Chapter 5 - Compromisso

December 17th, 2544 (04:00 Hours – Military Calendar)

Zeta Doradus System, Onyx

Camp Curahee

:********:

Acrid smoke from mufflers was dense around this time of year. During the holidays Chicago denizens were out preparing for the season. Only, the smoke Duncan smelt wasn't from a vehicle. Moreover, mufflers didn't sound like distant explosions.

He saw an apartment building far off. It was the same one he'd lived in with Erica for years, and it was on fire.

Smoke billowed up into the graying skies from a fiery gash in the side of an upper level. He could tell by the symmetry of the damage that it couldn't have been human ordinance.

He broke into a sprint, dashing along the sidewalk and forcing his way past crowds of onlookers. He arrived onto the apartment's street to find his way blocked. A dozen police officers had cordoned off the area for twice as many firefighters as they used truck-mounted hoses to spray watery jet-streams onto the flames. He could tell it wouldn't be enough to stop the inferno.

Duncan ran straight into the cordon, shirking off several officers to reach the ground floor lobby. He weaved through the faint outflow of evacuees, checking each face but finding none that he recognized. He found the stairwell and bounded up to his floor.

He barged through the exit door out into the hallway. Flames swelled over the ceiling and walls like a plague emanating from a doorway several doors down. It was his apartment.

Duncan shielded his face with his arms and ran to the doorway.

From the couch in the living room to the bed in the bedroom, everything was submerged beneath a sea of flames. A lone figure stood in the kitchen.

It was a Spartan in SPI armor. They were holding someone.

Duncan's eyes widened in recognition of the long blonde hair caked in dirt and blood running past emerald eyes too weak to open. Erica was limp, breathing but unmoving in his arms.

He froze as the armored titan walked across the burning room, passing him as though he wasn't there.

Duncan spotted something, the baby highchair in the kitchen. It was empty.

Something deep down told him that he already knew the answer to the question on his mind. He stared at the Spartan out the corner of his eyes. He swallowed, his dry mouth creaking open.

"…Noah?"

The Spartan stopped. He looked back over his shoulder at Duncan and said nothing.

:********:

Duncan awoke with a start.

He gasped for air to extinguish the fire in his lungs. After a few seconds he was breathing easy again. He wiped the cold sweat off his face and looked at his glossy hands.

The DI dormitory was quiet. Faint traces of morning light beamed through the windows lining the rectangular room. Instructors slept in the isles of bunks. The rest of the squad were also asleep in the bunks reserved for them near the back, everyone that is except the Staff.

He looked like he had already been up for some time. He was sitting on his bottom bunk staring idly out a window at the purpling skies. He glanced over at the pale-faced trooper, raising a brow.

Duncan quickly shook his head. "It's nothing, sir."

"That's the fifth time you've woken up like someone was trying to kill you in your sleep private." The Staff replied. "That's not nothing."

"I guess the service is just catching up with me." Duncan sighed.

The Staff didn't look convinced. Duncan didn't exactly want to say that for the past several weeks he'd been having the same nightmare. He ran his hands through his hair and exhaled again. "It's Erica…and Noah. I-, I guess I'm really worried about them. Even sleep doesn't help."

"Noah?" The Staff asked, seeming to catch on to the fact that he still wasn't telling him the whole truth. "You've been with us for almost a year now. Before this, you never seemed to have any more trouble sleeping than anyone else. Only after we came here…"

The Staff left the rest of the sentence unsaid. In doing so he hit the nail on the head and Duncan felt that he knew it too. It wasn't not seeing his family that bothered him most. It was at the back of his mind every day, becoming more pronounced every time he worked with the Spartans, something the squad had been doing a lot of in the last two months.

The ODSTs each found out at their own pace the ugly truth that was Beta Company's existence.

They were all preteens, teenagers, children, classifiable non-combatants, yet here they were being trained for war, and here the ODSTs were helping them.

