Chapter 36 – Gratitudo

August 19th, 2552 - (18:10 Hours - Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach

Viery Territory, New Alexandria

NA Starport

:********:

Though the UNSC brass would have and had indeed argued otherwise, Carter could've personally gone without the fanfare. If it was up to him, for the sake of discretion, NOBLE would've entered the starport through the backdoor rather than the front. However, the local command here seemed less intent on discretion, at least when it came to showing off their newest reinforcements.

The moment the doors to Terminal A slid open, several hundred pairs of eyes descended on him and the rest of his team. They had their weapons secured on their magnetic harnesses to avoid too much of a scene. All the same, the atmosphere of murmurs and whispers grew louder in some places or went completely silent in others. The sight of four Spartans striding down the walkway was enough to turn a sea of heads their way.

The two squads flanking them from their front and back were meant to keep a crowd from blocking their passage. It was almost what he would've imagined of a celebrity catwalk, bodyguards around them, paparazzi off to the wayside. All the more reason why he hated it. The others seemed to share that sentiment. They appeared just as relaxed as he did. However, he knew them well enough to suspect otherwise.

Those moments where he wasn't fighting, where he wasn't helping soldiers out of a rut, he was being watched, stared at it. He'd learned to tune it out over the years. Even then, it was always a slight distraction in the back of his mind. He preferred working with personnel that were more used to Spartans. It wasn't an exact science, but they tended to have an easier time interacting with him. Less wide-open eyes and gaping mouths, more straight to the point. Less reminding him of how different he was and more focused on what needed to be done.

None of that could be helped, however. Not now. Now, there was a job to be done and he was ready to work with whoever would lend a hand.

"Looks like a full house, tonight." Jun said as they walked.

"It's not a house, it's a starport terminal." Kat corrected. "And these aren't guests. They're trapped here."

"Metaphorically speaking, it's a full house. Also metaphorically speaking, we're the guests of honor."

"You think real highly of yourself in your spare time, don't you?"

"Me? No. I'm just reading the room."

"Should've warned me, commander." Emile said. "Could've brought a suit."

"You're already in one." Carter said bluntly.

"Yeah, but I've got blood on this one."

Kat side-eyed him. "Trust me, Noble-4, if you had a closet, it wouldn't look all that different."

Emile returned the glare. "I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying I'd rather be prepared."

Almost as soon as he'd said it, ahead of them a small kid ran in from the left. The little boy managed to slip past their escorts before they could stop him. His mother was running after him only to be caught up by the soldiers, two of which turned after the boy only to pause mid-stride. The kid also stopped in his tracks, fixed with a look of awestruck wonder at the Spartans. Yet that all fell apart as the closest of their number walked past.

Carter felt sorry for him almost instantly.

A kid who couldn't possibly be older than eight or nine found himself staring into the face of death itself. Whereas Jorge was the most civilian-friendly of the team, it was no secret that Emile was his polar opposite. Noble's resident Pitbull didn't pull against his leash like he would in a combat zone. He briefly regarded the frozen statue that had up until a few seconds ago been a child as he carried on past him. As he did, a dark shadow fell over the boy's face, one that quickly turned to surprise as an armored hand touched his head.

Jun ruffled his hair a bit as he went by. "Hurry on back to your mom, okay kid?"

Right then, Carter realized that Jun had taken his helmet off, showing the boy the face behind the visor. He flashed him a grin, the kind he usually reserved for special occasions. He was always the second most prone out of all of them to try putting others at ease, right behind Jorge.

The fear seemed to drain from the kid. That awestruck wonder came back.

A split-second later, another boy managed to slip past both the mother and the soldiers. He was slightly bigger than the one that had come out to the team. He looked a lot like him too. What Carter assumed to be the older brother grabbed him by the shoulders to try to pull him back, though not before looking for himself.

At that point, Emile peered over his shoulder at them, regarding the whole situation with a tad more interest than he had before.

Though he virtually never talked about it, on the one occasion that Carter had heard Emile speak about his life before the program, he began to understand at least some of what drove the man. It came as no great wonder to him then as to why he watched the two brothers finally returning to the crowd.

The closest soldiers closed ranks again to seal the breach. Beyond them, Carter spotted the two boys getting back to their mother, as well as to a new arrival who he guessed to be the father. His sharpened hearing made him privy to what they were saying. They were scolding their youngest for getting away from them.

He couldn't help continuing to observe them from the corner of his visor even as he and Kat went by.

He tried to remember what that was like.

Tried.

Failed.

But he could still remember them, their faces at least.

He tried thinking of something else.

It worked, though not for the reasons he would've wanted.

The team felt small. It had been that way for the past few days already. Still, being amongst a crowd of normal people reminded him that they were missing two of their own.

Jorge.

Six.

Dead or alive, no one from the top down could say with any certainty. That didn't stop the likelihood of it being the former from growing with each passing day.

Making a left turn alongside the team, he intuitively remembered a not-so-distant time. It was back when an entirely different set of Spartans had walked beside him. One by one, the hands of time and fate had changed them out until only he and Kat were left. He sensed those same hands becoming active again as they had last been on Fumirole, albeit with a new motive. This time around they seemed to have no intention of replacing anyone.

The lieutenant leading them was quick on his feet and able to stay ahead. He guided them on into a wide atrium that Carter assumed would end at yet another terminal. The space was no less packed and no less busy than the last. Its occupants proved equally as observant upon sighting the team.

"What's your assessment, sir?" Kat asked.

Carter considered it. "Too early to say. Once we meet with the upper echelon, I'll get back to you."

"Want to hear my assessment?" Jun asked.

"Go ahead, Noble-3."

"From what I can tell, we're two days too late and the Covenant's two years too early. Figured they'd put Reach on the menu sooner or later, but this right here? It's a hell of a lot sooner than anyone was ready for."

"Is anyone ever really ready for it?" Kat asked.

"I was." Emile said. "Always am."

"Well, not everyone can be you, Noble-4."

Emile shrugged. "Ain't it a shame."

Carter had to agree with Jun. For want of a better analogy, he could admit that the Covenant had caught the UNSC with their pants down. Anyone could who'd been paying attention long enough or had at least lived long enough to notice. The only question that remained now was what to do about it. At the moment, Noble was headed straight into the heart of that debate with the answer: them, or more specifically, what they had brought with them.

The team came down a short flight of steps into what he assumed to be Terminal B. The center of the atrium here was filled to bursting with medical field tents. Several rows of several dozen strong had been connected into a sort of prefab med-station. Their white canvas walls, stained here and there by blots of red, vacillated slowly in the air conditioning like bloodied sails on a dead ship. The people gathered around them seemed equally as dead. Aside from the throngs of civilians gathered in both the outer and upper seating areas, he noticed dozens more that stood out, or rather sat out from the rest. Haggard looking individuals were divided into clusters of seats around the entrance to the med-station. With each step the team took, more and more heads turned in their direction, some bloodied and bandaged, others burned. Even the handful of Army medics tending to them took brief pauses to stare at the newcomers.

Carter didn't pay too much heed to them until he saw Emile's pace slacken.

"I might be losing it but," He nodded towards the tents. "Coming up on our ten o'clock, isn't that 5's friend over there?"

"You mean the girl from the relay?" Kat questioned.

Carter took a look for himself.

He spotted who Emile was pointing to. Of the medics going about on triage duty, one of them was quite obviously non-military. The torn jeans and jacket were a dead giveaway. So was the face that stared back at them, and the complete shock written all over it.

He couldn't remember the name she gave when Jorge and Six had returned from the depths of the relay. Noble's gentle giant had managed to coax it out of her even when it was hard enough for Kat to get her to stop screaming. He could understand. Getting ambushed by a bunch of special-looking Elites had just about ruined his day as well, at least more than it already had been. But seeing her here and now came as a surprise. After Visegrád, he wasn't sure what had happened to her. So many things had taken up his attention over the past few weeks in fact, that she hadn't really been on his mind at all. Not until now at least.

She looked to be on the verge of applying a morphine injection to a man's bare shoulder when she saw the Spartans coming. Though she froze in place, her eyes shifted here and there, scanning the team with a hopeful glint.

He knew who she was looking for.

He knew she wouldn't find him.

In a matter of moments, her hopefulness visibly dimmed into something more questioning, more worrying.

Still a bit far off, she dropped what she was doing and strode towards them, although her patient didn't seem to register it either, equally as caught up by the sight of the four.

"Who's that?" Jun asked.

"You don't remember?" Kat countered. "That little check-in turned shootout at Visegrád?"

"Yeah, but I was running air recon on that op, remember? I didn't get the whole Covie meet-and-greet that you guys did."

"The researcher, the one we found in the main building, he had a-"

"You mean that one you got in hot water with Halsey for over stealing his data?"

"I didn't steal anything. Besides, I gave it back in the end."

"Yeah, when she twisted your wrist for it." Emile chided. "It's called giving back what you stole."

"You stay out of this."

"So...that's his...wife?" Jun asked.

Kat shook her head. "Daughter."

"Oh..."

"Anybody ever tell you you're slow?"

"Anybody ever tell you you're bad at explanations?"

"Never."

Emile butted in. "Remember when I told you that the big man made a little friend?"

"Ah," Jun said, letting out a smidge of laughter at the memory. "See, now it's clicking."

Kat shook her head again as the young woman came to a stop along their route.

One of the soldiers from their escorts got in her way. "Sorry ma'am, I need you to step back."

She was about to say something, but before she could, the soldier found an armored hand resting on his shoulder.

"It's alright, trooper." Carter said. "We can spare a few seconds."

Both of them looked up at him like deer caught in the headlights. The trooper mustered the wherewithal to step aside, leaving her standing alone.

The name was coming back to him.

"Sará Sorvad, correct?"

She stuttered something incoherently in Hungarian. Giving up, she nodded meekly.

"Now that's a familiar face." Kat added. "Glad you're still in one piece."

"Th-, thanks. S-, ugh, same to you."

"Sorry, but I don't think that applies to me." Kat said, shrugging her prosthetic arm.

