Chapter 44 – Flammae

August 23rd, 2552 - (15:47 Hours - Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach

Viery Territory, New Alexandria

:********:

Death was screaming towards them and Duncan barely had the time to think about it. All his mind was given instead to putting one boot in front of the other as fast as humanly possible. Zack, Hector and the Staff were doing likewise as they jogged down the sidewalk, all while doing their best not to hurl Rico free of the stretcher.

An icy chill shot up Duncan's spine as the shrill hum of multiple impulse drives rose to a shrieking choir at their backs. The Seraphs were closing the distance. There was still no solid cover in sight, not for them or the Army platoon racing past them.

"CHARGES INCOMING!" A soldier shouted as he ran by.

"Keep moving!" The Staff barked.

Duncan braced.

The shriek of the approaching engines heightened into a deafening wail. Shadows flashed over them. A corresponding gale whipped down the length of the street like a wind tunnel, the sheer force punching them in the back. Like everyone else, Duncan stumbled forward. Like the others, he barely managed to regain his balance, catching himself to keep Rico from rolling off the canvas.

He looked up and saw the arrowhead formation of Seraph fighters zipping by less than a few meters above the closest buildings. All five were well ahead of them now.

It didn't take him long to notice that he wasn't burning to death, taking him even less time to understand who their real target was.

The Seraphs had ignored the ant-like platoon running for their lives below, trading them for a much juicer target, an intersection where three times as many soldiers had formed a strongpoint with roadblocks and barricades. He could see dozens of men along the lineup scrambling for better cover or ducking their heads even from 150-meters away, a distance the Seraphs closed in two seconds.

Just short of their shadows reaching their objective, the fighters peeled off, leaving exhaust trails curving up and away in different directions even as spheres of light zoomed down in their wake. The spheres left trails of their own which quickly elongated into five glowing arcs that clawed at the air, earning screams of superheated oxidation as they went. The screams morphed into howls as they touched down onto the street, instantly bursting into walls of star-bright combustion that ripped down the asphalt in fiery envelopes.

All of that in three seconds.

By the fourth, the hydra-like inferno scythed into the position. Over a dozen burning wrecks of cars and Hogs were thrown airborne in spiraling explosions even as soldiers either flew with them or simply flickered out of existence, the hellstorm flash vaporizing those closest to the point of impact. The fires raced through their line with the precision of a missile and the fury of a hurricane. As their momentum died, the bluish-red flames curled skyward before folding in on themselves with all the momentousness of a peacock unfurling its tail.

In near perfect harmony, more explosions rumbled both near and far, briefly setting the west side of New Alexandria aglow in a cerulean illumination. A kind of artificial aurora borealis formed in the air above as the skies reflected the massive blazes that raged on the ground.

The throaty roar of the flames ahead of them died down. Slowly at first then all at once, a new sound took its place.

Within the tempest of fire, Duncan saw men stumbling and screaming. Those unlucky enough to be caught in the blast and not simply cease to be had instead been torched into human candles. They moved through the smoke like spectral forms of damned souls, shedding their light through the dusty haze.

The Army lieutenant that had brought Epsilon the stretcher broke Duncan out of his spell, doing so with a statement so obvious that he would've punched him for it if his hands weren't full.

"Airstrike on Lima Company CP!" He yelled. "3rd Platoon, move in to assist! GO!"

The order seemed to put new life into the staggering platoon who quickly picked up the pace. The last of them drained past Epsilon, running with due haste towards the scene. The team was the last to clear the edge of the minefield. They stuck close to the flank of the lieutenant's men like a trailing rearguard.

They made the final approach to the disaster site just as those ahead of them dispersed to render whatever aid they could.

The victims of Lima Company were hardly in any shape to receive it.

Some of them ran this way and that, crying out as they reached for comrades who had proven just as unfortunate as them. Others collapsed or languished on the ground, kicking and screaming at the air. There were still others who were more fortunate, coherency causing them to twirl about on their feet as they struggled to pull off burning gear.

Closer to the point of impact were splotches of ash that could have been mistaken for car wreckage, that is if burnt engine blocks and charred pistons didn't look so much like carbonized ribs and outstretched phalanges. At the very front of the devastation was something resembling a charcoal drawing. More than once Duncan spotted dark shadows on the ground with no points of origin, shadows in the shapes and poses of vehicles and people, shadows that weren't shadows at all.

He had long since learned that the less he looked at such things, the less they tended to show up in his dreams. He tried to keep his head down. Tunnel visioning on the road ahead kept him going. Still, every now and again he would catch glimpses of everything else going on around them.

While they continued to move along the sidewalk, the soldiers spread out into the haze without so much as a moment of hesitation. They dashed amongst a garden of flames where growing bushels of fire slowly crawled towards the dead and wounded, sporadically spreading with a jerking suddenness over pools of spilt car fuel. Not a small number of the Lima Company troopers were serving as kindling, though most of them seemed not to mind. Those with enough breath in their lungs to be bothered by it were screaming their heads off while others attempted to pat the flames out. The platoon went so far as to push those to the ground who were too caught up in their own death throws to listen to those trying to help them. Many more were simply too deep in the flames for anyone to chance a rescue, forcing them to be left to a slow, crackling death.

Amidst the mayhem, Duncan felt a strong compulsion to check on Rico. He found him still holding onto his arm. The light from the inferno danced off the glass shards buried in his scalp so that his head seemed to sparkle as he turned it. His good eye was halfway open to the sights of the wounded as they passed by.

"Could've been worse." He rasped.

It took Duncan a moment to realize he wasn't talking about Lima Company.

Reaching the road that passed north to south through the four-way, he got his own eyeful of something far more worrisome. In either direction, he found a long urban corridor lined with plumes of smoke that stood as tall as buildings, some reaching out from the crumbling remains of corporate offices, others from neighboring intersections or junctions. Each tower of fiery smog was spaced out a good distance from one another. Not so coincidentally, each marked out a different strongpoint. They ran as far as he could see from north to south. Men were scrambling about around the base of the conflagrations. The two nearest positions were elements of the same Lima Company. They, like 3rd platoon, were trying their best to save their comrades from the fires, dragging men from the lethal saunas of torched Warthogs and burning tanks. The same spectacle was now playing out all along the first defensive line.

Just then, a group of four soldiers came dashing after them from the smoke at their backs.

"ODSTs, wait up!" One of them shouted.

"LT said you could use a hand!" Another said.

Duncan shared a glance with Zack and the Staff. As much as they needed the security detail, he couldn't help noticing the timing. It was clear as day that their lieutenant had deemed four living ODSTs a lot more useful in the long run than three of his decimated platoons.

