Okay, enough of the flashbacks (for now). Back to the main story. Thanks for the positive review; keep em coming!
"Corporal Grey, are ya stupid?" bellowed a very annoyed Sergeant Duncan to the marine currently lying in the mud, who was, unbeknownst to him, caught in a PTSD induced flashback. He watched the man shake his head, and stare back and Duncan apologetically.
"Sorry sir!" Grey called back. "I was just…" he trailed off, not wanting to tell Duncan he'd spaced out long enough to re-live the Hiroshima. "Thinking about something."
"Great. Thinking time over. Move your ass Grey, or you fail right now!!!" Duncan screamed, throwing his hands into the air and gesturing wildly. Grey double-timed it through the trench, the LAAGs ripping swathes of fire and peppering him with bits of brass as he crawled madly. Finally, he got to the end of the trench, and proceeded to reduce the targets there to so much raw plywood with a cool, calm efficiency. BOOM! A grunt was blown to shambles, sending shards of painted wood flying around haphazardly. BANG! An elite was shaved in half, leaving a pair of legs sticking out of the ground, surrounded by piles of wood.
Within 20 seconds, all 40 targets were eliminated. Grey stood up, and fired two rounds into the air, signaling his completion of the course. Duncan looked up, startled.
"How the…" he gasped, seeing a mud splattered Grey ankle deep in wooden shrapnel. Reluctantly, he pressed the button to turn off the LAAGs, and Grey ran back to him.
"So, did I pass?" he said, half-mockingly.
Gritting his teeth, Duncan made a large check mark next to the neatly stenciled 'Shotgun Proficiency: 100' on his clipboard.
Grey grinned, and racked the shotgun against the wall, tossing the unused clips of ammo into the bin.
He continued like this all day, blowing Banshee mock-ups out of the sky with SPNKr rocket launchers, gunning down chipboard targets with LAAGs, and blowing up turrets with satchels of fragmentation grenades.
As the sky darkened through the slit windows in the armory, Sergeant Duncan reluctantly checked the box labeled 'Sniper Rifle Proficiency: 100' and patted Grey on the back.
"Well Corporal, I've never seen anything like it. You passed every single test at 100 proficiency. No shot was off, no throw was untrue. Are you sure you ain't a SPARTAN?" he said, scratching his head in wonder.
Grey laughed. "No sir, I've just always been very good at war."
Captain Vance yawned. He had just got off an eighteen hour shift and he was exhausted. A frigate had docked, full of wounded men from some space battle. The ship itself didn't look too god either. Covie point defense lasers had burned through it's hull like a welder's torch through rice paper, and the whole ship had the appearance of grey swiss cheese.
Vance propped his feet up on his desk, pulling his lab coat up over his shoulders. Sighing deeply, he poured himself a glass of cognac from a bottle in his desk and swilled it around slowly, thinking of the kid he operated on first. He'd been an Archer missile operator, meaning he was down in the bowels of this frigate supervising the loading of these 50 foot long missiles into their tubes. When the lasers had hit the missile bay, the frigate was in the process of firing tubes A through F, so hundreds of live missiles detonated in their tubes, literally ripping the prow of the frigate apart. This kid had been in a crane or something, and was blown through three decks into the MAC gun control room. If he hadn't been in the crane, he would have just gooshed against the ceiling, but the armored pod of the crane, designed to be airtight in case the missile bay was breached, saved his life. The ship's captain said he was the only survivor from those Archer bays.
Vance shook his head to dispel the thoughts, and took a deep swig of the cognac. He felt at peace, which was why when the phone rang he fell backwards and hit his head on the wall, spilling cognac all over his lab coat and shattering the glass against the desk.
Vance swore over the spilled alcohol, and picked up the phone.
"Captain Vance. Yeah, I treated him. I recommended him for inactive duty due to severe plasma burns sustained in battle. I estimated that he would never be able to operate at full combat capacity due to those injuries. He pushed me to let him re-qualify on a weapons range. Mmm-hmm. He what? Well, in my professional medical opinion, he will still never be able to fully- yes…yes, I have time tomorrow. 0900 is fine."
Vance hung up the phone and shook his head in disbelief. Those idiots at REACHCom just didn't understand the implications that a plasma burn has on a man's combat capabilities! He looked down and remembered the spilled drink. Sighing, he withdrew another glass from his footlocker, and poured himself another drink.
The next day, Vance had totally forgotten about the phone conversation, choosing instead to focus on the immense hangover he possessed from consuming the entire cognac bottle in one sitting. Sitting in the mess hall, nursing his fifth cup of coffee and feeling relatively clear headed, he was approached by a doctor he'd never seen before. Odd, as he'd been on board the hospital ship Mercy for eighteen months. Maybe he just got in, Vance thought to himself, as he buried his face in his mug.
