Halo: Nightfall (2014) s01e03 Episode Script
Lifeboat Rules
1 Every day birthed anew.
Born a promise.
A million possibilities taking shape under each new day's sun.
But what it the next time that sun rose, there were no possibilities at ail? Only death.
Yours, and of everything you've ever known.
How would you act in that darkness beforehand? How would you go out? We are simple things, soldiers.
We are taught honor.
Honor means sacrifice.
Sacrifice means death.
Either our own, or our enemy's.
In some ways, beneath ii ail, that's all a soldiers really trained for.
To undo all of God's work.
To take life where only God can give it.
Were it that we were not soldiers but gods.
I tell you, Locke Worst thing about peace with the Covenant, we're reduced to this.
Trailing small fish.
Never know.
Chatter we've been getting off this guy is he's up to something.
Something that would not bode well for the UNSC.
Any bets on what he's carrying? Drugs.
Exotic fauna? You actually just said that, didn't you? Got to say something to keep it interesting.
That interesting enough for you'? Vector in.
What's a Covenant dropship doing here? Backwater like Sedra? What the hell? An Elite Zealot? Been years since I've seen a roach.
Whatever he's got, that stuffs black-hole cold.
Stasis refrigerant? That's only used for one thing.
A bomb.
Not good.
We're moving, people.
Split up.
Ramos, the little one.
COPY- I got him! Gaines, it's Locke.
Target just handed off to a Zealot.
An Elite? We think it's a bomb.
Where's he? Where'd he go? He's headed for the city.
Vectoring to you now.
He's broken into a city access tunnel.
Might lose comm inside.
Roger that.
Horrigan, mark my last.
He ran from the fight.
His target must be the city.
We got the east side, Locke.
What's there? Talk to me.
Main market.
Maybe 500 Sedrans.
Damn it! We got to take him out.
We got to zero on him.
He's been seen entering the mall.
It's over.
Give it to me.
That can't have been it.
What kind of device was that? No damage? It could've been a dud.
An Elite Zealot wouldn't come all this way to make a mistake like that.
Why did they come all the way out here at all? We got to download Goodwin.
He's at the UN meeting.
I wouldn't rattle any cages till we know what we're dealing with.
What's going on with her'? I don't know.
She's been infected by something Gaines.
Hold it.
- Secure the entrances.
- Yes, sir, Colonel Aiken.
- Keep breathing.
- You're gonna be all right, you hear me? Hold it.
ONI, we're clear.
Only Sedran passports get entrance.
I've got wounded, Colonel.
We can talk politics later.
Go ahead.
Get him to Deacon Unit with the rest of his team.
I don't want him spreading this thing if it's contagious.
Yes, sir, Colonel.
Like that, someone can play God to you.
Someone you don'! know.
Invisible, like a malevolent forte beyond the firmament.
Taking from you our only birthright Life.
So what do we do? We just wait? Find out if it gets us? Medical says they've never seen anything like it.
But if we're not showing symptoms at this point, we might be in the clear.
What the hell did they do to us? Ramos.
Talk to me, medic.
What do you got? They're coming in from further and further from the blast site.
People eight, 10 kilometers away are being affected.
Population of this ward is 100% human.
It's not affecting other species.
You're saying they got their hands on a compound that selectively kills humans and nothing else? It's not a compound.
An element.
Closest they can pin it is the 120 family.
But with a transmutation of some sort that makes it something no one's ever seen.
This thing randomly compromises human DNA, but not others.
Covenant's found their holy grail, then, haven't they? Way of wiping us out without firing a shot.
When we're supposedly not even at war.
Question is, why Sedra? Why use this on an outer colony? Why not hit population centers like Gannick 22? Test run, probably.
Porous borders.
Mixed population.
This one works, they go for the big fish.
Sedrans think this is the mining tug that was used to smuggle in the element.
The pilots can't be found.
- Check it out, Estrin.
- Yes, sir.
Hey, Locke Here comes our Sedran colonel.
What do you got? Let you know when the time's right.
I suggest we work together on this.
We both want the same thing.
ONI doesn't work alongside anyone.
It's just you and everyone else way below.
So, you know, I don't write policy.
My two soldiers are up in ICU because of that blast.
Soldiers I'm responsible for.
I'm asking you as a fellow officer.
Show them back to the base, Macer.
Sir.
You're gonna tell me who flew that tug.
You keep playing stupid, you'll be dead inside an hour.
Colonel Aiken.
Mind if we step in, take a shot? All I mind is you shutting up and knowing your place.
This is on you.
You know that, don't you? They weren't after us, they were after you.
UNSC.
'Cause you were operating here, on our tun'.
You take the good with the bad, and the UNSC have done a lot of good for you.
You're here to expand UNSC's power, nothing else, without a clue about the cultures you assimilate.
He says he's only a middleman.
Told to carry some things to a landing site and not to ask any questions.
But he did anyhow.
He couldn't find out what he was carrying, but found out where it came from.
He says ifs sourced from a place no one will go.
He says it's sourced from hell.
A place so doomed even the Elite Zealots won't go there.
So they buy from someone who will.
If we work backward through the tugs positioning, you're never gonna believe where we end up.
Intense red giant.
Half a dozen charred planets around it, but that's not the interesting part.
Piece of the Halo Ring.
That's Alpha Halo.
Exactly.
The weapon Master Chief destroyed.
And now it's come back to haunt us.
The explosion and the triggered slipspace scatters the Ring debris across the galaxy.
This one apparently ends up in our red giant's orbit.
Be a major peace violation if anyone went there.
Treaty says no one goes back to the Ring.
Not UNSC, not Covenant.
You think this is where they're sourcing the element? Problem is' there's no record of an element like that on the Halo Ring.
Before the explosion.
After, it could be a different story.
You got a point, private, get to it.
Macer.
Private first class, sir.
And the point's easy.
For all we know, what blew up the Halo Ring was a supernova-level event.
Right push and pull of fission and fusion and new elements are formed.
Like our mystery element.
Let me guess, you majored in Physics? Regional Nav.
Physics I just leafed through when I was bored.
Display object's composition.
Element range 120 to 130.
Cross-reference other planets, celestial bodies with this element.
Expand search.
Galaxies, known universe.
Looks like we got a one-off.
An element fatal to humans.
Native to this little piece of Halo Ring and nowhere else.
Ninety-six square kilometers.
We could nuke it.
Launch it from a destroyer.
Hold up on that.
What do you got, Estrin? Another inbound.
Tug.
Just like this one.
Looks like someone's going back to no man's land.
We don't have a lot of time, Admiral.
Be a bold move, Locke.
Send a team in, destroy the deposits, nab whoever it is that's mining the stuff And find out who they're selling it to.
We know who they are selling it m.
Just need proof Hard proof the Covenant's broken the treaty.
Then give me the okay.
We're the only ones in the region who can do anything about it.
Sir, if I may.
Well, ifs just, I think there's more you should know.
Because of its orbit, this piece of the Ring has got rotation just like any other planet.
But the spin's fast.
Full day-night cycle's only 16 hours.
And? Well, because of proximity to that star, daytime temperatures reach 900 degrees.
