't be said on the surface. On the ground there was a confusing mismatch of different colored dots racing past, shooting and detonating the other before narrowly avoiding or meeting a similar fate. It was roughly the same for the starfighter and starship brawls, only those were more concentrated the larger the death-dealers and their explosions became.

Plasma fire suddenly lunged past the cockpit in fresh bursts. The Pelican again started to rumble as the pilot struggled to evade. "This is Cowboy-1-1 to Carrier Team, be advised, our LZ is hot! I repeat, hot!" There was a blast of green light and a mix of exhaust trails that whizzed past. The pilot swerved left into a near barrel roll, stopping just short to level out once a plasma torpedo zipped past. Beyond the cockpit, 2 of the dropship's 4 Longsword escorts broke off to chase away a group of several Seraphs approaching from behind. Duncan watched the pair shoot past the rear window and exchange ASGMs for plasma torpedoes.

"Listen up, I'm landing fast! You've got 3 minutes to deliver the package and get back! Do you copy!?"

"We hear you!" Reece replied, tucking the nuke in close to his chest. "We're ready!"

"Alright, hitting dirtside in 30 seconds!"

Duncan felt gravity shift inside the bay and watched them level out from a near vertical drop into an obtuse glide. He heard the pilot switch through his controls more frantically.

"My God...also be advised, Cowboy-1-3 just got shot down, over!"

Both Duncan and Reece tensed up. It wasn't good news. Group 3, the carrier team bound for the 3rd Brigade was gone, and before they'd even gotten to land or deliver their nuke. Now that they were down one HAVOK, that would throw a serious wrench into their plans.

Duncan's faith that they would even land themselves was shaken with each external explosion. The high chance of one of them going off inside the bay filled him with dread.

He willed himself to undo his restraints with Reece, bringing his grenade launcher to bare as he counted off the last seconds. Though it wasn't his preferred weapon type, he would just have to hope he was half the shot Rico was.

"5...4..."

The Pelican's drives wined down in congruence with the front of the dropship angling up for a landing.

"3...2..."

He felt the slight jostling motion of impact and the groan of the landing gear extending. He shared a nod with Reece.

"Opening the ramp!" Cowboy-1-1 said. "Remember, 3 minutes! That's all we've got!"

The rear door released a wisp of air into the bay. It took two seconds to roll open, and half that much for the two of them to jump out.

Before Duncan had his bearings properly, he was running in the direction of a Nav point that blinked onto his HUD some 50 meters away. Once his visor adjusted its polarization, he found himself in a world not that far off from hell.

The skies were a bright blue hue thanks to the dozens of Covenant ships that swam through them like sharks, firing luminescent plasma torpedoes that illuminated the world above and beneath in a kind of flickering aurora borealis. Their dominance was routinely interrupted by magnetic accelerator rounds that streaked into Covenant ships, flaring their shields and spearing through a few. Some deadened vessels fell away, causing the starfighter dogfights raging beneath them to momentarily fly out of their path like a swarm of fish to falling whales. They crashed onto the battle-torn landscape, shaking it in miniature earthquakes.

Duncan stuck close to Reece as they sprinted out from the small patch of open ground the Pelican had landed in. The consequence of being his bodyguard was that he had to look around for threats. The only thing he saw in abundance was madness.

Scores of Scorpions were left ashened from a fiery destruction that had blown their high velocity cannons clear of the chassis. Wraiths lay split in two or more jagged pieces of slagged metal that still sizzled. Torn Ghosts, dismembered Warthogs and Mongooses were everywhere. So were the remains of Banshees, Hornets, Seraphs and Longswords whose enflamed remains had left long impact scars over the landscape. Bodies, Covenant and human, lay strewn from burning vehicles. There were 53rd personnel with twisted looks of anger, agony and stiff blankness frozen on their battered faces that lay on dashboards or in pools of blood. Elites with half their heads missing leaned in the driver seats of wrecked ground craft. Grunts lay half-buried in blown-open craters. Hunters possessing a charcoal-like consistency were strewn around in positions that suggested they'd been thrown about like rag dolls. The blue blood of bullet-riddled Jackals dripped down from damaged lookout towers before being thrown into the air by the active gravity lifts, thereby lightly showering the substance over the battlefield.

But it was still a battlefield.

In the 5 seconds it took Duncan to take it all in the adrenaline pumping in his veins caused time to speed back up. A burst of hot air drew his attention northeast. In the skies just a short distance north of the northeastern staging ground were several groups of Covenant ships. He counted 12 cruisers and 2 destroyers flying above the no man's land where the 3rd Brigade were. They were firing their energy projectors, shooting down columns of concentrated plasma that seared the land below.

Even from what must have been 20 kilometers away, even with his armor on, he could still feel the heat pricking his skin. The sole factor sparing him and anyone else a similar fate were the last holdouts of Silver and Indigo. UNSC ships were firing MAC and Archer missile barrages at nearby Covenant ships from the surrounding mountains, at least keeping them distracted.

