Chapter 20 – Promissa

June 28th, 2545 (07:18 Hours - Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach

Csaba Mountain Region, Falchion Base

:********:

He'd seen the picture before.

O'Reilly was there. So was Cosmo and Stanton. He was there himself. They were all dressed in their military ceremonial uniforms with white caps and pants paired with black jackets and boots. They were smiling and grinning from ear to ear, genuinely grateful to have made it all the way to Class 207's graduation ceremony. They were Orbital Drop Shock Troopers now, elite special forces of the larger Marine Corps. They were the best of the best, or at least they were for a time.

What the sight of the picture made clear to him was that being the best of the best didn't matter. What mattered was being the best of the rest, because being part of the former in contrast to the latter was what kept one alive. At the end of the day it might not have come down to some subjective quality at all. Maybe being the best of the best was actually being the best of the rest of the best, that a soldier was high-quality for simply being alive at the end of it all. But that didn't say much about those that didn't make it. Offhandedly he could think of plenty others who fought harder than him that deserved to still be breathing. They weren't. They were the real best of the best too, weren't they? They just weren't the rest.

More and more he found himself wondering how they could do it. How could they die fighting? It was one thing to be exposed to it on a regular in combat, another thing to see squadmates and friends go out, but something completely different for it to happen to oneself.

They had to have seen some value in what they were doing up to their final moments.

What was it?

A part of himself told the other asking the question that it was really a dumb question. He knew the answer already. More and more he found himself thinking lately on the words with which his Uncle Rick had sold him on taking this journey. They echoed around the picture of Charlie Team as the old memories they were, the thoughts of an old man who'd found himself in a similar quagmire.

"I did it because I had asked myself two questions and had the balls to answer them both. It's something you'll have to answer for yourself when you go out there. The first…is that you'll have to decide if we're really worth saving."

Maybe that was it then? Maybe they had found something worth saving?

A fire flickered to life on the upper right corner of the picture. It ate its way down and across, leaving an ever-expanding nothingness in its wake. It started with Stanton. He had died early on, the first of Charlie Team to do so. He'd dropped to the surface of a planet that the 15th Shock Troops Battalion was trying to save from the Covenant when he was burned alive in his pod. Maybe to Cosmo, it had something to do with that planet that made the ordeal worth the risk.

The flames consumed his part of the picture and moved leftward to Cosmo.

Cosmo actually got to fight. On whatever colony it was that he'd served on he was working not only to defend it but also his buddies in the 9th Battalion. He gave up his own life trying to save his wounded squadmate, Donovan who told him to leave him behind. He ignored his pleas. He saved his life. He lost his own regardless.

The flames consumed his part of the picture and moved leftward again to O'Reilly.

The man had lost everything. Then, in his own eyes, after gaining something back, he lost that too and turned on the last thing he had left.

The flames consumed his part of the picture as well and moved leftward once more to the last surviving member of Charlie Team.

One died for the people of a planet he never knew and never reached.

One died for a squadmate who told him not to help.

One died for a lost life that he would never get back.

All three of them went out for the sake of preserving an aspect of life, whether it was their own or someone else's, and they did it before, during and even after the threat to those valued things had made itself known to them.

In that way, Cosmo, Stanton and O'Reilly understood the words of a man they never even knew far better than the one that did. It took him this long to realize what they were doing. They'd found something that was really worth saving. They'd died for it; for their own sake, for the sake of others they knew and even for others they didn't. Still, they did it.

So the deciding factor, as he understood it, was that something that was honestly worth saving had to be worth dying for. Despite what Stewards had said, it could still be for the cause of a generalized idea of humanity as Stanton had proven. Idea or not, there were still real people out there that needed help. It could be for the people he was aware of and connected to as Cosmo had demonstrated. It could even be for himself and his own conscience, however misplaced the intentions might be as O'Reilly had also proved.

Maybe that was the best way to describe the cause of fighting for humanity as a whole; to fight for himself, for everyone he knew and for everyone he didn't. Perhaps Rick was right in that idea. Duncan's own old-time friends had taught him about deciding if 'we' were worth paying the price for. It made him think of many different parts of his own life since he joined up. There were the imprisoned colonist miners held by the rebels on Epsilon Eridani IV that he'd helped to free. Then there were the citizens of the Insurrectionist-occupied Hayth that hadn't asked for any such freedom. There were the scores of colonists that 1st Platoon had given up half of their remaining numbers to save from their home. Then there were the children who'd been saved from their fallen colonies that made the decision to return to the fight as Spartans. He'd fought to protect every group or to at least show them how to protect themselves. When all was said and done in this war, what better cause was there?

