Winter Wonderland

{|style="width:100%; color:#FFF;" "Aha, now this is more like it," Jun said gleefully, prancing through the deep snow like he was on top of the world. He lifted his arms, admiring the white and gray body armor that he and the other two members of the search-and-rescue party now wore. "Not as comfy as MJOLNIR, but hey, at least it has heating. And triple the insulation we'd get in those stupid parkas."
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Six couldn't help agreeing with the sniper's statement. The weather had taken a nasty turn for the worse in the last fifteen minutes, and the snow was blowing so thick it obscured her natural vision. But the HUDs of their helmets, which aesthetically resembled a cross between ODST and CQC variants, picked up infrared and also possessed motion trackers. This armor was virtually useless in battle, but today it would serve the Spartans well. It lacked the liquid-crystal layer that augmented their movements, though, so it was a bit heavy. Nothing they couldn't deal with.

Jorge turned his head to the east, his face hidden by the polarized silver visor of the helmet he wore. "That way," he said, shouldering his pack, which contained several large and heavy tools that would be used to dig through the snow and get to Halsey. "If Kat's correct, and she always is, we've got about seven miles to cover."

"I could go for a whole day in this," Jun declared happily. "As long as I'm warm, I'm game."

"Your suit all right, Six?" Jorge asked, wanting to make sure nothing was malfunctioning. After all, the armor was merely leftovers from a scrapped project called SNOWSTORM, supposed to be an innovative approach to cold-climate combat. It could have any number of glitches or faulty spots.

"Like Jun said, it's warm. I could get used to this," Six mused. She stepped over a frozen bush and then nearly yelped as she sank waist-deep into a bank of snow. "Must have stepped off the edge," she said, trying to climb out.

Jorge merely reached down, got one of her hands, and yanked her out with one pull. "Careful, now. Can't have you getting lost down under there." Then he bent down, pressed a button on one of her boots, and a metal-weave edge popped out from the rim of her sole. "There, see? It's like snowshoes."

Six did the same to her other boot and presto, same result. She tested them, walking over to the place she'd just fallen through and back. "Nifty," she remarked.

They hiked without conversation for the next twenty minutes. The sky overhead was bleak and overcast, not a single ray of light allowed to break through the thick, puffy clouds. Snow whistled past them, and the wind probably would have hurt had not their suits protected from it. No animals were out and about in this kind of weather.

"I'mmmm dreeeaming of a whiiiite Chriiiistmaaaaas…" Jun sang to himself, stomping gleefully through the deep snow.


 * Back at Noble Base…

"I should have known something would happen to bring her here," Miranda sighed, contemplating her hands, which were folded on her lap.

Her father sighed, almost sadly. "Look, I'm sure none of us were expecting for it to end up like this, but perhaps it's an opportunity to, you know, tie up some loose ends." He sat beside his daughter on the bench.

"More like frayed ends," Miranda muttered.

Colonel Holland had no idea what they were talking about so he decided to try and chat up Dare. "I hear tell you're one of the best operatives ONI's got, Captain," he said, standing a few feet away from the blonde woman. "Your record is certainly impressive."

"Don't flatter me. I just do my job," Dare replied coolly. She looked the Colonel in the eye. "Your record's not half bad, either. All I had to do was glance through it to understand why they put you in charge of Spartans."

"You have access to my record?" Holland balked.

Dare's smile was either coy or dangerous. He couldn't tell which. "I have access to a lot of things, Colonel."

"Huh. Look at that Army bigshot, gettin' all chatty with Princess Evil," Romeo muttered, elbowing Buck, who just made a face at the younger man.

"So? He outranks her, she's obligated to talk to him," Buck replied sourly. The Gunnery Sergeant winced as Mickey came up behind him and stuck something in his hair. "The heck are you doing?" Buck grumbled, swatting whatever it was off the top of his head. It fluttered down and he glared at it. It was a red Christmas bow.

"Aw, stop it, Gunny. We're trying to make the dear Captain a Christmas present," Mickey snickered. He looped a length of ribbon around Buck and tightened it, pinning the Gunny's arms to his sides. "You know she just needs a punching bag to vent all that womanly frustration on."

"Cut it out!" Buck complained, wriggling out of the ribbon, while Romeo picked up the bow and stuck it in Buck's hair again, but Buck didn't notice. It clung to his dark hair, affixed with sticky tape. "You are this close to insubordination!"