Plasma bolts and bullets whizzed past his helmet, forcing him to duck as they weaved their way through the maze of dead and living vehicles. He stopped at spotting a trio of Ghosts boosting straight for them and roughly shouldered Reece and himself to the side, narrowly dodging the three craft that raced past. One turned around to aim its directed energy cannons. He beat it to the draw and fired a 40-milimeter grenade. As the Ghost turned, the projectile bounced up into the vulnerable driver's seat to blast the blue-armored Elite clear, shattering the chassis in the process. "Keep moving!"

The two of them prioritized wrecks for cover for the next 10 meters while Banshee squadrons soared over them to exchange fire with groups of Rockethogs swerving through the area. He took the brief respite to pop another grenade into his launcher. He came out from between a dead Scorpion and a burning scar left by a Seraph that had cartwheeled its way to the ground. The moment he turned the corner the world around him lit up.

The afterimages were burned into his retinas of a column of 3 Wraiths that were, up until a split-second before, headed straight for them. They disappeared almost as soon as he'd seen them after several ASGM missiles screamed into their ranks to consume them in a surge of fire. A Longsword squadron soared over their most recent score with a pair of Seraphs not far behind. It had quite nearly stunned him as bad as a flashbang.

"You good!?" Reece asked, checking him over.

"Yeah! Come on!"

With less than 30 meters to go they found themselves having to jump over decimated lookout towers and the fiery remains of Shades. They stopped at a damaged proxy platform that was still semi-functional, producing random bursts of lateral gravity from flickering propulsion units that threw burning Hogs into a far-off heap.

"I've got it!" Duncan took aim at the propulsion units and fired off another grenade. He made sure it bounced into a nook burned into the metal before releasing the trigger. The immediate blast released an EMP effect that sizzled over the entire platform. The active propulsion units winked off long enough for them to run past.

Up ahead, the buildings of the southern staging ground loomed large. The plentitude of purple skyscrapers were framed by Aquilla's light like a holy memorial. Silhouettes shot past of the many aerial dogfights in the skyline, the triple AA plasma bursts coming from the Tyrants as well as the routine stray fire from below.

They sprinted the next 10 meters through the labyrinth of wrecks and firefights that had once been the Covenant's line of defense. Near the end, the bodies of downed soldiers from both sides grew more numerous. In dashing past them they stumbled across a few wounded, namely Elites that crawled over the ground in streaks of blue blood. They kept their distance. However, Duncan came close to falling over when something grabbed his leg.

He speedily leveled his grenade launcher at whatever it was. Instead of an Elite or Grunt, it was a soldier in the 53rd. His left leg was reduced to a bloody stump. He looked pleadingly at him, the lips on his pale face mouthing the words: "Help me."

Duncan would have stopped then and there had he not seen Reece still on the move. He yanked his leg free of the soldier's grasp, ran and refused the overwhelming urge to turn back.

They reached a point where the concentration of vehicular wrecks diffused out into an open ground. The way ahead was full of blast craters and defilades. There, Hogs chased after Ghosts, their turret gunners chewing away at the enemy craft to transform them into self-propelling balls of blue flame. On the other side, somewhere beyond a final hedge of proxy platforms was a 10-meter-tall pylon. The tripodal structure still had a pulse with its luminal column of plasma that rose within the center. Their Nav point was right beneath it.

Reece broke into a sprint. Duncan came up right behind, checking the skies and ground for threats. They leaped over impact scars, ran around dead starfighters then vaulted over destroyed mongooses in their forward progress. More than once they had to stop to let Hogs drive past or wave at them to get the drivers to let them by.

Halfway to the hedge of platforms Duncan spotted movement in a crater coming up right next to Reece. Sticking out from inside was the fidgeting top-half of a gas-tank. The Grunt cowering inside spotted them coming. In alarm, it was about to rise up with plasma pistol in hand. But Reece jumped over the lip of its cover, kicked it in the jaw so hard that its gas mask flew away and landed back into a sprint on the other side. Duncan quickly whipped out his MA37 to put a three-round burst into the creature's suffocating face before it could get its mask back, then switched to the launcher without breaking stride.

They reached the next layer of dead and living vehicles. To avoid getting crushed or run over they were forced to clamber up the mangled inner scaffolding of a half-destroyed proxy platform. It was an island amidst a sea of blurring motion, arcing energy mortars and lightning-fast tungsten shells.

Their Nav point was now finally visible. It was set at the bottom of the scintillating pylon some 10 meters ahead with a rotational platform built on its three legs. Beneath the platform itself were a pair of Scorpion tanks. The marker identified one as their receiver.

Beyond all that there was a multi-pronged movement of Tanks, Hogs and Mongooses pushing forward in armored columns of 20 vehicles at a time. Their advance spanned across half a kilometer. Like tridents, they were surging towards the third line of defense, the last barrier between them and the outermost camps of the southern staging ground. Amidst the deadly trade-off shared by attackers and defenders, several Longsword squadrons flew in from the north. They assembled in arrowhead formations and accelerated into an attack run. Each one delivered an ASMG missile payload before banking off. The result was a stochastic drumbeat of explosive percussion that reverberated across the nearest sector of the third defensive line. A wave of Covenant screams filled the air. They were quickly outdone by a roar of human bravado and rising engines as the advancing 53rd charged into the gaps.