Yet Rick had given an answer for that as well in the form of a second realization he'd made during his years in the ODSTs: "Well, the second question will reveal itself by the way you answer the first."

The second question was in and of itself a question because he didn't know what it was to begin with. How could he answer a question that wasn't even made clear as to what it was?

That was the part Duncan couldn't wrap his head around yet. He was fresh off of the revelation of the first one. But figuring out the second, deriving its meaning seemingly from thin air then answering it felt to him to be an impossible but important task. So important that he sensed it would either be what stopped the fire spreading across Charlie Team's picture or would perhaps be the exact reason that it continued to do so.

The picture gradually faded into the blackness with only his part in it left unburnt.

Duncan cracked his eyes open as he awoke. Unlike his usual nightmares, the one he'd just had felt less terrifying in the sense of horrifying events and more horrifying in relation to existential terror. It was that kind of sleep where he thought he was awake the whole time, much like the exhausted feeling of having studied for a test or exam scheduled for the next day, only to dream of everything he'd studied in his sleep.

He pulled himself up onto his elbows.

"Finally up, huh?"

He turned to Erica who was sitting in the chair next to her side of the bed. She was visibly tired but focused on holding a peacefully slumbering Noah against her shoulder. She didn't have to look at him to hear the groaning effort required to set his back against the bed's rear bracing.

He took a look around their new room. It was a carbon copy of the first, merely two floors down in the same building. The place was given to them to stay after what transpired in their other room.

He remembered having to spend most of the remainder of yesterday at Falchion's hospital. The main purpose of his stay was to handle the stab wound in his lower abdomen. The tip of O'Reilly's knife failed to reach any of his vitals; remarkable considering the extent of their scuffle. The doctors weren't finished but they got enough done for him to be able to leave the hospital temporarily. They told him that even with his recovery rate and the pain meds they would still need him back the next day. He decided on meeting them later on in the day after coming here to spend the night with Erica and Noah. They didn't say much after he got back. They mostly just stayed together in the bed and held on to each other, although not so close as to risk reopening his wounds. Too much had happened for anyone to want to say anything yet. It seemed a good night's rest did the trick though.

Erica turned to him worriedly. "Honey, were you crying?"

Duncan wiped his face. It was damp, not with sweat but the remains of tears. He didn't sense himself crying at any point. He'd just woken up. It was there nevertheless. Maybe he wasn't cognizant of it when it happened. Maybe it was because of his nightmare.

"I...guess so."

A brief silence passed between them. The weight of that silence bore down on him because it reminded him of everything he had yet to say, that he needed to say.

"...Listen, I-"

Erica shook her head. "Don't do that."

"What?"

"Don't do it."

"Don't do what?"

Erica looked knowingly yet sympathetically at him. "You were about to apologize. Don't, because I'll make you take it back."

Duncan stared at her dumbfounded for a moment. "Hey, about that telepathy thing you have, can you turn that off for a second because it's hard to talk when you already know what I I'm going to say."

Erica cracked a smile. "Sure thing."

"Thanks."

A second silence permeated the air between them as Duncan gathered his thoughts. "So...you don't even want me to apologize about what happened then?"

"No."

"None of it?"

"No."

"You do know you were held captive for hours at gunpoint by someone that could've very well harmed you or Noah, and I wouldn't have been able to do a thing? You know that, right?"

Erica nodded as she rocked Noah around a little. "I also know what kind of woman it takes to be the wife of an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper."

Now it was Duncan's turn to smile knowingly at her. "Okay, now you're just playing tough, aren't you?"

A third silence lasted well into the 10 second mark during which he saw her tough, joking façade shave a way a little.

"Look." Duncan said. "I saw you when Riley said what he wanted to do. You were on the floor by the end of it and...it really hurt to see you like that."

More of Erica's tough façade melted away in light of the statement as it drew both of them back to yesterday's events.

