"When the program began, a junior staffer once asked me, why only seven squads were chosen from the initial intake. Surely it would make more sense to have an even number, and test both candidates and equipment with matching numbers on an equal footing. But this is war, and no battlefield is ever on an equal footing.
Besides, they're Spartans. They're used to being outnumbered."
- personal notes of Director Idris Carter, retrieved 2561.
Thirty five giants stood in the assembly hall beneath the armour gantry, wrapped in sleeve suits and standing to attention. Director Carter and Eric 239 stood before them. Behind them, a veritable army of drill masters, scientists, technical specialists and armour engineers stood ready.
"Candidates," Director Carter began, "Today marks a very special day for this Academy. A beginning, an auspicious opening chapter in what I will hope will be a long and storied history."
Director Carter paused. His eyes, deep and solemn, moved from candidate to candidate. They were each larger than him, stronger and more physically powerful, but the authority he projected was absolute. For their own part, the candidates were a diverse mix of cultures and backgrounds; men and women whose only shared characteristic was a singular defining drive to be the best. Damien stood shoulder to shoulder with the other members of Chimera, surrounded on both sides by the new inductees; all shorn-headed and strong. It felt strange, to be amongst so many people of a similar scale. For a fleeting moment he almost felt normal.
"But it is a history that only you and I will know. A tradition that will be carried forward quietly; without bravado, without fanfare. The work we will do here is fundamental to the ongoing security of our great civilisation, and because of its importance, the existence of this Academy - and others like it - will remain a secret, closely guarded."
Damien felt Carter's eyes upon him like a jolt. He looked at each of them in turn, seldom blinking. The director's voice was a strong baritone, deep and resonant.
"The people you defend will never know the full lengths you will go in order to protect them, appreciate the hardships you will endure. Understand the sacrifices you will make. But allow me to say this here and now: for as long as this Academy stands, your service - from this day until the end of days - shall never be forgotten. Make us proud."
The Director saluted. Thirty five hands snapped up in return. Carter turned smartly on his heel and made for the exit, a half dozen aides trailing in his wake.
Eric stepped forward, his cruelly scarred face focused and determined. He beckoned the candidates forward with a newly installed prosthetic arm.
"Billets have been assigned to you based on your fire team allocation. Five Spartans per team, seven teams within the initial program. Chimera, you've been here longer than the others, so you'll have to cut the others a little slack while they get settled in."
Eric smiled at Chimera knowingly. Damien could feel the air of hostility wash off the candidate to his immediate right, a goliath of a man whose neck was coated in Maori tribal tattoos.
Damien did his best not to frown. He could feel eyes flick in his direction.
Mounted on the far end of the training room was a large visual display, inset into the smooth-cut permacrete wall. On the screen was a series of names; Castle, Chimera, Jackal, Apex, Wolf, Trident, Platinum. Beneath each fire team heading were the individual names of each of the Spartans within the team, and a series of empty numbers. Eric pointed at it.
"The Combat Score. Individually assessed, with personal performance listed with deference to the overall team score. Accuracy, field work, squad cohesion. Individual excellence is encouraged. Individual excellence to the detriment of your wider squad is not. Questions?"
A hand went up. It was a handsome man, whose square jaw, clipped blonde hair and steely grey eyes seemed stolen from a movie poster. The fire team badge on his chest depicted the crest of Fireteam Platinum; a silver eagle clutching a BR-85 in its grasping talons. He wore a cocky smile on his face as he raised his hand. The tattoo on his neck was a Helljumper skull and cross bones, detailed in black ink. There was a sense of certainty to him, an arrogance bred from confident success.
"Spartan Keller." Eric nodded.
"What are we playing to win for, Sir?"
"Teams at the highest standing will be competing for their choice of assignment postings. Those at the very top will have their pick of the scenario conditions in the next simulation, priority selection over the ordinance selection and armour fittings. Even vehicle selection, in certain scenarios."
"And those at the bottom, Sir?" Damien asked.
"Those at the bottom will have to win the right to better themselves. And in doing so, avoiding guard duty, and other drum assignments. We don't encourage mediocrity here, as you are aware, Candidate."
Chase Keller caught Damien's eye. He still wore a smile on his face, but it was all mouth and no eyes.
"Any other questions?" Eric asked. "No? Good. Get rigged and prep for hard-light simulation. Time to see what you're made of."
"You isolated them."
Eric wheeled about. Rebecca was standing behind him in the corridor, doing her best not to get swept away in the bustling foot traffic moving through the corridor. The candidates had dispersed, moving to prep for the upcoming simulation.
"'Them', Doctor?"
