#not shown - the next 4 episodes of Crimson doing IT and nuke disposal while Miller bitches on comms

[poisonheadcrabsalesman]

stumpy i like receiving damage from your writing so i will submit "things you said when the world was ending"

“Captain Lasky to all hands! Battle stations! This is not a drill!”

Alarms blare and emergency lights flash. The room is doused in red and the sirens wail like banshees. He drops his datapad and looks at the ceiling in horror before his coworkers' cries snap his attention back into focus. Something terrible was happening and there was no time to stand around and wait for the news to reach them.

Voices yelling in the hallways turn to screams and he ducks down behind the desk with his teammates. Clanking metal, flaring like flames walks into the room before exploding into a burst of cinders as gunfire erupts behind it. Yells echo again, this time orders to move.

This was supposed to be a safe contract. The Infinity had an army onboard! and Spartans!

But now things out of his nightmares were teleporting onto the ship! At least the aliens boarded via the hangars, but this new hell had Esparza scared out of his mind. He followed a handful of others being hustled from the crew quarters towards any place with armed comrades. They were sitting ducks otherwise.

Marines corral the unarmed crew members to whatever passed for safety as their flying fortress is boarded by machines that can ghost past their defenses. Esparza follows them to parts of the ship he's never seen before. He usually stayed in engineering and his brain is in overdrive as adrenaline floods his system.

His eyes see nothing and everything, fixating on the way the doors are too big and the way his brain cannot remember which hallway they took to get here. Blurred vision and detailed memories mix in his mind as his heart beats rabbit-quick.

They're hustled quickly into some kind of communications room. A holotable sits with it's display updating in real time as ships approach the Infinity. The marines nod to a Spartan and then turn back to the hallway, already moving towards their next objective.

A Spartan. A real Spartan, kitted out in the legendary armor, is in the room with them. He can't help the nervous exhale as his nerves calm and his shoulders drop a fraction of a millimeter from around his shoulders.

The Spartan is focused, eyes glued to the multiple screens at his station. He offered them a nod as the contractors had been shepherded in and dropped off like lost sheep.

Esparza watches him in lieu of watching the door or straining his ears to hear the not-so-distant sounds of battle.

“Roland, sitrep on our invaders.” The Spartan asks.

“Prometheans appearing all over the ship. No means to stop them at the moment.”

The Spartan takes the info in stride and shifts to the teams under his command. He radios pilots and Spartan Fireteams and reacts faster to this mess than Esparza can even respond. Things might be okay, his brain traitorously thinks too early.

God or Roland must hear him because then a warning comes across the live feed. “Spartan Miller, you’ve got Prometheans near Ops command!”

Esparza's heart stutters and someone next to him grabs at him. There's a flutter of nervous gasps as their Spartan, Spartan Miller simply nods and keeps working.

“Acknowledged, Roland. I’ve got my sidearm in hand.” He does. It looks like a toy in his hand.

Esparza wants to laugh. It's such a funny gun for a Spartan to have. He's seen the super soldiers from a distance. Larger than life, looking like automatons. He's seen more marines and helljumpers up close, and they had rifles that could take down the killer robots faster than the sidearm could.

Spartan Miller turns to the civilians huddled in the corner and walks towards them. His brow unfurrows and his face softens enough to look almost sheepish as he gestures for them to move to the other side of the holotable and further away from the door.

Esparza studies him. Miller is younger than he thought. Seeing him this close, without a helmet, reminds him of people he's lost, of what he's seen. The manic fear sours into a deeper grief and near-acceptance about what's coming.

Their eyes meet and Miller's face hardens again, back to business, but he watches Esparza.

Something explodes onscreen behind him and the civilians flinch. Miller looks over his shoulder and smiles. "That's Crimson for you, they're on their way home to help us clean up this mess."

Esparza feels his face shift into something incredulous as helmet cams show a battle that looks more like a light-show than what he's seen. Miller catches him and the smile broadens. "They're some of our best." He gets serious again and holds up the sidearm Esparza was judging earlier. "This is the M6H, it takes a few rounds to get through Promethean shielding, but after that they pop easy. Anything tries to come through that door isn't getting further than me."

Esparza finds himself nodding. He joins his fellows and braces for whatever comes next.

“Murphy?” Miller touches the comm device in his ear and nods back at Esparza. Whatever intel he gets must be good, or maybe he's being brave because he smiles at him again. It seems real enough that Esparza's stomach stops doing flips.

The Spartans are here. Maybe things would be okay.