"Ahhh this is nice," Six moaned as she bathed in the sun's light while Sophia and Aniko played in the water.
Erika looked up to see her daughters trying to splash each other with sea water. Aniko especially looked like she was having fun. That made her feel satisfied. Aniko wanted to be a Spartan, be like her, but that temper of hers was getting out of hand. Erica knew what that pressure felt like when she was training. But this Spartan training was different. Unlike hears, which focused on making one an unfeeling killing machine, it focused on making the Spartan more than just a killing machine.
Parisa focused on making the new generation of Spartans to be a symbol, an idol. Something that people could look up and aspire to be. Better than one's self, for all of humanity instead of an emotionless killing machine. Aniko was becoming that ideal, and soon she'd be getting her augmentations and armour. Erica looked up and wondered how long that day would be.
"Back off!" Aniko yelled making Erica look back towards her daughters.
A couple of well-toned boys were standing a few feet away from the girls.
"Come on, we just want to play," one of them said as he stepped closer.
"If we wanted to play, we would have invited you," Sophia shot back standing tall as well.
Both sisters stood ready to fight, and Erika wandered if she should step in. She had trained the girls, as best she can, in defensive martial arts from a young age. They could, and will, defend themselves if needed.
One of the boys took another step. "Come on, let's have some fun," he got in close to Aniko, who just stared at him with fire in her eyes.
"We said no," the Spartan trainee said firmly.
That's when the boy made his mistake and grabbed Aniko by the wrist. "I…" he tried to say, but he didn't have a chance as he spun in the air and landed in the sea facing the sun.
Aniko stood over him looking down like he was little more than a bug. The boy's mind raced before he understood what happed and jumped up, backing away as he did so. His friends looked at the girls for a moment, anger on their faces.
"You'll pay for that!" one said.
But the girls didn't budge an inch. Aniko however cracked her neck and stared the boy's down.
"Do you really want to take on a Spartan?" she asked as she showed them her trainee tattoo, an eagle holding a lightning bolt and sword on her shoulder.
That made them leave, but not without them calling her a 'freak'. But the two just shook their heads as they continued to play in the sea. Erica smiled as she fell asleep in the sun.
OOOOO A month and a half later.
Aniko stood with the rest of her class at attention. She shook her head slightly trying to banish the pain from her mind. The augmentation procedure, wasn't long, but the pain lasted for ages. That was the first step in her graduation, this was the next. After a moment of waiting, their teacher walked in.
"Spartans!" he yelled. "Are you ready to get your armour?"
"SIR YES SIR," the class yelled.
'Finally,' Aniko thought as she and the others were led to the armoury.
The class spread out a bit more as they got a look at their new armour. A few Spartans were already around getting a few changes to their armour, or just exercising.
Their teacher turned and looked to his class.
"Hey isn't that…." a voice asked.
The man who talked wasn't loud, but what he said felt like a yell as the entire room fell silent and all eyes turned to the entrance. The class turned to look as well, eyes widening. Aniko looked and felt herself back in that office back at Reach. That sense of awe and dread filled her as the green giant walked into the room. A Spartan, no The Spartan, John 117 walked in. There was an air trepidation as he passed the class looking towards them, nodding in their direction before walking to one of the open armour stations.
Spartans and engineers just moved to get a better as the Chief tuned and let the engineers remove his armour. The class also broke formation to get a better look as the Chief's armour got removed piece by piece. Aniko swallowed before walking down the path in front of John's station. As she approached, the Chief's helmet got removed and she got a look at the true Spartan underneath. She swallowed again as she stood before him for a moment.
John nodded with Aniko following and walking to the armour station next to him. Spreading her arms out, the engineers got the message and began to set up to fit her armour on. Another student looked to his classmate and gulped before he walked down the path and nodded towards John, who nodded back. One by one, the students followed what Aniko did and nodded towards John before taking their place to retrieve their armour. No one stopped them as this was a once in a lifetime moment.
To them this wasn't just a graduation, this was a rite of passage.
As the final student stepped into his armour station, their teacher looked down at his data-pad. "The Covenant called him 'Demon' for a reason," he muttered and transferred all of them to Task force Blue. "Soon, they will do the same for my students as well,"
OOOOO a few days later.