They're working the night shift.
Harvesting the element, and they're long gone before the sun comes up.
Cools to about 130 degrees or so at night because of the mass.
Got to hand it to them-They do have balls.
We still have enough time to get there before they're done.
We destroy the deposits with the Havok, grab our smugglers, be off-planet within hours.
Havok's a big ask.
These are big circumstances, sir.
Look, you wanna do this tonight, your only option is the Sedrans.
Where's Aiken? Well, he's not to be accessed, sir.
He's not to be accessed, sir.
I hear you need a ship.
All these years, heard about the Halo Ring.
Never thought we'd actually step foot on it.
Won't be the Halo Ring of yore, that's for sure.
They're hooking us up with a Condor.
Good enough.
Looks like there are strings attached.
Sir'? - Oxygen packs.
- Yes, sir.
We weren't planning on co-opting this thing.
You underestimate Sedrans, Commander.
We get punched in the mouth, we don't just outsource our fight to other people.
We work better alone.
You're lucky ONI is even coming in an advisory capacity.
We're the ones gonna be doing all the heavy lifting.
We'll see about that.
Lift-off's in 10.
We can't do this.
These people are two centuries behind us.
They still believe in Valhalla.
I don't think we have a choice, Horrigan.
Ready to go to hell, Colonel? - Daddy? - I heard you're gonna come home.
I made a picture of us at the beach.
- Bye, Daddy.
- I miss you! Ever seen a Havok nuke before? Only virtually.
How 'bout battle? Seen that? Thing you don't understand about Sedrans.
We've lived in a state of perpetual war, surrounded by enemies.
We were born fighting.
That may be.
But make a mistake with that, you won't even have time to know you made a mistake.
No one in 100 kilometers will.
Which is why only we touch it.
This is our mission.
I don't wanna hear that again, Lieutenant.
This is a Sedran operation Well, we'll be the ones setting the nuke.
And probably nabbing the smugglers, as advisers.
You want to put a muzzle on your subordinate, Commander Locke? He's officially muzzled.
He said what he had to say.
Well, once we're boots down, we'll have roughly eight hours before sunup.
Anybody who's on the surface at that point is dead.
Atmosphere's still breathable, but at only 20% oxygen of what the Ring used to have.
This is gonna slow us down.
Which means oxygen systems and scrubbers for everyone.
And lastly, I don't wanna hear any more proper nouns until we exfil.
No more Sedrans, no ONI.
Just a team of soldiers.
And as commanding officer of this mission, that team goes through me, clear? Clear from this end.
We come up against it, so you know, only guy I listen to is you.
Your friend's wrong about us.
We can fight.
Not tonight you won't.
Colonel's right about you, if you don't mind me saying.
ONI.
Think you're better than everyone else.
I mean, not that you're not, it's just Well, the only difference between you and any of us is the training.
So you think if you went through ONI training, you'd be just as good? Maybe even better.
That your aspiration? To be ONI? Perhaps you'd rather be a Spartan.
She should be neither.
You know, he used 10 be a Spartan.
A decade ago maybe.
Named Randall-037.
One day, he up and walks away.
And no one walks away from the Spartan program.
It's not supposed to be possible.
They have too much invested in you.
Fast forward 10 years and suddenly I'm looking at your colonel.
Scars like they took a bunch of titanium out of his body.
Except his name is not Randall, it's Aiken.
How's that come to pass? You're ONI.
You tell me.
Come on, Macer.
I know better than to trust you.
We wouldn't be doing our job if people trusted us.
Commander.
Colonel, we've located the position of the mining tug.
Condor will drop us two clicks short of the target, and we'll proceed on foot.
Make sure we preserve surprise.
As for the Havok, unless you disagree, Commander, I suggest it stays here till we have our quarry.
We can light it up at that point, make sure we're well out to space by the time it detonates.
But not so far that we can't see it.
Something awful mesmerizing about seeing a Havok go up in real time.
A fireworks show like none other.
Amen to that.
On our signal, come to us.
Last chance, Colonel.
We can do this on our own.
We do this as a team.
Have it your way.
Try to keep up.
Now drop the lines! Ropes away.
Drop in five.
Something about this place freaks me out.
Whole thing's fried.
Used to be rivers, forests.
Everything living in those forests.
If it was living, it's dead now.
The Forerunners built it 100,000 years ago, and we still don't totally understand it.
Even busted up like it is.
Not getting any movement.
Best, Wisner, stay 360 on this.
I don't want anybody ï¬anking us.
Yes, sir.
Got any thoughts on this one, Colonel? Almost say they ditched, but engine's still warm.
Still functional.
I wonder why they deployed the chute.
It's pretty cramped for a two-seater.
Question is where our two are.
Got something, Locke.
Cargo unit.
Looks like it got pretty busted up on entry.
Jettisoned before landing.
Guess they weren't planning on bringing ii back.
Horse tracks.
Who the hell brings horses? Couldn't land the tug near the deposits.
Might've been the fastest way out.
Fastest way 1,000 years ago.
Got a cave, Macer.
Can you image through this soil? No, sir.
Too thick.
Roger that.
Stay high and wide of us.
I don't want your engine noise, but I want your eyes.
Roger that, sir.
Get ready.
Humidity level is rising.
Got 'em.
Twelve o'clock.
M-53 non-lethal rounds.
I want them incapacitated, not dead.
We've got your ship.
There's no way out.
Stand up! Put down your weapons! These guys are something else.
Put down your weapons, I'm telling you! What's wrong with those horses? They can smell something.
They're moving.
Son of a bitch.
Horrigan.
Estrin.
Colonel, I've got 'em.
Running east of you.
Let's make this easy, huh? You have no idea what you're doing! Shut up and save the bull for the ride out.
Not bad for advisers, huh, Colonel? Nice.
- Bring it, Macer, we have our quarry.
- Roger that.
Privates, get the containers.
YES, sir! Whoa there, boy.
Whoa! Pull up, sir! Pull up! Hell is going on, Macer? I don't know.
But pull up! Talk to me, Condor.
What the hell is going on? Somethings on me, sir.
I'm losing control of her.
The propulsion's gone Blown up the engines.
Macer.
Get down! It's gonna hit us! Fall back! Take cover! Stand down! Hold your fire! We're cloaking! What the hell are they? The only thing that matters right now is we're cloaked, and they can't see us.
I'm not so sure about that.
Fall back! Fall back! Fall back! We were cloaked.
How did they know? It's your technology! It's like a magnet to them.
They sense it! Once they on you, they can even sense your movements.
Power down.
What? AIKEN; Do it.
Can someone tell me what those things are? I don't know, but that's swarm intelligence they're displaying.
Form assumption They're Hunter Worms.
Something like them anyhow.
How they can sense where we are, though, that's not usually in their repertoire Their organs, they can detect the very changes in the air.
Magnetic disturbances, radio waves, EMPs.
Everything that you carry.
You call them Hunter Worms, we call them Lekgolo.
We've learned not to bring technology to this place.
They don't respond 10 it well.
These people don't know how to react, brother.
So reliant on their technology, they wouldn't even know what to do without it, would they? Maybe that'll be the thing that kills you.
