Six's PoV:

Carolina and I scanned the hanger with our weapons. Slowly, Carolina lowered her Plasma Rifles.

"There's nothing here...."

I gazed around, fear crawling through my mind. "I don't like it. Too many places to get ambushed."

Carolina and I made our way through the entire station, seeing nothing. As we were about to enter the comms room, Carolina stopped to radio in on our progress.

"Command, this is Agent Carolina. Agent Wisconsin and I have scoured almost the entire ship, but we have seen nothing but old boxes and cobwebs. We are about to enter the comms room. We'll radio in if we find anything."

"Copy, Carolina. Command, out."

Carolina let her hand drop. "Care to see what's inside?"

I nodded and took my position. Carolina and I charged in, to find one flickering light and a man laying on the ground, motionless. Carolina moved to check the body while I checked the console. The damage it showed gave me the shivers.

"Plasma damage...."

"Hey."

I turned around. "Yeah?"

Carolina held up a data chip. "Found something."

Heh. It's kinda like me and Kat back on Reach

"Nice work. Let's see if we can't find anything once-."

The banging of a grate cut me off. Three Zealot-class Elites dropped down and charged us.

"Contact!"

479 was on the comms immediately. "What's your status, over?!?"

I shot at the Elites. "We've been engaged!"

I killed a Zealot, but one threw me down. He stabbed me in the chest and I winced in pain.

"By who?!? The insurrection?!?"

"Negative!"

Carolina kicked him off me and I got up. We watched as the remaining two Zealots backed away, Energy Swords raised. Carolina made a move to shoot them, but she suddenly screamed out in pain as she crumpled to the floor. I spun around to be faced with more Elites.

Dragging Carolina to her feet, we sprinted to the reactor. Covenant faced us at every turn. Panting, we barged into the reactor and cleared the area of hostiles. I spotted an escape pod and formed a plan.

"Carolina, do you have explosives?"

She nodded and handed me some timed explosives. I set them up and watched as the Covenant began to cut the door down. They did it in record time and immediately shot at Carolina, most shots missing her, but several hitting with catastrophic results. I watched as she fell to the floor, bleeding and screaming and I drew Kat's Magnum, rushing to her aid. Fighting long and hard, the Covies stopped coming and I looked at Carolina before checking the explosives. When I did, I cursed.

Carolina gazed up at me from her sitting position. "What's wrong?"

"I've got good news and bad news."

"Hit me."

"Timer's fried." Memories of my last moments with Jorge rose to mind.

"Alright, what's the good news?" She winced at the pain of her wounds.

"That was the good news. Bad news is, it's gonna have to be fired manually."

Carolina gazed up at me, shocked. "Th-that's a one way trip!" He voice started to falter.

I sighed and picked her up, carrying her to the lone escape pod. "We all make it sooner or later...."

I ripped off my Freelancer tags and slipped them into her hand. She took off her helmet and gazed up at me with wet, green eyes.

"Wisconsin....."

I sighed. "Listen. Freelancer has been good to me. Tell 'em to make it count."

Carolina began to cry and she slowly reached towards my helmet. I stood there, confused. As I heard the clicks of the helmet unlatching, I watched as Carolina took off my helmet, letting my silver hair spill out of it. My hair rested at my collar and Carolina gazed into my faded ice blue eyes. Slowly, she lifted herself up and softly pressed her lips against mine. The moment felt like it lasted an eternity before Carolina slowly lowered herself back down and broke the kiss. Her tears came harder as she watched me step out of the pod, close the door, and input the eject code on the panel outside. She pressed herself against the window, desperate to keep me in her gaze as she rocketed away.

Sighing, I slipped my helmet back on and turned to face the sparks coming from the blast door I had closed. Standing before the bomb, with my finger on the detonate button, I watched as the Covenant burst into the room. They froze when they saw me standing next to the bomb.

"This is for Reach, assholes."

And then everything went white.