2103 HOURS, OCTOBER 15, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDER) / ENROUTE TO SOL SYSTEM, PLANET EARTH, VIA SLIPSPACE TRANSITION, ABOARD UNSC FRIGATE GETTYSBURG.

With a dull thump, the doors to the Gettysburg's machine shop unlocked and eased inward, as Garth stepped inside, he was immediately aware of the trio of gunbarrels pointed in his direction. He would have commented, but for some reason, he just wasn't feeling settled. The business with Dr. Halsey's... Desertion, was bothering him more than he cared to admit, even to himself.

That was the crux of it. Dr. Halsey had deserted the UNSC, and taken one of his own with her.

Shaking his head, Garth clenched his jaw. No, Dr. Halsey wouldn't have deserted humanity so easily, there had to be an explanation to her actions. He just didn't have all the facts. His gut instincts agreed with this line of thought, so he pushed his worry to the back of his mind, and forgot about it. For now.

"Garth." Sitting with her back propped against a stainless steel tool chest, with most of her armor removed, was almost the last person he expected to see. Alive, at any rate. Angry red lines crossed her pale, bare skin, bearing witness to the superhuman end result of the SPARTAN project.

Linda was alive. Again.

Staring frozen for an instant, Garth strode across the bay, and crouched down next to her. A knot of worry festered in his gut, boiling around his insides like a swarm of vermin. Fumbling with his helmet seal for a moment, there was a hiss of escaping pressurized air, and Garth's bare face got it's first taste of unfiltered oxygen in what felt like forever.

He wanted to confirm with his own eyes that Linda was ok. Machines break, trainee. Your eyes don't. Chief Petty Officer Mendez had taught them that lesson, decades ago, and Garth had taken it to heart more than any other SPARTAN had.

An uncomfortable silence lingered, before someone softly cleared their throat. Garth jerked his head around, and gave the other SPARTANs a glassy eyed stare. "Nikolai. Wayne." They nodded in return. Closing his eyes for a moment, just to rest them, Garth looked at his teammates again.

Nikolai was sitting at one of the few benches in the shop, one hand resting on his S2 AM. An Oracle scope was laying on the table next to him, as well as mounting tools, and several bottles of Locktite in various grades. A gift from Linda, no doubt. He was in the process of removing the damaged scope mounts, and replacing them with new ones. "My lucky rifle." Nikolai swiped his fingers across his faceplate, making the smile gesture.

"I think the scope was luckier." Turning, Garth set his focus on Wayne. The other member of Grey team was laying on the floor, head pillowed on his arms , MA5B alongside him, as well as his back plate.

Wayne's armor had taken a serious beating, and it still surprised Garth that he was alive. Wayne had rushed a pair of Hunters that had Nikolai pinned down, and nearly got a hole blown through him for his loyalty. It was only luck, and Wayne's razor edged reflexes that had allowed him to take a glancing blow from the second Hunter's Fuel Rod cannon. The rest of the blast had torn the other Hunter in half, and Wayne had finished off the remaining Covenant enforcer with a punch hard enough to tear a Warthog in two. The Hunter had fared about as well, Wayne's fist ripped most of it's insides out, and spilled them over the ground.

Turning his gaze back to Linda, Garth's eyes drifted down to the iridescent green plates that lay in a pile next to her. A lot of them looked different somehow. Reaching across Linda's thighs, he picked up a shoulder pauldron and turned it over in his hands. It was definitely different, the exposed slit of the shield generator was slightly larger, and the plating a hint thinner than his. "Upgrades?"

Linda nodded, crossing her arms carefully over her chest. "A little something Red team picked up during their stay on Reach." A hint of a smile flickered over Linda's lips, then died. "A lot of SPARTANs di-"

"I know." Garth set down the pauldron, reaching for another plate of armor. "I read the report." That wasn't entirely true, he had just read the MIAs and the KIAs. "Whitcomb didn't make it." Staring at the undamaged, pristine really, armored plating for a moment, Garth set it back down on the stack, and sank back on his heels.

"You knew him?" Linda's interest was piqued. Grey team had always been sent the furthest away when it came time for missions, she hadn't seen Garth in years. She ran bare fingers over her short, bloodred hair, absently thinking about shaving it again.

Nodding, Garth held up his left arm, staring at the uneven corrugation that ran over his upper limb plating. "He was usually the one who assigned Grey team to recon duty." Unlocking the collar around his wrist, Garth slid his gauntlet off, and set it on the floor next to his helmet.

