Halo: Fireteam Phoenix

Chapter 14: Last Dying Breath

The dust settled over the ruined plaza. Scraps of smouldering paper and jagged glass snowflakes fell on the stone floor, slicing into the mounting corpses. Most of the courtyard was damaged in some form. Broken windows, doors smashed open, general debris. A fine coating of dusty ash covered everything, sticking to their limbs as they moved. The world had turned grey. 

Felix and Marie together through the valley of death, searching for the rest of the ODST's they had ridden in with. "Getting the gang back together now, aren't we?"

"I suppose so. We must hurry, night falls and the city soon shall fall."

"You're a ray of sunshine."

"Give me a reason to grin, and you'll find traces of lipstick on my ears." Marie cut him off, peering into the gloom for Eric. 

Glass crunched like bones under their feet. Eric's scowling face stood out amongst the crowd of faceless helmets and dead, staring eyes. Marie couldn't tell which looked more lifeless. "Sergeant."

"Lieutenant. What's the situation?"

"We successfully cut off covenant entrance to the plaza for now. We must hurry, however, as they will find a new entryway. They appear to be aware of our evacuation plan, and it is only a matter of time before they assault again."

"Evac?" He laughed. "You haven't heard? We dropped for no reason. Any pelican in this city fucked off hours ago, and the shuttles won't make it out before that cruiser cuts them in half." He sat down on an empty ammo crate, his rifle by his side. A plume of dust went up, swirling around in the fading light. Marie sucked a breath through her teeth. "Gunnery sergeant, have you truly given up any hope of our success? Do you not remember your actions at the battle of Demepor? How you saved the city of Tarbeth?" Her loud speech sent ripples of excitement through the crowd. Demepor? That had been the greatest UNSC victory of 2548. This was THE Eric Stevens?

"So I killed a few covenant. Saved some lives. So what?"

"The men believe in you. They will fight for you, and they will rise up against anything in your name. Sergeant, our shared fame will rally our soldiers. Together, we will push these invaders from our planet and shatter their resolve. But I need you. Will you stand with me, to rally against the night?"

"Aye, I'm with you. Fuck it, we're all dead anyway, might as well take some of those fuckers with us." He snatched up his rifle, cocked it and slapped his helmet onto his head. "Where to first?"

Back in the heart of the building, they spread out a map. On it, they marked the positions of evac shuttles, optimal escape routes and likely civilian hideouts. "Now all we need is an exit vector, and to get that cruiser out of our yard."

"Well, we have a cruiser and frigate on station to ride out of here, I'm sure they'll oblige," Eric said. A marine nodded at him "I'll get admiral Ball on the horn."

"While they deal with the cruiser, we organise any forces across the city to their nearest hotspot. Shuttle, escape route, hideout, arms depot, whatever. By the time they're filling the shuttles, Ball should have the cruiser's attention."

"Now we need something to do."

"I have a confession," The ageing captain admitted. "We have a plethora of equipment and civilians in the old bank, ten minutes away. We had it on lock down and figured the vault was a safe spot. Then the covenant took it and we had to bug out to here. We didn't have time to get the civvies out." 

Marie sat back, stunned. "So you left them?"

"I had no choice! If I had brought them out of that vault, I wouldn't be talking to you know!"