Chapter 1 – Fractisque

May 20th, 2545 (11:18 Hours – Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach

Undisclosed Location

:********:

Commander Henozé White, or Agent White as he was known to his compatriots, studied the largest of several screens mounted to the far wall. His temporary ops center hosted him and his team with a supplementary provision of two dozen cubicles with consular stations. Altogether they formed three rows of eight stations, each row divided in half by a descending stairway which he currently stood atop of.

Two-man teams worked at the accompanying holographic displays. Team 1, those on the rear row closest to him, were filing their way through police reports from departments on Earth. They were simultaneously cross-referencing them with ODST training profiles as well as the service files provided by human resources in the 10th Shock Troops Battalion. In the second row was Team 2 who predominantly sported headsets. Those set were communicating with each other along with separate human intelligence or HUMINT assets involved in their tracking operation. Finally, Team 3 closest to the forward screens were accessing the last of New Alexandria's municipal camera systems, specifically those in the downtown area.

His team, or at least the part he'd preselected for logistics-oriented tasks, were some of the best experts in field analytics a CO could ask for. In fact, he knew from their files that many who were in his age-set had gathered intelligence for numerous operations during the Insurrection. Operation TREBUCHET came up more than once on some of their career service vitaes. Like him, they were mainly part of an older generation; one from a time when those that bombed intersystem embassies and hijacked outer-colony freighters were more pressing threats than aliens that treated planetary destruction as a pastime chore.

Those were simpler times which he almost found himself missing. Almost, were it not for the nature of their present target.

The lights from multiple forward screens flashed through White's characteristically white hair for which age was not the culprit. He was only in his late 40s, but the stress of a lifetime spent on a balancing act between being technically non-existent to the wider world and being close to legitimately dead had taken its toll. Yet here before him was someone who did in fact exist to the wider world and was in fact dead, or was believed to have been so until a few weeks ago.

On the ops center's largest screen was a split display. The one on the right was a service file with the information and picture of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. The man looked somewhere in his early to mid-20s. He had an angular jaw with an oval-shaped face. The orange hair on his head was kept in a standard UNC buzz-cut. His brown eyes met the piercing gaze of White's silvery pupils with the unbridled look of a man just waiting to crack a joke with the photographer. With eyebrows partly raised, a glint of humor and a trace of a smile hidden behind a feigned mask of seriousness, to anyone he would have seemed like a normal Helljumper. His information was listed to the bottom right of his picture:

Unit Details: 105th Shock Troops Division - 10th Battalion, Delta Company – 2nd Platoon, Squad Outlaw.

Service Number: 47541-09017-JO

Rank: PFC

Name: O'Reilly, James M.

Status: MIA (Presumed KIA)

While he found his squad's name non-humorously ironic, what really interested him was the status listing below the name, mainly how wrong it actually was. Because on the left side of the screen was an active video-feed of the man himself.

Team 3 had done some great work circumventing New Alexandria's numerous superintendent AIs to gain access to the municipal cameras. The feed provided on screen was from a camera mounted beneath a traffic light. It slowly rotated to track the movements of one James Madsen O'Reilly.

At the moment, O'Reilly was moving along the busy streets of downtown New Alexandria. The traffic lights had just turned red on the intersection below, allowing hundreds of city commuters to traverse the zebra crossings in front of a host of anxious vehicles. The camera zoomed in to single out O'Reilly from a group of pedestrians as he made his way onto a sidewalk. He walked out of view, prompting another feed to switch on showing him from an overhead angle. It was obvious by the positioning and the mocha sign in the upper-right corner that he was passing a coffee shop.

The closeness of this camera allowed White to make out more of the man's details.

Unlike in his photo where he was in 'ODST' branded fatigues, O'Reilly was now dressed in simple blue jeans, a gray shirt and a black, hooded jacket. The clothing helped him blend in perfectly with New Alexandria's burgeoning populace. His hair still looked regulation length despite that it bled into faded sideburns before erupting into a face-full of orange stubble. The chaos of his facial hair was tamed by a goatee. Even with the shades he was wearing, White could tell that he looked serious behind them with a determination that was set on the reason for his appearance on Reach.

He was quite alive for a dead man, or for someone presumed to be so.

But White wasn't about to change the ex-ODSTs' status listing anytime soon. For the sake of the mission, they couldn't afford to take the risk of correcting the record. Not until they corrected something else.

"Target is southbound from the intersection of László and Newmann street, he's just passed the Jim Dandy." Team 3's leader, Lieutenant Johanan said as he glanced over his shoulder at White. He was a bulky, blonde guy who was roughly the same age but had retained his original hair color, a feature White was slightly jealous of.

"Noted. Team 2, how're our Hunter teams?"

From the left side of the second row, Petty Officer 3rd Class Carmichael, a balding man of middling stature reported in while typing away on his console. "Hunter Teams 2 through 3 are keeping an eye on him for the next few minutes. Once he reaches Houdini Avenue, Team 1 will take over."