Sará tensed in alarm. "Oh-, ugh-, no, I wasn't-, um-"

Kat got off a small chuckle at her expense. "I'm kidding, Ms. Sorvad. That one's not on you."

"How did you get here?" Carter asked, getting straight to the point.

"That's what I'd like to know." Emile seconded. "Somebody put you on a payroll to keep an eye on us?"

Sará aggressively shook her head. "No-no-no, nothing like that. I just-, after what happened I-, I wound up..."

"Here." Jun finished, gesturing over to the nearby patients. "Good on you for helping out where you can."

"...It's the least I can do." She looked up at them again, a grateful gleam in her eye. "I just wanted to say...thank you. I didn't get to back then but...even if it's a coincidence, I couldn't miss out on another chance." She breathed in deeply. "Thank you...really. You saved my life."

Carter couldn't accept her thanks in good conscience.

She was right. Noble had saved her life. All the same, had they gotten there sooner, had their pre-mission intelligence been more exact, a lot would've been different. She might've even still had her family. Despite her age, despite her countenance, he could recognize the pain of an orphan etched into her demeanor.

He had experience to thank for that.

"You're welcome." Kat said, seeing that her superior had gone silent. "I hope you make it out okay."

Carter thought they were done then and there when he saw Sará looking around at them again.

She blinked confusedly. "I'm sorry, weren't there...more of you?"

The team as a whole went quiet.

"I didn't meet your sniper before, but there were two more, no? A gray one and a-, um-"

"A big one?" Emile put in.

"The big one, yes. I really gave him the cold shoulder last I saw him. I wanted to apologize."

Again, no one said anything.

Watching her concern resurge, Carter at last gave her an answer. "He's not with us at the moment. However, if you'd like, I can pass on your message to him once we get back in contact."

Her worry didn't abate. "I-, is he okay?"

"He's a Spartan." Kat firmly replied.

The statement was taken as an answer in and of itself, one she seemed to accept with a glimmer of hope. "Right, yes. Please, if you get the chance, pass on my thanks to him and the other one for me."

"Will do." Carter said. "That's all the time we have to spare, Ms. Sorvad. Good luck."

"Thank you." She replied, nearly wheezing from her nerves. "Same to you, Spartans."

Carter gave her one last nod and moved on. Jun gave her a thumbs up. Emile went on by, mirroring his superior's gesture, though in a way that contained a lot more meaning than the Spartan had shown at their first meeting.

She hadn't just survived but had proven that she was far more than another victim of the war.

Carter knew Emile. He knew exactly what it meant, that she had earned something from the skull-faced reaper that most never did:

Respect.

Kat lagged behind, her robotic hand grasping the smaller woman's shoulder.

Even on the move, Carter overheard her promise.

"We'll make them bleed."

He sensed the vengeance in her words, well-deserved vengeance.

Peering back, he watched the look on Sará's face harden from quiet gratitude into grim optimism. Strange, he thought, that it felt so familiar. Truth be told, it reminded him of his old classmates on what had turned out to be the first day of the rest of their lives.

If she were younger, if they had more worlds, more time, he had a feeling that he knew exactly where she would've ended up.

With that, his second-in-command left her side and followed after them.

"Oh," Kat added. "And if you hear a lot more shooting outside than usual, don't worry. It's just us throwing a welcome party for our guests."

:********:

Carter was loathed to admit to himself that he was a bit on edge. Running into the very same person who he'd seen at the start of all this mess felt almost like a bad omen. Sure, he believed in coincidences, but sometimes he wondered about those things that he didn't believe in.

The elevator ride was giving him time to think, a lot more than he liked.

It was only a few seconds. Still too long.

The lift eased to a gradual stop. With a two-note chime, the doors slid open.

The lieutenant was the first out with his men close behind. Noble followed, still flanked around about by the rest of their escort.

The sixth floor wasn't as badly overrun as the lower floors, at least not where they emerged. Here, Carter quickly sniffed out the logistics center of a forward operating base.

The 109th Infantry Division's FOB was comprised of everything they would need for their operations on this side of the city. Rows of seats had been turned into emergency supply racks. Tables meant for the starport's clientele had been transformed into support platforms for portable computers and other UNSC hardware. Hastily established comm-stations and data displays lined the far walls and alcoves. Compared to the other floors, there was a higher concentration of Army personnel, tech specialists and officers moving, conversing or working across the space. It was a beehive of activity thanks to the newest arrival of evac craft. Nevertheless, nearly all eyes turned towards them as the Spartans passed through.

Those in their way quickly parted for them. Unlike downstairs where the mood had proved more shocked and observant, here it was different. What started out as a murmur broke into a general cheer, applause and all.

"Hooah!"

"Get some, Spartans!"

"About time!"

"Give'em hell!"

Carter wasn't one to take praise for following orders. All the same, he preferred it to the awkwardness of long, wordless stares.

The team was led through the gathering, down the length of Terminal B's sixth floor before being turned left down a wide corridor. The mahogany office doors lining either side were each guarded by pairs of vigilant soldiers. They weren't so on guard however as to not pay heed to the newcomers. Although they didn't cheer, they looked on at the passerby with appreciative nods and grateful grins.

The lieutenant stopped near the door at the far end of the passageway. One of the two guards there opened the way for them. Carter made out a well-lit room beyond.

The lieutenant stepped aside and signaled his men to do the same. "The general's waiting for you, Noble."

"Roger that." Carter gestured to the others. He went ahead as they trailed in after him.

Crossing the threshold, he felt the change beneath his boots, from the polished smoothness of ceramic to the softness of gray carpet tiles. It was a conference room, as he'd expected. The blood red mahogany of four rectangular tables had been formed into a square by the previous users, only for one to be removed in order to create a kind of stage.

The room's sole occupant had his back to them, standing in the center like a statue of military camo. Dressed in an Army BDU with a matching cap on his head, he bore two large shoulder pauldrons that confirmed his identity. The winged-star insignia of a brigadier general was marked out on either one.

He heard them come in and peeled himself away from the information scrolling on his datapad. Despite a modest tan, his eyes, though steely, looked as if they hadn't seen natural light in days. The dark, sleepless circles around them were so deep that Carter was almost reminded of a raccoon. The strong brows above them didn't help, only emphasizing how tired he looked. Still, his bearing betrayed his appearance. He set his face in a stony determination as he strode towards them.

"Commander." He said, holding out a hand.

The rest of Noble Team stood at attention behind him as Carter shook it. "Brigadier General Caruso."

"Came just in time, Spartans. We're hard-pressed on this side of the bay. The 145th's not doing too hot either but we can't afford to lose out on our end, not with what's at stake. I'm sure you saw everything for yourself on your way up."

"We have, sir, and we're ready to assist."

Caruso stopped to examine the group as a whole. "Now listen, commander, I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I'm no fool. As happy as we are to have you four here, there's plenty of other places that could've used your help. I'm not just talking about different cities but even here in Alexandria. Traxus, NA Central, the green zones. You came here instead."

Another loud BOOM resonated somewhere from the west.

"I don't think I'd be wrong in assuming you came to our neck of the woods because you're after those corvettes?"

Carter had to admit, the officer was straight to the point. A good sign.

"You wouldn't be wrong on that front, sir." He replied.

"Huh. I also wouldn't be wrong in assuming you have some means of 'dealing' with them, correct?"

"You wouldn't be wrong there either."

"...Non-nuclear means?"

Carter understood. In fact, he understood the brigadier general's question perhaps better than the man himself.

"Have the areas within proximity been fully evacuated?"

Caruso gave a slow, cautioning shake of his head.

"Right. We factored that in during our planning for a possible counterattack. We can't afford to deal any serious damage to the city, especially the kind four HAVOKs could pull off. We settled for more of a sleight of hand instead."

"When you say 'we'..."

"Brass of Special Warfare Group Three, Noble-Actual and myself. General Montague signed off on the plan with some added asset acquisition from Brigadier General Abajjé."

Caruso arched a brow. "Asset acquisition?"

Very straight to the point, Carter noted. He was definitely someone he could work with, even if he couldn't show all of Noble's cards just yet.

"Respectfully, sir, it would be best if we could discuss this with the rest of the QRF brass. I was informed by the general that a meeting was planned for 18:20 Hours. Our brief's already been prepared."

The scheduled time was less than a minute away. The explanation would take too long and risked running into their briefing. Going forward, time would be their most important asset.

"Very well." Caruso replied. "Come on, if we're going to do this right, we need to be in visual range."

The brigadier general walked back towards the heart of the conference room with Carter right behind. Both of them stopped to stand side by side at the center. From there, he was able to scope out the holographic projection units that lined the opaque glass of the room's outer walls.

The door at their backs opened. A tech-specialist peered in. "Ten seconds before we establish connection, sir."

Caruso nodded. "Keep it quick and to the point, commander."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, sir."

Carter slipped off his helmet and held it against his side. He counted the last five seconds in his head. At one, a collective whine emanated throughout the room as the indicator lights on the holo-projectors flickered from an inactive blue to a stable green.

Five projection screens flashed into being along the walls, all of them blank as the individual connections sought to secure themselves.

Having already done his homework on each of the meeting's members, Carter didn't need to see the names to recognize the faces that appeared in front of him.

Starting from his left was the grizzled mug of the 7th Shock Troops Battalion's commanding officer. Despite a myriad of small scars and hair bleached white by time, Colonel Garrison looked ten years younger than his age. He was helmetless, albeit still dressed in his armor, sitting in what Carter guessed to be an executive office room. He seemed much better off than he had been when Noble-5 and 6 had come to his rescue back at SWORD Base. But even seeing his face here served to remind Noble's leader of the two that weren't around.

Next to Garrison was a man whose graying goatee, thick brows and tawny features could have had him mistaken for Portuguese during humanity's more Sol-centric era. The Army BDU of the leader of the 77th Armored Division, Colonel Antoni Saraquez, marked him out as the pillar of the city's heavy support forces. He resided somewhere similar to the colonel, although less well lit. The walls shook regularly, sending down a constant rain of dust as something kept exploding in the distance.

