Halo: Feet First

by MikeDice

Halo: Feet First covers the story of a team of UNSC Orbital Drop Shock Troopers of the 7th Battalion, 105th Shock Troops Division. The main character, Duncan Iris, faces the full horror of the covenant war effort against humanity as well as the brave retaliation of outnumbered and outgunned UNSC forces. However, he also witnesses the turning of the tides as the war progresses.

179. Battle of Reach - Chapter 52 (Audi)

Chapter 52 – Audi

August 23rd, 2552 - (21:00 Hours - Military Calendar)

Epsilon Eridani System, Reach

Viery Territory, New Alexandria

:********:

Duncan watched the world pass by through the small viewport in the dropship's bay door. There wasn't much to look at. The viewport itself was a minor portal of glass that offered a constrained view of everything outside.

They were well above the fog that had drowned the lower part of New Alexandria. It felt like being in an entirely different world, one not made of solid ground and smoking residences but open air and burning skyscrapers. Most of the buildings they passed were dark and quiet, their windows as shadowy as the abandoned interiors within. Some shone brightly as torches in the night. Infernos born from the very outset of the siege were consuming 10 to 20 floors worth of infrastructure, causing long tails of smoke to flow out along the easterly winds like blood in the water. A minority of buildings, however, were still well-lit thanks to emergency generators that continued to run somewhere in their depths.

It caused Duncan a good deal of confusion on what he guessed was a subconscious level. The majority of the skyscrapers were little more than titanic silhouettes against the pinkish purple backdrop of the evening sky. Those he could see clearly were either fully intact or on fire, creating the surreal impression that the city itself was both enjoying its accustomed nightlife while also burning to the ground.

"Well, that's just beautiful, isn't it?" Mito snickered.

Duncan was about to say something when a loud groan rushed through the bay. Outside, he caught the roof of a passing skyscraper as the dropship suddenly rose above it.

No, he quickly realized. The dropship wasn't rising. The building was falling.

He watched smoke billow out from its rapidly crumbling floors as it leaned forward and began folding in on itself. As more debris exploded out from it, it commenced a bellowing plunge, sinking into the fog like a dying ship. Less than a few seconds later its roof dipped below the mirk, leaving a vaporous hole in its wake.

"Never mind." Mito said.

"Spoke too soon." Nova jibed.

"Shouldn't have said a word."

"Not that it'd make a difference." Hector replied. "This whole thing is falling apart without anyone's say-so."

Zack let out a sigh. "Hope it doesn't fall on top of us. Better yet, let's hope it drops on that listening post before we get there."

"Speaking of," The Staff cut in. "Noble-2 uploaded the details on our target. Check your TACMAPs."

Duncan opened his on his HUD. A map of the city flitted onto his visor, a holographic layout of the whole of New Alexandria, mountains and all. The view auto-zoomed to a location in the northern quarter not too far from the coast. It focused on a small section that slowly moved in conjunction with the fly-sized portrayal of their Pelican.

"That's us, right?" Zack asked.

The Staff nodded. "And this..."

They watched their maps pan quickly to the south, cycling through the downtown of the city before slowing upon a location in the midtown area. It zoomed in to a view of a building highlighted in red that was set on a narrow strip of land. The land itself was nestled between two major tributaries of the Hornád River. Further magnification turned the structure into a fist-sized projection of a bureau shaped building. Standing some 20-stories tall, its walls bore the spreadeagled banners of the UNSC, further accentuated by the name written in bold at the top of its west wing: 'Army ROTC'.

"Is our target." The Staff finished. "To be specific, our target is on the roof."

Another magnification brought greater focus to the top of the building. Four Shade turrets monitored the rooftop, one for each corner. Aside from that, the rest of the roof itself formed a U-shaped curvature around a slightly lower section, an elevated terrace. There, a new shape glimmered into being.

At first glance, it appeared as a giant pistachio nut mounted atop the clawed legs of a tripod. A platform girdled the connection between the supports and the main body. A red blip continued to flicker from the pistachio-like top of what Duncan assumed was the Covenant listening post, highlighting the edifice in a hostile hue.

"They really had to pick one of our own buildings?" Yuri pondered aloud, the sound of his cracking knuckles echoing through the bay.

Renni shrugged. "Insult to injury."

"That insult is about to cost them an injury."

"Are those Shades?" Hector groaned. "Well, that's just great, isn't it?"

"Why do you think I had you pack so heavy?" The Staff replied. "We're looking at a forward operating post, pylon-type. We don't usually run into this kind of thing in the field but there's a first for everything. Here's how we're going to run this."

Duncan watched the map expand back out to the general vicinity of the ROTC Building before abruptly shifting to a vertical view, providing an angle on the ground from an aerial perspective. Nearby, the pair of snake-like tributaries blinked twice with yellow highlights, marking out their positions to the immediate east and west of the target. Subsequently, a quartet of bridges were highlighted in the same yellow glimmer. With a matching pair both to the north and south of the ROTC Building, two of them vaulted over the rushing waters of either tributary, acting as supports to the local highways that passed through the area.

"We'll split into three teams. One will head straight to the target building to carry out the demo op while the other two will be dropped off to provide fire support from the bridges. I'll be leading Team 1 with Ep-4, 7, 8, 9, Whiskey-1 and Whiskey-5. We'll be taking the scenic route directly to the listening post. Ep-2, you'll be leading Team 2 with Ep-5 and Whiskey-3. Team 3 goes to Whiskey-2 with Whiskey-4 and Ep-10. You'll both be getting dropped off at the bridges on the north side."

"Have fun dealing with all that, Whiskey-4." Mackley grinned, setting the body of his newly acquired SRS-99 between his knees.

"What do you mean 'all that'?" Daz shot back.

"Guess it's back to the basics. I get saddled with my usual peashooter, and Mr. Spotter over there has to handle taking your orders all by himself."

"Basics?" Daz hissed.

"Spotter?" Lang huffed. "I'm sorry, who's the one that broke their arm and gave me the gun?"

"Like I said, that's only 'cause a Brute was about to take a hammer to my face." Mackley retorted.

Daz cocked her head accusingly. "Might've done you some good."

"Come again?"

"I've seen your teeth. A dentist couldn't fix that."

"Why don't you-"

"Save it." The Staff cut in, shutting down the conversation. "Getting back on topic, Team 1 will be hitting the roof. Teams 2 and 3, you'll be dropped off first. I'll have Vulture come in low and set you down on either end of those north side bridges. We'll wait until you give the greenlight that you're in position before we move in. Once we've cleared the roof and secured that listening post, Whiskey-5 will get started with the demo-charge. Ep-8, while he's busy with that, I need you to dig into any information systems they might have available. If there's a chance that we can sneak into their battlenet, we're taking it. Snoop around, see what you can see, then we'll pass that intel on to Noble-2 and set that thing off, maybe even save a few more lives while we're at it. Understood?"

"Ay-ay." Reznik chimed.

"We'll be on it." Dalton added.

Duncan nodded to himself. "I wonder if they'll have a nice, friendly Engineer to lend a hand. I hear they do that sometimes."

"I don't think we're that lucky." Nova replied. "But hey, who wouldn't help out if they've got a gun to their head?"

"Me." Yuri propped up his rifle on his lap, as if daring anyone to disagree.

"It doesn't count if you have one." Zack pointed out.

"Guns, knives," Yuri flexed his fingers. "Bare hands. Anything is a weapon if you're creative enough."

"And if I get my hands on another chocolate bar?" Hector asked teasingly, still watching the viewport. "Is that a weapon?"

"You can choke someone with chocolate, right?"

Renni turned to him with the soft-spoken tenor of a concerned schoolteacher. "Anybody ever tell you you're an exceptionally violent person? I mean, we're not that much better off, but what's a job to us is a hobby to you."

Yuri gave her a wide, toothy grin. "I love what I do, and I do what I love."

Renni stared at him for a moment then nudged him in the ribs, holding back a laugh. "Coming on a bit too strong there, flyboy."

Yuri thought about it, winced at some personal realization and held back a cackle of his own.

Nova shivered. "Dear God, someone stop him before he gets to haikus."

"Alexandria", Mito began. "Burns like a candle aflame. And we'll leave it so."

The entire cargo bay fell silent as the others turned to him.

"What was that?" Zack asked.

Mito shrugged. "A haiku."

Hector let out a laugh. "Shakespeare must be rolling in his grave right about now. Tell you what-...what's that?"

Duncan perked up. He'd heard it too, the distant, high-pitched whine of plasma weaponry.

Not even a second later, the Pelican trembled all around them at the power of several booming impacts. Thoroughly jarred, rifles and launchers snapped into their owners' hands.

"Hostile AA!" The pilot cried from the cockpit. "Buckle up!"

Duncan braced himself as the dropship made a rapid tilt onto its starboard side. He found himself looking up at Reznik as the wall became the ceiling, a momentary weightlessness stealing his breath. A flash of fear boiled in his gut. He could take falling in an HEV. They were built to hit the ground hard and fast. Pelicans weren't, and he tried to steel himself while Vulture-5-2 gave a whole new meaning to the term 'dropship'.

Another salvo thundered just outside, lighting up the quaking cargo bay. Duncan watched the puffs of electrified smoke fall away beyond the viewport.

After several long seconds, the Pelican eased off its speed. It gradually leveled off as the pilot pulled out of his starboard dive, returning the bay to its normal orientation.

"Are we clear?" Daz hissed nervously; teeth clenched.

"Heads up, we've got three Banshees on our six." The pilot warned. "Hey ODSTs, can I get some help?"

Duncan peered through the viewport and saw a rush of movement following after them, bobbing in and out of view. The blue contrails they weaved in their wake were unmistakable. So were the bursts of plasma fire that lashed out at the Pelican.

"Ep-4, 9, you're on it." The Staff ordered. "Ep-8, Whiskey-5, back them up."

Hector and Mito angled their rocket launchers towards the door. Reznik pulled out his M319 as Duncan gave the thumbs up.

The Staff nodded back. "Vulture-5-2, we need a shot."

The groan of hydraulics was followed by the creaking of the bay door. It hadn't fully opened before they found a line of sight on the closest Banshee. It was coming down after them from a higher altitude, its most recent burst of plasma striking against the top of the dropship.

Hector was the first to get a lock-on, firing off a pair of rockets that zoomed out of the bay. Closing the 30-meter distance in two seconds, they whisked up into the approaching flyer, delivering a one-two punch to its underbelly that smashed it off course. Wreathed in fire, it wheeled towards a passing building on their right and crashed through a set of burning windows, disappearing into a belch of flames that blasted back outside.

By then the door had fully opened and the other two flyers were in sight, both coming at a less steep approach. The one on the furthest left barreled even further left, letting Mito's rocket wisp past its fuselage.

The other wasn't so attentive while it made a beeline for the portside wing. Duncan noted immediately that it wasn't firing. His hunch guided his aim, quickly squeezing off a grenade and letting it arc into its flight path. He waited for the flyer to come within 20 meters, letting his shot glide just beneath it before setting it off. The explosive uppercut bucked its face into the air. A fuel rod raced out of its cannon, its emerald reflection surfing across the windows of another building before the touchdown blew into an upper office. The flyer angled down and fell like a rock. Mito's second rocket curved down after it. The flyer dove into the sea of evening mist that hung over the lower parts of the city. Its death closed in on it. Both disappeared from sight a second before a brief blast of light echoed through the fog.

