Shadows
by UNSCShadow-105
AUTHOR'S NOTE: You know (or should) what belongs to the official Halo peeps (that's 343 these days, right?). The Shadows and at least the names of the 21 Gamma Company Spartan-III's belong to me, as do the Shadows. I write until the Muses release me from their headlock. Sometimes that means one thousand words, and sometimes it means a hundred thousand words. I am but the Muses mouthpiece. If you think having Cortana in your head can be interesting … that's nothing compared to my reality!
The rest of that day was spent preparing for the mission at hand. Chief Mendez went with Alexander back to the Gloaming, because he knew the names of the dead, and Frank refused to simply go through a hundred names and uniforms in front of the survivors until she found the right ones. For her part, Frank remained in the Pelican, preparing. Ralf remained with Fred and Kelly. They set up barracks for what would be three seven person teams and two person accommodations for Mendez and the officers. After that, they remained by the camp fishing, hunting and gathering while keeping half an eye on the Spartan-III's.
"That should be enough to last us a couple of days." Ralf announced holding a lobster like creature up. It snapped its claws at him, but wasn't in much of a position to hurt anyone. "By then they will be able to hunt and fish for themselves, and their teams." he placed the creature in a plastic container. "You two are good at this."
"You sound surprised." Fred noted.
"Well," Ralf chuckled. "To tell you the truth, in our training, we were taught that Spartan-II's could never do what we do. Be what we are, because you are not designed to be dark and silent. It was always an insult if our Drill Instructor told us we had all the silence and grace of a Spartan." he shrugged. "Alexander got the worst of it. When we were still in hospital, Frank was calling him 'Spadow'. It took him a year to learn not to let that taunt get to him. And she used it all the time against him."
"She sought him out to harrass?" Fred wondered.
"Maybe." Ralf spoke slowly. "She took an interest in Alexander. Before he came along, she knew more about Spartans than anyone. I'd have bet she knew more than the brass."
Kelly bit her lip. "Some people think that some of our relatives may still be alive." she spoke just above a whisper. Fred wasn't one hundred per cent sure exactly why she said it. It seemed very random.
"It's possible." Ralf agreed. "Almost all of us were conscripted. Our families have no idea if we are alive or dead. I never knew which would have been worse. Knowing, or not knowing. But I don't remember much from when I was six and younger." he paused. "I know you two opted not to read your records." his own voice had dropped, even though there was no need. They were safe even from augmented hearing.
"Just seems like an exercise in futility." Fred found his own voice lowered. "I don't even remember my parents. Just ..." he heard his voice fade away, and he swallowed. "Wherever I lived was most likely glassed. And what point would there be in showing up to parents who think I died when I was a kid?"
"You could have siblings." Ralf looked at him, carefully.
"They think I'm dead, too." Fred hadn't meant to snap. "I have my family now. The Spartans. And my cousins, the Shadows." he snorted a laugh, hoping to relieve the tension he felt. "Conjecture can be a good mental entertainment, but in the end, it's pointless."
Ralf nodded and stood. "Perhaps." he almost agreed, but something was missing. "I'm going to get these back to the mess. You two pick berries. Don't lose your way, Hansel and Gretel." and he jogged off.
Fred picked up one of the remaining two containers. He started walking, and Kelly kept the pace. "I seem to remember a whole bunch of edible vegetation around here someplace."
Kelly nodded. "Me too." she took a few more steps. "Fred. Did you catch anything in Ralf's words?" she asked, sounding as if she wanted confirmation. Or the opposite.
"He's a lot like us. That's all." Fred shrugged, and spotted a flash of red. "Eleven o'clock"
The bush was full of berries that were almost, but not quite ripe. "Give them a week." Kelly suggested. Then she moved on. "Maybe that's it. I just ..." she sighed and marched a bit further along.
"Just what, Kelly?" Fred asked, keeping pace with her.
For almost half a kilometer, Kelly did not reply. Then she stopped completely, and turned to face him. "About fifteen years ago, I was on a planet. You know how it was back then. We found a small number of civilians, and had to evac them."
Nodding, Fred waited for her to continue.
"There was a man there. He was dying from a plasma shot, and someone was holding his hand. Some kind of clergy, I think. And the man was telling him his life story. We were rounding them up, planning how to get them to the Pelican, but I could not make myself stop listening to that man." she swallowed. "He had lost a daughter. She had died from some kind of genetic something he never understood. By then, it was time to move, and we made a stretcher for him, so he could be evaced. I .. had my helmet on, of course. He couldn't see my face. But he looked at me, and his eyes were exactly like mine." she was whispering now. So quiet Fred almost had to strain to hear it from two meters way. "He was dead by the time we got him to the Pelican, and the clergyman told us to leave him. That he didn't need the body anymore." she bit her lip. A very uncharacteristic doubtful gesture. "I've never forgotten him, Fred. What if he was my father? Is the universe ever that small?" her eyes were slightly wide, and Fred could see her struggle within herself before her training kicked in, and the walls against those sorts of questions closed inside of her. She turned her head. "Looks like those might be edible." she walked off towards a large patch of dark green leaves.
Fred didn't reply to her. He only helped her gather the leaves. They walked back to Camp Liberty in silence, but once or twice Fred left his own thoughts, wondering if he shouldn't say something. Say anything. Both of them were thinking more than was good for Spartans.