Everyone dealt with it in their own way.

Deaks was the most well off. The reality on the ground didn't seem to bother him as much as it did any of the resident DIs.

Zack often joked about it with both the DIs and the Spartans in a thinly veiled attempt to cope.

For Duncan it was nightmares. They came to him ritualistically and always revolved around the same topic: Noah in that armor.

The idea terrified him to no end. Still, the fact remained that he was preparing someone else' children for war. A personal sense of fear didn't relieve the deep regret he kept restrained within himself while he worked. All the same it made him pay for his complicity in what, under the laws of all UEG and UNSC colonial charters, amounted to a war crime.

'Why are we doing this? Why are we even here? Maybe we should've just stayed back on the Trafalgar. Maybe we shouldn't have knocked out that ONI agent back on Miridem. Maybe we should've let all those people…oh God, I don't know, but this?'

He could have said any of those things to make it feel like he still had a conscience, and better yet, bring it to the attention of the man that had landed them here in the first place.

He didn't. "How much longer until April 25th?"

The Staff's attention fell on the inspection yard outside. Duncan thought he saw the squad-leader's already heavy eyes burdened further by the sight of the SCPO crossing over it to the dormitory. "Four months."

"Four months is too long." Zack yawned as he shifted in the overhead bunk, cuddling his pillow like a lover. "Someone make time go faster please."

Nova who was on the bunk below Duncan's creaked her eyes open, rolled the bedsheet back and threw her legs out to stretch. "Didn't Ambrose say something about another pod session today?"

"Yeah." Hector answered, rolling over to face them. "I bet Foxtrot isn't gonna take it easy. They've been looking for another go around since last week. I'm just not interested in getting blown up again."

Yuri kicked off his sheets and slid down from his top bunk to start getting ready. Deaks tossed a fresh shirt up to Rico who caught it and pulled it on.

The squad quietly slipped into their normal morning routine. Duncan was sure, however, that they're internal clocks were not all so precisely tuned. They were probably awake that whole time, listening in on their conversation.

They made small talk with the DIs as the room got ready. They were putting into place the last SPI armor components when Mendez walked in, prompting them to stand at attention.

"We're headed to the Pioneer for today's pod training. We're expected to link up with Ambrose and the Spartan IIIs at parade ground Julius in ten minutes. Any questions?"

Zack spoke up. "Are those ONI APs hanging with us this time too sir?"

"I'm guessing you don't like them, Matthews?"

"The opposite, sir." Zack laughed. "I think they don't like me."

There were a few short laughs among the DIs. Even Mendez smirked. "Any real questions?"

No one moved to ask any.

"Good, let's move."

On his word the gathering followed him outside. They headed down the quartz paths leading to parade ground Julius.

The five hundred square meter plain was already occupied by Beta Company. All three hundred Spartans stood in ten platoons of thirty, each facing towards a fleet of Pelicans diving through the dawning skies to pick them up.

Lieutenant Commander Ambrose, ever imposing, stood out front coordinating the loading process. Each platoon split up into halves of fifteen to occupy a given drop bay. As one squadron setoff the others holding overhead would descend to take whoever was left.

Duncan caught sight of the platoon to the far right waiting to be carried off. He recognized those he already knew well enough.

Team Zeta stood out the most simply because he'd had to contend with them for the last sixth of the year. He could tell the one sitting cross-legged as they etched out something in the grass with a combat knife was Jonah. Standing next to him with arms folded in apathy was Roland. The Spartan standing behind them with hands on his hips and head leaning back in nonchalance was Harris. The last one next to him stood at rigid attention with their focus set solely on the last two descending Pelicans. B312 or 'Six' as his teammates called him was seemingly one of Zeta's more disciplined elements next to Roland, with Harris and Jonah on the opposite end of that spectrum.