White could see the screens in the second row showing the personal body cams of multiple HUMINT assets, agents on the ground implored to walk around the area. They were part-timers, everyday commuters who normally would be walking to their jobs downtown. Their employment was a normal practice back during the Insurrection to locate rebels just before a force of marines was sent in to capture them. However, they'd contacted a fraction of these secretive elements among the average population in order to keep extra eyes on O'Reilly's movements. So far, they were doing a decent job as the majority of their hidden cameras had solid views of their target. Judging by the differing perspectives, the man was flanked on all sides without even knowing it.

"If you ask me sir, we should just terminate him now while we have the chance." Carmichael said. He turned in his seat towards his commanding officer. "Hunter-2's leader and Hunter-3's both have a good line of sight. We can just have one or both of them take the kill-shot. If the NAPD manage to catch one of them, we can just scrub the record to get them out like usual. That way at least, this guy won't be a problem later."

White eyed the petty officer with a look of someone entertaining an already unfeasible opinion. "You know we can't do that, Carmichael."

"Why not?"

"Look at your screens. What do you see?"

To humor him, Carmichael took a glance. "A city sidewalk."

"Full of civilians." White added, finishing the thought. "Two things are at stake under these conditions. One, if we miss, we risk him pulling out a weapon and firing back. That could cause collateral, which is the last thing we need. Second, if we do make the shot, we'll be alerting the others to the fact that we're onto them. We can't afford to let them know that just yet."

Carmichael took in a deep breath with detectable frustration. "Sir, I understand that's our mission and all but what if he has something else on him-"

"He doesn't. That's not why he came. I can tell."

"Sir-"

White's silvery eyes pierced into Carmichael's, immediately removing any further desire within the man to object. "He didn't come to cause trouble and neither did we. We'll stay the course. Besides, right now he's far too valuable for us to just take him out." He turned back to the screen to see O'Reilly stopping at another intersection then crossing over.

He shifted his jaw in thought as he glared at the man blending seamlessly into the masses. "After all, as things stand, he's our only way in."

:********:

His skin burned.

Duncan tried to move, but he couldn't.

Opening his eyes only made it worse.

He was surrounded on nearly every side by broken Warthogs, smoldering Ghosts, decapitated Scorpion tanks and Wraiths split into jagged halves along lines of molten destruction.

Far off in the distance was the mountainous terrain of Sabat that encircled him all around.

Then there was the southern staging ground.

Its many skyscraper-like barracks, shipyards, mines and armories loomed impossibly large over the battlefield. They were more massive than he remembered.

What worried him more were the thousands of UNSC Army personnel of the 53rd Armored Division standing between him and the enemy installations. They were all staring at him, their faces shrouded in shadow.

Between them and himself stood Shugart and Marty along with Reece and Mentieth. Their faces were visible. They were staring at him in an unexpressive quietness, leaving the howl of the wind alone to fill the void of sound.

Duncan tried to speak to them but his felt mouth cemented shut. He tried to move and found his limbs pinned in place.

Before his eyes the sky flashed a brilliant white.

He squinted to see what it was. The moment he did he felt a shock of fear shoot through his entire being.

Within the southern staging ground there arose a ball of light that quickly towered over everything around it, casting long shadows from the Covenant structures and surrounding mountains like a dawning sun. It swiftly enveloped them, though at a much slower speed than what he remembered. It seemed to crawl forward, absorbing the outer perimeters and the labyrinths of destroyed vehicles beyond.

What he did recognize was the rapidly escalating heat.

He wanted to scream, to warn the others of what was coming. Still, he couldn't move. They kept watching him, ignoring the steadily creeping fireball that cast the entirety of the region in an artificial morning.

He witnessed as the thousands of UNSC personnel standing around him were incinerated one row at a time. The closer the explosion came, the more he could see exactly what was happening.

The men and women of the 53rd were having their BDUs burned away, followed by their skin being singed to a blackened char before that too was stripped off by a scintillating wall of angry-orange flames. What was left, if only for the briefest second, was a horrifying after-image of muscles, tendons and innards being unwrapped from bare bones like clothing, until there was nothing left but a sight that made his skin crawl. Then even that too burst into a rain of ashes that was whisked away before the ever-expanding barrier of fire.

He had to run. He knew that. Even so, he tried to open his mouth to at least warn the four closest to him. Again, nothing came out. Again, it didn't seem to matter to the ones he wanted to warn who kept their eyes on him.

Eventually the heat grew so intense and his desperation so heightened that he willed himself to move. He began to, albeit slowly as his body conformed to his demands to turn.

It was like moving in slow-motion, as if he were being held back by some unseen restraints. He was soon able to turn himself. Doing so allowed him to see that just 5 meters ahead of him, within a small clearing, was the open cargo bay of a landed Pelican dropship.

He ran for it, pushing hard despite the invisible, watery resistance to his movements. The rising heat started hurting his skin. He felt a thousand needles piercing him from every direction.

Halfway to the Pelican he dared to look back over his shoulder.

They were still watching him. He saw the inferno finally reach them. One by one, Shugart, Marty, Reece and Colonel Mentieth were boiled away layer by layer into nothing more than ashes. Those too dissipated into the bellowing wind. He pried his eyes away and redoubled his efforts.

