Chapter Text
The plan had been good. Great, in fact. Destructive and elegant and it probably would've worked like a dream.
Except…
"Fuck!"
"Epsilon, what is it?", Carolina barked into her helmet, but Wash had a feeling he already knew what was wrong. Maybe he had great intuition or maybe he was just a fucking pessimist. Finding the worst case scenario just wasn't as surprising to him as it was to someone who was more convinced of their own skills and successes.
"They're already inside!" Wash wasn't completely sure how Epsilon even knew that, but, well, he wouldn't doubt it for a second. It was just his kind of luck.
"Epsilon, I need the speed boost, now!" Carolina was already blurring past Wash before she'd finished the sentence, but her radio transmission wasn't fazed by that.
Wash pushed down the brief moment of envy for that particular piece of equipment and sprinted as fast as he could across the light bridge. It probably would've looked a lot more picturesque if it didn't seem like the whole temple was lit by hellfire.
The way in was pretty straightforward, or maybe Wash's tunnel vision just didn't let him see any other paths. His heartbeat was pounding in his ears, and the stomp of his boots with each step seemed to be minutes apart no matter how hard he pushed himself.
Not fast enough. Not good enough.
He had to forcefully stop himself from thinking of all of the consequences of the mercs being in the damn temple before them. Focus. Run, push, forward, don't look at anything but your goal. His calves were starting to burn, but it didn't matter. His friends might all be dead already but it didn't matter. He couldn't think about that lest he lose his only chance of still saving them.
A blur of aqua interlocked with a shadow of green told him he'd found the right place. Carolina was making liberal use of her speed unit in a vicious assault but Locus stood his ground like a mountain. But neither of them mattered.
A big red floating symbol and an orange striped asshole casually strolling towards it like it was no big deal. The merc cast a glance back at Wash that was almost fucking cheeky, if a helmet could ever be described that way, and added some extra swagger to his gait. And Wash knew exactly what was going through his head. Carolina was waylaid by Locus. There was no way she was getting there in time to stop him, and Wash just wasn't fast enough. He didn't have a chance.
"Hey Wash", Felix practically purred. He activated the sword with a flourish that looked way too much like how Tucker liked to use his. Wash was still running, pushing past Carolina and Locus. Epsilon was screaming something that he couldn't focus on. He vaulted over the nearest console, anything to shorten the distance.
"Welcome to the end of the world", Felix announced and plunged the key into the floating symbol. It separated into two, and turned blue of all colors.
This was probably what a heart attack felt like.
Felix's laugh sounded like a cartoon villain, and it would've been ridiculous if it wasn't freezing the blood inside of Wash's veins. Wash let out a scream that might've been a "no", but probably wasn't words at all.
The knife handle was in his hand before he'd even thought about which weapon to use, and he would've never been able to explain why he'd picked it, but the weight of it in his hand grounded him.
His aim was all instinct as his arm drew back, and the breath he let out as he threw it was louder in his helmet than any of the ambient noises. It sailed through the air in slow motion, and Felix didn't dodge. Maybe he was too busy gloating, maybe he didn't realize the danger, maybe he was just not fast enough. It didn't matter, what mattered was that he Didn't. Dodge.
The blade buried itself right into the orange asshole's visor, at the spot where his left eye would've been. The feeling of slow motion dropped away simultaneously with Felix's body dropping to the ground. The plasma blade fizzled out but the temple control was still open and blue.
Wash's legs were still moving, he was still running and it barely took a second before he'd grabbed the sword handle from the floor. He activated it and plunged it into the symbol.
"Turn it off, turn it off, turn it off!", he yelled, hoping for Santa to listen, before pulling the sword back out.
The two halves of the symbol rejoined and the control turned red again.
For a moment, there was silence. Only Wash's ragged breathing inside his helmet. Then awareness of all the things he'd been blocking out rushed back, and he heard the noises of Carolina's and Locus's fight, the beeping of the consoles and the steady hum of the swordkey in his hand.
"Did that work?" Hysteria was coloring his voice. "Was that enough, did that stop it?… Santa?"