"Welcome aboard!" The Staff said. "Keep an eye on our six until we get-"

The metallic, watery THWACK of a needle round piercing helmet and skull cut the Staff short as one of the soldiers folded in on himself like a puppet with its strings cut, his momentum tumbling him forward to expose the bright, bloody hole now dimming in the back of his helm.

Duncan peered around, searching through the smog to find that the street behind them had suddenly become a shooting gallery. Pink tracers mixed with yellow spikes and emerald plasma bolts in an epileptic collage of flying death.

"Left!" The Staff barked.

Duncan was in lockstep, turning left even as the order came. Zack and Hector pivoted in tandem, pulling Rico behind the cover of an enclosed bus stop. Spikes and plasma stabbed and whizzed into the glass behind them, crashing against the reinforced metal frame of the small structure.

Duncan peeked around the bus stop just as 3rd Platoon began returning fire. A new band of Covenant troops was on its way. Another force of Brutes, Jackals and Grunts were rushing up the way they had come. They were a force numbering twice the size of 3rd Platoon, each of them encased in that familiar purple shroud from earlier. A handful of Engineers were hidden within their ranks, hovering low to the ground. The soldiers didn't appear to care for the disparity, however. More of their surviving comrades from the decimated platoons hobbled towards the 3rd or crawled behind burned out cars with rifles in hand. Elbows to the ground or backs to wheels, faces drooping with burnt skin sighted targets down their scopes as sizzling limbs steadied them through the recoil. Rounds pinged and ricocheted off the hardened illumination that surrounded the advancing enemy. Within seconds, however, the soldiers had wised up to the game the Covenant were playing and began concentrating their returns on the Engineers.

"Keep moving!" The Staff yelled.

Duncan had no intention of doing anything less.

He worked his legs even faster. They were just getting clear of the fight when a convoy of Warthogs screeched towards the battle. Ten came racing down the street from the east. Six of them were troop carriers, each shuttling a squad of soldiers and a handful of medics. He guessed they were Lima's reinforcements. They passed on by but not before the Staff managed to hail the last of them. The driver pulled in beside them.

"Hey, any of these seats free!?"

"About to be!" The driver said as the turrets of the four lead Hogs kicked up a squall of lead across the zone. "I'm here to drop these boys off and pick up our wounded!"

"Got room for one more!?"

The driver glanced at Rico. "Negative! I don't mean any trouble by it Helljumper, but I only got orders to pick up Lima Company casualties!"

"You've gotta be kidding." Zack hissed.

"Sorry, troopers, you're going to have to find another ride!"

The driver revved past them, leaving Duncan with a grumble in his throat. "They can't be serious!"

"No time!" The Staff said. "Look for anything we can use to get us moving!"

"Sir, I got eyes on some wheels to our 11 o'clock!" Hector replied.

The rest of them looked left to a point further up the sidewalk. There, just a short distance away, was a Warthog. It was a turret type, bearing the blue painted accents and white ID tag of the New Alexandria Police Department. Hood-deep in the shattered door frame of a storefront salon and covered in scorch marks, it was still clearly operational.

The Staff nodded towards it. "Let's go!"

They went straight for it, ducking down to avoid the occasional stray bolt that zipped overhead.

They found the driver, a police officer dressed in tactical gear, with what little remained of his head resting against the wheel. Another lay sprawled out on the concrete in a pool of dried blood near the passenger side.

The Staff gestured to the back. "Set him down behind the gun!"

They shuffled up to the rear. Together they heaved Rico higher and slotted his stretcher onto the back of the Hog, securing him between the gimbal of the turret and the wall of the cargo bed.

"Ep-8, you're on the '41! Do your best not to step on him!"

"Roger!" Duncan lifted himself up onto the back. Careful not to step on Rico, he slipped one boot to either side of his squadmate, giving himself some room to maneuver as well as to keep the stretcher fastened in place.

He peered down at its occupant. "How we doing down there!?"

"Could use a better view." Rico groaned.

Duncan grinned and got a good grip on the gun as the others went for their seats. "Don't worry, you're going to have plenty of nice-looking nurses to look forward to once we get you out of here!"

Rico said nothing to that.

Hector grabbed the nigh decapitated corpse of the driver by his collar. With a heave, he hurled him rather unceremoniously onto the sidewalk. He hopped behind the wheel as Zack slipped into the passenger seat. The Staff followed after him, grabbing ahold of the door frame and setting his boots on the footboard. With rifle in hand, he patted on the windshield.

"Roll out!"

Hector reversed onto the main road. A quick three-point turn got them underway, speeding off towards the east, back towards the starport.

:********:

Nova watched as the convoy came down the last of the road. The driveway leading up to the starport concourse had been mostly cleared of the dead cars that had congested it from the first day. Left in their place were new sandbagged positions and barricades that girded the sidewalks like the pressurized walls of an artery. The six Warthogs of the 109th's 2nd Battalion Zulu Company were battered and bruised. Their armored hides were covered in plasma damage from the fight they had just escaped. They were nevertheless able to cruise without issue through the aisle of last stand positions, coming under the gaze of monitoring troops as they passed by.

Nova knew better than to think they were staring at her or at the rest of her four-man fireteam in the lead Hog. They were really eyeing the half a platoon's worth of wounded soldiers that sat in the troop carriers coming behind them. Even on the move, a handful of medics sat beside them, taking care of them where they could like mother hens with bloodied chicks.

Up ahead, she spotted the aid station that had been erected beneath the overhang outside the doors to Terminal B. A mixed crew were on standby in the shade, stretchers and IVs already close at hand. More Army medics stood side by side with civilian doctors who, without their medical gowns, could've easily been taken for everyday joes.

The vehicles of the convoy pulled in one after another beneath the shade of the overhang. The second the lead Hog rolled to a stop, Nova jumped down from the troop compartment. She turned back around to lend a hand to a soldier that no longer had any. Yuri, Mito and Renni also dismounted and turned to help the wounded personnel that Zulu Company had sent back to the rear. It was a favor their company commander had asked of her, hoping her fireteam could provide his men with the best chance of reaching safety. She didn't mind a quick break from the front even if it meant having to wrap the stump of a man's arm around her shoulder just to help him walk. She suspected that the soldiers on the rest of the convoy felt the same way, an air of worry for their comrades combining with a guilty sense of relief. Three straight days of doing nothing but shooting and waiting to be shot at could really take a toll.

The personnel at the aid station moved in to assist. Men and women were laid on stretchers and brought to makeshift operating tables. Those who were worse off were carried straight through the sliding doors to Terminal B, often leaving a dotted trail of blood on the ground behind them.

Nova had handed off her charge to a waiting medic when she noticed one of the more critical patients being ferried inside. As the doors slid open for them, she saw what was going on just beyond. The throngs of people who usually mulled about the safety of the interior were now on their feet. Many more of them were getting up, grabbing suitcases and swinging backpacks over their shoulders.