"Chimera. Before your sent them into the combat scenario, you made a point of showing favouritism toward them. It set them out from the others. Raised them up, made them out to be a rival worth competing with."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Chimera aren't like the others. They're talented, there's no question of that. But we don't want them integrating, not too closely. Chimera were designed for independence in the field. If they start integrating, they lose that edge. The other fire-teams have bonded through three months of adverse selection and arduous augmentation. Chimera have not."
It was true. Even when loosely assembled, Chimera had stood apart from the others. Even Viktorya, aloof and the most overtly solitary of the squad, had huddled closer to her fire-team when the rest of the candidates had gathered around.
"Integration is inevitable. How do you propose to keep them isolated?"
"Simple. I'm going to make them believe they can't count on anybody but themselves."
Chimera moved through the swamp land, gliding silently down the still river like stalking crocodiles. Only their head and the muzzle of their weapon systems peaked out above the slimy, grimy water. Friendly radar signatures fanned out either side of them. East of their position, Fireteam Trident were advancing steadily, picking through the trees with practiced caution. Their point man was a seasoned scout by the name of Suraj, a former Gurkha, and a well practiced and a seasoned fighter. Fireteam Platinum, commanded by the decidedly self-assured Chase, were flanking west, encircling the A.O., an armoured bunker nestled in the treeline ahead. Damien had not caught sight of Platinum since the scenario commenced, and none of his attempts at opening a squad to squad line had been answered.
Visibility was down to fifty metres, on account of the thickness of the vegetation. Thick tubers snagged and tangled and tugged at their ankles, and the sun overhead dappled through the sweaty canopy of leaves and intertwining branches. Chimera moved up out of the river, hunkering low against the mossy bark of the trees. The air smelled of damp earth and wet leaves. The noise of the canopy; the chirping and chittering of insects, the whoop and return call of some colourful species of bird overhead, sounded louder than any crowded hallway in the Academy.
The view beyond the tree Chimera were hiding beneath wasn't a view at all. A thick latticework of twisting vines blocked visibility. Viktorya bellied her way through the muck, the streaking grime painting her soft blue armour a murky brown. The others hung back, awaiting her signal. She picked her way forward, carefully. That such an armoured figure could creep forward so silently was a testament to her skill. Damien moved out behind her. As squad leader, he would be second in line. Viktorya would be his eyes. As point man, the responsibility she carried for the group was a heavy burden. Their safety was often, quite literally, in her hands. For his part, Damien trusted her absolutely. There was nobody sharper in Chimera.
Viktorya reached the obscuring thicket ahead. She reached forward, drawing her knife and using it to prise a gap so she could peak through.
Gunfire split the air. Vines shredded and pulped. Torn leaves spat up in the air, as tracers zipped overhead and slapped into the muck. Hard rounds whickered into the bark, as a detonation of birds erupted from the canopy, fleeing from the commotion. Vikorya snarled, rolling backward as her shield system sparked and flared.
"Contact!" Rashid reported, raising his rifle and firing.
Something shrieked as it torn down through the canopy overhead. A sucking column of fire and muck erupted in front of Damien, lifting him off his feet and dumping him on his back with a clack. Burning clumps of dirt spattered across his faceplate as he scrambled onto his belly and clawed his way back to cover. The jungle all around him was on fire. He could taste blood in his mouth. The air stank of scorched wood. All around him, BR-85's and concerted DMR fire began to light up, popping and snapping. In the distance, the rattling whine of a mounted assault weapon began to clatter like a murderous sewing machine.
Luke emerged from the river behind them, water streaming off his armour. A second artillery round had thrown him back into the water. He looked absurdly clean compared to the rest of them.
"What'd I miss?!" he breathed, ducking down into cover beside Chidinma.
Damien's eyes glanced at the motion sensor. The area ahead was awash with red contacts. Maximum range, and even then that was with a boosted signal Rashid had beamed to his HUD. A single large blip represented the heavy field piece the defenders were using to deny Chimera's advance. Alien tech, plasma-based.
"They have range on this position." Damien exclaimed, "Spartans, spread out, clear the kill zone!"
Chimera split up, losing themselves in the jungle. Artillery fire was thundering down, throwing up great gouts of boiling muck. On the hilltop ahead sat an iridescent purple Type 26 Assault Gun Carriage, more commonly known as a Wraith Battle Tank. Its hover engine thrummed as it prepared to vomit another comet of blue plasma from its throat. Damien could see the sun glinting off red armoured shapes as they darted from cover to cover, staying low in the tangled foliage clinging to the hillside ahead. Damien could only make out the gun emplacements by the muzzle flash, licking out like darts of flame.