During his time here no one had exactly told him why 312 had his numerical name except for Jonah who, when asked, told him that his real name didn't matter because ONI said it didn't matter. He explained by counting his fingers: "Three plus one plus two is six. Trust me pal, when on a planet that technically doesn't exist working with people that technically don't exist, it doesn't get much simpler than that."

B312 didn't appear to mind the name. He seemed to accept it without any real problems save for when Jonah overused it to mock him every other minute. Harris was one to cheer on a fight while Roland was one to break them up before they started throwing fists. All four of them were Cat-2s so having a peacekeeper in their group was a necessity.

The four, like the other twenty-six standing in line with them sported black accents on their limb bracers and shoulder pauldrons. Together they formed Black Platoon. Nine others of thirty Spartans each mirrored the pattern of color-coded callsigns.

After the first phase spent testing the individual Spartan teams' cohesion, whose importance the LC regularly stressed, the new goal was to test the cohesion between the teams themselves. The purpose was to move the Spartans towards coordinating as a single, highly functional company.

Today's training was an offshoot of that overall objective. Ambrose briefed them during yesterday's staff meeting that the training would occur at Arena 4: The Agular jungle plains west of Curahee. The location was an open savanna four square kilometers in size with patches of jungle foliage for cover. A few trees guarded the slopes leading up to Curahee's sewage treatment plants at the top of the central hill. The first platoon would be dropped from the Pioneer while in slipspace. Using the LRSOIPs they would land on the Agular Plains and work to take the treatment plants while under fire from entrenched instructors. Once the first batch of Spartans took the plant, they would defend it against the next platoon coming half an hour later. It was using iron to sharpen iron as Ambrose put it. This way the DIs wouldn't get burned out fighting ten different waves of Spartans for five hours straight while the platoons tested and learned from each other's tactics, essentially becoming their own instructors.

Possessing the most experience using the LRSOIPs in action, Epsilon were each assigned to lead a platoon as acting 'Jumpmasters'. They would guide their given platoon through the slipspace drop and subsequent Exoatmospheric insertion. Once they hit the ground, or slightly before, the candidates were free to move on under the direction of their platoon leaders. Meanwhile the ODSTs would either advise or observe from distant watch towers already on site.

Duncan was unsure whether he really needed to tag along once on the ground. Roland, acting as Black-Actual, wasn't one to cause him much concern. Though he occasionally went off the cuff and did something unexpected, Roland-B210 did things mostly by the book. His level headedness made it easy for Duncan to work with him in coordinating their strategies whenever they were on a jump, and he always seemed to have a bird's eye view of the finer details of a given mission.

The bulk of his concerns fell on the rest of Zeta.

Harris-B170 was one for stealth and evasion. He could easily hide next to someone without camo and they wouldn't know he was there until he wanted them to or didn't. That same sneakiness made him an expert at long range reconnaissance patrols, matching the stealth capacities of Lucy-B091, his Foxtrot counterpart. It also contributed to his skills with planting explosives where no one thought possible. That said, his sneakiness made him avoid most combat, although it certainly wasn't out of wariness of the enemy but likely out of some terrifying desire to hunt his targets like prey. He rarely used up more than a single magazine on any given exercise. This was because whenever he fired, he always went out of his way to make sure it was a kill-shot. Duncan worried that his lack of effort on this mission might leave the platoon more vulnerable.

B312 or Six was also something of a hunter. The difference was he was constantly in the heat of the action. That was due to what Roland described as his 'Lone Wolf tendencies'. He often got ahead of his teammates and took down substantial forces of DIs that normally required an entire team to handle. If left to himself, he was easily a one-man army. But his skills were a double-edged sword. They made him less reliant on his team and more of a risk factor to the success of the operation. Though few, there were times when the instructors cornered and neutralized him. Yet there was something more to it. There was a detectable air of jealousy from some of the Spartans outside Zeta, as though they saw him like a parental favorite to the DIs, the SCPO and even the LC. Distrust and envy were never a good mix in a mission requiring teamwork, especially when considering how Six himself was more reserved and almost only interacted with Zeta.

