The hatch lowered and revealed Henderson helmet-less in his standard-issue Spartan armor standing at the top with his rifle in hand. We stood our ground and waited patiently as he slowly walked down the ramp, his boots making slow resounding thunks! on the old, dented metal. He stepped off the ramp and I saw the muscles of his arm tense tense between the gaps of his shoulder armor, the slight subconscious squeezing of his rifle's trigger, a small movement of his upper body as he unconsciously leaned away, a twitch near his eyes and mouth as he grimaced reflexively. I tensed carefully, ready for any sudden moves he might make. He stopped just after the ramp, keeping his distance. He smiled and said in a forcefully relaxed tone, "To what do I owe the pleasure? I was aware we would split up after the evacuation. After all, we would be watching from a distance to make sure you had a safe departure and then our mission would be finished." I took a step forward, trying to close the gap without raising alarm. "Respectively so Sir, but we also agreed that Kyle would come with us to recover on the ship, seeing that our Pelican is the only one capable of leaving the atmosphere." He had lost his smile now, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly. I continued at his silence, "But Selina here was concerned that you had misheard, and since we needed a refueling as well we decided to come here before re-checking the facility and picking up Kade and Scott." I finished. His face briefly flashed a relieved look before he suppressed it at the sound of Kade and Scott being left behind. "I assure you that you will not find Kyle here, I was in a completely different area with our Pelican, prepping it for take-off. I'm sure he just wanted some fresh air." He replied, flashing another smile.

I sighed a bit angrily. If he wasn't going to be honest I'd just have to force him to admit it. "Well then, if that's the case why did we find your Pelican tracks in the grass near the back of the med tent? We also found Kyle's medic unconscious with a testimony of how you and your troops forced your way into the tent and drugged Kyle so he would come with you. We found the sedatives and saw the bullet holes, we know it was you." At my words the expression on his face fell and became panicked. I continued "Now, Where. Is. Kyle?" I demanded loudly. Henderson desperately looked back and forth between us for a moment... Then he opened fire.

I immediately dropped to the ground, bullets whistling above my head. Selina rolled out of the way and behind a crate, returning fire. I looked up to see him running up the ramp with bullets from Selina draining his shield. I ran past her and up after him, but was met by a helmet-less Grey instead at the middle of the ramp. Grey had a knife in his right hand. I looked at it quickly, him looking at my empty hands. He saw the advantage and darted forward, the knife whistling through the air. I blocked his arm and swung at his side, my punch redirected downwards by his left arm. He slashed the knife at my abdomen, left, right, horizontal slash. I blocked the first two and ducked under the slash. I quickly delivered a punch to his stomach. He folded in the middle, holding his abdomen with his left arm and the knife in the right. I raised my fist but a shake made me stop and steady myself. There was the roar of an engine. The Pelican was taking off! Grey smiled and dived at me. I slipped aside lightning fast to my left and punched him to the ground with my left fist. He quickly got up, wiping his lip where it had hit the ground and started bleeding. There were sounds of ricochet as Scott fired on an engine, a small explosion and smoke billowing from one as it was damaged by the sniper rounds. Selina ran towards the ramp but had to roll behind cover almost immediately as Henderson appeared at entrance to the cockpit and fired at her while waiting for the Pelican to go through the start-up sequences. The Pelican shook again as it warmed up and we spread our feet to stabilize. It slowly began to rise.

I looked towards Henderson and took a step before being tackled by Grey. I hit the ramp hard and we rolled, exchanging short punches as we moved across the ramp. I used the momentum of our roll to slam his knife hand in the ramp, forcing him to let go. The knife slid off the edge. The Pelican was starting to move forward now. I saw Selina run and try to catch onto the edge but she missed as it moved faster. Grey got up quickly and aimed for my head with a punch. I rolled away just in time as his fist hit the metal where my head just was, creating a dent. Kade was running below us now, trying to find a place to board. I saw him climb on something, coiling so he could jump for the edge and swing himself up. I delivered a hard punch to Grey's face, causing him to stumble near the edge. He was bleeding from his lip and nose now and was unsteady on his feet. I saw Kade jump, aiming for the left edge of the ramp where Grey was. He caught onto the very corner, nearly slipping off, and swung himself below, up and over. He used the momentum to kick Grey, flinging Grey into the side of the Pelican at the top of the ramp and knocking him out. The momentum caused him to slip off though, and he landed in a crouch on a fuel tank below. He flashed his red acknowledgement light showing he was ok and I nodded.