My ankle is broken.
We got a problem.
None of these units have an ex-orbital comm.
And with that Condor down at the bottom of the canyon, we've got no way of calling for an extraction.
As of this moment, none of us are getting off this stone.
And in five hours and change, that sun is coming up, we're all gonna be dust.
That's not true.
There's still the tug.
It's a two-seater.
And there are nine of us.
You're sure there's no way to get comm out? Only ex-orbital would be on that Condor.
And even if we were able to get a signal out, three hours would be nowhere near enough to get a rescue ship here.
This is it then.
This rock.
Us.
And what we can do about it.
Some of us aren't going to survive the night.
That's a given.
Doesn't mean we can't get the mission done beforehand, though.
That Havok survived the fall.
They're built to withstand far worse.
We got them.
Now we go down to the Condor, get that nuke and we destroy the deposits.
Make sure what happened back there on Sedra never happens again.
Two hours down, two hours to the tug.
And when we get to the tug? How do we decide who takes it? Lifeboat rules.
I remember my childhood on the north coast of England.
People used to tell stories of the Royal Navy.
Second millennium.
Shipwrecked sailors, stuck out in sea in lifeboats.
The rule was, you stick together.
No fighting over food, water.
It was only at the end, when there's no other choice, they had to make the hard decisions of who'd live and who'd die.
Doing so beforehand would undermine the very collaboration that was required to keep them alive long enough to be rescued in the first place.
How'd they make the hard decisions? They drew straws.
I hope to hell it didn't fall the whole way down.
Only one way to find out.
Suggest your men dump the armor.
Without the hydraulics of the air-con, it's just dead weight.
Slow you down.
Cook you in the process.
Agreed, we'll just keep the oxygen.
We can go without it for a while, but we'll deficit pretty quickly in this atmosphere.
Sooner or later all of us are gonna have to power up the last three air units.
As of this moment, we're 100% analog.
Show our friend here there's more to a soldier than just his armor.
Are we really doing this'? Going down when our only way out is up? If anyone can pull a rabbit out of his hat, it's Locke.
Guy's out of his mind.
We're not drawing straws.
You got a better way? We should probably put the screws on these guys.
Get the intel we need, then dump 'em.
Because we're going nowhere with that one.
We cut 'em loose, they know this land.
They'll be to the tug before we know it.
Then maybe that only leaves putting 'em down.
I'll remind you, Lieutenant, I'm the one making the decisions around here.
We're not making any decisions like that.
Well, I got news for you.
All due respect to Wisner and the glorified bus driver there, but your team is dead and you got no ship.
You're just one of the rest of us now.
Horrigan.
YES, sir.
Spoke out of turn.
No, Lieutenant.
Seems to me like you've still got something to say.
Say it.
Enlighten us.
You said it before.
We're all just a bunch of soldiers.
And as soldiers, we realize that soldiering ain't pretty.
Now, if it's really all about the mission like you say it is, then we need to think about the mission.
And we can't get it done lugging them around.
You could put us both down.
But I'm curious to see who you think will ï¬y the ship.
Nobody's putting anybody down.
We don't panic like that.
It's not an option.
Silence.
They say it's a soldiers greatest aw.
Grants him the element of surprise.
Lays bare all of his enemy's movement.
But I learned long ago that was a lie.
Because silence allows a soldier to think.
Gives him time to be scared.
And a scared soldier starts making choices.
Choices to make the fear go away.
Choices that ruin everything.
How much deeper? Why should I help you? Because we're the ones with the guns.
You've never heard of my planet, have you? Nana.
A 100-year drought has killed half the population.
Made us desperate for food.
So desperate they'd send their sons and fathers to a hell-world like this to make money.
You destroy those deposits, you destroy one of the only sources of income my people have.
You got no problem trafficking in the blood of others, I take it.
Funny coming from ONI.
I'll tell you what.
No politics.
Not tonight.
Just a bunch of people with a common goal of surviving.
We are gonna find that craft.
We are gonna detonate that nuke, if it's still viable, and we are gonna destroy those deposits.
You are powerless to stop that.
But you can facilitate getting it done faster, giving at least some of us a chance of getting out of here alive.
Maybe even you.
I'll not make it out of here tonight.
Your friend here will see to that.
I give you my word.
You help us find that craft, you'll get a fair draw at those straws.
Don't act like you're not a gambler.
The fact that you come to this place, under these circumstances, tells me you're exactly that.
There are the switchbacks.
Down there to the left.
That's a dangerous game you're playing.
Impossible.
Plants, water.
What the hell is this? Must not be carbon-based life.
Could be a million things.
Halo Ring? I don't put anything past it.
We're losing momentum.
We need to oxygenate, or people start dropping.
We don't need your air.
We wouldn't come to a place whose very atmosphere tells us we're unwelcome Haisal, enough.
All right, gonna fire up all three air systems simultaneously.
Everyone saturates, we shut 'em down as quickly as possible.
You're telling the world where you are.
Thirty seconds.
We move as soon as we're done.
Power down.
Let's go.
Let's move.
Shit! The oxygen pack Got it? I got it.
We're down two.
Wisner? Ramos! Ramos.
Go.
Go! Find cover! Someone's got 10 help him! Stay on mission, Macer.
Maser! Go! Go! Go, go, go.
Oh, my God.
I'm gonna kill them.
I'm gonna kill them with the Halo Ring.
Just don't let go.
Thank you.
Thank you, by the way.
Turns out the glorified bus driver can do something after all.
Yeah, and if you could turn back the clock, she'd be the whole package.
I'm guessing two hours 40 till sunup.
We gotta move.
I'm thinking maybe we're clear.
Clear as we're gonna be.
What the hell? Oh, my God.
It's Wisner.
It's not her.
No.
- They can mimic the shape.
- No.
But they can't make the muscle movement.
They're baiting us.
We gotta get out of this hole.
We don't have time.
Yeah, they're too close, and we're going nowhere with him.
Then why don't you leave me here? I'm tired of listening to you.
Besides, you run for it, they'll hear.
And maybe I can watch them tear you apart.
No way we'll make it.
We're not fast enough.
Ramos is right.
We're not fast enough.
Haisal! God damn it, go! Go! Dog! Goddamn dog! You don't choose! You don't do that! You don't play God! That's not your right! Look around.
You see God anywhere? Tonight, we are God.
He was right, though we didn't know it.
In that moment, on that rock, with the Devil on our heels, we were gods.
Gods of the damned.
I'm gonna keep him in line.
I promise you that.
Well, I'm sure that's your plan.
Not sure it's possible now the center's falling apart.
We work together, it won't.
ONI looks out for ONI.
You know it and I know it.
I thought you said no proper nouns tonight.
People get scared, they get tribal.
Trust their own before the other.
We're the other tonight.
Don't pretend we're not.
Sounds like a man drawing lines.
Justifying a reason to turn on us.
Shouldn't fear me.
I'm just one man, with a glorified bus driver as backup.
One man that was a Spartan.
You're playing scared, Commander.
See, I already died.
That's the difference between you and me.
Gave my life away when I was signed up to be a soldier.
