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and splintered the hardening bio-foam in his abdomen. He tasted fresh blood.

The bombardment ceased.

"Hurry!" Kurt told them.

They all jogged to the center. The rift was fading and was now only a meter across. Deep

inside, Kurt caught sight of a ribbon of blue and silver. Water glistening in the sunlight?

Kelly and Linda entered without hesitation; Fred halted, turned, and held out his hand.

Kurt took it and shook.

Fred stepped backward and vanished.

Only Tom and Lucy remained, still standing guard by the rift. Their SPI armor picked up

and mimicked the gold sunlight in the fissure.

"Okay you two—"

"With all due respect, sir," Tom said. "We're not leaving. You'll have to court-martial us."

Lucy said nothing, but made her intention to fight understood as she hefted their last SPNKr missile launcher.

The rift wavered, dimmed, and contracted to a mere half meter.

"There's no time for this," Kurt growled.

Tom took a step closer to Lucy.

Of course, Kurt had been foolish to think Tom and Lucy would leave him after so many years together—orders or not. Perhaps they even knew what he had in mind.

"Okay, you win. How much ammunition do you have?" Kurt moved to Tom. "We'll pool our reserves."

Tom looked down at his rifle—

Kurt hit him, his flattened palm connecting with the underside of Tom's helmet. The impact lifted the Spartan a half meter off the ground, and he landed in a heap.

Kurt wheeled on Lucy and held up a warning finger, indicating that she stay put.

He checked Tom's bio signs. No bones broken. No cerebral swelling. Just coldcocked.

"He'll live," he said. "You're both going to live. Now give me a hand."

Shadows crisscrossed the hill, and fifty meters overhead Kurt watched three Banshees streak past.

Lucy dropped the missile launcher and helped Kurt pull Tom up.

Kurt wrapped his limp arm around her shoulder. "You two didn't survive Pegasi Delta to die here," he told her. "There's too much left for you to do."

She shook her head violently back and forth.

"Yes," he said. "Don't make me…"

His vision blurred and a wave of dizziness washed over him. His heart struggled, pumping harder and faster. There was a warm trickle in his stomach. He was losing more blood. Slipping into shock.

Plasma blots stitched the stone nearby, shattering them, as Banshees screamed by on a strafing run.

"Please," he whispered.

Lucy reached up to Kurt's faceplate, touching two fingers to his mouth. She struggled to make a sound, but all she could manage was a half-choked cry.

He took her hand, gave it a squeeze, and let go.

Lucy lingered, looked at Kurt one last time, and then slipped into the rift.

"Good-bye," he said.

They were gone. All of them.

Now Kurt could concentrate on what had to be done.

He picked up Tom's MASK. Its ammo counter indicated half a magazine. It would have to do. He grabbed the last missile launcher, too. He was sure he could find a use for it.

The "hill" around the center was only a meter tall now and shrinking rapidly as the concentric rings eased back to the floor of the room. The finlike towers folded inward, almost flat against the ground.

Elite snipers poked over the top of the hill and fired a tight cluster of plasma.

Kurt was too slow to dodge the shots. His SPI armor heated, cracked, and half of his chest plate shattered away.

Smoldering, Kurt dropped to his knees. Blackness clouded his mind. He struggled to stay conscious—fought his way back by sheer willpower, and his vision cleared.

The snipers backed away, not bothering to finish him off. More Elites appeared on the hill, now only a half meter tall, sinking even faster toward a level topology.

A Hunter pair appeared on the slight rise and assessed Kurt. They snorted,

unimpressed.

Almost there, he thought. Almost done. Almost won.

Kurt grabbed up the SPNKr launcher and fired from the hip. The missile rocketed toward

one Hunter, hit, exploded, and knocked it off the top. Kurt leveled his assault rifle and sprayed the other Hunter, but it turtled behind its shield.