I ran up the ramp, watching for Rogers. The Pelican was out of the hangar now, slowly gaining speed as it flew higher. I slowed my run and walked down the back rows of seats as I still hadn't seen Rogers yet. This Pelican was modified so that the back was smaller and had doors for closed spaces. I had to be careful. I pulled out my gun, unable during the fight because of the speed at which it had initiated. I shined the rifle's under barrel light around the back of the pelican, wind from the open hatch flowing through. There was a small click to my immediate left and Rogers suddenly appeared out of a side door. I turned quickly, firing and draining her shields. She charged me and we exchanged punches at lightning speed. Everything sped up and slowed down as I went into Spartan Time to counter her augmented agility. I blocked them, left, right, left, and when she punched with her right again I whipped my hand out and grabbed it, twisting it so she crumpled in an attempt to relieve the pain.

I pulled back my arm with my assault rifle to knock her out, but her eyes darted behind me for a second. Too late did I hear the small footsteps behind me over the sound of the howling wind. Grey wrapped his arm around my throat, pulling me away from Rogers. I fell back, surprised for a moment, and dropped my gun. He squeezed tighter, closing off my air, and my training took over. I turned my head slightly so that the part of my helmet covering my chin was above his elbow, and dug it into his softer under-suit padding. He held on for a moment, but as I dug in deeper and it started to pinch his skin, he lightened a bit. I used this to dig in more and I twisted my body away, driving my elbow into his torso. He crumpled and I slipped out. I was a bit confused for a second at his attempt to make me pass out. He had me in a headlock and with his Spartan strength could have snapped my neck right then and there. I'd have to think about that later though. I turned to deal with him but I was met by a kick to the back as Rogers was free from my hold now.

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I stumbled forward into the side of the pelican. I rolled away as a fist slammed into the metal where my head had been once again. I backed away near the entrance. Grey was pulling his fist away from the wall and Rogers stood in a fighting stance. Grey had dried blood on his nose and he touched his nose, blood staining his glove. He looked a little worse for wear, and was unsteady on his feet still. Looking behind me I saw that the edge was only a few feet away and the Pelican was extremely high in the air now. We were just about on the edge of Atrius's inner atmosphere. I saw a Pelican rise in the distance back where the base was. It had only been a few minutes and thankfully we weren't too far from the base yet. I looked back quickly at Grey and Rogers approaching. My rifle was behind them, forgotten and lying on the ground. I still had my pistol. I pulled it out, aiming at Grey and pulling out one of my knives from a side sheath. "Stand down Fireteam Prime." I commanded. "Just hand over Kyle and you can leave."

Grey spit, "We have a job to do, you should have left it alone while you could."

"I'll give you one chance to hand him over." I said, tightening my right hand on the pistol and raising the knife that I had positioned so it was pointed to my left and the blade faced away from me. "And who's going to stop us?" A new voice questioned. I looked toward the back to see Henderson approaching from the cockpit, his assault rifle in his hands. I pointed the pistol at him. He laughed. "After all, it's three on one, and your friends can't board a moving ship." I heard the other Pelican coming closer behind me, but I suddenly advanced, "Then it is a fair fight."

