Chapter 35 – Nota facies
August 19th, 2552 - (16:55 Hours - Military Calendar)
Epsilon Eridani System, Reach
Viery Territory, New Alexandria
NA Starport
:********:
Christa was on her toes, ready for the outburst that was sure to come.
She had warned him that it was a terrible idea, that trying to get back at Duncan would land him in a chokehold. As usual, he hadn't listened. He never listened. She expected that much though. Sometimes she felt like she knew him better than he knew himself. The best she could do was be there to pick him up afterwards.
That didn't mean she hadn't been shaken up herself.
Their fight was sure to happen the moment Duncan took his helmet off at the hotel. That was one face she wasn't expecting to see. Then again, looking at Noah and back at him, it made sense that he was his father. She didn't know he even had a son, or at least forgot whether he'd ever told her or not. Maybe that was why she warmed up to him so fast.
Maybe that was why Arthur looked so ready to fight him.
Unlike him, she was happy to see that her old friend was still alive, that the war hadn't taken him yet like it had so many others. That fact wasn't too surprising for her. After Kroedis II, after her mother said her last goodbye, she had seen for herself that Duncan wasn't exactly the killable type. He struck her as the sort that would survive Armageddon by the skin of his teeth. So far, he'd lived up to that expectation and she was overjoyed to see it. Not that she got the chance to show it thanks to a certain someone.
"Ready to talk yet?" She asked.
Arthur answered her question by not answering at all.
The second they were back inside Terminal A, he turned off the walkway without her, heading further into one of the seating areas.
She let out a long, stressed breath as she followed him.
They passed by a throng of parents with their children. It made her a lot more self-conscious than she would've liked.
Eventually they came to one of the long windows that walled the ground floor. Arthur didn't bother with a chair. Instead, he plopped down on the sill and covered his face in his hands.
He stayed that way while Christa looked him over. After a full minute of nothingness, she said her piece.
"I know this might sound a little weird to you, but that back there, that's not how I wanted our seeing Duncan again to go."
Arthur said something muffled.
"Can't hear you."
He parted his fingers. "So what? That's got nothing to do with me."
Christa fought down a flash of irritation. "It's got everything to do with you, idiot. You're the one who had to go out of your way to punch him. And what were you thinking anyway? What, figured you'd walk up there, beat him up and settle the score? Is that really what you were going for?"
"What do you think?" Arthur growled.
"I think you're going to get us arrested if you keep it up."
"We already got arrested, Chris." Arthur hissed. "Last I checked, it was his fault for putting cuffs on Hayth."
"Last I checked, he's an ODST, Arty. Hayth was rebel country. Two plus two equals it's his job to stop you."
Arthur's fingers clawed into his face. "Guess what? If I'd have known that, I would've stopped him."
"But you didn't."
"Because I couldn't." He bit back. "I didn't know. Nobody did."
Christa crossed her arms over her chest, fixing him with a knowing glare. "That was the whole point. He was doing his job. He also did his best to make sure we didn't get hurt in the process."
"His best? Like what?"
"I don't know if Duncan hit you that hard, but you're acting like you got amnesia. You were right there in that store the day things hit the fan. You saw him fight off those Jackals. He didn't have to do any of that. But he did. That's why you're still around. You were there, and guess what, so was I." She stopped there, unsure if what came next would be wise to say. "And so was your grandma."
Arthur's hands fell away from his face like dead limbs as he draped his arms over his lap. For a moment, with his back to the window, his features became engulfed in shadow. Watching the way his jaw tightened, she knew she had made the wrong choice.
"I should've done something then." He grumbled. "Anything."
"He's been fighting since we were kids. His friends too, probably. You didn't stand a chance, not then and not now. Get that through your head before you get us in even more trouble."
"Shut up." His tone sharpened as he grasped at his face again.
She shirked it off. It mattered little to her now that their lives had come full circle.
"What's it been, seven years? And you're still holding onto-"
Arthur's bloodshot eyes broke through his fingers and bore into her. "Don't-...don't you dare. Don't pretend like he did nothing wrong."
"Or what, you're going to tackle me? How'd that work out for you just a couple minutes ago?"
He didn't answer.
"That's what I thought. Try it and I'll punch your eye out."
Arthur looked ready to say more but he kept his mouth shut.
Christa took it as her chance to settle things. She sat down next to him on the sill. Taking off her backpack as well as the one he'd left with her, she set them between her knees and unzipped their main compartments. A pair of water bottles stared back at her. She took one out, enjoying the frostiness of its touch. She opened it and took a sip. The feel of the cool water going down her throat was refreshing. It was heaven compared to the hot swigs that Corporal McPherson's men had spared from their canteens. After a few mouthfuls, she reached in and offered the other bottle to Arthur.
He examined it like a deal with an unsavory condition.
She was about to put it back when he snatched it out of her hand. He didn't drink it. Rather, he held onto it almost like a weapon, ready to lash out at a threat that she couldn't see. His eyes darted from place to place, scanning the faces around them.
"I wanted to punch his teeth out." He said. "He deserved that much at least. At least."
"I wish you knew how crazy you look right now."
"We get put smack in the middle of a prison of a refugee camp and he just walks off Scott-free, a wife, a kid, everything?"
"I wish you knew how crazy you sound right now."
"Nothing crazy about it. He took everything from us, from me."
"Liste-"
"No, you listen." Arthur barked. "I know Hayth wasn't your home, but it was mine. You don't get it because you just showed up one day and left the next. Me? I lost my whole town."
Christa tried not to bite her own tongue as her irritation reached new heights.
"You're right." She admitted. "You did lose a whole town. And what did I lose except a whole planet."
The fierceness in Arthur's gaze dimmed a fraction. He turned away from her. "That's-…that's not what I-"
"Hey, at least you didn't see your folks turn on each other. It's one thing to see them hurt by something like the Covenant. It's a whole different beast when it's your neighbor knocking on your door with a gun."
