Chapter 4: Eat Your Greens

Three days after Lieutenant Kelly Martin first met with the Spartans, she was sitting in the Commonwealth's mess hall eating lunch with some of the other women aboard the ship. It was nice having someone to talk to; she missed having her sister around nearly all the time to gossip with. She hadn't talked to the Spartans at all since that first time, feeling too embarrassed and awkward to just approach them again without a reason. The Master Chief had made it seem as though every moment she spent talking to them was a moment wasted.

Lisa, the woman who had pulled Kelly from her room to watch the Spartans' victory over the Covenant ship, had just as quickly pulled Kelly into her group of friends. There were just the three of them today—Lisa, Kelly, and Maggie, one of Lisa's friends—but they were all preoccupied, lost in their own thoughts. Kelly finally broke the silence, sharing what she'd been thinking. "Don't tell anyone I told you this, but I've figured out ONI's biggest secret," she said softly, leaning towards Lisa and Maggie.

Lisa rolled her eyes, figuring Kelly was joking, but Maggie put down her fork and leaned closer to hear. "What is it?" she asked, hungry as always for information.

"The Spartans," Kelly whispered. "They're not human. They're robots created by ONI to boost humanity's morale. I mean, think about it. Have you ever seen them eat? Have you ever seen them without their armor? When I went and talked to them, the leader spoke as little as possible. Maybe they aren't programmed with enough knowledge to speak clearly. Maybe they're just AIs with robotic bodies. Maybe-."

"They're sitting right over there," Lisa interrupted dryly. "Kelly, the reason you think you've never seen them without their armor is that you don't know what they look like outside of it. Therefore, you could see them every day and not know that they're Spartans. And for the record, they do eat. They're here every meal, because they don't ever know when they're going to get another one. Although the quiet thing," she shrugged, "they do just keep to themselves. Anyone who's not a Spartan will only slow them down, in their eyes. They're able, willing, and perfectly happy to die so the rest of our sorry asses can live."

"So says Halsey's assistant," Maggie pointed out. "Which means you probably know them better than almost everyone else on this ship."

"Except Halsey herself," Lisa countered. "I don't know how far back she goes with the program, but the way she treats them and the way they respect and listen to her, you'd think she was their mother."

"Okay, wait," Kelly interrupted. "Halsey is the one who works with the Spartans?" Lisa nodded. "And you work with her. So who in here is a Spartan? How are the rest of us supposed to know?"

"Kelly, look around," Lisa instructed dryly. "If anyone in here is over seven feet tall and looks like they can lift a bus, they're probably a Spartan."

"That table over there," Maggie interpreted, stealthily pointing across the room.

Kelly glanced over, but the people seated there seemed just as unfamiliar as the rest of the crew. Who were the Spartans she had seen when she had visited their barracks? "Do you know their names?" she asked Lisa.

The woman nodded. "Okay, starting in the corner closest to us and going clockwise, we have Maria-062, Joshua-029…" Lisa continued for about thirty names, but Kelly knew there was no way she would remember all of that. Maggie was clearly not paying attention too, merely staring at the Spartans, eyes not focusing on any of them. Lisa snapped her fingers in front of Maggie's face. "Hey, didn't your mother ever tell you that it's rude to stare?" Maggie rolled her eyes and focused on her plate of food instead. "Anyway, the one farthest away from us is 117. No one knows his real name. The Spartans just call him the Master Chief, so everyone else does too. The woman next to him is Kelly-087."

"Hey Kelly, you're a Spartan now," Maggie teased.

"She's his new second in command after Sam died on the Covenant ship," Lisa finished.

"One of them died?" her friend asked in surprise, all laughter gone from her voice.

Lisa nodded. "Yup. I didn't think it was possible either."

Kelly looked back over at the Spartans' table, picking out the one Lisa had said was called the Master Chief. He looked almost nice, for a Spartan. His face and arms were covered in scars, but those surrounding him were the same way. They all did look rather similar, Kelly supposed. They were all covered in muscles and scars, and all had hair that looked recently buzzed, even the women. They all seemed to have a certain grace about them too, even though they were just eating. The only thing that seemed to make the Master Chief stand out was how he seemed to be in control. Kelly didn't know what he was in control of, but he just exuded this aura of confidence and calm. As the woman stared, the female Spartan—the one with her name, Kelly remembered—next to the Master Chief nudged him and nodded in Kelly's direction. The man looked up and across the room at her, eyes meeting hers for a moment.

"Shit, don't stare!" Lisa exclaimed softly. "Did neither of you have a mother? Quit staring and eat your greens," she ordered.

Kelly complied, but she felt eyes watching her as she did so. After what felt like a few minutes but was probably much less than that, she risked a glance back up—only to see the Spartan looking away, shaking his head slightly. What? Why? Kelly wondered. What had she done wrong? Maybe he just looked down on her because she wasn't a Spartan? Or maybe she was just misinterpreting the whole thing. No matter why, though, Kelly didn't believe that she was seeing things wrong. She had a feeling that for whatever reason, the Master Chief didn't like her, and he definitely didn't like her being attached to his team.