The resonant BOOM of a MAC round striking through the unprotected hull of a nearby CCS shook Duncan to his bones. It effectively returned his focus to the task at hand.

The last obstacle in their way was 10 meters of open ground. Several Scorpions were taking on an equal number of Wraiths left behind there during the second advance. Two Rockethogs were driving around, firing on a single Hunter that was using the same proxy platform they were standing on to cover its vulnerable back. In response, the Hogs started firing on the platform as well.

With the structure shaking beneath them, Duncan spotted a way out in the form of a Longsword that had crashed in the middle of the space. Having landed at an acute angle and relatively intact, its wings presented a means of escape.

Reece beat him to the punch in jumping onto the starboard wing. Duncan took a running start then leaped over with no problem. The two ran across the slanted surface of the starfighter. They had to run down around its dorsal stabilizer and skip over the crumpled remains of the cockpit. An explosion behind them caught their attention as a frontal volley from the Rockethogs finished off both the Hunter and the platform. The latter blew up in a blunt blast that made them dash back behind the stabilizer. Flaming shrapnel shot past, stabbing into the wing at their backs and denting it in places. Without a second to waste, they jumped down from the portside wing and dashed the last of the way to the pylon.

The two tanks sitting in its shadow looked to have been waiting for them, one peeking out to check their surroundings with its cannon and turret while the other, more plasma-scarred, remained stationary. That was because its driver wasn't inside the canopy. Instead, he was sitting on the treads, allowing the two arriving ODSTs to quickly recognize him and salute.

Colonel Mentieth was having a medic stream biofoam into a wound beneath a melted section of chest armor. Wearing his officer's cap, he took it off to bite into it while the foam eased into the wound. He bore the pain well and dismissed the medic once the procedure was done. He spotted Duncan and Reece, saw the nuke and nodded them over.

"You boys did good." Mentieth said, slipping his cap back on then jumping down off the treads to stand level with them. "Now you get going. I'll take care of business from here."

He extended a hand for the nuke. But Reece held onto it. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

Confusion flashed over the colonel's face. "...Granted."

Duncan watched him with a shared sense of bewilderment as to why he wasn't handing over the bomb. Reece hesitated for a second, but stood straighter. "I'd like to stay with you to set this thing off, sir, if you'd let me."

Duncan saw the confusion on the colonel's face vaporize into genuine surprise. He wasn't sure what his own face looked like then. He just knew it was something like 'what the hell?'

Mentieth echoed his thought, arching a brow at him. "You want to stay, trooper?"

The three of them instinctively ducked as a plasma torpedo struck the top of the pylon. The other Scorpion fired off two shots, earning two explosions from something flying overhead.

Taking in a nervous breath, Reece nodded assuredly. "I can help. Your condition looks serious sir. Just in case, it might be best if you let me be the one to pull the trigger."

"Serious?" Mentieth lightly chuckled at the word as he looked out at the carnage in the third line. "If you stick around, you'll find out real quick what serious means down here. You sure you want that kid?"

Duncan quietly wished that he didn't. He wanted to protest but the sheer shock of what Reece was saying kept his mouth glued shut. Still, he'd never heard someone sound so ready to sign up for what he was now asking.

"I'm sure, sir."

Mentieth's expression hardened. "There's no going back to the Babel, trooper. If you're with me, you're staying with me. This is your last chance. Are you certain?"

Reece's grip on the HAVOK tightened. "I'm already with you, sir."

The colonel's sharpened gaze scrutinized his steadfast demeanor. He briefly glanced at Duncan then back to the other trooper and his countenance gently softened. "What's your name, Helljumper?"

"Private Reece."

Mentieth nodded at the name as if adding it to a long list he wouldn't' soon forget. "Alright, Reece, you're with me." He pointed out to where Covenant ships were firing down on the area surrounding the northeastern staging ground. "Newsflash, I just lost contact with my entire 2nd Brigade. We're operating under the assumption that they've been rendered combat ineffective and cannot reach their target area. What's more, we lost one of our HAVOKs when one of the other carrier teams went down, so we're about to improvise." He turned and hoisted himself back up onto his Scorpion. "To make sure we take all three of these things out, I'm about to have the 1st reposition ourselves."

As Mentieth hopped down into the open driver's canopy, Duncan struggled to take it all in. So an entire brigade had been wiped out then? That was nothing short of saying a third of their forces were essentially reduced to cinders before they could even get to their objectives.

"Wait, sir!?" Reece called over the distant echo of organized tungsten shell salvos. "I thought this was your target zone!"

"Not anymore. Things changed when we lost the 2nd Brigade. After we take this line, we'll swing east along the southern grounds to maximize the blast range. That way we make sure nothing Covenant-affiliated in Sabat gets out of this in one piece." He gave Reece a testing glare. "You sure you can still do the job, private?"

Duncan could see Reece grit his teeth, then swallow down whatever he was feeling to replace it with a steely stare to match the colonel's. "You need a turret gunner, don't you sir? I'm your man."

Mentieth grinned back as he watched the private climb up over the treads to pull himself down into the turret post.