"Even though you won't let me apologize, it's a fact that O'Reilly wouldn't have come for you if it weren't for what I did to him. I'm the cause of that. I tried-"

"You tried to save him." Erica interrupted. "What, you think I couldn't hear what you guys said through the walls. They're thin. I could hear everything." She shakily breathed out and shifted Noah from her left arm to her right as he stirred in his sleep. "I've had the time to think about it. This is the conclusion I came to and its why I don't want you to apologize. From what I overheard even before I ran, he said you used him to get to Kirkley. What that told me was that he defected to the Innies. I feel like you knew that already and just didn't tell me for the sake of your mission. I really wished it hadn't come to that. I honestly wanted to see him live a life like the one you told me he wanted with his girlfriend. It's sad to think he lost that chance right before he tried to get it..." She trailed off in the somberness of her own contemplations then returned to the conversation. "Then there's Kirkley. I don't know when Waypoint's going to do a press release for that but I know it'll be big news, especially if they found out you helped. From what I pieced together, that's also what you went to do, other than trying to save Riley that is."

So she had heard everything then.

"...Well, the guys I worked with said that-"

"ONI?" Erica asked.

Duncan leered at her perceptiveness. "Nothing gets past you, does it? I keep forgetting you grew up as a military brat."

"I prefer the term military descendent."

"Same difference. I can't say for sure though for confidentiality reasons."

Erica nodded affirmatively. "Yeah, its ONI. They gagged you?"

"Yeah."

"How much can you say?"

"You already know more than you were supposed to because of yesterday. I was meant to come here, explain a little then get you in bed with me."

"Uhuh, looks like you skipped a few steps there, sir."

"Maybe I'm just that smooth?"

"Maybe not. Maybe I just missed you that much, even though now I can't do anything crazy for the next few weeks that it'll take for you to fully heal."

Duncan shrugged. "Things changed." He thought back to seeing O'Reilly, bloodied and pinned beneath him after taking a barrage of fists but still remaining defiant. "...People change."

"They can also change back." Erica added.

Her words shifted his memories to that of seeing O'Reilly talking to him like normal despite his fatal wounds, weeping at remembering what he'd done and being embraced for the last few seconds of his life.

Duncan held up his hands and surveyed them, remembering the blood that covered them.

"You didn't kill him."

He turned to her. "What?"

"I saw the other guy when you opened the door, the man with the gun. He was the one that pulled off those shots, right?"

Duncan hesitantly nodded. "Yeah."

"He saved you. He was the one that finished off O'Reilly, not you. So don't you go blaming yourself for that either, alright?"

"Well, the other guy got the shots off. That said, it was me that put Riley in that state before he came here."

She eyed him curiously. "You mean you shot him first?"

Duncan nodded. "I-...during my mission, I was faced with a circumstance where I had to. I couldn't see it going any other way than him killing me and alerting the enemy to our plans. I at least only shot to wound. Even then, even if I wasn't the one that killed him, I was the one that made him suffer for as long as he did. What you saw from him was his old wounds acting up. I put them there. I don't know how that's much better than if I-…"

"Like I said, you didn't kill him. That and you tried to bring him back."

"And I failed."

She arched a brow. "Did you really?"

He wasn't sure what she was hinting at until he reminisced on everything O'Reilly told him, joking about his Sarge, about his girlfriend and his squad, going so far as hoping that the reason he was seeing his friend again was that they'd partied together after he'd transferred in.

"I think you might be right." Duncan admitted. "For those last few seconds, I don't know, it felt-, it-…."

"It felt like you got your friend back." Erica said, finishing his thought.

He quietly came to the understanding that his wife figured these things out better than he did. She was right. For those few fleeting moments before he passed, it felt like the O'Reilly he always knew had come back. He'd talked to him like they were back in the cafeteria at Ravenport comparing notes on their civilian lives. He marveled at how uncomplicatedly simple things actually were back then. He almost missed those times where there were more planets to protect, more people left to save and more friends among the living that he could talk to face to face rather than finding out what happened to them over a holo-screen.

"Yeah." Duncan said. "It felt like-...like old times again."

"So what're you going to do now with the future?"

It was a great question. Duncan wished he knew the answer. "No clue. I haven't looked that far ahead yet. Have you?"

Erica sighed. "I've actually been absent from my job for a while now, so much so that my dad's rank isn't really keeping my employer's complaints at bay anymore."

"Sounds like you've been extorting them."

"It's more like milking the family name. Anyway, they want their money's worth at the Csillagos Éj and I've basically spent all of my vacation time for the year and then sum. Know what that means?"

"I'll be the one having to visit you in NA for a while."

"Mhm. That and that we don't have too much time left. I have to head back in about a week. That's all the grace period I could coax out of my boss." She held up the forefinger and thumb on her freehand like the letter 'L' and aimed it at him. "Before that happens, I want you to teach me how to use a gun." She pretended to shoot.