To Carter's right was a feed of a man whose lower jaw had been fully claimed by a beard of brown hair. The forest on his face seemed to compensate for the bald desert on his head. Between the two were a pair of ice-blue oases resting beneath the shade of a strong brow. Major General Erich Hoffman, commander of the 145th Infantry Division operating from Traxus Tower, was dressed like everyone else for the occasion. However, his background was comprised of a wider hall with an army of seats spanning out behind him. His was well-lit as well. However, like Saraquez, a steady rain of dust rhythmically descended from the roof, corresponding vibrations causing his screen to tremble.

Beside him was the meeting's second ODST, the one known by many who frequently worked with the shock battalions as 'The Cyborg Colonel'. The leader of the 22nd Shock Troops Battalion, Colonel Taylors, stared into the screen with his one remaining eye. His ocular implant blazed with an orange-yellow glow, as if his right eye had been replaced by a fiery marble. Unlike everyone else, his conditions were more informal. He sat in a lineup of chairs that looked as if they belonged to a lobby, perhaps an interior tram stop. He finished reloading his DMR just as his feed opened, though he continued holding onto its barrel like a staff, patient and observant.

Finally, straight ahead, Carter found an individual altogether different from the other four, both in appearance and circumstance. A steel gray officer's tunic was complimented by a matching officer's cap. Set between the tunic's medal-studded collar and the pointed brim of the cap was a face of pale skin. Keen, narrow eyes peered back at the Spartan as Rear Admiral Higeo Hasegawa examined him. He oversaw Battlegroup Delta-4 at the city of Manassas some 1,000-kilometers southwest of New Alexandria. Despite the distance, he nonetheless had a stake in the fate of his northeastern neighbor. His receipts were the Longsword squadrons he had sent to the aid of the city, the same that had opened the door for the 83rd Auxiliary Wing and, by extension, Noble Team. He stood within the comparatively safe bridge of his halberd-class destroyer, UNSC Lexington, watching and waiting.

Everyone who needed to be here was now here.

With that in mind, Caruso initiated the dialogue. "Good evening, everyone...if you could call it that. Protocol having been established, the aim over the next several minutes will be to keep this meeting as brief and exact as possible. Standing right here beside me, I have Commander Carter of Spartan Noble Team. At the moment, they represent our best chance of countering this Covenant battlegroup going forward. On that note, commander, I yield the floor to you."

"Thank you, sir." Carter stood straighter as a new holograph appeared in front of him. A maze of different shapes resolved into New Alexandria in miniature. A flicker of bright light occurred on each of the five screens as their individual devices displayed the city to them. Likewise, the scenery captured the four corvettes hanging above everything else.

"As you're all aware at this point, the corvettes are currently in almost total control of the municipal airspace. Those Longswords outside are all SHIVA-capable. However, nuclear payloads have been ruled out. Furthermore, due to their strategic positioning, these ships are able to cover each other's flanks. That means overlapping fields of fire against groundside assaults as well as anything coming at them from the air. A tactical Longsword strike with ASGM-15 missiles was considered and also ruled out since formations of this size tend to minimize these kinds of threats dramatically. Not to mention, as we saw with Battlegroup Beta-9, this force seems to rely heavily on its Seraph elements which have started exhibiting rapid responses to our strategies. After this first attempt to suppress them today, they're likely to tighten the noose around the city. That brings me to our primary solution."

Carter tapped a finger against the projection. Over a dozen green dots winked on at various points across New Alexandria. The closest of them was just across the bay from the starport.

"Reactivating the city's remaining missile defense batteries is our best non-nuclear option, at least conventionally. If an initial barrage is supported by a follow-up strike from available Longsword squadrons, we're looking at a complete decapitation of our enemy's local chain of command, supply lines, fire support and air superiority. All of that in one go if we manage to time the attack just right-"

"Question, commander." Hoffman interrupted.

Carter turned his attention to the major general. "Go ahead, sir."

Hoffman sized up the projection. "This strategy of yours, it doesn't address the biggest problem in this scenario. Those energy shields will still be up. Why wouldn't it make more sense to send Longswords armed with shield busters against them first? They may have overlapping fields of fire, but it would at least present a better chance than just ripping off the band aid and risking what batteries we have left."

"Apologies, sir, but that's incorrect." Carter said respectfully, mindful of his rank. "From what we've seen already, chances are high that friendly fighters would suffer heavy if not total casualties if they made the attempt. The Covenant's growing air defense cordon would chew them up and leave the rest to the corvettes once they got within range. With those missile batteries, we can catch them by surprise from the ground, soften up those ships as well as their fighters and open up a path for the air force."

Across the way, he saw Rear Admiral Hasegawa frown contemplatively.

"I see what you're getting at." Hasegawa said. "However, that still does not address the problem of those shields. As I've been made aware, those batteries don't possess anything electromagnetic that would allow them to disrupt that kind of barrier."

"It'd be just about as effective as bees stinging a bear." Colonel Taylors remarked. "It'll hurt a little, maybe get their attention, then they'll swat us. If we lose those batteries, commander, we also lose an important part of this city's defensive strategy. That's something we can't really afford to risk right now."

"Not without a good trade off." Carter answered, bouncing the conversation back into his side of the court. "That brings me to our secondary solution that will back up the first."

He held his hand out palm up. The holographic software reacted to the motion by projecting a new image over it.

What appeared was a round cylindrical device. It almost looked like an oil barrel cut in half along its height, and at its center was an inner cylinder driven in like a rivet.

"This is the Frequency Interception and Electronics Disruption System, FIELD system for short. We call it the 'Tick'. Although it's been available for a few years now to certain forces under Naval Special Warfare Command, it's been mostly kept under wraps from entities external to the Prowler Corps. We were able to requisition a few of these for this particular mission."

He spread out his fingers and the projection reacted again. The device seemed to unfold itself like a flower, though the buds came out mostly from the sides. Two small platforms extended out from its midsection, each releasing a pair of prongs that curved around the circumference of the device, forming two semi-circles. Simultaneously, its rivet-like top protruded into the air like a nail, allowing indicator lights to flicker beneath.

"The device's purpose is twofold. It can detect signal frequencies within a short radius as well as release a stable electromagnetic pulse. That last one's going to be what comes in handy. Once attached to a target, it can either be set off manually or remotely. From the after-action reviews I've seen, these are going to make the difference in this fight."

He paused to let the new information sink in. All of them were looking hard at their own projections of the device.

Colonel Garrison cleared his throat. "So, what's the effective range of this thing's EMP?"

"One-square kilometer, sir, more than enough to cover the shields of each corvette per single device."

Taylors scratched his chin at the floating image. "Even if we did attach those things, what's to stop the Covenant from putting two and two together and doing a little search and destroy?"

"Built-in active camouflage systems will account for that, sir. They'll suppress its electronic signature so that it will blend in with the rest of their infrastructure during ship-wide sweeps. That is if they even have the power to conduct one at that point. As for a visual sweep, that's already covered. Even if we can't kill them right away, they won't be able to solve their own problems immediately either."

Again, there was a pause while those in charge got a fuller picture of the plan.

"Is that pulse strong enough to bring those corvettes down altogether?" Colonel Saraquez queried.

"Unfortunately, no. It will only be sufficient to disable their shielding technology as well as any external sensor equipment. Communications, weaponry, steerage, those will still be operational."

"Which won't do them any good." Colonel Garrison noted, finishing the thought. "They'll be flying blind. Sitting ducks."

"Ducks that can still level buildings." Hoffman countered. "Their offensive capabilities will obviously remain a problem for us. If they have any pre-planned firing solutions, there won't be anything stopping them from raising hell."

"They won't." Carter replied. "Because they won't be expecting our next move."

Another contemplative pause.

Rear Admiral Hasegawa ended it. "How do you intend to attach these FIELD systems to our targets, commander? What's your plan?"

"Glad you asked." Carter said, his even and monotone voice nearly negating the statement. He reached out a hand to the projection, pinched his fingers then spread them out. The view of the city zoomed in before stopping near the starport. He dragged his hand over the holograph, pulling the visuals more to the southwesterly sectors of the city. What was at least two kilometers of distance was covered with the flick of a finger. He found the spot he was looking for and poked at the area.

In short succession, four red dots bloomed into being within the sector. All were uniform in that they spanned out from areas just beneath each of the hovering corvettes.

"The plan is to kill two birds with one stone. I'm sure you've been informed by FLEETCOM of the presence of these four landing zones. The latest satellite reconnaissance has confirmed that the Covenant are offloading their supplies and troops here as jump-off points for a further advance into the city. We gauged that their main assaults are going to take place in three directions."

Red arrows spanned out from each of the four landing zones. The most northerly one moved in a northeasterly arc before striking the starport. The one further south of the first engaged in a shallower arc that headed in the same direction. It diverged at a point so that it struck instead against the bridge that crossed the Hornád River. The arrows from the last two zones moved together in a completely different direction, curving southeast so that they struck against the envelope of the 77th Armored Division's Green Zone. When put into perspective, the enemy's anticipated advance created a C-shaped maw against friendly positions to the east.

"The starport and green zone are going to be on their hit list." Carter affirmed. "So is the northernmost bridge over the Hornád."

On the edge of his vision, he saw the brigadier general wince.

"The bridge." Caruso growled. "They're trying to cut us off from Traxus."

"Of course it's the bridge." Garrison groaned. "They made sure we couldn't take it earlier. Guess we know why now."

"Exactly." Carter said. "It'll be an offensive on all fronts save the tower. Our best bet would be to kill it in the crib."

"Two birds, one stone." Colonel Saraquez murmured. "I see the birds, now where's the stone?"

"That would be a preemptive strike against these landing zones. We hit them before they hit us, and we do it while they think we're unable."

The next bout of silence saw a look of consternation contort Hoffman's face.

"Pray tell, commander, how are we going to organize a force capable of countering these LZs given that those corvettes will see them coming a mile away. The only thing we'll be accomplishing is to make it even easier for their offensive once it finally kicks off."

Taylors shook his head in agreement. "We can't put the cart before the horse here, Noble-1. The way things are right now, even if we were better off, that wouldn't make it any less suicidal. The best we can manage is a solid defense. We're already dug in deep as it is."

