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Mendez had to give Halsey her due Instead of , she just shut hera new respect for her and that the tension between the friendship That kind of bul shit only happened in the movies Mendez knew the bottom line was that they both had blood on their hands, and a lot of his wasn’t of the decent, rules-of-engage variety

He had no idea why he didn’t feel inclined to keep his opinions to hiodda al the impulse suppression that they should He watched Kel y, Fred, and Linda close ranks around Halsey and do the Spartan equivalent of fussing over her

"Any il effects yet, ma’am?" Linda asked

Halsey twisted from the waist and hitched up her hem discreetly to take another look "Wel , I think I’l find out pretty soon whether it was injecting ’s certain--it won’t be doing it again"

Fred picked over the fraguilty about walking away fro was because al the systems on this artificial planet had to be connected in soodlike qualities, and one was purpose They didn’t create things at randonize any of the coy material here It’s saturated with blood I think your assess samples is on the nail, Doctor"

Halsey took a closer look at the pieces "Now if I run a blood test, I’ to check how someone is, who so to work out if we’re carrying any infection But if that’s the case, it would try to take samples from everybody What’s different aboutto recal what the cylinders had been doing fro around faces Now this one had taken a blood sample, if Halsey was correct It had shownhelmets, and then it seemed to want a second opinion on Halsey in particular

"I think there’s a real y simple answer, Doctor," Mendez said "Me and Fred, we had soh, have you?"

Halsey paused for a en metabolism Damn it It’s just a first-aid monitor" She did that huuess is that it can detect exhaled ketones So it checked whether I had blood sugar problems I’m not sure why the Forerunners would care about that, but scans en"

"Wel , terrific," Mendez said, and strode back down the passage "We can forget al about it until it bil s us How are we doing, people?"

To their way back and forth across the controls and the entrance lobby He could hear the e as Mark and Ash exastone floor Fred walked up behind him

"Chief, we need to split up and carry on with the recon Worst-case scenario is that it takes us weeks to work out where we are and find soest we leave Dr Halsey here with Kel y in case Lucy comes back the same way she went in, and the rest of us can move on"

It was a perfectly sensible command decision Mendez just nodded But Fred cocked his head to one side

"I wouldn’t dreaht you would, Lieutenant"

Mendez never needed to see a Spartan’s face to work out as going on in their heads It was al about the body language--a split-second delay, the set of the shoulders, or a hundred other e their reactions Mendez watched Fred talking to the rest of the Spartan-I Is, but didn’t spot the slightest hesitation as they broke off fro to resuht At least I can say that

Mendez passed Halsey on the way out of the tower and nodded at Kel y "If Lucy comes back, then you damn wel sit on her if you have to, but don’t let her wander off again"

"Understood, Chief" Kel y took off her helmet and adjusted her earpiece "And just for the record, I’ some seriously weird transdimensional crap"

"I bet that’s what Einstein said"

Kel y ed a smile "She strikes me as the unkil able sort"

"Yeah She’s a survivor"

Mendez would always take facts over feelings, but he also had that time-honed instinct that told him when one of his people was in trouble Lucy was stil around so as the worst Spartan to misplace, it was Lucy The poor kid couldn’t yel for help Yeah, Halsey had gotten it right again Lucy real y shouldn’t have been serving on the front line But what the hel was he supposed to do?

He couldn’t spare a single Spartan anyway, and the cruelest thing he could have done to Lucy was to separate her from the only family she had left

He wasn’t prepared to ship her out to some psychiatric rehabilitation unit where she’d just be injected and analyzed and discussed by a bunch of strangers al prettypuzzle to be solved She’d had enough of that garbage by now

"Do you suppose John’s ht out of the blue That meant it had been on her mind for soer "And the others"

"Of course he has," Halsey said She was setting up ca and laying out al her electronics "He was always the luckiest of you alAnd the most bloody-minded"

Mendez supposed that was tact in a Halsey kind of way She hadn’t said that John was the very best of the Spartan-IIs and that she’d known he was a natural leader from the first time she h, Kel y would have taken it without offense, because Halsey was now the nearest thing she’d ever have to a mom Kids stil loved even the most abusive parent

And you set their paths Their expectations Treat a kid as the chosen one, or as your biggest disappointment, and he’ll live up or down to that

"Problem, Chief?" Halsey asked

Mendez just took her sidearm from his belt, checked the safety and the clip, and handed it back to her "You sure you can stil use this? If not, Kel y can bring you up to speed"

"I can cope I did the requalifier a couple of years ago"

"Good" He took out a couple of his ration bars as welThe cylinder , so he’d take that as a warning