Linda's eyes drifted over Garth's worn armor. It looked a little like someone had taking an enormous belt sander to his left side, and worked him over with it. She had a feeling that the truth wasn't that far off either. "What happened to you?"

Removing the armor plating from his arm, Garth went about taking off his shoulder pauldron. "Fell off a cliff." He stripped his other arm free of his armor, then began working on his torso plating. When he had first put on his Mark V armor, it had taken four techs a dozen minutes to assemble it. Now, he could strip and repair most of it on his own, like he had when he had ruptured his hydrostatic gel seal after he had fallen off that cliff.

"No, I ment since I last saw you." Linda frowned, realizing there wasn't enough time in the world for any SPARTAN to accurately recount years of history. "Tell me about your last mission." They had time enough for that, at least. It would take him that long to replace his damaged armor with the Mark VI prototype parts they had left over.

"It's a long story." Garth was sorting through his armor plating, separating the intact bits from the ones too damaged to repair. "Are you sure you want to hear it?" He'd filed the report already, and Nikolai and Wayne had lived most of it with him.

"I've got nothing to do but lay here. The Chief ordered me to rest until the Navy medtechs on Earth clear me for active duty." That had been the compromise, after the assault on the Unyielding Hierophant, that Linda get some R&R to recuperate from her operation, and post death experience.

Nodding, Garth set down his chest plate and picked up his helmet. Turning the drab and amber angular dome over in his hands, he mulled over where to begin. He vaguely remembered the beginning to an old earth fairy tale, somehow, the words felt right as they drifted from his lips. "It was a day like any other..."

-

0930 HOURS, AUGUST 20, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) / EPSILON ERIDANI SYSTEM, FLEETCOM MILITARY COMPLEX, HIGHCOM SECTION, PLANET REACH

"Sir!" Snapping a smart salute, Garth felt rather than saw, the two members of his team duplicate his action. "SPARTAN Grey team reporting for duty, Sir!" Typical Naval officers usually looked upon a half ton of armor and flesh with distaste, but Vice Admiral Whitcomb was anything but typical.

"At ease." Returning the salute, the Vice Admiral gestured to the seats arranged in a semi-circle before his desk. "Glad you boys could join me. Have a seat." Settling himself back down in his chair, Whitcomb looked expectantly at the three soldiers. "Well? Time's a wasting boys."

Glancing hesitantly at the padded wooden chairs, Garth looked back at the Vice Admiral. "With respect sir, those chairs aren't rated to support our gear." In truth, nothing short of a seat bolted to a titanium frame came close to supporting a fully armored SPARTAN.

Whitcomb stared for a moment, before realizing what the younger man ment. "Of course, stand easy then." Opening a folder, he glanced over a few lines of printed text, then sharply stared back up at the trio of SPARTANs. "Son, it says here that you've just returned from a six month recon op yesterday. Is this report correct, or do I need to have a few words with my staff about their typing skills?"

Garth shifted uneasily, as did the rest of his team. Procedure was for at least two days of downtime for every month spent on extended recon. His team had walked out of the armory only a few hours ago, after making sure that their gear was in fighting shape. "Sir, the report is accurate, Sir."

Staring hard at Grey team for a protracted period of time, the Vice Admiral closed the folder, and placed his palms flat over the manila covering. "Is your team fit to serve son?"

There was only one answer to that, there would ever be one answer to the question. "Sir, yes Sir!" Garth and his team snapped to attention, staring straight forward.

Whitcomb's salt-and-pepper mustache hid the small smile that formed on his lips. "Very well. Here is your mission." Pulling a second folder from beneath the first, the Vice Admiral spun it around and flipped it open, revealing a deep space radar photo of a blue and grey planetoid. "There's a rock some few hundred light years out from this system, Earth type atmosphere, uncolonized save for a small listening outpost and a titanium mine or two." Flipping the page to another photo, this one an overhead shot of the outpost with several cut-in frames of Hi-Res enhancements of various sections, he continued. "The outpost reported a few vague contacts out in deep space nearby, nothing serious, but odd."

Grey team stood silently, eyes locked onto the photos as they memorized every surface, edge and shadow of the layout. They went even as far as to record several Hi-Res shots of their own from their visors. It was always best to expect the unexpected, as Grey team frequently delt with both.

"In a few days time, Dr. Halsey and her team will be conducting a test of the newest model of the Mjolnir armor." That caught their attention. "The test is a mere formality. The Doctor assures me that the new armor is fit to deploy." Whitcomb closed the folder. "I want Grey team at the Ghost Five outpost ASAP." The Vice Admiral stood up. "And I want them dressed to impress. You have four hours to be prepped to go. A prowler is waiting for your team ten klicks north-east, your armor is waiting for you in firing station one."