Jonah was nearly the opposite, at least in personality. He would tell a person they were humanity's biggest mistake if he thought it would help cheer them up. It was mostly his own teammates that caught on to his hard-hitting 'humor'. Roland told him that if there was ever one Spartan here that should never have been given active camo, it would be him. He was more likely to go rogue with his active camo to do all manner of mischief behind the scenes. He was also more likely to play it close with seeing how far he could go to neutralize any given opponent while not killing them, although he hated the fact that he couldn't use his knife for more than CQC sparring with other Spartans. He was good at it too, scarily so, with Mendez even having made an off-handed remark once that he had a striking resemblance to A239, whoever that was. The only Spartan he couldn't seem to spar with and win was Six who prodigiously took him down with little problem. That was part of what contributed to the subtle rivalry that always pervaded between the two, though Duncan was certain there was probably some testosterone involved. Super soldiers or not, they were still teenagers, a fact he readily tried to ignore.

Duncan hadn't realized how little he'd been paying attention to where he was staring. Jonah was staring right back at him, cocking his head sideways in imitated curiosity. He then took his knife out of the ground and suggestively slid the edge around his neck-seal before pointing the tip at Duncan and tracing a smile across his own visor.

Duncan grabbed his helmet and pretended to twist his neck, then jabbed his finger back at Jonah. The Spartan's shoulders bounced in laughter. Jonah got up once the next dropship landed and the bay door opened. The last half of Black Platoon came aboard and the ramp came up behind them. The Pelican's thrusters whined to life then roared in their ascendance away from Curahee.

The last four Pelicans arrived for the DIs. Epsilon loaded up on the second one with a few others. Mendez joined them for the ride, sitting next to the Staff. The two exchanged knowing looks.

"Do you think Blue's going to try giving you a hard time this go-around, sir?" The Staff asked.

"Not a chance." Mendez said firmly. He took out a thick Sweet William from his pocket and lit up, exhaling out the smoke while keeping the cigar wedged in his teeth. "Just make sure to keep Red-Actual on a leash. Don't need him giving my boys and girls any more hell than they deserve."

"I'll make sure he doesn't." The Staff turned to Duncan. "Same goes for you and Black, Iris. Everyone else same thing."

Mendez eyed the ODSTs. "Try to keep them from getting too out of hand. For the most part they can manage themselves. That said, you should already know who the troublemakers are. Keep an eye out."

They replied in unison. "Yessir."

The SCPO focused on Duncan. He drew in another long inhale before breathing out the smoke from his nostrils like a dragon. "That goes double for you, private. You don't have to get shot. Just make sure Zeta doesn't get too innovative if you catch what I'm throwing, understood?"

Duncan straightened. "I'll keep an eye out sir."

Back outside, the Lieutenant Commander and an entourage of a few instructors nodded off to them before the ramp came up. The bay door sealed shut. Then they were off, headed through the reddening skies towards the ship waiting in orbit.

:********:

The UNSC Pioneer was an old Halberd-class destroyer from the assembly factories of Sinoviet Heavy Machinery. The nearly 500-meter-long ship had a history of working with Spartans, or so the LC had told them the first time the ODSTs came aboard. What exactly that history entailed was left up to their collective imagination. In more modern times the Pioneer was being used to transport the Beta Company candidates into slipspace for their scheduled drops.

Back in early October when the ship had finally arrived in system the ODSTs spent their second week on Onyx conducting slipspace drops alongside the assistant personnel from ONI Section III. The APs weren't half-bad. They were mostly Marines pulled from divisions of the Corps of Engineers after catching ONI's fancy, or so they said. Cooperation wasn't that hard either except for Zack who'd gotten into a fight with one of them over maintenance.

Training the Spartans came easily enough after that. They were quick learners that adapted unnaturally fast to whatever new information the ODSTs taught them about the pods. It made them even better performers of what they studied.