"Keep in mind, private, I'll be handing you the detonation key once we get far enough in. I'll tell you when. Once we're there, pop the key in the slot, twist it right once, wait a second then right again. After that..."

"Understood sir." Reece kept the nuke just at his feet as he took command of the machine gun. He finally noticed that Duncan had been staring at him the whole time. He gave him the thumbs up. "You get going, Iris. They'll need you back there."

"Hotel-, Reece, you're sure about all this?" Duncan asked, the worry palpable in his voice.

"I figured out why I'm here, Iris." Reece replied as he looked to the staging grounds. His steadied gaze shifted to the other trooper. "But I don't have a clue why you're still here. Get going. I'll make sure it wasn't for nothing."

That last sentence struck something in Duncan in a way that he couldn't quite understand.

"Let's make that an order, Iris." Colonel Mentieth added firmly. "Live to fight another day, trooper. This one right here? This one's ours. Now get moving." The cracked and battered window of the canopy slid over the colonel and he switched to his comms. "Corporal Marty, make sure he gets back to his LZ, then return to column-10 to help Ludowski with the eastern pincer."

The name combined with the movement of the tank behind him caused a connection in Duncan's mind to form. He turned about to the second Scorpion which was wheeling around one of the pylon's leg supports to orient itself south. He immediately recognized the face of the grinning turret gunner as PFC Shugart, the man he'd been introduced to back at the Eden Mall. And the one who'd introduced him slowly slid back the cover on his canopy to show his own bruised, ruddy yet smiling face. Corporal Marty grinned. "Good to see you, Ep-8."

"You're a sight for sore eyes, Marty." He was telling the truth. It was a relief to see the man here alive after all this time. But then he felt a deeper sorrow at realizing that he was here as well.

"Natasha II's still in service. You need a ride or what?"

"No, I'm faster on my feet. I'll manage."

"Alright then, I'll keep you covered till you reach your exfil. After that its c'est la vie, old friend."

Duncan nodded, albeit grimly. On that note he heard the other Scorpion start up and watched it roll towards the third line. As it came out from under the pylon, Reece looked back. "And Iris!?"

"Yeah!"

"If Hotel-1 asks you anything, just tell him I left the 30 cred I owe him inside his ruck, alright!?"

"...I'll tell him!"

Reece gave him one last thumbs up then turned back to his turret. Already finding a target, he started firing on a passing Ghost which Mentieth promptly finished off.

"Come on, Irish!" Marty called. "Let's move!"

Duncan ripped his attention away from the departing tank to focus on the way back. He ran while Marty and Shugart remained less than a few paces behind.

They chose a less densely packed path through the sparsely living debris field of vehicles and bodies. Though it helped them move faster, it also left them more vulnerable from above.

At 40 meters to the LZ, a trio of Banshees flew in overhead. The rearmost craft broke off from their triangular patrol to aileron roll into a downward descent, setting its sights on Duncan. He had to slide down behind the front half of a Warthog to avoid a stream of plasma fire that slashed at the other side. He predicted when it would switch to a torpedo. The very second the barrage stopped he stood out, tracked it and fired a grenade that detonated at just the right height. The explosive EMP effect sizzled over the craft before it could get off a torpedo. Paralyzed, it fell out of the air. Seeing that it had enough altitude to recover, Duncan popped in another grenade in anticipation when a tungsten shell sliced through the craft's fuselage. It instantly disappeared in an azure blast.

He looked back to Marty who was driving forward. "Why'd you stop, Ep-8!? Come on, there's no taxies out here!"

Duncan started running again. He could sense the man's sarcasm. He couldn't help marveling at his high spirits or that of Shugart's as he joined in. "Don't think you want a 2-tonne lady tank being faster than you, Iris! Move faster!"

He fought down a grin while scanning the skies. At 30 meters, two Ghosts emerged from a treeline of burning assault craft off to his left. The two Grunt drivers boosted towards him with little hesitation. He kept running, squeezing off another grenade that bounced between them and detonated it. The first was caught by the EMP while the second managed to veer off. The latter accelerated towards him at full-speed. He dove out of the way at the last second. Rolling back onto his feet, he saw the Ghost vanish in a burst of blue and orange flames courtesy of Marty's steely eye. A moment later its twin met a similar fate.

They kept moving. At 17 meters, he again heard the warbling of propulsion drives. This time it was so close that he could hear it in his ears like the annoying buzz of a mosquito.

"Jump left!" Marty yelled with a sudden desperation that made Duncan aware of the sound of a torpedo launch. He hurled himself left. Mid-roll, he saw a comet of emerald energy splash over the ground where he'd been a heartbeat earlier. It was too close and the blast caught him. He felt a dozen metal baseball bats striking him all at once. He flew away, skidded several meters, rolled over the ground before slamming back-first against the side of a crashed Seraph.

The wind was thoroughly knocked out of him. His vision swam, his body sore all over. But adrenaline forced him back up. Shaking his head clear, he brought his vision back into focus. There was a web of cracks on his visor along with a hole the size of his eye. His HUD was gone, offline. Marty and Shugart had stopped to cover him, the former spearing one of the three Banshees circling above while the latter studded a second full of bullet holes.