The explosion began bearing down on him. He could tell from his own shortening shadow that it was quickly gaining ground.

The Pelican's bay was less than a meter away when a hand grabbed his leg, causing him to pitch forward. Landing on his hands and knees, he turned back to see a figure dressed in Army BDU. The man had a missing leg, a pale face and was weakly mouthing the words "Help me."

The roar of fusion drives drew his attention to the Pelican. He could do little more than watch as the dropship's rear door closed while the engines whined to life. In an instant the Pelican shot up into the air and ascended for the skies. It went on to join the few remaining ships of Battlegroup Indigo escaping through the clouds to head for the upper atmosphere.

Duncan reached up after them just as his shadow shortened then disappeared altogether.

Suddenly the needle sensation on his reaching arm deepened to an unbearable pain. The trembling limb ignited from the sheer heat encroaching behind him. He tried to scream. Nothing came out.

The fires spread over his arm and proceeded to peel back his skin like burning paper. It flooded into his bones and joints to devour the flesh beneath as his blood evaporated from his veins. In silenced agony, he watched the shadows of the last ships disappear from the clouds.

Bit by bit, the explosion at his back rose up his legs, crawled up his body, reached his pained eyes and sealed them away behind the blaze.

Duncan shot awake and sat up straight in his bed. He clutched at his bare chest, nearly prying away at his skin.

His frenzied gaze shifted from left to right.

He was in a bedroom. There was a mahogany floor with a brightening sheen from the morning rays passing through the window curtains off to his left. There was a dark wooded bureau with drawers and a display projection unit mounted to the top. The two lampstands to his right and left were both off, just as he and Erica had kept them to better enjoy their third night together.

It struck him while he was still fighting to catch his breath that he was in her room, inside Falchion's civilian residential building.

He was shocked at how drenched he was in his own sweat. What surprised him more was that Erica was lying up against him. She was still sleeping with him under the sheets. He was naked. So was she, but he figured the last thing she would want was to find him glistening next to her like he was now.

Noah had stayed asleep as well. The spry 1-year old lay in his own kid-sized bed off to the right of theirs. He was encompassed by pillows like a sleeping toddler in a picture frame. Said picture hadn't been easy to maintain since he had a habit of waking up every so often to call for his mom. Duncan, barely able to crack an eye open, would watch Erica switch modes from slumber to full alertness at will. Several times she held Noah across her chest, walked around the room and would whisper a few melodies to make him go back to sleep.

It was something Duncan felt he wasn't ready for. Plenty of times he'd gotten himself thrown out of sleep thanks to a rough wake-up call from the Staff and sometimes even by plasma bursts shooting right above where he'd slept. Compared to all that, somehow hearing Noah crying for his mom struck him as more pressing. At any other time, he knew he could fend for himself. The same went for the rest of Epsilon. But a baby was different. Noah needed someone to protect and be there for him. For as long as he was out of the womb, Erica had acted as that protection. Now he had both parents nearby. It put the weight of a different responsibility on Duncan's mind that wasn't as overpowering before as it was nowadays.

The weight of being a dad was his to carry.

It never ceased to amaze him that that reality was only beginning to settle in for him in the last three days. Erica had a whole year to figure out what it meant to be a mom. That way she had an advantage over him in the whole parenting game. While she had her sea-legs tried and tested, his were yet to be broken in.

Because of that he'd tried for the past several days to help out however he could. Erica taught him how to bathe Noah, how to dress him up and, worst of all, how to change his pampers. From the first time he changed one of his less than fragrant articles, Duncan grew a distinct preference for defusing Covenant anti-matter charges. Sure, one was more lethal but at least the effects were instant compared to a drawn-out assault on every sensory nerve in his nostrils. Of course, the upside was that Erica got a laugh out of it whenever he made a face, often rubbing it in with the phrase: "Welcome to my world, Helljumper."

It was a different kind of hell. Still, it was one he was learning to navigate, if barely.

Once he learned how to lull Noah to sleep, he knew he had the keys to the castle. Thankfully, the little bundle of familial joy liked naps more than Deaks liked teeth. While making him easier to manage it also opened the window for the two of them to have more time alone, like they used to have before Ravenport.

Just that night he'd gotten Noah into a restive sleep that for the most part kept him in bed. That allowed him and Erica to enjoy the rest of the night on their own. All they needed was a small night-light whose blue luminescence helped move things along smoothly.

In spite of his flustered mind, he felt some measure of manly pride at knowing that even after two years in the sack he still had skill. Though a little rusty at the outset, Erica helped him hone that talent back to peak quality well into the early morning.

She was still smiling even now. Then he saw that smile slowly dissipate as she felt around the bed for him. Her eyes opened and instantly locked on to his. Seeing him made her sit up against the headboard with the sheets clutched against her chest. "What're you doing up so early?"

He fought to deepen his shallow breaths of the room's chilled air. His thoughts took a few seconds longer to settle. The inside of his head was more like an upset bee's nest than anything remotely organized enough to respond to her question. Looking over his arms, he had to mentally force himself to recognize that it was only a dream.

