2010 Hours, March 31, 2535 (Military Calendar) /
Delphi Noctem System, Big River Valley, Planet Daedalus
Camp Green River
Something strange was happening. Linda could feel it.
It had started slowly at first. Fred told more jokes. Will kept quiet, avoiding the rest of the team whenever possible. Doctor Halsey kept herself locked in her office even longer than usual. But then, just after Will and Fred's altercation in the cafeteria, things got even stranger. He and Kelly began avoiding one another at every opportunity. John began to ask probing questions, checking up on the entirely team on an almost hourly basis.
Linda was dealing with it in the way that she was most accustomed to dealing with anything she couldn't shoot. She was hiding at the firing range.
Something was disrupting their balance. She needed space to figure it out.
She hummed quietly to herself, making a minute adjustment on the scope of her SRS99 rifle. She wouldn't fire – which would unnecessarily risk exposure of their position – but still took comfort with the familiar grip of the rifle in her hand. It was an added benefit for her that the storm she had been tracking was finally prepared to drop over Camp Green River.
Heavy raindrops began to fall just as she finished adjusting her scope, and she quickly tugged a plastic tarp over her rifle. She liked her equipment clean, dry, and protected whenever the situation permitted. For herself, though, she wanted to feel the rain pelt against her. The sensation was calming for her, giving her body something to focus on while her mind busied itself with finding the equilibrium point they had lost.
In a matter of seconds the scattered smattering of raindrops transformed into sheets of water blanketing the whole range, adding some extra challenge to her planned exercise.
Stretched out before her, the range was littered with targets. Each had an emitter attached to it that linked directly to the Oracle Scope on her rifle. On a randomized interval, one emitter at a time would ignite for just long enough for her scope's thermal sensors to detect it. Her challenge was to "kill" each target, though she wouldn't fire a single shot.
Taking a deep breath, she keyed the remote at her side which activated the exercise.
The first target was in fact the one posted closest to her. She managed to "kill" it before the emitter stopped firing. Second to activate was a target some 400 meters distant, nestled against one wall of the range. They began firing more quickly, often forcing her to target from one end of the range to the other.
Linda was happy to let them. Her instincts took over – her body responded to each new target automatically. It allowed her a reprieve that she greatly enjoyed – an almost cathartic peace in the midst of a life that was anything but peaceful.
If she were honest with herself, there were moments where the Spartan had to actively force herself to avoid thoughts of resentment for the life she led. She was grateful for the augmentations that had turned her into the woman she was, but there was a part of herself that had been lost in the process.
The only memory she truly held onto from her infancy was one very basic tenet that she had been taught. Whether it was from her parents, from some religious leader, or something else entirely she wasn't sure – all she knew was that after all of the years, procedures, and missions this one thing still felt like a part of her core. She craved balance. Peace. Equilibrium.
Virtues not often found in the life of the UNSC's most proficient sniper.
Still, she reasoned, she found ways to compensate for the lack of balance in the life of a warrior. She found balance in her team. In her missions. In her purpose as a soldier. The taking of a life – even an alien life – was not an act she relished. But the protection of defenseless civilians, the operation with her team, those were ways she found balance. It grounded her. Allowed her to be her true self, at least partially.
That balance was lost.
She didn't know what to attribute it to. What held the blame. Her mission was anything but clear – the protection of some rock felt like a massive misuse of their combined skills and talents. Between the five of them, her team was anything but united.
Something was wrong. Something at their core was rotten.
Something at her core was rotten.
She shifted her aim to a target no more than 200 meters from her but at such an angle to her right that she was nearly aiming at the facility itself. She hesitated long enough to register another "kill" before preparing to sweep back along the range.
Then something caught her eye.
She couldn't quite identify it at first. Was there a sound on the wind? Or perhaps a rumbling through the ground beneath her. But no, she could detect neither.
Finally, she noticed that there was something in her scope. It was such a slight aberration from what she expected to see that her conscious mind hardly noticed it. Her subconscious, however, wouldn't allow her to let it go. There was something there. The way the rain fell wasn't right, the water acted like it was bouncing off something. Something she couldn't see.
The rain had deadened any passive thermal readings she could have detected through the scope, so she could not immediately confirm that there was a body within the invisible obstruction. She couldn't even truly confirm that there was something there.
A matter of heartbeats after she had first noticed the anomaly it was gone.
Silently, Linda rose to her hands and knees. She left her rifle where it lay and made her way back inside the compound. Something was amiss. Something new was off-balance. She made her way down several hallways, an itchy feeling crawling over her skin.
Something isn't right.
Something isn't balanced.
She was so focused on her thoughts that she nearly collided with a large black figure as it rounded the corner just ahead of her.
Linda jumped backward and raised her fists, preparing for a fight. Instead of an Elite, Brute, or some ghost from her past, however, all she found was another Spartan in a stance mirroring her own.
"Linda," John said, relief crossing his face. "You didn't report in."
She stepped around him, her left hand up, the palm facing outward.
Quiet.
John fluidly fell in behind her as she continued her search. She wasn't sure just what she was looking for, in all honesty. But something was calling to her. Something was unbalanced. The scales needed adjusting.
Almost in a trance, Linda turned a corner and stalked down a new corridor. It was a long hallway that branched off in a dozen different places, each leading to a different portion of the compound. If anything were amiss within the base, this would be the place to find it.
She scanned the hallway slowly, looking for any sort of clue. Anything to identify just what was wrong with the picture before her.
She felt something brush feather-light against her elbow and turned to see John, an M6 sidearm in his hand and a stern expression in his eyes. With the same hand he had used to get her attention he waved his index finger in front of his eyes, then turned his hand to a fist with that same finger pointing upward.
See?
He wanted to know what she had seen. Or perhaps what she was seeing. The problem was that Linda didn't know herself. She scanned the corridor before her once more, the only sound the slow drip of rainwater coming from the ends of her hair.
She looked at her own feet. Was she the source of the imbalance? Had her role in life finally corrupted her beyond the breaking point? She stared at herself, at her soggy boots, at the puddle slowly forming from the collected droplets raining down from her hair.
And then she realized.
The sniper burst into a jog, John immediately following behind her with his weapon raised. They came to a stop some ten meters further down the hallway and Linda squatted low, drawing John down to her level with a hand on his arm. Slowly, she extended one arm out and pointed at a spot another two meters beyond them.
The overhead light in the hallway shined through the object of her focus. The light refracted, tossing miniscule beams in different directions.
John's arm tensed when he caught sight of what she was pointing to, and the pair gingerly made their way forward.
Before them was a puddle. No more than five centimeters in diameter, it hardly represented a single drop from the downpour still thundering outside.
Linda finally spoke, her voice the ghost of a whisper. "Who else was outside the compound?" she asked.
John shook his head.
Linda nodded, studying the droplet. "You know what that means," she said. It wasn't a question. It was a statement of fact, waiting only to be corroborated.
His eyes dark and his brow furrowed, John nodded once.
As her team leader hailed the rest of the squad with a communicator he produced from his belt, Linda breathed out a sigh of relief. For several days now, her life had been imbalanced.
It was time to right the scales.
Author's Note: Did you think I was dead? I wouldn't blame you, honestly. Luckily, I'm not! And the story goes on. We're finally getting to some of the action here. I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Another shoutout to kpmh2001 for being the best reviewer of all time.