Duncan pulled off his helmet, tossed the useless thing aside and started running again. He heard Marty fire two more shots, each met with successive explosions from their targets. The Natasha II got underway and stayed close behind.

All along the way, his guardian Scorpion fired into Banshees that took notice of them, striking out 3 before he'd even gotten that many meters from his last close-call. One was able to slip past Marty's vigil for an attack run on Duncan. What it couldn't have known was that its target had it already in their sights and one last grenade with its name on it. He fired before it could strafe him.

The explosive went off beneath the craft's fuselage, simultaneously paralyzing and knocking it back in an effusive uppercut. It crashed a good distance away, too far to be a problem again.

Now that his face was vulnerable to the elements Duncan could feel everything. There was the heat wafting from the burning vehicles around him. There were the ever-present sounds of the fighting far behind him. There was the earthshaking rumble of a MAC round as it flashed high overhead, missing the destroyer it was intended for so that it thundered into and disemboweled a Covenant barracks. Everything, even his own breathing, were part of a sinuous feeling of clarity that his mind was able to harness. His focus was settled on the upcoming LZ and the Pelican sitting in the middle of the carnage there. It was less than 10 meters away. Its ramp was down, waiting for him and him alone.

But then another sound stole his attention: the screaming warble of a Seraph fighter soaring low with its course set on the Pelican. Its bomb bay doors opened.

A single tungsten shell struck those very same doors like a bolt from the hand of God himself. It was lucky enough to hit the craft when its shielding was temporarily down, causing secondary explosion inside that transformed the fighter into a fiery pinwheel in the space of a half-second. The dead craft crashed short of his ride out and slid to a halt.

Running into the LZ, he glanced over his shoulder at Marty's tank. He was about to shout thanks when an audible boost of propulsion drives came from somewhere in his blind spot. He sensed something large heading towards him.

Marty fired off another shot that punched into whatever was coming, finishing it off in a blast of blue debris that washed past Duncan.

His head swiveled left to see the fiery wreck of a Wraith standing over him less than a few meters away. It towered like a giant, defeated but far too close for comfort. He hadn't even seen or heard it coming. It would have run him over had it not been for his guardian Scorpion.

"Don't stop Ep-8, you're rides right there! Keep going!"

Duncan heeded him and picked up his pace, dropping his dry launcher to gain more speed. He dashed up the ramp and skidded to a stop inside.

"This is Ep-8 to Cowbow-1-1, I'm onboard! Let's get going!"

"Roger that, we're out of here!"

The Pelican's engines flared. As they lifted off, he took one last look at the Scorpion that had kept him alive the entire way back. Marty had the Natasha II turned to the side with the canopy open so that he was able to raise a triumphant fist in the air. "First in, last out! Send Epsilon our regards, Iris!"

Duncan was awestruck. He never got a chance to say a word in reply as he watched Marty return to his canopy and wheel the Scorpion around. The last he saw of Corporal Richard Marty and Private First Class Ryan Shugart was their tank driving back towards the fighting before the rear door closed shut.

He threw himself into his seat to buckle in, knowing it was going to be a hard ride out. They began soaring up towards a portion of the airspace isolated from most of the fighting. Within seconds they were away from the mountain range. After a few more, they were out of range of the scuffles between friendly and hostile ships. They were home free.

It was only after knowing that was the case that he realized Cowboy-1-1 had never asked about Reece. But he didn't want to think about it himself. In all likelihood the pilot knew that if he hadn't come with Duncan then he probably wasn't coming back at all.

They started shooting into the stratosphere in a near vertical ascent. In the middle of their rush through the clouds he was given a rapidly expanding view of Sabat. There were only a handful of ships left from battlegroups Silver and Indigo. The Covenant ships were far more plentiful and were beginning to establish aerial superiority over their staging grounds. The set from before were still glassing a swath of land near the northeastern staging grounds.

He heard Colonel Mentieth's voice on the UNSC E-band thanks to the Pelican's speaker systems.

"This is Colonel Mentieth of the 53rd Armored Division. The 1st and 2nd Brigades are almost in place. All UNSC Naval and Air Force support be advised, I am now preemptively engaging Emergency Code BANDERSNATCH on the Sabat Mountain Region. I hereby order all UNSC Navy ships and Air units within range of my communications to evacuate Actium immediately. Mentieth out."

Duncan knew the code, Bandersnatch. It was rarely ever used, meant to indicate a radiological or energy-based disaster had just occurred. By saying it preemptively, he was warning everyone of what was about to happen.

Not long afterwards he saw streams of UNSC Air Force elements leaving the staging grounds to head for the Dragoon and Syracuse. Longswords and Hornets that had survived up until then were now breaking away from the battlefield to head for the safety of the two carrier's hanger bays. The remaining ships of Silver and Indigo also disengaged to escape into the atmosphere. As they rose further, he saw the Dragoon and Syracuse finally break off from the neighboring regions and begin to climb. Everyone was leaving.

Everyone except the 53rd.

The last sight he witnessed was of the remaining UNSC ships rising away into the stratosphere before high-level cloud cover cut off his view.

