“Well, I got good news and bad news,” the old bear began, trying in vain to sound light and easy, “This bird took some fire and her thruster gimbal is toast.” He hooked a thumb at the dropship behind him as he spoke.

“And that means....?” she queried, her own voice, pitched low, was rougher than it usually was. She was not going to let her fear get the best of her. They’d make it through this, one way or another.

“That means, the only way off this slag heap is gravity.” Jorge finished, and he sounded slightly somber.

Right. Well, freefalling wasn’t a problem. She was more than used to it, and perhaps she even liked it. Hell, the Lieutenant enjoyed it. There was nothing quite like being weightless, tumbling through the atmosphere towards the ground below.

“So what’s the good news, then?”

The Spartan-II’s shoulders slumped. “That was the good news.” He was unable to keep the disappointment and frustration from creeping into his tone.

Her heart sank.

“At current velocity, fifty-three seconds to endpoint.” Auntie Dot chimed in. The Lieutenant immediately thought that the AI was being unhelpful, at that point in time.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah...” Jorge rolled his eyes, the loud movement translating through his helmet, before taking the piece of armour off, tossing it somewhere behind him. His face was now visible to B312, and the worry in his hazel eyes had a knot forming beneath her breastbone. “Bad news is, timer’s fried. I’m gonna have to fire it manually.”

No! 

The shout went through her mind as much as it did her heart. Beneath her own aqua-tinted visor, her lips trembled. A protest hung in the back of her throat, waiting to creep out and escape, but it lodged there. She merely stared up at the old bear in horrified silence, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place.

“That’s a one-way trip.” was the only thing that she managed to get out, finally, after a seeming eternity of quiet.

“We all make it sooner or later.” Jorge’s eyes turned steely with resolve. “Better get going, Six, they’re gonna need you down there.” Her mind went to the rest of the team, on the ground and waiting for the two of them to return. But her heart stayed with Jorge. She didn’t want to — couldn’t — lose him. He was like family to her. “Listen, Reach has been good to me...”

He reached into the space between armour plating and bodysuit, and yanked his dogtags free of his neck. He then wrapped her hands around them, squeezing tight.

“...Time’s come to return the favour. Don’t deny me this.”

The rumbling growl warned her not to protest, and she pressed her trembling lips together. All she could do was squirm uselessly as he picked her up with a single hand, as though her quarter ton armour weighed no more than a weapons crate to him, and began to walk to the shield bay door of the corvette. He paused for just a moment, and she knew that the muscles in his body were bunching and tensing, preparing for one last act of strength.

“Tell ’em to make it count.”

The image of his gentle countenance and warm hazel eyes burned in B312′s mind as the old bear tossed her out of the corvette, and she began to sink towards Reach’s atmosphere, her momentum and the gravity well of the planet boosting her speed. Tears blurred her vision and streaked down her face as soon as she saw the great purple hole open up from within the corvette, expanding, expanding until it consumed the supercarrier and exploded outwards, bisecting the massive vessel in two.

And as she finally, finally drifted closer to the ground, the communications link echoing with panicked voices.....

“We’re currently regaling one another with tales of “glorious combat”,” Six drawled, and yes, it was not hard to miss the quotation marks around the words glorious combat. He couldn’t help but sense a subtle jab at the Sangheili, who were always rambling on and on about honour and glory and other trivial things like that. A smirk flickered across her mouth, and she spun her knife deftly before pointing it at him. “Care to join us? I’m sure you’ve got plenty from the time when Noble Team didn’t exist.”

The Commander shrugged a shoulder and pulled out a chair, pointing it the wrong way so that he could straddle it, and cross his arms over the back. Maybe it was a bad habit that he’d picked up from Emile. But it wasn’t like it was doing any harm ⁠— he wasn’t there to hold an example to his Spartans, he was just to relax. “I’m game,” he answered nonchalantly, “Whose turn is it?”

“Mine.” Kat set her datapad aside, and leaned forward slightly, pointing to a scar located near her left temple, beginning at her hairline and ending in her eyebrow; the scar tissue bisected the eyebrow, but not enough to be noticed at a distance. “You remember this one, don’t you Carter? I threw myself into an explosion to save a civilian, and wound up with shrapnel stuck in my forehead. You were so pissed at me, despite how you responded...” Her eyes danced with amusement.

