29th of July
Reach
Military Wilderness Training Preserve
The first thing Evangeline noticed was the verdant green surrounding her as she hopped off from Hyperion's cargo platform. With the nearest UNSC presence being over fifty kilometres away, the only sounds other than those of nature were Hyperion's engines winding down.
Sunlight – actual sunlight, not the clinical glare of artificial lighting - filtered down through tree branches, warming her skin and she grinned lazily. She took a deep breath, enjoying the rich, earthy smell of a forest in bloom. Air onboard starships and starports was thoroughly cleansed and sterilised, robbing it of any fragrance.
"Commander?" Kelly landed at her side with a soft thump as the rest of the ground crew disembarked.
"Just give me a moment. I won't take long." With that, Evangeline made her way over to the nearest tree, sitting down against it.
"This is actually the second habitable planet I've landed on in my entire life, you know." She spoke a moment later to Kelly, who seemed to be regarding her with something akin to mild curiosity.
"Really?"
"Mhm. Grew up on a starport – Edmonson High in Beta Hydri. Sixteen years of breathing canned air, drinking recycled water, and eating synthetic food. Then I joined the Federal Navy and did the exact same thing for eight more years, except on a battlecruiser."
"You must have visited Earth at some point, at the very least."
"Nah, too rich for my blood." Evangeline shook her head. "I was just a lowly knuckledragger assigned to the engine room of FNS Zenith. Shore leave was the closest I ever got to being on terra firma."
"That must've sucked." Kelly nodded sympathetically.
"Can't say it did. I never really knew any better. Going into battle was unnerving, both the first time and all the times after. But all we could do was put our trust in our Captain and bear with it."
Kelly could relate to that – being stuck in a naval engagement was a special kind of hell for a Spartan. They were not meant to idly sit around, twiddling their thumbs. Spending one's entire life without actual dirt touching their feet was news, however. The Spartans – all seventy-five of them – had spent eight years on Reach as Chief Mendez trained them in the arts of war.
"True enough, Commander." Kelly nodded before continuing. "I've been meaning to ask – is there a Reach where you come from?"
"Well, it's called New California, but it's the same planet in the same system." Evangeline nodded.
"What sort of a world is it?"
"Luxury tourism. Of the legal and not-so-legal kind. You'd think a system on Sol's doorstep would've outlawed slavery and narcotics, but that's not the case, sadly. The right amount of money in the right hands will get you far in the Federation."
"Well. That's disappointing to hear."
"Mm." Evangeline let out a small hum. "Doesn't help that Jasmina Halsey was a pretty shitty President. Not that Hudson's any better, but that's neither here or now. Let's get going."
"Yes, Commander." Kelly nodded as the other woman pulled herself upright.
"Can't say that New California can hold a candle to Reach, though."
"Now you're just saying things, Commander."
"I mean it. New California's pretty much covered with casinos, resorts, and hotels. Light pollution is a pain, from what I've heard. But this?" Evangeline gestured around her. "Beautiful. Then again, I'm a spacer who's spent her entire life in space, so I might be a little biased."
It was almost an hour later that they reached their destination – Big Horn River. The wide band of pristine blue water wove lazily through Longhorn Valley from its source in the distant Highland Mountains.
Evangeline turned briefly to regard the others – everyone was armed with training weapons loaded with paintball pellets. Johnson and Stacker were each holding a flag – a red and a blue one, respectively.
"What do you think, Commander?" Fred asked, stepping up alongside her. Like everyone else, he was clad in Marine BDU, along with a full-face helmet. "Capture The Flag, Team Deathmatch, King Of The Hill, or Free-For-All?"
"Like you wouldn't dominate that last one." She chuckled in return. "I think that first one will do just fine for now. We can mix it up a little later."
"Of course, Commander."
Jenkins ducked under a stream of pellets – to his right, Jackson and O'Brien joined their flag carrier in cover behind a fallen tree. Not long after, Sergeant Stacker followed, with another two Marines – Kowalski made it there untouched, but Carlton caught a burst of paint in his face, the bright orange hue covering his visor. With an annoyed noise, he stumbled over and fell to the ground. The Marine pulled himself upright, grumbling as he wiped his visor clean of the paint.
