Absent

Even missing the mass of a hole torn in its breastplate, the MJOLNIR suit was heavy enough to anchor the corpse to the rattling deck as the Pelican shook free of Stavros' atmosphere. Glowing in the troop compartment's dim running lights, the pristine white of its titanium plates outlined the lithe figure they'd failed to protect from its dexterous hands to athletic legs locked forever in rigor mortis. Everywhere except the chest, where carbon scoring blackened twisted steel around a crater of roasted flesh, as if a hot scoop had gouged out her torso.

The nightmare of scorched viscera was a grotesque contrast to its shaped titanium frame, and to the unmarred, pasty skin of the face a helmet—since removed—had shielded in the moment of her death. The fringe of her snowy, close-cropped hair hung almost low enough to veil the lidded eyes, meshed black lashes keeping them forever closed. Her wan lips had often pursed when they'd called her Snow White. Their contrast with her gruesome wound could only further grieve the boy who'd loved her, by her side in one of the jumpseats along the Pelican's wall, entwining the memory of her perfect face with mortal disfigurement. He was sitting hunched with her helmet between his knees, the tears he'd poured over its silver visor nothing more than salt trails now.

Kodiak sat across in the narrow compartment, shaking with the Pelican's quakes. Everything they'd said in training ran circles in his head. ''Spartans never died. Spartans never died.'' So what the hell was this? He was their team leader. He was responsible. And he'd been two klicks away with Dyne when two of his team had...

Dyne finally looked up as the Pelican's ride smoothed out into vacuum. Even in the dark, Kodiak's augmented eyes could make out the swell of his best friend's eyelids, flush from swollen tear ducts. Their loss had stripped the constant cheer from his face.

"What happens now?" he asked, as if depending on the answer for a blueprint to his life from then on.

Kodiak was lost for even an adequate response. "I don't know."

Dyne's gaze dropped again to the mirrored visor. "They're going to want her back."

"There's no family to return her body to." he objected. "Even if there were, S-III is still classified. We'll probably oversee the burial ourselves once—"

"I'm talking about Amber."

He'd known. Machete was a four-man Fireteam, and only three were coming back. Only two alive because of the fourth. But with Morgan's body on the deck between them, he couldn't stand to think about what would come next. He didn't want to be reminded.

When he didn't answer, Dyne's inflamed eyes fell back to Morgan's cold features. "We lost a friend today. I know it's her fault, but... I don't want to lose another."

Kodiak didn't either. But whatever they wanted, he couldn't see a way it wouldn't end up happening.