Duncan winced. "Uugghh, and where do you expect me to do that?"

"Right here at Falchion." She replied, her eagerness undimmed.

"You do know there's certain restrictions on allowing civilians to use facilities here, right?"

"No biggie. We can convince your Staff Sergeant to get us permission to use it for a bit."

"It? What do you mean it?"

"The RTETC Building. I hear it's perfect for this kind of stuff."

"It is." He paused. "I'm operating under the assumption this is because of what happened yesterday. Am I right?"

Erica nodded. "I know you want to protect us Duncan." She said, lovingly rubbing the top of Noah's head. "But I also know you can't always do that. And that sometimes I'll have to be able to defend us when you're not around. Things could have gone terribly south with Riley like you said. Which is why I need to know what to do if anything like that should ever happen again. I want you to train me. At the end of it I'll at least have a clue of what to do with a sidearm."

"I'm almost certain your dad taught you how to use those."

"Yeah, but that was back when I was a teen. The practice kind of wore off on me and I need a fresh reminder of what to do. We might not be able to get a rocket tube from the armory but we can do an M6, right?"

Duncan shook his head empathetically, the way a teacher would at a student that just barely missed the right answer. "It's called a rocket 'launcher' or SPNKR."

"S-P-N-K-R." Erica spelled it out slowly. "Like, as in 'spank'?"

"Something like that. We use it on heavily armored enemies that require it."

She raised a playful brow again. "You...spank the Covenant with it?"

He shrugged. "That's what Yuri told me once."

"Hmm, maybe you could hurry up and heal so you could mistake me for the Covenant sometime, huh?" She asked, biting her lip a little.

Duncan stifled a laugh. "Woah, what was that? Feeling raunchy today, are we?"

She laughed as well. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding...okay I'm only half-kidding but it's your fault for being away for so long again. You're going to have to take responsibility for this soon."

Duncan shuffled across the bed to her side. Ignoring the pain from his various wounds he leaned over and pressed his forehead against hers. "Let me make it up to you then."

"Sure thing." She said and leaned in as well.

They kissed, refusing to pull away for several long seconds. Noah's sudden stirring cut things short.

"Nice preview." She said. "Can't wait to see the rest of the movie."

"It's in production." Duncan said, getting out of the bed and onto his feet. "So when are you expecting these training sessions?"

Erica tapped a finger against her chin. "Let's go with 1430 today, same time tomorrow and then the day just before I go back. That should be enough."

"Just hope I can get the Staff to agree."

"He will. I'll ask Sofi to convince him. I've learned never to doubt her powers of persuasion."

"Same here."

"Oh, and Duncan?"

It felt almost strange the way she said his name. Duncan instantly detected there was something lurking within whatever else she had to say. "Yeah?"

"Promise me something." Her kidding demeanor fell away and she sounded more serious.

"Go on."

"That no matter what happens you'll keep doing what you do until you no longer need to."

The two of them stared the other down, testing for any signs that they weren't taking the occasion with the utmost seriousness.

"Why'd you ask that?" Duncan asked.

Erica let a restless Noah settle back on her chest as her eyes steadily began to water. "If it really wasn't O'Reilly that came here, if it was someone else coming for revenge that didn't need to take it out on you but us, we really could have wound up dead."

The tension manifested itself in Duncan's chest as a tightness he wished would go away. It refused to because he knew that what they feared had nearly come to pass. If it was Captain Stewards as the 'Schmidt' ID initially made him believe then that hypothetical would have probably become a reality. He couldn't bring himself to say anything and instead let Erica continue.

"I don't want to make it seem as if I was fine when I really wasn't. That shook me. It did, not just that someone came after us but that I couldn't do anything myself. That's the part I hated most. I was worried that...you'd come back a-, and find me and Noah...I didn't want to think on what would have happened. Yet you were almost taken away from us too." She wiped the tears out of her eyes. "I try not to worry about you because I know you can take care of yourself out there better than I ever could for myself in the same situations. Plus you have a whole squad backing you up. But I spent so much time worrying about you regardless that I didn't even think about what could happen to me and Noah." She looked up to him so that he could see the concern hidden behind her eyes. "We almost lost each other yesterday. That's why I want you to promise me that even if anything should happen to us, you'll keep doing what you do."

Duncan's vision hazed over.

