Hunt for the Truth
File Entry 8:34
Interview No. 12
Army Lieutenant Colonel Jason Edward Jones
"Hello? Mister Benjamin Giraud I presume?" I heard the voice and saw the man.
He stands about 183 centimeters tall and looks to weigh about 100 kilograms. He looks old, probably around Mendez's age if I were to guess, maybe younger and yet he still had that strength in his eyes that showed that if the Covenant ever came back, to expect this old soldier to have learned a few new tricks. His copper color hair is trimmed to Army regulation and he cleanly shaven, revealing a few decorations from the war on it, but that wasn't all he wore. He wore his full uniform, including all of the attached ribbons and decorations. He has the Colonial Cross for Valor hanging from around his neck, Legion of Merit, Prisoner of War Medallion which I bet has a story itself, the Gold Star, Silver Star, and Bronze Star with decorations to indicate multiple times he's earned them. His campaign ribbons include Harvest, Arcadia, Coral, Reach, and Earth among many others and those are the ones he got for fighting the Covenant. Clearly, he had come to impress, but that didn't mean he had come to use that to his advantage.
"Yes," I respond, nervous as could be. Seems I really, really made an enemy of ONI with going on my own with their report and the discussion I had with Mendez and Walker, among others. I heard the UEG was up in arms for what happened to me when I got that out. Plus the government was looking into the matters in deep space, though Hood seemed to be on the case. He didn't very much like ONI, but I digress and need to respond, "And I take it you're Lieutenant Colonel J.E. Jones?"
"I hope you do not mind the location," my contact indicates the rather nice looking pub on St. George.
For those who don't know, St. George is a lively shipping colony of British ancestry just off the main Reach-New Jerusalem Trade Route. It had been completely ignored by the Covenant during the final assault on Earth. As such, the UNSC Navy used its facilities post-war to restore a number of their ships and continue small scale production. It was also used and still in use as a staging ground for the UNSC in the absence of Reach, despite being off the beaten path and out of place to defend Earth or respond quickly, but it has the facilities to keep the UNSC alive.
"Not at all," I reply instantly and the two of us get comfortable. The Army officer before me giving me a smile as he began to speak again.
"And you can call me Lieutenant Colonel Jason Edward Jones, UNSCDF Army or simply Jason or Mister Jones if you like," the man was giving me a friendly, grandfather like smile, but I understand he is one. So that makes sense. "But onto my old trainee, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 or as I joked behind everyone's back, MCPO John Halsey."
"John Halsey, sir?" I am, needless to say, confused by his words.
"And here, we begin the interview," Jason tells me with that smile, "As for here," he indicates the pub again, "It actually is under my command in the Army Intelligence and used for these kind of meetings."
I am stunned.
I was fired and heavily fined by the Office of Naval Intelligence for what happened with Tommy and Walker. Yet, here, the Army Intelligence had let me walk straight on in and was preparing something. Though it did beg a question in and of itself.
How does an Army officer train a Navy Spartan?
"I bet," the good colonel was chuckling slightly as two beers were brought over and he indicated that the bar was still a public bar which is why we had such a private spot to prevent eavesdropping, "You're asking 'How does an Army officer train a Navy SPARTAN?' Correct?"
I could only nod.
"For one thing, the SPARTAN Project was spelled in all capitals until Project. The P was upper case, but the rest of the word was normal," and the interview began over the beer, "As for me -chuckle- I used to be in the UNSC Marine Corps until I was removed and re-enlisted in the Army."
"So you were a Marine then?"
"-Sip- Good beer as always. Yes I was a Marine. Not a good fit, but we made it work out. Then I was thrown out. Not too sure who I pissed off more -chuckling- Mendez or ONI. Maybe Halsey instead, but she wouldn't have thrown me out of the Corps. Mendez didn't like me, but knew me as a Marine like him or any other. So that leaves the Navy spook department. Which makes sense, since I was personally improving our security because they wanted the SPARTAN Project to fail."
"Pardon? Are you saying that the Office of Naval Intelligence actually wanted the SPARTAN Project to fail?! Why?"
"Because Halsey denied them what they wanted: Assassins."
"Assassins? ONI wanted the SPARTANs, our greatest heroes of our time, as assassins!?"
