Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Halo/Bungie products or trademarks. I'm just a regular person writing a fanfiction for Halo.

Chapter 2: Discussions

Astarys System, onboard the UNSC Destroyer Barron's Demise in Slipstream, 2250 Hours

"Spartans!" The Captain exclaimed incredulously as he rose from his seat staring at the Major. The Major, watching him like a hawk, smiled slightly amused at the man's reaction as if hes seen it before.

He gestured at the Captain take his seat and opened the file for him, "To be more precise, they are the extras of the SPARTAN-III program. Generally with each batch, only three-hundred are selected and the rest all trimmed out to basically be thrown away like cattle. The problem was there was an incident at Camp Currahee in which these selections of kids were not to be trained. My job for the past several years has been to train these extras to be almost exactly like the Spartans."

He turned and watched as the Captain flipped through the file, looking at each paper with a mortified expression. The man looked up slowly at the Major, "Isn't this wrong though? To do this to seven year old children?"

The Major sat down on the seat across from him and looked at him," Is it wrong Captain? We gave them either the choice of being able to serve or die right there. They have no home to return to; most of them had their homes destroyed by the Covenant and were stuffed in orphanages, where else would they go? In fact most of them took the decision stay in the program, extract their revenge by being trained to be the best soldiers UNSC could produce. Even if they wanted to back out of the program, the ones that left were disposed of in order for the secrecy of the SPARTAN program to be kept, but signing up for this program has a consequence; they all became ghosts, these kids don't exist anymore, nor will they ever. In fact, Colonel Anderson, the man who brought up the idea has no idea whatsoever what even happens to this kids. He's under the impression that these kids specifically are sent back to their home."

The Captain sighed, and flipped through the pages silently reading the file quietly as the Major watched him. Closing the file, the man looked up at the Major and slowly said to him," Whatever decisions were made by them, I do think that they were forced upon to make at that time rather than think about it for themselves. I do still not believe this is morally right from I read. You would beat these children into near comas if they would not follow their orders to the exact word or if they were unable to keep up with the standards? If I'm reading this correctly, you even had an accident where candidate Jack Daniels-D005 led an uprising with the majority of the kids that led to the death of 38 dead and 22 wounded, along with the capture of the BlackCross Training Facility for 3 days?"

The Major nodded and crossed his arms slowly," Indeed that event did happen but it wasn't entirely unexpected, Section III looked at that incident as more of a test of what the kids could accomplish if they worked together. I personally believe that in the end, it was more good than bad in the long run."

The Captain slowly stood up and head to the door, pausing," I still don't believe it was right, no matter how needed these soldiers were. You made these innocent children who could have had more to live for be subject to such atrocities and will be to barely function outside of military life. Unfortunately you will have my word Major that none of what was discussed will leave this room, but one day this information will be brought up to Navy WarSpec though, you do know that, and they aren't going to be so lenient on this immoral case."

As he opened the door to leave, he heard the Major say, "It doesn't matter what's right or not. You just don't understand the dire need of them yet." The Captain shook his head and left, muttering," I hope I never will so this will never be reasoned for."

As the door closed behind the Captain, Dantou appeared next to the Major on a pad and crossed her arms, "You do realize that no one will understand this project Major, I'm sure even the rest of Section III doesn't even approve the way you ran procedures in order to make them who they are."

The Major smiled amusingly at her, "Of course they wouldn't, they don't approve of anything unless they benefit from it directly my dear Dantou. They already sacrifice hundreds of these kids just to buy time for the inevitable; this will be eventually overlooked in time. We need to do what we have to in order for the survival of the human race, even if what's left of my conscience will cease to exist."

Dantou shrugged and looked at him, "Whereas that may be true, we have more pressing matters at hand. The Barron's Demise is about to exit Slipstream and join the fleet, I've alerted the Captain as well but it seems Iscereon needs our help." The Major nodded and stuffed the file back into his coat and left the room, joining the Captain at the main bridge cameras.

The Captain glanced at the Major and then at Dantou as she appeared, shimmering with data scrolling around her body, "What's the status of the fleet and the planet right now?" She looked at them surprised, "Well the good news is that the UNSC is winning the battle above; only seven Covenant ships remain with the loss of eleven ships where as Admiral Strakhov has fourteen ships intact, ten heavily damaged and nine destroyed." She paused and continued looking grim, "But on the other hand, the bad news is that the Covenant has managed to land on the Planet Iscereon and destroy most of the major cities. The figures show that so far three million civilians are dead or wounded and around two thousand Marines as well. It seems that the Iscereon Planetary Defense Force is what's holding the main ground front right now. They are on the verge of collapsing from what i can perceive from reports on SATCOM."

The Captain cursed under his breath softly and looked at the screen, "Dantou, I want us to head at Rally Point Tango-Oh Four Two Six. We'll be dropping the Major's men at the Buryoi Plains and rendezvous with the Fleet." He paused looking at the Major as the Barron's Demise engines started to rumble and speed them to the planet. The Major nodded to him and turned, leaving the command bridge," Send them out whenever you are ready Captain; set loose the Ghosts of the UNSC."

Lieutenant Daniels

An image of the Captain appeared on one of the screens in front of him and looked at him, "Lieutenant Daniels, we'll be dropping you on the Buryoi Plains; your objective is to head toward the city Varpun, Yeruda, and Cardopilia, assist the marines in securing all the civilians in the evacuation and hold position till the Pelicans arrive from the Fleet to pick you up. Good luck."

"Okay everyone, you all know the drill; Me, Angie, Reynolds, Alyssa, Marlyn, and Austin will be team leaders. I don't want to lose anyone today you guys, if anyone is seriously injured; well you guys know the drill. Just watch each other's backs and we'll get back home safe to get drunk and crash this piece-of-crap ship into headquarters." Daniels announced into the HEV's COM systems as they all laughed. Seconds later he watched from inside as his pod lurched and shuddered as the ship ejected him out, sending him to the planet where chaos raged.

"Here we go..." He thought as he checked his helmet was sealed and weapons were properly stored.

Major Garvey

As the Major started to leave the Bridge, he looked back towards the Captain momentarily and then proceeded to return to his room. He then checked to make sure his room was secure and sat down at his desk, opening the SPARTAN file. Flipping a few pages, he stopped at the stack of papers labeled with the incident at the BlackCross Training Facility and started to review over them silently thinking of the day he was ordered to investigate the facility.

~Well that's all I got for Chapter 2 on the brief explanation of Ghost Division. Next Chapter should have some of you guys interested; what happened at the incident of the BlackCross Training Facility! Review and comment.