The man strode toward him, and sat down in the seat directly across from him. "Doctor Vance? It's 0900." Vance gaped at the man like he had a third eye.
"Very good Doctor…"
"Oh! Doctor Jones please."
"Very good Doctor Jones. You pass the basic intelligence test."
Jones cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Vance, you said you'd meet with me at 0900."
Vance closed his eyes, struggling to remember anything from last night aside from the deep sorrow he felt when the bottle finally ran dry.
"Ohhh! Right. But why the getup? You're not a doctor, you're from the Department of-"
Jones clapped a hand over Vance's mouth and shushed him.
"Doctor, if you would be so kind as to shut the hell up until we board my prowler so we can talk in private."
Vance's head was swimming as Jones lead him away, smiling and nodding to other diners who had been eying them. Prowler? What the hell was going on here? Was he being kidnapped?
They walked down a corridor leading to the docking bays, and Vance attempted to hail a passing marine. The soldier took notice and ran over.
"Is something wrong Doctor?" he asked.
Jones pulled an M6C pistol out of his lab coat, and shot the marine with a tranquilizer dart.
"No." he muttered. "If you pull that shit again Vance, I'll have you court martialed."
"What?! You're just an MD, like I am! You can't have me court martialed!"
They had reached a bulkhead, and Jones waved his hand lazily over the biometric scanner, allowing him and Vance entrance. They walked down the short hall to the UNSC Prowler that was docked there. Jones mashed a red button on the wall of the ship, locking both the doors of the prowler and the bulkhead.
"Oh but I can. Allow me to introduce myself, for real this time. I am Lieutenant Owen Majors of the Office of Naval Intelligence, Sector Two."
Vance gaped at him. "You…you're a spook?"
"Yeah, I guess, if you want to use the terminology of the common soldier. I prefer the term 'undercover operative' and I am here to tell you that you will be branded a traitor by both ONI and the Admiralty Council and promptly executed. This man, this Corporal Grey, is not who you think he is."
Vance scoffed. "Well, then what the hell is he? A SPARTAN?"
Majors stared at him, one eyebrow cocked high.
Vance stared back. "What? Are you serious? Grey, a SPARTAN? It doesn't check out. First of all, where's his magic armor, his-"
"MJOLNIR" Majors said.
"Right right, MJOLNIR. Where's that? And second, what's he doing in a frontline Marine unit? Why is he out gallivanting with his augmented buddies?"
"There were some…problems…with his augmentation. He does not have the full combat capacity of a normal SPARTAN II, but I assure you, it is well above the average human soldier. We had him in the ODSTs for a while, but he was transferred out after an incident on Pegasi VII. An ODST light Colonel, Silva or something like that, got drunk and picked a fight with a marine who's life was saved by a SPARTAN. Aside from badmouthing the SPARTAN program in general, he put the kid in critical condition for a week. Gave him a desk job for the rest of the war. The only reason the kid wasn't killed is because Grey stepped in once he realized Silva was insulting him, albeit unknowingly. Silva got a bed right next to the kid, and was busted to Major. So, we decided that the ODSTs weren't exactly the best place for Grey, seeing as how questions were being raised. We transferred him to a marine battalion the next week." Majors paused and eyed the doctor to see how he was taking this.
"But you still didn't answer my question. Why isn't he in the armor?" Vance persisted.
"Actually, I did, you just didn't get it. He can't wear MJOLNIR armor, it would kill him. His augmentations did not set as well as the other SPARTAN's. But, Spartan 017 was perfectly capable of fighting, so we put him on the front lines as a marine. There." Majors explained.
"So this is why he passed all those exams. He was setting me up." Vance whispered.
"Yeah, you kind of got suckered into that one." Majors said, grinning.
"So, why are you telling me this?" Vance asked. "You could have put on a General's costume and ordered me to reinstate him, instead you came to me, and revealed Grey's life story to me, as well as your ONI status. Why?"
Majors stared him straight in the eye. "Because Vance. We have to put a clampdown on the status of our undercover SPARTANS. You saw something in Grey that made you suspicious, and we couldn't have you publishing a paper about it."
Majors turned to face the wall, and picked up a steel briefcase. He flicked the locks up, and opened it. Vance saw the case contained an M6D pistol. Majors took the gun out and pointed it at Vance's head.
"You understand right? In the name of humanity's security, you can't be allowed to live."
He pulled the trigger.