I charged, kicking a surprised Rogers into Henderson, and shooting Grey's shield down. Grey realized his predicament and ran at me unsteadily, swinging his fist for my face. I leaned back and then dropped as Henderson fired at me. I put my leg up and pushed Grey up, over, and behind me, forcing Henderson to cease firing. I rolled and hopped up quickly. Rogers went to kick me. I hooked my pistol on my thigh and blocked it, grabbing her leg and throwing her at Henderson. Henderson was knocked off his feet again and Grey approached as they untangled themselves. I swiped at him with knife, aware Rogers and Henderson would recover quickly. He blocked it and surprisingly caught my hand despite his injured state. He twisted the knife out of it, fracturing a finger in the process, and it slid off the Pelican. I punched him hard into the wall... but then Henderson kicked the back of my knee, hard, and stomped down, forcing me to stumble. I felt my leg twist painfully a bit as his boot dug into my armor with the force of his weight behind it. Rogers delivered a blow to my back and I fell to the ground. I got up onto my knees and looked back at them only to be met with a kick from from Grey that sent me rolling painfully to the edge of the ramp. Henderson made a sound of disapproval.

"No!" I heard Selina shout through the radio. I shook my head, the darkness that had formed at the edges of my vision wavering. I slowly got up, favoring where I had been kicked by Henderson and stood unsteadily for moment before collapsing to one knee again. I saw Henderson approach me and I slowly looked up at him, the scene flashing back to the day I injured my knee during training. I shook my head to clear it. I lashed out, punching him in the stomach. He fell back a few feet onto the ground and Rogers punched my head in response so that I had to steady myself and put my head down to increase blood flow to my head as I fought to stay conscious. I looked up to see a slightly angry Henderson approach again. He had his rifle in the rest position and when Grey raised his arm to punch me again Henderson held him back. "It's a shame really, no one else has skills like you. You should have left it alone when you could. Goodbye Chief." He said haughtily, doing a mock salute before raising his rifle. Roger stood grimly next to him. I couldn't react. I was barely conscious as it was. My armor couldn't protect myself enough.

Rely on your head, not your armor, my subconscious reminded me as reality slowed a bit. I quickly went through all potential possibilities as fast as I could. Realistically my team's Pelican was my best choice for getting out of this mess. If only they could somehow catch me. I knew they were back there, but it was likely they wouldn't be able to catch up in time. I would have to rely on armor-lock to survive the fall. Time sped back up.

Henderson brought his rifle down and I braced myself as he hit me with the end of the rifle at full force. I grabbed onto Roger's leg, pulling her off balance in a last ditch effort to try to stay on, but I felt my hand slip as I flew into the open air and everything went dark.

__________________

My vision faded in, I saw the Pelican I had just been on high above, another starting to dive after me. The rear hatch of the first was closing. The wind whistled around me as I fell partially headfirst on my back. It faded out.

It faded in again. I was still on my back. The second Pelican was still diving and the other had disappeared. The other Pelican diving was too slow though, I was too far away. Fighting unconsciousness as I fell, I managed to roll myself into a spread eagle position. I saw my helmet was partially malfunctioning and the stats at the edges were flickering and staticky. I forced my foggy and jumbled mind to think, taking in my situation. My less than optimal physical condition would need to wait for a moment if I was going to survive. The trees were not the far away. I faded out a bit and then, as the trees got closer, fought harder to stay conscious. I would have to slow down if I was going to make it. I turned my self upright with a struggle and engaged my thrusters. The initial engagement jerked my leg and I gritted my teeth as my vision faded a bit. The trees came up on me fast and at an angle. The sound of the second Pelican slowly got louder as it began to catch up to me, but it still wouldn’t make it in time. I left my thrusters on as much as possible with the limited fuel they had, but I still approached the tree tops faster than I would have like. They would help me slow down as they had some give, but it would hurt nonetheless. I curled into a ball and pressurized my hydrostatics to almost the maximum amount, a cushioning layer in my suit so it would protect my organs, and engaged armor lock to immobilize my body. I myself crash through the trunk of the first tree with the force of a missile. The impact was too much for my already fading consciousness. I heard Selina yell something over our coms I didn't hear as I crashed through the second tree. Everything went black.