Chapter 19 – Paenitet
June 27th, 2545 (16:03 Hours - Military Calendar)
Epsilon Eridani System, Reach
Csaba Mountain Region, Falchion Base
:********:
The sky above Falchion was overcast and gray. The occasional rumble of thunder behind the all-encompassing blanket of clouds was accompanied by a persistent downpour that made the scenery feel more at peace. There was no peace, not yet, not for Duncan. That was because there was still someone he needed to see and he couldn't allow himself to feel at ease until she was as well.
The disembarkation process and the resulting flight to Reach altogether took four hours. During that time, Epsilon was sharing the last of their vacation stories. Duncan didn't know what to make of finding out how the squad attended the 24 Hours of Quezon motorsport event, a sport the city was famous for. New Carthage had something similar with the New Carthage Sprint Series which, aside from the Grizzlies and Badgers, was yet another feature that made Reach and its sister colony bitter sports rivals.
Epsilon went so far as to place bets on racers who they figured would win based on their respective Warthog models. Hector had the best time out of everyone there since the dream vehicles he rarely saw outside of his motorist magazines came to life right in front of him. His bets were often the most accurate. Zack was on the less fortunate end of the bidding pool and wound up losing all his credits in just two races. That explained why he kept begging Hector for funds throughout the journey down.
The trip came to an end with the pilot telling them they'd arrived followed by a gentle rumbling of the hanger bay as they touched down. They grabbed their things and walked out.
The landing pads were unexpectedly full today. Even with the Pelicans carrying the rest of Bravo here there was still what seemed a surplus of dropships landing at or flying away from Falchion. He counted several dozen more than he was used to seeing. Squadrons of Longswords zoomed about in the cloudy skies high over the base as well.
The Staff explained that the extra air power were aerial units from Lochaber Base undergoing retraining and requalification tests at Falchion. Duncan struggled to wrap his head around why a UNSC air force base like Lochaber would need a place like this to train, unless they had that many air units in excess. Perhaps that was ultimately a good thing. Still, to operate in the face of this kind of weather was pretty ballsy on the part of the pilots.
As the plenteous aircraft hovered and flew across the troubled skies of the Csaba mountain region, the rest of Bravo Company hopped onto the Warthog troop carriers waiting for them near the pads. Thanks to the rain they were forced to setup tarps over the open troop sections to keep from getting drenched.
The convoy carried them through the base. Everyone either found something to talk or complain about, the rain being the main topic of the latter. Duncan was the sole exception to the rule. The one thing he could pay full attention to at any given moment was the upcoming civilian residential building. He had had three days to figure out what he was going to say, to make an apology. There couldn't be any excuses. Erica could sniff those out with little problem. There could be no lies either. Everything needed to be upfront and honest, for what he was permitted to say at least.
The Staff was in on it as well, which was why he had the driver slow down as they came to the residential building.
Duncan took his backpack. He slipped the tarp aside and jumped from the troop section down to the drenched sidewalk.
"Hope you've thought this through." The Staff said from the passenger seat.
"I hope I did too, sir."
Nova peeked through the tarp. "Just make sure you apologize properly. She'll know, and you know she'll know. Okay?"
"What are you, my mother-in-law or my marriage counselor?"
"Live long enough and you'll find there's no difference. Now get going. She's waiting."
"Yeah, got it. Thanks."
The Hog pulled off after the rest as Duncan jogged across the small parking lot. The cold of the pattering rain caused him to hunch his shoulders and bend forward in an attempt to keep some part of himself dry.
Once the front doors slid open for him he was greeted with a bone-chilling wave of air conditioning. The ground floor lobby was mostly unoccupied besides a few civilians hanging around the check-out counter on the other side of the room. He air-dried for a bit then stepped up to one of the women working the counter.
"Afternoon, I'm here to visit Erica Iris."
The worker typed through the holographic screen in front of her. "Can I get a name please, sir?"
"Duncan Iris. ODST, 7th Shock Troops Battalion."
"Ah, service ID?"
"35549-80061-DI."
She typed it in. "...And there you are. Will you be staying overnight?"
"Yes."
"...And now you're good to go, Mr. I-" She looked closer at some detail scrolling across her screen. "Oh, you should know that there's another guest already in the room besides Mrs. Iris. It's a one-bedroom arrangement so if you need to, I can arrange for a different room for y-"
"Pardon?" Duncan asked with enough surprise to make the worker seem like she'd done something wrong.
She cleared her throat. "Well, there's another guest already in the ro-"
"Who?"
"Ugh, let's see." She pulled up a different file on her screen and squinted at it. "Do you know a Captain Gregory Schmidt of the 42nd Marine Reserves? He came in late this morning a few hours ahead of you. He's staying here on a 2-day visit saying that he knew Mrs. Iris personally."
The blood in Duncan's veins resumed an icy temp that threatened to freeze over his frantic mind. Who would be visiting Erica here?
"I don't know any-"
The memory struck him with the force of lightning as an actual bolt struck the parking lot outside. The mission on Tribute. The drive through Casbah. The entry gate to the Colonial Conservationist Society headquarters. Stewards taking out his ID card and handing it over to an MP who scanned it before reading it aloud; "Captain Schmidt of the 42nd Reserves. It checks out."
"Were you...not expecting any guests?" The worker asked concernedly.
Things settled into sharp focus. In the split-second it took for him to dash for one of the exit doors, he understood that he was making two mistakes. One was that he was going unarmed. The other was that he hadn't bothered asking for any back-up. If his guess was right then he was essentially running to his own death, shock trooper training and years of experience be damned. However, if his guess was right, and it undoubtedly was, then he refused to wait even a second to protect his wife and kid, that is if he wasn't already too late.
The exit door swung open and he bounded onto the stairwell, ignoring the calls of the counter worker for him to wait.
He shot up the stairs, shouldered through the door leading onto the 7th floor and raced to a stop in front of Erica's room door. A swipe of his personal ID card was met with two receptive beeps and he slowly opened the door.
The living room panned into view from right to left. An active lamp beside a glass coffee table, a three-seat couch, the brightness of a holo-screen, and standing in its light...
He stopped.
Erica was right there. She stood with her back to him. However, hearing the door open made her turn a little. As she did, he saw she was holding a sleeping Noah in her arms.