"What's going on?" She asked, her question aimed at a nearby medic who was too caught up in applying pressure to the hole in his patient's neck to answer her.

"Ep-5, I'm going inside. I need to check something out."

"Copy, we're thinking about coming in too. Be there in a sec."

"Roger."

She walked in behind another outgoing stretcher.

On every floor of Terminal B, the large swaths of civilians that had been huddled here for the last several days now found themselves on the move. Each level hosted mirroring scenes of shuffling masses that moved at a gradual pace. The tightly packed herds of eager and exhausted looking humanity seemed to be preparing to travel elsewhere.

Nova's concerns about that rose to the forefront of her mind. As far as she knew, little about the UNSC's situation in the air had changed. They still lacked any serious superiority, especially in the area of the bay. So, what had changed? Why was the 109th apparently about to send hundreds of civilians into the middle of a turkey shoot?

Her questions brought her to the first Army officer she came across at a departure and arrival screen that stood near the entrance. He was already speaking with a junior officer when she both figuratively and literally walked into their conversation.

"Excuse me-..." She sighted the nametag on his BDU. "Lieutenant Gustov, you got a sec?"

He nodded. "Go ahead, Helljumper."

"What's going on, sir? How come these people are up on their feet?"

"Didn't you hear the announcement from Caruso?" The junior officer asked.

"Can it, Smith." Gustov cut in. "I'll handle this."

"Sir."

The lieutenant gestured to the crowds who were feeding into several disarrayed, long lines that slowly moved towards the atrium. "Our Division CO's getting everyone moving. Apparently, he sent an assault element to retake the missile defense batteries over in Caracalla Park. They're engaging the Covenant across the bay even as we speak. The hope is that they'll retake it, get those M95s back online and give us the minimum AA cover we need to get these people out of here."

Nova stayed quiet for a moment, trying to grasp the bigger picture. "Who-, ugh, who'd they put in charge of that op if you don't mind me asking?"

"Don't know if you'd know him. It's a Sergeant Major Duvall, he's been taking pretty good care of coordinating evacuations over in the 77th's green zone. Command shuttled him over here to help retake those air defenses. Seems the Covies weren't smart enough to destroy them when they had the chance."

"Heard some of the guys from your battalion saved his life over in another park." Smith added. "It sort of fits that he's returning the favor at this one."

Nova connected the dots quickly enough. She remembered the face of the sergeant major the platoon had saved at Árkád Park earlier in the week. In any case, it felt like it had been years ago.

"Do we know how far he's gotten with recapturing them yet?"

Gustov shook his head. "Not yet, but we're getting these civilians ready for the moment we do."

She stepped closer. "You're loading them onto transports before they've even secured those Lances?"

"Not me, Command. If it were up to me, they'd stay put until I knew we had a good footing in the air. But it's not my call."

Nova looked out again to the crowds that streamed by. They were moving at a snail's pace. She peered over at a seating area off to her left. A mother and father were crouched down in front of their kids, a boy and a girl. Both of the latter were huddled in their chairs, clutching their thermal blankets so close that they made them look more like security blankets. She could hear their parents trying to convince them that everything would be okay.

"Lieutenant, they'll be sitting ducks."

"Negative. So long as they're on the tarmac, they'll be out of range of those corvettes holding over the east."

She side-eyed him. "So long as they're on the tarmac..."

Gustov grimaced. "Like I said, not my call."

Nova decided to leave it at that. She left the two to their original conversation as she walked further into the terminal.

Despite the general murmuring that pervaded the space, there was a tense atmosphere hanging over the air. Travelling along the least crowded paths, she noticed that none of the civilians were noticing her. She never thought of herself as anything special for an ODST. Nevertheless, being one had earned her a bevy of long stares whenever civilians saw her passing by. There was virtually none of that here. The long, sluggish lines that fenced her in like human hedges didn't so much as turn in her direction. Their eyes were either up front or focused on one another. They had devolved into a stagnant mass of tired stares and low whispers, backs bent by the weight of everything they had left to their names, legs shuffling and stopping, waiting for those ahead to move another inch.

That mass was slowly but surely draining towards the atrium near the end of the space, towards Terminal B's boarding area. Even more streams of bobbing heads and wary looks were coming down the half a dozen staircases that descended from the upper floors, the frozen waterfalls of people only thawing in increments.

She could see several of the boarding gates on the ground floor. There, the miniature migration came to a stop in front of four boarding desks. The mishmash of mankind funneled into four neat lines that had been closely ordered by retractable belt barriers and the armed vigil of several Army platoons.

At one point she came across a break in the crowd off to her left. The seating area beneath the east wing was transforming into a barren desert of empty chairs, populated more by discarded MRE wrappings and crushed water bottles than people. Beyond the lake of refuse were the glass windows that looked out over the tarmac. She winced at realizing just how much of it she could see.

Almost the entire apron was fully visible again. The labyrinth of sandbags and ad hoc firing positions had been completely cleared away. What remained was the starport's natural scenery. Scores of luggage container units had been pushed to the walls of the U-shaped landing area outside. Three of the civilian starships that had been originally stranded there were now the only aircraft on the ground. Two were slotted in the parking spaces just outside the windows of the east wing, their long noses pointed towards the boarding gates, docking umbilicals already connecting spacecraft to starport. A third starship was sitting off by itself atop one of the arrowed landing zones near the perimeter fence, closer to Terminal A. It appeared to be the most ready to take off. Even from here, she could hear the intermittent whine of its engines as whoever was behind the controls ran it through its warm-up cycles. If she had to guess, the entire transport had already been filled to capacity by hundreds of passengers from Terminal A. Everyone else around her was simply awaiting their turn.

Past the starport's perimeter fence, on the other side of the bay she could see Caracalla Park. The small, pancaked plateaus of coastal rocks and green grass were alight with activity. She couldn't make out much from this distance, but she didn't need proximity to spot the bursts of plasma and tracer fire that flickered between the three beachfront installations. Every so often small explosions would go off across the black sands of the coast or against the walls of the observation centers. The gunfire seemed to be at its fiercest around the pair of M95 Lances. The surface to air missile systems stood like hibernating giants in their silent vigil of the beach. They were the focus of the entire operation, the key to getting thousands of people to safety, and the most they could do was continue to exist as they were.

Something about that irritated her.

More than anything she wished she had her hands on a sniper rifle. Maybe then she could make out the finer details. Better yet, she wished she had Mackley and Lang's Stanchion. That way she could really lend a hand.

She had neither of those things. Like the missile systems they were trying to recapture, she had to settle for watching from the sidelines while someone else did the fighting. For her own sake she kept moving.