The graduates of the Spartan program, a good 1500 Spartans, moved around the school's hanger talking to each other, waiting to get their orders. Aniko, showed just sat on a crate looking at her helmet with a small smile. She had finally made it to this point, but a part of her wondered if it was worth it.
"Attention!" a commanding voice yelled.
Aniko was brought back to reality as she stood at attention.
"Fall in! Two lines," the voice then yelled and the Spartans moved on reflex into their respective classes and in a two-line formation. "All of you here today, are now the pinnacle soldiers of humanity. You are all Spartans, trained and prepared for the moment you fight against our enemies. You earned, the armour you wear now," there was an air of pride filling the room as the Headmaster prepared a datapad. "As I go down, I'll give each one your orders,"
And he did as he said, going by class he called out groups of names to give them their orders. It was easier and quicker than going by singles. He continued to move down until he reached Aniko's class. He passed for a second before looking up from his datapad.
"Class 3-A one step forward," Buck ordered and the entire class did as ordered.
"This class, has been has been the top marked class for the past 5 years," he said making others shoot disapproving looks in their direction. "Not one of you dropped out, but some of you came close. Each of you pushed yourselves to the limit, above and beyond. Because of this, all of you have been transferred to Task Force Blue,"
A whisper began moving around the others as they realised that no one else got transferred to Blue.
"Spartans: Rex Templar, Aniko Reach, Sakura Oda and Nathanial Black, step forward," the four mentioned stepped forward, but not without some hesitation. "All four of you are the top 4 members of your class with high scores. As such each one of you, had eared commissions for command ranks. Rex, step forward," the black and white armoured Spartan stepped forward. "The highest earner in the class, Rex Templar, you have been designated Spartan Commander. Congratulations Commander,"
Buck then handed him a brown box containing a Commander's Eagle. Rex took it and placed it on his breastplate before saluting Buck, who saluted back.
"Back in line," Buck ordered with Rex complying. "Aniko Reach,"
Aniko stepped forward, more on instinct than anything else.
"Congratulations, Captain," he said handing her a pair of bars.
She took then and clipped them onto her breastplate before saluting and falling back in line while the other two also got their Captain's bars. As soon as they were back in line, Buck moved and continued to hand out the ordered class by class. By the end of the day, only class 3-A was assigned to TF Blue.
OOOOO 3 weeks later
John, in his new gen 3 armour, walked to the briefing room with Fred and Linda in toe. For the past two weeks, the three had been organising their Task Force. Who got what in terms of, troops, tanks, etc. By the end of the organisation, they split their force up into three divisions. Johns was the main force with a good mix of infantry, tanks and specialists. Linda's was the recon group; they had the fastest vehicles and most of the ODST groups. Fred, on the other hand, was the heavy hitter with the thanks and artillery. With that sorted, they then moved onto splitting up the Spartans. In total they had 600 Spartans, which they split up into 200 each. John got the rookies, while the others got the veterans. The feeling was that John would be able to teach them about being a Spartan.
He didn't mind that, but wondered about if he was good enough to be a teacher. Soon they made it to the briefing room and took seats that had their names on and removed their helmets. Not everyone was there, but the Commanders who were there, with their seconds, took quick glances at the newcomer Spartans. But they didn't take notice, and waited for the General to come.
They didn't need to wait as Commanders from 3 other Task forces arrived, followed by the good General Banks himself. As soon as he entered, the Commanders stood and saluted.
Following protocol Banks saluted. "At ease and have a seat," he said as he removed his hat and rubbed his bald head.
As the Commanders sat Backs moved up to the table and darkened the room. The round holo table in front of them activated filling the screen with the stars of the former UNSC territories. The General manipulated the controls zooming into a system. The system he showed had 7 planets, with several red contact icons surrounding a couple of the planets.
"This is the Mai Delta system," he said as he straightened up. "It's the main location for our ground war with the Empire. There are four habitable planets in this system," as he talked the system disappeared outside of the four planets he mentioned. "Kusrago, Jusun, Telltus and Shinnoma. Three of these worlds are only good for one thing, mining colonies while the final one is good as a colony world. We've been fighting the Empire for a good few years across this little area of real estate,"
"I assume that changes now?" one of the commanders asked, her chin resting on her mechanical hand.
