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There were a pair of flares and they vanished.
Ash hesitated, his hand moved up as if to salute, but he stopped, recalling the standing order of "no saluting in combat arenas." He stood straighter, gave Kurt a nod, and jumped after his teammates.
Kurt keyed the COM, "Saber One, you read me?"
"We're goooo…" Ash's voice dopplered to the ultrasonic.
"Saber One? Ash?"
Static washed over the channel.
Not even a COM signal made it through—an observation that only strengthened Kurt's conviction that he was doing the right thing. He hoped for the best, hoped Saber and the others would be okay.
"Pods," Kurt said, and motioned toward Tom and Lucy.
His NCOs pushed the cryo pods and the bodies of Will and Dante through. More flashes. Silence.
"Chief. Doctor," Kurt said. "You're next."
Mendez looked to the spatial rift and then to Kurt. He swallowed, and said, "Aye aye, sir. We'll see you on the other side."
For once. Dr. Halsey had nothing to say. Instead she made the traditional Spartan two-finger "smile" gesture over her face. She blinked quickly, and then turned to the fissure.
Mendez took her hand and they stepped—
And were gone.
"They're starting," Fred announced over the COM.
"Guard the opening, you two," Kurt ordered Lucy and Tom.
Kurt then moved back up to the edge of the hill and watched with Fred as 150 Elites moved toward them. This time it was not a slow, careful march with overlapped shields. They charged en masse. Banshees swooped up and over the formation, two high and two low, accelerating ahead of the Covenant infantry and then over the hill.
They ducked behind the towers, and then Linda popped out as the Banshees passed.
"I have them." Linda's sniper rifle was to her shoulder. She stood motionless for a heartbeat, then fired once at the receding fliers, moved her aim slightly, and fired once more.
The rear two Banshee pilots fell. Riderless, the Banshees nosed to the floor, bounced, and sparked to a halt.
Linda dropped the magazine, examined the chamber, cycled the bolt, and then set it down. "I'm out."
Kurt, Kelly, and Fred leveled their assault rifles at the remaining fliers and opened fire. Tracer rounds arced through the air
and stitched over the Banshees. Smoke billowed from the leader, and erupted into a ball of flame that smeared through the air.
The last lone Banshee pulled up and circled back.
The advancing horde of Elites and Hunters was only two hundred meters away. A few in their ranks fired, and wild energy bolts streaked overhead.
The towers now lay thirty degrees off the deck, and the "hill" only three meters tall. Kurt knew they'd soon have no cover left.
Fred glanced at the open smoking bolt of his MAB5. "I'm out, too," he said.
Kurt opened up the administrative subdirectory on his heads-up display and accessed SPARTAN-104's file. "As acting CO of Team Blue, 1 am hereby granting you a field commission to the rank of Lieutenant, Junior Grade," Kurt told Fred. "Congratulations."