"You're absolutely right about that, sir." Carter replied. "Which is why I'm not suggesting that we launch a major offensive at all. What I am suggesting is a series of coordinated demolition ops within the local vicinity of these landing zones. Small insertion teams will be sufficient for the task. They'll slip in behind enemy lines using the cover of night as well as the city's cloud cover by day. They'll make their way to pre-selected buildings within proximity of our objectives and plant charges at key locations. The goal is to collapse them so that they do as much damage as an orbital strike."

He tapped at the projection and allowed it to scope in on one of the landing zones. The location was exposed in greater detail. A wide space between several skyscrapers that appeared to have once been a public park had been turned into a mosaic of Covenant structures. Row upon row of octahedral barracks, snail shell-like ammunition and vehicle depots as well as small spires and watch towers dotted the space. Everything was centered around a large landing platform that spanned out over the heart of the area like a giant starfish. A few seconds later, simulated explosions went out from the base of the skyscrapers that surrounded the location. The structures leaned towards the landing zone as they fell, ultimately collapsing on top of it in a devastating display.

"We'll use that confusion to utilize Covenant aircraft secured by secondary insertion teams at smaller LZs along the way. During the chaos, those secondary teams will fly in under the guise of friendly forces. We use that opening to get in close to each of the corvettes in order to plant the FIELD systems to their hulls. Once that's done, all insertion teams will evac to a safe distance so that we can activate the EMP. From there, this plan will require a swift response from all available missile batteries followed up by a coordinated strike from the Longswords."

The projection showed four green dots drawing close to each corvette, stopping for a moment before leaving the area. In their wake, the red hues of the ships faded to a dull blue. Red indicators flickered across the city, simulating the fire of the missile batteries that eventually peppered the hulls of the corvettes. Groups of yellow arrows passed over each vessel like a flock of geese, moving shortly after the end of the barrage to drop their own payloads. The results were four large balls of light where the corvettes had once been.

"If we pull this off, we cripple any of their efforts to take this city going forward." Carter declared.

The group took a moment to breathe it all in again.

"You're going to use Spartan insertion teams?" Hoffman asked.

"My team can spearhead the operation. However, our numbers alone aren't anywhere near what we'll need to pull off something of this size. Putting it plainly, we'll need the best you have to offer, and we'll need them tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yessir."

A few uncertain looks were shared among the brass.

At length, the rear admiral shook his head and shrugged, sighing as he did so. "It can't be helped, not with how fast this situation's developing. So, commander, you're calling on us to sacrifice part of the city?"

Carter nodded. "To save the whole."

"Not to mention it's not really ours anymore." Garrison added. "That right there is enemy territory, but if we do nothing, it stays that way."

"And without any obvious threat to shoot at, they won't be able to organize any kind of effective response right away." Taylors pointed out, seeming to agree more and more as he made his own deductions. "Alright, this whole thing's starting to make a little more sense to me."

"Took you long enough." Garrison kidded, earning a smirk from his fellow colonel.

"I'm guessing that our main forces will remain where they are then?" Saraquez asked.

"In case they launch their offensive before we're able to crush those landing zones, absolutely." Carter answered. "A lot of this hinges on the operation's success. Even if they do move out, our main objective has to remain those corvettes. They're the enemy's lifeline. Without them, we'll have a much easier time mopping up the rest of their troops in New Alexandria."

He stopped there. His case had been made. He left the floor open for the others to discuss.

"Safe to say, I'm all for it." Garrison said. "Anything's better than sitting here and waiting for them to come to us."

Carter was happy to hear it. He was hopeful that the colonel's response would set the tone.

"I don't imagine this kind of operation will have a need for Warthogs or tanks." Saraquez said, brushing the latest baptism of dust off his head. "So, I'll just have to settle for wishing you the best of luck. I'll dispatch two of my brigade combat teams, have them reinforce defensive positions along the western edge of the green zone. We'll hold out until you're done."

Another greenlight.

"Low risk, high reward." Taylors quipped. "If we stand to gain more and lose less, I find it hard to say no."

Both shock troops battalions as well as the armored division were in his corner. Now Carter waited for the Army and Navy.

"We can keep Longswords on standby." Hasegawa said. "It will take away from our own defenses here at Manassas, but New Alexandria's situation is too dire to not give priority."

And now the Army.

Beside him, Caruso spoke agreeingly. "We'll get you what you need, Spartan. Just be sure to get the job done."

That was one. Carter needed the other.

All eyes turned to Hoffman who's tired and wary stare made Caruso seem well rested in comparison.

After a while of weighing everything for himself, he relented with a long exhale. "I don't want to see us miss our shot here, commander. Do what you can to make this work. I'll look after the missile batteries on my side of the city."

"And I'll do the same on mine." Caruso seconded.

"Then it's settled." Hasegawa said. "Commander Carter, we're trusting you with much. We'll need you to deliver."

"Noble will do just that, sir." Carter said with matching resolve, drawing their eyes to the rest of the team. "You can count on it."

"We are." Hasegawa replied.

"Godspeed, Noble-1." Garrison added. "Let's retake this city."

:********:

Duncan listened to the timeline of this new operation and wondered if we would ever see another goodnight's sleep in his life, if it lasted that long.

The platoon noticed it shortly after the last of the 83rd Auxiliary Wing had flown off from New Alexandria, taking the bulk of the starport's wounded with them. As they were rotated back inside, they noticed that certain companies of the 109th were being called away from their scattered patrols around the terminals. While others took their place, they would disappear for a while, only to reappear about half an hour later, more insular and anxious. This cycle repeated enough times for the others to take note. These troopers were the division's reserves after all. Duncan wasn't the only one who worried what it might mean if they were being called to the frontlines.

Zack was the first to approach one of them after they'd returned, a squad from the 109th's 3rd Battalion. He came back to the platoon with a report of his own.

The divisional command was pulling in various companies of the reserve battalions to the fifth and sixth floors. Duncan knew what was up there. Though they were hardly used since the starport was rarely ever at that level of occupancy, the uppermost floors possessed emergency seating areas. These overflows, like the troopers they were now hosting, were normally held in reserve. They were additions the building's managerial staff had thought prudent, especially after the Covenant had finished up with the outer colonies and began turning inward.

Troopers were being taken upstairs, out of sight. All the while, their sister companies quickly replaced them to belay any concerns on the part of the civilians. They were being informed in private of some upcoming operation. Duncan couldn't help thinking it had something to do with the four Spartans they'd seen earlier.

The platoon managed to scavenge a few more details about it. However, it wasn't long before they themselves were called up.

It was on the sixth floor that they were gathered. They were brought together alongside other scattered elements of ODSTs that circumstance had seen split off from their battalions. Duncan counted around nine platoons' worth of troopers, a displaced diaspora of black armored operators big enough to form a company of their own. The mishmash of personnel had been called in from all over the defensive perimeter of the starport, from the tarmac, from the hills and even as far as the frontlines in the surrounding city. They were assembled in a walled-off seating area just barely sufficient to accommodate their numbers.

Multiple tactical planners were laid out around the space, the table-like devices already displaying projections of the city for everyone to see.

It was Brigadier General Caruso who walked in to perform the brief, but he didn't come alone.

The four Spartans from before had come in alongside him. Immediately upon catching sight of them, the murmuring, whispering atmosphere froze over as the whole room tensed. As Caruso stepped forward to speak, he had to have known that while everyone was listening to him, no one was looking at him.

The briefing was relatively straightforward. The projections were precise and not too difficult to follow. That didn't make it any easier to swallow.

If Duncan could summarize the entire thing in one go, it would be something along the lines of 'easier said than done'.

They were going deep behind enemy lines. There would be no chance of back-up or rescue if anything went wrong. The most they could rely on were the eight insertion teams that they were being divided into.

"Two of each team will be led by one of these Spartans." The brigadier general had explained, gesturing to the armored giants in turn. "Team-1 will be comprised of those who'll be their direct support in the field. Team-2 will make up those slated for the secondary objective of acquiring air mobility for the second phase of the operation."

Duncan wasn't sure how he felt about that. It had been years since the last time a Spartan had taken the reins for Epsilon, and that operation had gone sideways faster than anyone could react. It hadn't been the Chief's fault of course. His team had been the whole reason why Bravo Company had even survived that little debacle beneath the waves. But the high value stakes involved were the whole problem. Just as they had been back then, they were the main reason why he was so nervous now.

Such was the risk of Spartan-led ops, that they were often so dangerous that even UNSC special forces needed a supersoldier or two to hold their hand. The very fact that they required Spartans in the first place was already a red flag. That went double for an outfit where the average life expectancy made retirement age seem like a joke.

This, however, was no joke, and the other ODSTs in the room showed how much they understood that. They sat less like people and more like stone statues carved into the figures of men and women. All listened in to every detail the brigadier general had to give, no matter how menial or insignificant it seemed. In Duncan's experience, it was always the fine print that made the difference between a deployment order and a death notice.

As Caruso finished up, the collection of some 160 Helljumpers were given a moment to soak in everything they'd heard. Only then did the murmurs return. They talked amongst themselves, discussing, putting their heads together. A two-kilometer dash into enemy territory, skyscrapers to be blown up, landing zones to be destroyed, corvettes to be sabotaged. It was truly the most 'Spartan' operation Duncan had seen in years.

"You guys think I should write a will?" Zack asked.

Nova slapped him in the back of the head for his trouble. "Stop talking like that."

"What? It's not like it's a bad idea."

"No," The Staff said from beside him. "But it sure is a bad time."

"Well, when's a good time?"

The Staff didn't answer him. He, like everyone else, trailed off as the Spartan they had assumed to be the leader of their team came forward.

His helmet was off, placed against his side. The old heads in Epsilon were keen to scrutinize his face. As far as Duncan could tell, it wasn't one he recognized. Seven years was a long time for people to change, and God only knew what that meant for Spartans. Even so, he realized that the man looked much closer to his own years, too old to be in the same age group that they had deduced of Beta Company.

"I'm Commander Carter, Noble Team's leader." He said. "However, going forward, you're going to know me better as Noble-1."

