"David, I don't think this is a good idea..." I tell my fiancee as he hands me a pair of ice skates from his duffel.

"You've been stressing out over a lot of things lately. You need a break, Tiger." He replies.

I look at him and give him a questioning look. "And you take me to a frozen pond near the wood to ice skate?"

"Wait, are you scared because you can't skate?" He shoots his signature smirk.

I huffed. "I can't skate... I lived in Alaska for all of my childhood. Every kid knew how to skate." He just chuckles and sits down on the snow to tie his skates.

The last few weeks have been.. a bit rough. The Covenant keep sending recon teams in wave after wave. Luckily, having a planet filled with trained soldiers makes the job of getting rid of them a lot quicker. But there are instances where they send a bigger team, where a Freelancer has to go in along with two of the Reds or Blues.

And then.. there's the wedding.

Wash and I agreed that we would wait till after the conflict with the Covenant is over to start planning. It would be pretty bad if we plan everything and then when we are about to say our "I do's", the Covenant shows up to the wedding with no invitation.

And I don't want to fight in a dress, thank you very much.

But even with agreeing to put off the wedding, Donut is going ahead with making everyone's outfits. I'm sure he'll do a good job, but it's not the top priority right now.

It's getting rid of those aliens in the sky.. or space if you think about it.

I sigh and sit down beside him to put on my skates. Guess Wash was right about me stressing out over everything...

I double knot my last shoe and stood up, wobbling a bit, but then regaining my footing. I shuffle towards the frozen pond and then step slowly and cautiously on the ice.

But of course, this ice was VERY slippery so I end up landing on my butt.

"Thought you said you knew how to skate." Wash smirks.

I roll my eyes. "Oh shush."

I get myself back on my feet, then pushed off with my right foot and started to skate across the ice, feeling the familiar cold breeze against my face. I do two laps around the pond while Wash watches from the bank.

"Still haven't lost your touch." He commented as he finally steps onto the ice.

"That's.. debatable." I say, trying to gain more speed.

When I was little, I managed to learn how to do a couple of spins and jumps, mainly spins, from a friend that was into the sport. I pushed off one last time before bringing my legs together, my arms close to my chest, and using the momentum to rotate into a very fast spin. I can feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins and after a few moments, I stretched out my arms to slow myself down to a stop.

I look at Wash, who just shakes his face. "I should have seen that coming." He tells me which makes me let out a small laugh as he skates towards me and takes my hand. "It's not my fault that I know how to skate."

"Yeah, yeah.." He plants a kiss on my cheek. "You're just showing off."

"Do you have a problem with me showing off?" I shoot him a playful glare which makes him raise an eyebrow.

"Maybe.."

"Well.. deal with it."

He chuckles at my remark. "I will." Then at lightning speed, manages to be by my side and scoops me up bridal style.

"David!" I yelped in surprised while laughing. The momentum he got from the move, allowed him to just glide across the ice.

"Whaaaat? Am I not allowed to hold my Tiger?" He smirks and adjusts his hold on me.

It's crazy to also think that Wash has fully recovered from his cerebral hypoxia. I guess there was some magic in that Advil Altus gave him that helped cure it.

Then again, Project Freelancer also played a huge role in that.

"Yes, yes you are." I give him a little peck on the nose and he returns the little peck, but on my lips.

"I love you, Tiger." He says softly.

"I love you too. But when did you learn how to skate?"

"Well-"

A shot of light purple energy hits the ice near Wash's feet, making the ice break at the impact. Wash quickly sets me down and draws out a Magnum while I draw out my SMG. We stood back to back, our eyes searching where the shot came from.

"Crap.." I hear Wash whisper under his breath.

"Beta, try to get a location of that shot." I ordered.

"Already o-on it." She says in my head.

"You know, I feel like the world doesn't ever want us to spend some quality time together." I joked.

"Maybe the world wants us to spend that time together on the battlefield." He adds.

"YOUR LEFT-T!"

I look to my left and see the Jackel Sniper up in a tree, finishing charging it's alien rifle and has its sights on both of us.

"MOVE!" I yelled. Wash quickly follows my lead, skating away from our current position as another sniper shot hit the ice once more.

"Tiger." Wash tosses me his Magnum and I catch it with my free hand. I immediately aim the gun at the Jackel and just fired, without taking a second to adjust my aim. The bullet hits my target between the eyes and the Jackel falls out of the tree, dead.

"If I see another alien on our way back to the Capital, it would be too soon." Wash comments. "Nice shot."

"Thanks." I handed him back his Magnum and strapped my SMG back in it's holster. "C'mon, let's see if our little spy has anything of use."

"Right behind you, boss." He smiles back.

We skated back to where Wash left his duffel bag to take off our skates back into our snow boots. I hand my fiancee back the skates and said. "Not gonna lie, that was kind of fun. Even if it was short."

He sighs. "I guess.."

"David.." I looked at him, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Just wanted to give you a nice break from all this." He replies sadly, looking off to the side and swinging the duffel into his shoulder. "But every time I try, there's always something that prevents that."

"Hey, we'll have that soon." He looks up at me with a pleading look. "I promise." I assured him.

"Ok Tiger." He slightly smiles and nods his head towards the fallen Jackel. "Lead the way."

We head over to where the Jackel fell off the tree. It's body was spewed on the snowy floor, which was tainted in purple blood near it's head. It's eyes stared lifeless into the sky, but it's mouth in a sneer.

"Man, these things are real ugly up close." Wash complains.

I bent down next to the body and start patting around for any alien device that could be helpful in finding out more information on why the Covenant is here.

"Hey Beta."

"That's my n-name." My A.I. glitches into the real world.

Beta has been more stable since I gave her a tune up back before I hopped into the portal with Huggins. She has a slight problem with her speech and occasionally has a "glitch fit" as she likes to call them, where her programming starts bugging out but that's very rare and she has learned to control it more. Even though I ask her if I can fully fix her, but she says that she's been around long enough. That she's not a young A.I. anymore and that it's time for Alison to move on.

And.. she's not wrong. I'm honestly dreading the day I'm going to have to let her go.

"Can you scan for anything of use, mainly a hidden com-link?" I ask.

"I'll let you know what I find." She disappears from sight and reappears near the body, pulling up a tiny holo panel to aid her search.

I then focused my attention to the Jackel's weapon: it was a Beam Rifle, as we like to call it. I reach over, picked it up and held it as if it was my own sniper. It was a bit lighter than a normal sniper but from what I know, it gets lighter every shot you take since the gun takes plasma energy. Once you run out, the gun is useless unless you find something to refill it (if you can even refill it which I'm sure you can but we have no idea how).

"Careful with that." Wash warns.

I slightly laugh. "I can handle an alien weapon." Then I stop to look at him and added jokingly. "Are you afraid that the bullets will bounce?"

"Ok look: I didn't know how to use a Fuel Rod or know what kind of fun it was back then." He says defensively, but I can tell he knew that it was a joke. "And no, I just don't want my future wife to get hurt." He bends down and kisses my head.

"I know, I know." I smiled. Beta then appears between us and says, "I did find a h-hidden com-link and copied the radio fr-frequencies into my database. N-Nothing else I'm a-afraid."

"Well at least it's something." I said, standing up with the sniper in hand

"Let's put that in the bag." Wash says. "We don't want civilians looking at you holding an alien weapon."

"Smart." I opened the duffel and carefully placed it in the bag (with the safely on.. I think) and zipped it back up.

"Beta, radio Dylan and tell him what happened." I tell her. "And that we are on our way back."

"On i-it." She replies.

Now.. for the long trek back to the Capital.