As of the moment, the Spartans were currently corralled within the ship's auditorium-sized armory on B-deck. The armory was a set of interconnected chambers whose walls were lined with various ordinance. From sidearms to heavy weaponry, each weapon type had its own specified chamber.

There was a ruckus inside the assault rifle chamber as dozens of Spartan IIIs from each of the platoons moved from rack to rack looking to satisfy their personal taste in ARs.

Duncan and Nova were stationed at the two exits to keep an eye on the gathering. However, Duncan found his attention often drawn to one of the several displays mounted to the walls. They showed different perspectives of the Pioneer's drop bay a few decks below. There the Spartans of Red Platoon were making final preparations for their insertion. They would be the first to hit the dirt on Onyx and were expected to set the tone for the rest of the day's operations. The Staff was already sending them to their pods when Nova comm'd in.

"Hey D, eyes up."

Duncan saw her pointing off to her left. He traced her gesture towards the space between the gun racks of the MA5Cs and 37s. There was a small gathering of three taking place there.

Catherine-B320, or 'Kat' as she was known among her fellow Spartans, was talking with her helmet off. She held it against her hip, the visibly Arabian features of her face all working in tandem to form an unimpressed smirk. Jonah and Roland, their helmets still on, didn't seem bothered by what she had to say.

"It's a wager then." Kat said. "If I nail you J, I get 40 credits. Role, you're worth…lets go with 50. Deal?"

Jonah shrugged. "I mean, if you think I'm worth that much then hey, I'm flattered." He pointed to the Grunt-tooth necklace wrapped around his arm. "And if I nail you, I can buy a few more of these. It's a hell of a bite out of my allowance but I think it'll be worth it. What do you think, Role?"

Roland looked between the two determined Spartans incredulously. "You're both dead-set on this aren't you?"

"Yeah." Kat admitted.

"Pretty much." Jonah quipped, then thought better of it as he turned to Kat. "Hey, how come Role's bounty is worth so much more than mine?"

"Three reasons." She held up three fingers and counted them off. "First, think of this as payback for yesterday's match. He shot me in the face. I'm getting him back. Second, he's your platoon leader. I knock him out and I'll put the rest of you off balance when you try to take our position. Third, because I want to."

"You saying you enjoy shooting me?" Roland asked.

Kat's smirk widened. "I hear you give the best reactions when you get hit in your not-so-happy place. I'd like to see that myself. At the end of the day winner takes all."

The two stared each other down for a long moment. Jonah, noticing the palpable tension between them, stepped in. "So, are we all set?"

After a second Roland answered. "Yeah, we're set."

"How about you look me in the eye and say that rather than hiding behind your visor?" Kat said with predatory intimidation.

Roland met her challenge by popping off his helmet, allowing his buzzcut crimson hair and pale, diamond jawline to show. He had a tentative scowl accompanied by light hazel eyes that beamed back at her with the same level of friction, then slowly melted into an equally determined smile. "It's a deal, Kat."

Kat smiled back and slapped him on the shoulder. "Good luck out there Red-Actual." She said in a sing-song voice as she headed off to join her own team. On the way she passed B312. The two nodded at each other with silent respect as they went past.

"Me and Harris are all set." Six said, hefting his MA37 across his shoulder. "Same goes for Echo and Lima. The rest of the platoon is still gearing up."

Roland scratched his head in thought. "Alright, we'll give them some more time. Black will need all hands-on deck if we're going to beat Gold."

"Speaking of which." Six gestured back at Kat who was speaking with Nova. "What was that about?"

Before Roland could speak up, Jonah butted in. "Yeah I think she likes him."

Roland rounded on him with a fresh scowl. "Shut it J."

Jonah held up his hands. "Hey-hey-hey don't shoot the messenger, alright. I'm just saying what I'm seeing. She's the one that said she 'wanted' to shoot you. If that doesn't mean she likes you then I don't know what does around here."