Erica put a hand on his shoulder. "Another nightmare?"

Nightmare was a better word for it, he thought. Then again, it felt more akin to an alternate reality than the one he was in, a reality that may very well have been the case for many others. Of the thousands of faces he saw, it was those four closest to him that remained pinned to the forefront of his mind.

"I'm fine...no worries."

"It's not the first time you woke up with them." She leaned in closer. "Come on Dunc, the dumb blonde thing doesn't work with me. I can see something's bothering you."

Again, she was right. That was one stereotype that definitely didn't fit. She was always too keen for that, sometimes a lot more so than he was. This was such an occasion where he wished she wasn't.

"It-"

"If you say anything remotely close to 'it's not your business' or 'it doesn't matter', I'm going to bug you about it day and night until you tell me."

She'd swatted down his plan before it ever got off the ground. "...Right. Well, these last few nights I've been having these-, I don't really know what to call them. They keep taking me back to those last few minutes that I was on Actium." The image of scorched personnel having their skin peeled off of them like paper crumpling before the flames flashed across his mind, their empty stares pinning him in place.

"Hey." Erica shook him a little to help him out of it.

"Sorry. I was-...anyway, it keeps coming back up. I keep seeing faces."

"Familiar faces?"

There was another image, that of the four standing closest to him as they were slowly and painfully melted away, along with the dismembered man mouthing "help me". He summoned the strength to nod.

"I see." Erica said in deep thought.

Duncan peered back at her. "You don't think I'm going-"

"I don't." She read his thoughts as always. "My dad told me a few times about how he used to deal with some of the personnel under his command that kept having recurring nightmares. They were usually about something they did that stuck with them long after. For most of them they managed to get through it and the nightmares became less frequent. Some, well-"

"Some just never recovered, right?"

Erica eyed him for a moment. Her hand moved up from his shoulder to hold the side of his jaw and she gently turned his face to hers. She scrutinized him, though not with an eye for details on his body. He knew she was looking for something else that he wasn't sure he still possessed.

"Listen here, ODST." She spoke with such firmness that it finally drew in his attention.

"You sound like a drill instructor."

"And you sound like you need one." She shuffled over to sit in a more comfortable, cross-legged posture. "Listen, you're Duncan Iris. You're that same little boy I knew who used to jump out of the tallest trees in his neighborhood and break his ankles just to see what dropping through the atmosphere was like. That's still you."

"How do you know that?" Duncan asked. "It's been nearly 2 years. I've changed a lot." His gaze fell from hers. "I haven't changed much of anything else."

She chuckled at him. "I'll admit, you're a lot sulkier than I remember you being when you left Nassau Station. But you're the same where it counts."

His gaze returned to hers. She smiled at him, an expression that inspired him to mirror it in a tired and grateful manner. "Thanks...Drill Instructor Eri."

"You feeling better?"

"A little."

Erica pulled her hand away to place it against her temple in a mock salute. "Then carry on smartly, recruit."

Duncan looked her over. Doing so brought out a laugh that surprised her.

"What?"

"DIs don't salute recruits, Eri, just superior officers."

He saw the understanding dawn on her as she flushed red and he laughed even harder. She couldn't resist smiling at her mistake and punched him playfully in the shoulder. "Hey, knock it off. You'll wake up Noah."

Duncan quieted. They both glanced over at the third member of the family who thankfully had remained asleep.

"Besides." She added with a knowing grin. "Maybe I am saluting an officer, maybe a future Sergeant or Captain, XO or even a CO. Who knows where you'll be in a few years' time."

A few years' time. The sentence stopped Duncan cold in his tracks. His laughter faded off as he thought it over. The idea of living a few more years would seem plausible to someone like Erica who wasn't on the frontlines. He couldn't say the same, not after seeing the rate at which the UNSC was losing ships and at which humanity was losing worlds. Exactly how many more Miridems or Actiums did they have left to spare, if any could be? That begged a different question.

Erica noticed how his attention drifted listlessly to the windows and leaned worriedly into his line of sight. "Hey, what's wrong again?"

The soft concernedness of her question brought him back to reality. It also made him wonder whether she could take the harshness of his own question, harsh because she now knew everything he'd gone through. Mostly everything.

He spoke in the calmest tone he was able to: "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Do you think we can win this war?"

Erica visibly straightened. Her expression fell somewhat from the earlier humor. She wasn't the only one in their marriage that could read the other. She began maneuvering her hair back behind her shoulders to try and smooth out her bed head. It was her nervous tick, a way of preparing herself unconsciously to say something she wasn't sure about.

"I-, I um." She fought to find the words she was looking for. Whatever they were, they proved too far off for her to get ahold of them. Sighing, she released her hair to look him straight in the eyes. "Well, I was hoping you would know the answer to that better than I would."

"Hey, no cop outs. Come on, tell me what you really think."

She shrugged. "No really, I mean, what soldier ever knew for a fact that his side was going to win? The best he could maybe hope to do was make an assessment."

"And what's your assessment, soldier?"