:********:

Supreme Commander Beorda Niccoramee was seething with an inner rage that he could hardly contain. He had watched his ships be shot out of the sky as the humans used the landscape against them. He watched as the enemy's forces on the ground advanced through his defensive lines while his aerial contingents were fought to a stalemate. He watched the gathering arrangement of feeds and status reports strobing into his supreme command headquarters, showing him the chaos outside.

He almost wished he had someone on hand whose neck he could snap. But there was no one else around except for the headquarters' coordinating personnel working avidly at their stations. Had he known such a travesty would occur on his watch, he would have saved that human he'd killed earlier for this very instant. That way he could diverge his rage towards one of their infernal race directly, rather than to the plentitude of shipmasters and ground commanders seeking his orders.

At the outset of the assault, he had engrossed himself in managing the faltering defenses of his staging grounds. With each defensive line lost and ship shot down, his legacy of great constructions was put in greater peril. The fleet was by itself the least of his worries. After all, the humans hadn't deployed sufficient forces to fully eliminate his ships or flush out the far heavier defenses within the staging grounds themselves, the ones he'd prepared in case they weren't his only threat. But that was what worried him more than anything, because they had to have known that as well. So why then had they attacked anyway? Was all of this just some vain refusal of an enemy to admit their own defeat?

Whatever their reason he kept them battered, coordinating different subfleets to quash this offensive while deploying endless reinforcements on the ground. A short while ago he'd stopped the northeastern assault cold by maneuvering a few subfleets into place. Now that they were wiped out, he focused on the defense of the next two grounds.

He had just ordered for several units of Scarabs to be deployed to the southern ground's defense when the tide of the battle changed.

It started when the armored human contingents attacking the south unexpectedly shifted their focus east. They crossed over the outer Unggoy camps towards the northeastern staging ground. Shortly thereafter, the human ships as well as their air cover abandoned their allies on the ground. They withdrew along with their carriers and were accelerating at top speeds to the outer atmosphere.

He knew them to be a disgusting and vile blemish on the Gods' good creations, but he'd never thought them to be such cowards. Had they broken from their offensive after realizing they couldn't' win? Certainly, if they came here, they would have known the risks and accepted them, so why would they just suddenly leave their comrades behind?

Of the many possible answers, none boded well.

He began breathing easier at the fact that at least it would make the remaining forces easier to destroy. Then one of his officer's spoke up on the intercommunication's link. "Commander, we have detected a change in the human forces on the ground."

"What is it?"

"The northwestern and southern forces have both stopped advancing and are holding their positions."

"Show me."

A holographic display winked on in front of him. He scrutinized the two feeds. One showed the northwestern column holding their position near the outermost armories of the grounds there. The southern group were doing the same, just half a kilometer northeast of the edges of his own grounds. Both groups were engaged with an increasing amount of Covenant aerial power and armored elements with the whole action creating a growing shroud of roiled earth around them. Still, they were holding fast.

"What are you doing?" He asked to no one in particular.

Before he could come to his own conclusions, another officer came on the intercom. "Supreme Commander, there is a priority message for you over the BattleNet."

"From who?"

"Supreme Commander Vadumee, sir."

Beorda's mandibles unconsciously flared out in a snarl. It was the last thing he needed. "I have no time for a meeting with my fellow commander. Tell him to-"

"But sir, it's not a meeting request. It's only a message."

Only a message? Beorda felt an uneasy amount of concern as to what a prerecorded message might entail. Still, he needed to know before it became a factor later. "Send it to my station."

A spiral icon appeared on one of his displays. He hesitated, but decided he would want to take whatever was said outside of this room. He pressed in a few functions that caused the dozen or so displays hovering around him to follow as he walked down from the central platform. "I will return." He declared. "Until I do, keep your eyes on the enemy."

He left through one of the doors on the ground floor of the chamber. The Megalekgolo pair in charge of room security were standing guard to either side of it. They stepped aside for him as he entered a winding hallway that gently curved along the circumference of his command center.

The other Megalekgolo pairs and Sangheili patrolling along its length quickly stood at attention as he passed. He paid them no heed. He searched for a vacant spot, finding it a few paces down from the control chamber.

The section of hallway here offered a window view of the urban sprawl outside. It also gave him a vantage point over the northeast from which he could see the deforested lands between his and the other northeastern ground. In the middle was a fierce engagement between human forces and his own. In their easterly movement, both sides had left a long sprawl of dead vehicles and fallen in their wake.

They were fairly exposed, enough, he thought, for an energy bombardment to finish them off. Certainly, he would lose some infrastructure. Still, it would remove the last of these ill-planned and ill-prepared rabble from the doorstep of his glory.

Before pressing Thel's message, he sent in the order for his nearest ships to converge on and begin a low orbital bombardment of the trapped forces in the northeast and northwest. He also ordered his ground forces to keep the humans surrounded until his ships were in place. Once those factors were in play, he set his sights on the problem that now concerned him most. He dared press the icon and watched it emit a recording of Thel.

He was standing on the command platform on the bridge of his ship with hands held behind his caped back. To Beorda, he looked furious yet subtly pleased as he spoke.