"Lock…that…down. I need you focused on the mission."

"I think you like her too but you're just trying to throw us off."

"J."

"Your kids will look good at least, though that'll probably come more from her side than yours."

"J."

Roland fixed him with a look that finally made him back off. "Alright, alright."

Roland breathed out, shaking his head at him. "What am I going to do with you."

"Make me the Godfather."

"Not happening. Like I told you, I'd trust an Elite with my kids before I trusted you with them, if I ever have any."

"Low blow, low blow." Harris said, having walked in on the conversation with his carbine on his back.

"Nah." Jonah shrugged. "That's a pretty fair assessment."

Roland finally noticed Duncan who'd been watching the entire exchange from the sidelines. He started over to him with the rest of Zeta following after. "Hey Instructor Iris, got a moment? I want to discuss our strategy with you."

"Have at it." Duncan replied.

Roland's next words were cut off when the Pioneer suddenly lurched forward, indicating a slipspace jump. The attention of everyone in the room turned to the displays. The cameras in the drop bay showed the hallways cleared and the two rows of drop of pods lining the exterior were ready to deploy.

After ten seconds the 30 pods rotated in their launch tubes to face the drop bay as the doors opened to the void.

The Staff came in over comms. "On my mark…three…two…mark!"

The lines of stealth pods blew out from their launch tubes and rocketed down into slipstream space like newly released polymer seeds in the wind. Their training kicked in and the Spartans of Red Platoon fell into a spiral formation behind the Staff.

"Enter transition sequence in three…two…GO!"

There was a flash of a pinpoint of light against the dark void, marking the Staff's exit. A string of bright flashes came right after as the Spartans left the alternate space for the real one. The moment they were all gone the Pioneer slipped back into the system.

The destroyer emerged just over Onyx' northeastern hemisphere. Immediately the displays switched, each splitting up into screens of six to capture the individual helmet feeds from all the Spartans. Their names appeared in the upper-right corners to show who was who.

Duncan kept a close watch on the Staff's. He was steering on down through the planet's western hemisphere. A look at his monitors showed the rest of Red Platoon falling into an arrowhead formation with him at the tip.

In less than a minute reentry flames flickered into being across their pods as they punctured the mesosphere. Like comets they speared through the stratosphere into the troposphere, bulleting through the predawn clouds.

At a minute to touchdown the area of Arena-4 came into view. The inclining savanna of the Agular Plains led upwards to the central hill. On top were what to Duncan looked like three bullseyes. The plants' three Clarifiers were a trio of large circular pools with multiple catwalks crisscrossing their diameter like garden lattices. Three large filtration tanks connected to them by pipes, one in the north, another in the south and the final one in the east. The location was hemmed in by a meter-tall wall running the full length of its circumference.

The closer they came the more Duncan could make out the more than two dozen dots moving across the plants. The garrison of DIs down below were taking up defensive positions at the surrounding wall.

"You're up Red-Actual." The Staff said.

"On it." Tom-B292 replied. Four Nav points appeared to the north, south, east and west of the hill. "Break up into your teams and man those approaches. Don't advance until the snipers are setup and I give the order."

Across the board the rest of the platoon winked their acknowledgement lights then proceeded to break off from the formation. Individual teams of four clustered together, bound for their established Nav points.

Drag chutes popped out on the pods, slowing them down. At fifty meters the breaking rockets reduced their speed further before they slammed into the ground. The multiple landings thundered across the surface of the Agular Plains as clouds of roiled earth erupted around the hill.

The Spartans blew the bolts on their doors and leaped out into an unrelenting hail of TTR fire.

From their defensive positions on the hill the DIs homed in on the individual pods, turning the open area into a firing range.

Spartans shot back from behind their pods. There was too much room for precision with standard weaponry, however, since there was still more than 100 meters of space left between them and the hill.