"Look who has amnesia now." Arthur sneered. "I'm sorry, weren't the UNSC the ones who ditched your home first?"
Christa wanted to punch him. She wanted to sock him right in his smug, self-justified mug.
But he was right.
"Then one of them came back and saved me." She argued. "And that's enough for me."
"Was it enough for everybody else?" He dared. "Was it enough for your mom?"
That did it.
She punched him. He raised his arm in time to catch it in the shoulder, but she got him good.
"Now you see how it feels." He growled.
Still heated, she shook her head vehemently. "I'm not here to defend the UNSC, Arty. I don't think anyone who's gotten the short end of the stick from them really can. I can't speak for millions of people."
"So, what-"
"I can speak for one." She grabbed his shoulder and pulled him close. "If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't be here."
She met his scowl head-on, determined to make him see her point at last.
"If it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have needed to be." He ripped his arm free of her grasp and turned away again. Screwing the cap off his bottle, he raised it high and took a long drink.
She considered swatting it out of his hand out of spite. In the end, she decided against it.
Seven years.
It was a lot of time for things to change.
Things had changed.
Arthur hadn't.
She wasn't sure how to get through to him. Then again, she had never been sure to begin with. Since their ride out of the Hicetas System, names like Kholo and Hayth had become taboo to mention. Now they were out in the open again and almost a decade's worth of built-up resentment still clung to them.
She wasn't a therapist. She wasn't a psychiatrist. She was hardly better than a street rat at times.
She didn't know how to reach him, if he could even still be reached.
Then she got an idea.
"Your ball."
"I already heard." Arthur replied. "You lied."
"With good reason."
"What reason? You told me you got that thing off someone else. You didn't mention anything about it being the one I had before."
"Because you would've thrown it out if I'd told you."
He said nothing. He wasn't denying it.
"I figured since Duncan went through everything he did to get that thing to us, to you, I might as well make sure you wouldn't just chuck it out a window. Besides, it's not like you noticed once you got it back."
"Everything looked run down back then." He glanced at his own backpack where the ball was. "So yeah, I didn't. Now that I know though-"
"You're keeping it."
His glower returned, sharper than ever. She put words in his mouth before he could tell her off.
"I've seen you with it. Sometimes I'd catch you up late at night, just staring at it. Face it, Arty, that right there is the only thing that reminds you of home." She leaned in. "It's the only thing keeping you sane. The fact he went as far as he did to get it back to you should get the point across."
"What point is that?"
"That he never wanted to hurt you, or me."
Arthur shot her a wry smirk. "Him? You mean the same guy that just body-slammed me to the floor? That guy?"
She cocked a disappointed brow. "You tackled him."
"He kneed me in the gut."
"You were trying to choke him."
"You're not changing my mind."
"No," She sighed. "I guess you're too stubborn for that. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, right?"
He smiled and tapped his empty water bottle against his temple. "Not if they're not thirsty."
"You're not going to throw it away." She reasserted, bringing the conversation back to the ball.
"How do you know?" He asked defiantly.
"Because you would've done it by now."
In a blink, his defiant expression fell flat, replaced by a placid mask that couldn't hide anything from her.
"I know you, Arty. You don't think things through before you do them. But for some reason," She tapped a foot against his bag and heard the soccer ball shift around inside. "That's still in there."
"Not for long."
"Then go ahead. Do it."
"No."
She cocked her head. "Why not?"
His placidness melted into a look of pure annoyance. "You're not my boss, Chris. I'll do it when I feel like it."
"Because you know I'm right." She said, answering her own question as if no other answer had been given.
He looked her up and down like she was begging for a fight. Then he turned away. Folding his arms, he shut his eyes and laid his head back against the glass.
"You go right on ahead thinking that, Chris." He exhaled deeply. "Whatever floats your boat."
He went quiet after that.
She guessed he was taking a nap. They had had to sneak in a few here and there over the past few days to keep from falling apart. She was still upset. There was more she wanted to say but she left it that. There would either be more time to talk about it later or there wouldn't.
A distant explosion, a sound that had become so ubiquitous to her, also reminded her of their situation. Though she hated to admit it, she was impressed at how easily he could fall asleep given everything else.
She considered trying it herself. Another explosion talked her out of it.
The heatedness of their chat lingered on. Her fingers, without her conscious consent, drifted down towards her back pocket. They reached in, brushing against the crumpled edges of the old paper inside. The feel of it on her fingertips brought her back to her senses. As she pulled her hand back to her lap, she wondered if the time had finally come. She wondered if it would help. She wondered if it would make things worse.
The opportunity was a one-in-a-million chance that had, against all the odds, actually come around. If she was going to do it, now was the time.
In the end, her conscience ruled against it. The risks were too high that it wouldn't go in her favor. She left her pocket alone along with the thing inside of it.
She wasn't sure why she'd reached for it.
'The devil works with idle hands'.
The phrase jumped into her mind. However, as she kept an eye on the sea of faces in front of her, she began questioning if it really was the devil.
:********:
Zack made a mental note not to touch his face as he worked. To him, getting someone else's blood in his eyes wouldn't have gone so well with his evening. His newest work revolved primarily around lifting people up and putting them down. Up from floor tiles or mats. Down onto cots or dining tables-turned operating tables. They were usually civilians, men and women waiting to be treated for first and second-degree burns. However, a growing number of UNSC personnel were being added to the roster of those to be checked and moved.
The atrium near Terminal B, the southernmost wing of the starport, had been converted into an impromptu medical station. Being the largest in the building, it was comprised of a series of interconnected, indoor tents, each compartmentalized from one another via an overhang of curtains. Field medics from the Army's 109th Infantry Division used them as their center of operations. There were several medics for each tent and several times as many casualties for each medic. Though they worked hard at dressing wounds and bandaging injuries, most of their work boiled down to treating burns. Plasma-based injuries made up the majority of the cases. Shelves worth of disinfectants, biofoam injectors, morphine injections and bundles of gauze wrappings were always close at hand. At the same time, they always seemed to be in short supply.