Carter.

Duncan didn't remember a Carter.

Jonah, Roland, Tom, Lucy, even Six, those were names he remembered.

Carter gestured to each of the other three in turn. "This is Lieutenant Commander Kat, Warrant Officer Jun and Warrant Officer Emile, Noble-2, 3 and 4 respectively. Try your best to remember names, especially callsigns. The demand for radio discipline is going to increase the closer we get to our objectives."

Duncan almost didn't hear the rest of what he said, almost missed the last two names. He was too caught up in the one he'd said right after his own and the armored figure who it belonged to.

Though their appearances were each unique to them, one of them stood out as the only female of the group. The missing arm was also unique. However, the last time Duncan had seen her, he remembered her having both of them.

"Found one." He whispered.

"What's that?" The Staff asked.

Duncan gave him a look that said it all, ensuring that he kept his conversation to a minimum. A few of the others from Epsilon caught on and listened in.

"The one in blue, with the arm, I remember her."

That was all he had to say. It was all he needed to.

They understood and settled back into the quiet disposition they'd held before, as if nothing out of the ordinary had been said.

Catherine.

Kat.

She'd survived this far into the war.

She'd made it all the way from Team India's troublemaking hacker who got a kick out of ruining his day to the second-in-command of this new Noble Team.

For Duncan, a mixed bag of emotions shook and whipped around inside of him, wobbling like a tossed coin, unsure which side to land on. On one side, he felt ashamed, sickeningly so at this reminder of his deeds at Camp Currahee, at his training of child soldiers. On the other, however, he felt intense pride that this 'child' was no longer a child at all but a fully-fledged and fully operational supersoldier, one with a proven track record against the enemy. Her rank of lieutenant commander was proof enough. She'd been the one taking instructions from him in days gone by, and in the days to come he might very well be taking orders from her.

He was ashamed of himself, proud of her and unsure which one mattered more in the long run.

The coin ultimately settled on both sides and neither side. It remained a mixed bag of confused thoughts. Seeing her again made him feel one thing for certain, however.

Above all else, he felt old.

He couldn't see her face through the opaqueness of her visor. For what it was worth, he was sure that it had changed over the years. He wondered how much, and perhaps how much Beta Company had changed.

"Small world." He heard the Staff whisper.

He couldn't agree more.

He tuned back into what Commander Carter had to say, though not without casting the occasional glance at his old protégé.

"As the brigadier general discussed, we're going to be breaking you up into multiple teams. This is going to be important intel for those assigned to Team 1s, but in this case, everyone should pay close attention."

Carter began using his connection to the room's tactical planners to show them something new.

The FIELD System was an oddity to be sure. It looked like an oversized metal drum. It took a few minutes of explanation for everyone to get a solid sense of what it could do. That was when Duncan came to his own understanding of how in the dark the Navy had left most of the ground pounders like him, at least when it came to tech. He knew what ASGM-15s could do, but he had no idea how they'd managed to make a twofold device with the same motif.

Carter showed them how it worked, how it was carried, how it could be destroyed if they weren't careful.

Careful.

In the end, everything hinged on that word.

The commander wrapped things up with an announcement of the teams themselves, listing them off from a datapad. They were comprised of platoon-sized elements from the ODSTs. If they weren't from the same platoon or even from the same battalion, for the sake of expedience, they were sandwiched together into the same group.

He listened closely as their number was one of the last to be called up.

"Alright, 7th Battalion, Bravo Company, 1st Platoon, you'll be rolling out with Lieutenant Commander Kat as Team 1. As for 22nd Battalion, Delta Company, 5th Platoon, you'll be Team 2."

For Duncan, the world seemed to get even smaller.

"Coincidence?" The Staff wondered aloud.

Nova shook her head. "What does that even mean anymore."

He shrugged. "Fair enough, I guess."

"What's a coincidence, sir?"

Duncan looked further down to see who'd asked. It was Mackley. Having overheard them, he leaned over from his seat.

Without batting an eye, the Staff gestured towards the lieutenant commander. "Rumor has it that that one there's good with tech. Who else do you know is keen on that kind of stuff?"

Mackley stared on incredulously.

Duncan helped him out with a guilty smile, allowing him to connect the dots.

"Oh."

"Right." The Staff said. "If we're with her, that means we'll have two tech-heads to deal with. They're going to be talking our ears off about data breaches and security firmware, that's all."

"I'm sure it won't be that bad, sir." Mackley replied, content with the explanation.

"Let's hope not."

Duncan got a spurious side-eye from his squad leader. He nodded back, impressed at how easy the Staff could lie by telling the truth.

"To wrap things up, there's a munitions cache waiting for you outside this room." Carter continued. "Choose with the mission in mind. Rules of engagement: prioritize stealth over every other concern. Avoid direct contact unless absolutely necessary or otherwise authorized by your team leaders. If you do run into a firefight, do your best to keep it contained to small, isolated areas. The last thing we need is to alert the Covenant to what we're up to. Team 1, stock up on demolition charges. Team 2, your FIELD systems and long-range observation equipment are waiting for you. Your specific team objectives will be uploaded to your HUDs shortly so you can discuss it among yourselves. The operational deadline will also be uploaded to your mission timers. We move out at 0200 Hours. Get yourselves supplied and in position at the main entrance tomorrow by 0100 at the latest..."

He said nothing for a moment. Then...

"In case you haven't noticed, and I'm sure you have, none of this is going to be easy. But I wouldn't have picked you if I thought it would be. I'm trusting you to stay sharp out there, troopers. If we pull this off, we stand a chance of handing the Covenant in NA a permanent eviction notice. Follow through on what's been slated to you and you might end up making the difference in this fight. Keep that in mind as you make your preparations. You're dismissed."

With the dismissal came a general clamor, more motion than speaking. The gathering stood up. Though a few dregs remained behind to talk, most of them trickled out of the room, 1st platoon being in the latter category. Even while leaving, Duncan kept an eye on the lieutenant commander. The Spartans had clustered together to talk among themselves as well. Nevertheless, he couldn't escape the feeling that they were watching everyone else while they did so.

Duncan would've walked up into the middle of their conversation right there and then. However, familiarity wouldn't negate the reality of the rank and file. It would be no better than an ordinary grunt walking up into a chat between company commanders. He decided to keep his distance for now and wait for an opportunity later.

The platoon drifted out with everyone else.

What they found waiting for them outside the room was an assembled arsenal. A shock company's grocery list of ammunition and equipment had been laid throughout the rows of exterior seating. Munition crates dotted the aisles while weapon lockers and armory storage cabinets lined the walls. Near the end of their side of the sixth floor, close to the railing of the atrium was a long lineup of additional hardware, water distilleries and prepackaged meals ready to eat.

"Well, this is about as five star as it's going to get." Hector said.

"I give it four." Yuri said. "Still needs masseuse to work shoulders for me."

He got a punch to the arm from Renni, a blow he just as quickly shrugged off. "What, you don't count if all you do is stick people with needles."

"And there's your acupuncture therapy." She countered. "You're welcome."

Yuri sighed. "Make that three stars."

"Let's wrap this up by 1930 so we can get some rest." The Staff said. "Rico, you're in charge of demo. I'm seeing some M168s near that lounge over there. Make sure everyone packs one properly. We'll need to be able to quickly reassemble them on-mission."

Rico raised a thumbs up. "Entiendo. Oi, chicos, if you need help with the disassembly, let me know. Be especially careful with the contact fuze. Last thing this op needs is you blowing up on accident, right Zack?"

"Woah-woah-woah, what're you calling me out for, huh?" Zack huffed.

"'Cause you already blew up once today." Mito said. "Let's end that streak right there."

"Yeah, well, that wasn't my fault. In case you don't remember, something decided to shoot a whole fuel rod at me. Besides," he reached around to knock on his radio. "Do I really need to carry a charge, sir? I'm already packing as it is."

"Alright, you're exempt." The Staff said. "Just make sure that thing lasts. It'll be our only lifeline to the rest of the world for the next day or so."

Zack breathed easier and flashed a grin at everyone else. "You guys have fun doing the heavy lifting."

"And you have fun not exploding." Nova grinned back.

The radioman's expression diminished then returned with a toothy vengeance. "Right back at you."

:********:

Duncan raised his rifle one-handed so that the barrel pointed up to the ceiling. He took the opportunity to inspect it from stem to stock. The metal was scratched, scorched and dented in too many places to count. Though it had seen him through thick and thin, he didn't want to take any more chances with it, not that it was really a choice anymore. If stealth was the name of the game, then the MA37 had to go.

He was at a small bar, a circumferential shelf ringed by a table with chairs. However, it wasn't a bar anymore. The 109th had transformed it into a minor storage station where personnel could turn in weapons they no longer needed or were no longer functional. On the shelves were glistening bottles of whiskey, Bild Energies and Alt Burgundies which sat beside broken DMRs, M45 shotguns and MA37 assault rifles. Duncan moved to turn in his own.

He rechecked the safety. Then in one fluid motion, he hit the mag release and caught it as it fell into his hand. A yank on the charging handle and a quick check assured him he'd cleared the chamber. After pulling out the last of the accompanying magazines onto the table, he planted the rifle beside them and pushed everything forward like an all-in gamble. The 'bartender', an older supply sergeant, took the magazines. With a smoking cigar still sticking out of his lips, he counted them like a hefty tip. Satisfied, he set both ammo and rifle aside before reaching down for something below the table.

"And here's your order." He said as he stood back up, handing him the long, black rubber cylinder he'd requested.

Duncan thanked him as he took it. He inspected it as well, rolling it between his fingers like a cigar of his own.

"What's wrong, Helljumper?" The sergeant asked. "Don't like what you see?"

"No, sir, it's just-…" He pinched it in his hand. "It's been a while since I've really had to use one of these. Didn't even think to pack any for myself before this whole mess started." He trailed off. "...Never thought I'd be using it here..."

"Well, look at it this way. If you use that just right," The sergeant waved back to his collection of damaged weapons. "Then we might not end up having to use these."

"I'll do what I can, sir."

"I'm sure you will. Make us proud, son."