"Hey, you didn't leave any for me!" Reznik growled.

Almost on cue, the last Banshee barreled back into view, lining up its energy cannons with the open bay.

"You sure about that!?" Mito quipped as he fumbled with his rockets.

Already reloaded, Hector wasted no time locking on, sending out another rocket on a straight path for the flyer.

The Banshee managed to fire off a short burst from its plasma cannons that lashed into the bay, forcing the platoon to duck their heads and press into their seats as flickers of blue streaked into the interior. Duncan ducked in time to avoid a bolt that sizzled into his headrest. He could hear the crackle of the heat tearing into the foam while he struggled to load his next grenade.

Finally, the approaching rocket forced it to cut off its attack as it rose higher before diving down. Its flight plateaued at the exact moment that Reznik's grenade whistled overhead. A twitch of his trigger finger exploded it, the buffeting blow casting a net of electrified energy that seized it from end to end. Its head dipped and it seemed as if it was about to fall, but the arrival of Hector's next rocket blew it back into a twirling somersault. Mito's explosive duo chased it. The aircraft attempted a flare of propulsion from its failing drive that merely hastened its descent into an apartment balcony. It crashed off the railing, correcting its head over heel flip into a wing over wing tumble. The incoming rockets kept up their pursuit. One caught it in the side, channeling into a detonation that dismantled the craft on a structural level. The last rocket caught it in one of its spiraling wings, further obliterating the falling debris field that rained across the fog.

"Clear!" Mito declared.

Duncan remained on guard with grenade launcher raised. He heard more gunfire from far away and looked up. Back the way they came from and at a much higher elevation, he spotted a skyscraper that they must have passed a few seconds earlier. On its rooftop, a variant of Shade turret was engaged with a target that was just out of sight. The Covenant emplacement possessed a blue sphere of energy shielding that encased its carriage like a luminous bubble. Its gunner slowly swiveled left to track the shape that flew over the roof, revealing itself to be a Falcon. It banked around in a maneuver that lowered its target profile while giving its machine gunners the chance to pour into the enemy. As a burst of anti-aircraft fire detonated in the air beside it, the pilot chipped in with the autocannon. Three succinct five-round bursts finally broke through its weakening shields, allowing a fourth to reduce it to a puff of fire in the night.

With its job done, the Falcon turned away and headed off into the west.

Duncan wondered if it was the reason why the Shade had stopped coming after them, especially since he could tell their last maneuver had still left them well within its sights. He couldn't help thinking it was Kilo-9-2 being their guardian angel for the millionth time, even if unknowingly. Whatever the case, he said a silent thanks to the Falcon's pilot as it disappeared into a neighborhood of tall buildings.

"Thanks for the save." Vulture-5-2 said. "Mind if I keep the backdoor open in case anything else tries to tail us?"

"Why not?" The Staff replied. "We could use the breeze."

:********:

The rest of the flight was smoother than anyone could have expected. Duncan marked their progress not so much by what lay ahead of them as how much of the city had passed them by. The air, still damp from the evening rain, whipped and whistled into the bay. It provided a ghostly atmosphere to a scenery of dark structures and bright burning skyscrapers.

Every now and again he caught glimpses of aircraft passing through the local airspace. They were almost always Banshees, Seraphs, Phantoms or Spirits. Most flew alone, some in groups. None of them, however, seemed to pay any mind to their lone Pelican. He was happy to keep it that way. The more run-ins with the enemy they had along the way, the less they would be able to rely on the element of surprise. It would be hard to get the jump on the listening post if they had a full Banshee squadron breathing down their necks for the trip.

Vulture-5-2 stuck as close to the surrounding buildings as possible. While dark, their massive shadows added additional cover to their movements. It hid them outright from any distant observers and obscured their shape to any that cruised close by.

Duncan passed the time checking his weapons, counting his grenades and deciding on which bandolier to run through first. It was mostly to break the tedium of having nothing to do and nothing to shoot. As always, however, he could feel himself drifting off into thoughts that could hold his attention for minutes on end.

How far were Erica and Noah?

He wondered if they were still in Epsilon Eridani. He doubted it, but he didn't rule it out either. Too many things had gone wrong in the last few days, in the last few hours, to honestly rule out anything. Zack hadn't told them any reports of civilian transports in the region being intercepted by Covenant ships in orbit. Whether that was because nothing out of the usual had happened or if there was no one left to call it in, he had no solid guess for either one. For the sake of his own sanity, he leaned towards the former.

"Two minutes." Vulture-5-2 said.

"Copy." The Staff replied. "Alright, Team 2, get set. Team 3, you'll go right after them."

Nova nodded, reshouldering her DMR. "Roger."

"Roger." Daz echoed.

The Pelican made a turn to port that pulled them off their southerly course and onto an eastern heading. Far below, the buildings gave way to the walled off banks of the Hornád River. The waters running along its current were a rushing tide of darkness punctuated by foamy white waves that flowed back northward.

Then the river passed, and he was looking at the watery edge of a tributary. It wormed away from the path of the Hornád within the confines of a retaining wall. Two streets girded it to either side that ran along the elevated safeties of guiderails. There was no activity below. Duncan knew that would be changing in a few seconds. In just five, the course of the tributary curved off to his left, cutting south through a neighborhood of apartments on a parallel heading to the river itself.

The Pelican turned with it and commenced a gradual descent.

"First drop-off point, 10 seconds." The pilot said.

Nova disengaged her restraints with Yuri and Mackley in tow. The three of them used the overhanging ceiling handles to pull themselves towards the door as the scenery of the outside neighborhood rose up to meet them. Further along the sidewalk, the end of their first objective came within sight, a small bridge with an arcing alignment of glass panes that hemmed it in. With its build, it lunged over onto the opposite side of the tributary's retaining wall. The Pelican eased down into a clearing in the middle of the street. As it came to hover half a meter off the ground, Nova ran down the ramp and jumped out, her boots splashing into a street-wide pond. Yuri and Mackley landed after her and followed her lead along the columns of cars hedging the path to the bridge.

The Pelican rose back into the air, stopping again 30-meters off the ground. It flew down the street for a short distance, staying low and moving slow to minimize the noise signature of its fusion drives. It leaned into a left turn, passing down the T-shaped junction of a three way that fed into a neighboring bridge. The bridge in turn fed into what quickly turned out to be a long avenue.

Duncan's first guess that little fighting had taken place in the area came from his examination of the bodies below. They were mostly civilians. They were packed tightly together around old blast craters or strewn along the sidewalk within pockmarked paths indicative of strafing runs. He didn't see any Covenant or UNSC personnel, only the bodies of those who had died on the first day. The rain somehow managed to bring out a rancid meat smell which wafted into his helmet filters with an oppressive consistency. The corpses had been left out to rot for almost a week. Now with the order to withdraw, they were probably going to be left that way until the last bone disintegrated into the asphalt.

He'd seen it scores of times before. He never thought he would see it here.

To his unspoken relief, Vulture-5-2 passed over another of the Hornád's root-like tributaries and made another left, taking the cadaver-congested avenue from view. In its place was a new north-south road like the one where they'd dropped off Team 2. The dropship flew on until a bridge similar to the first two passed by them, then another. They slowed after just passing the fourth and made a muted descent that ended in a stationary hover.

Daz removed her restraints alongside Lang and Renni. The three of them marched down the ramp and hopped onto the road. They kept their heads down while they navigated a vehicle-laden route towards the bridge, one Duncan measured as being directly opposite from Team 2's.

"Vulture-5-2 to Ep-1, is it about that time?"

"Not yet. My troopers will need another minute before they're ready."

"Roger, I'll back off until greenlight."

Duncan felt the Pelican rise again and bank into a rightward turn, pulling them up and away from the road towards a nearby building. They rounded to the back of it and commenced a careful ascent towards the heights.

No one said a word for a few seconds, instead taking the time to conduct final weapon checks.

Then the Staff spoke. "Team 2, 3, how're we looking?"

"In position." Nova said.

"In position." Daz parroted.

"Good. Whiskey-3 and 4, prioritize those Shades. Don't leave them any AA support."

"Roger," Lang replied. "East side Shades are already dialed in."

"I have the west side locked down." Mackley added. "Just say the word."

The Staff nodded and turned to the door to the cockpit. "Vulture-5-2, greenlight. Take us in."

"Copy."

The pilot began steering them the rest of the way around the building. Finishing the 180-degree turn, the whine of the dropship's drives lowered into a deep rumble that saw their growing speed accelerate into a roaring flight.

The Staff's order came through. "Whiskey-3, 4, execute."

Even over the noise of the drives, Duncan heard two high-powered shots ring out, followed closely by two more.

He undid his restraints and rose to his feet with everyone else. They grabbed ahold of the ceiling handles for the ride down.

Hector hefted up his rocket launcher as the cityscape rapidly panned past. "Here we go."

Duncan tightened his grip on his M319, counting down the remaining seconds in his head: 'Five...four...three...two...'

The Pelican suddenly slowed as the beginnings of a rooftop appeared below. Hector and Mito were the first out, rushing down the ramp and leaping out onto the roof. The dropship was still on the move when Duncan ran and jumped, his boots crunching into the gravel. Reznik landed beside him with the Staff and Dalton hitting the ground a second later and a meter further.

Vulture-5-2 flared his drives, the resulting burst of air sending a gale of gravel spattering across their armor. They were already firing before it cleared, and by the time the Pelican rose away from the roof, Duncan gained a solid idea of what they were shooting at.

At either end of his periphery, to their left and right were Shade turrets. Both were offline. Their Grunt gunners lay slumped in their seats, flecks of blue brain matter splattered across their controls. Established between them was a staggered line of Covenant defense barriers and portable shields. Sprinkled across them were two squads of Grunts and a team of Jackals. All were wearing ornate, white-painted variants of their usual armor patterns. The Grunts with slit visors and the Jackals with angular helmets were less of a surprise compared to the pair of Elites among their number.

Duncan couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Elites in the city. He especially couldn't remember the last time he'd seen any of their type. Their silvery bronze armor sported narrow eye visors as well as a sloped helmet that jutted out into a pointed nose and chin.

Spec Ops.

The world sped back up for him. By then the last of the gravel had blown away and a quartet of rockets were nearing their targets. The four fireballs slammed into the defensive line one after the other, the first engulfing a portable shield and the pair of Jackals sheltering behind it, the second bashing through a section of defense barrier, the third landing within a group of Grunts and sending them flying. One of the Spec Ops Elites jumped out of the way of the fourth only for a Grunt bringing up a fuel rod gun to catch it in the stomach, erasing it from the chest down and leaving its smoking leftovers spiraling over the ledge.

The surprised survivors were cut down to two thirds by the time they returned fire. Team 1 hadn't stopped moving since they hit the ground. They split up into two groups, throwing themselves behind the mechanical playground of AC units and duct networks. Duncan got himself to a lengthy air duct. The Staff came up beside him while Hector and Zack got to a combat barrier close by. Duncan edged over to the end of the duct. Nearly there, a new commotion from below drew his eye towards the ledge. He could hear the gunfire from Teams 2 and 3 intermingling with the plasma fire of the Covenant security detail surrounding the ground floor.