She saw him and the two of them locked eyes for a fraction of a second. In that instant, he saw the tension and strain behind her gaze. She didn't say a word. She didn't need to. Her face alone told him she was terrified. He understood why as he heard the distinctive click of an M6's hammer off to his right and a voice too familiar for him to ever forget.
"Hey there, boyo."
:********:
Duncan raised his hands over his head.
It was a trap; one he'd realized too late.
He glanced right to look down the imposingly close barrel of an M6 pistol. And there, glowering determinedly behind the gun sights was what he thought to be the ghost of his friend. A friend who was missing, purposefully so. One who he suspected to be dead but was in actuality very much alive. Alive and angry.
O'Reilly gestured with the weapon for him to come inside. He did, slowly while keeping his hands up.
Erica, though silent, looked pleadingly to him for help. The hurt was indescribable, to think his actions had landed her in this situation. No, just her simple connection to him was enough.
He heard the door close and lock behind him. He took a chance and risked walking closer to Erica to assure her that everything would be alright.
"And where do you think you're going?"
Duncan halted mid-stride. He could perceive the pistol being leveled at the back of his head as he was approached from behind.
"I wouldn't test the waters today, Sunny Jim." O'Reilly said and started patting him around the body, searching for a weapon. Finding none, he took a few steps back.
"Now turn around, slow."
Duncan did so.
Seeing O'Reilly as he was now brought a sharp pang of both surprise and guilt. He was wearing a black T-shirt with denim jeans and boots. His face was veiny and shockingly pale, almost like how Stewards had appeared prior to taking his medications. He looked to be in pain but suppressing it behind a wall of silent, simmering anger. He kept the pistol aimed with one hand, ready to pull the trigger.
"What are you doing here, Rile?" Duncan asked.
O'Reilly grinned. "What do you think?"
Duncan felt his mouth go dry. "How did you get here?"
"Wouldn't you like to know." O'Reilly suddenly winced and pressed his freehand to his lower left side. He groaned at some unspoken pain.
"He's been like that since he came here." Erica frantically said. "He-"
She quieted as O'Reilly aimed at her. "Shut up, lass."
Duncan immediately stepped between them. "Riley, hey, come on, you came for me, right? They've got nothing to do with this so leave them out of it. We can settle-"
"Excuse me, are you the one with the gun? No? I thought not. But I wouldn't worry though. Like you said, I'm not here for Eri or Noah. I'm here for you. I've got to say, it took you long enough to get here. Me and Eri were having the most interesting conversation before you showed ups."
Duncan peered over his shoulder at her. She tried to say something only for it to get stuck behind her quivering lips. She was shaking.
"Apparently, all she knows is that the last time you came to see me it was to apologize for what happened during our first meetup. I find that interesting, Duncan, that you didn't even tell your wife you were working for ONI. I've got to say, that's pretty distasteful for a man to lie to his woman like you did with poor Eri, leaving her with your only child while you went off doing your own thing. Then again, you're both used to that by now, aren't you?"
"Rile, I-"
"Now that is a sad state of affairs, isn't it?" O'Reilly laughed. "I've struggled for all of my miserable life in vain to get what you've spent all of yours squandering."
Duncan inhaled one shaky breath after the next until he was ready to ask what he needed to. "How did you get here, Rile?"
"Wouldn't you like to know. Well, it's no thanks to you, that's for sure. However, if you hadn't done what you did, I probably would be dead or in custody right now. So, thanks for shooting me in the gut back there, I guess."
"You didn't give me much of a choice."
"Oh, you had plenty of choices!" O'Reilly hissed, his anger flaring. "The one you made, or that I thought you made, was to join up with us. You didn't. In reality you and your friend on that radio set were just using me to get to Kirkley, to get to the AMADDS, to get to everyone I still cared for. You're an amazing actor for that, Duncan. You fooled me. And not just me. You fooled everyone, even Stewards, and that's not an easy trick to pull off. If anything, you got his respect by pretending to save a fusion core that was really holdin' somebody else's kid. And that same kid's going to be living in the squalor of a refugee camp thanks to you, her and Arty and Olivia and everyone you betrayed. Now most of Gypsy's gone, and that's your fault. Not mine. Not mine. Yours. I just came to make sure you paid for all that. That's all."
In his head Duncan was panicking. He needed to get Erica and Noah safely out of the room. Doing that with no weapons and no plan while staring down the barrel of a gun wasn't anywhere near feasible. O'Reilly had him dead to rights. There was only one option left: to talk.
"You didn't answer my question." Duncan replied. "I asked how you got here?"
O'Reilly's right eye twitched. "You're a ballsy man, Duncan. Ballsy." He pressed his freehand tighter on his side as a lance of pain made him grunt. "Fine. I'll tell you what you put me through. After you put this here bullet hole in me, or rather after I jumped out with it, I ended up stuck in a bad place. That storm was no joke. I could barely move. Then God only knows how long after that, I ended up getting spotted by a passing convoy. Turns out it was the rest of Gypsy. They were lookin' for Schonberg in the storm, wherever that poor sod wound up, when they stumbled across me by pure accident. I was lucky they didn't end up running me over by accident too. They managed to keep me alive long enough for us to find some shelter. And what do you know, we ended up running into the Mayweather parked in the middle of the storm a day later. We get onboard, they take me to the med bay to patch me up but just barely because the docs weren't there. The best they could do for me was biofoam. We waited out the rest of the storm and booked it out of Hicetas the second we were clear. I'm not going to give much more details, otherwise you'll tell them off to your ONI handler and get them killed too, but I ended up splitting off from them once I convinced them to let me go. Once we parted ways, I found my way to Reach, to here. All that just to see you again. I figured you would get here shortly after. Good thing I was right, and good thing you were too stupid to bring a gun or this would be over already."
Duncan was able to connect the dots reasonably fast and understood exactly how many coincidences and convenient occurrences had led to this moment. He swallowed hard as he maintained his stoic demeanor. "So, what do you want from me now then?"
O'Reilly's expression lightened somewhat in a way one did when they heard an obvious question, but then confusion, as if he realized the answer wasn't so obvious. No, not that it wasn't obvious but that it wasn't desirable. Eyes narrowed and jaw clenched, O'Reilly was the spitting image of uncertainty made manifest. Duncan saw a brief spark of regret come alight in his eyes. It was subsumed by a pained reminiscence as his gaze fell to the pistol in his hand. Eventually that same anger was back again, now focused completely on its target.