"You know, getting shot in the face gets real old, real quick..." Carlton complained before stalking off to wait out the rest of the round alongside the other 'casualties'.
"Well, at least we know for sure there's Spartans ahead." O'Brien sighed as he plucked a small plastic canister from his bandolier. Jackson and Stacker did the same – upon an unspoken command, they tossed the practice grenades over the tree trunk. A split-second later, they detonated, small explosive charges scattering a hundred millilitres of non-toxic, water-soluble paint over where the ambush had come from. The Spartan – or Spartans – would have already pulled back out of the grenades' effective radius, but it would give them time to lay down suppressive fire and give Jenkins enough of a head start, until he could pass the flag to a Spartan on their team, or return it to base.
Stacker patted the Marine on his back, giving him the go-ahead to move as he, Jackson, and Kowalski rose to cover his movement with suppressive fire.
Immediately, he bolted, letting his legs and adrenaline to carry him towards the other side of Big Horn River. Not even ten seconds later, the dry chatter of his team's weapons cut off, which he decided to take as a bad sign. He gripped the red flag tighter as the treeline thinned out ahead of him, soon thereafter splashing through the shallowest part of the river. The motion tracker on his visor remained empty, for what it was worth, yet it didn't reassure him in the slightest. Spartans could move like ghosts when they wanted to. They were even stealthier when out of armour.
His train of thought was brought to a jarring halt as he felt his boot snag onto something – without thinking twice, he let his knees fold. Just out of the corner of his vision, he could see a stream of pellets whiz past, from a rifle strapped to a tree.
As he came to a halt against a tree trunk, he felt his blood go cold, seeing one of the Spartans bear down on him – the redhead sniper, Linda. Out of the Spartans of Blue Team, she was the one who spoke the least. And frankly, she terrified him.
The Spartan, in the middle of retrieving the flag from Jenkins, suddenly whirled about, firing off a series of shots into the bushes behind her. Muffled cursing followed soon thereafter as his teammates left the field.
Linda turned back to Jenkins, who was still on the ground with the flag. The marine had his weapon up, pointed right at her. She turned to look at the splatter of paint on her right arm.
She looked back at Jenkins.
Jenkins looked like he might just pass out.
"Good shot."
It was the only match that did not end in a tie.
"So what happened?"
"Well, he interdicts me, with his stupid little Gunship. I zero the throttle, because, hey, it's free pocket change. Once we're both back down to sublight, he scans me – I'm flying an Anaconda, mind – except I had fuck-all in my cargo hold, which really annoyed him. Then he goes all 'how do you fools make a living?'"
"How'd you respond, Commander?" Stacker asked from his position around the campfire.
"I said 'let me show you', deployed my hardpoints, and blew him to pieces."
"Geez, how'd he get his pilot's license?" Stacker chuckled in disbelief, as did several other Marines.
"Guess we'll never find out." Evangeline shrugged. "I swear, some of them have the self-preservation instinct of a goddamn lemming." She went back to picking at the roasted fish in her fingers, plucking the thin bones from the meat before tossing them into the crackling bonfire.
The Spartans, at the conclusion of their small wargames, had crafted fishing poles out of several green saplings and what they had in their pockets. A little under two hours later, they had returned with a over a dozen perch, strung on a fishing line. While Blue Team prepared the fishes for cooking, everyone else cleaned up or helped start the campfire.
All in all, Evangeline had to admit – the Spartans' training was second to none. When asked about it, they mentioned a 'Chief Mendez' – and from the way they spoke about him it was clear that they had nothing but respect for the man. Whoever had trained UNSC's finest had to be one hell of a hardcore man, indeed.
Even Emperor Duval's personal bodyguard, the Praetorians, definitely were no match for Spartans – while the Empire provided only the best armour and weaponry, their sense of honour would prevent them from doing things a Spartan would have no qualms about. Praetorians preferred to face their enemies one on one. A Spartan would ambush their target before they had the chance to respond – they would lay traps, prepare decoys, things that any Imperial soldier would find dishonourable.
Not to mention a Praetorian couldn't catch a fish if their life depended on it.
"You know, if you want to ask about the scar, I won't mind." Evangeline's voice jarred Linda from her introspection, and the Spartan tore her eyes away from the large, lightning-shaped scar covering most of the other woman's left leg.