"Yes. And that is why Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, incidentally, the mother of Commander Miranda Keyes, daughter of Captain Jacob Keyes, so you can guess what Captain Keyes was up to before he became the School Teacher, went the extra mile to protect and deny her SPARTANs to ONI. Sure she had Mendez train the SPARTANs, but then she would play these word games with them. Giving them puzzles they had to figure out. John was definitely one of the better ones, but out of all of the SPARTANs he was actually… Let me think… Well… No other way to put. He was average at best."
"The Master Chief was only average?"
"Careful with your beer there, folks don't like offworlders carelessly spilling it here, but yes, he was average. -Sip- But he was also the leader of the SPARTANs. The strongest, smartest, and most skilled was SPARTAN Kurt-051. Yet, I always said at the end of the day, that while the best, 0-5-1 was no leader. -Sip- ONI disagreed and secretly recruited him during a critical mission to make him head of the SPARTAN-III Project which was a total and utter failure. Largely because ONI didn't allow anyone else in on it and headed it themselves. It had a very unacceptable loss rate when the units were deployed into action. Their losses were compounded by the fact that ONI made only minimal gains. The Office of Naval Intelligence proved to be a contradicting term."
"I -Sip- don't understand. I know of the generations. There were four, correct?"
"-Sip- Correct, but they are not generations. There were four entirely separate projects. The SPARTAN-I Project was also known as Project ORION and was actually the brainchild of the CMA rather than the UNSC or ONI. Genetically modified elite SpecOps commandos. It worked too when the UNSC took the dust off it and began it. I think it sat in some dusty bin for about, oh, 50 years or so. Back when the CMA was actually loyal to UEG and humanity as a whole. -Sip- I was one of the Marine commandos chosen for it, same with Mendez and, not even John knew this, but Sergeant Major Avery Junior Johnson was also a member of the elite S-I Family. -Sip- Bet you never heard that one, right?"
"No I haven't. -Sip- So you were… excuse me, are a SPARTAN yourself then, correct? I can't believe they would just toss you out like that then. Why throw out a SPARTAN?"
"-Sip-"
"Mister Jones?"
"-Sip- It was because we were defective in their minds."
"Defective? -Sip- How so?"
"They used less genetic treatment and more drugs to improve us. We even had highly specialized armor. Made us look like slimmed down versions of the later versions. Especially the S-IIs like John. -Sip- But we didn't need to worry much back then. Unfortunately… There were side effects."
"Side Effects?"
"Yes. Some of us went mad. The chemicals they used caused a severe imbalance in the brains of a number of us. Others began to suffer from physical crippling pain. It varied, even I was afflicted, though I got off lucky. I only get the feeling of a drill being put through my skull every now and again. Painfully annoying, but liveable. Better than others. Mendez and Johnson were even luckier. They came off just perfectly fine as could be."
"So that made it easier to remove you from service, correct?"
"Correct."
"I wish I could say something, but I feel I would be insulting."
"That you would be. But you personally know how morally bankrupt ONI can get. Yet, I've seen how morally bankrupt they really are."
"The SPARTAN-II Project, correct?"
"-Sip- Indeed, but it didn't start that way. Somewhere down the line, ONI decided they wanted control over the project. They didn't want to send the SPARTANs over to SPECWAR at all. They wanted to retain it. But then Halsey began to interfere, not entirely sure how. We started to have budget issues too. I can safely say not all of them was because of what Halsey wanted to do. A lot of it was her butting heads specifically with Admiral Margaret Orlenda Parangosky, the head of ONI until recently when she passed away. Now ONI is headed by her apprentice and traitor to the project, Serin Osman, also an admiral and ex-SPARTAN-019 and the greatest traitor to the SPARTAN Project to date and considering that Soren-066 actually joined the Insurrection, even if it was only for a couple of weeks, that's saying something. -Sip- At least in my opinion. There have been a few S-IVs who have turned traitor themselves, showing that ONI is not doing its job at screening them. As one is chance, two is coincidence, three starts a trend, and four is ONI failing to keep Innies out of the Spartans."
"I can see -Sip- you've been keeping busy. Miss your old branch? If I may?"
"In the case of the Spartan Branch, yes, correct spelling is normal spelling. The Projects were capitalized. And yes, I do miss being among other SPARTANs and I would have liked to join the Spartan Branch, but we both know, once blacklisted by ONI, forget about it."
"I guess you can call it ironic."