It's a matter of what we give it away for now.
The noble soldier.
I forgot.
We die here, we go lo Valhalla, right? They don't allow ONI into Valhalla.
I'll tell you what.
You got a death wish with what happened to you, that's fine.
But I still got some fight.
Not going gently into this night, not yet.
Not to the Hunter Worms, not to you, not to the sun.
But you'd have it that they'd go first then? No, never.
That's my team.
I love them.
'Cause that's what it's gonna take for you to survive, you know that, don't you? It's you or them.
You love them, you love them at all, it's not even a choice.
We got pan of it.
We're close.
Let's spread out.
Try to find a way down.
I hate that had to happen to him.
Got us out here though.
Gave us a chance to live.
You and me.
You do know, they've been looking around this whole time.
Choosing.
We all have.
Choosing what? The other one that will live.
Besides themselves.
'Cause you know that even/ones got themselves penciled in for one of those seats.
I looked around and I chose you.
- Don't do this.
- We don't have time.
It's time to choose.
Part of soldiering, part of being ONI is living to fight another day.
We don't make a dent in the Covenant if we're dead.
And them? We've lost soldiers before.
But we didn't abandon them.
Just tell me when we draw those straws you'll have my back.
That you'll get me off this rock.
Straws'll decide.
For everyone.
Even me.
That's not good enough.
I need to know where you stand.
I save you, I kill them.
That's not a choice I wanna make.
Then people are gonna start to make choices.
You realize that, don't you? Come on, man, help me out here.
When are you gonna come back, Daddy? I heard you're gonna come home.
I made a picture The hell you doing? Turn that off.
You touch 'em and I will kill you.
Turn it off.
Ramos, I'm gonna tell you this once.
Your kids are beautiful, but tonight, they're gonna get us killed.
Now let's find us a way down.
Thought we were already in the ninth circle of hell, but looks like there's a bonus level.
Not one of 'em's got kids.
They die out here, it's just them dying.
Me, I go, kids'll have nothing.
No one there Shut up.
Stay on mission.
It's always the mission' isn't it? Draw straws like a good soldier.
You can bet straws isn't gonna decide anything.
A gun will.
If you and I decide it'll be about guns, it'll be about guns.
Me and you? Which one of us is gonna fly the tug? You need a pilot in one of those seats.
The girl maybe.
The heat kills her, the smuggler.
That only leaves one other seat.
We take out the rest, and you and I, we draw straws.
Makes it a 50-50 chance instead of one in seven.
No, you are out of your mind.
I'm the only one seeing things straight.
You're wrong.
Shut up! Don't go talking to them.
I told you things.
I trusted you.
Help me.
Ramos, help me up.
Come on, man, let me up.
Come on, man, let me up! It's those kids.
You understand, right? What's going on? Talk to me! He fell.
He, uh He fell.
It's over.
Forget it.
Important thing is you still have that gun.
We're close.
It bottoms out not so far from here.
We better top up up here.
We do it down there, they end up coming, we're trapped.
Same thing last time.
Saturate as quickly as possible.
Not gonna happen, friend.
We don't have time for this.
We don't got enough to share anymore.
If we're gonna get back to that tug, we need air.
All of it.
That's not for you to decide.
I told you choices were gonna start being made.
No straws.
This mission is over.
We are now going back to the tug.
You wanna kill me, go ahead.
But she gets oxygen.
Don't move! Stop this, God damn it! I will power up and gun you down, I swear to God! Put it down.
We will not do this! We will not go out like this! You draw on me? I chose you.
I chose you.
Drop it.
Swear to God, drop it.
Or I'll Or you'll what? We can power up if you want and shoot it out.
But you'll lose.
Power up, and you kill all of us.
Including yourselves.
You never know.
I could power up, put a couple rounds in you, power down.
Maybe the Hunters are none the wiser.
You'd take that chance? Everything's chances now.
You got one more second, Locke.
Come on, man.
Doesn't have to be like this.
As we planned.
I tried to save you.
I'm not the one who needs saving.
Said the dead man.
Anyone who wants to go after them, they can.
You know where I stand.
Wouldn't make it 200 yards.
Might be all you have to make, Macer.
Hurry up! He'll turn on you, huh? Shut up.
The least essential one always dies.
Me, he needs to ï¬y the ship.
You, what's he need'? You're telling me this why? Because I trust you more than him.
Havoks are supposed to be bulletproof.
Let's see if that was just advertising.
Sir, looks like some of the propulsion might still be functional.
Condor won't get us off the Ring, but if we could disengage it, get the thrusters working, we could still make the tug.
What? He's right.
You don't need me.
He's got a point.
He has no point.
Tug like that has an autopilot.
Then why are we keeping him around? 'Cause it also has a biometric ignition.
That's the card he's been playing the whole time.
We need his fingerprint to start the thing.
But that's all we need.
His fingerprint.
Come on.
We got about a half hour left.
So all we gotta do is set this thing, get away clear, let it detonate while the tug is in orbit.
We have problems.
I spoke too soon.
Propulsion's still functional, but the fuel cells are shattered.
Not getting anywhere without fuel.
Might still be away.
This thing has a standard backup power cell.
We use this for the ship instead, it might be just enough to get us out of this canyon and to that tug.
Get this cell into the system.
- Test it, make sure it's still working.
- Yes, Sir.
We can't leave the deposits intact.
We came all this way.
And at least one of us isn't getting off this rock anyhow.
I think the only thing we can do is get two of us up and out towards that tug, whilst the other remains behind.
Detonates the Havok by hand.
I got to top UP- We don't have time for this! Saturate, quick.
I'm getting nothing.
It's a go.
But I suggest we get going ASAP.
Not sure how long it's gonna hold.
Save it till we're ready.
Go with her.
You don't have much time.
Like hell you get to make that decision.
Three of us aren't making it out of here.
We already know that.
Let's make the choice now.
Walk, God damn it! I called this mission.
It's on me.
Never did draw on those straws, did we? I'll choose two.
One red, one white.
Three.
You're too young.
Soldier's a soldier.
Three.
Just so you know, Private, no do-overs.
You wanna be a soldier, and you pick red, I will walk on you.
Let the beads decide.
Red one stays behind.
As it should be.
Go.
I could draw on you, if you want.
Get her going, Macer.
See you in Valhalla.
They don't let ONI into Valhalla.
You, they might.
There they are! What the hell? We got problems.
Steady, Macer.
Came on! You'll never catch 'em if you're dragging me.
Don't do it! Don't do it! Don't do it! No! No! No! No.
Now! Come on! I need your help here, bus driver.
Auto-pilot hardware's same as most.
We're going.
We're going! Death will come to all of us.
Especially soldiers.
It will come, inevitable as the sun.
It is only to be feared if you fear what's on the other side of it.
If you see darkness in your sou! Rather than light.
In a way, I suppose soldiers are gods.
You give your life away so others will live in peace.
Even if it's only fleeting.
The ones that live carry part of you with them.
Your deeds become seeds for theirs.
The sacrifice carries forward.
And in their final moments as a soldier, you know they will have 10 answer the same question you did in yours.
With your life would you only create death, or with your death would you create life? That is my question to you, Commander Locke.