He wished them luck. He stood up straight and propped his launcher atop the duct. He was scoping left after a maneuvering Jackal when his reticle flashed red over thin air. He quickly shifted to the right, letting off a grenade. He let it skip over the ground once then twice. Almost on the third skip he released the trigger, detonating it in midair and blasting the Spec Ops Elite back into existence. It crashed onto its spine with energy shields flaring. However, as bullets kicked up dust around it, it used its momentum to roll onto its hands, pushing off into a somersault that landed it back on its feet. Three swift strides pulled it behind the smoldering remains of a combat barrier. With its shields struggling to compensate for the strain, Duncan saw its head shift in the direction of the fallen fuel rod gun. He saw its intent and matched it, chambering a new grenade and firing it a split-second later. The Elite made its decision and made a run for the gun only to stop in its tracks as the 40-millimeter came clattering beside it. The Elite was still out of range and immediately backed away. Duncan was bent on keeping it from the weapon, an aim that was quickly challenged by the sound of a war cry.

A squad of four Jackals rushed forward, but the ones making the noise were behind them. An equal number of Grunts came on their heels, sticking within the protection of their arm-mounted shields as they fired plasma rifles and repeaters. One of them went so far as to light a plasma grenade and make the toss. The blue orb latched onto a nearby AC unit, brightening for a moment then exploding. The plasmatic backlash tore the entire unit clear of its supports. Duncan saw it tumbling towards them. He and the Staff split off in different directions, breaking left and right. He lost sight of his squad leader while he ran to the safety of the combat barrier where Hector was. The airborne wreckage crashed into the duct with enough force to rip it free of the network, launching both over the ledge in a tumbleweed of debris.

Somehow, he had managed to keep the M319's trigger secured. He pulled out his rifle with his freehand and braced it in a gap in the barrier to fire from the hip. A long, 10-round burst caught one of the advancing duos in the feet. Both Grunt and Jackal winced and halted, the latter lowering its guard and providing an opening for him to tear into them. The Grunt jittered back from another long burst to the chest. As it collapsed, its partner fired off several shots from its needler. He leaned aside to fool their heat seeking into shattering against the other side of the barrier. His assailant tried to get up just as he leaned forward again to dump the rest of his magazine into its stomach. With a gargling squawk, its knees gave out from under it and it flattened to the floor. At the same time Hector wheeled around his side of the barrier to empty his newly loaded launcher. The rockets streaked into the gaps between the advancing pairs, purposefully flying past them to detonate in their flanks. The twin blasts kicked them off their feet and into the air.

"I'm dry!" Hector said, tossing aside his launcher and switching to his SMG.

A third explosion reverberated from somewhere on the roof, less powerful than a rocket. Duncan looked out to where he'd left his last grenade and saw the remains of an explosion fizzling away. The Spec Ops Elite reemerged at a run, a steaming plasma repeater in hand. It made straight for the fuel rod gun which had been blown away from where he'd last seen it.

Duncan grimaced, realizing it had outmaneuvered him. He secured his rifle on his harness and rushed to reload his launcher.

The Elite leapt to the fallen weapon. It grabbed it and rolled into a combative crouch, casting away its repeater while it shouldered the gun.

"Incoming!" Duncan grabbed Hector by the shoulder and pushed them both down right as a fuel rod struck their cover. The impact shook his bones as the overpressure muted his hearing, the follow-up of a second rod leaving his ears ringing. Pieces of glowing metal bounced off his armor. He still had the wherewithal to finish loading his launcher and tried to get up for a shot, merely to have the blast of a third rod burn his eyes and smack him to the ground.

Floored and dazed, he felt a hand shake him by the shoulder.

"You good!?" Hector asked.

Duncan sucked in a deep breath after having the wind knocked out of him. More pieces of the combat barrier bounced off his armor.

He got his hands under his chest plate and pushed himself to his knees. "I'm tired of this crap!"

He reached around in search of his launcher.

"Here!" Hector held it out to him.

Duncan grabbed it and struggled to his feet. He stumbled forward, smashing his shoulder into the side of the ruined duct but pushing on regardless.

"Where're you going!?" Hector called.

"To get a shot off on this guy! You hold here!"

Duncan passed around the corner in the network of air ducts and headed along the western ledge of the roof. Up ahead he spotted the Staff crouching towards a spot near their quarry. The Staff looked back at him, gesturing to him with the stock of his DMR and nodding in the Elite's direction. Duncan caught wind of his plan and shuffled closer. The Staff raised three fingers and began a slow countdown. The two-note launch and splashing detonations of more fuel rods sounded off on the other side of the duct.

At one, Duncan rose up with his launcher.

He found the Elite unloading on Dalton and Mito's position just across from Hector, pummeling the air conditioning unit that served as their refuge. It kept them pinned and created an opening for three Jackals to jog towards them unimpeded.

He fired.

He let it sail straight into the Elite, setting it off in its side. The blast caught it in the ribs and punched it off its feet, bursting its shields. While its weapon went flying, the Elite clawed at the gravel to kill its momentum. It pushed off into a run and whipped out a plasma pistol which just as quickly twirled out of its hands as its owner twirled aside, a bullet to the head knocking it off course. It spun into the ground and settled limply in place.

"That's one down!" The Staff said, turning his DMR fire on the advancing trio of Jackals, prompting two of them to turnabout with shields bared.

Duncan reloaded and set his launcher in their direction as well. A quick trigger squeeze lobbed his next round into their midst. He released it behind them, blasting two of them into the air. The third tried to get a lock on him with a plasma pistol but its return fire was abruptly ended by a round to the jaw and another to the throat.

"North side clear!" The Staff said as he dropped the spent magazine out of his rifle. "Move to the south side then secure the objective!"

"Cop-" Duncan found himself ducking before he even knew why, his inner instinct making him aware of a small, green sphere on the edge of his vision that had manifested out of nowhere. He felt the heat of its passage as it shot a hand's breadth overhead.

The overloaded plasma bolt zoomed away from the roof, and in its wake came a hail of blue plasma that bore into his cover in a spray of sizzling sparks.

Spec Ops.

Duncan knew it wouldn't be an easy fight, but he hadn't ever thought he would let one get this close, active camouflage or not. The attacker that had almost blown his head off refused to reveal itself beyond a two-meter-tall mirage of angular nothingness. It quickly turned its dual wield of a plasma rifle and pistol towards the Staff. He had little more than a second to throw himself behind an electronics panel. A torrent of plasma streamed into his position before switching back to Duncan's, forcing him down again.

Gunfire emanated from the others and the overwhelming suppression ended abruptly, shifting its focus elsewhere. Duncan risked peeking out while reloading. He saw the refractive figure now trading shots with Dalton as he sprinted across an open gap between a duct and the door to a stairwell.

The sergeant was halfway to safety when Reznik launched a grenade at their new target. The Elite leapt out of its range in a single sideways bound, clearing it of the resulting blast and setting it in the direct path of Mito's rocket.

The fireball's impact ripped away invisibility, shielding, armor and flesh in a split-second butchery of flames and smoke that saw its mangled torso rise into the air in a fountain of gravel. Duncan drew his head to the side, dodging a smoldering arm that whirled past. The rest of the corpse landed with a crunch. He eyed the mauled wreck of muscles and mandibles with nothing short of contempt.

"Move to the south side, let's go!" The Staff ordered. "Keep an eye out for more shimmers! Ep-4, grab that fuel rod gun! We need the firepower!"

Duncan reloaded his launcher and vaulted out into the open. He jogged to the corpse and delivered a strong kick to the back of its skull, bashing the whole head forward before it lolled back to the ground.

Hector caught up to him. "Sorry, lost track of that one!"

"Forget about it! Let's move!"

Duncan left him to head for the fuel rod gun while he ran with the others towards the south side. The line of defense barriers and portable shields were in their way. They kept their weapons up as they pushed into the gaps, scanning each corner and crevice on a steady push to the other side.

It took only a few seconds for Duncan to finally lay his eyes on what they'd come for.

The tripodal support legs of the listening post resided on the lower terrace, an elevated patio the size of an indoor plaza that existed two stories below rooftop level. Despite resting atop a foundation of decorative grass and outdoor benches, the pistachio-shaped head of the structure still rose a full 10-meters over the roof. The entire thing was built like a squid and the Covenant troops on the opposite side of the rooftop arrived to defend it. A squad-sized element of Grunts and Jackals opened fire from the safety of their combat barriers. Simultaneously, on the security platform of the listening post below, a pair of spectral reflections unleashed their plasma rifles at them.

Duncan set himself against a barrier. Shutting the breech on a new round, he slipped the barrel of his launcher through a gap and sent an arcing shot towards the other side. He watched it fly over the top of the structure and down towards the enemy. A group of Grunts were only just beginning to spread out when he set it off above them, instantly pounding two into the ground, punching the mask off a third and punting a fourth off the edge. It pirouetted down the two-story descent to the terrace, cannonballing into a small table.

Duncan crouched down to flick open his weapon for another shot. Hector came up beside him. He leveled his new fuel rod gun around the barrier and belched off a single green comet, the kickback knocking at his shoulder. Right then, a flurry of crystals shattered across the other side of their cover. One even got through to glance off the side of his helmet. The perpetrators let out a squawking cry that was immediately drowned beneath a thundering splash. Hector fired again and earned a mix of Grunt and Jackal screams from an explosion further down the roof. Added gunfire from the Staff, Dalton and Zack raked across the more entrenched survivors.

Duncan flicked his weapon shut as he spotted a worrying sight. Two Grunts had dashed from behind a barrier and were gunning it for the Shade turret in the southwest corner of the roof. A bullet stabbed into the leg of the furthest, but it limped onward. One of Reznik's grenades bounced after them, detonating at its heels and igniting its gas tank. The unlucky straggler was hurled off the edge into a corkscrewing flight before a final burst of gas launched it into a long, screaming fall. The one closest to the Shade stumbled into it with enough force to push out the cadaver of the old gunner. As more bullets hit the ground at its feet, it scrambled behind the controls. Indicator lights flushed back to life across the turret's frame as it swiveled in their direction.

"Shade online, watch it!" The Staff warned.

The return fire began in earnest, streaming against Reznik's position in sputtering impacts. As he hunkered down the Shade rotated into a full barrage that worked its way along the line of defenses, forcing each of them to cover.

Duncan let the suppression fire pass over him. He jumped to his feet, took aim and found the Shade staring back. A quick burst blasted the launcher out of his hand and left him reeling. He ducked again. The grenade launcher clattered behind him. He reached out for it but gritted his teeth at a deflated slag of molten metal that resembled more of a half-peeled banana than a gun barrel. He winced at a newfound pain in his palms. He turned them over and saw that both of his gloves were steaming and spotted with holes. The skin was raw beneath. Another long plasma burst washed over him, as if daring him to try again.

"Ep-8, I don't mean to sound like a broken record but are you alright!?" Hector asked.

"Do I look alright!?" Duncan hissed. Taking out his canteen, he screwed off the cap and took turns pouring water on either hand. He held his breath, the pain sharpening then cooling into a dull ache. "Ep-1, I'm down to my rifle!"

The Staff glanced down the line at him. "Roger that! Whiskey-5, aim high!"

Crouched further on behind a portable shield, Reznik shook his head. "I'll-"

A sudden flurry from the Shade stabbed into his cover. The translucent barrier quickly brightened from a cold blue to a hot red.

