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Benti blinked groggily, a frown of concentration, yet still not fully there.

“She didn’t mean it,” Clarence said, glancing back at the corridor, mindful of the Flood, and then reached out with his pistol and shot the human prisoner in the head. The man didn’t have time to look startled, just dropped, a small and surprisingly neat puncture in his skull.

Lopez had no time to react. Everything happened real fast after that.

Henry spun, Benti crying out with the sudden movement. The Elite saw the dead prisoner, roared in unmistakable grief, and raised its rifle. Clarence jerked his own rifle up, staring down the barrel at the Elite.

Benti slapped its arm, pleading: “Don’t shoot! Nobody shoot!” But staring at Clarence. Lopez was staring at Clarence, too, stunned. A good man. A good shot. Someone she wasn’t sure she knew now.

And the Flood. Louder, closer, relentless, unstoppable.

Lopez’s rifle wavering between her Marine and the Covie: “Clarence, what the hell?”

Henry bellowed, a terrible accusation in that alien voice. She couldn’t get a clear shot with Benti there, just as Clarence couldn’t get off a shot at them without Lopez dropping him. Except she had MacCraw.

“MacCraw, shoot that—MacCraw?”

He wasn’t at her side. Behind her, one of the escape pods clicked shut.

“Fuck!”

The pod ejected.

From the bridge of the Red Horse: “Three minutes to launch sequence.”

>Benti 1623 hours

Benti stared at Clarence, her partner blurring in and out of focus. She really couldn’t see much of anything anymore. Knew her pulse was thready, that she’d lost too much blood, medic training both a blessing and a curse. Henry’s embrace felt like a warm bed around her body, a bed she was falling into.

“You’re ONI,” she said at last. “You’ve got to be.” She could see it in his eyes.

From off to their left, the voice of Lopez, coming through gauze: “ONI? I’m not surprised.”

Knew the good old sarge still had them in her sights or Clarence would’ve blown her away. She realized every sympathetic quality she’d found in him had come from her. Just because he never said. Anything that. Would change her opinion. Realized she was floating a bit now.

“It’s nothing personal. There were never meant to be any survivors,” Clarence said. “Benti, get down. Come on, you can walk.” He narrowed his eyes at Henry. “Put her down.”

The sounds of the Flood, coming closer. But muffled, like she had headphones on or something.

“You’re Section 3,” Benti said, quieter. A softness entered Clarence’s mouth and eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said, but Benti didn’t think he was sorry.

“Clarence, drop your rifle,” Lopez said fuzzily. Except Benti knew Lopez had said it sharp. The sarge. Always said it sharp. “It’s two against one.”

Benti squirmed and made Henry set her down. She was almost there. She could almost see the end.

“Henry can have my ice cream,” Benti said.

She pushed off Henry and staggered into Clarence, legs so unsteady, and he was farther away than she thought. But still got too close-in for him to shoot her, inside his guard. She collapsed against him, with her one good arm around his neck in a hug.

As the Flood surged around the last corner and came toward them. A slavering mass of rage and violence and nightmares they never knew they had. Her vision blurred, but she caught glimpses of what once were faces, moving with singularity of mind. They seemed to crawl on disembodied human hands and Covenant hands.

Pushed, then. Used all of her weight to push the two of them back toward the Flood. She had just enough strength to hold him there for the second necessary for Lopez to shoot him in the leg, the shoulder, send his rifle flying. Send him flying back into the corridor. Benti followed, to keep him out there, with them. The farther back into the darkness the better. Clarence was too wounded to stop her.

Lopez and Henry were shooting—at them, at the Flood. It didn’t make a difference now.

Clarence was shouting something. At her, but it sounded so far away. His eyes were wild and scared, and