"Hmm?"
"That a loyal SPARTAN is kept out of the Spartan branch, while traitors get in."
"-Snort!- Hardly ironic. More like ONI is too busy setting everyone up to kill each other. Why? It could be the end result of how Parangosky ran ONI for so many years and Osman doesn't have the first clue how prevent it from backfiring on her. We have Government Oversight for a reason. Rules and Regulations for a reason. Laws for a reason. But ONI has not cared for those in the last 60 plus years."
"That would be a problem that needs correcting."
"Indeed. Fortunately, the UNSC Army's own intelligence has recently undergone some upgrades and house cleaning. With Parangosky gone, we have been able to start to build ourselves back up. In only a few short years, we are now major contenders in the intelligence field. Something ONI has enjoyed too much control of for decades. Now they have competition and because of the political fallout from scandal after scandal, they can't stop us or me."
"You Jason?"
"Yes. Me. Me who is about to tell you all about how the UNSC bit the bullet and conscripted over a few dozen children to form the SPARTAN-II Project. How we turned 6 year olds from innocent children to professional soldiers by the time they hit 16 years of age. But, I will tell you this now, the incident with the ODSTs had not been arranged by anyone in command of the SPARTANs. I was standing next to Dr. Halsey when she learned of what John did. He killed two ODSTs and injured two others severely. Though, it wasn't him being full of himself. That's just a single ODST who altered facts. He was there and was the man who ordered the SPARTAN and four ODSTs into that ring. John was obeying a senior officer's orders. Because he had been experimenting with the fact that his reaction speed had gotten so fast, it had left him briefly confused and in the process of his experimenting, forgot to slide a pin back into some weights. An ODST used that set and, promptly, the inevitable happened."
"The weights fell off and he dropped the rest."
"Correct. Not entirely sure what lead to John and the four in the ring. But I asked him about it later. He told me he was ordered into the ring with them. Then the ODSTs were thrashed. No. Massacred. But they weren't the only ones who were victims of the discovery."
"There were more casualties? And what discoveries?"
"Several of my fellow trainers were accidentally killed later on. The SPARTAN-IIs were simply too powerful for even S-Is to spar with. The problem, which was discovered too late for those poor souls, was that the enhancements done to the SPARTANs, including Dr. Halsey's own personal attempts at improving their survivability during the augmentation process, resulted in SPARTANs that were off the charts improved upon. They developed natural night vision, super strength, enough that even outside of their fabled armor, they could flip Warthogs with their bare hands. I believe Kelly-087 was clocked at during 50 or something k/ph outside of armor. All of the SPARTANs gained super intelligence that would take any normal person decades to learn and to recall. We literally evolved the S-IIs above what humanity was then and is now capable of."
"All of that and more, by pure accident?"
"Correct. Though, sadly, there were washouts. About half, including the traitor Serin-019. Good name for her. Serin. Like the Chemical Warfare agent. She's as poisonous as Charlie Winchester. And as wrong as it too. But others were killed or crippled as well. Some never recovered. Admiral Osman only did, because ONI spent the credits at Admiral Parangosky's command to rehabilitate her for grooming into her successor."
"That sounds very unfair."
"Indeed, especially when one of the other crippled SPARTANs wrote the paper that allowed Captain Keyes to achieve his great victory at the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV."
"How did that- Right. Super intelligence."
"And years of learning. Learning you're about to get."
And with that said, I couldn't believe it. This officer told me everything he knew. Like how the incident with the ODSTs had angered Halsey. How she cared for them like her own children. How she sent her own daughter away to avoid being pulled into SPARTAN-II Project, not to protect from the project, but from both her own mother and ONI. The dark secrets and yet…
I can only feel greater respect for the SPARTANs. Kurt's last stand. Sam's acknowledgement to remain behind. So many things.
But the idea itself was sick and twisted. They all knew it. They all did it anyhow. They admitted it. Because the cost would have been military campaigns on Outer Rim worlds to put down Insurrection Revolts.
A few dozen children were more readily expendable than tens of thousands of lives and even more children.
It was a cost they would have to bear. It was something they would have to live with. It was as they say.
'The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.'
And yet.
Jason Edward Jones told me of the fight behind the scenes. How one woman fought to keep her precious SPARTANs, her surrogate children, from being turned into assassins. How she taught them morals. Made them learn to think outside of the box. Brought them candy when they were especially good or correct. She still found time to treat them as children and to teach them as a mother would her children.
