“Sir, there’s a Covenant capital ship orbiting the city. It arrived there only a half hour ago, and has been sending a barrage of troops to attack, as well as every artillery unit we’ve ever come across, and some we haven’t.” How did this one get through? It probably got past that other ship and attacked head on, knowing we’d have nothing to stop it. Time to pull out the ace. “Get the closest pelican to the Master Chief, and send him over there. I want that ship out of my sky. Then open a link to him; I have a mission for the Spartans.” ****** I’ve failed. The Forerunner ship exited the atmosphere, and there wasn’t any UNSC ship to intercept it. No fighters, cruisers, bombers…nothing. It disappeared from his vision, and he could only imagine that it had jumped into Slipspace, knowing full well that it wasn’t welcome here any longer. The rest of the Spartans looked at him, awaiting orders, or at least guidance. But he was lost in his own thoughts, in the failed mission. There had only been one other, although the difference in the outcome could not even be measured. John kept looking up until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Immediately recognizing it as Linda’s, he instinctively turned towards it and her. “There was nothing we could have done. That field was just too powerful. There’s still work for us to do.” Her words rang true in his head, but every atom in him screamed out. Not against it, but not for it. They just screamed. Hearing something to his immediate right, John turned like lighting and aimed his BR55 right at the head of a Jackal, who lay under rubble, reaching for a plasma pistol. His trigger finger pulsed, ready and waiting to pull itself back just a bit further, to release the burst of bullets into the Jackal’s head. Will walked over and simply kicked the plasma pistol away from the Jackal’s reach, and turned to John, not understanding what the problem was. But the muzzle still pointed at the Jackal’s head, its bird-like eyes widening, as though to plea for help from an imminent doom. This is the enemy. We must take out the enemy. Its either them or us. “John, snap out of it. It’s not going anywhere, and won’t be hurting anyone. Just let it go.” Her voice rang in his ears, but his hand refused to give up the target, the enemy. Only then did it hit him what was happening and he turned around and punched right through a pile of rubble, obliterating it even more than it already had been. Rage filled his entire being, just for a moment, and then died down again. “Master Chief,” came through his internal speakers, “this is Admiral Hood. A Pelican will be coming to pick you up momentarily. It will take you to New York, where a Covenant capital ship is bombarding the city. They need support desperately. I need you to take the grav-lift and take out that cruiser.” Taking a deep breath and standing up straight, John activated his suit’s communication system and opened a channel. “Understood sir. We’ll take care of it.” “Good. You’re ETA will be ten minutes. The pilots will be rushing it, so hold on tight. One last thing: We may have a possible truce with the Covenant soon, but this ship is one of their rogues. If they have anything that doesn’t fire at you, don’t fire back at them. But be careful. They probably know about that and may set a trap. And good luck. Admiral Hood out.” As the comm. channel closed, the Pelican came into sight, and landed just 20 meters away from them. “Pile in boys and girls; we don’t have any time to spare!” The Spartans jogged into the Pelican, climbing through the open hatch on the back of it, and they all sat down in whichever seat they could. It took off quickly, putting at least three g’s on everyone. Nothing out of the ordinary. But John sat in thought, so deep that the weight had no meaning to him, as though it were only a shell he was in, yet that he wasn’t in it. Like he was having an out of body experience. What was I thinking? A flashback of the Jackal played back to him, and nothing in it made any sense. I would never do anything like that. Would I? What’s wrong with me? The sound of distant voices kept a strange background hum during his thoughts, although he barely noticed it. As it grew louder and louder, his own thoughts became too hard to understand through the amount of noise he was hearing, and John suddenly snapped back into reality. His head whipped left, and he realized that he’d been asleep, although it felt like adrenaline had been pumping through him, and his heart rate was up. The time gave justice to him, showing a seven minute lapse that he really couldn’t account for. Gazing straight, while wondering how to get his own helmet off and wipe his eyes, Fred appeared in his sight, sitting directly in front of him. Helmet off and eating some military rations, he saw a gauntlet holding food extend towards him, and a smile which was he was too eager to recognize. Then all cylinders started firing again. “Thanks.” John took the rations and unclipped his helmet, taking it off with his free hand. Never had military rations tasted so good, but, then again, it had been some time since he’d eaten anything. “Here’s to us,” Linda chimed in, holding up her last piece of edible material high above her. “May we live to go on a long vacation, and eat decent food, without ever worrying about the Earth’s safety.” “Amen to that.” “I second the motion.” They all laughed, except for John, who withheld that luxury because he was the team captain. He simply ate, quietly, focusing on each bite and swallow. For that one moment, he wondered why, as the squad leader, he was supposed to not join the friendly ‘civilian’ conversation, especially now, that their chances of survival could be at a potentially knew low. On that note, he stopped eating for a moment, so he could fix this minor problem. Because in those few minutes of sleep he had, a revelation occurred to him. There are too many problems for him to simply deal with the large ones. If that was all he dealt with, then soon the minor ones would become worse than those already taken care of. It was time to fix everything at once, not one at a time. “You know, back on the Cairo before we all went our separate ways, I heard a funny one. How many Elites does it take to screw in a light bulb?” Looking across the faces in the Pelican, the answer didn’t really matter, because his team had lightened up from his return so much that anything would suffice. But who am I not to give my team, the best team, the best?