Tom's feed showed him peeking out from behind his pod to squeeze off several three-round bursts at the eastern face of the hill with his BR. The suppression fire allowed one of his teammates from Foxtrot, Adam-B004 to reposition behind the thick bark of a nearby rubber tree. Two other teammates, Lucy-B091 and Min-B174 covered him as well, the former from her pod which she'd wrestled onto its side. Response fire from a ratcheting machinegun put Tom and the others back in their place.

"Red-Actual to Red Platoon, hold your positions. Teams Oscar, Lima, Romeo and Sierra, are you in place?"

Several team-leaders checked in one after the other, confirming they were where they needed to be.

"Good, wait for my signal." Tom looked back at the eastern horizon. The clouds overhead were starting to thin out around the pink sky that gradually turned a bright orange near the world's edge. Tom kept watching it until the fiery orb of Zeta Doradus finally blipped over the horizon. Its light bathed the landscape in the first rays of morning. As expected, the light temporarily blinded the DIs who momentarily stopped firing to reduce their light sensitivities.

"Now, sniper teams take the shot!"

The sniper teams of the platoon squeezed their respective triggers all at the same time, creating what Duncan thought was what a thunderbolt sounded like if it landed within an inch of someone. From within the branches of trees, prone on the ground, behind pods and boulders the 16 snipers stationed around the hill struck at its defenders with unerring precision. On individual displays of more than a dozen sniper scopes showed a drill instructor toppling back after taking a high-powered TTR round to the head, stomach or shoulder. Right away the four concrete bunkers containing machinegun nests went quiet. The DIs left standing quickly ducked behind the wall, effectively bringing an end to the barrage. As it turned out, having more than half of the assault force arm themselves with SRS-99s was a good idea on B292's part.

"Looks like they're out for the count." Lucy remarked with some anticipation as she got on her feet.

"Not yet." Tom said and switched back to the platoon comms. "Teams Juliet, Kilo and Foxtrot advance. Snipers keep up the covering fire. We're almost done here."

The teams lit their green acknowledgements.

Tom nodded at his team. They switched on their camouflage and dashed out into the open. Other feeds showed teams Kilo and Juliet also sprinting across the savanna with their gunsights set on the northern and western hillsides respectively.

Halfway to their objective there was the sound of a loud thump, followed by another in quick succession. Something whistled through the air.

Duncan figured out what it was at the same time as Tom who stopped in his tracks and looked up. A tracer-projectile was arcing down towards Foxtrot.

"Scatter!"

The team broke off, running in different directions. The mortar round detonated in midair less than two meters above ground, painting the area where they'd been standing in red polymer.

Another round landed over the western approach taking out two members of Team Juliet who'd failed to evade in time. On the platoon's collective displays Clark-B275 and Adrien-B340 were marked off with an 'X'.

Foxtrot kept moving.

"Looks like they're not down and out just yet." Adam said.

"No kidding." Min huffed. "We don't have any 440s. My guess is Mendez probably left us another unwelcomed surprise at the top."

"Or a present." Lucy said with a hint of an idea forming in her mind. She looked back at Tom who seemed to catch on.

"Juliet-3 and 4, don't stay pinned." Tom said over comms. "Move up where you can. Kilo same goes for you. Let's see what they're packing upstairs."

Halfway to the hill the surviving instructors manning the walls peeked out from new positions to target the incoming teams. Oscar, Lima, Romeo and Sierra didn't let them get much done, however and either took out more DIs or forced the remainder to keep their heads down.

The Spartans broke up again at another mortar barrage then switched to serpentine maneuvers once a revitalized M247H inside a bunker began stuttering at them. They reached the base of the hill and slid to cover inside a small alcove.

Tom peeked over at the top to spot the bunker and eyed the 20 meters of open incline between them. "Oscar-1 and 2, second machine gun bunker, eastern approach."

Two sniper rounds zipped overhead. The gun immediately fell silent.