Leaning over his desk, Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb fixed the three SPARTANs with a steely gaze from his coal colored eyes. "I don't need to tell you that this mission is top secret, do I son?"

If it were possible, the SPARTANs stood even straighter than before. "Sir, no, Sir!"

"Good." Nodding, Whitcomb straightened back up, sliding both folders across the desk towards himself. "Feel free to help yourselves to anything not bolted down on your way out. You may want to take a look in medical warehouse twenty-seven, bio-hazardous waste storage section aqua. It seems that someone accidentally shifted some high end munitions there by mistake. A clerical error that will be cleared up in, say, the next hour?"

"Understood." Snapping a stiff salute, Grey team waited until the Vice Admiral returned it and nodded his assent, then turned to leave.

"Good luck boys." As the door eased shut, Whitcomb sat back in his chair, and slid the folders into a slim metal slot seated between the drawers of his desk. There was a faint clack, and a tiny puff of smoke.

Watching the hazy grey vapor drift upwards until it was sucked into the ventilation, Whitcomb only then noticed that his hands clutched the arms of his chair in a white-knuckled grip. "I have a feeling you're going to need all the luck you've got."

-

"The drop capsule is sealed and ready to go, sir." Turning in his seat, the co-pilot tapped a control on the door behind them, separating the cockpit from the next compartment, for the seventh time.

"You keep checking the seals, and they're going to get annoyed. Might pop open just to spite you." Chuckling, the pilot chewed a nutritional bar, one hand on the steering yoke. "The Prowler will still be there when we're done with the drop, the seals're fine, and those walking tanks don't give a damn about your nerves."

"I broke a boot lace this morning." The co-pilot tapped a key on his console, and a blue wireframe image appeared on the cockpit display. "Drop co-ordinates are confirmed, ETA is ninety seconds and counting."

"You and your superstitious nonsense." The pilot wadded up the empty wrapped and tossed it onto the floor. "Nothing is going to go wrong. We're just gonna lay this egg, and head home to roost." He tugged back on the throttle a little. "Optimum speed for drop achieved. Attitude light and steady."

The co-pilot tapped another key. "Bay doors unlocked, and primed for ejection." On the forward screen, a green delta inched towards an open bracketed X. "Sixty seconds to drop. It's not nonsense, it's a sign is what it is."

"Radar clear, flaps engaged to ten percent." The Pelican trembled a little as it slowed slightly. "It is nonsense. What could a piece of boot lace know that Command doesn't?" The pilot inched a slider forward a little more. "Flaps to twenty percent."

"Thirty seconds to drop." The co-pilot pecked a few more keys. "Drop capsule is showing all green across the board." The Pelican rattled a bit more. "What was that?"

"Just a crosswind, we're down a bit low for this drop, considering the high atmosphere of this rock." Pulling back on the steering yoke, the pilot tilted the nose of the Pelican up. "Optimum angle for capsule ejection."

"Eight seconds to drop." The co-pilot tapped several more keys. "Launcher pressurized, bay doors open. Three, two, one... Launch!" Slapping a large red key, the co-pilot braced himself.

The Pelican lurched as it spat forth a gunmetal green cube. "Flaps off, full military thrust." Pulling back the slider, the pilot shoved the throttle forward and the Pelican lept forward, climbing high into the sky.

"Radar contact! Zero three zero zero, mark one five- oh Christ..." The co-pilot turned to look at the pilot. "It's a piece of the Prowler."

Jerking the yoke to the side, the Pilot shoved the slider forward. "Flaps to forty percent! Give me a distance reading on th-"

-

Inside the drop capsule, there was a small lurch as a wave of pressure hit the topside of the gunmetal green cube throwing it slightly off course. A green gauntleted hand reached up, and tapped a few times on an overhead mounted keypad.

Thrusters fired, the cube stabilized, and continued along a new trajectory. The rain of blackened titanium fell past the capsule as is had altered course to avoid being shattered by the fragments.

The occupants endured the fall silently, awaiting their chance to properly begin their mission, heedless of the risks it entailed.

-

High up, in the black of space, far above the Ghost Five outpost, a purple oblong shape drifted past the ruined wreckage of a UNSC Prowler.

-

Apologies for the long delay at uploading this chapter. I've had it sitting on my desktop for a long time, but only just finished it this afternoon.

Hopefully it's up to your standards. Questions and comments, as always, are welcome.