And she missed her own daughter.
And had sent the father away, her lover and potentially her husband too if things had just been that way, to protect him from the evil she was going to be involved with.
And yet…
Only good things came from such evil.
Unethical?
Yes.
Morally Right?
No.
A choice?
Even without the Covenant, I could see the butcher's bill. There was no choice. Or rather, there is, as they always say, a choice, but not the time to act upon it.
If Lieutenant Colonel Jones is correct, the best way to have addressed the Insurrection was through communications and outreach. The problem was, at the time, a lack of the ability to regularly and successfully carry out both in a timely manner. It just hadn't been possible. So war was the alternative and they had to avoid that.
And here… I finally learn. Finally learn who John-117 really is.
And to counter a little discovery of my own. In which ONI says that, 'at his core, he is broken...' I find, speaking here and now, that it is ONI who is broken. For Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is not broken. He's the greatest man to have ever lived. He's more human than ONI is.
"John… He destroyed vital data that could have given humanity the edge in fighting a deadly weapon. Ancient, powerful. It was called the Flood and for good reason. We don't quite know what the Flood is. They're parasites. They have to be artificial given how they can equally infected and assimilate different species with fully radically different DNA strands. And yet, John destroyed the data."
I was flabbergasted. Why would the Master Chief do that? He was fighting to save humanity! Yet he denied it a chance. So why?
And I knew I was going to get the answer.
"Because ONI would have put Sergeant Major Avery Junior Johnson on a slab of metal and torn him apart. Even as he was still alive and breathing."
That was a very good reason actually.
I then learned of the test. Two data crystals. They only difference is that Sergeant Johnson, easily as famous as the Master Chief himself, would have died on a table.
The man known for the fact he had survived First Contact with the Covenant, the First Battle of Harvest to fight all the way to the Ark. A man so famous, his picture was used to recruit UNSC Marines by the hundreds. His trademark confidence and motivational speeches could never be denied. His strength. His skill. Surviving Reach and then the First Halo.
I learned it all in that discussion.
The Master Chief chose to spare the man. To protect him. He destroyed the information, omitting it from the report. Instead, he only handed in a report about the Flood and Halo.
And given I learned that ONI actively tried to tame and further weaponize the Flood, at the cost of hundreds of human and hundreds more of Covenant POWs…
I can only say, 'Way to go Chief!'
Then another bombshell. Which makes me wonder how many craters this will form.
"I only learned of it when I last spoke with Halsey. Inside of a secret ONI prison where she has been kept without trial for a few years."
I'm beginning to see that Spartans are more than just supersoldiers. They were ONI's Achilles'' Heel. ONI had wanted something, something the UNSC wanted as well. But they wanted it for themselves and now, after grasping for it, closing their fist around it so tightly…
That tightness was now letting it all slip out.
"What about the Chief's current actions? What can you say about that, if I can-"
"Yes, you can and for the record, the so-called peace that was represented was either fake or it is another SPARTAN-II doing all the slaughter."
"How many SPARTANs are still left? Aside-"
"There's only one active duty SPARTAN-II left at ONI's command. A female SPARTAN no less. But, unless you're a S-II or Dr. Halsey, forget about identifying each SPARTAN visibly. Their armor was purposely made that way, though there are some gender specific suits, the requirement of their function, out there."
"I see. This-"
"She's here," Jason turned to a woman with dark hair and standing at… well… she towered over me.
"Thank you for coming all this way Maria," Jason looked glad she was here. He smiled widely as she sat down, carefully. Her clothes, likely a disguise I will not state here for her safety should she need to use them again, didn't hide a strong fact.
"This is Maria-062," Jason introduced the woman, "She's a retired SPARTAN-II who is happily married and as you can see, she's a mother as well with one more expecting."
"Hello Mr. Giraud," the woman offered her hand and as took it, I felt the crushing force that her hand held and she wasn't even trying, "I'll be more than happy to talk about our years growing up to be Humanity's greatest champions."
Now… I should have expected something. I just wasn't expecting this.
And Jason had taken the time to slip away.
Crafty.
"What would you like to know about John as a person rather than as a SPARTAN?" Maria asked me and I couldn't help, but smile.
"Everything."