Romeo and Mickey glanced at each other, mutually agreeing not to mention the bow in their superior's hair. They had to concentrate really hard to keep from grinning ear to ear. Buck stalked off and walked past Holland and Dare, who stared after him with incredulous expressions. Dare glanced over at Mickey, and the ODST put a finger over his lips, shaking his head and looking like a mischievous child.

Dare couldn't help cracking a smile.


 * Elsewhere in Noble Base…

Emile sat on a crate, sharpening his knife. Well, one of his knives. It was his favorite one so far, the beloved kukri he carried into battle against the Covenant. It had tasted alien blood hundreds if not thousands of times since he'd first clasped it in his hand. It was literally another extension of his body.

Sharpening his knife gave him focus, something to do besides brood. He would file the blade down until it could cut the molecules floating in the air. He recalled how "normal" soldiers watched him do this and paled, because a Spartan with a knife usually meant there would be dead bodies lying around sooner or later.

He didn't know what he felt toward Rosenda. Maybe he was finally cracking, going crazy. Most people already thought he was crazy, but this was different than ultraviolence. Not knowing whether he was supposed to move forward or go back annoyed him, because Spartans were supposed to know exactly what to do all the time.

"Uh… Emile? You in here?"

Speak of the devil.

"Right here," he grunted, and heard footsteps coming from the side. Rosenda was standing there, her hands clasped behind her back.

"Look, about earlier, I…" she sighed. "I guess I overreacted."

She might as well have blasted him in the face with his own shotty. Rosenda was apologizing for something? That was like Carter being effeminate, or Jun being mute. It just didn't happen, ever.

"Ran like a bat out of hell is a good description," Emile mused, giving his kukri one last good swipe before looking up at her. "I don't even know what I was doing, frankly."

"I was thinking maybe we could, you know. Start over. Patch things up," Rosenda admitted.

"Riiiight." There was sarcasm dripping off the word. "So what do you wanna do first, make friendship bracelets or—"

He was cut off because something was obstructing his speech, and it was Rosenda. She had leaned in suddenly and kissed him smack on the mouth, and suddenly Emile felt like he could march right up to the biggest Covenant army in history and come back victorious. It was a weird… annoying ...awesome… feeling.

The kiss ended and Rosenda stepped back, her cheeks flushed and a shaky smile on her face. "Now we're even," she blurted, then cleared her throat. "Um… yeah. That's all I wanted to say."

Emile set down his kukri, hopped down off his seat, and just stood there for a minute, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Then he gave a short, barking laugh and crossed his arms. "I never said stop," he remarked, taking a step forward. "If we're gonna make up, might as well go over the top."

"Is that an invitation?" Rosenda queried shyly.

"Nope. It's an order."

"But we're the same ra—"

Emile made sure she didn't have time to finish that sentence.


 * Out in the snow and the wind and the cold…

"Almost there," Jorge muttered, plowing his way up a hill, with Six and Jun not far behind. The trio was faring well, with no major glitches so far.

Once they reached the top of the hill, they got a clear view of what appeared to be a small compound situated near the edge of a thick patch of woods. A mountainside loomed to the left, and sure enough, a large amount of snow had come down from the mountain and buried half the compound. It appeared to be a hopeless situation, but the Spartans weren't ordinary humans. They would have Halsey dug out in no time.

"So that's the mysterious base out in the middle of nowhere. Interesting. I wonder how many other mysterious bases ONI's got spread around here," Jun wondered.

"It's not our place to know, I'm afraid," Jorge sighed, beginning the descent down the steep embankment. "Unless you're Kat."

"Ha! That was actually funneeeeeeeeEEEEEEE…"

Jun had slipped on a patch of ice beneath the snow and went tumbling head over heels down the hill, trying to gain a hold but failing. He rolled over and over until he struck the bottom and made a Jun-shaped imprint in the deeper snow. "M'OKAY," he yelled, facedown.

Six shook her head. Poor Jun. She tensed her legs, then jumped, sliding surfer-style down the hill. She came to a stop near Jun and helped him up. Jorge made his way down carefully; he might have been heavier than the other two, but Spartan-IIs possessed a limber grace that the IIIs envied. Finally he reached the others and shrugged off his pack, letting it fall to the ground. He handed Six a pickaxe and took two huge shovels for Jun and himself. "Right then. Let's get to work," he said, and they hurried toward the immense mound of snow.