While peering through the tree line of people she came to a stop, singling out a familiar face off to her right.

Erica hadn't left her old seat. The west wing had become more and more depopulated as families picked up whatever they had on hand and made for the lines. Erica meanwhile was among a handful of stragglers, her as well as Noah. She wasn't idle, busying herself with stuffing water bottles and thermal blankets into a backpack that probably wasn't hers. The original owner likely didn't need it anymore, freeing her to make good use of it.

Nova excused herself through the masses until she slipped into the seating area. She waved.

Noah spotted her first and met her arrival with child-like excitement. "Aunty Sofi! Mom, look who's here!"

He threw himself out of his seat and ran over. Nova scooped him up, letting him sit in the crook of her arm.

"Hey Noe, you good?"

"Good? No. Tired? Yes. Someone's always shooting something somewhere. It makes it hard to get any sleep. Wish they'd just stop and take a break, you know?"

She did know. She didn't dare admit how much she wished it were that easy. The temptation was there to imagine the UNSC and the Covenant agreeing that a few hours a day would be reserved for nap time. They could get back to killing each other once they were rested.

"Did you get anything to eat?"

Noah shrugged and pointed to a small, plastic bowl resting beside his seat. "Yeah, I did."

He finished the rest of what he had to say by casting a worried glance at his mom.

Erica must have felt them both watching her so she finally looked up from what she was doing. The strain on her face was obvious even before a smidge of relief found its mark. She gave a smile that didn't reach the shadows under her eyes.

"Hey Sofi."

"...Did they have any food left?" Nova asked.

"Yeah," She gestured over to Noah. "Just enough."

"You didn't get any?"

Erica stuffed the last water bottle into her bag. "They ran out. Don't worry though, I'll just drink some water. Maybe that'll-"

Nova reached into a pocket on her BDU and pulled out a chocolate bar before she could even finish the thought. "Take it."

"Sofi, I-"

"When's the last time you ate?"

Erica stayed tight lipped. However, her stomach gave her away, voicing its opinion with a rumbling grumble. "...Two days ago. But don't worry about me, Sofi. You need it more than I do."

Nova planted the bar firmly in her hand. "Eat that."

"Sofi-"

"Don't you Sofi me. There's more where that came from for me but I doubt I can say the same for you. Just use it to hold you over until they get you onboard. I'm sure it won't be that much of a problem, alright?"

Erica didn't seem convinced. Nova folded her friend's fingers over the bar, forcing her to relent.

"Fine. I'll take it."

"And Noe, you make sure she eats that whole thing, kapeesh?"

Noah nodded blankly, bringing to Nova's attention that his own was nowhere near the candy. Nothing, not even a glance from the kid with the biggest sweet tooth she'd ever seen. He was much too focused on his mom to care.

She set him back down and settled herself in the seat next to Erica, shifting about to make herself more comfortable.

For ten long seconds neither of them said anything. Nova resigned herself to observing, catching wind of the signs of fatigue written all over her friend. Her slumped shoulders, the slight bags that hung beneath a clouded stare, everything pointed to several nights of insomnia.

"How're you feeling?"

Erica took a while longer to get around to answering. She locked onto Noah with a mixed expression that Nova took a second to recognize as a request.

Noah nodded. Without so much as a hint of protest, he stuffed his fingers into his ears and shut his eyes tight.

Nova took exception to that. It was another one of those unsettling moments where she'd seen him act like someone twice his age. His mom hadn't needed to say a word for him to understand that it was something he was better off not hearing.

Then Erica turned, not looking at her so much as past her. Nova tracked her line of sight to the east wing and the scenery of the starport's apron on the other side.

"That's Haven Airlines." She said in a tone bordering on mournful.

Nova took a close look at the starships. Amidst the cobalt blue and sea green of their respective bows, she could faintly spot the 'Haven Airlines' flightline painted on the sides of their hulls.

"What about Haven Airlines?"

"The company had their debut at my hotel earlier this year. Well, I guess I wouldn't really call it mine anymore, but back then the CEOs said it would be good for getting people to their vacation homes over on Beta Gabriel."

"Hmph, I guess we could both use a vacation, couldn't we?"

"Oh, that's not all."

Nova turned back to her, trying to find her point.

Erica let out a muffled laugh that quickly died in her throat. "You know what else they said? They said it'd be good for getting refugees to safety..."

She trailed off as she glanced back to their left, towards the distant visage of the city that towered beyond the hills just west of the starport.

Nova saw a phantasm of a smile slowly peeling itself across her friend's face, a smile that once again failed to reach her eyes.

"Refugees..."

Right then, Nova could see the story Erica wasn't telling, of the hours she'd spent on her own thinking about what in a better age would've been considered unthinkable. She reached her hand into hers and grasped it tight. It took longer than she would've liked, but the firm grip eventually pulled Erica's attention away from the windows.

Nova said nothing, partly because she hoped that the silence would provide some comfort of its own, partly because she didn't know what to say.

"Ten years, Sofi. I've lived here for almost a decade...all of that gone in a day."

Erica gestured to the people that filed past at a near glacial speed. "A lot of them are locals, born and raised. This is all they've ever had and they're leaving it behind."

She settled on Noah who was still sitting in his chair, temporarily blind and deaf. "And it's even worse for him. This is all he knows. He's never lived anywhere else. He barely knows any worlds outside of Eridani."

"Except for Earth." Nova added.

The name itself came out like a spell, freezing Erica in place. Again, she looked towards the city. Her hands slowly slipped around her arms in a kind of frigid embrace.

"...Then what?"

Nova didn't dare answer. It was a question she was more familiar with than she would ever care to admit, one she had been afraid to take a crack at ever since the day she saw her first glassed planet.

She squeezed Erica's hand a little tighter despite finding her fingers cold and unresponsive. "You're asking that as if we've already lost here."

Erica went quiet, but the depth of her gaze easily revealed everything her mouth wouldn't.

"We haven't." Nova said firmly.

Erica replied by tilting her head upwards so that she was peering at the western skyline.

Nova knew exactly what she was looking at and tried to shake her out of it. "Don't mind that. We're still giving them one broken nose after the next out there."

"How much does that matter when the other guy's trying to exterminate you?"

Erica suddenly bit her lip, like she'd let something slip that she hadn't meant to. She whirled around apologetically.

"Sofi, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-...I-..."

"I know." Nova replied, folding her own hands together into a cage of thoughtful digits. "Believe me, I know. Don't go thinking you're the only person to ever see things that way, Eri, because trust me, you're not."

She stopped to take a deep breath that she held onto as if it were her last. "Far from it to be honest. Everyone's thinking that way these days." She fixed Erica with a steadfast glower. "Doesn't mean we can't still pull out a win. A broken nose is a broken nose, and regardless of whatever they want to do, they're going to have a harder time doing it with a concussion."