The evening meal was as simple and hearty as the one before. Chief Mendez and Alexander had returned with supplies off of the Gloaming and so, after the meal the Spartan-III's lined up and walked past Frank, who handed them two pair of pants, shirts, socks and underwear as well as one pair of combat boots while calling them each by their name and number and then assigning them to their team. Yoru, Schwarz or Kara. She was familiarizing herself with them, joining names to faces. Mendez stood beside her, and nodded from time to time. Fred noted the approval in his eyes. After receiving their clothes, the Spartan-III's gathered by team in the center of the camp, some distance between their groups.
Chief Mendez stood closest to the young Spartan's. By prearrangement, Frank, Alexander and Ralf stood behind him, and in front of the team to which they had been assigned. Further back stood Fred and Kelly in the gaps between Frank and Alexander on one side, and Alexander and Ralf on the other.
"This training is going to be very different than your initial training, Spartans." Chief Mendez barked. "Each team will be commanded by one of the Shadows. The Spartan-II's will act as advisers. And I." he thumped his chest. "Have once again been put in the position of your drill instructor. I am getting a second chance to help make you the best of the best. A second chance to do to you all of the things I didn't get to during your initial training!" Fred thought his voice sounded somehow both threatening, and eager. "Think about that as you sleep tonight, Spartans! Chief Mendez gets a second bite at your apples!" he turned, and walked to Frank. "Major."
Frank nodded, and stepped forward. "We do things a bit differently than you may be used to. For example, you have heard our Mess Call. An hour before midnight on the military calendar, we also play taps if we are in camp. To wake you, we play Reveille if we are in camp. We will see you in the morning, Spartan's. Sleep well. I know Chief Mendez will."
Mendez nodded, and then barked "Taps in fifteen minutes!Dismissed!"
Yoru, Schwarz and Kara Teams fell out, and headed directly for their assigned barracks. Frank watched them and sighed. "How did I become a C.O?" she grumbled.
"Rank hath its privileges." Ralf teased her. He clapped her on the shoulder. "Evening meeting?"
Frank nodded. "Yea. Lets go in my office."
The C.O's office was in the Pelican. Alexander and Mendez had brought back the single Warthog from the Gloaming, and it was parked out front. Inside, everyone sat.
"I have decided, as you've all probably guessed by now, to be as honest as possible with the Spartan-III's." she told them. It was no surprise.
"Only with them?" Alexander asked, his eyes moving to Frank. "I agree that honesty is the best policy, but I think that, if we're going to be one big happy family, then we should all be as honest and forthright with each other as possible."
Ralf agreed. "I concur."
Frank narrowed her eyes a moment. "Who died and made this a Democracy?" she demanded to know. "Everything that absolutely needs to be known is known. Nothing else is relevant to the situation."
"Physician heal thyself." Alexander's voice was level.
She looked to him, and then away. "Doctor's orders?" she addressed the question to the front windows of the Pelican.
Fred wondered what they could possibly be talking about. Whatever it was, it was a subject that made the Major anxious.
"I can't order you around any other way." Alexander shrugged, but had the slightest of smiles on his face.
The breath Frank exhaled was explosive, but it was followed up with a nod. She turned her head, and took in Fred, Kelly and Mendez. "Forgive our cryptic nature. Nature of the beast, so to speak." she inhaled deeply, and looked down at her hands a moment. "I mentioned, when I told you two about the Shadow program, that DAI was looking at many of the Spartan-II candidates that your Dr. Halsey was looking at. Of course, one of them was Alexander, who was later absorbed into the Shadows when he washed out of Spartan training."
Both Fred and Kelly nodded. The conversation had not been very long ago at all.
"I also told you that every Gen One Shadow was conscripted, just like you were." she looked up. "All but two, who volunteered."
Again, they nodded, but Fred's was slower. He felt compelled to reexamine everything he could remember since the meeting back on Earth. As he did, things were coming to him differently. Words took on different meanings.
"Well Alexander was one." Kelly reminded them all. "But you never told us who the other ..." she stopped, and her eyes widened. "Oh. I." it was as close to stammering as any Spartan got.
Fred looked at Frank as if seeing her for the first time. In many ways, he was. When they first met, he had noticed that they had the same color eyes, but he had not taken in anything else very seriously. She was a teammate, but she was not a Spartan. He knew their faces because he had been looking at them all for almost forty years now.
On the other side of him, Chief Mendez let out a long and amazed expletive. "How the hell did I miss that?" he wondered.
Silence filled the Pelican for almost twenty seconds. "I wasn't asleep, and I held my breath a long as I could when the gas came into the house." she spoke in a whisper not unlike Kelly's had been as they hunted greens earlier in the day. "I just played along. Our parents assumed you'd run away. Dad said you would come back when you grew a set. Which was about a month later."
Fred took a deep breath, and kept examining her face. "You died less than a year later. I didn't even stick around for the funeral. Why should I? It wasn't you. But I couldn't leave it, even to find you." She swallowed, clasped her hands between her knees, and addressed them. "I ran away from home, and in less than a week, I met a DAI operative who took me in. Two days after that, I was a boot." she squeezed her hands, and raised her head to look into his eyes.
After almost forty years, they were all he remembered. Like looking into a mirror, he stared into her eyes. Exactly like his. But it was more than that. His features, feminized. Smaller. The nose. Mouth. Ears. Cheekbones. He'd forgotten everything but her eyes until just that moment. His eyes in her face.
Because this was his twin.
His twin sister.
Opening his mouth, he had no idea what he was going to say until he heard it just like everyone else in the Pelican.
"Francis."