Reznik barrel rolled to the nearest combat barrier a second before the shield collapsed, letting a flock of bolts slice freely through the air at his back. "Ep-1, I don't have a shot!"

"I'll get you one! Just aim in its direction and I'll tell you how close you get!"

Reznik raised his barrel at a slant. "You sure, si-"

"Do it!"

He fired off a grenade. The Staff peeked out. Duncan also watched it go. It sailed past the listening post and landed somewhere out of sight.

"You're close!" The Staff said a second before the explosion. "Shift right, five meters!"

Reznik reloaded and carefully reangled the M319 to the right. He squeezed off another grenade and let it soar. Duncan tracked its progress from rise to fall. The Shade didn't. The Grunt at the controls was still hosing Hector's position, too wary of his fuel rod gun to notice the threat until it bounced off its turret and into its face.

"NOW!"

One eruption melded into another, a bursting bubble of flames and debris that ripped the Shade apart. Its pieces clanked across the ground alongside the hissing corpse of the gunner.

"It's down!"

Duncan stowed his canteen and drew his MA37. As they pushed out into the open, he slipped a fresh magazine into his rifle.

Team 1 came together at a portion of the roof overlooking the listening post. He was surprised to not see any movement on the security platform below. There wasn't so much as a shimmer or mirage of reflective coating. The last two Elites were gone. Another clue that made him sure of that fact was that he wasn't being shot at. Right behind where he'd last seen their missing troublemakers, the vaulted entrance to the interior yawned wide, dark and quiet.

"Think it's a trap? Reznik asked.

"Think?" Dalton huffed.

Duncan turned to the Staff for their next move and saw him looking elsewhere, towards the west. He looked in the same direction and almost immediately spotted what he was looking at.

A small dot in the skyline was growing larger by the second. With its increasing proximity came an increasing recognition of its shape, from its aquatic design to its purple sheen.

"Phantom!" The Staff called out. "Ep-8, Whiskey-5, take the Shades on the north side and get some AA on that dropship! Ep-4, 9, use what you got! Don't let'em land!"

The team broke up, Duncan pivoting away from the listening post and running back the way they came. Reznik went with him. The two of them dashed through the gathering of dead Covenant troops towards the Shades that stood near their drop-off point. Duncan went for the one in the northwest corner, leaving Reznik to take the one on the right.

He used his running start to elbow the Grunt corpse out of the post. He grabbed the controls and felt the baseplate's anti-gravity system kick in, lifting him into a stable levitation. His optics switched to an oval arrangement of teeth-like range markers that switched from blue to red as he rotated to his target.

The Phantom was closer now, less than a quarter of a kilometer away by his best estimate. Reznik opened fire before he did. The two of them let loose with non-stop showers of arcing fire that streaked after their quarry. It wasn't an easy task. The speed of the dropship allowed it to avoid the opening shots without even having to maneuver. However, three seconds in and the first hits began to land in blows that rhythmically sparked off its hull. The pilot responded with a sharp lean from left to right that soon evolved into zigzagging swings from port to starboard.

Duncan struggled to match it move for move. It was more challenging given the time to their target that saw his line of fire going far too wide. Thinking better of it, he switched to trying to anticipate its movements. While it actively leaned out of Reznik's predictable stream, Duncan used its response to gauge where it would be. He quickly began catching it on the wings, and eventually on its center of mass.

The incoming onslaught dotted the front of its hull in scorch marks and glittering hits. Nevertheless, it charged on through the columns of plasma fire at full steam. So too did Mito's next rocket which raced from the roof on an outbound vector. The Phantom saw it coming and attempted to swing to starboard. The rocket's heat-seeking caused it to twitch onto a matching course. After three seconds it closed the distance and exploded against the dropship's nose, covering the aircraft in a cape of smoke that quickly dissipated as it forged on. In its wake, however, the broken remains of its heavy plasma cannon dove off into the depths of the city.

"Forward area hit!" Mito yelled. "It's neutered but my launcher is done! Ep-4, it's all you!"

"Just a little closer!" Hector replied.

The Phantom acquiesced to his request. It slowed at the last 100-meters of its approach. In so doing, it gave its side-mounted plasma cannons a window of opportunity. Both opened up on the roof. The Grunt serving as its starboard gunner traced a trail of plasma after Hector and Mito while its portside partner divided its attention between the opposing Shades. In the latter case, the two of them responded in kind with a combined focus that saw their lines of fire coalesce into a lateral rain. In seconds they found their mark on the Grunt and hammered into it from head to toe. Which of them ultimately finished it off was hard to tell as they watched it topple out from behind the cannon and off the firing platform.

Its partner on the starboard side lasted a few heartbeats longer before its heart and other assorted viscera flew apart under the direct hit of a fuel rod.

Hector fired two more that slammed into the bay doors, the last one catapulting the remains of the plasma cannon from its mount. "Reloading!"

Duncan and Reznik kept up their attack across its frame, pockmarking every surface and crevice they could find in a bid to strike anything important. Their effort was paying off. Random gouts of flame and spouts of steam began erupting from its fuselage. Still, the Phantom charged on.

It came within the last 20-meters and reared up its nose in an obvious move to land. But then it unexpectedly defied their expectations by swinging into a 90-degree turn to port that brought its bay doors into view. Dappled and scorched as they were, they still managed to fold open on either end, unveiling the team of four Spec Ops Elites and two Hunters standing within. Their weapons were already raised. They were only waiting for their transport to get in close enough for them to jump out. The dropship seemed bent on doing just that by using its momentum to glide sideways towards the building.

Alarm surged through Duncan's whole being at the thought of facing them all together. He readjusted his reticle to the inside of the bay and pressed his thumbs hard on the Shade's firing studs, only for a hail of bullets to reach them first.

A shadow briefly engulfed him as a large shape flashed overhead.

The Pelican reappeared in a headlong strafing run that saw its autocannon firing a fully automatic salvo into the bay. High-caliber rounds stitched a ragged path from ramp to wall to ceiling, ripping through a Hunter's midsection and dotting its neighbor's shield. The two juggernauts backed away from the doors to spare themselves the assault that now lashed into their smaller counterparts, blowing the arm off an Elite and punching through another's chest.

Vulture-5-2 pulled up and zoomed over the Phantom. He travelled for a short distance and started to loop around for another run. The Phantom slowed and aborted its final approach to the rooftop. It tried to turn in order to face its newest threat, but not before a family of fuel rods gave chase. Hector's latest mag dump hurtled into the turning craft just as its exposed bay was brought to bear, exploding across its exterior and lighting it up in a cascade of emerald eruptions. The inferno consumed the newly arrived reinforcements from view, jettisoning a spinning Elite out of one side and sending a Hunter tumbling off the ramp of the other. Whatever survivors remained came under the punishing gaze of Duncan and Reznik who used their Shades to hose the scrambling shapes within. The twin-rivers of bolts slashed into the staggering silhouette of an Elite and cut it down. As the haze left by the blast cleared away, they poured their focus into the gore-soaked Hunter that still stood stubbornly behind its shield. Their opportunity didn't last long, however.

The dropship turned fully away from the building. With a coat of flames expanding across its hull and joining itself to the electrical fire raging in its bay, the Phantom fired its impulse drive in a speedy retreat.

At a higher altitude, Vulture-5-2 lived up to his callsign by diving after their wounded prey from above. He loosed his autocannon in a crisscrossing barrage, further damaging those sections of the Phantom that weren't already aflame. The once hostile dropship was nowhere near as fast as it was when it first appeared. It was practically limping away, forced to endure the continual punishment of the Pelican's ire that stabbed and punctured what little of it remained intact. It attempted an escape by entering a descending glide towards the lower parts of the city. The triple streams of autocannon and Shade turret fire dogged it relentlessly all the while. Eventually, it dipped into the evening fog which could hardly hide its burning glow. Vulture-5-2 pursued it and disappeared into the haze as well, autocannon barking.

With the Phantom gone, the rooftop quickly fell into an unexpected quiet. Duncan became aware of the wind howling over him. The night air seemed to whistle as it passed through the ornate apertures unique to the Shade's build. It was surprisingly relaxing.

"Ep-4 to 1, fuel rod gun is spent, sir." Hector reported. "In terms of stopping power, looks like we're down to Whiskey-5."

"Copy." The Staff replied. "Ep-1 to Ep-2 and Whiskey-2, what's the situation on the ground?"

Duncan hopped out of the Shade and watched its indicator lights and anti-gravity systems return to a dormant state.

"Ep-2 to 1, groundside hostiles neutralized on the west, over."

Duncan strolled towards the edge. Planting a firm boot on the ledge, he carefully leaned over and peered down into the streets below.

The roads that girded the western and northern sides of the building were host to a number of dead Covenant troops. They lay exactly where they had met their ends, behind bullet-riddled cars, damaged portable shields and shattered defense barriers. He spotted Team 2 walking over the bridge with Nova in the lead. They strolled onto the streets and moved for the ROTC.

"Whiskey-2 to Ep-1, all hostiles neutralized on the eastern approach. Groundside secured."

"Roger that. Team 2 and 3, make your way inside and hold the ground floor. Ep-4, 9, take the northwest and southeast Shades and provide overwatch. Whiskey-1 and 5, Ep-7 and 8, on me."

Duncan left the ledge and started jogging back to where he'd last seen the Staff. Reznik bailed out of his Shade to trail after him.

Hector came out into the open to pass them by on his way to his new post. "Have fun with those last two."

"Just keep the skies clear." Duncan rebutted. "No more surprises, alright?"

"Can't promise that."

Duncan slipped through the last dregs of combat barriers to the section of the roof overlooking the lower terrace. The Staff and Dalton were waiting for them there. Their squad leaders were looking down at the security platform below. They were also looking at the in-built gravity lifts that travelled up shafts into the structure's three legs, leading onto the walkways that rolled out from atop its 'knees' to the main body.

"Well, we know how to get in." Dalton said. "Now we need a way down."

The Staff eyed the area more closely. "Figuring that out now."

"Already figured it out."

Duncan and the others heard Zack, but they didn't see him.

"Down here."

They all looked down and sighted him below on the terrace. He kept his rifle trained on the listening post while he wrapped his knuckles on a nearby service ladder, one that went all the way back up to a spot a few steps to their right.

:********:

Duncan felt a momentary weightlessness as the gravity lift pulled him into the support strut. Up above, the mouth of the circular hatch marked the end of his trip. He rose through the entrance and was pushed forward onto one of the walkways of the listening post. He strode forward cautiously. As the last one up, everyone else was already ahead of him. The Staff and Dalton were stacked up on either side of the large door leading to the heart of the structure. Zack and Reznik were making their way over. Duncan followed them. Coming in behind the Staff, he set his back against the wall and waited.

"Ep-1?" Reznik called.

They turned to him and saw him pull out the cylindrical shape of an EMP grenade from his belt.

"It'll slap the active camo right off of them."

The Staff shook his head. "Negative. That could risk frying everything else in there, and we still need intel extraction."

"What're our options?" Dalton asked. "I'd rather we didn't walk straight into them on their own turf, not without something up our sleeve."

"Right here." The Staff pulled a stun grenade from his belt and held it out for them to see. "Their camo systems are good, but they can't absorb something like this right away. It'll light them up like a Christmas tree, at least for a few seconds. I'll pop mine first. If we don't see them then we'll move forward until we find a possible hiding spot. Don't go at it alone if you find anything. Call us over, use a stun and we'll hit them together."