Erica's gaze narrowed. "You make it sound like a straight fight."

"Because it is." Nova pointed her back towards New Alexandria's west side. "They have the air, we have the ground. So long as we don't let them take the ground, we can take back the air. Like Rico would say, it's mano y mano out there right now. All we need to pull of an upset is one good haymaker."

"...Or a Hail Mary."

"You're missing my point. It's no one's fight just yet. We're duking it out with our hands tied behind our backs for the time being, but we'll be at an advantage the sooner we get you out of here." She edged closer with a vehemence that pushed back on the air of helplessness. "And we will get you out of here, Eri. You, Noah and everyone else."

"And take us where?"

"Sol."

Despite how obvious the answer felt, Erica still winced as if it was unexpected. "Sofi..."

"It's your safest option."

"It's our only option. Once we're there, that's it. Our backs are going to be against the wall."

Nova paused.

She glanced at Noah to make sure his ears were still clogged, keeping her voice just above a whisper. "They already are."

The gradual sense of defeat she saw coming over Erica was almost enough to make her stop.

"Eri, listen to me. You're leaving. Whether you want to or not, you're leaving, and I don't know when you'll be coming back. Honestly, I don't know if you'll be coming back at all. The best thing you can do for Noe, for Duncan and for yourself is to make sure you get on one of these flights out-system."

"And then?"

"...And then you're going to get out of that little mental corner you've huddled yourself into and you're going to take care of your son."

Erica's eyes widened a fraction then slowly dimmed.

Nova tried not to hate herself for it. She hadn't meant to get tough with her, but it was that same tough love among friends that had seen them through some of the harshest courses at university together. What was a century defining war compared to that?

Nova put her hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "One day at a time, Eri."

"...Yeah...yeah, you're right. One day at a time."

Repeating it to herself allowed Erica some newfound encouragement that caused her to hunch her back just a little less. She breathed deeply. "Thanks. I-...I think I needed that."

"We all do at some point." Nova sighed. "Your problem is you've been so busy encouraging him that you forgot about yourself. We're all the same at the end of the day."

Erica smiled. This time it actually reached her eyes. "What're you, my therapist?"

Nova got up out of her seat, already missing the feeling of sitting on something soft as she stretched her back. "I'll send you my bill."

Erica laughed.

Nova joined in as she grabbed her helmet off the chair, pointing it over at Noah. "You should probably tell him he can stop now. Wait too long and he's going to start thinking you forgot about him."

"Right-right," Erica nodded, her demeanor steadily returning to the quiet gentleness that Nova was used to. "But yeah, I think I needed that more than I thought."

"You're welcome," Nova slid her helmet back over her head. "And I'm only half kidding about the bill."

Erica giggled amusedly. "How about a few half-used MREs and a thermal blanket?"

"That works." Nova shrugged. "But hey, don't worry about everything else, alright? Let us handle it. It's what we're here for."

"What, are you going to add extra counseling advice to that invoice too?" Erica kidded as she reached over and tapped Noah on the shoulder.

He'd only just opened his eyes when shouts rang out from further down the terminal.

"Make way! Make way! Move!"

Hundreds of eyes turned around, Nova, Erica and even Noah's among them.

Back near the entrance, the same one Nova had just come through, the long lines of civilians were suddenly widening. The river of heads was splitting along its length. Soon she could see why.

Men and women stepped aside, pulling curious kids out of the way as soldiers hurried past. It was a full platoon by her count. They were running in pairs, each carrying a heavy load between them. She guessed that some lieutenant had brought his men back for a quick resupply run, that is until she saw what they were carrying, her good sense quickly reminding her that ammunition crates didn't scream.

People did, however, and the soldiers lying on the stretchers were putting everything they had into it. Mouths were cracked open in long shouts and low moans that were so base, so guttural that they could have only come from a primal place of pain. The sound hit her before the smell did, an aroma her empty stomach would've mistaken for a barbecue were it not for the unfortunately familiar tinge of human. But they had been barbecued, over a dozen of them whose limbs swayed limply from their stretchers. Ragged strips of black fabric hung from arms and legs in such a way that it took her mind a while longer to recognize them as flaps of skin. For some she could hardly tell where the armor ended and where the person began. Their vocal cords were the only muscles they could still move. The sounds of their shrieks echoed off the walls of Terminal B, and even then, some made no noise at all.

They were heading in the direction of the makeshift triage station at the atrium, most likely bound for the trauma center.

The handheld convoy was still some ways off from her and Erica, both having been too caught off guard to realize that Noah had also turned to look.

Erica snapped out of it first. She reached over to grab Noah's head, stopping halfway at seeing the same sight that sent Nova ramrod straight.

In the middle of the incoming group were four ODSTs. Five, really, but the fifth was on a stretcher.

Nova felt sorry for them. The last thing she would ever want was to be in a position like that with one of her own squadmates.

But then her empathy suddenly died upon looking through the depolarized visors of those very same squadmates. Hector, Zack, Duncan and even the Staff wore the frantic, desperate miens that she had only seen on one of them once before.

But that was only four of them.

She did the very last thing she wanted to do at that moment and looked down at who they were carrying.

She didn't need to peer through the ODST's visor to see his face so much as his visor was in his face, shattered into hundreds of shards that had lacerated his cheeks. A cold shiver shot through her whole body, slashed skin and a swollen eye having made him nearly unrecognizable. That as well as the way he quietly hung onto his charge, doing so in such a discrete manner that anyone who didn't look twice would miss the fact that it was his own arm.

"I-...is...that..." Erica's stammer fell away as the group began to pass. Nova was as still as a statue as her squadmates rushed by, none of them even paying her any heed, one of them not so much as noticing his own wife and kid as he went. They hurried on down the line while the soldiers on duty intervened, forcing more and more civilians to clear a path for them.

Nova wasn't there anymore. She was still standing in place, but she wasn't there. It felt like she was watching the world go by through the eyes of a stranger.

The last of the stretchers went past before she felt herself coming back to a hazy sense of reality.

"W-, what happened to Uncle-"

Erica finally clasped her hands around Noah's eyes and ears, pulling his head into her chest as she sat down beside him. Her face was pale but judging by the look Nova saw her sizing her up with, she knew she was the worse for wear.

Right then, Yuri, Mito and Renni came running past, trying to catch up with the group.

Yuri spotted her and skidded to a halt. "Nova, it's-"

She nodded absentmindedly. She took one last look at the two she'd come to see. They had traded places. Whereas Erica had shut her eyes tight, Noah's were wide open, the green orbs staring right back at her through his mother's fingers as they glazed over.

Then Nova was gone, running with the others after the rest of the team.