How will you die? And for what?
Born a promise.
A million possibilities taking shape under each new day's sun.
But what it the next time that sun rose, there were no possibilities at ail? Only death.
Yours, and of everything you've ever known.
How would you act in that darkness beforehand? How would you go out? We are simple things, soldiers.
We are taught honor.
Honor means sacrifice.
Sacrifice means death.
Either our own, or our enemy's.
In some ways, beneath ii ail, that's all a soldiers really trained for.
To undo all of God's work.
To take life where only God can give it.
Were it that we were not soldiers but gods.
I tell you, Locke Worst thing about peace with the Covenant, we're reduced to this.
Trailing small fish.
Never know.
Chatter we've been getting off this guy is he's up to something.
Something that would not bode well for the UNSC.
Any bets on what he's carrying? Drugs.
Exotic fauna? You actually just said that, didn't you? Got to say something to keep it interesting.
That interesting enough for you'? Vector in.
What's a Covenant dropship doing here? Backwater like Sedra? What the hell? An Elite Zealot? Been years since I've seen a roach.
Whatever he's got, that stuffs black-hole cold.
Stasis refrigerant? That's only used for one thing.
A bomb.
Not good.
We're moving, people.
Split up.
Ramos, the little one.
COPY- I got him! Gaines, it's Locke.
Target just handed off to a Zealot.
An Elite? We think it's a bomb.
Where's he? Where'd he go? He's headed for the city.
Vectoring to you now.
He's broken into a city access tunnel.
Might lose comm inside.
Roger that.
Horrigan, mark my last.
He ran from the fight.
His target must be the city.
We got the east side, Locke.
What's there? Talk to me.
Main market.
Maybe 500 Sedrans.
Damn it! We got to take him out.
We got to zero on him.
He's been seen entering the mall.
It's over.
Give it to me.
That can't have been it.
What kind of device was that? No damage? It could've been a dud.
An Elite Zealot wouldn't come all this way to make a mistake like that.
Why did they come all the way out here at all? We got to download Goodwin.
He's at the UN meeting.
I wouldn't rattle any cages till we know what we're dealing with.
What's going on with her'? I don't know.
She's been infected by something Gaines.
Hold it.
- Secure the entrances.
- Yes, sir, Colonel Aiken.
- Keep breathing.
- You're gonna be all right, you hear me? Hold it.
ONI, we're clear.
Only Sedran passports get entrance.
I've got wounded, Colonel.
We can talk politics later.
Go ahead.
Get him to Deacon Unit with the rest of his team.
I don't want him spreading this thing if it's contagious.
Yes, sir, Colonel.
Like that, someone can play God to you.
Someone you don'! know.
Invisible, like a malevolent forte beyond the firmament.
Taking from you our only birthright Life.
So what do we do? We just wait? Find out if it gets us? Medical says they've never seen anything like it.
But if we're not showing symptoms at this point, we might be in the clear.
What the hell did they do to us? Ramos.
Talk to me, medic.
What do you got? They're coming in from further and further from the blast site.
People eight, 10 kilometers away are being affected.
Population of this ward is 100% human.
It's not affecting other species.
You're saying they got their hands on a compound that selectively kills humans and nothing else? It's not a compound.
An element.
Closest they can pin it is the 120 family.
But with a transmutation of some sort that makes it something no one's ever seen.
This thing randomly compromises human DNA, but not others.
Covenant's found their holy grail, then, haven't they? Way of wiping us out without firing a shot.
When we're supposedly not even at war.
Question is, why Sedra? Why use this on an outer colony? Why not hit population centers like Gannick 22? Test run, probably.
Porous borders.
Mixed population.
This one works, they go for the big fish.
Sedrans think this is the mining tug that was used to smuggle in the element.
The pilots can't be found.
- Check it out, Estrin.
- Yes, sir.
Hey, Locke Here comes our Sedran colonel.
What do you got? Let you know when the time's right.
I suggest we work together on this.
We both want the same thing.
ONI doesn't work alongside anyone.
It's just you and everyone else way below.
So, you know, I don't write policy.
My two soldiers are up in ICU because of that blast.
Soldiers I'm responsible for.
I'm asking you as a fellow officer.
Show them back to the base, Macer.
Sir.
You're gonna tell me who flew that tug.
You keep playing stupid, you'll be dead inside an hour.
Colonel Aiken.
Mind if we step in, take a shot? All I mind is you shutting up and knowing your place.
This is on you.
You know that, don't you? They weren't after us, they were after you.
UNSC.
'Cause you were operating here, on our tun'.
You take the good with the bad, and the UNSC have done a lot of good for you.
You're here to expand UNSC's power, nothing else, without a clue about the cultures you assimilate.
He says he's only a middleman.
Told to carry some things to a landing site and not to ask any questions.
But he did anyhow.
He couldn't find out what he was carrying, but found out where it came from.
He says ifs sourced from a place no one will go.
He says it's sourced from hell.
A place so doomed even the Elite Zealots won't go there.
So they buy from someone who will.
If we work backward through the tugs positioning, you're never gonna believe where we end up.
Intense red giant.
Half a dozen charred planets around it, but that's not the interesting part.
Piece of the Halo Ring.
That's Alpha Halo.
Exactly.
The weapon Master Chief destroyed.
And now it's come back to haunt us.
The explosion and the triggered slipspace scatters the Ring debris across the galaxy.
This one apparently ends up in our red giant's orbit.
Be a major peace violation if anyone went there.
Treaty says no one goes back to the Ring.
Not UNSC, not Covenant.
You think this is where they're sourcing the element? Problem is' there's no record of an element like that on the Halo Ring.
Before the explosion.
After, it could be a different story.
You got a point, private, get to it.
Macer.
Private first class, sir.
And the point's easy.
For all we know, what blew up the Halo Ring was a supernova-level event.
Right push and pull of fission and fusion and new elements are formed.
Like our mystery element.
Let me guess, you majored in Physics? Regional Nav.
Physics I just leafed through when I was bored.
Display object's composition.
Element range 120 to 130.
Cross-reference other planets, celestial bodies with this element.
Expand search.
Galaxies, known universe.
Looks like we got a one-off.
An element fatal to humans.
Native to this little piece of Halo Ring and nowhere else.
Ninety-six square kilometers.
We could nuke it.
Launch it from a destroyer.
Hold up on that.
What do you got, Estrin? Another inbound.
Tug.
Just like this one.
Looks like someone's going back to no man's land.
We don't have a lot of time, Admiral.
Be a bold move, Locke.
Send a team in, destroy the deposits, nab whoever it is that's mining the stuff And find out who they're selling it to.
We know who they are selling it m.
Just need proof Hard proof the Covenant's broken the treaty.
Then give me the okay.
We're the only ones in the region who can do anything about it.
Sir, if I may.
Well, ifs just, I think there's more you should know.
Because of its orbit, this piece of the Ring has got rotation just like any other planet.
But the spin's fast.
Full day-night cycle's only 16 hours.
And? Well, because of proximity to that star, daytime temperatures reach 900 degrees.
They're working the night shift.