"Roger that." Reznik replied.

"Roger." Zack jabbed his chin up at Duncan. "Hey, Ep-8, 50 credits one of them lights a sword and gets up close and personal. You down?"

"He's already got a bet going." Reznik argued.

"That I'm winning." Duncan pointed out, adding in a smirk that he knew the demolitionist wouldn't share. "But no deal, Ep-7. That's too obvious."

"Then let's keep it from getting any more obvious." The Staff cut in. "Whiskey-5, keep the '319 on standby. Only use it if we have no other option."

"You got it boss."

The Staff nodded and pulled up the stun grenade. The others held their rifles at the ready as he thumbed out the pin, stepped halfway into the doorframe and tossed it in. As soon as he stepped back, the grenade went off with a flash and a hollow BANG.

"Go! Go! Go!"

The Staff and Dalton swerved inside, Duncan, Zack and Reznik on their heels. Their two stacks rushed up a short ramp then down a small corridor that led almost immediately into a larger space.

Duncan soaked in their new surroundings in a blink.

It was dark but not entirely so. Motes of blue and purple lights blinked alone or in symmetrical groupings, an array of buttons, switches and panels. They were arranged in orthographic formations indicative of the Covenant's runic alphabet. Messages scrolled or strobed over holographic displays, scattered across an enfolding sea of interfaces that spanned the curving expanse of the wall. Using the lights as a marker allowed him to gauge the space as possessing roughly 30 by 30-meters worth of room, a room that wasn't a room at all. It was more like a wide chamber or a cylindrical atrium without the skylight.

Two steps in, he switched on his VISR mode and watched additional floors pile up one after the other as the visual recognition systems carved them out from the overhanging void. They stopped at a third floor where the architecture narrowed into a pointed ceiling.

Less than a second later his helmet picked out contacts bearing a hostile red hue.

There were many, too many.

Ambush.

His heartbeat quickened at the thought, then just as quickly calmed once his mind caught up to what his visor was seeing.

Their jellyfish shape gave it away.

The ground floor, and so far as he could tell, the second and third were filled with Engineers. There were close to two dozen of them. They floated in the air or above the circular gatherings of console stations that lined the different levels of the listening post. Back on the ground floor, two concentric rings of stations rose up on step-like platforms. They surrounded a self-encompassing console at the very center of the chamber. The Engineers floated there as well.

All of them were utterly still. Their many eyes were shut tight against the blinding flash. Those few who weren't stunned fluttered away to give the newcomers a wide berth. Their tentacles flailed as they issued blurts and squeals that sounded too much to Duncan like drowning puppies.

There was no sign of the Elites, not even a shimmer.

"Ep-7 and 8, break left." The Staff ordered warily. "Whiskey-1 and 5, right."

Duncan and Zack went left with the Staff, shadowing him closely. Dalton and Reznik went right. They moved at a watchful stride around the walkways between the walls and the outermost ring of consoles. Just like the others, Duncan shifted his reticle from target to target, forcing those Engineers that were recovering from their temporary blindness or still worriedly standing their ground to finally break away. As more and more started drifting to a safe distance, he shifted his gaze to the two upper floors in search of any remotely humanoid shapes.

"Whiskey-1, anything on your side?" The Staff asked.

"Negative, just Engineers."

"Looks like they were the ones taking care of this place." Zack noted. "Makes sense."

Duncan ignored the upper floors for a moment and focused on the glass panels embedded within a score of circular housings in the ceiling. "Someone definitely switched off the lights. They're in here, no question."

Zack peeked between a pair of passing consoles. "Just a matter of where in here. A closet maybe, I don't know."

"No," The Staff said as they neared the other end of the chamber. "They wouldn't chance getting cornered. If anything, they'd be out in the open."

He halted. Holding up a fist, he brought Duncan and Zack to a stop. He pointed his shotgun at a pair of shadows moving around a bend in the walkway.

A moment later, Dalton stepped into view with Reznik close behind. Both groups spotted one another and lowered their weapons.

Rather than lower his own, however, the Staff pivoted towards the main console at the center of the chamber.

The others mirrored the action. Without a word, they fanned back out across the walkway, sidestepping with rifles raised until they had maneuvered into an encirclement. On either side, The Staff and Dalton climbed up the short staircases that ascended from the base floor and through the two rings of consoles. The path ahead of them ended at the central station and its encompassing panels and displays. They stopped halfway there between the first and second rings.

With a nod from the Staff, Dalton slinked behind one of the consoles in the second ring and pulled his rifle over the top of it, granting him a good line of sight on the spot. "Think they're in there?"

The Staff crouched behind a console as well. "One of them."

He peeked around the corner at what had to be the structure's primary control hub before turning around and holding out a hand. "Ep-8?"

Duncan slipped out a stun grenade from his belt. An underhand throw landed the device in the Staff's hand. Its new owner pulled the pin and made an overhead toss. The grenade arced up and into the station, disappearing behind the enclosure of controls and apparatuses.

Duncan ducked behind a console.

The sound of a hammer on metal combined with a bright flash that briefly cast his shadow against the wall. It hadn't dimmed before a wrathful roar rang through the chamber.

"Engage!"

Duncan swung back out into the open. He saw a luminous shape hurdling out from behind the consoles of the central station. A growing crisscross of bullets stabbed at its energy shielding as it charged down the stairs at the Staff. It leapt up into the air, throwing a hand aside to flick on the bright fork of an energy sword.

The Staff pulled his knees to his chest in a backward roll that spared him the slice that scythed through his cover. The console exploded in a frenzy of electrical spittle as a large piece of itself slid off the molten wound, its impact deafened by the booming landing of the Elite. It pivoted into the second ring and charged a few steps towards The Staff. It had whipped its sword over its shoulder for a wide swing when a blast of buckshot knocked it off balance. It crashed onto its back and tumbled down the stairs as the Staff pumped another shell into it, catching it in the face and popping its shields. The Elite reflexively pulled its legs into its chest to avoid a third shot, allowing it to roll more easily down the stairs.

Duncan and Zack saw it coming and split off in either direction, firing on the Elite while trying to get some distance. It reached the bottom and instantly rolled into a combat stance. Energy sword in one hand, it raised and fired a plasma rifle with the other. Duncan slipped behind a new console just in time to let the bolts zip past.

It didn't waste another second on him, a turn of its ankles allowing it to launch itself after Zack. Startled, he lunged back, barely escaping an overhead strike that a twist of the wrist turned into a lateral swing, decapitating his rifle and silencing his return fire. He stumbled back out of a bladed uppercut only to be clubbed across the face with the plasma rifle, batting him into the side of a console with a loud crash. He'd hardly hit the ground when the Elite rushed in.

"NO!" Duncan yelled as he dashed out to help.

Zack turtled his head out of the oncoming stab that plunged halfway into the floor, missing him by an inch. The Elite didn't get to retract its sword arm as he quickly countered, wrapping his own arms around the limb in a tight arm lock. Shifting his weight onto his back, he kicked out with his legs, slipping them around its neck in a firm head lock. The move briefly shocked the Elite so that it didn't pay heed to Duncan's full auto assault on its back, or the way Zack proceeded to twist his waist, the motion slamming its head into the side of a console. The blow left it stunned but it refused to budge at a second attempt. It roared and brought up its plasma rifle, only to feel its gun arm pull away from its target as Duncan wrapped it in an arm lock of his own, using his freehand to unload what remained of his magazine into the creature's side.

It let out a garbled curse in its alien tongue and squeezed off a long burst of plasma. The bolts flashed inches away from his visor. Duncan pulled against it but with each straining heartbeat the Elite overpowered him, drawing the outgoing bolts closer and closer to his head until he could feel the heat on his face.

Duncan dropped his rifle. He shot a hand to his belt and pulled out his combat knife, bending his elbow into a deep swing that jammed the knife into its neck, breaching the armor seal. The Elite let out a gargling cry as he twisted the blade deeper into its throat. He felt a pang of worry at suddenly noticing how he'd barely missed Zack's legs which were still tightening around their assailant's neck in a suffocating embrace. Regardless, it only seemed to anger their attacker into trying even harder, using every muscle in its bicep to inch its barking plasma rifle closer and closer. Duncan gritted his teeth. He held on, driving the blade in deeper, but it didn't seem to matter as the bolts came within a hair's breadth of his helmet.

The Staff jumped atop a nearby console in a single bound and kicked off, cannoning into the Elite's side with his shoulder.

The blow slammed it into an unbalanced stumble that made it drop its energy sword, dragging Duncan and Zack with it. The Staff landed into another running start and barreled into it again, knocking it off balance. It staggered back into the wall where a third ramming impact from the Staff pinned it in place. Duncan and Zack kept its arms secured while he jabbed the barrel of his shotgun into its stomach and pumped a shell into it, and another, and another, and another.

He kept going, blasting out more and more of its torso until his weapon gave an empty clack, a sound that resumed with each subsequent slide of the pump, each pull of the trigger, until the realization finally struck him that he needed to reload.

He stepped back, his shoulder drenched in blood.

The movement allowed gravity to reclaim the Elite. Duncan and Zack let go of its arms. They let the body slide to the floor where it came to rest against the wall. The light in its eye visors was gone. A grouping of ragged holes that had been punched through its stomach had amounted to a steaming crater. A tangle of ruptured bowels and organs had spilled out onto its lap like a nest of blue and purple snakes.

Duncan reached over and pulled his combat knife out of its neck. In its wake a spout of blood gushed out of the wound in an arterial flow.

He didn't get to even catch his breath before becoming cognizant of more gunfire coming from behind. The three of them turned around and ran for cover behind the nearest stations.

Ahead of them, an exchange of bullets and plasma flashed between the second floor and the spot where Dalton and Reznik had taken refuge. The two of them were firing back at what Duncan assumed was the second Spec Ops Elite.

"Whiskey-1 to Ep-1, you guys still kicking!?"

"Barely!" The Staff replied. "Need some help!?"

"It'd be nice!"

"Ep-7, 8, move right!"

They did as ordered and trailed after him around the right side of the second ring, bringing them closer to the entrance. A flock of terrified Engineers swarmed past them in a desperate bid to avoid the crossfire.

The Staff stopped them at a spot just around the bend from Dalton and Reznik that gave them a better view of their last opposition. The Elite was firing over consoles but refused to stay in one place for long. Neither was it entirely visible, using its camouflage to reduce itself to little more than two glowing dots that unleashed wave after wave of plasma.

"These guys just don't give up!" Zack snorted, not showing a hint of shakiness from his close call.

Duncan slapped another magazine into his MA37 and spent it in five-round bursts at their target. It was challenge alone to try to catch it without shooting the groups of displays and devices that hemmed the atrium. The Elite made it that much tougher by running sidelong from one place to the next, never relenting from its assault even while on the move. Nevertheless, it was facing greater and greater return fire. More than one lucky shot struck it in the chest or caught it in the head. Each one flared its shields, pushing them closer and closer to a breaking point that never seemed to come. It kept firing back, kept maneuvering from side to side with precalculated leaps and strides.

At least it did until the loud THWUMP of a grenade launcher sounded off.

"Whiskey-5!" The Staff barked.

"Hold on!" Reznik replied.