"I'm not here for your lass." O'Reilly said. "I honestly wish this wasn't the way we met. I figured it would've been nicer, maybe at a barbecue on the Hill like Kiko used to do with his folks. But this is the path you set us on. She can go once this is done. Same goes for the little lad. They don't have any part in this. However, I don't plan on letting her go until she sees what I'm about to do to you."
Duncan felt a part of himself giving way on the inside. He glanced back at Erica. The feeling simply became worse because he saw that she was on the verge of tears. Looking between him and O'Reilly, he could see she was desperately searching for some way to diffuse the situation. By her increasingly anxious breathing, it was clear she didn't know how.
"Rile, keep this between you and me." Duncan said. "There's no reason for her to be here, or Noah. You're putting them both at risk."
"They're not going anywhere-"
"Can we at least take this out in the hallway?"
O'Reilly raised a brow and faintly chuckled at the idea. "You want to leave, boyo? Don't worry, you will."
"...What?"
"You're leavin'. So am I. We're not staying here."
"...Rile, you've got to understand that whatever you do, from here on out, you're at a disadvantage. There are scores of Helljumpers, Marines and MPs at this base. Once you're done, they'll come running here to stop you. There's nowhere left for you to go." Duncan set his sights on the M6. "So, lay down the gun. There's still a chance for you to walk out of here-"
O'Reilly laughed hardier than before. "Wow. I thought you were smarter than this, Sunny Jim. I really did."
"What are you talking about?"
O'Reilly's grin returned as he shook his head. "You actually think I planned to get away from this? I don't know how to break it to you, but this was a one-way trip from the start. There's no back-up plan. We're settling this right here."
"Didn't you say we weren't staying here? What is it then? You want to kidnap me? You want a ransom for a hostage?"
Again, the Irishman shook his head with an eerie patience. "There's only one way the two of us are leaving this room today, Duncan, and that's in body bags. You'll have yours and I'll have mine."
The chilling cold from earlier became an icy knife that twisted its was deep into Duncan's soul. All feeling drained from him as he fully understood his predicament.
O'Reilly observed the revelation dawning on him with a widening, self-satisfied grin. "Now you've figured it out, haven't you?
Duncan risked another glance at Erica in time to see the tears welling up even more in her eyes. There was fear there, fear and pain. She started to cry. He turned back to O'Reilly. There was no fear behind his eyes. What was there was pain, plain and simple.
"You're absolutely right when you say I've got nowhere else left to run. Think I didn't know that beforehand? Nah, I knew. I decided this would be the last place I had left to go where I could make things right."
Erica's crying grew louder. She pleaded for them to stop.
"Your lass is going to stay right there and watch as I put a bullet through your brain and then a bullet through mine. I'll fix my mistakes. I'll make you pay for stealing the little I had left from me. Now unlike you, I'm no fan of screwing people over who did me nothin', at least not directly. So I'll be taking you from them instead."
Erica's knees buckled and she sunk to the floor, heaving under the burden of her own despair.
"You took everything from me, boyo. But you? You're their everything; husband, father, you're the reason they're even here. That's what I'm taking from them. And don't worry Eri. I'll make it fast for your sake."
With so much now bearing down on him, Duncan was ready to collapse. Being killed and having his wife held at gunpoint by the same person he'd shared photos of her with made him sick. More than anything, it created a hollow feeling on the inside of him that told him this was his penalty. Everything lined up in front of him perfectly. Had he made the choice to shoot Stewards at that station, there was a high chance O'Reilly would never have met him and been convinced to walk the road that led to this very moment. Even further, had he gone back across Nassau Station to get O'Reilly when he found out their deployment orders were mixed up then this wouldn't have happened either. Further back than that, if he never made friends with the man, never talked or only spoke with any of the other ODST trainees at Ravenport, his family wouldn't be in this situation.
If he'd never been an ODST at all, this wouldn't be happening. If he ignored his Uncle Rick at that funeral, if he took better care of his mother, if he stopped wanting to be a Helljumper as a kid, things would've been different.
If his dad hadn't left them to die in this war, he might have never come here and it would never have come to this.
Yet here he was at the end of his life and he found himself wondering if he was about to leave Erica forever like his father had his mother. Only there would be a funeral with a body this time and she would get the chance to witness exactly what became of him.
No.
This wouldn't be how he went out. Not a chance. Not while his brains were still in his head. Not like this.
"What's stopping you?"
"What'd you say?" O'Reilly asked.
"Why haven't you done it yet?
Another twitch from O'Reilly's brow told Duncan he was getting somewhere. The Irishman's suicidal resolve noticeably faltered.
"Any answer?"
"...I wanted to ask you something first."
"I'm listening."
"...Why'd you do it? You could have told me no to my offer and that would've been the end of it. Why work for ONI?"
Duncan inhaled and exhaled out the honest truth. "Because I wanted to save you, Rile. I did. They made a deal with me. I'd help them bring down the AMADDS. In return, they would pardon you, that is if I convinced you to defect back to us." He paused. "I came to get you out of there, Rile. I wanted to save you from all of this, to get you back to what you lost. But I failed. I failed you and I'm sorry."
O'Reilly's demeanor softened. The uncertainty returned and his hesitation made him lower his pistol ever so slightly. There was some sense of surprise there as well. His eyes glazed over. At first Duncan thought he was on the verge of dropping everything, of ending the situation and letting them both walk away from this.
That changed as pain made O'Reilly grit his teeth and clutch at the old wound in his side. It was enough to make him groan and sufficient for the vengeful fire in his gaze to return.
"I don't need any apologies from you. You're the last one to be asking for forgiveness."
"I'm not asking for that. I wanted you to know anyway."
"Yeah?" O'Reilly said. "Well thanks for that." He trained his pistol on him again and set his finger on the trigger. "Like that's going to save you though. As I said, I'm fixing my mistak-"
A sharper lance of pain caused O'Reilly's eyes to go wide. He slouched over, clutching his chest with his freehand as he wheezed in agony. The bout of strained coughing left his sidearm momentarily pointed away from its target.
Duncan rushed him.