After the run-in with another of Duncan's 'old friends', Zack had stayed with the others for a while to check in with Erica and Noah. From what he had heard, the two of them had made it through a harrowing time back at the Csillagos. He didn't say it out loud. Neither did anyone else. But he could tell the thought was on Rico and Nova's mind just as much as it was on his: Duncan's old 'Irish' luck had rubbed off on them.
Speaking of the devil, Duncan had come back right as they were getting into the details. They left them alone to eat, settling on finishing their chat later.
Zack used the opportunity to make a stop at a supply post that the 109th had made from a utility closet. With a bit of identification, explanation and personal finesse, he managed to get a new set of radio equipment from among the spares of the rear echelon's reserves. He was happy to have one again. The reassuring weight on his back made him more comfortable walking around. Part of him always felt naked without it.
Then at Nova's suggestion, they headed over to the med-station near Terminal B, having heard that it was in desperate need of extra hands.
Renni, as was to be expected, was already there. Yuri was with her, as was also to be expected.
The platoon's resident medic had already carved out a niche for herself amidst her colleagues in the 109th. She became one of only a few personnel patrolling the rows of mats and chairs lining one of the entrances to the med-station. All of them were of course occupied, some by the old, some by the young. Working triage, she went around making assessments of each, matching new arrivals with categories of emergency. Those in category one, 'immediate care, often came in with severe burns or missing limbs. Stretcher bearers came out regularly to escort them inside. Those lower down such as category five, 'less urgent', were usually those with minor bruises that still needed tending to. Like a library of human mortality, they were sorted out and sent to those clusters of chairs or mats that had been designated for them.
That was where Zack came in.
He and Yuri consistently approached families and squads, the latter often carrying limping loved ones and teammates towards the station. The two of them lifted those who couldn't walk to where they needed to be, whether it was an operating tent or an emptier waiting area. Renni's skills likewise remained on hand, doling out biofoam injections and tourniquets like candy.
Every now and again, when he wasn't tag-teaming with Yuri, there were lulls in the action. He would use them to take a sip from his canteen or to sneak a glance across the way.
The station needed as many helpers as it could get. That desperation meant anyone with even basic medical knowledge had been called upon. Field medics had gone about asking questions, drawing out doctors, nurses and certified EMTs from the sheltering crowds.
The young woman they'd saved from the hotel just so happened to fall under the latter.
He wasn't sure how to say her name. It was something like 'Sarah' or 'Shara'. She had somehow managed to survive the chaos of the hotel just like Erica and Noah. That much told him that she was tougher than she looked. She had to be if she had made it through all that. But as he looked at her, he couldn't help thinking of something else.
Still dressed in her civilian garb, she took the measurements of some of the less urgent patients. She moved about from person to person, applying portable instruments whose names he could hardly pronounce. Blood pressure, breathing and circulation measurements came to her one patient at a time. Kneeling at their side, she would record what she'd found on a small datapad before taking up her med-kit and moving on to the next.
Sará, he remembered. That was her name.
Catching glimpses of her, he noticed a discrepancy. Her demeanor and the way she moved seemed knitted together. There was a confidence in her stride as she carried herself. She was focused. Nevertheless, there were moments where that confidence wavered, a flash of surprise here, a worried frown there.
She was still new to this.
For one reason or another, it made him feel old. No, not quite old. Sára was probably only a few years younger. Instead, it made him feel like he'd been in situations like this for as long as he could remember. Despite that, more and more of late, there were times when he wasn't so used to it.
Maybe that was why he kept an eye on her.
Maybe that was why the squad kept an eye on him.
He pretended not to notice. However, ever since the incident with Sergeant Major Duvall's men, he could feel them watching him.
He could sense it sometimes, moments when he felt...off. He did everything he could to manage them, to keep them few and far in between. But he could still feel them. Ever since the start of the year, he could feel them.
Perhaps that put him in a better position to sympathize. Then again, maybe that wasn't what he was going for. He went for it anyway.
He saw his opening when Sára called for assistance. A larger, older man in the third category, 'Potentially life threatening', was caught in a coughing fit that wracked him from the top down.
Zack was the closest. He rushed over as she struggled to get him upright.
"Kell segítség?" Zack asked as he hustled in.
Sára winced with surprise then quickly threw herself back into the task. "Yes, hold him up for me."
He slipped one hand behind his head, another behind his lower back. Together, the two of them raised his torso from the mat. They heaved him against a chair for him to sit against. His ragged breaths slowly subsided. While they fixed him up to make him more comfortable, Zack made a try at breaking the ice.
"Szóval hogy telik a napod?"
She hesitated, watching him out the corner of her eye. "Véres. A tiéd?"
He nodded. "Nagyon véres."
She pulled open the man's shirt to expose his bare chest. She whipped out her datapad, switched it on and ran a few functions. Before long, a snapshot of an x-rayed ribcage appeared on the screen.
"You're not a native speaker, are you?" She asked curiously.
Zack went quiet. He'd been caught red-handed. He had managed to pick up a little bit of Hungarian from Nova over the years. His hope back then was that having a smidge of Reach's mother tongue would help him bag a few of the local ladies, the kind that the blander UNSC Standard English wouldn't appeal to. That hadn't really happened. Well, not yet.
He smiled with mock embarrassment. "No, not really. I just know some words. How could you tell?"
"Your pronunciation, it's a little-" Her pad released a syncopated bleep, drawing her eyes back to the screen. "...Off."
The scan was complete. The X-ray highlighted a section on the right side of his ribs. Zack was no EMT, but to him, it looked like what was left behind when someone erased a chalkboard, only it was spread out like the roots of a weed.
"What's he got, doc?" He asked.
"That's what I thought." Sára exhaled. "Not everyone's here for injuries they received from the last two days. This guy's got pneumonia, single. If I had to guess, something caused a bad flare-up."