She glared at him sideways. "You know, my dad would be really on edge right now if he heard you call me that."

"Sorry." He corrected. "What do you think, Ms. Jarhead?"

The comment made her crack a smile. "Honestly, I think we might have a shot. If what Mentieth did is anything to go by like what they showed on Waypoint, it definitely means we stand a chance."

"We?"

She arched a brow at him and folded her arms. "If you guys lose, we all lose. If you guys win, we all win. Our fates are tied. It's as simple as that."

Though he didn't show it, she'd struck a part of him on the inside with her answer. Their fates were indeed intertwined. If the UNSC lost, so would the rest of humanity, Erica and Noah included. He had known that on some level already but hearing it from her own mouth hammered it into place for him. A hard lump entered his throat as he glanced at Noah sleeping peacefully in his bed.

"Tied, huh?"

"You're doing it again."

Duncan righted himself once more after drifting off. "Sorry."

"No need to apologize." She shifted over to sit beside him with sheets clutched close. "You've got a lot on your mind, I can tell. Leave the bigger picture to folks like your colonel. From what you told me about him he strikes me as a pretty smart guy, kind of like a buff Santa Claus fighting the Covenant."

The idea that put in his head of Colonel Garrison shooting an assault rifle at Elites from a flying reindeer powered-sleigh made him laugh. "I guess he'd give out bullets instead of coal for being naughty then."

"See, that's the spirit. Let people like him handle the big victories. You just need to focus on doing all you can for your own big victories, like coming back to me."

"How's that a big victory?"

"It is for me. By those terms..." She leaned in, planted a kiss on his cheek and grinned at his blush. "I win."

He looked at her, marveling at how she always seemed to know how to get under his skin in the best way. "Hmph. Thanks for that, I guess."

She nudged her shoulder into his. "Don't mention it."

A rustling sound drew their eyes to the other bed. In it, Noah was beginning to wrestle himself out of the fitful edges of sleep. He opened his eyes to see his parents watching over him. Blinking a few times, he rolled onto his side to yawn, exposing his handful of baby teeth.

"Aww, guess someone's awake now." Erica said. She threw on her clothes hidden under the sheets and got up.

Duncan observed her bringing Noah up into her arms even though the kid looked too grumpy to appreciate it.

She eyed her husband curiously and he grinned back of course. But as she looked away to set about getting their son ready for the day, Duncan's grin gradually faded off.

:********:

Later that morning after they got some breakfast from one of Falchion's local diners, Duncan left them back at the residential building. He promised he would be back later in the afternoon. He told her that he needed to visit someone at the Dante Building, though without telling her why exactly.

In truth, as helpful as she was trying to be, Erica hadn't really answered his question. Telling him to leave the bigger picture to persons like Garrison was, in truth, no better than what the Staff told him at the Luna Alta; that they probably wouldn't live to see what it fully meant if they lost the war. The idea that hit him hardest from the conversation was that their fates were undeniably tied. If the UNSC wasn't strong enough then there wouldn't be anyone able to put up a fight. If they lost, so would everyone else. The idea was enough to light a fire in him that drove him along Falchion's sidewalks in search of answers, concrete ones.

A day after their return to Falchion, the rest of Epsilon went out on a week-long trip to the city of Quezon that they planned back aboard the Tower of Babel. They used the base's starport, a small terminal on the edge of the perimeter, and took a local starship flight that ferried civilians and personnel to different locals twice a day.

He'd chosen to stay on base with Erica and Noah and wished the rest of Epsilon well. But there was at least one other squadmate that had chosen to stay.

At reaching the Dante Building, he crossed through the stagnant traffic lanes of Warthogs and Mongooses to slip through the front doors.

He logged in with his personal ID card at the lobby. With a quick swipe from the desk workers, he was free to head for the elevator. The lift was empty which made it easier for him to get where he was going.

The doors slid open and he headed out onto 1st platoon's floor. Much to his surprise, he made his way through the maze of empty bunks to find who he was looking for, albeit decked out in his ODST BDU and a sniper rifle in hand.

Deaks was sitting on his bunk maneuvering a special sanitation wipe across the barrel of the SRS-99 resting on his lap. Seeing him vaguely reminded Duncan of a guitarist strumming his instrument.

He walked up to him. "Hey, corporal, you got a sec?"

Since Deaks didn't have on his helmet, Duncan got to see his expression the moment he was forced to break concentration from the rifle. He looked like he was in a rush. It changed to a sly smile at realizing who it was coming over. "Finally got tired of your girl, did you? Shame. What do you need, I'm kinda busy?"

Duncan sat down on the bunk beneath Rico's. He took a second to gather his thoughts after all that walking. "I guess I got the timing right on when you'd be back at Falchion-"

"Which I won't be at for much longer today because I've got somewhere to be." Deaks said whilst scrubbing away spots of dried lubricant on the barrel of the 99. "So can you hurry it up, my guy?"

The moment Duncan tried to bring up what he came to talk about, his throat clenched into a tightness that kept him from speaking. He swallowed down the feeling before it could stop him outright. "What do you think about the war?"