"Niccoramee, you are a Sangheili whose time has come. At this very moment, I and many of my ships are on our way to your staging grounds. I will offer you my assistance in repelling the last of the humans when I arrive. Then you will concede sole control and authority over the 2nd Fleet of Theophanic Revelation to me immediately." His mandibles tightened in a determined glower. "You are to be put under arrest in my charge for your dereliction of duty and the committing of heresy after heresy in your refusal to protect a holy prophet. You are to stand trial before the High Council for your many crimes and to receive the punishment that seems most fitting in the eyes of the councilors, the Hierarchs and the Gods. Should you run, I will hunt you down. Should you resist, I shall quarter your limbs from your body and do the same to any foolish soul you inspire to follow you." Thel's glower softened into what looked like mock pity. "May you find no mercy in these last few moments of freedom that yet remain to your wretched life, for you showed none to many."

The recording ended.

With it, Beorda felt himself sinking into something. It wasn't rage, sadness or regret. It was anticipation. He hadn't known how ready he was for this moment until it was finally upon him. Now there was no longer a need for the pretense of respect or shared allegiance. He was free to show Thel what he really thought of him as a commander and a member of the same species. He might've been down a few ships but he had more than enough to handle the comparatively smaller fleet of Particular Justice. To his assurance, he saw the distant clouds of movement as Covenant forces disengaged from the humans on the ground. He watched with pride greater than any commander could muster as he saw 7 of his CCS cruisers and 2 CPV destroyers arriving into position above the humans. He observed gleefully as the energy gathered on their lateral lines, coalescing at their energy projectors. He imagined the sheer destructive power they were about to unleash, and how much more he had at his disposal that he would soon bring to bear against the one Sangheili he hated most.

"Fool." He said.

He never got the chance to say anything more as a flash of light and a burst of the greatest heat he'd ever known consumed all.

:********:

Even well into the mesosphere, Duncan had to close his eyes at the flash of bright light that suddenly beamed through the Pelican's rear window. He knew what it was and struggled to look. The illumination proved too intense to risk even peering in its direction and he kept his eyes closed.

The explosion itself was silent for 15 long seconds after its birth. Then it seemed to speak, uttering an unintelligible, echoing expletive: THUUUMMME!

Though they had to be 60 kilometers away from Actium's surface, it took roughly the same time after the initial blast for the shockwave to reach them. When it did, the immense pressure wave rattled the Pelican far worse than any HEV he'd ever ridden. His exoatmospheric insertion training automatically kicked in. He pinned his back into his seat, set his legs straight, arms at his side and clenched his jaw shut to keep from biting off his own tongue. He quietly endured the heat that instantaneously evaporated the sweat off his face and threatened to boil him alive in his armor.

Emergency sirens went off in the cockpit. Red lights blared in the cargo bay. He heard Cowboy-1-1 and his copilot struggling to keep things under control.

After what felt an endless period which was actually a few seconds, the rattling stopped and the shockwave moved past.

But the light from the surface remained blinding. He took glimpses to see when things changed. So far, they remained too bright to look at. Another minute passed before he felt the heat die down and the brightness dim. He opened his eyes a bit more each second. Eventually he was able to open them fully. He checked the rear window and his tightly clenched jaw fell loose.

There was now a hole in Actium's atmosphere.

He'd never been able to see a landscape from space so clearly in his life. Every cloud that had lingered over the Sabat Mountain region, from the troposphere to the stratosphere, had been pried apart or pushed aside to form what he could only describe as a rotund funnel of clouds. The blast was so immense that even in reaching higher altitudes he could perfectly make out the terrain of Pavia's interior. What looked like the entire continent was lit up by a single point of radiance: a ball of pure, white-hot illumination.

To him, it was roughly the size of a coin.

In truth, it was probably a blast radius of over 4,000 square kilometers. Even that he felt to be too low an estimate. He stared at it as he overheard the pilot comment in a hoarse voice; "That was way too close. Looks like Cowboy-1-2 got ahead of us."

Duncan turned to the cockpit and saw the second Pelican. It was a few kilometers ahead of them in their vertical race back to the fleet, the latter of whom were slowly becoming visible against a glittering galaxy.

Then a reality tapped him on the shoulder and whispered itself into his understanding.

Mars-Actual and the others had left before him.

That made him the last living human being to set foot off of Actium. It had also made him the last that would ever do so.

Something heavy settled on his chest. He stayed quiet, his mouth locking into place no longer out of necessity but out of an inner numbness. His eyes remained locked to the dimming light of the blast for the remainder of the flight.

Finally, the sight was pried away from him once the Pelican leveled out and flew into a repressurization tunnel. They hovered into the safety of one of the Tower of Babel's hanger bays and settled down onto an available space.

He watched the rear door open and fall into a ramp. He listened to the pilots winding down their avionics, bringing the craft into a state of standby. When they were done, the co-pilot walked past. The man looked confused at seeing him still aboard. Regardless, he walked out. The pilot followed not long after and saw him staring at the outer deck. "You good man?"

Duncan didn't answer.

The pilot exhaled in sympathy. "Listen, I know that was rough. It really was. But we've got to keep going."

Duncan didn't answer.