Duncan nodded and walked off, making way for the next ODST to step up from the dozens long line leading up to the bar.

He pulled out the M7S submachine gun from his back harness and held it out in front of him. He took his newest piece of equipment and screwed it onto the weapon's stubby barrel. It was a perfect fit. It always was. As the bread and butter of ODST stealth operations, the combination of suppressor and rapid fire lent itself perfectly in terms of weight as well as maneuverability.

He patted at the ammo pouches on his stomach to reassure himself that he had what he needed. The weapon's smaller magazines compared to the MA37 meant that he could pack over 300 rounds worth of ammunition without too much strain on his mobility. He supposed that it was one of the reasons why the small gun was the personal favorite of the platoon's biggest member. However, what it made up for with more ammo, it lacked in terms of sheer stopping power. That was and would always be his main concern whenever it came to Brutes.

Grunts, sure.

Drones, probably.

Jackals required a bit more finesse in order to find a workaround for their shields.

Brutes, however, would be another story.

In his eyes, their bloodhound-like tendencies would be the most troublesome on this mission. Yet that was all the more reason why he was grateful to have a Spartan around. In the event of a close run-in, their sheer strength wouldn't be an exact one to one. However, it would be the closest that any human being could hope for, augmented or otherwise.

Then, as he walked along, he reconsidered. The image of a kid facing down that kind of beast flashed through his mind. He had to tune it out, reminding himself that the lieutenant commander was no longer a child but a Spartan. But as hard as he tried, the two ideas refused to reconcile.

He made his way back towards the end of the sixth floor. It was a spot right next door to the area that had been used for the briefing.

Within the aisles of statically occupied seats, 1st Platoon had marked out a spot for themselves, using their rucksacks to fence off the row. Most of Epsilon and Whiskey were there. He spotted Rico and Reznik debating something in the lounge where the demolition charges were while Daz and Yuri picked over a weapon cabinet for SMGs.

He made his way into the row and plopped down next to Mito. Epsilon's CQC expert was handling the tool of his trade. Duncan rarely ever got a glimpse of the infamous samurai sword since it remained perpetually on his back. Today he was treated to just that as Mito draped it across his lap, running a special cloth over its length. Each wipe removed the dust that had been built up in the scabbard as well as the purple blood that had dried on the blade. With each motion, the crisp purple sheen of the Yamamoto Murasakino began to slowly return.

Duncan leaned over. "When's the last time you used that on a Brute?"

"When's the last time you went at a grizzly with a kitchen knife?" Mito asked back.

"Good point." Then he thought better of it. "Deaks pulled off something like that though."

"Because he had no other choice. Much respect to our old friend, but I don't plan on going out that way, not if I can help it." He stopped cleaning and held up the sword by the handle, scrutinizing the way the ceiling lights bounced off the blade like an historian dating an antique. "I'd much rather prefer something quicker, more precise."

"Like an energy sword?"

Mito looked at him. "Close enough, I guess. Brutes play with their food. Elites? They just cut you down. Plus, when it comes to them, you don't have to deal with as much..." He patted his shoulder pad, emphasizing his bicep. "You know? Makes them a whole lot easier to cut, that is if they even give you the chance."

Duncan smirked. "And you're the only one crazy enough to take it."

"Not crazy." Mito corrected as he put the Murasakino back over his lap and began cleaning again, scanning down the curve of the blade with each wipe. "Prepared."

"If you say so, Hanzou."

"I do say so, Kato Danzo."

Duncan shook his head at him, then looked past him to further down the row. The Staff was sitting nearby, discussing something with Nova.

He considered waiting. He still needed to speak with him, to request a leave. He wanted to see Erica and Noah one more time before he left.

Impatience won out, however. With the way things had gone over the past several days, he didn't want to take any chances that something might pop up suddenly. He stood up and went for it.

He didn't get there first.

A soldier walked up to them from the opposite direction. "1st Platoon, Squad Epsilon?"

The Staff sized him up. "That'd be us."

"You've been requested by a higher-up, please follow me."

The platoon looked among themselves for a curious moment. Then Epsilon started getting up.

"Not everyone." The soldier said. "Ep-1 through 8 only."

There were more curious looks shared, namely between Mito and Renni. The two of them settled back in their seats while the others got up.

"Nova, Heck, get Rico and Yuri." The Staff ordered.

The two of them split off from the rest and pulled the last of Epsilon's members from their own conversations.

"We'll be back." The Staff said. Then, minus two of their own, the squad followed their new guide.

He led them across the length of the floor before stopping at a corridor that branched off from the main area. From end to end, either side was lined with doors, individual office spaces as well as private recreation rooms for the starport staff.

He pointed to a door halfway down the passage. "They're waiting for you in there, sir."

The Staff looked at him questioningly. "Can I ask who specifically?"

"They told me not to say. You'll have to find that out for yourself."

"Right..."

After a bit of hesitation from everyone, the Staff became the first to walk down the corridor. The squad mirrored him in a wary stride towards their destination.

They grouped up outside the door. Their squad leader led the way once again, clasping the handle and pushing it open.

A small meeting room lay on the other side. There was little furnishing aside from a long conference table in the center.

They were not alone.

Looking out a window on the far side of the room was the towering figure that Duncan had kept an eye on.

The Spartan held her helmet in the crook of her arm so that when she turned to them, he saw just how much she had changed.

He saw traces of the young girl he remembered, and the aspects of the lieutenant commander that he didn't.

Nevertheless, neither age nor a missing limb could keep him from being sure of who she was. That same recognition seemed mutual as she ended her silent vigil with a warm smile.

"Long time no see, Epsilon."

Without conscious thought, upon being addressed, the squad found itself standing at attention. An air of familiarity was thrown into the mix though it warred with their own ingrained sense of authority.

Kat made her way towards them, the display causing her a light laugh. "No need, Helljumpers. I just wanted to talk. It's been a while."

The squad relaxed, albeit with a strange combination of both relief and tension.

She stood nearly a full head taller than even the tallest of their number, causing Hector to have to crane his neck a little as she got closer.

"Lieutenant commander." The Staff said respectfully.

Kat nodded back. "Staff Sergeant David Atell. It's almost been a decade and somehow you don't look a day over 30."

Duncan wasn't sure how she could tell who was who until he remembered that their visors were still depolarized.

Without being told to, the Staff reached for the back of his helmet. He thumbed the release and pulled it off, revealing a head of black hair that was touched here and there by streaks of gray.

He returned the smile. "How about now?"

"Make it two days over 30."

Kat got another light bit of laughter out of it, and it was enough for even the Staff to indulge.

Suddenly the tension in the room was dispelled. One by one, the others followed his example, pulling off their helmets until they were all face to face with her.

"That's better." She kidded. "It's definitely more like a hospice in here than I thought it'd be."

Zack feigned stubbornness. "Hey now, we're not that old...ma'am."

That last word made Kat look at him like he'd said something she wasn't expecting, only for it to dawn on her why he'd said it.

"Guess we're not the only old-heads around anymore, hey LC?" Nova jeered.

The Spartan shook her head at whatever was on her mind. "Right."

She stopped to look at them all again, taking in each face at a glance. "What's it been, seven years since I last saw you?"

Duncan was going to say something for himself but stopped short, quietly drawn to the fact that she had said 'I' and not 'we'.

"That's about right." Rico chimed in. "I swear you were shorter though."

"Don't let the armor fool you. It gives me a couple extra inches on everyone else."

"Doesn't change the fact I'd still have to break my neck to look you in the eye though." Hector said. "Man, I really don't remember you guys being this big."

"Been too long." Yuri added. "Age is kicking in. Now they've grown and we've shrunk."

"Speak for yourself." Zack replied. "I'm still pretty up there."

"In your dreams."

The jovial atmosphere resurged then petered out as Kat paused again, examining them like an engineer ogling a mysterious device.

"Something wrong, ma'am?" The Staff asked.

"A better question would be is something right." She replied. "I'll come clean. I know you have questions for me, but for the moment, I need you to answer mine."

"Alright, shoot."

Kat raised an inquisitive brow. "This might sound a little on the nose but...how are all of you still alive?"

Zack's reply was the fastest and the most nonchalant. "We drink the blood of our enemies. It's good for the skin, you know?"

An elbow to the ribs from Nova shut him up.

The Staff stepped up. "Good question. We're still trying to answer that one ourselves. What he said isn't too far off the mark though. We don't drink anybody's blood, but we do make sure the other guy bleeds more than we do."

Hector shrugged. "It's not much but it's gotten us this far so, hey, don't knock it 'till you try it."

She started looking between them again.

"Yes, but, you're ODSTs. You're not really known for-, well, life expectancy isn't really your thing."

"Doubt it ever was." Yuri answered. "A lot of the time, we're just lucky. Lucky we figured something out or lucky someone else showed up. Sometimes, that's all it is."

Kat's inquisitive brow rose even higher. "That's...a lot of luck."

"And finesse." Zack seconded. "It takes two to tango in a world as crazy as ours. We make it work."

"I see..."

Kat started looking among them once more, checking each face, searching.

"Ma'am?" The Staff questioned.

She stopped. "As you might imagine, your being assigned to me wasn't random. I had my suspicions when we landed but I wasn't sure until we saw a list of the ODST elements in the starport. I got the upper hand on the rest of my team because I knew who you were. Call it cheating, but I figured if you were all still around, you could only be the best of the best. I've definitely got your experience in my corner now. However-…"

She stopped again, as if to make sure of an assumption.

"Something wrong?" Nova asked.

"You tell me. Losing a hand didn't stop me from being able to count on my fingers, staff sergeant. I asked for Ep-1 through 8...but I only see seven."

The earlier relief was gone and a different kind of familiarity took over the room, a weighted silence whose cause everyone knew well, had known well.

"Where's your sniper?"

And it was out in the open again, a wound that never seemed to close, not even when they thought they'd sewn it shut. Always in the background and yet never truly gone.

"You mean...Corporal Deaks?" The Staff asked.

"I think that was his name, yes. The one who Jonah got along with so well, if you can remember him."