:********:

Duncan wasn't sure what scared him more, the fact that his friend should be screaming his head off by now or the fact that he wasn't. Rico was calm, placid even. They'd laid his head against the pillow of one of the hospital beds that lined the interior of the triage station's trauma center. Each lane of beds had been flown in over the course of the last week from Lochaber Base, and each and every single one was taken. Rico was only the most recent addition to the latest influx of half a company's worth of wounded personnel. Many of them lay in a slumber that bordered on catatonic, heads and chests wrapped in bloodied dressings. Others winced, sitting upright as handheld devices hovered around their burns, the spraying of ultrasound miss therapy devices resembling something akin to groups of owners washing their dogs. Others still swooned in a drug addled malaise as auto-injectors hissed morphine into their bloodstream in timed increments.

For Rico, treatment boiled down to applying extra dressings around his wound, keeping the excess bleeding to a minimum and pumping as much blood back into his body as possible. Several transfusion bags hung from a pair of IV units that stood on either side of him. Crimson tinted tubes ran down from them to different intravenous insertions on his arm and legs, making him look more like a marionette waiting for someone to pull his strings. Two of the trauma center personnel tended to him, an Army medic with a disconcerting amount of dried blood on his BDU and a civilian doctor with a gown that was almost as smeared. The former used a pair of tweezers to remove the pieces of shrapnel embedded in his wound, dropping them into a tray while he kept a constant eye on the stim injector latched to his shoulder. The latter was at a separate table wrapping the freshly rinsed left arm in sterile gauze. Once he was done, he opened the lid on a small ice box and laid it inside.

As he shut it and wrote a short message on the cover with a marker, Duncan watched. So too did the rest of Epsilon that stood around them like a ring of black armored monuments.

Somehow the entire affair felt like a vigil. The idea that they were holding a wake for one of their own before he had even flatlined was clawing at the back of Duncan's mind. His attention never strayed far from the heart monitor and the battered pieces of ODST chest gear that had been laid at its base. Rico's pulse was steady. The same could be said for his breathing. Were it not for the black eye and the glass shards that made it difficult for him to move his face, he could have come off as rather relaxed. How relaxed he could be after losing a limb, however, was entirely up for debate.

Seeing that no one had said anything for a while, Rico blinked his good eye and cleared his throat, managing a smile that only reached one corner of his lips.

"So, how do I look?"

No one had their helmets on which Duncan realized might not have been the best move. Their grim scowls and worried looks were out in the open, all except for one.

Zack walked up to the side of the bed, hands on hips as he gave his friend a good once over. "You're gorgeous."

Rico broke first as a laugh slipped out with Zack coming close behind.

"Well, there goes my chances I guess." Rico huffed, wincing a little at some discomfort.

"Of what?"

"Getting into modeling. I was hoping I could maybe sell my face after all this was over. Get a few photo shoots in, make a few million cred, you know."

Zack arched a brow. "A few million?"

"...A couple hundred thousand."

Zack's brow remained arched.

"Shut up."

The two of them burst out laughing again.

It lasted longer than the first, but it petered out all the same, slowly, painfully as the silence of the rest of the squad finally strangled it.

Another long quiet drew itself out to the beat of the heart monitor and the clink of shrapnel fragments dropping onto the metal tray.

At length, the Staff shot a questioning look at the Army medic.

"We're still stabilizing him." The medic said, not even stopping while he pulled out a particularly gnarled piece of fragmentation from Rico's shoulder. "His blood pressure's not exactly where we'd like it to be at this point, but we're still trying our best to stave off any shock."

The medic turned to his patient. "You lost a lot of blood out there."

"How much?" Rico rasped.

"About 35%."

On the sidelines, Renni shut her eyes as she pinched her brow tight. "Jesus, that was too close."

"My words exactly." The medic agreed. "Anywhere over 40 and there's a good chance we wouldn't be having this conversation. Frankly, even with the stimulants, I'm not sure how you're still conscious. I don't know if I'd say you're lucky, but..."

"Lucky how?" Rico asked.

"Whatever it is that hit you was pretty thorough." The civilian doctor replied while he made routine checks of each of his IV units. "Muscles, bones, tendons, if there was any of that still attached, you'd be feeling a lot more than you are right now."

The demolitionist flashed a half smirk of pride and regret. "Antilon anti-personnel mine."

Both doctor and medic stopped in their tracks, widening Rico's smirk even further. "UNSC standard issue."

The pair shared a look before resuming their work.

"I'm sorry." The medic said. "I didn't-"

"No worries, hermano. If you think this is bad, you should've seen the other guy."

Out the corner of his eye, Duncan saw Nova walk over to the Staff's side.

"We could've used the heads up, sir."

The Staff replied without even looking. "...Heads up."

"...Thanks."

"You guys were out of radio range by the time we got to him." Zack explained. "And by that point, well, we already had our hands full."

"Pun intended." Rico added, mustering a weak grin that quickly fell as the movement made the shards bite deeper into his cheeks.

"Take it easy." The Staff said. "And yes, that is an order. I'll see if we can't get you on the next extract." He paused. "Looks like we'll have to leave you here, Rico."

The second the words left his mouth, the atmosphere in their corner of the center changed. Duncan sensed it tightening his throat, forming a knot in his chest so constricting that he could have confused it for a second heart.

There was no longer any taking it back or turning the conversation around.

They were leaving him here.

Whatever comedic bone Rico had left in his lacerated mug was broken with the kind of agonizing slowness that Duncan could see. The last traces of a grin disappeared, his jaw clenching as his gaze fell to the floor. His good eye started blinking faster, and it didn't take much for Duncan to understand what he was trying to blink away. More than ever he wished he still had his helmet on. It would've made the whole situation a lot easier.

No one spoke while their demolitionist took the chance to collect himself. When he did, his grin resurrected. However, the shadow of grief hadn't gone anywhere.

"I'm finally getting some real shore leave, sir?"

The Staff said nothing.

After a stretch of silence, Rico nodded to himself as if he'd gotten the answer he wanted. "Sounds good to me. Hopefully they'll drop me off somewhere nice. Then I'll get to recoup, regroup, do a little rehab and bang, right back out. You'll hardly even notice I'm gone, right Staff?"

Another painful stretch of silence passed that likewise failed to dampen his spirits. All the while, Duncan wrestled with the burning temptation to put his helmet back on.

Then the Staff came forward. Stopping beside the bed, his hand came to rest on Rico's shoulder, fingers wrapping into a firm grasp.

"Get yourself back in fighting shape, trooper." The Staff said. "We'll be right here when you're ready."

The words lit a fire behind Rico's stare where before there had only been a few stubborn embers. He seemed to relax a bit more into the bed. His grin came back more genuine.

"Is that an order, sir?"

"...No."

That same fire wavered, if briefly.