She spoke up. "Excuse me, sir, were you anywhere near a fire or damaged vehicles in the last few hours?"
Even with his eyes squeezing shut, the man answered through long breaths. "My family...we were hiding in...our apartment-...the ships...set it on fire."
Zack had heard that kind of story hundreds of times before and still didn't want to know how it ended.
"Smoke inhalation." Sára noted. "We need to get him over to category two; he needs treatment sooner rather than later."
She whipped out a black marker from her pocket, one that the medics had handed out, and wrote on his shirt in large letters: 'PNA'.
"Can you lend a hand again?"
"Sure." Zack sunk his arms under the patient's. Sára took his legs. Again, they heaved him up and helped him to a seat over in the 'Imminent Care' section. An Army medic came up to tend to him from there.
"Think he'll be alright?" Zack asked as they moved off.
"Should be, if he gets treated soon enough."
A distant explosion broke through their conversation, halting them in their tracks.
"Think we'll be alright?" Sára asked.
Zack considered a quip, a nice line he could spin. What came out instead was a brutal honesty.
"You? Probably."
"What, you're not expecting to make it out of this?"
Zack shook his head thoughtfully. "It's not about expecting. You can expect anything you want. Doesn't mean it's going to happen."
Sára put her hands to her hips, a smidge of worry dawning on her face. "So then how can you expect 'me' to make it out of this?"
"I don't."
Confusion creased her expression. She shot him a pitiful look as she turned to leave.
"I just hope so."
That got her attention again.
She raised a brow at him. "You...hope so? Well, that doesn't make me feel any better. Hope's not going to get me out of here now is it?"
"You'd be surprised."
She looked around to ensure no other patients needed her attention before rounding on him. "I'm sorry, I don't get it. How is it you're hoping strangers get out of here more than you are for yourself?"
He shrugged. "It's part of my job. For people like me, the odds aren't always as good. You get what you sign up for, I guess."
"You're telling me you signed up for low odds?"
"No, I signed up to raise everybody else's."
"At your own expense?"
He smirked at her. "Bingo."
Her eyes narrowed on him. "You know, I just met you and somehow you're already making me nervous."
He let out a laugh. "Yeah? Join the club."
He saw that pitiful look return and waved it off. "Listen, when you've been doing something for long enough, you start noticing the patterns. Makes the future a tad less unpredictable." He scratched his head at a troubling thought, as if the act itself would quiet the buzz in his mind. "They tell you your odds are low when you start out. You just don't find out how low until you get where they're sending you. By then, it's already too late."
"So, what does that mean for us?"
"What do you mean?"
Sára folded her arms across her chest. "They sent you here, to Reach. It might not be your home, but it is mine. Since you've been around for so long, what do you think about our chances?"
"Don't say it like that, makes me sound like an old man."
She cracked a small smile. "Aren't you?"
"I'm still in my 20s." His late 20s, sure. When he thought about it though, given his profession, he really was old. Compared to him, ODSTs like the Staff were senior citizens and someone like the colonel might as well have been Methuselah. It didn't make him feel any better about his own chances.
"Just answer the question." Sára said.
The question itself made Zack draw in a deep breath, one he would need for an even deeper answer.
"Like I said, the odds of my getting out of here aren't too high right now." He admitted, earning a renewed anxiousness from Sára. "But maybe that's because I won't need to."
He saw a glint of something in her eye, maybe a spark of hope that just as quickly fell into doubt.
"Why do I feel like you're just telling me what I want to hear?"
"Want to hear or need to hear?"
The reply visibly put her into a quandary. Part of him was only messing with her. The other was drawing on his own sense of the world as it was. This was Reach after all. Losing it was one step down from losing Earth. That wouldn't happen. It couldn't afford to happen with so much on the line.
"Hey, need some help here!" Someone yelled.
They turned to see a soldier in the 'Imminent Care' category. He was supporting a fellow trooper, a squadmate stuck in a chair. Their every breath was a gurgling wheeze.
Sára came running, whipping out a canister of biofoam from her med-kit. Zack took off after her to see how he could help.
She sized up her newest patient. "Sounds like a punctured lung. Listen, I need to get to the wound. Can you take his armor off for me?"
"You got it." The soldier said and reached around for the clasps on his comrade's BDU. Zack jumped in as well to speed up the process. Just as expected, he found a hole in his breastplate left by a Brute spike. The projectile had obviously been removed and the gap filled with biofoam. He could see flecks of dried crust around the wound, the remains of the last foam application. The soldier was heaving harder. Sára took a few wipes to clear away the expired sealant. Then she reached in with the nozzle and squeezed the trigger, spraying fresh coagulant into the abscess. It fizzed and bubbled while it clumped together to give his lungs more breathing room.
The soldier inhaled deeply and shakily. They waited for the injection to level out to be sure that he was okay.
A medic and a pair of troopers came out from the entrance of the tent, the latter bearing a stretcher between them. They lifted the wounded onto the stretcher and swiftly bore him inside, his friend trailing behind them.
The two of them relaxed.
"You're pretty good." Zack said.
Shook her head. "I'm good at the basics. That's it."
"This, this right here is the basics?
She looked at him. "What're you getting at, Helljumper?"
"Plugging up a guys lungs, that's basic?"
She shrugged. "Pretty much. I haven't gone off to study yet. I only became EMT certified about a year ago. I'm no doctor...not yet..."
Zack caught a note of wistfulness in her voice. "You're studying?"
"Was supposed to. I'm not so sure anymore."
He took a look around. There didn't seem to be any more patients in need of a quick fix.
"Want to sit down for a sec, take a break?"
She nodded exhaustedly. He gestured to a seating area nearby. They settled down on opposing chairs. The scene instantly reminded him of a therapy session and he wasn't sure which of them was the therapist.
"Harvard, ever heard of it?" She asked.
"Doesn't ring a bell."
"It's a famous university on Earth."
"That's probably why." He grinned. "Never made it past high school."
