The Will To Live✔️

Chapter 40: Once More into the Darkness

"Greg."

He came awake all at once as he felt a hand on his shoulder and sat up with a jerk. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He looked around, his eyes coming to rest on Izzy. She was crouched before him, the others moving around in the background behind her.

He let out his breath slowly. "Good news?"

"Yes." She paused. "Well, sort of."

He groaned and let her help him to his feet. Everyone seemed to be preparing to leave. Greg checked his mission clock and saw that he'd been asleep for about two and a half hours. Great. Another two and a half hours swallowed by the inevitable march of time, chopping down a timeline that was already tight enough to begin with. He groaned quietly as he stretched, popping a few of his stiff joints. Sleeping on the floor sucked.

"Where are we at?" he asked.

"They found it," Izzy said. "That's all Gibson said."

"What, literally just 'we found it'?"

"Well, technically he said, 'we found it, we're working on a way to deal with it, I've sent the nav point to your pilot, get your asses in the air'. I think he was annoyed because you were asleep. Man, you were out of it," Izzy replied.

He sighed. "I still feel out of it. I'm exhausted." He shook his head. "But we all are. Yeah, let's get going."

* * *

Forty five minutes later, after a few unsuccessful attempts to get more information out of Gibson, who promised he'd give him all the relevant data when they were on the ground, their Pelican was coming in for a landing in a relatively flat field of ice that sat in the shadow of a large mound of frozen earth that rose hundreds and hundreds of feet into the dark gray sky. They landed among a dozen other Pelicans at the edge of a makeshift command camp. Studying it as they came in for a landing, he could still see smoke rising from blackened earth all along the edges and realized that they'd firebombed a good portion of the area at some point.

There was still a lot of fighting going on along the perimeter of the camp as Flood attempted to overrun it.

But there were hundreds upon hundreds of personnel moving among the tents and prefab structures that had been erected, and the sight warmed his heart.

Breaker set them down and then killed the engine. Greg got up, weariness finally beginning to fade away, replaced by adrenaline yet again. He opened up the back ramp and found himself facing two figures, waiting for them. One was a young, anxious-looking Private, the other was...

"Gibson! Son of a bitch, you're here?" Greg asked, oddly heartened to see the man in the flesh. Honestly, he thought he would only remain a voice over the radio for the rest of his time on Wintermute, one way or another.

Gibson offered a grim, tired grin. "In the flesh," he said. "I figured I might as well show up for the big event. Good to see you, Walker. All of you."

"Master Sergeant," Izzy replied.

Greg felt a sudden anxiety and embarrassment as he heard her say that and straightened up a little bit. "Master Sergeant," he said.

Gibson laughed. "At ease." He looked at Turner. "Doctor, you've done your duty and now it's time to get you off the field and, hopefully, off the planet. If you'll go along with Private Nichols here, he'll get you to a Pelican that will take you to safety."

She nodded and then turned to face Greg and the others. "I wanted to thank all of you for saving my life. So, thank you. It was appreciated."

"Happy to have been of service, Doctor Turner. Good luck," Greg replied.