"Indeed, it does," Banks nodded. "For the past year we've been building our forces, and with 117 here…" he nodded to John. "…we'll be able to take the area now," he manipulated the controls again this time the holo focused on the world of Kusrago, the fifth planet from the sun. "This world is the primary base of operations of the Empire in this system. However, they cannot remove Federation forces from the planet, we've dug too deep for them to get us out without using nukes,"
That darkened the faces of the other Commanders. "So, they have nukes," another commander muttered his blue eyes looking down.
"Yes, but they are unwilling to use them," Banks clarified. "The same goes for orbital bombardment, despite having our forces pinned," he shook his head.
"So just like several other engagements," an older commander muttered as he rubbed his greying hair. "They don't use extreme tactics, just containment," he shook his head. "But why?"
John looked to the holographic view of the planet closely. He blinked for a moment and shook his head. If this was a containment operation, that meant the Empire was looking for something. He looked to his fellow commanders, but none of them seemed to join the dots. Maybe the 15 years of fighting for survival just made them think that the others are just out for territory and resources. It made things simpler. Or maybe fighting the other factions for so long, that all they can think about is what they see and not the deeper meaning. He glanced to his siblings, and wondered if they thought the same thing.
"We don't know," Banks said. "But we have a plan," he typed something at the controls and the holo zoomed out and green icons appeared. "Their fleet has decreased in size over the year, it had 150 ships, now it has 50. They have been moved to other fronts. Which gives us the opportunity to strike. The plan is this: 4th fleet will enter system and get the attention of the Imperial Ion fleet. Orders are to destroy if possible, but distract while all task forces are deployed. Blue, India and Delta will land on Kusrago, their objective is to take out the main base of operations,"
John and two other commanders nodded as Banks continued to explain the operation. When he was done, he asked John to stay behind. As soon as the last commander left, Banks moved up to the door and locked it. He then turned to the Chief.
"Chief, there is a special mission for you," he said making John's eyes widen.
"What's that sir?" John asked confused.
Banks sat next to the Chief. "Due to your Task Force's designation, that means you are able to go on your own and ignore my orders if you deem it necessary. It also means that the President issues you special missions," he then handed John a dataslate. "This is one of them. The Empire is looking for something, but we don't know what. We need you to find out,"
John read the intelligence report before looking up. "Why didn't you tell this to the others?" he asked.
"Fear," Banks clarified. "If we tell them that there maybe Forerunner structures on the planet, they'd nuke it form orbit. Even since Earth was scorched, the Federation has used Special Operations to locate and secure Forerunner artefacts. The goal is to ensure there is not another Flood Outbreak before we release the information to the public,"
John nodded. "So that's what the President wants me to do? Find and secure?"
Banks nodded. "As well as any standing orders," the two stood. "Best of luck Chief," he saluted.
John followed as well before leaving. Outside in the hallway, Six stood looking towards the Chief. As the door closed, she walked up to him.
"Take care of my daughter," she said before walking off.
"I will," John muttered.
Federation of Mars: Task force Blue Organisation.
Commander- Lieutenant Commander John 'Master Chief' 117.
Co-commander- Major Linda, Major Fred.
No of Personnel: 20,100 troops total. 15,000 Regular Infantry. 5,500 ODST. 600 Spartans primarily IV's.
Regiments- 34th Infantry Regiment 3,200, 35th Infantry Regiment 3,200, 36th Mechanised Infantry 3,000, 12th Armoured 600, 14th Armoured 500, 22nd Recon 1,000, 6th Combat Engineer group 1,500, 24th Airborne 1,000, 15th Logistics group 1,000.
66th ODST group 2,500, 67th ODST group 2,500, 5th Special Tasks group (Fireflies) 500,
10th Spartan Group 600.
Vehicles- Warthogs, Pelicans, Scorpions, Cobras, Mantis mechs, Mongoose, Wolverine, Kodiak, Mobile Command Platform, Hornets, Pelican gunships, Drones, Falcon.
Additional Notes- 5th Special Operations Task Force, TF Blue, will be attached to the 4th fleet under the command of Admiral Sharpe. TF Blue will be spread across 4 Autumn class heavy cruisers. Space operations are to be deferred to the Captains of the respective ships.
TF Blue is attached to the 6th Martian Army, but due to the 'Special Operations' designation, can chose to break away if deemed necessary. Until which time, TF Blue is under the command of General Banks and L.T.C John 117.