Duncan could piece it together for himself from off to the side.

It wasn't an order. It was a request.

A choice.

The Staff was giving him that.

An unspoken 'you've done more than enough to be proud of' hung thick in the air.

If Rico noticed it, he disregarded it altogether with the most determined look Duncan had ever seen.

"Then I'll treat it like one."

Something about that moment shocked Duncan into complete disbelief. Maybe it was the black eye or the dozens of small cuts on his face, maybe the constant beep of the heart monitor or the ice box that held a piece of his friend. No. It was the resolve. Pure happenstance had reduced the man to sheer will and here he was clinging onto it with everything he had left. Duncan kept his mouth shut, but the entire exchange had moved him in a way that simple words and deeds never would.

He truly wished he had his helmet back on.

"Think they can reattach it?" Mito asked, pointing to the box.

"It's still in the realm of possibility." The doctor replied. "For the time being, keeping him going is our priority."

"Make sure you tell Reznik I won't be there to watch his back." Rico griped. "If he crosses the wrong wires again, he'll be the first to find out."

"We'll let him know." Nova said, also coming to rest a hand on her comrade's shoulder. "You get yourself well again, you hear me?"

"Sure thing, Dama Roja. Just try not to miss me too much, alright?"

Nova huffed, smiling as she did. "Easier said than done."

"Easier said than done." Yuri echoed. "Get well soon, Ricky."

"I'll try to keep him from blowing himself up until you get back." Renni said, gesturing at Epsilon's pilot. "Him and Whiskey-5, but that last one might be a bit of a long shot."

"You better pull through, Rick." Hector added. "You still owe me 50 cred from our last drop, and I'm betting on you making bank off those disability cheques while you're off the clock."

"Yeah, sure, I'll call you back once my real estate business is up and running. After this is over, I'll see if I can get you a job. How about it?"

"For me to have to call you jefe? Thanks, but no thanks."

The two of them cackled as Duncan, Zack and Mito closed in.

"I could kiss it for you if that'd make it feel better." Mito said, smirking as he did.

"You're not my type, Mito, you know that, but if you see a nice Camila or Gabriela anywhere, send her over."

"Sure thing, chief. I'll keep an eye out."

"Hey, if you've got one of those to spare, be sure to let me know, alright?" Zack said half-jokingly. "Those nurses are going to treat you real good, Ricky, but you can't hog them all to yourself." He leaned closer to whisper. "So put in a good word for me, will you?"

"I'll see what I can do. Remember, it's not easy being a wingman for someone who isn't there."

Zack shrugged. "I could always shoot myself in the foot."

"Please don't."

Duncan glanced back and forth between the wrapped up wound and the ice box. The fresh memories of a certain Spartan came to mind.

"Hey, if the whole reattaching thing falls through, think you'd be open to prosthetics?"

Rico paused for longer than Duncan thought he would. Apparently, the thought hadn't crossed his mind at all.

Rico swayed his head this way and that in contemplation. "Well, if I couldn't keep my own flesh and blood then I could settle for circuits. I still need the arm or something like one. It'd just take some getting used to."

"Well, let's hope you won't need to." Duncan gave him a friendly pat on his last arm. "Be seeing you, Rick."

"Yeah, D, be seeing you, and hopefully when I'm in one piece again."

"Cheers to that."

Duncan allowed himself to back away without as much of the weight on his shoulders as he'd walked in with. The heaviness in the air was lightened though not entirely dispelled.

Rico looked back at each of them in turn and Duncan could've sworn there was something else he wanted to say. In the end, whatever it was, he kept it to himself.

A long, weighted sigh from the Staff told them that the moment was over.

"Alright, Epsilon, it's about time we moved out. There's no telling how much they're missing us on the line right now. Let's keep this situation from getting any worse."

He'd been the one to lead them into the trauma center. Now he was the first to step away. Everyone else fell in after him. Each took in one last eyeful of the teammate they were leaving behind before walking out. One by one, they moved off until Duncan found himself the last man standing.

"I saw that. You had something else you wanted to say?"

Rico mulled it over as if there was still some reluctance left. He gritted his teeth. "That kid I saved..."

"What about him?"

"I just hope he doesn't wake up one day and decide to hate me for it."

Straight away, Duncan saw where the reluctance was coming from. He saw where Rico was coming from, and he could tell that both of them knew it.

Neither said anything more, but by that point neither of them needed to.

Duncan gave a nod, a simple dip of his head that Rico returned in kind.

Then he turned and walked for the exit, putting the full force of his being into not looking back.

He shouldered through the the flap of the tent, reemerging into the mix of artificial light and sunlight that filled the atrium.

Almost immediately he felt someone grab his arm.

"We need to talk." Nova said as she pulled him aside. "This won't take long."

His mind wasn't yet free of the haze of the last few minutes and he tried to shake his head clear. "What's going on?"

"Erica, Noah, both of them saw that."

"Saw wh-"

The seriousness in her demeanor caught Duncan's attention. In an instant, he knew exactly what she meant.

"They'll be leaving soon. With the way things are going, you should probably put in a word before they get on that flight."

Duncan didn't wait for her to say anything else. He whipped around and trotted through the aisles of occupied mats where medics handled more of the wounded. He heard Nova's footsteps trailing after him. He weaved out into the open with a will, beelining it for the long lines of Terminal B.

There were far more people on their feet now than there had been when he first came in.

"There." Nova pointed further towards the back of the lines.

Duncan couldn't tell where they ended but he could tell where she was looking.

Halfway down one of the outer queues was Erica. She was holding up Noah, letting him sit on her arm while she carried a backpack with the other.

He jogged down the murmuring hedgerow of dirty jackets and haggard pullovers. The two of them saw him coming. The relief on both sides was instant.

She was more than ready for the armored hug that he wrapped her up in, coiling her free arm around the back of his neck like it was the last time she would ever get the chance.

"You weren't planning on leaving without saying goodbye, were you?" He smirked.

The words painted a smile across her face. "Believe me, goodbye is the last thing I want to say right now."

Duncan felt two small arms wrapping around his head in turn as a small noggin came to rest on top of his.

He peered up past dirty sleeves into his son's face, finding those same green eyes with a few unfamiliar bags draped under them. They were shinier than normal, glistening with a confused mashup of far too many emotions.

"Hey dad."

"...Hey Noe." He cast a long look at Erica. "Nova tells me you guys saw-"

Erica nodded, refusing to say any more.

Despite already knowing it for himself, it was a gut punch and a half to see them confirm it. "He'll be alright. The doctors say he has a good chance of making it out of this."

Noah only hugged him tighter so that he had to turn his head in order to speak.

"Everybody's been taking a lot of chances these days." Erica said, her voice sounding distant if not entirely disconnected. "And if I had to guess, we're not done rolling the dice yet either, are we?"