Carter chuckled and shook his head. She wasn’t wrong; he recalled that day all too well. It had been one of the first things he’d learned about Kat ⁠— that she was willing to do anything it took to get the job done, and then some. “Ahhh, yeah, right; that was when I wound up with shrapnel in my face pulling your ass out of there.” He tapped the long scar on his left cheek, that was criscrossed with a smaller one. “You’re not wrong: I was pissed, but because I was so damned stubborn we both wound up hurt.”

“Not bad at all. Sounds quite like something a Spartan-II would do.” Six grinned, lips curling back from her teeth in a manner that resembled the snarl of a wolf. She stretched out her right leg and caressed her thigh, where a whip-thin, snaking scar ran almost down to her knee. It looked like the skin edging the wound had been burned, perhaps by a plasma weapon. “Energy Sword. Damned split-lip tried to take my leg off. I snapped its neck as a reward.” She tipped her head back and laughed, a rasping, coarse noise that didn’t belong in that situation, and tucked her leg up beneath her. “They can’t get one over on me. No matter how hard they try.”

He regarded her keenly for a moment, before nodding his compliance. “Yes, my lady. I understand.” His slate grey scales appeared more like charcoal in the shadows, and his one good eye was not as bright green as usual.

Arcturus relaxed, relieved, and folded her arms across her chest. A beat, two beats later, and two other figures stepped into the shadows; one a short, lithe wraith, the other a towering, muscled ghost. She stepped forward to greet them, voice pitched low so that no passersby could possibly overhear them. The taller of the two, another Sangheili, turned his body half away from the conversation, and he continually scanned the streets, while keeping an eye on the conversation. The other, a Spartan, like Arcturus, let one hand drift down to her hip, where a combat knife lay hidden, just out of sight.

“There are rumours of ONI patrols, yes?” she queried, cocking her head. “And you think they are getting cocky?”

“Borderline sloppy,” the other Spartan corrected, but she wasn’t disagreeing, “Good to see you too, sister.” Her lips twitched into a faint smirk, and her eyes like chips of ice glinted with amusement.

“Where are my manners?” Arcturus remarked wryly, prompting a chuckle from the other woman. “I have missed you, Jeanette. It’s been... difficult.... for me to get out lately. I’ve been dealing with, shall we say, an old friend.”

Jeanette arched an eyebrow, and stood with arms akimbo. “Care to explain?”

“A troublesome old friend at that.” Tha’ze inserted himself into the conversation, his manner casual. “I have had to remove him from our base of operations one time too many, at Arcturus’ request.” He snorted disdainfully. “Personally, I do not see why she continues to allow him in, but then, that is her choice.”

Arcturus rolled her eyes, and flicked her elbow towards Tha’ze’s abdomen. “Peace, Tha,” she intoned, for she could feel his agitation, “It’s not necessarily his fault that I’m having a hard time dealing with the situation.” Her gaze shifted back towards Jeanette. “One of my old teammates, from when I was stationed on Reach. Well, not just any Spartan....” She worried her lower lip between her teeth. “My superior officer. Seeing him again, and us being on two different sides of the law, is...”

“Not easy to deal with?” her sister filled in, tilting her head.

Arcturus let out a short breath. “You could say that. I have a feeling that his reappearance and ONI’s presence are connected. Given what he told me as to why he’s here....” She winced. “ONI want to get rid of me; they think I’m a liability. And this isn’t even COLD MOON-related, either. It’s straight up just wanting to remove an asset. The UNSC, on the other hand, want me for questioning. So it’s.... a fight between them, and I’m caught in the middle.”

Jeanette looked sympathetic. “That would not be easy to deal with. I will keep my head down, but I will also make sure to lead those damned Spooks well clear of your hideout. For you, sister. And because I’m more than happy to get their presence off my home planet.” Her teeth flashed, briefly, in a grin that was all too reminiscent of a wolf’s, and Arcturus matched it.

She came to regret that decision when she lost sight of her dearest friend. It hadn’t entirely been her intention, of course; she’d meant to keep Kat just in her line of sight. But she’d rounded a corner, and then another, and then a third -- it was so damned hard to curb her speed, now that she had to learn just how fast she could really go. She dropped her pace to a walk, and then stopped altogether as a shadow fell across the path, and she thought that it was the other cadet.

How wrong she was.

