"Improvise, adapt, overcome"
-unofficial Marine Corps motto
Location: insurrectionist controlled planet Taurus VI, Taurus system, 14:12 standard military time, January 4th 2558
After after walking for quite a bit longer than Devereaux and predicted. Alison and Brandon approached the edge of the town they were headed for.
They exited the planet's dense pines and came out on the top of a hill over looking the town, the town was definitely not a town like he was expecting to find. It was nestled into a valley surrounded on all sides by trees with two roads leading in opposite directions out of the town, both of which were paved. The town itself looked like a pretty upstanding rural community, just looking at it Brandon saw what looked like a car dealership, a farmers co-op, a gas station, a general store, a motel and several other businesses he didn't expect to find in URF controlled town. In fact, the only thing that really distinguished the town from any in rural areas of the URNA, where he had grown up, was the bar, the arms market, and a landing pad that contained a pelican with URF markings.
UNSC propaganda definitely didn't talk about places like this existing in rebel controlled space.
They descended the hill into the town and it quickly became apparent just how quiet this town really was. They only spotted two people walking in the street, of which only one gave him a funny look, and no cars. In fact the only activity brandon did see was at the bar, it looked like at least half the towns population was situated there.
Military towns, he thought, guess it doesn't matter wether it's URF or UNSC, the bar is the basic unit of the town's economy is always the bar.
Despite the sleepiness of the town Alison didn't seem to be comfortable at all. He couldn't tell if the look on her face was disgust or discomfort, but either way she did not seem happy.
Brandon looked over at Alison and motioned in for her to follow him. Walking into the bar caused the sleepy mystique of the town to instantly melt away and transform into a loud, active, and significantly less upstanding environment. The place was packed, loud music was playing over the bars old fashion radio, people lined the bar, loudly toasting to life, health, and happiness. Anybody that wasn't drinking already had and was dancing in an open space of tiled floor in the back of the bar.
If Alison hadn't been uncomfortable before she sure was now.
Brandon walked over to a small table in the corner of the bar and order two beers. Alison sat down across from him and he passed the beer over to her.
She picked up the bottle and examined it like she had never seen anything like it before.
Brandon had to keep himself from laughing.
He took the bottle out of her hand, pulled off the top with an old fashion twenty second century bottle opener and handed it back to her, motioning for her to drink it.
She reluctant took a sip and her gag reflex was instant. It tasted awful, and it took quite a bit of restraint not to spit it out onto the floor.
He instantly felt guilty and ran to get her some water to wash it down with.
As soon as she stopped coughing, she nodded her thanks and drank it down, her face still contorted in clear dislike for the alcohol.
Brandon took a whiff of his beer and decided that although Alison's reaction may have been a bit exaggerated, not drinking it may be better for his health in the long run.
They just sat there for a while, listening to the conversation in the bar, trying to get some information on how they might get a job with the URF. He heard a man next to him talk about his trading with kigyar pirates and a farmer behind him who had lost all of his money when his crops failed last winter. Despite the fact that this place was a military town he heard surprisingly little talk of the URF.
I guess nobody likes to think about work after hours around here, he thought.
As they sat there Alison started to fidget in her seat a little bit. The crowd seemed to be getting to her. Brandon honestly didn't think the place was quite as packed as it could have been, then again the only crowd this large that Alison was used to dealing with was probably a group of covenant, and they probably weren't around for very long afterward. Hoping to ease Alison's discomfort, Brandon was about to pay and leave. Maybe going into a place like this wasn't the best way t ease someone who wasn't a people person into Intel gathering.
He stood and was met by a clearly drunken man that bumped into him from behind.
"Sorry," Brandon said, in spite of the fact he was the one that had been bumped in to. The man spun around to face him. He was clad in a jeans and a black t shirt with the URF logo emblazoned on the center, and didn't look happy to see the faded UNSC fatigues and green t shirt brandon was wearing.
"Hey, you're UNSC," he said in heavily slurred speech, "we don't like your kind around here."
I guess I just found the one thing that could go wrong, thought Brandon. He glanced over at Alison. She was already sizing him up as a potential threat. Brandon put out a hand to stop her.
"Not any more, we deserted years ago. I'm sure we're not the only ones here in that same boat," Brandon said calmly.
He once again tried to walk around the man but he moved to block his way, "I don't care. You're all the same you damn imperialists." By now half the bar had turned to look at them.
Alison was becoming very nervous. She glanced around the room wildly. She hated having so many eyes on her, especially when as far as she was concerned those were enemy eyes. She looked behind her only to find more people looking at them. She felt cornered. She glanced frantically at Brandon, who was locked in a debate with the other man, trying to get him to back down.
The man shoved Brandon back a little. "go back to whatever hole you crawled out of," he said in a venomous tone.
Alison got more and more on edge as the man's tone deteriorated. She fought the urge to lash out at anything she perceived as a threat and held her ground.
Hoping to avoid a confrontation Brandon dropped a wad of credits, that would have more than covered their drinks, onto the table and picked up his backpack, "alright then buddy, we're leaving."
The man continued to hurl insults at them as they left but the rest of the bar seemed to have lost interest by then.
Alison seemed a bit jittery. "Do you think we blew our cover?" She asked as soon as they were sufficiently out of earshot. She was still occasionally glancing behind them to see if anyone had followed them.
"No, if we had someone would have said something. Chances are it isn't anything new for that guy to cause trouble and they clearly have seen UNSC deserters before," he said reassuringly.
She didn't look convinced but shrugged it off and kept walking.
Brandon turned down the street they had come from and began to walk up to the top of the hill they had exited the woods on top of. Brandon sat down near the peak of the hill. Alison sat down next to him, her legs hugged to her chest.