Horrible images filled his head, Carolina and him and Locus the only people left on the planet, being the only one left, again, and it was absolutely his fault this time, why wasn't he faster, why wasn't he better, guess the project had a point about him being the worst, he couldn't lose another family, how could this keep… -
"The purge has been stopped." Santa's booming voice was like a life line. "However, though its activation may have been brief, it was not without consequences. Many lives have already been taken." And there was that punch to the gut, again.
His left hand was trembling when he raised it to his helmet to radio blue team's frequency.
"Guys, are you there?"
There was just static for a moment. It didn't have to mean anything, the radio jammers were still active, maybe he just couldn't reach them, it didn't mean they were lying keeled over dead in a ditch somewhere.
"Oh, hey Agent Washington. We are a little bit busy over here but maybe could you leave a message after the beep?"
"Dude, there's no fucking answering machine in our radio."
"Oh, well that's okay, I can just say beep. BEEEEEEEEP"
"Dude the beep is not the fucking point of the answering machine. Also, my ears hurt now."
"Tucker? Caboose?" His voice sounded watery to his own ears, and where did that lump in his throat come from when he'd just heard good news?
"Yeah, Wash, sup? Aren't you supposed to be keeping the mercs busy?"
"Felix, he was already… are you guys okay?"
"Already what? Wait, are inside the temple? Dude you gotta get out, they're dropping the ship on it, now." The urgency in Tucker's voice seemed oddly misplaced to Wash's ears, until he really recognized what Tucker was saying. Right, space ship, dropping from space. That was a thing that was happening.
"Good point", his own voice sounded weird to his ears. "Carolina, we gotta go."
He deactivated the sword, even though he had no idea how it worked—it just seemed to read his intentions—and attached it to the mag strip on his thigh. Then he turned around and ran back toward the entrance of the control room that seemed oddly close now. The distance had been nearly insurmountable before. Maybe the room had shrank while he hadn't been paying attention.
"Right!", Epsilon said, while Carolina delivered a series of rapid fire punches to Locus' helmet that all looked concussion worthy. "Come on!"
Almost as soon as Wash was in reach, Carolina turned around and grabbed him by the waist. Which would just make running out even more difficult so what exactly was she trying to…
The sickening lurch of the speed unit activating was all the explanation Wash needed. The world flashed by him in a whirl of colors as he desperately tried to wrap his arms around her to hold on. Had he really been jealous of that mod before? Scratch that, he very much preferred running to this. He barely had a second to recognize the light bridge from earlier before they were already across it.
The deactivation of the speed unit hit him like a pelican crash and the fact that Carolina let go of him in that exact moment didn't help. He fell forward and just managed to catch himself on his hands and knees to avoid faceplanting.
The bubble shield flared to life as Wash turned around and looked past Carolina's extended arms up at the sky. Tucker had been right, there hadn't been a second to waste. The UNSC Tartarus' massive outline was rapidly approaching, and Wash wasn't completely sure if the shield would be enough.
He didn't really have time to dwell on that, though, as the ship hit the very top of the temple's tower. The last thing he saw before he squeezed his eyes shut was a dark figure running down the light bridge towards them, but as he looked away he wasn't sure if he hadn't imagined it. Either way, he doubted Locus had a chance to make it out of this alive.
His helmet's audio filters toned down the ambient noise levels, trying to save his hearing, but the crash was still incredibly loud. The noise of rubble hitting the bubble shield sounded like rain on a tent and with the roaring of the building collapsing he could almost imagine a thunderstorm.
He kept his eyes closed for a moment longer as the noise faded. The sudden smell of dust in his helmet's air filters told him Carolina had deactivated the shield. The scene that presented itself when he opened his eyes looked like he'd been teleported someplace completely different. Gone was the red hellfire glow and pretty much all of the scenery. There were huge pieces of rubble all around. Some moss on the ground of the neat little circle they were sitting in was the only vegetation left in view.
"Wash, are you okay?", Carolina coughed into her headset. He had to cough himself, so he just nodded instead of answering as he pushed himself back onto his feet. His HUD showed him that the air filters were working at maximum capacity but it just wasn't enough. He switched to the suit's internal oxygen supply for the moment.