O'Reilly rose to shoot but couldn't get his pistol up in time. Duncan seized both of his arms by the wrists and kneed him as hard as he could in the ribs. The winding blow turned O'Reilly's troubled wheezing into hacking coughs.
"Take Noah and get in the bedroom!" He shouted back at Erica. "Lock the door!"
Erica sprang up quickly on her feet and dashed into the bedroom. The door slammed shut and the sound of locks assured him she was safely out of the way.
He wrestled with O'Reilly and pushed him to the point of pinning his back against the wall. O'Reilly strained to aim again. Duncan forced the weapon as far up as he could which left him blind to a head-butt. He staggered back from the blow and lost his grip for a fraction of a second, enough time to get pistol butted across the face. O'Reilly brought the gun down hard on the base of his neck with the force needed to put Duncan on his knees before kneeing him in his exposed chin, bowling him backwards.
Before O'Reilly could level the gun, Duncan wrapped his legs around his and pulled them out from under him, sending him tumbling to the floor. Duncan was about to secure the leg lock when O'Reilly broke out with a twist of his hips and a contortion of his waist, using the same momentum to deliver a broad calf kick to his head. Duncan blocked it with his forearm but felt the dull pain of a cracking bone, something he could barely focus on as O'Reilly pulled back the attacking leg and rolled a short distance away in the same maneuver.
The sidearm lay right between them now.
They both scrambled for it. O'Reilly grabbed the barrel at the same time as Duncan caught the handle. O'Reilly pulled it hard towards himself and leaned in to land a piercing jab of his elbow into Duncan's side, throwing him off the gun into a rolling tumble...with the entire clip in hand.
O'Reilly glared at the pistol and saw the trick; Duncan had thumbed the magazine release button behind the trigger guard.
Duncan used the brief distraction to reverse his tumble and rolled back across the floor. He swiped O'Reilly's legs out from under him with an arcing kick to the ankle that knocked him down onto his left side. The landing elicited a pained growl.
Duncan recovered and reeled back a right fist to punch the M6 out of his grip. As the pistol flew away, he changed direction and swung a hard left that hooked into O'Reilly's jaw with a sickening crunch. The impact snapped his head to the side, but he recovered unexpectedly fast, baring his teeth like fangs to show the blood flowing from a loosened molar now caught between them.
O'Reilly scored a lightning-fast blow to the side of Duncan's throat that immediately made him choke and gag. He grabbed him by the back of his neck and slammed his head into the floor with all his strength. He was about to pin him there when Duncan tried to roll away again. He would have gotten away free were it not for O'Reilly pouncing after him and tackling him back to the floor as he was getting up.
The Irishman slid his arms around his neck and before Duncan knew it, he was in a tight headlock that easily switched into a chokehold. He pulled at the limb squeezing down on his throat and the one securing the back of his head. O'Reilly resisted his attempts to pry them loose. With his air quickly running low, Duncan tried a different approach. He twisted himself around so that he could plant his legs firmly on the floor without risking getting them kicked out. He planted one hand on O'Reilly's left leg and the other on his shoulder, earning a noticeable groan of agony and a tightening of the chokehold. Duncan reinforced his grasp on the two parts and, with a growling effort, began to pull the man onto his own shoulders.
O'Reilly didn't let go and made a stubborn show of holding on like a coiled viper. Duncan lifted himself up. Ignoring the way in which he was beginning to black out, he took one shaky step forward after the next across the room. By the time he was where he wanted to be he was straddling the border between consciousness and the void. But he positioned himself just right and jumped backwards, pulling his legs high overhead to ensure his attacker caught the brunt of the landing.
O'Reilly's spine smashed through the hard glass coffee table next to the couch. Duncan heard the man's weakened moan. The headlock fell away. Air flowed unrestricted into his inflamed lungs. He dashed away as soon as he was able and turned back around.
His orange-haired opponent was pulling himself out of the battered metal frame of the glass table. His arms and hands were covered in the red lacerations and broken shards of the impact. He finally spat out the bloodied tooth in his mouth. More shards fell away as he groggily arose into something reminiscent of a hunchbacked slouch.
The idea came to Duncan too late that he should have gone for the gun. He still felt too dazed from the chokehold to think clearly enough for that.
O'Reilly wasn't so dazed. The long, shank-like piece of shattered glass held in his right hand was proof of that. His veiny grip clenched tight and fresh blood dripped down thereafter. O'Reilly's downcast head slowly rose up to unveil his deranged, all or nothing glare.
Taking in another bout of air, Duncan brought his own fists to bare.
O'Reilly charged forward and drew back the knife arm in what should have been a basic jab to the torso, but as Duncan sidestepped in an attempt to grab his wrist, the glass was dexterously rotated into a reverse grip and sliced clean across the palm of his reaching hand.
Blood flew out across the couch.
Duncan retreated a few steps. O'Reilly continued the assault, one jab after the next aimed at head, torso and throat. At one point Duncan thought the blow was coming for his right shoulder only to end up dodging a faint as the real attack came from a fist striking him square in the gut. He nearly doubled over.
O'Reilly seized the opportunity to switch grips again, scything the glass towards Duncan's temple. The goal fell away beneath the maneuver as Duncan ducked, barely escaping a shank through the eye. He went on the offensive and almost immediately failed.
O'Reilly anticipated the impending uppercut so that it merely glanced off his chin and then attacked the exposed arm. Two succinct cuts above the elbow tore through sleeve and skin to cast more blood through the flickering holo-screen.
Duncan winced and pulled back to grasp at his arm. O'Reilly pursued with the vicious fervor required to land several quick but deep gashes across his person, the last and longest of which tore across the letters 'ODST' on his shirt, turning them a faint red.
Catching himself, Duncan fought through the pain of his new wounds to focus on a new strategy. He resumed a fighting stance with his arms guarding his right side, intent on making it obvious that that was the side he would defend while slightly exposing his back.
O'Reilly made an expectant faint of a jab at his right side then reoriented the glass to stab into his 'undefended' back.
Duncan slid his left foot back behind his right, instantly twisting around to grab the wrist of the shank-arm. His aim was off and instead he ended up grabbing the joint at the man's elbow, only stopping the limb's reach but leaving enough wiggle room to have the glass stab into his upper arm. Pain surged from the wound. Still, he could feel it wasn't too deep, granting him the chance to focus on catching O'Reilly's free arm already on course for a punch to the face.