She popped a grin of her own. "You dropped out of school so you could drop out of the sky instead?"
"Now you're getting it."
She let out a laugh. "You're crazy, aren't you?"
"Me, no? I'm the sanest person in the room." He changed his voice to a deeper, conniving tone. "Ignore him, he's lying."
She laughed a bit more, shaking her head. "Yeah, you're crazy. But yes, I was supposed to go to college in Sol. Then the Covenant decided to have a say in it."
He gestured back to the med-station. "Think you enjoy all this enough to study it for a couple years? Don't get me wrong, I'm no doc but I sure don't need a professor to teach me about blood and guts. I've seen plenty of that already."
"Enjoy?" The last of her grin vanished. "There's nothing to enjoy about soldiers gasping for air because one of their lungs is collapsing. What I do enjoy is seeing them still breathing after the fact. A battlefield doesn't teach you how to save life in that kind of situation, only how to take it. That's what you do, right? Take life?"
"From those who don't deserve it, yeah. I enjoyed that plenty."
"And now?"
"Now..." Trailing off, he became much more aware of how heavy his weapons were, of the weight of the newly acquired radio on his back. "Not as much as I used to..."
His mind fell to his hands for some reason, balling them into fists on his lap.
"I'm not so sure how much longer I can stay in the business sometimes." He said more to himself than anyone else.
On the edge of his periphery, he could tell she was paying closer attention to him. The concern was palpable. "Is there something else you think you'd want to do? Maybe go back to school?"
School?
He hadn't thought about that word seriously in years. Could he go back to school? What would he even study? Could he be a lawyer, a doctor maybe? No, that wasn't his forte. But could it be? Was there really something else for him out there in the world?
A different kind of question yanked him out of his stupor.
"None of that matters if the Covenant gets to it." He replied. "Until they're not a problem, I'll have to let others do the dreaming for me."
The look on Sára's face said she didn't like the insinuation. "You sure about that? I can see you in a surgical gown."
"I can see you in plenty of things, miss. Doesn't mean you're going to put'em on."
Sára's surprise was immediate, a widening of the eyes, a creasing of the brow, a smidge of red in her cheeks.
A loud voice shouted into the back of his thoughts that he'd wasted his shot. He ignored it. "Expectations, remember?"
"Right, they don't really matter. Or at least not yours?"
Her smirk was back, a bit standoffish yet curious.
He laughed to himself, enjoying the slight jab. "Hey, I never finished high school. What do I know, right?"
"No-no, you're trying to have your cake and eat it too. Admit it, you're a pessimist."
"And what're you, an optimist?"
"God, I hope so. Not everybody can afford to think the way you do. Otherwise, this war would be over by now."
"...Who's to say that wouldn't be for the best?"
She jabbed a decisive thumb at herself. "I would."
The two of them squared off in silence for a short while, quietly testing each other.
In the end, Zack broke the stalemate with a laugh of his own.
"Tell you what, you said this is your home, right?" He asked, replying to his own question with a firm answer. "I'll do what I can."
He got up to leave.
Another question stopped him midway. "Where'd you say you were from again?"
"I didn't."
"But you're going to."
Another stare down. Another loss on his part.
"Luna." He said at last.
"So, Sol then. Alright, if I do get the chance, if I do go to Earth, I'll be sure to keep an eye on it for you."
He held out a hand. "No promises?"
She smiled as she reached out and shook it. "No promises."
"Anybody ever tell you you're sharper than you look?" He asked.
"Anybody ever tell you you're not as dull as you look?" She shot back.
He shook his head, trying his best to hide a smile. "Guess there's a first for everything."
A sudden commotion drew their eyes away from each other. In the neighboring seating areas people were moving about. Nearly all of those on their feet were draining towards the nearest windows. There were a few dozens at first, then hundreds, creating a stir of activity. Soldiers were moving about as well, troopers returning to squads and squads to platoons as they headed to different locations around the terminal.
A noise rose above the clamor. It was coming from outside. He couldn't tell exactly what it was, like a buzzing in the distance.
He spotted Nova, Rico and Yuri amidst the chaos. The three of them were jogging down the walkway with Renni finally leaving the med-station to join them.
He waved over to them. "Hey guys, what's going on?"
"The 83rd's reached the city." Rico said.
"Come on," Nova called. "We've got a job to do. Let's go."
He took one last look at Sára. He shot her a playful salute, one she awkwardly returned.
He hoped he got to see her again. He wouldn't mind it.
Then he was off, jogging up behind the others towards the closest exit.
:********:
Duncan didn't know what to tell them. Erica and Noah, they had seen everything. The fight with Arthur and everything he had to say. In all honesty, by the way things had gone, he was surprised that the kid hadn't pulled a knife on him.
He couldn't believe it when he saw them at first. Arthur, Christa, they'd grown, so much so that he couldn't recognize them until he got a fist to the face.
For years he was in the dark about what had happened to them. It wasn't like ONI to follow up with its one-time field agents either, at least as far as he knew. But how had they gotten here? Where did they come from after so many years?
The only way he could think of answering those questions was to ask it to the two that could speak to it, or rather the only one of them that might be willing to talk.
In the meantime, he had scrounged up a few bowls of soup from one of the food stations that had been set up in the starport's food court. He brought them back over to give Erica and Noah the first hot meal they'd had in days. They were happy to have it of course, although he noticed a longing stare in Noah's gaze as he ate his soup.
He still had questions for them too, so many.
He asked the most important ones first.
He didn't like what he heard. Even though he hadn't expected to, he hadn't expected this.
The hotel, the guests, Ms. Turner, Mr. Mitchell, names he was so familiar with from old conversations were given new life as dead faces in his mind. The Covenant had killed hundreds. He suspected that his family hadn't been far off from that either. Nevertheless, he was stunned into subdued horror when Noah spoke up.
He watched as his son came clean about what happened to him. Apparently, not even his mother had been let in on all the details. It took a great deal of coaxing to get more out of Noah as he verged between remembering his encounters and bawling his eyes out.
