Tanu POV, Flashback 5 years ago:

I held my side in pain as I sat up and looked around the wreckage of a destroyed phantom and pelican before slowly getting up with my hurting side. I saw that I was close to a cliff that had a deep drop into the forest.

I found my sniper and my black and red recruit helmet on the floor in the middle of the crashed pelican and quickly put it on letting the hud turn on and check my suit's systems, which were good for the most part, I saw only three other yellow dots on my radar which was weird since there should have been four yellow other dots for my teammates until I heard a gunshot and where there were two dots close to each other near the cliff one turned red and the other one went offline.

I realized that someone must have been killed and quickly ran as fast as I could, with my hurting side, to the area and stopped at what he saw. My team leader was there standing over the dead body of one of his teammates with blood on his white armor while the dead body of another teammate was not far from the two.

"Blizzard what have you done!?" I questioned the sight before me, aiming my sniper at him now. Blizzard turned around with a pistol in his hands and faced me with a helmet I haven't seen before with the visor resembling that of a humanoid face.

"Tanu please understand I did what I had to do" he began to say as I kept my sniper aimed at him but it was starting to shake in my hands. "They wouldn't understand that the UNSC is just as much of an enemy as the covenant, so they had to be eliminated" Blizzard finished.

"But you are part of the UNSC, A spartan, how could you say they're the enemy?" I questioned until I started piecing it together. "unless you never were part of the UNSC. You're an insurrectionist aren't you !?"

"See I always knew you were always smarter than the rest, so I'm giving you a chance to join us and help the insurrection put an end to the UNSC" Blizzard responded by offering a hand to join him.

"No I'd never betray the UNSC" I answered standing my ground as Blizzard retracted his hand, looking at me with disappointment "And here I thought you being smarter than the rest would make it easier for you to understand and join"

Blizzard quickly closed the distance between us and hit my sniper out of my hands with his right arm before quickly kicking me in my injured side and knocking me down to the ground where I held my injury while lying on my back. He placed his foot on top of my chest to hold me there on the ground and aim his pistol at my head.

"I'm sorry it has to end this way Tanu."

3rd POV Present:

"Blizzard"

There they were once again Tanu and Blizzard the last members of their past team both staring each other down while the rest of Midnight team stood there in shock seeing that Tanu knew the enemy.

"Tanu who is he and why does he know you?" Borealis asked wanting answers to the white spartan that had knocked her out the first time she saw him.

Blizzard grinned under his helmet watching his former teammate have his own team question him. "I see you have come a long way now from being the rookie I knew, to being the leader of your own team. A shame that you withheld this information about me being your past leader."

Tanu remained silent even though his team was looking at him with confusion. "Tanu what is he talking about" Borealis questioned again waiting for a response while Blizzard brought up how much time he had left on his hud before heading off to the escape pods.

"I'll explain later but right now focus on Blizzard, he wouldn't come out for a nice chat for no reason" Tanu responded bringing his sniper up to aim at him "What is it that you're planning?!" Blizzard chuckled while putting his arms behind his back "you should be smart enough to figure it out, but i'll let you in on something. You're pressed on time".

"Enough talk!" Overhaul butted in and fired his rocket launcher at Blizzard only for the rocket to pass through his body, to which Zeta had realized why "Don't waste your ammo he's just a hologram." Overhaul stopped firing after hearing that.

"Coward why don't you come down here instead of hiding somewhere else" He yelled at the hologram of Blizzard who only chuckled a small bit in response. "It's because he can't risk coming down here, they've placed a bomb somewhere on this ship, it's a trap" Tanu explained to them before turning his head to the hologram

"That's what you meant by we're pressed with time isn't it."Tanu questioned to which Blizzard grinned seeing Tanu hasn't changed "Good Luck." Was all that Blizzard said before he shut off communications.

"damn it! he just blocked comns" Zeta Informed trying to get ahold of UNSC "If what you said is true then we need to get out here quickly!" she stated to the others. "Alright, but once we get out of here you need to explain yourself Tanu" Borealis decided to which Tanu nodded his head before responding "I know, but we should hurry."

Jungle and Overhaul followed after Zeta with Borealis and Tanu trailing behind all of them. the hurried to the hangar bays but halted when they felt a thud in the ship but sounded more like a foot stomp. "Was that the bomb?" Jungle asked worried but also confused on why it wasn't that big of an explosion.

"No that couldn't have been it, could it?" Zeta questioned as well unsure if it was the bomb as well. "No Blizzard must have three smaller bombs to go off in a countdown, meaning we should keep running" Tanu answered as he took lead and ran to the airlock they had come through with their jetpacks still set down there and tried to open the first door to enter it using the console but it was locked.

"Damn, Zeta think you could open this?" Tanu asked Zeta, who came over to it "sure I'll do it as quickly as I can" she responded as another small bomb went off. "Well I hope the next bomb after that one is another countdown bomb before the big one" Borealis stated unsure if the next one would be the big one or not.