Duncan leaned away. With a strong twist of his waist, he leveraged the Irishman over his back and launched him over the couch.
O'Reilly slammed backfirst into the wall near the bedroom door. While he slid limply to the floor, Duncan frantically searched for the M6. There was no sign of it where he thought it had gotten tossed. Even the glass shard buried in his arm had come out during the scuffle which left blood streaming out of his newest wound.
A twinkling of glass and the stretching of bone drew Duncan back to the sight of O'Reilly getting up. Both of them intrinsically looked to the next best place for weapons; the kitchen. They bolted at the same time.
O'Reilly reached it first and slid a kitchen knife from a holder on the rear counter. He span around in the overhead lights to slash the blade in a glittering arc at the second-place arrival. Duncan barely jumped away from getting another gash to the stomach to add to his growing collection. He stumbled back towards the overhanging pan gratings above the central burners. He got a hold of one of the circular pans and pulled it down just before O'Reilly lunged after him.
A flick of the wrist allowed him to catch the thrust of the knife in the pan's metal face. He predicted a pair of O'Reilly's fast follow up thrusts to catch them like a spear clanging against a shield.
Then the knife aimed high for the right shoulder, out of his line of defense. The blade left a solid gash across the joint. Duncan winced and turned aside to cover the weak spot.
O'Reilly lunged for his unprotected left thigh, a critical hit were it not for another twist of the wrist that again caught the blade within the pan. Duncan utilized the tool's inner edges to trap the knife by swinging the pan hard to the right, successfully throwing O'Reilly off balance.
Duncan seized the opening. He swung the back of the pan across O'Reilly's face with a hollow PUNG sound echoing from the impact. The man staggered back, stunned. Duncan pressed his newfound advantage, batting away another knife-strike with the brim of the pan then, twirling it to a different grip, swatted O'Reilly across the other cheek. Again he stumbled back as another bloody tooth flew out.
Duncan sparsely gave him a chance to get back into the fight as he tomahawked the pan into the shoulder with the bullet wound. O'Reilly released a pained scream, stepping back to grasp at the spot.
The next window of opportunity was open. Duncan slid over to the nearby holder and pulled out a kitchen knife for himself. The light bounced off of it at certain angles that he was able to take note of.
O'Reilly shambled back onto his feet, still visibly shaken from the earlier barrage. He wiped away the blood trickling out of his nose, saw the other knife now in play and took up a more combative stance.
The two of them circled each other in the kitchen, launching faints at the other to test their reactions.
In the end, it was Duncan who went at it first, using a forward thrust for the right armpit in the hopes of slicing the limb. O'Reilly saw through it and swatted it off course with his freehand, leaving an opening for him to make another calf kick to a vulnerable shin.
An anguished growl escaped Duncan's snarled lips as the kick pulled his left leg out from under him, nearly forcing him into the splits. He lost the advantage right there to O'Reilly who closed the distance between them by a forward thrust to the throat. Duncan leaned aside to barely escape it, though he felt the blade's edge nick the side of his neck. O'Reilly meant to pull the weapon back across his throat but Duncan swatted the knife-arm away with his left, not realizing he'd left himself open once more. O'Reilly scored a sharp uppercut to his chin that snapped his head back, seconding it with a clenched fist around his own knife that delivered a powerful downward punch to the face.
There was an audible snap and a burst of new pain as the strike broke Duncan's nose, throwing him back into the door of a floor covert. He blacked out. When he came to a second later, he saw O'Reilly bearing down on him.
Duncan pointed his knife out in a way that reflected the overhead kitchen light into O'Reilly's eyes. The Irishman was stopped short of his assault by the temporary blinding, allowing Duncan to rush into a combative crouch. A quick swipe of his knife cut at the man's knees in the hopes of getting him down on the floor.
Though O'Reilly didn't drop, his stance weakened and he took a few cautious steps back, granting Duncan the room to stand, only to be tackled onto his back right after.
O'Reilly's left hand grasped his face, covering his mouth and pinning him against the floor as the other hand plunged the knife down to his stomach. Duncan grabbed part of the handle just a few centimeters before the blade made contact. Still he sensed it slowly pushing through his shirt. He strained to keep it back. O'Reilly pressed harder to the degree that veins eased into view along his forehead.
Soon Duncan could feel the cold metal tip touching the skin of his lower abdomen, and a second later, piercing through it. He screamed. The hand on his mouth muffled the sound. He struggled harder as he felt the knife going deeper in. His hand shook from the attempt to stop it.
Realizing he was making no headway, he bit as hard as he could into the hand holding his mouth. O'Reilly screamed but didn't ease up on the knife. Duncan bit down harder, so much so that his incisors pierced the skin, drawing blood. O'Reilly's scream heightened into a wavering bellow. The progress of the knife halted.
Duncan pushed back with all he had while keeping O'Reilly from pulling his left hand out of his teeth, less he batter him back down with it. The blade's reddened tip slowly reemerged from his body, the two opposing hands fighting for its hilt, shaking and trembling in the push against each other. One wrong move, any loss of his grip, and that would be the end of it.
The fight quickly became a stalemate. Neither of them could overcome the other or force them back into place.
Duncan took advantage of his only freehand and, since O'Reilly's was occupied, he was free to grab the man by the underside of his chin. O'Reilly's menacingly desperate stare widened a moment before his whole head was knocked painfully hard against the side of the countertop. There was a sickeningly loud crunch. The first blow dazed him, his grip staying strong. Duncan did it two more times, smashing his head against the side of the countertop, creating a louder cacophony of internal breakages each time.
Blood poured profusely from that side of O'Reilly's head. The ex-trooper managed to stop him from knocking him against the counter a fourth time by tightening his neck muscles, but by then he was blinking wildly, thoroughly dazed. His grip slackened.
The brief reverse tug of war that ensued eventually ended with the entirety of the knife being pushed high overhead, high enough for Duncan to safely pull his own leg up through the gap in O'Reilly's. A solid kick to the chest launched the man away into the stove, knocking the kitchen knife free of his grasp.
Duncan slid back and pried himself off the floor.
O'Reilly, winded, wrestled with doing the same.
They were both catching their breath and clutching at their wounds for several long seconds.