Tommy, Daniel, his friends were dead.
Noah blamed himself.
He thought that staying near the school would've been too dangerous and convinced them to find somewhere else to hide.
To Duncan, the saddest part about the whole thing was that they had made the right call. As Erica explained to him in a whisper, she eventually found that their whole floor had been slaughtered to the last man, woman and child. Noah's own teacher who'd been in charge of him hadn't survived. Neither had any of his classmates who were left behind.
Noah made the right decision.
Duncan felt a sliver of pride in that, knowing his son was strong willed enough and resourceful enough to act of his own accord. That went double for a situation where those thrice his age would've either frozen up or simply gone with the crowd. But that pride was dampened and doused by the reality of what happened next. He listened to how his little boy learned a lesson that was often fatal for soldiers in the field, that the best decisions don't always have the best outcomes.
'No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy'. A general of old Earth had coined the phrase. Noah had lived it as he described the way his friends died.
Tommy was the one who was the most introverted of their group, always following them around, never wanting to lead. A kid who should've been busy preparing for the third grade was impaled and blown apart by needlers. Daniel was the most extroverted of the three and tended to take the reins on all their shenanigans around the hotel. From what Duncan had heard, he was the best in the school at gravball. Everyone expected him to become a professional player when he grew up. But he would never grow up. Instead of a place in intersystem stardom, he had bled out, confused and in pain in the middle of a vent, somewhere where no one was ever likely to find him.
The madness of it all made Duncan think back to his days on Kholo, to imagine what it would've looked like had he not beaten the Jackals to that grocery store.
It didn't end there.
After a bit of hesitation, Noah unloaded on them about his brief time with a soldier. It was Lieutenant Walker, the same man-, the same corpse that they had found cornered and mutilated in the kitchen.
The officer had saved his kid's life, and at the cost of his own.
Duncan hadn't known that at the time. If he had, he would've followed Yuri's lead and said a few words of thanks, though of course he would've preferred that the man was still alive to hear them. All the same, he was eternally grateful, adding one more name to the list of those he would forever be indebted to.
It was also that same situation that saw Noah nearly blown up by what Duncan pieced together to be a plasma grenade. The explosion was too far away to kill him but so close that it managed to singe some of the skin on his legs. Duncan hated the Covenant in general, yet that act alone made him hate the Drones that much more.
Noah went on to be hunted by Hunters like prey, saved by Mitchell and the others, nearly blown up again before saving Mitchell's life from a Jackal, only to be shot at.
It was compounding details like these which made Duncan want to ask how they had survived. Even then, he knew how. People like Mitchell, Walker and Turner saw to that. Still, he was always left in awe every time they explained another brush with death.
He listened to how Noah and Erica were there to see Mitchell off in his final moments, how they met Arthur and Christa, how they managed to escape from a Covenant kill team. On and on it went until they reached the part that he could account for, where he found himself in a stare down with his own wife, gun to gun.
The story of their survival in the death trap that was the Csillagos ended there, even if the insanity that was New Alexandria did not.
In his heart, Duncan cursed the war, cursed the Covenant and almost cursed himself. Erica's words kept him from the latter.
They were still alive even if many others weren't.
What if there were others though? What if there were more there? It reminded him of the fact that he hadn't performed a full sweep of the hotel like he had promised the Staff. What were the odds that they had left someone alive in that God-forsaken building, a family or a lost child perhaps? What if it was Emma, Noah's friend who he had no clue where she wound up? He wasn't sure if he would get the chance to go back if they retook the city. If they actually pulled it off, he hoped to high heaven that his family had been the only ones left, that he hadn't abandoned someone to their fate. But a sneaking feeling told him that he would never know for sure, that he would never really want to know.
When the end of the conversation came, it came abruptly.
Erica and Noah didn't get the chance to ask him about Arthur and Christa like he'd promised. Activity stirred around them. The sounds he recognized as a choir of airborne drives came from outside, slowly rising in pitch from somewhere far away.
The Staff's voice reached him through his comm-unit. "Epsilon, regroup at the rallying point. The next evac wave is here. I repeat, regroup at the rallying point."
That was that.
"What's happening?" Erica asked.
An announcement in the starport's PA system drowned out his reply. "Attention, attention, all civilian passengers are to remain in their seats until further notified. Interior security protocols remain in effect."
As the announcement looped, Duncan picked up his rifle and slipped his helmet on. "The next evac wave is here."
"Are we leaving now?" Noah asked.
To this, Duncan had no solid answer. That there was now a chance for his family to escape the city wasn't lost on him. However, he wasn't so ready to have them brave an entire Covenant battlegroup in the air.
What was Command thinking? Was the Naval echelon at Olympic responsible or was it the Air Force back at Lochaber? Either way, after everything they'd been through, he wasn't about to push their luck any further.
"Stay here."
"But-"
"Stay here."
Noah winced. So did Duncan when he heard the hardness in his voice.
He put a firm hand on their shoulders and squeezed beseechingly. "Those ships are still up there. Stay here...please."
Erica saw his earnestness. She nodded and wrapped Noah in a hug, as if to comfort him while ensuring he wouldn't follow.
"Wait." Noah called.
Duncan ignored him. He forced himself to ignore him. He pulled away from them, pushing out Noah's calls for him to come back as he jogged off.
The Staff had planted a Nav point outside.
He followed it through a fray of soldiers enroute to their own rendezvous points, pressing past civilians who had ignored the droning PA announcements.
He pressed on until he got through a checkpoint at one of the entrances.
The world outside the doors was busy, a blur of motion and barking orders. The skies above New Alexandria were even busier.
The evacuation wave was here and it made itself known in the dozens upon dozens of aircraft that zipped and weaved through the city's skyscrapers. Like a flock of migrating geese, they had come down from the northeast and northwest, likely to avoid the corvettes that lurked mostly in the south. The downtown area became their primary focus. However, a number of them still chanced going towards those evac sites closer to NA Central's green zone. They went unmolested save for by the handfuls of Banshees or Seraphs that weren't already engaged in dog fights of their own.