Duncan saw the 40-millimeter fly up and over the railing onto the second floor.

The Elite's reaction was an immediate change of course in the opposite direction, a move that put it back in the line of fire. It was enough to finally break its shields a heartbeat before a precision shot from Dalton blew its eye out. It reeled back, firing off a few stray bolts as it collapsed.

"It's down!" The sergeant said.

"Whiskey-5, keep your finger on that trigger." The Staff growled.

"Wouldn't dream of letting go, sir. I was just trying to scare our little friend out into the open. And look at that, it worked."

The Staff gave him a sideways glance. However, instead of the thorough chewing out that Duncan expected, he left off from the conversation and strode out to the nearest staircase.

They waited for a few more seconds to see if anything else would emerge to take a swing at them.

When nothing did, the Staff strode up the stairs to the central station. "Alright, Ep-8, get up here. Whiskey-1, 5 and Ep-7, secure the upper floors. Whiskey-5, when you're finished, come back down to set up the M168. Let's get this done."

Duncan stood up and caught Zack by the shoulder as he was about to leave. "Hey, where'd that come from? You know, back there?"

Zack wore a proud smirk as he shrugged. "Something Ep-9 taught me."

"Guess I shouldn't have missed out on his CQC lessons."

"What can I say, the man goes knuckle to knuckle with Elites for fun. He's gotta know something." He took a step and stopped. "Oh, and by the way, that'll be 50 credits."

"What?"

"I was right."

"Yeah, about a bet I didn't make."

"Screw you."

Duncan let him head off to join Dalton and Reznik. The three of them walked to one of the many gravity lifts that resided in small alcoves in the chamber wall. He meanwhile retraced the Staff's path up the stairs to the center of the structure.

The Engineers were still sticking to the edges of the chamber. However, some of them began to drift back towards their old haunts. These didn't appear to mind the presence of those that had already killed two of their guardians. Their species always acted like a neutral third party, Duncan remembered, nowhere near as possessed with the same genocidal zealotry as other client races of the Covenant. They usually remained that way so long as no one strapped a bomb to them.

"I'll keep an eye on these things." The Staff said. "You get to work. Tell me what you find but be quick. You've got five minutes."

"Copy."

Duncan passed him by and slipped through the gaps in the consoles of the central station. The collection of encircling devices and displays were slightly taller than him. They were obviously meant for larger users. He locked onto a console whose curvature took up half the station. On it, several displays hovered over a series of rotating spheres and paneled lexicons that he theorized functioned something like a keyboard. He eyed a distinctly large interface levitating over the middle of the console. He raised his hands above the panel in front of it. The chromosomal characters warmed with an azure glow at his approach. Simultaneously, a small text bar appeared on his HUD as his armor's translation software got to work, detailing a variety of functions, system subroutines, commands and access icons.

All at once he became aware of a sound that was coming from the station itself.

There were voices, human voices.

They were in no short supply either.

Though some were more distorted than others, it was clear by their low tenor that they were radio communications. There were officers issuing orders, soldiers asking about landing zones and pilots directing personnel to points of embarkation.

It took him comparatively less time to notice that the conversations weren't coming from his station alone, but from every console and interface across the chamber. It was a scattered, discordant choir of many competing voices that had no idea they were even competing with one another. The only reason he could fathom as to how he hadn't noticed it right away was because they were already focused on the Elites when they came in. Now things were quiet enough for him to listen to the voices. They were scraps of radio chatter intercepted from various frequencies being used by UNSC elements still in New Alexandria. Corresponding screens floated over the consoles, portraying helical strands of audio modulations. They vacillated in conjunction with the rise and fall of the differing communications. Dozens of alien numerals also vacillated beside them, scaling approximations of the exact coordinates for each source.

The displays directly in front of him reflected the exact same thing. He listened while Major General Caruso requested a status report on the progress of his division's evacuation from the starport, while a pilot with the callsign 'Roadrunner-4-2' asked for directions to the Szabo Building, and while a Captain Wilson scolded a tardy sergeant for not having yet arrived at their rally point.

He made shutting all of it down his top priority.

He had a pretty good idea that he was standing at the command hub for the entire structure. He moved his hand around to search through the function translations. After ten seconds he found what he was looking for, an icon that looked like a strange combination between the head of a bull and a capital 'Y'.

'Operational Index'.

The press of his finger caused it to glow. He also pressed the access icon next to it that looked an awful lot like an inverted 'U', causing the index button to glimmer for a second. As the light stabilized, the modulation and coordinate feeds on his main screen fell away. Something new winked on in their place, a long list of Covenant icons with correlating scripts. His HUD provided the translations as more small text boxes on his visor. They appeared beneath whatever he looked at and switched to a new translation whenever he moved on to the next group of words. A cursory glance confirmed that he was looking at the Covenant's activities across New Alexandria. It was a list of ongoing missions, scrolling descriptions and strobing status updates.

He zeroed in on a mission at the top of the list labeled 'Communications Interception – SEALED' that scintillated with green light. He pressed the access icon and received a pulse of red light for his trouble. He tried again and got the same response.

"Ep-8."

Duncan could hear the warning in the Staff's voice and saw the shadow closing in on his right. He turned his head and came face to face with one of the Engineers.

The alien jerked back, visibly startled. It raised some of its tentacles in a non-threatening gesture.

The Staff came between them. He waved with his shotgun to try to shew it off.

"Wait." Duncan said. "I think-...I think it might be trying to help."

"Think so?"

"Unlike Elites or Brutes, these things aren't default aggressive. They're only a problem so long as you're threatening them, and even then, not by much. They're useful more often than not. Most people don't ever get to find that out because everything else around these guys typically tries to kill us before we get the chance."

Appearing by some measure to understand what he was saying, the Engineer maneuvered its limbs out in front of itself. They waved together and slid over one another in intricate patterns. Duncan recognized it as the odd sign language their species was known for.

The Staff exhaled. "Wish I knew what it was saying."

"Only one way to find out."

He looked over his shoulder at him. "And if you're wrong?"

Duncan shrugged. "Then I'll blow his brains out faster than you can say 'I told you so'."

"I'll hold you to that." The Staff took one last look at the alien then stepped aside. So did Duncan, holding out a welcoming hand to it and then to the main console.

The Engineer let out a gaseous blurt that could have been its version of a sigh. It floated back into the station at a cautious drift, its armadillo-like head shifting warily between the two of them. It came to a stop and settled into a bobbing hover above the main console. Save for a few lazy ones that hung below it, most of its many tentacles slipped onto the various interfaces. It manipulated them with the kind of precision that an ambidextrous human with only two arms couldn't possibly hope to match. The gallery of keys and icons lit up intermittently with every brush and touch from the host of fine cilia on each tentacle. Different images and texts flickered on the displays faster than Duncan could process them.

Then the Engineer let out a satisfied warble and turned to them. As it did, Duncan saw something new on the central display. It was an ornate pair of raised wings within a circle, a symbol he had come to identify over the years as the Covenant's equivalent of the UNSC eagle. The symbol flickered then blinked away. In its place appeared the vibrating, helical strands of sound modulation that he had seen around the chamber. However, this time there were dozens of them scrolling across the screen, each with its own unique movements matching the vocal patterns of whoever they were listening to.

With what he almost took for a bow, the creature dipped its head and closed its eyes for a moment. It then floated out of the way and settled in a new spot just outside of the main station.

Duncan debated going to check it out. While doing so, Dalton's voice reached him over the comms.

"Whiskey-1 to Ep-1, floors two and three are secured. No sign of anymore Spec Ops, over."

"Roger that." The Staff replied. "All the same, keep an eye out."

Duncan became slightly more comfortable with the situation knowing there weren't any serious threats hanging over their heads. It gave him the reassurance he needed to walk over for a closer look. He took in those details that he could glean right away, from the columns of modulation suites to the adjoining clusters of numerological icons. At the very bottom was a green button that looked like a spilt egg yolk had failed to form the number '8'.

"What's that?" The Staff asked.

Duncan glanced at the Engineer and found it waiting to regain their attention. Again, acting as if it understood them, it jabbed a tentacle in one direction and then another.

It kept making the same motion until he realized it was pointing at everything around them, at the listening post itself. "I think it's the off switch for their operations here."

The Staff held his shotgun at low ready, not pointing it at the Engineer but not entirely shying away from it either. "And why would they give us that? They know we're the enemy."

Duncan shook his head pensively. "Not their enemy."

"Still smells like a trap, or...maybe not. They're not the suicidal type, I know that much."

"Not willingly. I don't see any explosive harnesses. At any rate, without their help we'll be trying to figure out these systems for hours. I doubt they're trying to get us to initiate a self-destruct. Should I risk it?"

"They already tried calling for backup, at least the Elites did. I can't imagine something with a brain for a body being stupid enough to try anything else right now."

Duncan agreed. The Engineer was still a part of the Covenant war machine, and yet it was somehow managing to come off like an innocent, starry-eyed pup. He nodded to it and reached for the button.

"Be sure." The Staff said.

"Can't be much surer than this." He pressed it.

The reaction was instant. The modulation suites froze and vanished. The screen went blank for a second. What popped back into view was the list of ongoing Covenant operations in New Alexandria. The one Duncan thought referred directly to the listening post itself suddenly vanished.

"Hey, did you guys do something?" Zack comm'd. "All the screens on the second floor just went dark."

"Same on the third floor." Dalton added.

Duncan looked around at the consoles in the surrounding rings. The displays, panels and icons that had once been vibrantly active were either gone or dark. Everything was offline except for the interfaces directly in front of him.

"Well, guess that worked."

The Staff walked up. "If it did, it should've disconnected any Covenant relying on this place for intel. Now we need ours. Dig into those mission files. Get eyes on what they're up to."

"Yessi-"

"Hey, look what I found." At a gravity lift near the entrance, Reznik came drifting down on the reversed current of motion.

He hopped out onto the outer walkway and waved a hand at them. There was something large in his fingers. A stripe of yellow light at its end gave Duncan a clue as to what it was. He felt his nerves burn in his chest the second he connected the dots.

"Get that out of here." The Staff ordered.

"Already on it, sir." Reznik replied, snapping off a playful salute with the same hand that held his 40-millimeter grenade.

It was still active.

The only thing keeping it from exploding was the finger he still held on the trigger of the grenade launcher in his other hand. One wrong move and he could blow himself to pieces. The gravity of the situation seemed lost on him, however, or perhaps he understood it better than they could appreciate. Maybe he just didn't mind.

Whatever the case, he still calmly walked into the corridor leading to the exit. "Be right back with the demo charge."

"...He really might just blow himself up someday." The Staff said.

"I know." Duncan agreed. "I just hope we're not too close when he does."

"You guys know I can still hear you, right?" Reznik jeered.

"Yeah, we know." The Staff replied. "Hurry up and get rid of that thing so we-...what're they doing?"

Duncan stood beside him, equally surprised by the dozens of Engineers that were now flocking towards the entrance. They flew across the chamber, hovering over the dead consoles of the first and second rings with a hastiness that hadn't been there a second earlier. They began flowing into the corridor, flying towards the exit.

Duncan's first thought was to shoot them for trying to make a run for it. So was the Staff's as he switched out his shotgun for his DMR and took aim.