The knife wound in Duncan's abdomen produced a sharp ache he could hardly ignore. It took an act of pure will to look at O'Reilly. Despite the blood reddening the side of his face, O'Reilly was sufficiently cognizant to see what was of real importance. Duncan followed his gaze to the far side of the living room and to the handle of the M6 pistol partly sticking out from the beneath the end of the couch. While the clip was missing, he remembered there was still a round in the chamber.
One round for one person.
O'Reilly warily looked back at him, the murderous glint in his eyes making his intent abundantly clear.
They broke for it simultaneously, staggering and stumbling along two different routes, O'Reilly running along the back of the couch and Duncan weaving through the living room.
O'Reilly was about to reach it first when Duncan vaulted over the couch and side-tackled him into the wall. He threw him down to the floor. O'Reilly crawled on to nearly within reach of the weapon. Duncan grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him onto his back before pinning both of his arms beneath his own knees as he crouched over him.
Duncan reeled back and punched the side of his face. He did the same with his left, striking the spot where the blood was pouring out most. He repeated the move in a series of vicious left and right hooks. Right then left and a yet another bloody tooth flew out. Right then left and a cracking of bone. Right then left and blood flew up into his eyes. Right then left again, and again and again until his fists hurt.
He ground to a stop, heaving from the strain. Then he saw exactly what he'd done.
O'Reilly hadn't been able to stop his assault so he had taken the full brunt of everything. There were too many blackened gashes and grayish bruises on his reddened face to count. His lower lip was busted in several places. His left eye was so swollen that it was almost completely shut and the right hadn't fared much better. Blood was draining from both nostrils, bubbling a little with each faint breath. His mouth cracked open and more seeped out along the corners. Several of his teeth simply weren't there anymore or were cracked in two. He was hardly breathing.
Clarity returned to Duncan's racing mind which slowly began to calm it. The liquid gore covering his knuckles became viscerally clear as did the way in which every breath O'Reilly took held a rasping, bloody cough at the end. Duncan suddenly felt sick to his stomach. His hands shook as the adrenaline receded from his perception, leaving him with nothing but the sight of his battered friend barely clinging to consciousness.
"Why'd...you stop?"
Duncan turned to the voice's owner. O'Reilly stared back up at him with his one good eye.
"Why'd you stop?"
Duncan's mouth quivered at the question. He shook his head in a non-answer.
O'Reilly slowly and angrily bared his teeth, exposing the handful of gory gaps between them. "Like I told you before, Sunny Jim, don't expect any more free hits from here."
Duncan wasn't so fast as to react to the rising knee before it shot up into his groin. A wave of acute pain flashed through his entire being. O'Reilly freed his arms and used his other leg to kick him in the gut, throwing him completely onto his back.
O'Reilly tucked his legs in close to his chest and pushed himself into a low backflip across the floor. He seized the M6. He stood up, took aim and was about to pull the trigger when the front door was kicked in, knocking it completely out of the way.
The sleek, black barrel of an M6C pistol passed through the doorway. A man in gray camo-patterned fatigues and ballistic paddings stepped in, his white hair a strong contrast to his wear. It was Commander White. He took aim at O'Reilly from the threshold. "Drop it!" He ordered. "Drop the gun, now!"
O'Reilly side-eyed him, keeping the weapon drawn on Duncan. White returned the glare, exhibiting a deadly calm that promised to respond with equal force.
O'Reilly turned to Duncan who was sitting before him, shaking his head at him, silently begging him to put it down.
"Put the weapon down!" White ordered again. "This is your last warning!"
O'Reilly finally seemed to have heard him. However, it was only after taking another look at Duncan that his determination visibly wavered. He began lowering his pistol.
But he didn't drop it.
That same look of painful remembrance resurged on his face, and with it, resolve.
O'Reilly took aim once more.
White fired.
Three squeezes of the trigger pitched O'Reilly back into the nearby wall. He slid down to the floor, leaving a blood trail on the way down.
White carefully approached him. Seeing that the Irishman was limp, he took the sidearm from his hand and slid it safely into his utility belt while keeping his personal M6C leveled.
Duncan had seen it all from the sidelines. Barely able to get up straight, the memory of the last few minutes completely evaporated from his mind and he stumbled towards O'Reilly.
Duncan fell to his knees at his side. He checked him over. The shots had all hit critical areas. One in the stomach and one to the shoulder with the last one having gone straight through his heart. His eyes were closed. Duncan searched for a pulse on his neck. It was faint, so was his breathing. He grasped his shoulders and tried to shake him back to consciousness. "Come on, Rile. Come on, wake up. Can you hear me? Come on, come on, wake up."
Then O'Reilly's eyes lazily cracked open, the heavy lids flittering more and more from the weight of simply keeping them that way.
He weakly peered up at White and at the M6C aiming down at him. He narrowed his gaze at it as if to make out what it was. Once he did, he flinched from the observation and swallowed nervously. "Hey Sarge, you mind not pointing that thing right at me?" He asked snidely. "There are better ways to wake people up, you know. I keep telling you that."
"...What?"
O'Reilly groggily turned to Duncan. He winced upon seeing him with an expression of genuine surprise dawning over his demeanor, a pleasant surprise judging by the way he smiled. "Hey, what are you doing here, Sunny Jim? I thought you were back with the 7th. Don't tell me you ended up transferring here. You did, didn't you? Oh geeze, you're real screwed now, boyo."
Duncan didn't know what to say. He was confused beyond all measure and so was White who took a step back in bewilderment.
O'Reilly didn't seem phased. He leaned a little closer to whisper. "Hey listen, before the Sarge here chews us out, get this. I'm finally thinking of proposin'." He raised his eyebrows in anticipation of a response.
Duncan, unsure of what was going on, played along. "To who? Who're you proposing too?"
"Yana, of course. Who else? You know, the Bulgarian girl. My Bulgarian girl. I talked to her about it. She says she wants to wait 'till after the war. Can you believe that? I wish I was as patient as that, lad. I'm not. I figured, you know, me and her can get hitched in secret, keep it on the down low while we're on the job. Forbidden love between squadmates sounds good to me. That's what we're doing already anyway. Might as well make it official like you and Eri did, am I right?"
"...Official?"
"Yeah, you know, to tie the knot. I'm thinkin' of findin' a good minister before we ship out. The sarge here says we're going to Draco. I'm amped about it. Me and the guys were talkin' about how we have a pretty good shot at kicking the Covies to the curb there. I think we might have a chance, boyo, I really do. What do you think since it looks like you'll be taggin' along?"