"What about the war?"

He mentally slapped himself at not being specific. "Do you think we can win it?"

Deaks stopped cleaning altogether. He briefly stared down at his rifle. Then his eyes, dark and strained, made their way up to Duncan's. "That's a pretty dangerous question there, Irish. Now, do you want my equally dangerous answer?"

"Will I regret it?"

"No."

"Alright then, let's hear it."

"No."

Duncan's brow furrowed. "Wait, do you mean 'no' as in you don't want to tell me or 'no' as in-…" He trailed off as Deaks started laughing at him. The sniper's laughter held a pinch of derision that he knew was aimed his way. After several seconds of what was pure mirth for the merc of an ODST, he settled down and collected himself. Then he became, what was to Duncan, unnervingly relaxed. He answered with a smile on his face one would reserve for a small child that didn't know any better.

"We're not going to win this war, Irish." He said softly with a nonchalant shake of his head, as if surprised his comrade didn't see the answer of a question just as simple as 2+2. "What made you think we could?"

The coolness that shot through Duncan's mind was cold enough to chill him in every way. He fought not to show how shocked he was. Even that was barely able to stop the look on his face that Deaks could easily read.

The sniper held up a hand. "Listen, don't get too ahead of yourself, alright?" He glanced left to right around the room to make sure they were in fact alone. "Look, this isn't something I'm comfortable with telling anyone. The last thing people need is someone they see as a doubter on their side while they're busy fighting and dying for that side."

"But-, o-, on Actium, remember, at Mount Sabato? You said we were done. How could you say that if you didn't believe we were already doing something, accomplishing something beforehand?"

Deaks went silent as he thought back on it.

"Didn't you think we were going to win?"

"No." He replied simply. "I didn't."

The answer shook Duncan once more. "Then-, then why fight? Why even bother?"

Deaks shrugged. "Why does anyone?" He continued to clean his rifle.

"Come on, Deaks. You've got a reason. I know you do."

"Yeah well." The corporal reached and ran a few fingers through the rows of alien tooth necklaces hanging both above and beneath his bunk. "You're looking at 'em."

"Teeth? That's it? Nothing else?"

Deaks sized up the man in front of him. He grabbed Silver Buddha from where it lay on his bed. "Alright, you want more than that? Then how about I tell you how all of this started, how I got here? I know, it's a nice big story so I doubt you'll want to hear it."

Duncan stared at him with such an intensity that it soon made the corporal realize he was serious.

"Okay, okay, fine. You know, I actually was being sarcastic with that story part, didn't think anyone would ever want to listen."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"I guess you are." Deaks took in a deep breath then flicked Silver Buddha around as he talked. "To keep a long story short, here's the break down. I'm from Harvest."

With those three words he made Duncan flinch. That was definitely something about the man he'd never known or ever bothered to find out before. To think he was from the same planet his dad died on was a fact he wasn't prepared for whatsoever. He immediately started seeing him in a much different light, connecting a few dots. "You were there during the first contact?"

"As far as I know." He gave a long sigh like he was going to get something big off his chest. "You want to know why it is I don't like Brutes, why I want their teeth especially?"

Duncan waited intently for his answer.

"It's because I got to watch two of them kill my folks. One of them found my father in the driveway trying to get the car ready for us to make a run for it. It split him open with a spike rifle. Another one got into our house. By the time I reached my mom, it already had her between its teeth." He stopped to stare off at some distant point in the room. "...She told me to run. So I did. It came after me too so I hid in the sewer. I came out later and found they'd burned my entire town. A Marine Sergeant, some guy named Johnson, managed to run into me and got me out of there." He reached into his pocket, pulled out a single sharpened canine nearly twice the size of his thumb and held it up. "He gave me this. He told me: 'They took something from you so we took something from them for you'."

"Is that..."

"I remember almost wanting to chop your arm off the first day I met you, Irish." Deaks said, staring at it. "Because you asked me if I had Brute teeth. Truth be told, I did. I just don't have enough."

"Enough for what?"

Deaks tapped on the necklaces beneath him so that the teeth on their lines jingled around like ornaments. "To make a full set of these. I just need one necklace, one, and I'll be satisfied. But if I can get my hands on more right now, I'd do it. I almost got myself a full set from a Chieftain back in Sycion." His leering look was dampened under the flood of some other memory. "That's another story though."

Duncan watched him put the tooth back into a pocket on his BDU. "So, you want teeth...to avenge your parents then? Is that it?"

"Close. You see, that Sergeant gave me the right idea even if he didn't mean to. From the second the Covenant showed up at Harvest I knew this war was unwinnable. Whenever they show up in a system, it's over. So as a kid, I turned down any offers by people that wanted to control how I got my payback on the Covies. ." He eyed Silver Buddha wistfully with a glint of light travelling along its length. "I decided early on I would do it my own way, I'd make as many of them feel the same pain I did at losing my folks by taking whatever I could from them. That way, even if they win, they won't forget what I did to them, what we did to them. The scars we leave on them will last far longer than this war or anything they can do to us. I plan on dishing as many of those out as I can before I go."

