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A226 0543 Hours, Two Days After Wide Spread Planetary Glassing
Jun, Alpha-226, began to play one of the many memory games he had been taught once again. He, the Spartan-II's, and Dr. Halsey had been trapped under the remains of CASTLE Base for the better part of forty eight hours. Two days of dealing with the endless racket being made by Covenant excavation on the surface. Two days without any form of reference to real time. Perhaps they had been in this place for more than two days, perhaps less. When night and day ceased to even exist, when time itself lost all meaning, did the hours even matter? Everything simply seemed to blend to the point where it meant absolutely nothing.
The entire time he had been adjusting to being near the public Spartans. Though perhaps that was not the proper term. Jun had been a part of several infiltration missions where he had to work with ONI special agents. Shockingly, several had required him to go without his time tested MJOLNIR armor. The Noble Sniper doubted Doctor Halsey's Spartans had spent anytime outside of their own armor, aside from the required maintenance and off duty time aboard UNSC ships and Reach.
They were an entirely different bunch than any he had worked with. Jorge had been a member of the same class as his new companions, and yet they were different from how the large man had acted. Then again, he thought to himself, Jorge was always the more social of us. Sure had one helluva poker face.
That was yet another of the many things the Spartan had been doing. Jun had been replaying past experiences to the best of his ability. Unlike the few humans who had perfect recollection of their entire lives, he did not see theses things as though they were happening yet again. Rather he was remembering all the details he could about previous actions.
Most of these were quite similar in one key way. They were all somehow connected to Noble Team. Be it earlier missions that he had been a part of, or simply remembering his fallen teammates. It likely was not healthy to delve into the past like that, but he truly had little else to do in order to pass the time.
And to not pay attention to one very obvious detail. Jun was a man of little care to wherever he found himself. Everything either fell into one of five categories: friendly, hostile, cover, ambush sites, or sniper positions. For the most part anything about his environment aside from those went nearly unnoticed by him.
Except for his current location. Buried below hundreds of tons of rock, steel, and concrete. Beneath the feet of possibly tens of thousands of Grunts and Jackals, thousands of Elites, and hundreds of Hunters. With little light aside from the flashlights installed in their helmets. He had found out that his assumption of this being a large underground cavern was false. Rather they had managed to enter a series of long abandoned mining tunnels. The same place where the titanium used to give human warships some protection again the Covenant plasma weapons, now held Humanity's most brilliant scientist, and its most effective tools against the aliens. The close walls, the near deaf silence to protect their ears from the excavating forces, and the darkness.
Jun was frightened by this. He knew that many would likely laugh at the thought of a claustrophobic SPARTAN Super Soldier. After all, they did spend much of their time inside the large and heavy armor. And yet the armor had never bothered him, in fact it had always felt like more of a second skin. The multiple times he had needed to remain in a sniper position where he had been unable to move, those were also entirely different. Then he had something to focus on, a threat to his life and the lives of his teammates. And he had rarely spent more than a day in such positions.
Unfortunately there was nothing to focus on to that degree. While the doctor's search for some new discovery did take his mind off of his fear, that activity rarely kept it at bay for more than a few hours. There simply was nothing inside this place aside from themselves. When he searched the duty soon became nothing more than near mindless walking. Without anything to really keep his mind from running around by itself he inevitably found himself beginning to feel the fear again.
He was a Spartan-III, a Noble Spartan. But he was also a human, no matter how augmented he was, and like all animals was not immune to nature's random decisions. The fear was there now, and he was desperate to find any way to keep from focusing on it. Anyway at all. But the memory games were now ineffective having been performed several hundred times. And the search for who knew what was not going well.
If it were any other problem he would have dealt with it in the Spartan manner. Push it away from his thoughts, or use it as an anchor to remind himself of what he was doing. His claustrophobia was not like that; he had never been able to act indifferent while it was there. It was truly unhealthy for a soldier to allow his fear to have control over his actions. Jun had witnessed innumerable numbers of trooper and marines freeze up for just a second in the face of their enemy, which was more than often fatal unless dealing with the Grunts who would likely freeze as well.
Jun knew that if he was to be an effective soldier he had to rein in his fear. The problem was that he did not know how to do it on his own. Which was why he was walking back to the impromptu base of operations. The small base camp where they all rested every few hours. What he was going to do went against his entire mindset, and was almost a rule. But he would have to break it if he was to be rid of this gnawing fear.
Jun rested his hand on one of the doctor's shoulders. Unlike many ordinary humans whose first action would be to jump in surprise and fear, the doctor merely turned her head to look over his hand. The only surprise that showed was not of shock over not hearing him, it was simply a mild surprise that it was him. It was more than likely that Doctor Catherine Halsey had become accustomed to not overhearing the movements of her Spartan-II's. The slight surprise quickly disappeared as the doctor turned her head back to look down at her medical equipment.