The horror of the situation became slowly and painfully clear. Duncan looked at the side of O'Reilly's head where he'd bashed it against the countertop. Within the red and black masses of gore there he could discern the faint traces of white bone beneath. He swallowed hard as he returned to O'Reilly who looked to be wondering why he was so interested in his head.
"What? Is it my hair? Yana cuts it for me so whatever it is, its straight with me."
"...Riley?"
"Yeah?"
"...Do you remember..."
O'Reilly's curiosity deepened. "Remember what?"
"...D-, do you know where you are right now?"
O'Reilly nodded. "Yeah, the civilian residential building at Sabre Base. I'm guessing we hosted a party here and got blackout drunk celebrating your transfer. It makes the most sense. That's probably why I can't remember much. Am I wrong?"
Duncan didn't answer.
"And hey, you look busted up. Did we really party that hard or did someone knock you up? If they did, tell me the name or give me the face. We'll deal with'em together."
Silence.
"Hey you're actin' real strange, Sunny."
"Do you...feel anything right now?"
"Not much. I'm just real tired. Not sure why though, I just bloody woke up. I can't even open one of my eyes that much for Mary's sake, that and my teeth feel weird. Hope nobody slipped anything into our drinks."
Duncan was stunned.
"Come on, if someone did in my friend, I'd like to know who it was."
"...Riley, you did."
"What?"
"You did."
"...Okay, not funny. Let's get real, here."
"...You really don't remember, do you?"
"What are you talkin' about? What do you mean I don't-…."
O'Reilly froze. That same reminiscent expression reemerged. He was remembering again.
The lost events of his life unfolded anew in his mind. Duncan witnessed the emotions playing out on his face. Desperation, hurt, hatred and finally betrayal. Then that too melted away behind what appeared to be something new:
Regret.
Tears began to form and stream freely down his bruised cheeks, mixing with his blood before dropping to the floor. His breathing became more ragged, his chest heaving under the weight of memory.
"Oh..."
He turned to Duncan. "I-...I was trying to...to kill you, wasn't I?"
Feeling his own tears hazing his vision, Duncan nodded.
"Oh..."
O'Reilly searched around, gathering more memories. "I was-, I was trying to kill you. I made Eri cry because I-, threatened to kill both of us, you and me. But someone stopped me..." He looked up at Commander White and, at seeing the pistol still aiming at him as well as the bullet wounds in his body, nodded at the memories it brought to his attention. "Yeah, that's-, that's what...happened."
He looked across the room. His crying grew louder, ever more despairing.
"What am I doing here? I'm not supposed to be here."
Duncan reached down and embraced him from the side, well on the verge of breaking down himself. "It's alright." He said. "It's okay."
O'Reilly cried into his shoulder, shaking his head and trembling like a man in the cold rain. "I'm sorry, boyo. I'm sorry. I'm a fool. A dumb fool. I made all the wrong decisions, all of them, but all the right ones were trying to kill me anyways. I couldn't f-, figure it out. I hated you. I hated you for betraying my buds after all the ones I already lost, but I just ended up trying to kill the last friend I had left. Ain't that something? It doesn't make any sense at all, does it?"
Duncan hugged him tighter, trying to hold back what was ready to burst forth.
"It doesn't make any sense at all, does it?" O'Reilly whimpered. "None of it made any sense. None of it. None of it. None...of it...none-…I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry-I'm sorry-I'm sorry...I'm-...sor-"
O'Reilly's sobs quieted. His trembling gradually subsided. His grip on Duncan's shoulder relaxed then slowly slipped away until his hand fell back into his lap.
Duncan closed his eyes and hugged his friend tight as he began to cry. "...Riley?"
No answer came.
"Rile?"
Duncan, shaking, eased back from him to see his face.
O'Reilly was staring down at the floor, unmoving. There were still tears falling from his eyes along with a sorrow etched into his dilated pupils.
"...Rile?"
Duncan shook him a little with the same unresponsive result. He peered back at White who, appearing moved by the scene himself, merely shook his head.
Duncan refused to acknowledge it and quickly checked the neck for a pulse.
There was none.
He checked his wrists.
Nothing.
Duncan took one last look at his friend's lifeless eyes and hugged him closer. He tried not to scream as he wept for him, wailing over the body of one of the last persons he ever thought he'd see like this. Time crawled past. Not sure how long he was there or caring for much else, he could only bring himself to think one thing:
"I'm sorry too."
When he found the strength again what felt to be ages later, he carefully lay the body against the wall. He closed his eyes. He spotted something hanging around his neck. He reached for it and pulled it up from beneath the collar.
The metal beaded string came up first followed by the rectangular frames of a pair dog tags. O'Reilly's dog tags.
Duncan, already speechless, was stunned.
O'Reilly had kept them. All this time, after all that had happened to him, he'd still kept them.
Duncan wanted to cry again when he heard someone else'. It was high-pitched. Young, too young.
He realized it was Noah. Somehow, he hadn't noticed it up to that point. How long had his son been crying?
Duncan reverently lay the tags on O'Reilly's lap. He put a hand to his shoulder, squeezed it tight then let him go. He got up and knocked on the bedroom door. "It's alright. It's safe. You can come out now."
The crying grew closer to the door. A moment later he heard the undoing of the locks. The door opened. From within the illumination of the bedside lamps, Erica peered out with Noah in her arms, hugging her around the neck and balling his eyes out.
The relief was overwhelming as the two of them locked onto each other with the tightest embrace either of them could manage.
Erica cried desperately into his shoulder as Noah did the same into hers. Duncan held onto them for all he was worth. He never imagined how good it would feel to simply hold them again. His tears streamed out to join theirs in pockmarking the bedroom's carpet. These, however, were joyous. Happy. Duncan savored the feeling. Deep down, he never knew when he might be able to feel that way again.
Through her sobbing, Erica said the words he'd been waiting for since the day he left.
"Welcome back. We missed you."
:********:
The downpour outside was over.
The room Erica was staying in became a crime-scene. Military Police were currently moving about the space, searching for and collecting any and all items related to the scuffle that had taken place there.