"...Are you...going to go now, or..."

His mouth remained sealed, his attention set on the hanger bay. Seeing that he was making no headway, the pilot patted him on the shoulder and left.

Duncan simply sat there, unmoving.

Shortly thereafter, a man's voice came in over the intercom. "This is your captain speaking. To all hands presently onboard the Tower of Babel, the 53rd have successfully concluded their operation on the surface. In the next ten minutes we will be exiting the system with the remainder of UNSC naval forces. We will be making multiple, short slipspace jumps for security purposes over the next few days before returning to Epsilon Eridani." There was a pause before he added out of his own considerations in a despondent yet firm tone. "Well done, everyone. Well done."

Duncan didn't know how long he stayed there before he looked up and saw that the Staff was standing in front of him. Him, and the rest of Epsilon. Everyone was there on the outside of the landing area, all looking to him.

The Staff walked towards him and was joined by Hotel-1.

He turned to them as they headed onto the ramp. The Staff sat down in the seat opposite his, hands clasped together and lacking his helmet. While he looked worriedly at Duncan, he didn't say anything at first. That fell to Hotel-1 who, depolarizing, had stayed on the ramp to look around. "Where's Hotel-7?" He rounded on the sole ODST that had arrived in the dropship. "Where's Reece? Did he leave already?"

It took a colossal effort for Duncan to drag his eyes from the man's boots up to his visor. His utterly blank stare caused the Sergeant to shift uneasily. "Come on kid, stop messing around. Where is he?"

The voice that came out of his mouth lacked any intimation that it was his, cold and simple. "...He wanted me to tell you...he left the 30 credits that he owed you inside your rucksack."

Hotel-1 visibly stiffened at some silent understanding. However, he didn't say anything more. He looked slowly to Epsilon, then back to Duncan, nodded and made gradual steps down the ramp. He walked away, quiet.

The Staff continued to watch him. After a few more seconds he asked in as gentle a voice as he could. "Are you ready to go now, Ep-8?"

Duncan tried to answer. He didn't know how to say it without feeling his voice come out low and his insides twitch. "I...I can't...I can't move...sir."

"I know it's tough what you just went through, but come on, it's time to leave."

Duncan finally met his eyes. "No, sir. I can't."

The Staff's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean...I literally can't move...sir."

The Staff's expression hardened with confusion, then steadily changed, slowly melting down to a look of regretful comprehension. "Heck." He called and stood up. "Help me lift him. We're taking him to the med bay."

The air around the squad shifted from curiosity to worry. Hector nodded and walked inside. He and the Staff hooked their arms around Duncan's underarm and hoisted him between themselves.

His legs dragged limply behind them while they carried him out from the Pelican and into the ship's inner hallways. The squad stayed close behind.

They made their way over to a med bay on the same deck. A growing number of patients were already inside, UNSC servicemen and women receiving various types of aid. They lay in rows of metal beds with operational suites of AI-operated, robotic limbs applying a number of treatments. However, medical personnel were on hand to oversee most of the procedures. One of them, a nurse with a freckled face and kind disposition came to meet the ODSTs at the door.

Duncan vaguely remembered an exchange of information about his wellbeing between the Staff and this nurse before being brought inside in an air of alarm.

She led the Staff and Hector to a free operating bed at the far end while the rest of the squad watched from outside the bay. They laid him down gently. An older looking doctor, having heard the prognosis from the nurse, had them prop his legs a bit above his body with a pillow. They proceeded to remove most of his armor and covered him in layers of heat-conductive blankets.

He heard the doctor say something to the Staff about "temporary paralysis" and "symptoms of shock" but he really wasn't paying them much attention. He felt separated from both them and himself, distant in a way he'd never known.

He gave no protest as the Staff was made to step aside while other medical staff inserted IV needles into his wrists. He ignored when they brought over an oxygen mask and hooked it over the back of his head as well as the feeling of cool air rushing into his lungs with each breath.

He was focused almost entirely on the strip of windows nearest to him. On the other side was much of the remaining UNSC fleet. He spotted the carriers Dragoon and Syracuse at the center along with the UNSC Carchemish who were among some of the survivors of Silver and Indigo.

Beyond them was Actium. It was no bigger than a soccer ball now. Yet he could still see the pin-point of atmospheric disturbance where the detonation had occurred.

Then there were the displays mounted to the med bay's rooftop which uniformly showed the last STARS images of the surface.

There was nothing except a bulbous mushroom cloud where the Sabat mountain region and much of Pavia's interior should have been. It was impossibly massive, dwarfing anything he'd ever seen or thought possible in his life. Mountains were leveled, plains burned away and valleys scorched out into a world of ashes.

His eyes narrowed at remembering Reece and Colonel Mentieth, Marty and Shugart. Their faces stuck in his mind.

He continued to watch the displays of the ashened world even as he overheard Nova tell the Staff that she would keep an eye on him while he recovered. He stared at the last images of the colony world even as other ships in the fleet left the system one after the other. He watched until their own ship was enshrouded in a burst of bright light. His exhausted eyes saw Actium's lonely image finally disappear altogether as the Tower of Babel jumped into slipspace.

Unus – One