"Let's move."

Foxtrot clambered onto the incline and sprinted up its length, covering the lip of the topside with their targeting reticles. No more DIs showed up to challenge them. They vaulted over the concrete wall and landed on a catwalk.

A tactical examination of the situation showed somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 DIs moving from place to place between the individual sewage plants using the interconnecting catwalks. Some ducked behind the wall next to their downed compatriots while sniper fire shot overhead. Others were too busy setting up sandbag positions on the three main bridges to notice the translucent Spartans breaching their eastern flank.

Tom spotted the bunker a few meters to their left that had caused them trouble on their way in. He stepped over and slipped through the entrance.

The M247H inside was mounted to a tripod, granting it a good view of the plains through the wide window slit at the front. Two DIs lay on the floor with red polymer covering their visors. Tom yanked the weapon from its mount and hefted it outside. Telling his team to cover him he marched up onto the nearest bridge.

Two visible DIs were making their way down the opposite end of the bridge when they spotted the floating machine gun.

Tom gunned them down with 10-round bursts each.

Other instructors, now alert, turned to the shimmers advancing along the bridge. Foxtrot exchanged fire with the several closest targets, allowing Tom to concentrate on the hostiles at the other end.

The bridge converged with two others at a triangular platform built over the basin of Plant B. On it were two cylindrical mortars manned by a trio of instructors acting as artillerymen. Tom sprayed down two of the mortar crew before they could get their rifles up. The last got off two shots with his pistol that merely glanced off his shoulder. He finished him off with a 10-round burst.

"Mortars cleared, move up."

Foxtrot pressed on under fire. In doing so they kept the DIs from noticing Team Kilo leaping over the northern wall or Juliet-3 and 4 coming over the west. Both groups commandeered machineguns from silenced bunkers and began putting them to good use.

Sandbag positions fell in seconds as the instructors reeled under coordinated barrages from all directions. Several collapsed after failing to escape along the southern bridge.

The Spartans compressed the resistance into a pocket in the south. The last five-man team of DIs there made their final stand behind a sandbag wall. Three held back the Spartans with their carbines while two tossed primed mortar rounds at them. The combined assault put the attackers on the defensive as they retreated behind the three filtration tanks.

Tom edged around the eastern tank until he was just outside the DIs' effective range. He saw two other Spartans armed with machineguns slipping around the side of the western and northern tanks as well. He nodded to each in turn and waited until a close mortar blast went off. "Go!"

All three Spartans emerged to pour fire down the southern bridge. Their rounds pinged off the sandbag wall and caught two of the DIs in the chest, downing them instantly. The others ducked.

"Adam!" Tom called.

Adam burst from cover and ran past. He dashed down the bridge while they kept up the suppressing fire.

The Spartan leaped over the wall, rolled across the mortar-covered floor and came up with the barrel of his M90 already pointed at an instructor's chest. He fired point-blanc, blowing the target clear off his feet. With the two others flanking him on either side he gun-butted the one to his immediate right in the stomach then rolled over his bent back. He used the same DI for a human shield as he pumped another round into the chin of the second that couldn't get a clear shot on him. Adam swept the last one's legs out from under him and let him fall then finished him off with a blast to the visor.

"We're clear." He called out.

The Spartans came out and gathered at the central platform.

Tom pointed to the different bunkers around them. "We'll setup positions in the bunkers and have the sniper teams bring in our casualties. We've got twenty minutes till Blue Platoon gets here so let's get it done."

The Spartans got to work pulling the fallen DIs out of the way and setting up their own positions.

Back on the Pioneer, Duncan couldn't help marveling at them. It was almost eerie how capable they were in the field. Watching them every day never desensitized him to that fact.

"Sir?"

He remembered that he'd been talking to Roland before the match and gave him his full attention. "You're plan, right?"

"Yessir."

"Is it any good compared to that?"

"Better."

Compromisso – Compromise