The last Duncan saw of it before being escorted out with Erica and Noah was the MPs placing markers around the spot where O'Reilly had fallen.
Now they were in the ground-floor lobby of the civilian residential building. Several of Falchion's resident doctors were handling him and his family, seating them on available chairs and checking them individually for any signs of injury or shock. Duncan was in the most need of medical attention. He received a number of bandages, biofoam injections and other respective check-ups with gloved hands and flashlights. By the end of it all he felt like a mummy and they were still recommending he head to the local clinic for further treatment.
As one doctor finished up his search for any serious respiratory injuries, Commander White appeared in an arriving elevator. He walked out and came to a stop next to his chair.
"Can I have a moment?" White asked.
The doctor nodded and removed his stethoscope before moving off. Duncan lowered his shirt.
White nodded off to him and Duncan returned the gesture.
"Thanks...for the save." The latter said. "How'd you know to come back here to find him?"
"The ID he used." White replied. "It registered in our systems a few hours ago when he used it to access this building. However, we hadn't flagged it for a red alert yet, reason being that the name was attached to a series of other false identities."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't say too much. The basic idea is that not every dead and or missing UNSC personnel member gets immediately purged. That's in terms of having their IDs made unable to access any public systems or services. We do that for the sake of preventing all kinds of illegal operations, namely, in this case, active impersonation."
"You make sure the dead stay dead."
"And that the missing stay missing, unless found to be otherwise. But it's difficult as you could imagine given how many thousands die or disappear every day this war drags on. What happened here was that the so-called 'Captain Schmidt' died three years ago on Alluvion, but he somehow lived long enough to have his personal information linked to multiple other UNSC personnel through what's called an ID cluster. A bunch of interlinked IDs on a database made that way through changing their information to be the same for multiple persons. That's why we couldn't flag 'Schmidt' even though we detected him during that op you guys ran in Casbah. We couldn't confirm for sure until he logged into this system here at Falchion. That's when I knew trouble was coming your way."
"You know, for someone who said he couldn't say very much, you're saying an awful lot."
"Forgive me." White said. "Although the actual reason I'm telling you any of this is because this was all preventable, at least partly."
"...How?"
"If I'd flagged the ID earlier, the alert would have gone off and MPs would've stopped him before he ever got to your wife." He glanced over at Erica and at the doctor maneuvering his flashlight across her eyes. "That said, if I'd done it then I could have accidentally set off many different IDs sharing the same service number. They're likely being falsely used, yes, but they might not have been AMADDS, just simple fraudsters wasting our time and resources for when a real deal shows up. We needed the ID to register somewhere noticeably critical. I just didn't anticipate it'd be here. It was a gamble and at the end of the day it didn't pay off the way I'd wanted. That's why I'm apologizing."
"...I understand. You made what you thought was the right call. I can't fault you for it."
"For whatever its worth, thank you."
"No problem. I-"
An elevator on the opposite side of the lobby opened up. Two MPs came out guiding a gurney between them. Strapped down on it was a single black body bag. As they came closer and turned towards the front doors, Duncan saw that the bag wasn't completely sealed around the face; O'Reilly's face.
Duncan willed himself up from his seat. He waved the pair down regardless of his injuries. "Hey-hey, wait. Wait."
The duo stopped short of the threshold. "Need something?" The guy in front asked.
Duncan glanced down at O'Reilly. Even while dead, the man didn't appear that way to him. He just looked exhausted. Tired.
Duncan hesitated.
"Hey, listen." The other MP said. "We have to go." He pointed outside to the red and white striped ambulance parked in the lot, a lot surrounded by a perimeter of MPs staying a gathering crowd. "If you don't mind, we need to get going-"
White came next to him. "Hold on a second, gentlemen."
The two MPs spotted his rank insignia and snapped to attention.
"Our apologies, sir." The first one said. "Do you need anything from us?"
White turned to Duncan who looked down at O'Reilly.
"Can I go with you?" Duncan asked.
"Sure." The second MP said. "We good, sir?"
White gestured for them to go on.
The front doors slid open and the four of them walked across the wet lot towards the ambulance.
On the way, Duncan heard someone calling his name. He looked to see that it was Nova. She broke from the rest of the crowd and slipped through the cordon of MPs. The rest of Epsilon was right behind her. The police, probably out of a desire for self-preservation, did little more than stand aside for the band of hardened shock troopers.
"Hey, you alright?" Nova asked, as did practically everyone else save for the Staff who instead eyed the face of the man in the body bag. Duncan didn't have the heart in him to say anything. He was as silent as the friend he was carrying. Eventually the rest of Epsilon caught on to what he and the Staff were focused on.
"Who's that?" Zack asked. "You know him?"
Duncan nodded. "He was supposed to be your Irish."
Zack halted in his tracks. So did the rest of the squad after hearing it.
Duncan walked with the gurney group up to the open back doors of the ambulance. One of the EMTs inside leaned out with a handheld facial scanner and scanned O'Reilly, thereby confirming his identity before they brought him into their custody.
Duncan looked at him for a final time. Then he reached over and took hold of the body bag's zipper. He carefully pulled it up, sealing away his friend's tired and pale face from the world one set of interlocking seams at a time, casting the body below into darkness. He rested a farewell hand on his shoulder.
"It's over now. Rest easy, Rile...you've earned it."
He nodded to the MPs and backed away.
The policeman at the front took hold of the gurney, shoving it partially into the back section while his partner pulled a lever, retracting up the wheels. They hoisted the gurney inside. White followed them in and took a seat.
"Pray you never have to see my face again, Iris." White said. "If you do then things are either about to or probably have already gone to hell in a handbasket, understood?"
It was a strange way of saying goodbye, or perhaps a spook's way of saying it.
Duncan nodded. "I'll do my best to avoid you, sir."
"Good man. Take care."
"Same to you, commander."
The MPs shut the door. Seconds later, the engines rumbled and the ambulance pulled off. Duncan watched it drive down the neighboring street and disappear around a corner. He kept watching long after they were gone.
The Staff walked up next to him. "Is it done then?"
"Yessir."
"Then come on." He said, having noticed his thousand-yard stare. "Let's check back with Erica and Noah."
"...Yessir."
Duncan pried himself from the sight of the road and returned to the ground floor lobby with the rest of Epsilon, his squad, his teammates in tow.
Paenitet - Sorry