Fireteams Wolf and Castle had spread themselves out in front of the tank, a classic infantry screen. The terrain ahead was a steep climb, and their movements were masked by the thick canopy bearding the hillside. By contrast, the vegetation three hundred metres ahead of Chimera had been flattened by the weight of fire being thrown down by the defending force. Where once there had been lush canopy, the sun now beat down freely upon a charred hellscape, where blackened tree stumps poked up from the ruined earth like spindly grave posts. Or frozen hands on a corpse. Wolf and Castle held an elevated position, with superior lines of fire and pre-sighted weapon emplacements. A direct assault was tantamount to suicide, madness by any description.
Which is why Chimera went for it anyway.
"Two, Five; attack spread, with me! Three and Four, covering fire!"
Damien rose out of cover, bounding forward. Luke and Viktorya joined him. They spread out, each taking a different running line toward the waiting emplacements. A mounted machine gun began blazing in Damien's direction, hard rounds ripping up tufts of spitting dirt as they arced toward him. Damien threw himself in a smouldering pit carved into the middle of No Man's Land by a plasma shell, pressing himself flat as the bullets danced across the lip of the crater.
"Anytime now, Chidi!"
There was resounding thump from behind him, the kind of rib-shaking crack only an anti-material rifle can make. The machine gun fell abruptly silent.
"You're clear, One." Chidinma reported, re-sighting and firing again.
Damien bolted out of the crater, exploding into a full sprint. Damien was fast, faster than any human sprinter could be. But even he had his limits. Two other machine gun nests opened up. He took a round to the chest, lost his footing. He fell, caught out in the open. Damien rolled behind the mangled ruin of a tree bole, which was promptly pulped by the incoming fire. He hunkered lower, doing his best to ignore the keening bleat of his suit's warning system in his ears. He could see Luke's ident signature. He too was doing his best to become one with the mangled terrain.
"Five, One. I'm suppressed - sit rep?"
"Pinned down about two hundred metres east of your position, Chief." Luke replied, sounding positively cheerful, despite the chatter of gunfire in the background, "Remind me again why I signed up for this?"
"We'll put your can-do attitude to good use, Five. Four, this is One; I need some concealment here."
Rashid came back over the com.
"Already on it, One; popping smoke just ahead of you. Give it a second to settle."
Rashid rose from his concealed position at the edge of the surviving tree-line, a grenade launcher in his hands. He thumped a grenade out over No Man's Land. He cracked the breach of the launcher, and slapped a second grenade home, before pumping that out too. The smoke canisters tumbled onto the ground just ahead of Damien's position. The smoke shells began to hiss as they vented smoke up in great, twisting arcs. The wind carried it upward, slowly, steadily blocking the bunker from view. Damien half rose behind the ruined tree stump, watching as three more smoke shells fell down across the clearing. With a metallic pop, they too began venting smoke. The suppressive fire set down by the defending emplacements became hesitant, then silenced altogether. The air grew watchful and wary.
"Chimera, prepare to advance."
The entire horizon was just a great churning wall of white smoke.
"Move!"
They sprinted forward. At a full pace, the five members of Chimera stormed through the sifting smoke, armoured boots churning muck and stomping twigs. Damien primed a grenade as he charged forward, hurling it blindly toward the hillside ahead. He heard the dull crump as it detonated, but had no idea whether he'd hit anything or not. The ground beneath his feet became steeper, and the trees segued from scorched matchsticks to bullet-chipped trees once more. Chimera had crossed No Man's Land against all odds.
Now the uphill battle began.
The fight moved into its second phase, one defined by close range snap-shooting as the Spartans belly-crawled forward, hugging the earth as the defenders rose to meet them. Jungle fighting is a bitter, frenzied experience. You fire at snatch-glimpses of the enemy, and put round after round into areas where you think the enemy should be, rather than where you know they are. Even with their sensor suites and advanced targeting optics, the battlefield of the 26th was no different. Luke rucked in behind a brace of two interwoven trees, his assault rifle blazing in short, controlled bursts. His fire was more to keep the enemy's heads down, rather than actually hit anything. He loosed off a frag for a good measure, ducking down as a scraps of shredded foliage rained down overhead. Return fire snapped past, causing his shields to buzz as the rounds skimmed by.
Chimera's approach from the base of the hillside was beneath the effective deployment elevation of the defender's gun emplacements. The Wraith too was forced to rely on its pintle-mounted plasma turret, which fizzled and spat hundreds of plasma bolts down toward them. Whole sections of the jungle caught fire. Rashid thumped a grenade up toward the top of the hill, then took a moment to dial his sensor suite back to track electromagnetic signatures, rather than movement or heat. In this mess, there was too much of either.