Right then he picked up on the root cause of his tension. She was asking something of him that rarely crossed his mind before; that the war or some part of it could reach his family and take them away from him rather than him away from them. He suddenly felt selfish beyond belief. He barely thought about how their lives at any point could be put in more danger than his own despite that he'd come out here to fight for their sake. He was doing it for so long now that that aspect of it became a non-consideration for him. The far-off yet constantly approaching nature of the conflict was what he didn't quite appreciate. Since he was always at the forefront of things, he always saw the close-up and immediate results of it for his own life. He never thought about it from the perspective of civilians who could see the danger coming while it was still some distance away.

"I won't let anything happen to y-"

"It might not be up to you, honey." Erica said. "That's why I want you to promise me this."

"You keep making me make promises." Duncan said with mock-exasperation and a bit of laughter to change the mood.

Erica's smile returned. "And you keep on keeping them."

The praise was unexpected. All the same, it was true. He had kept them so far, hadn't he? "Thanks." He sat back down on the bed. "I'll only agree though if you accept mine."

"And what's yours?"

"...That you'll keep doing what you're doing until you no longer need to, even if I never come back."

He'd had plenty of time to think about it. Now the door was open for him to ask.

Erica breathed out and nodded. "I-...darn, how do you keep these?"

"Welcome to my world." He said cheekily.

"Alright then. If you want me to, I'll do it."

"And I'll do the same."

Erica peered down at Noah. "I guess we'll both keep living for the other even if anything should happen."

"And for him." Duncan gestured down at their son. The two of them watched him sleep away, his restlessness having subsided.

"Agreed." She said. She looked back up at him. "How about another one?"

"Shoot."

"Promise me you'll never make me have to use that promise."

Duncan laughed although he agreed to it with a playful salute. "Trying to have your cake and eat it too?"

"No. I'm trying to have my husband and keep him too."

"Okay then, I'll do my best to keep him for you. Only if you agree to do the same for my wife."

"Seal the deal with a kiss?"

Duncan leaned in and so did she. They kissed again and held on for as long as they wanted now that Noah was still.

At length they broke off.

"Agreed?" Erica asked.

"Agreed."

"Then it's settled and that's that." Erica stood up and handed over Noah. "Hold him, I'll make us some breakfast."

Duncan tried to hold him properly as she headed off to the kitchen. He settled the little boy on his lap since his chest was still recovering. A faint smell wafted up into his nose. It was an unpleasant and foul odor. He followed after it, searching for the source until his nostrils were centimeters away from Noah's pampers. He risked pinching the waistband back then made the grave mistake of smelling the inside. The odor hit so hard that it stung his brain. He quickly put the waistband back in place.

"Ugh, hey, I think Noah's used up his pampers."

"Oh did he?" Erica called back. "Think you're up to the challenge then?"

"Kind of."

"Welcome back to Being a Good Dad 101, honey."

"Yeah, thanks." Duncan said. He sighed at the idea of what he'd have to do next as a patient smile crossed his lips. "Good to be back."

:********:

The elevator doors dinged. They slid open and Duncan walked out onto 1st Platoon's floor of the Dante Building. He set his sights on the area of the bunk-beds setup on the far side of the floor.

Hector was reading a motorist magazine on his bottom bunk while Zack was doing the same on the one above, only with a women's modeling magazine. Mito and Deaks were sitting on the latter's bunk conducting some kind of trade off inspection of their respective blades. The Staff, Rico, Nova, Renni and Yuri were all further in. They were standing around a light source that flickered every now and again as they watched it.

Duncan made his way through the maze of beds towards them.

Hector saw him first and nodded off to him. Zack hastily put his magazine aside to speak with him. "Hey, hey Duncan, you good man?"

"Yeah."

"You-, ugh, you sure?"

"Positive."

"Ugh...okay."

Duncan kept going. Mito saw him next. "Hey D-sensei, how're the bandages holding up?"

"Alright I guess, Sir. Samurai."

Mito smirked. "I could give you worse than that with the Murasakino if you ever feel up to it."

Duncan smiled back. "No thanks, I'm good."

"Must be if you're all the way up here." Deaks said. "Shouldn't you have gone back to the hospital by now?"

"Later. Right now, I'm with you guys."

He approached the gathering at the far side. They were grouped together around what he saw was a holo-screen display emitting from a new projector mounted to the wall. They were watching one of Waypoint's newest morning shows, the Morning Hardline with Rachel Hardy, a brunette sporting a stylish blouse and skirt. He recognized her as being the same anchor he saw that day of his mother's funeral when him and his uncle passed that coffee shop. Back then she was a blonde talking about Cole's final stand. Now she was a brunette sitting at a glassy table and explaining something he couldn't hear. However, he didn't need to hear her to see what she was talking about and what everyone else was focused on.

