The Will To Live✔️

Chapter 20: Rescue Op

After finally managing to get to their feet, the pair headed back upstairs and into the cold. Only a single Combat Form was lingering in the area, apparently not as eager as its comrades to leap to its doom, and Izzy put it down with a quick shotgun blast. They both climbed back into the Warthog and Greg began the process of trying to get in touch with Becker again. It took a lot longer than he wanted, and not because of incompetency on the other end. For a long time, there was only static, and he began to wonder if something had happened.

Finally, the radio crackled and a voice rose through the haze of static. "I hear you, Corporal. This is Becker. Over."

Greg sighed with relief. "We have your data, but nearly died getting it. The entire damned building collapsed while we were still in it. And there's Flood around. Over."

"Holy crap," he muttered, "you two continue to impress me. Thank you. Can you send me the data now? I'm afraid I find myself in need of a few capable Marines again. Over."

"Sending the data now. Over," Greg replied, glancing at Izzy. She had hooked the datapad up to the Warthog's communications system. She worked it quickly and a progress bar appeared on the dashboard screen.

"We're receiving. Excellent. I'm sorry I have to keep dumping this on you, it's just that...as far as I know, you're literally our only assets out there. I haven't had contact with anyone else in your region. Over."

Greg felt the urge to complain, but quashed it ruthlessly. He'd been letting this whole thing get to him, and he knew that was a path he couldn't go down, a path he refused to go down. "We're Marines, it's what we do. What's the mission, Sergeant? Over."

"I'm very glad to hear that. At the moment, comms are very sketchy. There's a communications relay about ten miles up the road from you. We're getting nothing from it, and if you could do for it what you did for the comms on Polaris, that would help a lot of people. It also happens to be the rough location of where our recon team was before they went dark. Over."

"Understood, Sergeant. We'll see what we can do about the team and make any repairs that we can. Over."

The upload finished. "Data received. Good luck. Out."

Greg started up the Warthog as Izzy pulled the datapad out of the dash and replaced it in one of her hardened pockets. He glanced over at her. "You ready?"

"Hell yeah. You're right, we're Marines, this is what we do. They can't stop us," she replied firmly, and he could hear a grim grin in her voice. All he could see through her visor was her eyes, and they were alight with passion and fire.

He started driving.

* * *

"Where do they come from, do you think?" Izzy asked.

They had to talk over their helmet radios, as the winds made it too hard to hear otherwise. They'd been driving for a bit now, most of the way there. They hadn't said much.

"The Flood?"

"Yeah."

He sighed. "I mean, I heard that Halo thing, whatever it was. But I guess that's not true. I mean, not exclusively. Not unless I'm missing something."

"I mean originally."

"I don't know." He thought about it. "They're like monsters, like a living weapon almost. Maybe someone built them a long time ago."

"What a bunch of assholes," Izzy muttered irritably.

He chuckled. "Yeah, definitely. But it's not like humans are clean in that regard."