Harvesting the element, and they're long gone before the sun comes up.
Cools to about 130 degrees or so at night because of the mass.
Got to hand it to them-They do have balls.
We still have enough time to get there before they're done.
We destroy the deposits with the Havok, grab our smugglers, be off-planet within hours.
Havok's a big ask.
These are big circumstances, sir.
Look, you wanna do this tonight, your only option is the Sedrans.
Where's Aiken? Well, he's not to be accessed, sir.
He's not to be accessed, sir.
I hear you need a ship.
All these years, heard about the Halo Ring.
Never thought we'd actually step foot on it.
Won't be the Halo Ring of yore, that's for sure.
They're hooking us up with a Condor.
Good enough.
Looks like there are strings attached.
Sir'? - Oxygen packs.
- Yes, sir.
We weren't planning on co-opting this thing.
You underestimate Sedrans, Commander.
We get punched in the mouth, we don't just outsource our fight to other people.
We work better alone.
You're lucky ONI is even coming in an advisory capacity.
We're the ones gonna be doing all the heavy lifting.
We'll see about that.
Lift-off's in 10.
We can't do this.
These people are two centuries behind us.
They still believe in Valhalla.
I don't think we have a choice, Horrigan.
Ready to go to hell, Colonel? - Daddy? - I heard you're gonna come home.
I made a picture of us at the beach.
- Bye, Daddy.
- I miss you! Ever seen a Havok nuke before? Only virtually.
How 'bout battle? Seen that? Thing you don't understand about Sedrans.
We've lived in a state of perpetual war, surrounded by enemies.
We were born fighting.
That may be.
But make a mistake with that, you won't even have time to know you made a mistake.
No one in 100 kilometers will.
Which is why only we touch it.
This is our mission.
I don't wanna hear that again, Lieutenant.
This is a Sedran operation Well, we'll be the ones setting the nuke.
And probably nabbing the smugglers, as advisers.
You want to put a muzzle on your subordinate, Commander Locke? He's officially muzzled.
He said what he had to say.
Well, once we're boots down, we'll have roughly eight hours before sunup.
Anybody who's on the surface at that point is dead.
Atmosphere's still breathable, but at only 20% oxygen of what the Ring used to have.
This is gonna slow us down.
Which means oxygen systems and scrubbers for everyone.
And lastly, I don't wanna hear any more proper nouns until we exfil.
No more Sedrans, no ONI.
Just a team of soldiers.
And as commanding officer of this mission, that team goes through me, clear? Clear from this end.
We come up against it, so you know, only guy I listen to is you.
Your friend's wrong about us.
We can fight.
Not tonight you won't.
Colonel's right about you, if you don't mind me saying.
ONI.
Think you're better than everyone else.
I mean, not that you're not, it's just Well, the only difference between you and any of us is the training.
So you think if you went through ONI training, you'd be just as good? Maybe even better.
That your aspiration? To be ONI? Perhaps you'd rather be a Spartan.
She should be neither.
You know, he used 10 be a Spartan.
A decade ago maybe.
Named Randall-037.
One day, he up and walks away.
And no one walks away from the Spartan program.
It's not supposed to be possible.
They have too much invested in you.
Fast forward 10 years and suddenly I'm looking at your colonel.
Scars like they took a bunch of titanium out of his body.
Except his name is not Randall, it's Aiken.
How's that come to pass? You're ONI.
You tell me.
Come on, Macer.
I know better than to trust you.
We wouldn't be doing our job if people trusted us.
Commander.
Colonel, we've located the position of the mining tug.
Condor will drop us two clicks short of the target, and we'll proceed on foot.
Make sure we preserve surprise.
As for the Havok, unless you disagree, Commander, I suggest it stays here till we have our quarry.
We can light it up at that point, make sure we're well out to space by the time it detonates.
But not so far that we can't see it.
Something awful mesmerizing about seeing a Havok go up in real time.
A fireworks show like none other.
Amen to that.
On our signal, come to us.
Last chance, Colonel.
We can do this on our own.
We do this as a team.
Have it your way.
Try to keep up.
Now drop the lines! Ropes away.
Drop in five.
Something about this place freaks me out.
Whole thing's fried.
Used to be rivers, forests.
Everything living in those forests.
If it was living, it's dead now.
The Forerunners built it 100,000 years ago, and we still don't totally understand it.
Even busted up like it is.
Not getting any movement.
Best, Wisner, stay 360 on this.
I don't want anybody ï¬anking us.
Yes, sir.
Got any thoughts on this one, Colonel? Almost say they ditched, but engine's still warm.
Still functional.
I wonder why they deployed the chute.
It's pretty cramped for a two-seater.
Question is where our two are.
Got something, Locke.
Cargo unit.
Looks like it got pretty busted up on entry.
Jettisoned before landing.
Guess they weren't planning on bringing ii back.
Horse tracks.
Who the hell brings horses? Couldn't land the tug near the deposits.
Might've been the fastest way out.
Fastest way 1,000 years ago.
Got a cave, Macer.
Can you image through this soil? No, sir.
Too thick.
Roger that.
Stay high and wide of us.
I don't want your engine noise, but I want your eyes.
Roger that, sir.
Get ready.
Humidity level is rising.
Got 'em.
Twelve o'clock.
M-53 non-lethal rounds.
I want them incapacitated, not dead.
We've got your ship.
There's no way out.
Stand up! Put down your weapons! These guys are something else.
Put down your weapons, I'm telling you! What's wrong with those horses? They can smell something.
They're moving.
Son of a bitch.
Horrigan.
Estrin.
Colonel, I've got 'em.
Running east of you.
Let's make this easy, huh? You have no idea what you're doing! Shut up and save the bull for the ride out.
Not bad for advisers, huh, Colonel? Nice.
- Bring it, Macer, we have our quarry.
- Roger that.
Privates, get the containers.
YES, sir! Whoa there, boy.
Whoa! Pull up, sir! Pull up! Hell is going on, Macer? I don't know.
But pull up! Talk to me, Condor.
What the hell is going on? Somethings on me, sir.
I'm losing control of her.
The propulsion's gone Blown up the engines.
Macer.
Get down! It's gonna hit us! Fall back! Take cover! Stand down! Hold your fire! We're cloaking! What the hell are they? The only thing that matters right now is we're cloaked, and they can't see us.
I'm not so sure about that.
Fall back! Fall back! Fall back! We were cloaked.
How did they know? It's your technology! It's like a magnet to them.
They sense it! Once they on you, they can even sense your movements.
Power down.
What? AIKEN; Do it.
Can someone tell me what those things are? I don't know, but that's swarm intelligence they're displaying.
Form assumption They're Hunter Worms.
Something like them anyhow.
How they can sense where we are, though, that's not usually in their repertoire Their organs, they can detect the very changes in the air.
Magnetic disturbances, radio waves, EMPs.
Everything that you carry.
You call them Hunter Worms, we call them Lekgolo.
We've learned not to bring technology to this place.
They don't respond 10 it well.
These people don't know how to react, brother.
So reliant on their technology, they wouldn't even know what to do without it, would they? Maybe that'll be the thing that kills you.
My ankle is broken.
We got a problem.