He wasn't sure how the 83rd Auxiliary Wing had found the balls to try another citywide airlift. He got his answer once he spotted the corvettes.
In the pinkening skies of the distant south, the Covenant ships were sparkling.
Their energy shields glittered in places as long exhaust trails stabbed into them. Squadrons of Longsword fighters launched their payloads. They dove from higher altitudes so that their missiles struck from above, negating the predominantly downward facing weaponry of their targets. They rose away just as quickly, shooting up into the clouds to prepare for their next run. Other squadrons had broken up into individual combat actions, cutting away at a reactionary force of Seraphs that had been launched from the bays of the corvettes. They corkscrewed after them, pursuing them with arcs of autocannon fire that sliced and jabbed at their shields until they broke. ASGM-10 missiles gave chase, twisting and twirling in a manner that mirrored their quarry's attempts to evade. Catching up, they consumed their prey in blasts of heat. Their pursuers continued on, passing through the gaseous remains of their foes like baptisms of black smoke.
They were buying time.
Duncan got back to running.
He navigated along the sandbag corridors and supply depots on his way to the Nav point. It came up fast and he reached the landing zone that they had arrived from.
The rest of the platoon was already gathered at the baggage vehicle off to the side. Nova waved him over. He hustled into the conversation with weapon ready.
"We're all here, sir." Nova said.
"Good. Here's the situation. I spoke with the local command in charge of the apron, they need emergency response teams on standby in case the Covenant try for an air assault. They put us in charge of this LZ. There's a depot nearby so grab yourselves some launchers, mark out a position and get set. It's going to be a long night."
"We're evacing civvies right now, sir?" Zack asked.
The question was a redundant one on its surface, but everyone knew why he'd really asked it: the corvettes.
"Civvies, personnel, just the wounded from both. Anyone who's in need of more serious medical attention is getting sent out first. Everyone else stays in place for now."
Duncan heard the truth of what the Staff had said without him overtly stating it.
This was one big test.
They were trying to see if they could still pull off the evacuations. Instead of sending out people with higher chances, people still in one piece, they were sending out those who needed care, those they could afford to lose. An uneasiness washed over him at the thought. He felt even more justified in telling Erica and Noah to stay put.
"You got that radio, Ep-6?" The Staff asked.
Zack knocked affirmingly on the equipment on his back.
"Good. Any more questions?"
None came.
"Even better, now get moving."
The platoon dispersed and made for the nearest supply depot; an artificial room of sandbag walls covered by a roof of corrugated steel. The resident supply sergeant was already aware of what they needed and pointed them to a shelf's worth of rocket launchers and ammunition. They each grabbed one for themselves, loading them up before peeling back outside.
They reassembled at key corners of their designated zone where a Pelican was already landing. They took up critical positions around it, crouching down beside crates, baggage carts and whatever cover there was. The aircraft's door rolled open and half a platoon of Army troopers rushed out: reinforcements for the 109th. Hardly were they outside before a convoy of requisitioned flatbed trucks drove up a nearby driveway. Multiple persons sat on the back of them or lay atop stretchers, both civilians and soldiers alike. Attending troopers disembarked them and either supported them towards the landing zone or carried them as bearers. Close to two dozen people were jammed into the transport. Not all of them could be seated. Those who couldn't were laid down on the floor and fastened into place as best as the crew chief could manage. Within two minutes of its landing, the dropship's rear door was shutting. The pilots hardly gave it the time to fully close as they commenced a hasty ascension. They rose and flew off almost as quickly as they had come, opening the way for a bulky Albatross to make its descent.
A similar scene was occurring on the other landing zones as far as Duncan could see. Aircraft were coming and going with speed. He couldn't keep track of it.
Out of curiosity, he cast a glance in the direction of the corvettes.
They were finally responding. A few Longswords had gotten themselves wrapped up in engagements that had taken them beneath the ships and within their range of fire. Their pulse turrets came to life. Rays of pinkish purple death lashed through the air. The searing lightshow carved through the skyline, catching a fighter in the fuselage here, another in the cockpit there. Those that were struck exploded into bits of burning debris that twisted along under their own inertia. Others descended into death spirals, their last remaining wing insufficient to keep them from dashing themselves against skyscrapers or plummeting all the way to the streets.
It was one of these that Duncan saw screaming its way towards the starport. It was coming in at a wide angle like a paralyzed boomerang. Smoke and exhaust billowed from its rear as secondary explosions flickered through its frame, culminating in a blast of fire that blew through the cockpit, shrouding it in a brightening smog. At this, it seemed to pick up speed.
A commotion started on the apron as others saw it coming. Soldiers were running, calling for others to do the same. For what it was worth, the platoon remained unmoving. They stayed at their posts, able to tell that the fighter was going to miss them.
And it did.
The wreckage careened overhead before passing out of view.
Seconds later, there was a loud splash of water and a shriek of dying metal. The fighter had crashed down into the harbor beyond the perimeter fence.
With one threat out of the way, two more took its place. A pair of Banshees boosted towards the starport from the direction of the harbor. They were still 100-meters out and Duncan was already locking on. A quarter of the platoon were doing the same, those close enough to claim the pair as within their area of operations. A red diamond appeared over the rightmost target in his optics. His launcher bleeped. He fired once. One rocket flew out alongside five others.
Machinegun fire from somewhere else on the apron started to lick at the fighters from below. They struggled to weave away from it, rendered almost heedless to the flurry of six bright orbs that matched their every move. None missed. The pair were quickly reduced to luminous vapors that guttered out of existence.
Duncan heard more launches at his back. He peeked over his shoulder as a flurry of a dozen rockets raced after a trio of Banshees. The three flyers came from the west, having flown down from on high for an attack run that they now abandoned, each turning its own way to escape their pursuing demise. None of them escaped. Trails of exhaust sprouted into the air like long vines that ended in buds of bright blue detonations.