While they sat there brandon pulled his laptop from his backpack. The laptop was specially modified by the huragok to communicate with the Murphy's law on a secure channel via text messages sent at faster than light speeds, but it didn't have nearly the same speed as a waypoint call and even at that kind of speed it would still take a while to reach Osman who was a full planetary system away from them. In his message he informed Osman of their current situation, minus the details of possibly having their cover blown.
He glanced over at Alison. She was still huddled in a ball next to him, staring off at the town. Her gaze seemed distant and despite his best attempted to read her he couldn't begin to guess what she was thinking. He thought about saying something, but crushed the idea. She probably didn't appreciate being questioned any way.
He folded up the laptop and stood, "come on. We better find some place to stay for the night."
Alison nodded and followed him off into the town.
They rented a simple room with two beds at a small hotel in town.
Alison walked into the room and sat down slowly on the bed.
As she slowly removed her jacket Brandon began to see the remnants of all that had happened to her over the years. The tank top she wore underneath did little to cover the extent of the numerous injuries she had suffered. Her body was a gridlock of angry scars. Some surgical and precise, undoubtably left over from whatever process they had used to turn her into a super soldier. Whatever parts of her body weren't covered in scars were covered in the remains of second and third degree plasma burns. If cancer hadn't been cured back in the twenty second century he was sure exposure to that much plasma would have killed her long ago. It only served to make him feel worse about how he had treated her.
She ran her hand slowly over the sheets before pausing and staring at the wall. She still looked very uncomfortable and Brandon couldn't see why. As far as he could tell this was set up to be a fairly relaxing ordeal.
He sat down next to her, much to her chagrin.
"Alright, what's wrong," he said matter of factly. She didn't even turn to face him.
"Nothing's wrong," she said flatly.
Brandon sighed, "come on Alison, you've looked incredibly uncomfortable all day. I know we didn't get off to the best start but I'm your teammate now. You can tell me."
"fine," she said begrudgingly, "I just don't know how I'm going to handle the whole being a civilian thing."
"Relaxing for once can't be all that bad. It's gotta be like being a kid again for you."
His light hearted tone was crushed by the glare she shot him.
"Don't pretend to know what's best for me and don't you dare pretend to know how I grew up," she spat.
Brandon was surprised by her sudden combativeness. Until now she had been unwilling to talk, but had never reacted offensively anything he had said.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that," he said earnestly.
She sighed and looked out the rooms small window before running her hand over the sheets one last time. She seemed almost sickened at the feeling of them.
"I should be fighting," she suddenly spoke up, "not stuck on some two bit intelligence op. Spartans fight and die every day to keep the UNSC going and I don't deserve any better than any of them. So why am I stuck in a comfortable room in the middle of no where when I could be helping them? All I know how to do is fight. My every instinct screamed at me to fight that guy back at the bar. Fighting is what I train for and it's what I should be doing. It's what my team would have wanted me to do."
Brandon recognized a lot of himself on the way she said that. The same bitter angry why didn't you kill me rhetoric was all to familiar to him.
"I take it you lost people too," Brandon said.
"Yeah, everyone. Why do you care. You seem to think I have it easy."
He began to examine everything he had told her back on the Murphy's law now that he knew this. She probably thought of him as the most insensitive person she had ever met.
"I'm sorry for how I treated you and I want to make that up to you, but trust me, I know from experience that you can't blame yourself for their deaths, and being uncomfortable or dead won't bring them back. I know I sound like a hypocrite, and I probably am, but I know these things."
The words rang hollow to him and he was sure she felt the same way. Both of them had heard that same sentence time and time again. It never ended up helping any more than the last time.
"How can you say that?" she asked in disgust, "you weren't there to see them die. How could you know it wasn't my fault."
"Because I'm the leading expert on survivor's guilt."
Alison didn't appreciate the joke.
"Look Alison, death happens. It's unfortunate but you can't let it rule your life or you'll end up like me. Now how about we make a deal. I'll try and move on from my team's deaths if you try and move on from yours. Maybe the I won't be a hypocrite anymore."
She sighed, "it's not that easy Lieutenant."
"Trust me I know," he said somberly. He placed a caring hand on her shoulder, "Adapting to new things is never easy. That's why we're doing it together."
Alison looked him in the eye.
"you promise?" The way she said it was almost laughably innocent.
"I promise," he said in return.
He gave her a small smile which she didn't return.
"Alright Lieutenant, I promise as well."
He nodded and moved back to his bed to lay down.
"Get some rest spartan, you're gonna need it,"
Alison nodded and laid down rigidly straight in her bed, almost as if she was trying to lay at attention. The bed may have been top of the line civilian comfort, but to her it still felt like a bed of nails. No armor, no hum of an FTL drive, no clear cut and dry orders. She found herself thinking back to all the any nights her and her team had spent aboard various starships during the war, longing for the comforts the marines complained about having to leave behind when they signed on, comforts she had never even seen or experienced. Now that she had them she would give anything to be back with her team, back in cramped discomfort of a warship.
She glanced over to the lieutenant. He didn't seem perfectly at ease either, but he seemed to have a much better grip on this way of life than she did. She thought back to their conversation on the Murphy's law, how he had lashed out at her so viciously over the deaths of his friends. Was that really what she had almost just done? Maybe he knew what she was going through. Maybe he understood more than she had guessed he did.
One thing she had learned in her years of being a Spartan was that normal people wore their emotions in neon, and he really felt bad about what he had said to her.
She decided that if the Lieutenant was willing to give Spartans a second chance she could give him a second chance as well. Maybe he was the way out of the spiral of grief she had thrown herself into.
It was still a while before she became comfortable and relaxed, but eventually She closed her eyes and began to drift off to sleep.
URNA- United repulic of north America. Comprised of what once was Mexico, the USA, and Canada.