None of these units have an ex-orbital comm.
And with that Condor down at the bottom of the canyon, we've got no way of calling for an extraction.
As of this moment, none of us are getting off this stone.
And in five hours and change, that sun is coming up, we're all gonna be dust.
That's not true.
There's still the tug.
It's a two-seater.
And there are nine of us.
You're sure there's no way to get comm out? Only ex-orbital would be on that Condor.
And even if we were able to get a signal out, three hours would be nowhere near enough to get a rescue ship here.
This is it then.
This rock.
Us.
And what we can do about it.
Some of us aren't going to survive the night.
That's a given.
Doesn't mean we can't get the mission done beforehand, though.
That Havok survived the fall.
They're built to withstand far worse.
We got them.
Now we go down to the Condor, get that nuke and we destroy the deposits.
Make sure what happened back there on Sedra never happens again.
Two hours down, two hours to the tug.
And when we get to the tug? How do we decide who takes it? Lifeboat rules.
I remember my childhood on the north coast of England.
People used to tell stories of the Royal Navy.
Second millennium.
Shipwrecked sailors, stuck out in sea in lifeboats.
The rule was, you stick together.
No fighting over food, water.
It was only at the end, when there's no other choice, they had to make the hard decisions of who'd live and who'd die.
Doing so beforehand would undermine the very collaboration that was required to keep them alive long enough to be rescued in the first place.
How'd they make the hard decisions? They drew straws.
I hope to hell it didn't fall the whole way down.
Only one way to find out.
Suggest your men dump the armor.
Without the hydraulics of the air-con, it's just dead weight.
Slow you down.
Cook you in the process.
Agreed, we'll just keep the oxygen.
We can go without it for a while, but we'll deficit pretty quickly in this atmosphere.
Sooner or later all of us are gonna have to power up the last three air units.
As of this moment, we're 100% analog.
Show our friend here there's more to a soldier than just his armor.
Are we really doing this'? Going down when our only way out is up? If anyone can pull a rabbit out of his hat, it's Locke.
Guy's out of his mind.
We're not drawing straws.
You got a better way? We should probably put the screws on these guys.
Get the intel we need, then dump 'em.
Because we're going nowhere with that one.
We cut 'em loose, they know this land.
They'll be to the tug before we know it.
Then maybe that only leaves putting 'em down.
I'll remind you, Lieutenant, I'm the one making the decisions around here.
We're not making any decisions like that.
Well, I got news for you.
All due respect to Wisner and the glorified bus driver there, but your team is dead and you got no ship.
You're just one of the rest of us now.
Horrigan.
YES, sir.
Spoke out of turn.
No, Lieutenant.
Seems to me like you've still got something to say.
Say it.
Enlighten us.
You said it before.
We're all just a bunch of soldiers.
And as soldiers, we realize that soldiering ain't pretty.
Now, if it's really all about the mission like you say it is, then we need to think about the mission.
And we can't get it done lugging them around.
You could put us both down.
But I'm curious to see who you think will ï¬y the ship.
Nobody's putting anybody down.
We don't panic like that.
It's not an option.
Silence.
They say it's a soldiers greatest aw.
Grants him the element of surprise.
Lays bare all of his enemy's movement.
But I learned long ago that was a lie.
Because silence allows a soldier to think.
Gives him time to be scared.
And a scared soldier starts making choices.
Choices to make the fear go away.
Choices that ruin everything.
How much deeper? Why should I help you? Because we're the ones with the guns.
You've never heard of my planet, have you? Nana.
A 100-year drought has killed half the population.
Made us desperate for food.
So desperate they'd send their sons and fathers to a hell-world like this to make money.
You destroy those deposits, you destroy one of the only sources of income my people have.
You got no problem trafficking in the blood of others, I take it.
Funny coming from ONI.
I'll tell you what.
No politics.
Not tonight.
Just a bunch of people with a common goal of surviving.
We are gonna find that craft.
We are gonna detonate that nuke, if it's still viable, and we are gonna destroy those deposits.
You are powerless to stop that.
But you can facilitate getting it done faster, giving at least some of us a chance of getting out of here alive.
Maybe even you.
I'll not make it out of here tonight.
Your friend here will see to that.
I give you my word.
You help us find that craft, you'll get a fair draw at those straws.
Don't act like you're not a gambler.
The fact that you come to this place, under these circumstances, tells me you're exactly that.
There are the switchbacks.
Down there to the left.
That's a dangerous game you're playing.
Impossible.
Plants, water.
What the hell is this? Must not be carbon-based life.
Could be a million things.
Halo Ring? I don't put anything past it.
We're losing momentum.
We need to oxygenate, or people start dropping.
We don't need your air.
We wouldn't come to a place whose very atmosphere tells us we're unwelcome Haisal, enough.
All right, gonna fire up all three air systems simultaneously.
Everyone saturates, we shut 'em down as quickly as possible.
You're telling the world where you are.
Thirty seconds.
We move as soon as we're done.
Power down.
Let's go.
Let's move.
Shit! The oxygen pack Got it? I got it.
We're down two.
Wisner? Ramos! Ramos.
Go.
Go! Find cover! Someone's got 10 help him! Stay on mission, Macer.
Maser! Go! Go! Go, go, go.
Oh, my God.
I'm gonna kill them.
I'm gonna kill them with the Halo Ring.
Just don't let go.
Thank you.
Thank you, by the way.
Turns out the glorified bus driver can do something after all.
Yeah, and if you could turn back the clock, she'd be the whole package.
I'm guessing two hours 40 till sunup.
We gotta move.
I'm thinking maybe we're clear.
Clear as we're gonna be.
What the hell? Oh, my God.
It's Wisner.
It's not her.
No.
- They can mimic the shape.
- No.
But they can't make the muscle movement.
They're baiting us.
We gotta get out of this hole.
We don't have time.
Yeah, they're too close, and we're going nowhere with him.
Then why don't you leave me here? I'm tired of listening to you.
Besides, you run for it, they'll hear.
And maybe I can watch them tear you apart.
No way we'll make it.
We're not fast enough.
Ramos is right.
We're not fast enough.
Haisal! God damn it, go! Go! Dog! Goddamn dog! You don't choose! You don't do that! You don't play God! That's not your right! Look around.
You see God anywhere? Tonight, we are God.
He was right, though we didn't know it.
In that moment, on that rock, with the Devil on our heels, we were gods.
Gods of the damned.
I'm gonna keep him in line.
I promise you that.
Well, I'm sure that's your plan.
Not sure it's possible now the center's falling apart.
We work together, it won't.
ONI looks out for ONI.
You know it and I know it.
I thought you said no proper nouns tonight.
People get scared, they get tribal.
Trust their own before the other.
We're the other tonight.
Don't pretend we're not.
Sounds like a man drawing lines.
Justifying a reason to turn on us.
Shouldn't fear me.
I'm just one man, with a glorified bus driver as backup.
One man that was a Spartan.
You're playing scared, Commander.
See, I already died.
That's the difference between you and me.
Gave my life away when I was signed up to be a soldier.
It's a matter of what we give it away for now.
The noble soldier.
I forgot.