The Engineer that had helped them quickly flew in front of them. It got between them and the rest of its fleeing kin while it flailed its tentacles in a pleading gesture, issuing a high-pitched squeal that caused its air sacs to partly deflate.

The Staff took the hint and lowered his weapon slightly, though not completely. Doing so allowed the alien to float around them with the same cautiousness. They took a step back while it drifted over the station again. It hovered down to the main console and pointed to something in the upper right corner of the primary display.

Duncan squinted and eventually spotted it: three white circles moving in a clockwise rotation within a red octagon. Each full rotation caused a small wave of crimson light to pulse from the shape, though admittedly not enough for him to have seen it at first glance. He wondered how long it had been there.

He took a careful step forward and pressed it.

The octagon expanded to the center of the display. A string of Covenant text flashed across it in four long lines. They glimmered with a reoccurring red glow that vacillated through the words like an ocean wave rolling beneath a glass pane.

The translation suite kicked in and a corresponding box of text appeared below it that was a shorter, terse version of the original.

It took him less than 10 seconds to read it, and by the second line, time seemed to lengthen into a hellish eternity.

'EVACUATION ORDER:

CLEANSING OPERATIONS IMMINENT...

EMERGENCY EVACUATION ISSUED FOR YOUR SECTOR BY MINISTRY OF RESOLUTION...

IMMEDIATE DEPARTURE OF ALL FORCES TO MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE AUTHORIZED.'

It was one thing to suspect it, but to confirm it with his own eyes felt like reading a death sentence.

Theirs.

Duncan sucked in a breath, and it came out as a shudder. He knew the Staff had the same translation software as he did. His armor's BIOS afforded him that, which was why when he turned to him, he wasn't surprised to see the combination of barely restrained shock and horror that was stretching out behind his visor.

"...Sir?"

The Staff glanced at him, but his eyes almost immediately shifted back to the announcement.

"That Phantom, I don't think that was their backup. I think that was their ride out of here." Duncan struggled to swallow the hard lump forming in his throat as his mouth dried up. "They weren't trying to hold this place. They were getting ready to shut it down…and we got in their way..."

His squad leader gave a slow, deliberate shake of his head, not at what he'd said but at the wider situation. "We might've just done their job for them. They're not sticking around."

A sense of purpose suddenly returned to his frame. "We shouldn't either. Whiskey-5, get back in here! Whiskey-1, Ep-7, get down here, double time!"

The muffled explosion of a 40-millimeter grenade resonated through the walls.

The outgoing Engineers that were filing down the corridor zipped out of Reznik's way as he came rushing back inside. "What's going on?"

A second later, Dalton and Zack slipped back into view, riding the same lift that had returned Reznik to the ground floor. They hopped out onto the ground, looking more on guard than they had been when they left.

"Whiskey-5, get over here and plant the '168!" The Staff barked. "Everyone else, stack on the door and get ready to move!"

Duncan pulled his rifle from his harness and joined the Staff in racing out from the main console and down the closest staircase. The last Engineer tagged along. Reznik passed them by, heading up to the console with his M168 demolition charge already in hand.

Duncan and the Staff braced themselves against the wall to either side of the entrance. Dalton and Zack joined them. Their one-time ally floated past and disappeared into the corridor. Meanwhile, Reznik took a knee in front of the main console of the central station and planted the explosive against it. Its adhering surfaces allowed it to latch onto the back of the device. He typed away at the keypad to switch it on.

"Does it even matter if we blow this thing?" Duncan questioned, fighting to keep his voice from quavering. "What's the point?"

"Asset denial." The Staff said. "We don't see these in the field too often. We can't risk them recovering it after the fact. Blow it here and that's one less of them that they'll have available in the future."

Duncan could see the logic in that. In truth, he just didn't want them to be here any longer than they had to.

Dalton leaned in. "After the fact?"

"They're glassing us."

The three-word statement was an entire story in and of itself, one that none of them had time for. The summary would have to suffice.

Zack tensed. "What? Now!?"

Dalton straightened as well, suddenly hoarse. "You're sure?"

The Staff peered over his shoulder at him. "Why do you think all the jellyfish bailed out?"

The sergeant's posture became more rigid, the understanding seeming to dawn on him as well.

It was much unlike the look of denial on Zack. "Wait, but we-"

"Ep-7, reconnect us to Vulture-5-2 and the rest of the platoon."

"But-"

"Now!"

"O-, on it!"

"Whiskey-5, how's that charge coming!?"

Duncan saw Reznik turn the arming handle on the M168 and allow it to retract into the rest of the device. A green gleam activated in its indicator light.

"Charge online! Manual det!"

"Good, now get over here! We're leaving!"

Reznik got up and peeled off down the stairs. The Staff was on the move before he had even arrived. He took the lead in turning the corner and waving for everyone else to follow. They ran in single file and passed out from the corridor into the light of day.

The walkway they were on presented a short drop. Duncan still felt it in his knees as they jumped down, their boots crunching into the gravel. He looked around but there was no sign or trace of the Engineers. The team took off across the terrace with the ladder to the roof well in sight.

"Ep-1 to Vulture-5-2, be advised, we've got an imminent threat enroute! I repeat, imminent threat enroute! The Covies are packing up and clearing out! They're getting ready to glass NA! Need immediate rooftop extract on the north side of the ROTC Building as well as groundside exfil! I say again, need immediate rooftop extraction on north side ROTC and groundside exfil, over!?"

They reached the ladder. The Staff stepped aside to usher everyone else up the rungs. They clambered along with haste, beginning their ascent one by one until he was able to start climbing up himself.

Vulture-5-2's reply reached them along the way. "Vulture-5-2 to Ep-1, copy that. I ran into another Banshee patrol and had to put some distance between us. Might take a minute for me to reach you, over?"

"Vulture-5-2, just be there to pick us up!"

"Roger."

"Ep-1 to 1st Platoon, if you missed it the first time, I'll say it again! The Covenant are gearing up to level the city! Ep-4 and 9, meet us at the north side of the roof! Teams 2 and 3, be ready to withdraw from the ground floor! We'll have Vulture-5-2 come down to get you! Just be in place, is that understood!?"

The rest of Team 1 finally drained off the ladder and onto the roof of the north wing. The surrounding skyline was still overcast with the thick rain clouds that had rolled in earlier. Still, somehow the world seemed darker than it had been when they first entered the listening post. In the same way that there was no sign of the missing Engineers, there was no trace of Vulture-5-2 to be found in the east, west, north or south.

"Ep-2 to 1, are you sure!?" Nova asked, her tone barely holding back the fear fraying it at the edges.

"Got it right from the horse's mouth! Is everyone together down there!?"

"We're right here, sir!"

"When!?" Yuri asked, his voice straddling the border between anxiousness and rage. "Did they say when!?"

"Imminent! That's all we got! What that means exactly, I don't know, but I'd rather we weren't around to find out!"

"Hey, Ep-1?" Mackley entered the conversation with a meekness that surprised even Duncan. "We're not...screwed, are we?"

The Staff said nothing. Instead, he rounded on Reznik. "Whiskey-5!?"

Reznik held up a detonator and slipped his thumb over the trigger. "Ready!"

"Blow it!"

He pressed his thumb down hard.

A muffled explosion rang out from inside the listening post, the sound swiftly melding with the roar of a secondary explosion that burst through its center in a shockwave of plasma. The sudden overpressure shattered nearby windows and caused the entire building to tremble. There was a groan of yielding metal. Electrical energies lashed out at everything in range as the oblong head of the structure descended into an upwelling of azure flames and smoke. The legs caved in at the joints, causing the giant smokestack that was once the listening post to collapse to the terrace, crashing down onto the grass and gravel in a final explosion of dirt and fire.

"Target neutralized!" The Staff declared. "Ep-7, get me a line to Noble-2!"

"Copy!"

Duncan heard footsteps and turned away from the roiling carnage below to see Hector and Mito jogging towards them from different directions. They had left their Shades and had made it over to them in what must have been a dead sprint.

"Hey, we heard what's going on!" Hector said. "Think we can make it out of here in time!?"

"Don't worry about that right now!" The Staff explained. "Vulture-5-2 said he'll be here any minute! Just focus on that!"

"Ep-1!" Zack called, nodding to him.

The Staff took a deep breath and lowered his voice as he spoke. "Noble-2, this is Ep-1, can you hear me?"

The lieutenant commander's voice still managed to sound far calmer than his own, less strained and more removed from the intensity of the situation. "Ep-1, this is Noble-2. I hear you. Go ahead."

"Target neutralized. The listening post is down...but we have a problem, a big one. We got intel that the Covenant are prepping to glass New Alexandria. It's imminent." He paused for a moment. "This is it, ma'am. We're pulling out."

The Spartan also took a moment, letting a brief wave of static wash through their comms before it cleared away. "Roger that, Ep-1. I'll relay your intel up the chain of command. Good work. I'll contact Vulture-5-2 for pickup."

"No need, ma'am. We already contacted him. He's on his way."

"Roger..."

She paused again. Duncan had to tune out the deepening howl of the wind to hear the rest of the conversation.

"Let's do this again sometime, hmm?"

Despite the Staff's stiff demeanor, Duncan thought he saw it soften somewhat.

"Just name the time and place, Spartan."

"I might just take you up on that, Ep-1." Kat replied. "Noble-2 out."

The comm fell silent.

It was a brief silence.

"Ep-1, I've got a contact from 4-Actual." Zack said. "You might want to listen."

"Put him through." The Staff exhaled, still watching the skies for signs of their exfil.

"Ep-1, this is 4-Actual, come in."

"Right here 4-Actual. We got word that the Covies were jamming our communiques earlier. Looks like whoever Command has working on it is doing a pretty good job. How's the evacuation going?"

"It's about to start. The pick-ups are a few minutes out so we're still hunkering down around the finance center for the time being. Anyways, enough about us. What's your status?"

"We secured a Pelican extract. It'll be here in less than a minute. Once it's in, we're out."

There was an audible sigh of relief from Captain Eddies. "Music to my ears, Ep-1. That's all I've been waiting for. Remember, battalion rendezvous is at Lochaber Base. We'll meet you ther-"

"EP-1!"

Hector's alarm was loud and obvious, instantly drawing everyone's eye to him. He had his back to them and jabbed a finger towards the north.

There, amidst the overcast skies, was a portion of clouds that was far darker than the rest...and it was moving.

It was flying south. Duncan could tell that it was far too big to be a Banshee or Phantom or even a corvette. He felt a cool chill ride up his spine that couldn't be the wind.

Then, like a shark swimming beneath the surface, the first glimpses of its nature clawed down through the clouds, a quartet of obtuse fins that appeared more like whiskers as the rest of the craft peeled out of the haze.

The curving shape of a CCS battlecruiser came into view.

The scream of its impulse drives arrived as a tsunami of sound that rolled across New Alexandria, reaching a high-pitched crescendo that shook the entire cityscape as its source flew overhead. It was descending at a speed that appeared deceptively sluggish in a way that only giants could manage.

Duncan felt the ROTC Building quake while it passed high above them. The floor shook, the windows trembled. His armor and even his own insides vibrated.

He saw how the cruiser's underbelly sparkled with blue motes of light that dotted its hull. But they weren't the lights he was focused on.

All his attention was given instead to the single, cyclopean eye at its center.

The sand dollar arrangement of lights glowed with a pale blue illumination.