"What do you want Warrant Officer?" She asked in a dry tone, similar to the one Kat used when she was disturbed while doing her work. It was almost scary how brilliant the two women were. Kat had decrypted the final piece of the puzzle for Doctor Halsey to put her plan into action, whatever that was. He was not here to think about such things however.
"Answers," he said in a professional tone. He rarely spoke that way unless it was to Carter, or Colonel Holland.
"What reason do you have to ask me?" she asked him, her face betraying all but no emotion.
Jun sat himself down on one knee so he was more level with the doctor. He had not really spoken to her enough speak like Fred and the others did. But then again, aside from her reputation and file, what did he actually even know about her?
"I need to know if you have anything to get my mind off my claustrophobia," he stated bluntly.
Mild surprise crossed the doctor's face once again. "You want to know if I can get your mind off your fear." It was not meant as a question, but rather a statement. That was something he was starting to find annoying in the doctor. She rarely asked him any questions, and spoke as though she already had an answer to any he asked. Still, he did need an answer and solution badly.
"In a nutshell, yeah. That's what I want. Yes or no Doctor?"
"In a 'nutshell' as you put it…. No," she answered simply.
Jun felt his frustration begin to steadily grow. The fear was placed into a secondary state of mind at the moment, replaced with his anger at this newest development. "NOTHING! There has to be something, anything." He looked around at the few pieces of medical equipment they had. He noticed a small medical cloning tank, several portable field aid kits, a collection of surgeons tools carefully wrapped, and several small bottles of morphine. But there was nothing he could see that would help him through his personal nightmare. The doctor was right. There was nothing she had that could help him.
"Yes. Fred and Will only managed to bring basic medical supplies. Aside from the small cloning tank we have nothing above civilian grade equipment, which sadly lacks any form of medication that may help alleviate your fears."
"I can't let this affect me Doctor Halsey. A Spartan who lets fear control them is a disadvantage under the best of circumstances." That had been one of the training regiments during training on Onyx. It had been one of many lessons instilled in them from the first day. He remembered when he had been required to jump off a fast moving Pelican with only a parachute, and at age six he hadn't hesitated. The fact that he had been able to accomplish that, only to allow a fear of closed spaces affect his performance was an insult he refused to accept.
"I am sorry Warrant Officer, but I am afraid there is nothing I can do to aid you. However, I will need to determine how much this is affecting you." As she said this her eyes became purely professional. Jun noted that the doctor did not ask for his consent to perform such a test as well; he hated that about her. She acted as though he would have to obey her orders, and yet she technically had no real place in the UNSC Command Structure. How she had the influence to sway admirals was a question he had been wondering much about. Yet despite his preferences, he found himself complying to her demands.
Doctor Halsey was a woman of many different sciences. Now it appeared that she was about to take the role of a psychologist.
Damn it Lieutenant, he thought as the doctor began her questioning, You'd better have a damned good reason for not finding a way here by now. Can't believe I am actually starting to wish you and your silent act to this mess I'm in.
AN: Sorry it's a bit late guys, but my RL has been kind of a drag lately. First off there is my girlfriend who is trying to convince me to go with her to one of her cousins, who I never even knew she had, wedding ceremony in Savannah, Georgia. Then I've had to study hard for the written part of my journey towards a state driver's license. Add on my changed hours working at my job, and this weeks been a real insane mess.
Any way, I've decided to post this short chapter right now for three reasons. I don't know when I'll update next and I wanted to get something within a week of my last update. Second, I originally intended to Jun go through a shrink session with Dr. Halsey, but I found writing that to be utterly impossible for me to do. It just wasn't the way I write, so I had to get rid of it hence to shortened length. Thirdly, I really wanted Leo to get a move on to CASTLE, and meet a few other survivors in the next update. That will hopefully be a lot easier to do for me, and I'm aiming for at least 5K+ words for it.
SO, Im hoping I've fulfilled a bit of my plan to flesh out Jun's character out pretty well. But that's your opinion, so let me know. I just think that as a sniper, he'd spend most of his time in the open nearly invisible. So what if that was because he was afraid of closed spaces? Also, I would like to thank my new Beta, Ryan Priessman for helping me out with my grammar and punctuation problems.
Also, side note people, I'd like to thank you guys for not mentioning above problems in your reviews much. It really makes me think that you guys are really into this story, so much that your willing to not care about my failings in writing. So thank you. I promise I will do my best to improve on that, but hey I'm just a sixteen year old boy. Can't be expected to be a top notch writer at that age.