"Tucker?", he croaked into his radio when his throat was finally free enough to talk again. "Status? Are you guys okay?"
"Are we okay? Jesus Christ, we're fine we got like a thousand alien weapons against what's left of the space pirates, you're the ones with the two psychotic mercs and the space ships falling from the sky!"
"We're fine, but Felix managed to activate the purge, I stopped it but Santa said people died already." Both Carolina and Epsilon were staring at him as he said that, and even though he could see neither of their expressions, he turned away rather than face them. "So I repeat, are you guys okay over there?"
"What? No, Santa's wrong, we're all fine here. Maybe it hit the pirates first or something that would be…" Tucker's voice trailed off. "Oh…"
If you had ever asked Tucker what the most heartbreaking words he'd ever hear would be, his answer would not have been "Get up, fatass."
He'd been too focussed on his radio, the tense two minutes between him yelling at Wash to get out of the temple and him calling back spent staring in suspense at the clock in his HUD. He wasn't supposed to get involved directly in the fight with the space pirates anyway, so he'd just been hiding behind a rock and hadn't had to pay attention to the fight around him.
But after hearing what Wash had said about the purge he finally paid attention to what was going on around him, and when he realized, the words stuck in his throat.
"We're in the middle of a fight, this is no time to be lazy! Come on, get up." If Simmons was going for a stern yell, then he was failing miserably what with the squeaking his voice was doing.
Grif was lying on his side, and Tucker couldn't see an injury, there was no blood, no nothing. Simmons was prodding him in the side. "Grif, get the fuck up, this isn't funny!"
The sinking feeling in his stomach had Tucker gripping the side of the rock he'd been standing behind.
"Come on, no one even shot at us", Simmons implored with another crack in his voice. "Talk to me, dammit!" He fumbled with his teammate's helmet seals, and it seemed to take forever before he got them loose. Simmons removed the helmet gently, catching Grif's head rather than letting it fall to the ground. Like Tucker'd been taught in a first aid class in basic training ages ago. If you remove someone's helmet keep their neck straight, because it might be damaged.
But it didn't matter. Grif's neck wasn't broken, and protecting it wouldn't make any difference. That much was obvious when his eyes were revealed. They were open, staring blankly back at them, no movement, no life in them.
"Don't do this", Simmons croaked out. He lowered his head until his helmet was touching Grif's forehead and Tucker suddenly couldn't watch this anymore. This moment wasn't something that he should be intruding on.
He stumbled away from the rock he'd been at. It took him a moment to get his bearings and realize that just heedlessly walking out onto a battle field wasn't the smartest idea of all. But he didn't have to worry, he realized after a moment, because no one was shooting anymore. Plenty of people were yelling, though. He could spot Andersmith near the entrance of the communications tower, the rhythmic motion of his shoulders telling him he was performing CPR on someone. It took Tucker a moment longer to realize the aqua accents on the boots sticking out from where Andersmith was kneeling.
"I'm the only surviving member of green team." Tucker felt sick to his stomach when he remembered those words. Now his entire team was dead, and it was his fault in every single case. Maybe not directly this time, but he was more aware than ever of the weight of the alien sword strapped to his leg. If he hadn't gone swinging it around all willy nilly in the temple of armament then none of the alien technology would've ever gotten activated, and the mercs would never have found out about the purge at all.
"A little help here, please?" Doc's voice sounded timid, but panicked at the same time. Tucker spotted him behind a crashed Hornet, fuzzing over a prone form.
"He just crashed for no reason, and I don't read any vital signs, I don't know what happened, he wasn't very good with this thing, but he barely had any speed when he crashed, his injuries aren't that severe, I don't know why he isn't breathing…" Doc was babbling when Tucker came over. It took him a moment to recognize the face, but he noticed the yellow accents on the beige armor. Matthews.
"What do you need me to do?", Tucker asked. Though he had a feeling that it didn't matter what they did. Even if Doc had been a halfway competent medic, there was probably no saving Matthews.
Still, he followed all of Doc's instructions, because it was better than doing nothing, right?