He nodded his head wearily like an old man recalling more than he wished. "Yeah...I remember."

"And?"

The Staff picked up his gaze from the floor and lifted it back to the Spartan's.

"We lost him on Ballast."

"Brutes." Zack specified, the last of his inner comedian dying out as he said it.

The Staff shook his head. "Despite what we've told you so far, ma'am, we weren't all so lucky, some of us a lot less than others."

Out the corner of his eye, Duncan saw the squad's radioman stiffen. Not much, just enough to notice.

"Oh." Kat said, empathy rising in her voice. "I'm sorry. I know how it feels..."

She trailed off for a second, her eye drifting towards her prosthetic arm. "To lose them when you weren't expecting to."

She caught herself and looked at them with a swiftness that made Duncan question if he had even seen her do it.

"If it's any consolation, staff sergeant, I'll do what I can to make sure you all make it back in one piece."

"Is that a promise, ma'am?" He asked.

"No, but it's as close to one as you can hope for."

"...Thank you."

The lieutenant commander straightened. The shift in her posture changed the atmosphere again, not dispelling it and yet causing it to diminish.

"Last I saw all of you, we were coming back to camp from a field exercise. That was it. The next morning, you were gone. Mendez didn't say anything about it. Neither did Lieutenant Commander Ambrose. You just disappeared, like the eight of you were a figment of our imagination. At least that's how they treated it."

She smiled. Somehow Duncan sensed a tinge of regret in it, one that slowly crept into her tone.

"We were used to that though. Nothing new there. Some of us moved on pretty quick." The smile fell then came back, a bit more genuine. "But others wished they could've said goodbye."

That caught Duncan off guard more than anything else.

"Goodbye?" He repeated.

Kat homed in on him. The smile morphed into a reminiscing grin.

"Spartans have hearts too, Mr. Hacker, believe it or not."

He fought down a blush of embarrassment at the name and all the old memories that it jarred loose. He could almost see himself losing in his field of expertise again and again, of being led by the nose like a mouse among traps. Their digital battles were less like jousts and more like online bullying sessions. All the same, he still managed a small smile of his own at what had once been better times, morally gray perhaps but not as pitch black as the present.

"A lot of us liked you. I was one of them. I even went so far as to do a little digging to figure out who you guys really were."

"Explains how you picked us out from everyone else back there." The Staff said.

"Exactly, guess you could say it came in handy down the road. Outsiders not from the Office, strangers who knew how to actually treat strangers. Other than Mendez and the LC, you were the only ones who seemed to remind us that we were still kids. A lot of us never really thought that way before you showed up. It made us want to win even more once we graduated, and we did win a lot. Wish you got a chance to see it." Her hands went to her hips. "I told you all that so that this wouldn't sound like it's coming out of the blue. It's crazy that I get to say what a ton of us never did back then, but it looks like I'm the only one who has that chance. So, while you're still around, I'm not missing it."

She looked them all in the eye, standing nearly as if she herself were acknowledging her superiors. "On behalf of Beta Company, of everyone else...thank you."

Gratitude.

It was not what Duncan was expecting. The stunned, blank looks on everyone else's face told him he wasn't alone.

The words were so sharp that he could almost feel them stabbing into him like needlers. He would've preferred that. Maybe then it wouldn't have hurt so much.

The part of him that was proud at what she'd become and the part that saw her as one of his biggest regrets were both set aflame. In the split-second civil war that tore his conscience apart, he was reminded of a years-old conversation, of how Deaks had argued with everyone on the Pelican ride back to Reach. What the corporal had said back then now stuck to the front of his thoughts, that he had never really considered the perspectives of the Spartans themselves.

"Apologies, LC, but it's...a little hard to say you're welcome to something like that." The Staff replied, ending a long silence that the rest of the squad had been too surprised to break.

"I understand. Believe me, if being out in the rest of the world has taught me one thing, it's that what happened to us wasn't exactly normal. Even then, these aren't normal times. These days there's hardly any time at all. You don't have to say anything. I just figured it'd be best to get that off my chest now, especially since I'm lucky enough to do it."

"Lucky?"

"What about the rest of you guys?" Zack inquired. "You know, the rest of Beta Company? How come we haven't seen as much of them-, well, scratch that. We haven't heard anything about you guys since we left that day. Are you saying all this 'cause everyone else is too busy running special ops or something like that?"

Kat looked at him. The gratitude was suddenly gone, and she watched him with something Duncan understood right away. It still shocked him regardless. He'd seen it plenty of times before, on civilians, on soldiers, even on Helljumpers. But never a Spartan.

A deep seriousness overtook her. It made Zack freeze up, like he'd asked a forbidden question. It wasn't true seriousness, however. That wasn't it. What seemed like dourness was really a composite mask of many different emotions, all competing for control of the same face. He wasn't sure which one won out before she spoke.

"Right...right..." She faded off again, her gaze falling low, shaking her head as if disagreeing with her own memories. "You never knew. No surprise there. No one was ever supposed to."

She fell silent again, and this time it was deafening.

No one dared to speak until she raised her head.

"I'm sorry." She said. "The Beta Company you remember doesn't exist anymore. In fact, it hasn't for some time now."

What was a gut punch after her first sentence became a stab to mind and soul by the second.

Duncan's thoughts went blank. His senses dulled. The last sensations he could still cling to were the sudden desert in his mouth and the sharp pain in his chest.

He was fighting to stop himself from fully understanding the gravity of what she had just said, an insinuation too horrible to grasp.

As if to seal the deal, the Staff managed the question no one else could. "How-, how long?"

"A few months shy of the same amount of time since last I saw you, about seven years."

'Seven'. He mouthed the word without giving it voice.

Nova stepped forward; concern carved into every facet of her being. "I doubt we have the security clearance to ask, but-..."

Kat's expression melted into one of understanding. "There's only a few of us left now. There was an operation several years ago against a high priority target. I can't say too much other than that it saw most of the company deployed using those same stealth pods you trained us with. It was a success, but almost no one came back from it." She breathed in deeply, speaking almost to herself. "I doubt I would've fared any better if I hadn't gotten pulled from the lineup ahead of time. I was lucky...luckier than most."

Without his own will to guide them, to stop them, Duncan's memories gained a will of their own. As they flitted into his attention like a film from hell, he started answering questions he had never thought of. No, that he had never allowed himself to think of.

The stealth pods.

Why did ONI really need the Spartans to learn how to use them?

They were solely for infiltrating deep into enemy territory-.

And there it was again, another painful truth that he had purposefully kept himself blind to.

After all, the Insurrection, or what was left of it, couldn't possibly wipe out an entire Spartan company. There was just no chance.

The blood of the class wasn't on the hands of rebels but on the hands of aliens and of those who'd simply been following orders. Duncan felt those same hands balling into iron tight fists at his side.

Hector pointed a hesitant thumb over his shoulder. "So...your teammates back there..."

She shook her head. "Different set. They've been in this business longer than I have. Not that their situation's that much better."

That was a whole other can of worms that no one seemed ready to open, such was the immensity of what had already been laid out in front of them.

It answered some of their questions from earlier. However, it didn't answer those that Duncan had stewing on the inside.

Names.

Faces.

Who was still alive?

Who was dead?

"What about everyone else?" He asked spastically. "Jonah, Roland, Harris, Tom, Lucy, any of them?"

"I can't speak for the first three." She explained. "They disappeared off everyone's radar shortly after graduation, even mine. As for Tom and Lucy, I'm pretty sure they're still active. They were the only two who survived that operation."

Duncan didn't know how to reply to that. On the one hand, he was somewhat relieved to know that there was a chance for the first three and that at least Tom and Lucy had survived. On the other, he knew quite well in the latter case that Foxtrot had been a four-man team. Then he recalled the little gamble that nearly saw him and one other lost eternally to the nothingness of slipspace. He remembered their conversation afterwards and their encounter with a strange phenomenon within the depths of Onyx's jungles.

The question came out as naturally as a breath of air.

"And Six?"

Kat cocked her head at him. "What?"

"B31-, ugh, B3-"

"B312?" She finished.

"Yeah, yeah him. Is he-…"

Despite the oppressive air in the room, an ember of mirth reignited in her expression as she put the pieces together. "Hmph. We used to call him that, didn't we? We were just teasing but-...funny how names stick around."

"So then...he's..."

She nodded. "He's part of our team."

Duncan piped up hopefully. "Then he's here?"

Kat's countenance soured. "Well, that's a different question, one I can't really answer right now. Do you remember that oversized supercarrier that showed up over Viery about a week ago? He's the reason it's not around anymore, him as well as another member of our team. In fact, they might've been a little too successful on that front. Haven't seen or heard from them since."

Duncan was almost too caught up in the broken hope that had coiled itself around his heart to detect the tinge of guilt in the Spartan's tone. What should have been grief was added onto by a deeper sense of wonder. The idea that Six had taken out that city-sized supercarrier was more than enough to blow his mind, leaving him straddling the fence between sadness and amazement.

"Don't close the door on him just yet." Kat said. "He's just as unkillable as I remember. Give it a while and he might turn up again."

"Might." Duncan echoed.

"Give him a chance. We made it this far, didn't we?"

They had.

Duncan couldn't take that away from them. Slowly, however, he was beginning to grasp the scope of the difference between them. Epsilon had lost one of their own, but she had lost hundreds.

If there was a chance that even one of them could break the dreaded law of averages, he would hedge his bets on Six.

"I wanted to clear the air before we went ahead." Kat concluded. "Seven years is plenty of time for the world to turn itself on its head. It's our job to turn it right side up again, however we can. I'm trusting you to watch my back out there." A well-grounded confidence emanated from her. "Better believe I'll return the favor."

"Think we can make that, LC?" The Staff asked honestly, just barely hiding his own somberness. "That's a long way to go with those ships breathing down our necks."

"I can't promise that. What I can say for sure is we have a shot. Like Noble-1 said, if we didn't, we wouldn't have picked you."

"And what about returning?" Yuri pointed out. "When it comes to one-way trips, we only have enough luck for those once a year, and we already used it up twice."

"Trust me, we might be ONI property, but we do our best not to keep their modus operandi. It's a two way. We can't afford anything less."