Near the upper right corner of the screen there was a picture of a very familiar face. It was an old mugshot of Major Benjamin Kirkley. The picture phased out to show him in different stages of his life. They ranged from a UNSC Army officer looking over a grassy battlefield from behind a sandbag wall to those taken from security cameras of places where he'd been spotted after his defection.

The others saw Duncan coming and exchanged a number of nods, multi-lingual welcomes and English-based questions as to what he was doing there or how he was feeling. He accepted the welcomes while batting away their concerns with the same truthful honesty. He'd come to spend some time with them. He wanted to be with them to celebrate the announcement of the news they were all expecting today. So they waited together, chatting about what they thought would be said and what the ONI censors would allow past the media filters.

Then Rachel dropped her documentarian approach to the topic of Kirkley's life and began becoming more direct, telling her audience of certain events that had transpired that led to the ending of the threat he posed.

"Hey guys, they're talking about it now." Nova called back.

Everyone who was elsewhere in the room came over.

"What? Wait, you guys didn't tell me my GF was on right now." Zack complained after spotting the news anchor.

Nova sighed explosively. "For the last time, Zack, you can't call her your girlfriend."

"Yeah, Little Z, plus I'm pretty sure she's already married." Rico said and pointed at her right hand. "See the ring?"

Zack squinted at it then shook his head. "Nah, I don't see anything Ricky old boy. Not a thing. You must be hallucinating."

"Says the guy who claims his girlfriend is someone he's never met."

The Staff shushed them all so that they could listen in to her broadcast.

"Multiple sources from within the United Nations Space Command as well as a direct press release from High Command, or HIGHCOM, have confirmed that on June 16th, ODSTs of both the 7th and 10th Shock Troops Battalions conducted a joint operation against an Insurrectionist base of operations. The raid proved successful in its goal to neutralize the influential colonial rebel leader and ex-UNSC Army Major Benjamin Kirkley. That is correct ladies and gentlemen, we got'em. Finally, there is some justice to be found for the close to 700 victims of the Molnar Bombing as well as many other barbaric acts he's perpetrated in his long career of terrorism. The souls of the victims as well as their families can rest easy knowing that, thanks to the brave men and women of the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, the man that stole so much from so many has now gotten what was so long coming to him."

As the report went on, the others gave Duncan approving glances or told him this was all because of him. Of course, Deaks got a decent swath of the praise as well. Yes, the 7th and 10th Shock Troops had made the assault but it was ultimately the corporal who took the shot. And it was ultimately Duncan himself that helped make the mission possible. He accepted it with humility though as well as the satisfaction that the very first act of mass-evil he'd ever witnessed was brought to a conclusion. With it he received a sense of closure, like a part of his life had been wrapped up with the unveiling of the news.

That wasn't to say there weren't a few noticeable loose ends. There was no mention of the discovery of advanced environmental devitrification technologies or mercenary networks. There was no mention of intergenerationally augmented super-soldiers or of any near self-sufficient human settlements existing for a prolonged period behind enemy lines. The story was simply that a notoriously malevolent and infamously hated man who was despised by many had had his life ended. But there was so much more not said and not seen that contributed to the bigger picture, both great and small.

Even in the grander scheme of things, he accepted that this was a small victory. The Insurrectionists were no longer the main threats to colonial civilization. They hadn't been for some time after the arrival of the Covenant. There was still that enemy to deal with.

That wasn't to say that these contributions to the war effort were pointless either. There were small parts to it, small actions by battalions, companies, platoons, squads and individuals who could make a dent in the progress of annihilation. He'd lived to both see and be a part of that himself. It was a small dent of course but a dent nonetheless. There was no telling what many of these same small dents could do overtime. However, the possibility of that by itself made him confident. After all, even in the grander scheme of things, a small victory was still a victory, wasn't it?

That was what the Staff had told him. That was something he saw as being worth his own life, worth dying for. That was what he could harness, that and the questions his uncle had posed to him as well as the answers to one of those that the lives of his friends had proven to be. Now he needed to answer the second question as soon as he found out what it was. He discerned that understanding it would be the key. It would be what enabled him to keep the promise he'd made to the UNSC under the oath to protect Earth and all her colonies, the promise he'd made to his squad to work together as a team, to his family to always come back to them, and to himself to follow all those things to the letter.

Promissa – Promises