#echo 216

Attempting to punch may be a more accurate way to describe how both his fists bounce of the Spartan's armor. The Spartan whose head is thicker than titanium if he thinks this not-a-plan is a viable option.

"We need help, not heroics." His cries fall on deaf ears. The Master Chief is bound and determined to find some weapon that will help protect humanity. The Spartan has to be insane. 

Esparza paces. Chief continues on. Esparza confronts and decries his plan. Chief continues on. Esparza points out the evergrowing alien reinforcements and aircraft. Chief continues on.

"Fine! Go find your weapon, and then we can go....right?"

Chief jumps.

The pelican is empty again.

Esparza fills the silence over the radio and watches through the helmet-cam footage that Chief is sharing. He watches until the transmission fades into static as the Master Chief descends into some kind of Forerunner repository. 

He stares at the console in front of him. Chief is somewhere in there, having disappeared into the open wound of the Ring. He's got his own problems now with multiple enemy ships headed towards him, towards them if he ever sees the Spartan again. The one who jumped out of a perfectly good pelican and into what is most likely a death trap.

Pulling up and out of the unnatural canyon of hexagonal metal and rock, he rolls into a turn to narrowly avoid the red and black bulk of a Banished phantom.

Cursing, Esparza dives hard and coaxes the Pelican away from plasma and stone. His radar lights up, too many, too soon. He took too much time dropping Chief off. He curses at himself and the Chief and the Ring.

There isn't any cover and the Banished Warships hang like warnings in the sky with their massive patrols swarming them like flies.

Banshees come screaming down from on high and he jerks the controls again as he dodges yet another Phantom. The autopilot flashes and he smacks at the lights in a panic.

Seeing a gap in the Ring below and saying a quick prayer, Esparza dives. The pelican groans as it takes the gs along with its small pilot. His vision darkens at the edges as his hands feel numb from how hard he's clutching at the yoke. 

Grit teeth and eyes full of distant stars, Esparza dies in a hail-fire of plasma and Forerunner energy as the slowly healing ring destroys the Pelican and Banshees.

He screams and is gone before the fires can reach him.

 "SIGNAL DETECTED. TAG DESIGNATION: FRIENDLY." 

He awakens screaming and clawing at the restraints of the pilot seat. He unbuckles and falls to the floor, metal digging into his knees as he dry heaves and squeezes his eyes shut.

"No, no, no, n-" he moans as the Ship AI continues chirping in the background, "SIGNAL DETECTED. TAG DESIGNATION: FRIENDLY." 

He crawls upright, mind blank except for whispered pleas, and reaches out to the fogged windshield of the Pelican.

Cold condensation on his hand has nothing to do with the chills running down his spine as he wipes a streak of starlight clear across the window and see him.

The Master Chief is floating before him for the third time. They haven't met yet.

He grunts and detaches his pistol from the magclamps on his thigh.

"And I thought we were watching the birds," he returns evenly.

They were watching the birds, to be fair. Zeta Halo differed from his previous experiences on Forerunner structures in that it had a functioning… ecosystem… of sorts. With the remaining UNSC forces securing a tight foothold, he'd felt he could start relaxing his stranglehold on procedure and start-- something. Appreciating things. As it turns out, false suns feel just as warm as real ones.

"It's a little disconcerting to see birds use brass shells for mating displays," Joyeuse says. "Fernando doesn't have any proper IFF markers. I don't know…"

And he'd-- what? Relaxed enough to let a civilian sneak off into unknown territory and get himself lost? He twists around, staring intensely at his surroundings, waiting for details to seep out of the long grass and compacted dirt, like remnants of Esparza would suddenly make themselves known.

And they did-- eventually. Boot prints. Impressions of knees in the dirt. Headed further away. John carefully follows the tracks and picks his way down the rocks, closer to the thin bubbling creek that coalesces into a river in the distance. Joyeuse casts out another round of scans.

Ah.

John forgoes scaling the remainder of the terrain in favor of dropping down right behind his charge. Or, he would have, if Joyeuse didn't throw out the mental equivalent of an arm across his chest.

He freezes in place. Esparza lays prone in the grass. She highlights a handful of silhouettes. Ah.

Esparza must have snuck off to obtain a closer look at a different set of wildlife. Zeta Halo also possessed a number of rodent-like creatures (that the marines and personnel made quick work of eating). He sees them now, dipping their naked heads into the water for a drink.

Briefly, he wonders if the rings are capable of seasons. Then he shunts that thought aside and hunkers down beside Esparza.

"Hello," John intones.

Esparza jumps in his skin and bites his tongue on a yell. John stifles a surge of mixed emotions -- guilt and pride, mostly, with a tinge of amusement.

"Wear a bell," Esparza says, shaking his head.

"You snuck off first."

He blinks at John, expression scrunching up, radiating surprise.

"Guess I did."

John shifts his position in tiny increments. He doesn't want to disturb Esparza, nor does he want to disturb the animals they're watching. But this particular area has even fewer sightlines than the outcropping and it's-- rankling him, might be the word. Yeah, the sergeant uses that word a lot. Now it's in his vocabulary.

Joyeuse's good humor at the phenomena is a burst of sunlight down his spine.

"My house was on a prairie," Esparza says suddenly. "Country home. You know. So we got a lot of critters like that in the evening."

One of the rodents stands upright.

John casts back for a memory, maybe something to relate to Esparza (as he can learn to converse, Cortana would be--), and makes a listening grunt.

"My kid learned pretty quick about the circle of life though," he finishes. "Or…"

He trails off, stymied by the ground shaking seconds before the vibrations sink into the Mjolnir. Two of the rodents bolt off into the grass. The third lunges into the water and paddles determinedly to the other bank. This puts it within throwing distance of them for all of a second before it vanishes into the ground.

Joyeuse had been correct about the burrows, then.

Esparza opens his mouth and snaps it shut as the air around them rapidly shifts. A crimson Banshee roars overhead, followed by an UNSC aircraft.

"Let's move," John says.

He instinctively reaches over to Esparza, but his charge is already on his feet and retreating. More guilt and pride assaults him but he stuffs it down in favor of hurrying back to the Warthog on which they came. Joyeuse automatically switches over to friendly radio chatter and yeah-- that's contact.

Banished making a move on the local FOB.

"Can never catch a break, can we, big guy?" Esparza laughs.

John waits excruciating seconds for Esparza to buckle in before flooring it.