I was twenty-three when Harvest fell. When humanity met the Covenant, officially. I was on Earth, at the Academy for the UNSC officer training program. I never aspired to be a Spartan. I wasn't a soldier like that. I was a teacher. I liked teaching, and I taught military history, and ethics. Tough subject that, Military Ethics, especially with the Colony Wars going strong at that point.

Originally, I was from Harvest. Right, typical, and I had a wife, Elena, and three children. Hector, my son, Esper and Fiona, my girl twins, hector was five, and the reason Elena had married young, while we were in school. The girls happened to be the reason I took the position with the UNSC instead my local militia. Esper and Fiona were two, and I wanted to be there for them, when they were twenty-two. The Colony Wars had made me decide to either be in the fight, or not. And Elena and I had decided that once I was situated on Earth, she and the children would follow. Harvest was where her work was, and didn't want to just leave it.

The Covenant took care of that for us. I was in class when word first came in, that Harvest was gone. The school seceratary slipped in, and pulled me out, and talked to me in the hall, with my class trying to listen in. they didn't know yet. She was warning me because there were a few kids in my class from harvest, and they were trying to soften the blow.

It was the look that made her remember. The look of pure death, she said. I don't know whose death she was talking about, but, I felt dead. I asked about survivors dimly, but I already knew. We lived in the Capital, and Elena was medical. Its possible the children survived, but not exactly likely. I could only hope.

When the survivors of Harvest were release, and the list of the dead, I knew for certain. They were dead, killed during a bombardment of the Capital. I wanted to die too. Outliving one child is impossible, but all of your children, is crushing.

There are worst things than death. And that is one of them. I think it drove me insane. At the very least I was massively depressed and on the way to killing myself with either drinking my liver into oblivion, or stepping out of my apartment and falling down two hundred flights of building to the streets below. Either would have worked.

I still managed to go to work though. Classes accelerated to the point of weeks, to get officers out and in force to combat the Covenant. Face blurred in a hangover haze and I taught them only the barest basics of my once impassioned subjects.

It was when I almost had done the job, killing myself, when I was approached. I'm still unsure of how or why they decided that I was a potential candidate for the Spartans. I just knew that as I was in a puddle of alcohol and vomit on the bathroom floor and an ONI officer sat daintly on the edge of my bathtub. She was in dress uniform, and had set her feet up so that she wouldn't get her heels messy. She held out a towel, half damp and half dry.

"You're a mess Lieutenant." She says with a dazzling smile. Weakly I take the towel and wipe up my face.

"Been worse." I slur at her, and lean back against the wall.

"No, you haven't. And you're new at this drinking yourself to death thing, aren't you?" She asks with a casual look to me. I sigh, and it turns into a cough.

"I've almost got it down." I say to her. "This one was very promising, but I got interrupted." There is a pack of guards in my room, and what looks like a medical officer as well. No doubt, the only reason I was clearing up enough to think again was because of something the doctor injected while I was unconscious.

"Truer words, Lieutenant." She let the phrase stand unfinished. "I looked up your record, oddly blank for someone until recently, has mostly good things said about him. No combat, nothing really about the fact that you excelled in combat training, no actions either, either black ops or under the table. You're just a teacher, from Harvest, who likes to teach History, philosophy, and ethics."

"So?"

"You've heard about the Spartan Project, I trust?" She asks carefully.

"Winning the war for us, so I don't have to." I say with a laugh. I've got a hangover, dehydrated more like it, I doubt that whatever the doctor did, would have left alcohol enough to give me a hangover.

"Well, we aren't winning, but the Covenant aren't on Earth yet because of the Spartans," She confided. "And we new ones. Ackerson has a new method that is a little more stable than the original method. You are, not ideal, but sometimes ideal isn't the best. You do qualify though, except for your alcoholism."

"I'm not an alcoholic." It sounded lame to me too, but it was the truth. I hated drinking, but drinking seemed to work to keep me from walking out of my window and falling down to the street.

"I am aware of that, actually, your psyche profile indicates a non-addictive type. Suicidal if pushed, but not addictive." She smiles a little bit again. I want to smack her. "If you are suicidal, Charles, then at least be affective with it. Join the program, and kill Covenant."

"Some sales pitch."

"Its not, its an offer, take it, or you will be admitted to the Naval Hospital for psychiatric treatment for alcoholism and depression."She said levelly. "Either way, your days as a teacher at the Academy are over."

"hmmphf." The sound is almost a heave, but its not. Mostly its just a sound, and I'm thinking.

"You need to decide, now. Otherwise I'm under orders to have you admitted, and I even have the personnel to do it properly."

"Some decision, looney bin or become a monster."

"You won't be a monster."

"Honey, I might specialize in history, but I'm not an idiot. To do what Spartans do, there have to be some major modifications, genetic modifications, and maybe even cybernetic ones as well. They aren't human anymore."

"They are more human than the Covenant are. And for the Covenant there is no victory until every human is dead."

"Can't I just do it without the 'upgrades'?"

"No, according to UNSC regulations you can't because of your family. You're too much of a risk." The laugh that erupts out of me is short and bitter and hallow. "Ironic, the reason we're approaching you is the reason your request for field duty was denied."

"Fine then. I'll do it." I agree. "Not much point in being human anymore anyways."

"I should warn you, even since the improvements that Ackerson's made, there is still a definite chance that you won't live through the process, or if you do, you'll wish that you're dead."

"Too late for that." I say carefully.