"Sounds good to me." Rico said. "I like living a little longer."

"Same here." Zack exhaled. "Having a Spartan with us won't be too bad, I guess. Is it okay if we let you do the heavy lifting?"

Kat smirked. "Sorry, trooper, I don't do piggyback rides."

The others got a ghost of a laugh out of it, but Duncan was quiet. As they got more serious, as their new lieutenant commander got into the finer details of how they planned to move, he kept thinking back to what came before. As much as he tried, he couldn't quite wrap his mind around the fate of Beta Company. How could the Office sacrifice so many in one go? How much had that target really been worth? He could see them using up a full battalion of ODSTs like that, but Spartans?

Even as the conversation wound to a close, for him, the war took on a stranger, darker note than it had before he walked into the room. Despite Kat's assurances, he had no illusions about what could happen. If the UNSC was willing to spend Spartan lives in droves, anything could be on the table. Anything and anyone.

"Get some rest, troopers." She encouraged. "Tomorrow's going to be a busy day for everyone. Take it while you can get it."

"Will do, ma'am." The Staff said and turned to everyone else. "Epsilon, let's move out."

"And Staff Sergeant?"

They stopped.

"Yes ma'am?"

"This conversation never happened."

He nodded at length. "All I remember is a supply officer calling us in for an equipment check."

He turned to the others, waiting for an agreement.

"Don't have to tell me twice." Hector said.

Zack scratched his head nervously. "Twice? Hell, you don't have to tell me once."

"Glad to hear it." Kat replied and gestured to the door.

The squad flowed wordlessly out of the room. Duncan took one last look at the Spartan, watching her return to her vigil at the window, observing the silhouettes of distant buildings with a close eye.

He left her there and went out. He was tired. He could feel it in his bones. However, there was someone he needed to see before he called it a day.

:********:

He found Sergeant Dalton sitting right where they'd left him. The rest of Whiskey was there as well as Mito and Renni. They gave the returning crew a few investigative looks. Questions were asked. All of them were answered the same way, all in keeping with the Staff's promise. They'd been taken aside by a supply officer who needed to inspect their older demolition charges, their aged components being known for causing malfunctions and misfires.

Mito and Renni seemed the least convinced and understandably so. However, they didn't press them on it. Neither did the nonplussed Whiskey.

As everyone else settled down, Duncan took the opportunity to close in on the sergeant. He sat down beside him as the man finished fitting his rucksack behind his head, turning it into the world's hardest pillow.

"Need something?" Dalton asked.

"Yeah. If you'd humor me, I-...I got a few questions I'd like to ask."

"Make it quick, trooper. I'm missing out on my beauty sleep here."

"Sorry, ugh-" He shut his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts, or rather to stave off the nagging feeling that told him to drop the subject altogether. "You remember my graduating class, right?"

The sergeant cracked an eye open. "You mean 207?"

"That's the one."

Dalton shut his eye again. "Yeah, I remember. What about it?"

Duncan clasped his hands, letting his fingers knit together like a prayer in waiting. "Do you remember anyone other than me?"

"I remember plenty of others besides you. I make an effort to remember names, faces, even the teams they were on, like the fact that you were Charlie-4 before you were Ep-8. Things like that. I also made it a habit of keeping tabs on them when they were finally deployed. Finding out how well they were doing let me know how effective my training was, what could be improved and what didn't need to be."

Duncan rounded on him with a suspicious glint, having learned more from him than he expected. "How would you even be able to find out that kind of info?"

"Plain and simple. When you've been on the scene as long as I have, you tend to grow a long list of contacts. They let you know what you want to know."

Duncan sat bewildered. For all his experience with ONI, he genuinely began to wonder if the Office hadn't been relying on the wrong ODST.

"So then...you know what happened...to all of them?"

"...For the most part."

"And what did you find out, across the board I mean?"

At this, the sergeant cracked both of his eyes open again and narrowed them at him. "What do you really want to know, Duncan?"

Duncan hesitated. Then, seeing that he'd come this far, he decided to go the rest of the way.

He leaned closer. "How many of us are left?"

Dalton raised a brow. "From your fireteam?"

"From the class."

The sergeant stared at him for a while, testing him with his gaze. When he realized that Duncan wouldn't give, he sat up straight. Any dregs of sleep left in his expression quickly dissolved, and yet he still looked tired, an old exhaustion that a few hours' rest wouldn't cure.

"You're sure that's something you want to know?"

Duncan nodded, although everything in him fought against it. "I'm sure."

"Well, it's been a few years but..." Dalton began counting in his head for a while before arriving at a sum. "Including you, there's about...12 of you still in active service."

Duncan felt everything, the blood draining from his face, his stomach knotting itself into ribbons of dread.

He caught himself, sheer disbelief at what he'd just heard prompting him to speak. "I'm sorry, how many?"

"There's 12 of you still around." Dalton leaned into his hand to massage his forehead. "As I'd expected the last I saw of you all, none of you retired willingly. Everyone else outside of that 12 is either dead, missing or medically discharged. And I'll tell you now, that last category is almost as small as the one you're in."

"You said...12..."

"Last I checked anyway."

Duncan's eye twitched. He tried to plead with reality itself, his next statement laced with both respect and denial.

"Sir, we were a graduating class of 162."

"Yeah," The sergeant replied, his voice low. He let out a long exhale as his glare fell to the floor. "You were."

It was Duncan's turn to sit back. When he did, he did so without any emotion. What should have been sadness was absent in its entirety. Left in its place was an emptiness that gnawed at him from the inside out. He couldn't do it. Once again, he couldn't comprehend the numbers, the scale of it all.

He'd seen worlds burn.

He'd seen soldiers and civilians die in their thousands.

But it was the thing he hadn't seen that left him disturbed above all else, the silent death of those he'd started out with. It probably hadn't been silent for them, but to him, it was as quiet as it was deadly. He never thought about it often, but because of them, he would feel like he was running at the head of a marathon. Now the sergeant had given him the chance to look back, to realize that there was no one behind him anymore. No one in front of him or beside him, just an echo of those few who remained that were too far off for him to see. That and a road that seemed to go on forever and ever, winding on and on without end.

He'd been running it almost alone. It simply took him several years to find that out.

"I remember your team." Dalton said. "Cosmo Jones, Charlie-1, confirmed KIA while trying to pull a squadmate out of the line of fire on Vestige. Oliver Stanton, Charlie-2, confirmed KIA after his pod malfunctioned during an insertion above Asteria. James O'Reilly, Charlie-3, presumed KIA during the fighting on Draco III." Without turning his face, his attention resettled on his junior. "That just leaves you."

Duncan knew that last one was inaccurate. However, he had absolutely no intention of correcting him on it. Obviously, if that info was still unchanged, neither did Commander White. He came to the fast conclusion that it was unwise to break the silence on that. After all, it wouldn't do the old salt any good to find out that one of his own had turned his back on the UNSC.

"Yeah," Duncan agreed after a long quiet. "Me..."

"And you've made peace with that?"

Duncan offered a ghost of a smile. "I've made peace with the fact that I haven't."

"Sounds about right." Dalton put his hands back behind his head even as he shot a cautioning stare at him. "If you want to talk about it, let me know. I'm no therapist. Doesn't mean I don't understand."

"Thank you, sir. I...think I'm good. I'll let you get your rest."

Duncan got up. Although he still felt the sergeant watching him, he walked off towards his old seat next to Mito, wondering why he hadn't stopped himself from asking questions when he'd had the chance.

:********:

Duncan eventually got permission to spend his night with the two he wanted to see the most. The Staff was adamant that he be at the rendezvous on time. Otherwise, he let him go without any trouble.

Duncan headed back down to the first floor. Though it wasn't too late into the night, many of the civilians gathered in the seating areas were fast asleep. Some used the chairs as beds, lying on several at a time or sitting upright. Some had found the floor more comfortable. Others had made do with the thin space atop decorative projection units which struggled to emit images of cancelled flights. Many were still awake. However, they might as well have been asleep too given how quiet they were. They were thinking to themselves. They spoke in muted whispers or listened to the occasional rumble from the city, every now and again causing a fitful slumber among those who slept.

He noticed that a lot of them had blankets. Some were made of regular cloth, others of a silver foil that reflected the ceiling lights, causing the entire space to twinkle like stars in the night sky.

That was the way he found Noah and Erica.

He was moving along the walkway in Terminal A when he spotted them among the rows of seating. They were right where he'd left them, albeit covered from the neck down in a large, thermal blanket. They were asleep or at least appeared on the verge of it.

Noah leaned on his mom's shoulder. He was out cold, unlike her. She was fading in and out, her head dipping as she struggled to stay awake.

Duncan pulled his helmet off and clipped it to his belt as he moved in, being sure to take quiet steps. Nearly there, Erica's eyes flitted open and quickly locked onto his.

He stopped in front of her.

"I'm leaving early tomorrow." He said, keeping his voice low. "I don't think I'll be back until the day after."

She said nothing.

Then, after staring at him for long enough, she raised part of the blanket and glanced nudgingly at the seat beside her.

A warm smile took him over.

He moved with a carefulness that kept Noah from waking up as he sat down. For one reason or another, the seat seemed a lot more comfortable than any of the others he'd used before.

Even though he didn't need it, Erica cast part of the blanket over him. Then she burrowed into him as if his hard armor was a pillow in its own right. Her head found its rest on his shoulder pad. He doubted it was the most comfortable thing to lay on, but that wasn't the point.

More of that warmth came back to him.

If only barely, it took away some of the hollowness he had sensed earlier.

A thought made him whisper. "Still want me to tell you about them, Arthur and Christa?"

"Later." Erica murmured, already fading off.

Later.

Duncan found himself wondering more and more about that word as the days went by.

He didn't do that this time.

This time, he shut out the distant sounds of war. He closed his eyes and laid his head on top of hers. No one could have convinced him then that he wasn't in a warm bed with his family back at Falchion. No one.

Slowly, he drifted off into a world far better than his own, a world of promises he could keep, a world with a future.

Gratitudo – Gratitude