The violent tremors ended suddenly as the cruiser moved on, its passage causing the flash flood of sound to lessen but not entirely abate.

The ship began to slow, easing itself into a banking maneuver that swung the rest of its body into a gentle turn to port.

And then, as it finished its U-turn, it came to hover over midtown New Alexandria, barely a kilometer and a half to the southwest of the ROTC Building.

But Duncan's blood only froze when he realized exactly where it was, or rather what it was hovering over. He looked down at the general area below it.

What confirmed his suspicions, what made the bottom drop out from under him, was the fact that he could hear Captain Eddies. But Eddies was no longer talking to them. He was yelling at someone else, bellowing orders to others around him with a newfound panic as a commotion played out on his side of the comms.

Duncan wanted to say something, anything that could break his attention away from what was about to happen. Nothing. His jaw had locked itself in place. He couldn't even bring himself to scream.

A new voice shot through their communications. "Vulture-5-2 to 1st Platoon, heads up! I'm coming in hot from the west! Be ready to move!"

It broke the spell, causing all eyes to shift westward. True to his word, Vulture-5-2's Pelican was in sight. It was half a kilometer away but was closing the distance at breakneck speed. There was no sign of the Banshees he'd mentioned, and Duncan allowed himself the slightest bit of hope that they might actually make it out of this alive.

That hope died as the cruiser's energy projector began to warm.

It started as a building red glow. It was joined by a whispering whine that might have been mistaken for the howling of the wind were it not coming from one place.

Duncan didn't see when it fired.

The human eye wasn't fast enough for that.

But he did glimpse the column of red-hot energy bridging the gap between ship and surface for a fraction of a second. Then he could barely see at all, his eyes burning at the blinding flash that briefly overwhelmed every other source of light, smothering the whole city in darkness. A bright corona rode ahead of the massive airburst that rushed out from the glow of the impact site in an expanding dome of displaced matter.

Time and everything else seemed to slow, everything except the pressure wave.

It whipped across the city at incalculable speeds, engulfing buildings, exploding their windows into trillions of shards that joined the onward surge throughout New Alexandria.

Vulture-5-2 was 100-meters away, flying in a rising ascent towards the building when the blast slammed into him, knocking him off course. The Pelican jetted forward like a surfer riding a rogue wave that rolled on regardless.

Duncan heard the Staff yell for them to get down, but in the split second between hearing the order and reacting to it, the pressure wave crashed into the building.

He was flying one moment then on his back the next, the air thrust out of his lungs as his spine slammed into something hard. He didn't even notice that he was sideways until he landed on his stomach.

The wind roared around him like the passage of a freight train, pinning him firmly in place. He heard something even louder crash into the building, causing it to shake.

He gasped and wheezed in a bid to quell the fire in his lungs.

Almost as soon as it came, the windstorm ceased.

He cracked open his eyes, unsure when he had squeezed them so tight. He did so just in time to watch an object fly past him. He heard the sharp moan of metal stabbing into metal. He craned his neck and caught his first glimpse of where he'd landed.

The pressure wave had knocked him into one of the roof's air ducts. Barely a few inches away from where he'd left a sizable indentation, he noticed a long pole that had stabbed into the duct at an angle. He traced it up to a Y-shaped pair of glass housings that, though completely shattered, continued to spark with electricity.

It was a streetlight.

There was another sound, the buzzing crackle of his own comm-unit. Unlike everything else, it was right in his ears and vibrated his eardrums.

It was so loud that he nearly missed the footsteps racing towards him. A pair of hands grabbed at his shoulders and raised him to a sitting position.

He struggled to blink away the stars and after-images that speckled his retinas. He recognized Hector bit by bit. Though his vision still swam, he focused enough on him to hear what he was saying.

"EP-8, COME ON! WE GOTTA MOVE!"

He took in a breath and let it out in a groaning effort that allowed him to push himself up. He winced at a dull pain that pulsed at the base of his back. Hector helped him the rest of the way, setting him back on his own two feet.

He saw where he was as well as where he'd been standing a second before. From that alone, he pieced together that the blast had thrown him a full 10-meters across the roof.

The Staff and Dalton ran past him. They dashed to another spot along the same duct where Mito was fighting to push himself off the ground. His landing had made a similar dent in the metal. The two squad leaders wrapped their hands around his arms and helped him up.

Duncan turned his eyes again to the southwest.

He looked at the exact moment that the glassing beam from the overhanging cruiser dissipated into nothing. What it left in its wake was a world far different from the one he remembered. It was much darker and a lot hotter. The shadows of towering buildings had been cast across the city by the blinding illumination of a new sun which now existed in the area that, until a few seconds ago, had been midtown. It was no sphere or celestial body, but it was more like a portion of New Alexandria had been transformed into the surface of a star. He couldn't see what was there since he couldn't look for very long, but he could only guess at the sheer scale of the destruction.

He'd never been glassed before.

He was speechless, numb even.

The sweltering temperatures that had infiltrated his armor didn't help, and unless he was mistaken, it was getting hotter by the second.

"Ep-1 to 4-Actual, do you copy!?"

Duncan spotted the Staff helping Mito hobble forward until he finally regained his bearings. Once he was sure he could stand on his own, he peered out into the bright glow of the southwest.

"Ep-1 to 4-Actual, do you read me, over!?"

Duncan waited for an answer, but he never heard any beyond the deafening hiss of the static.

The Staff's fists clenched at his side. At length he slowly, disbelievingly shook his head. "Ep-7, cut the connection!"

The scream of static ended abruptly. What took its place was the rumbling ambiance that had come to replace every other sound in the city.

The Staff ran to the edge of the roof to look down at something. A trail of smoke was rising from somewhere below.

Duncan and the others ran over as well at whatever speeds they could manage. Despite boosting the tint of their visors to the maximum, they each had to hold a hand out in front of them just to spare their eyes from the harsh radiance emanating from the midtown area. When they reached the Staff's side, they understood why he was so still.

Three stories below them, the tail end of Vulture-5-2 jutted out of the ROTC Building like a stick buried in the sand. The trail of smoke was coming from the spot where he had crashed headlong into the 17th floor. The pressure wave had caught the dropship in mid-flight and thrown it forward. Duncan thought he had heard a shift in the sound of its fusion drives. It could have been the pilot trying to pull back on their sudden acceleration. Even if he had, it wouldn't have made a difference.

"Ep-1 to Vulture-5-2, come in! You still with us!?"

They waited.

Only the crackle of burning flames answered them.

"Vulture-5-2!"

A westerly wind caught the smoke and began pushing it more against the building. Soon it came up into their faces. They were forced to back away as it poured over the roof.

"Sir!?" Dalton said. "What do we do now!?"

Again, the Staff shook his head in a sense of deep thought that eventually became a long stare, one that, despite its brightness, peered into the southwest.

Duncan couldn't help looking that way himself. Neither could anyone else.

In the rumbling silence, none of them had to say a word for him to know they were all thinking the same thing.

He peered up at the cruiser. It remained hovering in the same stationary position from before. However, he suspected just as well as anyone else that it wouldn't take much for the ship to fly over them for a second salvo.

"Ep-2 to Ep-1, are you still alive up there!?"

Duncan's frazzled mind shifted to the comms again. So did the Staff's.

"Ep-2, this is Ep-1, we're still here! Can't say the same for our ride! Vulture-5-2 is down! We're stuck here!"

A brief wave of static washed through the line. "...-on Sublevel 5!"

"Say again, Ep-2!?"

"We found a fallout bunker when we came in! The directory says it's on Sublevel 5! We could hold out there until things cool down, over!?"

The Staff considered it. He didn't take very long. "Ep-2, roger that! Team 1, we're making a run for it! Team 2 and 3, get going!"

"Copy! We'll hold the door for you guys!"

There was nothing more to be said but there was still plenty more to be done. Duncan fell in with everyone else as they ran for the closest stairwell.

It was getting hotter, unbearably so.

The naturally damp coolness of the evening had been burned away by surges of heat that were now rippling out from the epicenter in waves.

He was beginning to suffer in his armor. Beads of sweat ran down his face. His BDU's cooling systems were fighting to compensate against the building conditions around it.

Always keeping an eye on the cruiser and the surrounding skies above, he picked up the pace. Underground or not, if it was safe then it was where he wanted to be. The sheer radiation exposure was already bad enough, but he struggled not to think about the hell that was soon to follow.

They poured into the stairwell and immediately gunned it down one flight of stairs after the next. At different points they ran into the dead bodies of civilians as well as some of the personnel that had worked in the building. Having been sprawled out over the steps or on the landings, they could hardly be avoided. There was simply no time. More often than not, the team were forced to step on their arms, legs and backs. They couldn't afford to slow down in any sense, not even out of respect.

Maneuvering around the corpses would only serve to increase their chances of joining them. Duncan kept that thought firmly in mind each time the floor became unbearably soft beneath his boots.

The smell of the days-old dead should have been stronger, he noticed. It would've been were it not for the overpowering aroma of a burning city that was now seeping through every crack and crevice. The heat was also a factor. It was slowly but surely turning the stairwell and likely the rest of the building into an oversized sauna. Halfway to the ground floor his visor started fogging up from the outside, forcing him to wipe it off in order to avoid running blind.

Eventually it became too much.

The heat started stinging his skin.

Being in the lead, Dalton was the first to react to it. He was an older trooper. By the fifth floor, that could no longer stop him from jumping. He leapt down a full flight of stairs to the landing below, hitting the ground at a run. The heat had become so intense that no one missed the opportunity to follow suit. They all took turns jumping down to the landings and quickly clearing the way for those coming behind.

By the third floor, the heat had become a torment. Duncan found himself no longer running but flying and rolling. The growing ache in his knees screamed at him to stop but the sensation of a million red-hot needles pressing into his skin screamed that much louder.

He didn't see when they passed the first floor so much as he felt it. The journey became slightly cooler as the incoming heat struggled to pierce the bedrock. The ROTC Building had been constructed with a scenario like theirs in mind. The fallout bunker was far enough underground to serve as their refuge from the destruction on the surface.

Yet the temperature continued to rise, gradually penetrating even the ground itself.

They jumped through each of the sublevels until they began landing on the final floor. There they were greeted with the relieving sign of the number '5' painted in black on the back wall.

The door leading out of the stairwell had been left open for them.

Dalton led the charge in barreling down the large corridor beyond. Ahead of them, a pair of heavy-duty titanium doors lay partly open. An emergency siren blared around them as several red lights strobed above the entrance. Nova and Yuri stood on either side of the doors. The moment they saw the others enter the passageway, they waved for them to speed up.

"Go! Go! Go!" The Staff roared.

It was a race to the finish and the invisible inferno rushing at their backs pushed them all to their limits.

Despite his radio equipment, Zack overtook them all and was the first through the doors. Reznik rushed in behind Dalton, and Duncan went right after Mito.

Duncan didn't pay any heed to his new quarters but whipped back around to the doors.

The Staff had purposefully stayed behind to bring up the rear and was the last one to arrive. Yuri and Nova retreated inside as the heat reached out to them.

"Close it!" The Staff ordered.

Nova punched a red button on the side of the doors, and they responded in kind. They slid together with a metallic thump. Internal locking mechanisms engaged in a cacophony of hisses, clicks and thuds whose multiplicity was nearly reassuring.

Nearly.

Audi - Listen