We die here, we go lo Valhalla, right? They don't allow ONI into Valhalla.
I'll tell you what.
You got a death wish with what happened to you, that's fine.
But I still got some fight.
Not going gently into this night, not yet.
Not to the Hunter Worms, not to you, not to the sun.
But you'd have it that they'd go first then? No, never.
That's my team.
I love them.
'Cause that's what it's gonna take for you to survive, you know that, don't you? It's you or them.
You love them, you love them at all, it's not even a choice.
We got pan of it.
We're close.
Let's spread out.
Try to find a way down.
I hate that had to happen to him.
Got us out here though.
Gave us a chance to live.
You and me.
You do know, they've been looking around this whole time.
Choosing.
We all have.
Choosing what? The other one that will live.
Besides themselves.
'Cause you know that even/ones got themselves penciled in for one of those seats.
I looked around and I chose you.
- Don't do this.
- We don't have time.
It's time to choose.
Part of soldiering, part of being ONI is living to fight another day.
We don't make a dent in the Covenant if we're dead.
And them? We've lost soldiers before.
But we didn't abandon them.
Just tell me when we draw those straws you'll have my back.
That you'll get me off this rock.
Straws'll decide.
For everyone.
Even me.
That's not good enough.
I need to know where you stand.
I save you, I kill them.
That's not a choice I wanna make.
Then people are gonna start to make choices.
You realize that, don't you? Come on, man, help me out here.
When are you gonna come back, Daddy? I heard you're gonna come home.
I made a picture The hell you doing? Turn that off.
You touch 'em and I will kill you.
Turn it off.
Ramos, I'm gonna tell you this once.
Your kids are beautiful, but tonight, they're gonna get us killed.
Now let's find us a way down.
Thought we were already in the ninth circle of hell, but looks like there's a bonus level.
Not one of 'em's got kids.
They die out here, it's just them dying.
Me, I go, kids'll have nothing.
No one there Shut up.
Stay on mission.
It's always the mission' isn't it? Draw straws like a good soldier.
You can bet straws isn't gonna decide anything.
A gun will.
If you and I decide it'll be about guns, it'll be about guns.
Me and you? Which one of us is gonna fly the tug? You need a pilot in one of those seats.
The girl maybe.
The heat kills her, the smuggler.
That only leaves one other seat.
We take out the rest, and you and I, we draw straws.
Makes it a 50-50 chance instead of one in seven.
No, you are out of your mind.
I'm the only one seeing things straight.
You're wrong.
Shut up! Don't go talking to them.
I told you things.
I trusted you.
Help me.
Ramos, help me up.
Come on, man, let me up.
Come on, man, let me up! It's those kids.
You understand, right? What's going on? Talk to me! He fell.
He, uh He fell.
It's over.
Forget it.
Important thing is you still have that gun.
We're close.
It bottoms out not so far from here.
We better top up up here.
We do it down there, they end up coming, we're trapped.
Same thing last time.
Saturate as quickly as possible.
Not gonna happen, friend.
We don't have time for this.
We don't got enough to share anymore.
If we're gonna get back to that tug, we need air.
All of it.
That's not for you to decide.
I told you choices were gonna start being made.
No straws.
This mission is over.
We are now going back to the tug.
You wanna kill me, go ahead.
But she gets oxygen.
Don't move! Stop this, God damn it! I will power up and gun you down, I swear to God! Put it down.
We will not do this! We will not go out like this! You draw on me? I chose you.
I chose you.
Drop it.
Swear to God, drop it.
Or I'll Or you'll what? We can power up if you want and shoot it out.
But you'll lose.
Power up, and you kill all of us.
Including yourselves.
You never know.
I could power up, put a couple rounds in you, power down.
Maybe the Hunters are none the wiser.
You'd take that chance? Everything's chances now.
You got one more second, Locke.
Come on, man.
Doesn't have to be like this.
As we planned.
I tried to save you.
I'm not the one who needs saving.
Said the dead man.
Anyone who wants to go after them, they can.
You know where I stand.
Wouldn't make it 200 yards.
Might be all you have to make, Macer.
Hurry up! He'll turn on you, huh? Shut up.
The least essential one always dies.
Me, he needs to ï¬y the ship.
You, what's he need'? You're telling me this why? Because I trust you more than him.
Havoks are supposed to be bulletproof.
Let's see if that was just advertising.
Sir, looks like some of the propulsion might still be functional.
Condor won't get us off the Ring, but if we could disengage it, get the thrusters working, we could still make the tug.
What? He's right.
You don't need me.
He's got a point.
He has no point.
Tug like that has an autopilot.
Then why are we keeping him around? 'Cause it also has a biometric ignition.
That's the card he's been playing the whole time.
We need his fingerprint to start the thing.
But that's all we need.
His fingerprint.
Come on.
We got about a half hour left.
So all we gotta do is set this thing, get away clear, let it detonate while the tug is in orbit.
We have problems.
I spoke too soon.
Propulsion's still functional, but the fuel cells are shattered.
Not getting anywhere without fuel.
Might still be away.
This thing has a standard backup power cell.
We use this for the ship instead, it might be just enough to get us out of this canyon and to that tug.
Get this cell into the system.
- Test it, make sure it's still working.
- Yes, Sir.
We can't leave the deposits intact.
We came all this way.
And at least one of us isn't getting off this rock anyhow.
I think the only thing we can do is get two of us up and out towards that tug, whilst the other remains behind.
Detonates the Havok by hand.
I got to top UP- We don't have time for this! Saturate, quick.
I'm getting nothing.
It's a go.
But I suggest we get going ASAP.
Not sure how long it's gonna hold.
Save it till we're ready.
Go with her.
You don't have much time.
Like hell you get to make that decision.
Three of us aren't making it out of here.
We already know that.
Let's make the choice now.
Walk, God damn it! I called this mission.
It's on me.
Never did draw on those straws, did we? I'll choose two.
One red, one white.
Three.
You're too young.
Soldier's a soldier.
Three.
Just so you know, Private, no do-overs.
You wanna be a soldier, and you pick red, I will walk on you.
Let the beads decide.
Red one stays behind.
As it should be.
Go.
I could draw on you, if you want.
Get her going, Macer.
See you in Valhalla.
They don't let ONI into Valhalla.
You, they might.
There they are! What the hell? We got problems.
Steady, Macer.
Came on! You'll never catch 'em if you're dragging me.
Don't do it! Don't do it! Don't do it! No! No! No! No.
Now! Come on! I need your help here, bus driver.
Auto-pilot hardware's same as most.
We're going.
We're going! Death will come to all of us.
Especially soldiers.
It will come, inevitable as the sun.
It is only to be feared if you fear what's on the other side of it.
If you see darkness in your sou! Rather than light.
In a way, I suppose soldiers are gods.
You give your life away so others will live in peace.
Even if it's only fleeting.
The ones that live carry part of you with them.
Your deeds become seeds for theirs.
The sacrifice carries forward.
And in their final moments as a soldier, you know they will have 10 answer the same question you did in yours.
With your life would you only create death, or with your death would you create life? That is my question to you, Commander Locke.
How will you die? And for what?