Deaks pointed the knife at his comrade. "Remember this, Irish. It'll help you when you're in another rut like the one you're obviously in now. It's better to let an enemy you can't beat live on with the most painful wounds you can inflict than it is to just try and kill them anyway. Once you realize that, it'll help you enjoy the time you've got left with Erica and Noah a lot more than you already are."

There were no words Duncan could find that were able to make his agape mouth move. He was speechless. What he could do was stare wide-eyed at the man he'd been serving alongside for years on end. He couldn't have imagined before this that anyone could fight under the notion that they couldn't win. Still, it seemed that the corporal had made peace with that idea long before they ever even met.

Several beeps of a horn outside pulled their focus to the nearest window.

"Ah, that's my ride." Deaks slipped his helmet on. He got up, hefting his rifle and nodded Duncan towards the elevator. They headed down to the ground floor in relative silence.

As they walked out into the lobby, Deaks asked. "Got any other questions?"

The words still wouldn't come for Epsilon's cryptanalyst to make his opinion known.

"Alright, well, if you do, we can talk later. Right now, I've got a bit of a meetup going on."

They passed through the sliding doors.

Waiting for them on the sidewalk were a pair of parked Mongooses occupied by three fully armored ODSTs, two on the furthest and another on the closest. Thanks to their depolarized visors, it was plain to see that the driver on the first was Gunnery Sergeant Singh and the one on the second was Captain Ortega. The man on the rear of the former's vehicle, like Deaks, was wielding an SRS-99.

"Hey corporal, hurry it up." Ortega hailed him over. "We need to start the safari before the Guta show up. The last thing we want is for the Moa to get all scared away because we got there too late."

"Copy." Deaks bumped a fist on Duncan's shoulder and ran over to the other bike.

"I still think you should've pulled out a shooter from Razor." Singh protested to the captain. "It isn't fair robbing Atell of one of his guys. How can you call that a real competition between squads if you're using somebody from a different team than yours?"

"They're out of town so it's no problem. Besides, Ep-8's a better shot than any of my boys."

Deaks settled down on the rear platform. "Thanks sir."

"Anytime." Ortega revved up the engines of his Mongoose. Singh drove off in the lead and the captain followed close behind.

"Take some time, Irish!" Deaks called as they drove off "Think about it! It'll make sense to you sooner or later!"

Duncan watched them disappear as they rounded a corner. He stayed on the sidewalk for a full minute before pulling himself away. Feeling more uncertain than ever, he wondered if it was really a good idea to have seen Epsilon's sniper.

A thought crossed his mind that made him look up to the 10th floor. The whole thing had reminded him that there was still someone he needed to speak with. He desperately hoped maybe they would have the answers he needed.

:********:

The 10th floor of the Dante Building was empty for the most part. Save for the few ODSTs of Bravo Company moving here and there, there was no one present. He strolled into the communication's room, got himself a cubicle and settled down on a chair in front of a wide display that warmed at his touch. A second later the screen winked on showing a user interface. He typed in his personal service number followed up with a few digits for the passcode. Once his contacts winked onto the screen, he used the touch pad function to scroll down to O'Reilly's number.

He was immediately surprised at seeing three notifications. Tapping the contact expanded the window, allowing him to see that he had three missed calls from the man. One on April 5th, two on May 19th, yesterday.

It came as a subtle relief that even after all this time not only was his friend alive but he was also trying to get in contact with him. However, he noted a strange fact. O'Reilly hadn't tried to call him any earlier than April. He wondered why he didn't attempt to check up on him at no point earlier in the year after he'd gone silent for so long. It was odd.

He prepared to offer another round of profuse explanations and apologies like the one he gave to Erica when a new notification stopped him. In the upper right corner of the screen appeared a single window reading: 'Call Request – J. O'Reilly'.

Duncan felt his heart move uninvited up into his throat. He fought down a primal panic of nervousness that threatened to overtake him. With a few steadying breaths, he pressed the green acceptance icon.

It took three full seconds for the new screen to appear. To him, it felt more like three hours.

When it did, his breath hitched in his tense throat.

Looking back at him were curious brown eyes, a familiar head of orange hair and an unfamiliar stubble-shrouded goatee.

Regardless of the changes of time, O'Reilly still had that same joking look in his eyes that widened with his smile.

"Heyo, long time no see, Sunny Jim."

Duncan could sense tears of hot joy steaming the back of his eyes at hearing the Irish accent again. He held them there as seeing his old teammate etched a hardy smile on his face. "Riley, holy hell man, it's good to see you."

O'Reilly seemed to be fighting back a few tears himself since his eyes glistened, run offs from the happiness beaming through his face. He laughed all the while. "Good to see you too, lad, alive and well. So how's life been treating you?"

"Same as always, killing Covenant then running away to kill them somewhere else."

O'Reilly nodded. "Hmph, sounds like business as usual then. I can relate. Good God, I can relate. It's pretty much been the same on my end."

"Hey, how'd you manage to catch me on this like you did?"

"Check your profile pic, boyo."