Behind the platoon, the last batch of some 50 wounded personnel and civilians were carried into the large cargo bay of the Albatross. Their able-bodied helpers got clear, and the bay doors began to rise.
"Seraph, 200 meters east!" Mito called out.
The platoon reoriented themselves accordingly. They spotted the Seraph soaring towards them from the direction of Traxus Tower just a half kilometer away. It wasn't fleeing from a battle but heading into one. Its bomb bay doors peeled open as it made a beeline for the starport, for the Albatross.
"Troopers, get on it!" The Staff ordered.
Their response was swift, a combined barrage that went out in phases. Those whose AO it fell into were the first to fire. Those behind followed up thereafter. Well over a dozen rockets raced towards their newest foe in two groups. The first set reached it and struck its shields, flaring them yet ricocheting off their surface. The second group irritated the translucent barrier as well but to little effect.
The fighter forged on.
There was no time to reload or to find a new strategy. Still, they tried. To do anything less would mean certain death.
Then a burst of machinegun fire jabbed into its shields. An autocannon barked as a shadow zipped overhead. A Pelican zoomed into view, its forward weapon tearing into the approaching fighter with rapid blows. Each one reaped greater and greater damage, eventually puncturing its shields and ripping its hull, forcing the craft to bank off.
The platoon didn't let it get away. It turned south towards the mouth of the Hornád. Another two groups of over a dozen rockets turned with it. They raced over the waters of the harbor where the first group closed the distance, pummeling its bare frame like hellish fists. The Seraph powered on through the inferno only to feel the wrath of the next. The second group gouged into its armor. Coolant and flames hemorrhaged from wounds in its hull. It was too slow to escape. A few straggling munitions burned after it and exploded against it. The Seraph reached its breaking point and came apart in a whirlwind of destruction.
Duncan slapped a fresh rocket into his launcher to keep the other one company. He didn't want to chance another close call. Neither did anyone else.
Behind them, the Albatross was lifting into the air. Nearly 20 meters up, it turned and flew off.
The Pelican from before, the same one that had saved them, wheeled back around. It came to a stop above their landing pad and commenced its own steady descent.
It hadn't even landed before a new convoy of several Warthogs appeared, driving out from the surrounding maze. They pulled in alongside the landing zone. Troopers disembarked and dispersed. They rushed to-and-fro, practically ignoring the ODSTs at their backs as they formed an additional layer of defense around them.
"Anybody ordered some backup?" Zack asked. "I mean, I'm not complaining but-…"
"No, this isn't backup." The Staff said. "It's a red carpet."
"For us?" Hector quipped. "They shouldn't have. Now where's the limo?"
"It's not for us." The Staff replied, peering back at the Pelican as it finally touched down.
The rear door let out a low hiss and slowly fell open.
From Duncan's position, he could see straight inside. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as boots twice the size of his own came clomping down the ramp.
A shock of fear and awe ran through him at the sight of the skull that stared back at him.
It wasn't a skeleton exactly but one carved into a pearly gold visor, almost like a nightmarish Rorschach test. Twin bandoliers of M319 grenades draped down from the Spartan's shoulders and around his waist while a large pauldron on his left shoulder bore some kind of angled blade, a kukri if he remembered correctly. The Spartan came out first, carrying a shotgun against his chest plate with a subtle leisure even as distant explosions reflected off the bulb-like helm on his head.
In contrast to the Spartan of gray and red came one of greenish sage. He seemed to be the polar opposite of his counterpart, carrying an SRS-99 sniper rifle instead of a shotgun. It matched his overall aesthetic given the greenish burlap and jute twine collared around his shoulders, the 14.5-millimeters strapped to his arms and the narrow visor that incidentally turned him into the most ninja-like Spartan Duncan had ever seen. He was more on guard and scanned the skies with his rifle as he went.
The third came right behind the second. The first thing he noticed was the right arm, or the robotic prosthetic of whirling gyros and shifting pistons that stood in the place of one. By their figure, he judged that it was a female Spartan. Her silvery visor was the closest of the group to an ODST's, although her armor diverged in both tech and quality, possessing a kind of light blue hue. Her M6 was drawn but not raised as she stepped out. Her attention drifted towards her entourage, shifting quizzically from face to face and visor to visor.
The last to emerge was a figure of darker blue armor. He bore an even larger shoulder piece than the first and a visor almost as narrow as the second. A DMR was on his back, given the appearance of a child's toy in comparison to his size. Though he carried nothing in his hands, his bearing was like a weapon in and of itself. He moved with the air of an officer without even trying to. This, Duncan knew, had to be their leader.
In the several seconds it took him to take everything in, the team had cleared the Pelican and walked past him.
An Army lieutenant stood at attention beside the convoy, saluting the leader as the team approached. There was a short conversation before they got moving. Sadly, Duncan was too caught off guard to hear any of it. The four new arrivals loaded onto the two lead Warthogs, the one with the skull purposefully jumping up behind one of the turrets.
The rest of their entourage returned to their vehicles. The convoy drove on into the labyrinth of sandbags and disappeared.
In the seconds that followed, Duncan realized something else.
They were giants among men like most Spartans. But his memory wasn't so faded as to forget his first encounter with the supersoldiers. These newcomers were big, but the Master Chief and his team had been slightly bigger. That told him that they weren't of the same generation, of the same program as the Chief. Perhaps that was why the only ones making a buzz about it over comms were the members of Squad Whiskey. Everyone else, everyone who knew, looked on in quiet thought, wondering, suspecting.
"Ep-1?" Hector called at last.
The Staff said nothing for a while.
"...Focus, troopers. We've still got work to do."
They did, Duncan thought. However, he couldn't really focus on it. His mind and its wonderings were instead at a loss as to just how small the galaxy was, or perhaps how small the Covenant had made it.
Nota facies - Familiar faces