"Apologies, Commander. I did not mean to stare."
"Like I said, I don't mind if you want to ask about it." Evangeline shrugged as she donned her everyday clothes, her Remlok suit safely stored in a locker inside Hyperion's changing room. In here, a number of hardsuits and overalls were kept, for whatever purpose they might be needed by the crew.
"If you insist, Commander."
"Alright. So, it was year 3297, and FNS Zenith was patrolling the Federal border. Deploying long range tachyon scanners, investigating signals in deep space, that sort of stuff. Except some of Archon Delaine's punks are ballsy enough to attack a Farragut, even if it's on its own." Evangeline's voice had more than a small amount of vitriol in as she mentioned the Archon. "Turns out a fleet of those bastards had been shadowing us for about two weeks, looking for the best time to ambush us. Which they did, unfortunately. Caught us with out shields down, crippled our engines, and went to board us. I was in Engineering at the time, hard at work to get the auxiliary plasma conduits working. The torpedoes they hit us with did a number on our telemetry systems, leaving us effectively blind – for all we knew, the bulkheads could be melting at that very moment. The Chief Engineer was knocked out, leaving me in charge for the time being. I was being groomed as his assistant, see."
The Spartan nodded, but didn't utter a single word as the other woman continued.
"Anyways, the primary plasma conduits were toast – no way they'd be able to funnel plasma to engines without failing a split-second later. The secondaries were looking quite dicey, too. Had to deploy the last back-up – a series of tungsten sleeves that lock around compromised sections of plasma conduits if their magnetic containment fields aren't working. Had to trigger it from the main control terminal. An easy task, except we're listing to port, there's no gravity, and there's busted power cables swinging everywhere. But I was not in the mood to die from a reactor breach, or get an obedience collar slapped around my neck. So off I went, clinging to gantries. Didn't take me long to reach the terminal – one thing you learn quickly on a Farragut is to get around fast, even in zero gee. Activated the back-ups, gave the go-ahead to the bridge. And just a moment later, a loose power cable smacks me in the leg."
Linda watched intently, seeing tension ripple through Evangeline's shoulders.
"Worst pain I'd ever felt. The current fried the nerves in my leg, fused my hardsuit to the skin, and damn near stopped my heart. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in a hospital, doped up to my eyeballs. When I was lucid enough to hold a conversation, the doctors told me they'd have to remove the leg. I was, shall we say, pretty upset at that." Evangeline smiled thinly. "Really, I would've ended up spending the rest of my life as a cripple, living off the Federal pension, if it weren't for Top Cat."
"Top Cat?" Linda inquired.
"Yeah, that's what we called Zenith's captain – Daniel Carmine. I couldn't afford a progenitor cell treatment on my salary, so he paid for it in full, out of his own pocket. And in less than two weeks, I was walking on my own two legs again. Top Cat never asked me to repay him, either."
"He sounds like a good man."
"That he is." Evangeline agreed. "Rumour had it that he'd been an admiral before being busted down a rank after butting heads with Admiral Vincent. Turns out that raising Cain with a friend of the President isn't all that wise."
Linda frowned at that – from what she'd been told, the Federal system was rife with corruption and blackmail. Clearly, her displeasure was visible, as Evangeline nodded in agreement a moment later.
"It's shitty, I know. Money will open a lot of doors for you in the Federation, but when the government can't even take care of the people who'll risk life and limb for their politicking, well... enough is enough. Soon as I finished my second tour, I got a discharge. Signed up with the Pilots Federation. And after a lifetime of Federal propaganda, it was a bit of a shock to find out that the galaxy's not painted in black and white. Used to scare us in the orphanage with 'behave or Hengist Duval's going to come along and turn you into a slave.'" Evangeline sighed deeply before rubbing her face. "Sorry, didn't mean to just go off on a rant like that."
"It sounds like this has been bothering you for some time, Commander."
"I guess it was, yeah." Evangeline admitted sheepishly. "Again, sorry. Didn't mean to vent."
Linda shrugged ever so slightly. "I do not mind, Commander."
"I appreciate you humouring me all the same, Linda."
A/N: A day may come when I stop writing filler. But it is not this day.