"No...not yet." Duncan looked past them, eying the starships assembled out on the tarmac. He pulled away to face them both. "But if they're finally running flights out of here then I want you guys on one. We don't know how many other chances we'll get like this. If this is the last one, I'd rather see you take it. That's all I want, alright? They're going to fly you out of here and they're going to get you somewhere safe."

"And where's that?" Noah croaked.

Where Duncan didn't have an answer, Erica seemed to already have one ready.

"Somewhere safe." She shared another look with Duncan that let him know they were on the same page.

"Is Uncle Rico coming with us?" Noah asked.

Duncan shrugged. "Not sure. Maybe. We can't keep him here."

"What's he going to do without an arm? He needs two of those but now he only has one. Are they still going to let him fight?"

Duncan bit his lip, restraining a sudden onrush of heat that he felt welling up behind his vision. Those were questions a six-year-old should have never had to ask, yet alone think of asking.

"Your uncle's a smart man, Noe. Don't you doubt that for a second. He'll figure something out, trust me. He's still got plenty of fight left in him."

Noah's lips drew back in a worried grimace at whatever else he had on his mind. "Dad?"

"Yeah kiddo?"

"Don't lose your arms. You can't pick up me or mom anymore if you lose them, so don't let anybody take them, okay?"

The heat Duncan felt boiled into something more akin to a fire. He had to look away for a second to wipe the wetness from his eyes before pulling his hand back over his scalp, playing it off as if he was just fixing his hair.

"Yeah, Noe," He said, barely hiding the tightness in his throat. "Sounds like good advice. I'll be sure to follow it."

Some semblance of confidence returned to his son's frame and he watched him straighten up. Erica wasn't so easily fooled. From her ever-perceptive expression, he could tell she saw right through the facade of his toothy grin. She reached out a hand. The cool touch of her palm against his grimy cheek was a quiet refuge from the storm in his head. He savored it, just as he did the soft feel of her lips pressing into his. He tilted his head into it, an act so natural that he hardly had to think about it. His thoughts of the last few days flew off to some distant place, trading in the backbreaking hours of his usual life for those few seconds that he lived for.

She had to be the one to pull away, drawing him out of the fleeting moment of peace with a reluctance that was almost palpable.

"Don't let that be the last time."

His gloved hand snaked up along the stubble of his face until his fingers laced into hers.

"It won't be." He replied, pouring every last ounce of his resolve into every syllable. "I promise."

It took a long while for her hand to pull away from his, and when it did, it left his fingers feeling emptier than usual. It took even longer for her eyes to leave his own, and when they did, he wanted them back on him.

"We'll be rooting for you," Erica said. "Both of us."

"Then I better bring home a win." He stopped to gather his next thoughts carefully. "Stay close to your mom, Noe. I'll find you, both of you. No matter where you wind up, I'll find you and bring you back here."

It was another promise. No matter how many he made, the intent always remained the same: to keep them.

Erica gave him one of her own as she found the wherewithal to smile again. "I know."

Another hand came to rest on his shoulder, not the soft touch of his wife but the rough and worn glove of his squadmate.

"It's time." Nova said.

"Yeah...I know..." Duncan took in one more eyeful of the two people he loved the most. All the while they did the same. Then for the second time that day he pried himself away from those he'd rather stay beside, unsure when he would ever see them again.

He followed Nova's lead once more, falling in behind her. His restraint as an ODST fought to maintain control of his direction as both the husband and father within him wrestled against it, fighting to turn him back around in a vicious two on one.

It was a losing fight.

He had only gotten 20 paces when he felt his will about to give way.

"Duncan!"

The voice came from behind. He turned around, locking onto the familiar yet unfamiliar face from his past. One of two.

Christa was leaning out from one of the lines. The anxiousness written on her face was more than a match for his own.

He was on guard the second he recognized her, the memory of being tackled in a similar setting immediately putting him on edge as he looked around.

Seeing that, Christa quickly put her hands up and shook her head. "Don't worry, he's not going to take another swing at you."

"Where is he?"

"Doesn't matter." She walked up to him, pausing a few steps away.

"I don't know if we'll ever see you again, so..." Her hand moved for something in her pocket, stopping halfway. Confliction warred across her expression. After some silent reconsideration, she drew her hand away from her pocket. Instead, she marched up to him and threw her arms around his, wrapping him in a tight hug. "Take care of yourself out there."

Her head came up to his shoulders, a fact that caught him off guard. He still had a hard time imagining the little girl he'd carried on Kroedis being quite so big. She'd grown a lot in the last few years even if they hadn't been kind to either of them. Nevertheless, he couldn't stop himself from seeing the small kid whose mother had handed her over to him as a final act of love, the same little girl he had risked so much to save.

He returned the gesture in kind and pulled her into an embrace of his own. The moment gave him back some of the happiness that he thought he'd said farewell to just a few seconds earlier. It was the way he'd actually wanted their reunion to go, not that fist-to-face brawl in the middle of the terminal.

But then he made the mistake of opening his eyes and looking back at the spot in the line where she'd come from.

There Arthur stood staring daggers at him.

The boy kept both hands to himself, grasping the straps of his backpack so tight that his knuckles were white. He didn't blink or say a word. Neither did Duncan. The two of them simply stood there, staring back at the other in a silent battle of wills as Christa gave her goodbyes.

Pangs of regret radiated through him. Despite the situation, right then, he would've given anything to have him join in, to be able to hug both of them again. However, he doubted that even giving up an arm would've been enough to bridge that gap.

When Christa finally pulled away, Duncan took her hands in his and squeezed. Briefly he saw himself standing on the dust bowl of Kholo's surface with the open ramp of a UNSC prowler waiting nearby. Déjà vu struck him like a lightning bolt even as the words left his mouth.

"Make sure to look out for yourselves, alright?"

She managed a faint smile. "I've been doing it this long, haven't I?"

He mirrored it back to her. "I'd say so. If I get the chance, if I see you again, we'll have a proper get together, alright? Food, drinks, everything's on me."

She nodded, ignoring the single tear that streaked down her cheek. "I'll hold you to it."

With a wave, she turned and walked back towards her place in the line. He watched her slide into place beside Arthur without either of them giving each other the time of day. She kept looking straight ahead towards the boarding gates. He meanwhile kept his sights firmly on Duncan.

Duncan, for his part, tried to think of what to say or do. Ultimately, nothing came to him.

Before long he was walking after Nova who'd stopped for him again.

Again, he didn't get far before one of his dual natures made him look over his shoulder.

Arthur hadn't broken from his vigil. However, just before he did, Duncan swore he saw it if only in his mind's eye: a flash of hesitation.

Flammae – Flames