Duncan spotted his profile on a taskbar in the upper left corner. Just below his name was his status listing: 'Online'.

"Ah, I didn't see that."

"The devil's in the details, lad. Pay attention long enough and you'll find'em."

On that note, Duncan took in the details of his friend. He was wearing a hoodie and was sitting in some kind of car on the move, maybe a taxi. "Hey Rile, it doesn't look like you're on duty. Where're you at now?"

"Me?" O'Reilly stopped to look out a window then winked down at him. "I'm in New Alexandria."

Duncan had to blink a few times in processing that. "Wait-wait-wait, New Alexandria? As in, here, on Reach?

O'Reilly's smile brightened. "Epsilon Eridani is a beautiful place this time of year, huh? To think you were hiding such a beauty from me, and I'm not even talking about Erica. Hey, by the way, how is her majesty nowadays? It's been a good while since I've heard anything from you guys in the Iris family."

"Actually, she's here with me at our battalion HQ."

Now it was O'Reilly's turn to flinch. He came closer to the screen. "What? You mean to tell me she..."

Duncan nodded. "Yup. She's here, her and Noah. She came out here...looking for me."

He knew the Irishman could sense his hesitation. Sure enough, the man harped on it right away. "So your lady and little one came all the way down from Sol to Epsilon Eridani, did they? Well, that's the love of a woman for her man if ever I saw it. That's how you know she cares; she came running after yuh. Me, I just tried a few calls then called it a day, figured you were out doing some extra jockeying on the frontier." He raised an eyebrow at him. "By the way, where've you been for the last half a year if you don't mind me asking?"

That was one question Duncan knew he couldn't exactly answer, not straight anyway. Even Erica had had to accept that. Maybe O'Reilly could to.

"Ugh, well I'll tell you, I've had a ride on my hands Ril-"

"Wait." O'Reilly held up a hand. "Hold on, hold on. What're we doing?"

"What?"

"Listen, we haven't seen each other in months, years even. Why don't we meet up in person? That's why I called anyway. I wanted to see if we could make this a real family reunion, have a real conversation face to face. What do you say, Sunny Jim? How about you meet me here in New Alexandria for a quick meet-up?"

The thought hadn't even crossed his mind that in some respects he still wasn't talking to O'Reilly in the way he truly used to. He was only on a screen, not in the flesh. When that sunk in, he weighed his options. It wouldn't be that hard to travel either. The only limiting factor he could think of was having Erica and Noah already here. He'd barely gotten in a few days with them, which wasn't nearly enough to make up for how long he'd been missing from their lives. Still...

"I don't know, Riley. I'd have to see what happens. Erica and Noah, they got here just a few days ago." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I might not be able to do that right now."

"You two have been bedding, haven't you?"

Redness flashed through Duncan's face. "Huh?"

O'Reilly grinned mischievously at his reaction. "No worries, I know the look of a man whose been away from the warmth of a good bed for far too long. I can understand." His expression faded off into what seemed a somber reminiscence. "However, it has been a good while. Who knows if we'll ever get a chance to meet up again like the old team did."

The mention made memories flow through Duncan's mind that tugged at old wounds. He ran a flustered hand through his hair. "You mean Cosmo and Stanton?"

"Yeah, the old crew." A silence passed between them at their recollection of the men that no longer were.

O'Reilly released a heartfelt exhale. "I know you're just seeing your family. I tell you what though, I don't want to come around later and find out from one of your squadmates that the last of my buddies didn't make it back from an op. The same goes for you. But by the way things have been going..." He shook his head. "We shouldn't take it for granted that we were able to catch up again when so many others weren't. Are you on shore leave by any chance?"

"...Yeah, you?"

"Yeah." O'Reilly refocused on him. "Then how about it, one day, we can do a quick catch up over some coffee on me."

It didn't take long for Duncan to consider it this time. "Sure. There's a transport service here that I can take. I'll have to run it by Erica first to let her know."

O'Reilly visibly perked up with some semblance of joy returning to him, including a playful smirk. "Make sure you let her know we're not going anywhere risky. The last thing you need is her thinking we're headed for a real night out on the town."

Duncan caught the inference with a wary smile. "I'm a married man, Riley. Other women were out of the question years ago."

"Out of the question for you."

The two shared a laugh.

Duncan got up out of his seat and stretched a bit, feeling much more rejuvenated. "Alright then, I'll catch up with you later, see if I can get there tomorrow or the day after."

On the screen, the car stopped as O'Reilly arrived at his destination. "Do what you can, boyo. And hey, it was good hearing from you."

"Likewise, Riley, likewise."

Duncan gave him the thumbs up then tentatively ended the call and signed out of his account. After deactivating the display, he headed off for the exit, trying his best to work out in his head how exactly he was going to explain this to Erica. Moreover, he realized that he hadn't gotten to ask O'Reilly the one question he wanted answered most. He hoped that a meet-up over espresso would help him find out what he wanted to know. Still, more than anything, he was brimming with raw glee at the thought that Charlie Team, for what it was worth and for who all remained, was getting back together again.

Fractisque - Breaks