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“Better get going, Six,” Jorge said, steel in his voice. “They're gonna need you down there.”
As he reached up to grab his dog tags, there was a shuffling noise, and then the clang of metal hitting metal. The paired Spartans rounded on the sound, leveling their firearms at the offender. It was a marine, clad in armor stained in multiple colors of blood. Six's HUD identified him as 'Sgt. D. Hunt', and highlighted a nasty-looking leg wound that bled freely.
“Respectfully, sir,” he said, coughing, “they're gonna need you both. You're still in fighting shape. Me? I'm a goner. I'll never survive reentry, but you will.” He took his helmet off, revealing shaggy brown hair and eyes that had seen far too much. “You two can still do a lot of good that I can't; let me at least go out swinging.”
The Spartans looked at each other and shared a nod before helping the man limp into the cover provided by the Pelican dropship. “Patch into frequency sierra-delta-one-fife,” Jorge said quietly as he extracted a small device from the timing mechanism. About the size and shape of a flashlight, it had a small cover that flipped up to reveal a button. “Dot'll tell you when,” he added as he returned his helmet to it's proper place
“Thirty seconds to endpoint,” the AI helpfully reminded them.
“I've got it, sir,” Hunt said quietly as he too put his helmet back on, fiddling with the radio settings. “Now get out of here; they need you.”
Jorge looked at Six, who nodded. They then walked over to the shield covering the hangar and leaped out into the black.
Hunt reached a hand, shaky with blood-loss, into a small pocket on his armor and extracted a picture. A smiling woman stared back at him, a young girl held in her arms smiling as well.
“Mia, Val,” Hunt whispered, “I love you girls. I'll get these bastards back for what they did to you, and I'll see you soon.”
Despite his vision starting to swim and grow dark at the edges, he forced himself to remain lucid as the AI Dot counted down from ten. As soon as she said the word 'endpoint', he flipped the cover open and pressed the button.
A large smile crossed his face as he stared out at Reach from orbit, his visor automatically darkening to compensate for the sudden bright violet glow of the slipspace drive.
And then Sergeant Hunt knew no more.