One of the trainers rounded that corner, and it wasn’t one of Currahee’s DIs, either. Cold dread settled in her stomach as the young, wolflike cadet recognized the platinum blonde ponytail and cold, glittering green eyes that could only belong to one of the ONI DIs. The Office of Naval Intelligence had been pulling her aside for years, now, for extra “training”, which had included the death of--

“We’ve been looking for you all over, B312.” the woman’s cool voice interrupted her thought train, and as she met the trainer’s gaze, she took a step back. Something was wrong, so very, very wrong. There was something.... purposeful in those unfeeling eyes. The DI wanted her for something. She knew it wasn’t training; that had slowed and eventually stopped after the completion of her final test. She’d heard talks from Currahee’s DIs earlier that morning about “shifting the cadets elsewhere”, and those thoughts, coupled with the intent on this drill instructor’s face...

Artemis took another step back, hair swishing as she shook her head. “No you have not,” she said accusingly, “You have not been “looking for me all over”, because you do not have any use for me. I am finishing the recovery process for augmentations. So you cannot take me until that is complete.”

The ONI DI smirked down at her. “Unfortunately, my orders were to take you now, sweetheart. I can take you in nicely, if you want. Or we can do it the hard way. It’s up to you, really.”

The cadet bared her teeth in a silent snarl, suppressing a shiver at the nickname. Once, a long, long time ago, perhaps in another lifetime, she would have heard her parents calling her such a name. But it had been twisted, used against her, in over two dozen attempts to sweet talk her, to act nice.... And now she simply hated it, whenever it was used against her. So she curled her hands into fists, and raised her chin, ever defiant, ever stubborn. “No. You will not take me.”

“Don’t say I didn’t give you the option....” The DI lunged, bearing down on her, but Artemis was faster, much faster. She lashed out with a vicious kick, hitting the woman squarely on the chin, sending her stumbling back, back; she shoved past the trainer and ran down the trail, back the way she’d come, back towards Kat -- or so she hoped.

Another DI leaped out of the bushes, tackling her to the ground. Artemis landed heavily on her flank, and the trainer pinned her in place -- but only for a beat. She lashed out, elbowing him in the diaphragm, squirming free, struggling to rise to her feet. All she had to do was get back up, keep moving. Get running, and she could get away from these bastards, get back to Kat, flee to Camp Currahee...

Pain lanced through her like white hot fire, and her body crumbled as her knee gave out from under her. She realized that the trainer had kicked her like he was a horse, and that it wouldn’t have hurt so much had she not still been recovering from augmentations. Just another week, and she would have barely felt it at all.... The trainer was on top of her again, and the woman appeared again, helping her partner pin the unruly cadet in place. Panic coursed through her, and she cried out, desperate, fear making her voice tremble, shake.

“Kat! Kat, please.... They’ve come for me....!”

Artemis needed her big sister now more than ever. And it wasn’t from the monsters in her mind, not this time. The monsters were right there on top of her, holding her roughly in place, fumbling around in their pockets -- likely looking for a sedative, to knock me out... -- ready to take her away. The only one who could save her was Kat.

Fear rushed through her veins, sending her heart pounding against her ribcage, thump, thump, thump. She struggled against her captors, but they were too strong -- too strong while she was still recovering from augmentations, and strength had never particularly been hers to command with ease even before augmentations. If she could just knock them off balance, squirm away from them, if she could just get to her feet, then she could take off, leave them behind. But a knock to the back of her head sent her face bouncing into the paved pathway, sent more pain lancing through her, caused her to lose focus. Her ears rang, and she cried out again, hoping that her fellow cadet was near enough to be able to hear her, hoping that she would come fast enough, before the monsters took her away...

But they were hauling her up, lifting her to her feet, and Artemis felt a quick, sharp, stab as the needle slid into her skin, injecting the sedative into her bloodstream. Panic surged again, coursing through her like waves, and she struggled harder, lashed out.

Dimly she was aware of thudding footsteps as someone approached speed, and then Kat came into view, azure eyes widening with shock as she bore witness to her best friend being confined by the ONI DIs. The sight of her sister-in-arms caused her struggling to double anew, and she kicked at one trainer, elbowing the second in the head. As soon as their weight was off-balance she fought her way free and ran as fast as she could to the other cadet, vision blurring, limbs gradually slowing as the sedative began to take hold. She clutched at Kat, her words jumbling together, a hoarse, desperate plea, and then the monsters had her again, ripping Artemis away from Kat, pulling her back, and she didn’t have the strength to fight, barely had the strength to cry out,

“Sister, please don’t let them take me!”