"Overhaul get the jet packs quick before I open the airlock" Zeta ordered as she kept typing away on the console while Overhaul got everyone's jet packs. "Here" Overhaul announced with the jetpacks in his arms and dropped them on the ground for everyone to grab while the another bomb went off.

"I think that was the last countdown bomb meaning we should get out of here!" Jungle noted in worry. "And... done! Everyone get ready I'm opening both airlock doors now!" Zeta called out as she quickly placed her own jetpack on her back "Wait both!" Jungle exclaimed at that fact "Yup, no time to depressurize we need to leave now" Zeta confirmed as she pressed the console and both doors opened and they all got sucked out into space.

"Alright everyone start heading towards the pelican before the corvette blows up" Tanu ordered seeing everyone had been pretty stable after being sucked out into space and quickly tried to put as much distance between them and the corvette as they could.

Borealis heard the bomb go off and turned to see the corvette explode. "Man am I glad we got out of there in time" She admitted until a piece of debris flew quickly past them. "Looks like we're not out of the situation yet" Zeta remarked as more debris headed their way.

"Everyone watch out for the debris we're about to arrive at the pelican" Tanu informed as they dodged more incoming debris. "Overhaul watch out!" Jungle called out seeing a piece of the corvette coming his way, Overhaul tried to dodge but was too slow and it hit him in the side causing his shield to flare and damaging his jet pack, knocking him off course.

"We need to get to Overhaul before he goes too off course" Zeta announced to the others. "I got him" Jungle said as he flew over to help him."I don't need you help" Overhaul claimed as he tried to correct himself but couldn't with one of the thrusters in his jet pack destroyed but Jungle grabbed him from behind to lead him towards the pelican albeit slowly and to Overhauls discontent.

Zeta and the rest had managed to arrive at the pelican with Zeta quickly taking the pilot seat. "Alright let's g-... Huh?" She had paused noticing four red dots appear on radar not to far from them. "We've got incoming!" Borealis announced to them seeing four banshees modified for space coming towards them.

Tanu ran to the rear of the pelican to see two banshees head in the direction of Jungle and Overhaul. "Jungle, Overhaul check your six?!" He quickly said through his comms to inform them of the imminent threat before the two banshees approaching them opened fire with fuel rod shots close to the bay of the pelican shaking Borealis and Tanu inside.

Jungle quickly looked behind him to see the two space banshees heading towards them. "Overhaul you shoot I fly" he decided seeing as somehow Overhaul still held onto his rocket launcher, Overhaul wanted to argue but as soon as he was about to multiple plasma shots flew past them and some hitting causing both their shields to flare "Fine just don't mess it up" he agreed and aimed his rocket launcher at the banshees and opened fire once they flew past them blowing through the wing of one, causing it to spin out of control and blow up leaving the other banshee to turn around and fire at them again but Jungle quickly protected them by using his hardlight shield which gave the chance to Overhaul to destroy the banshee by blowing it up with a rocket. "Jungle to Tanu we're on our way to you".

Zeta was pulling of multiple maneuvers to dodge the two banshees while tossing Tanu and Borealis around in the hangar bay "Borealis activate mag boots" Tanu quickly said as they both activated their mag boots and connected to the floor of the drop bay while Zeta barrel rolled out of another fuel rod shot.

"I have a plan" Borealis stated while they jerked to the right and the left. "What is it?" Tanu asked to which Borealis responded by opening the drop bay door to show the two banshees trailing them "think you could land your shots on them?" She asked, giving Tanu an understanding of her plan.

"Zeta try to stabilize this thing" Tanu ordered so it would be easier for him to shoot the banshees. "Kinda hard to do while making sure we don't blow up" She had responded while banking to the right before stabilizing as much as she could.

Tanu quickly scoped in his sniper rifle and aimed for the joint where the wing connected hoping it would into something important and took the shot although due to his injured arm the shot had hit more on the base of the wing blowing it off and causing it to steer to the right and crash into the other blowing them both up "well I guess that works " Tanu stated while Borealis sat back down not carrying what Tanu had to say to which he only sighed knowing she was still mad.

-------

It didn't take long for them to pick up Overhaul and Jungle as the two barely said anything upon boarding leaving the rest of the pelican silent as they flew back to Artemis which was now in sight.

"So I guess we failed this mission but we finally know who's behind all know even though you kept it from us" Zeta began while still looking forward towards the Artemis.

Tanu only let out a sigh knowing that he would need to regain his team's trust "Once we get back I promise I'll tell you all what really is going on" He responded to which Zeta didn't show much of an acknowledgement to until Tanu spoke some final words before they entered the Artemis.

"We may have lost the mission, but the battle has just begun"

(2103 words, even longer than the last part :0)