Grenades filled the air, exchanging hands between attackers and defenders with manic speed. Shrapnel sliced into the outer skin of Damien's armour, embedding itself in the plating covering his fore-arms like a thousand tiny pricking needles. Still he advanced, his rifle kicking in his hands as he returned fire. Viktorya moved up beside him, the harsh bark of her DMR a stark contrast with the rattling spit of his BR-85. Damien smoothly reloaded, banging a fresh magazine against his shoulder pauldron to clear the loading assembly of grit before clicking the magazine home. Confirming kills didn't matter to Damien, not yet. Combat footage playback would allow bragging rights later.
If there was a later.
One of the enemy Spartans appeared at the top of the hill in front of him. Frustrated with the confining angle of his assault weapon's tripod, the hostile Spartan had torn the machine gun free from its hinges, and was using it to engage Chimera directly. Trees splintered and collapsed as the rotary cannon licked a cone of fire down the hillside, shredding everything in its path. Damien had no more cover; the trees around him had simply vanished in tufts of bark. Fear and self doubt lanced into his belly, causing the hairs on his neck to prickle against the sealed neckguard of his suit. He was caught out in the open. There was nowhere to go, no divot or crater to leap into this time. The rotary cannon angled toward him. The enemy Spartan's finger hovered over the firing stud. The weapon would cycle up, and then he would be dead. For all their courage, Chimera would be cut to shreds, exposed and alone in a bloody, fruitless charge.
From seemingly out of nowhere, a blue armoured figure emerged from the thicket and landed on the red Spartan's back. A wicked looking khukuri blade sunk into the surprised man's throat. The assault weapon tumbled from his hands. The newcomer, Suraj, ripped the khukuri free and cast the dead Spartan aside. He raised up a hand, beckoning to somebody unseen in the tree line. Other blue armoured figures, their idents a strong green on the tactical grid, stormed in from a position parallel to the defenders on the eastern side of the hill. The defenders turned to respond, but their line had been spread out to deny Chimera's audacious assault. They were not disposed for a fight on equal footing. Trident had been delayed, favouring to skirt the edge of the clearing rather than opt on a direct assault. Their patience had paid off.
Catching the defenders off-balance, Trident cut deep into the eastern flank, turning the defensive line in upon itself.
One of Trident was larger than any of the other Spartans. He had appropriated one of the silenced weapon emplacements from its fallen operators, and had turned it on its former owners with ruthless abandon. The cannon licked out sheets of flame once more; this time against Chimera's enemies. Two of the defending Spartans jinked and danced as their armour split apart and tore open. The giant advanced steadily, the cannon thundering in his hands. He roared a challenge, the sound distorted and made terrifyingly mechanical through the filter of his helmet speakers.
In the distance, the Wraith exploded. Two more members of Trident emerged from the brush, one of them hefting a shoulder-mounted missile launcher.
The weight of fire raining down on Chimera had disappeared entirely. The defenders, so caught up with the marauding fire team biting into their flank, had forgotten about Chimera's push entirely. Damien saw the opportunity and seized it.
"Advance, Chimera!" he yelled into the squad channel, "Into them!"
Chimera roared a battle cry of their own, and clawed their way up the hill, weapons free and spitting. Damien closed on one of the defenders, who was struggling with choosing between dealing with the enemy gleefully dismantling their defensive line from the flank, or the encroaching charge from the base of the hill. Damien didn't give him a moment to decide. He planted three solid bursts through the man's visor. The man toppled, boneless; a clean kill. Rashid made Chimera's second kill, planting a smoke grenade square into a man's chest, before closing in with the butt of the launcher itself. The weapon dented as he smashed it into the winded Spartan's throat. Luke bellowed a challenge as he crashed through the undergrowth, the shotgun in his hands thundering as it blew one of the defenders clear off a jammed machine gun.
As the melee drew to a close, the jungle continued to shriek and squawk and bleat, as a thousand animals reacted to the violence with a frenzied cacophony of their own.
For a blessed moment, the gunfire fell silent. The only sound was rush of the wind through the trees, and the hum of shield systems restoring themselves, as the attackers' armour recovered from the mayhem. Gun smoke twisted upward into the bright morning sky.
Chimera met Trident at the summit of the smouldering hill. Both teams were coated in soot and fried, spattered flecks of burnt foliage. They nodded at one another in greeting. A good battle, well fought.
Trident's giant lowered his cannon, its barrel glowing red hot. The man's armour was pitted and cracked from where bullets had spanked off the metal. One of his shoulder pauldrons had been torn clean off by a stray round. The golden trident on his remaining shoulder badge had a name beneath it: Aata.
"You fight well, Chimera." the hulking Maori said.
"Likewise." Damien clapped him on the arm, and moved past to greet Trident's leader, a more standard sized Spartan by the name of Loic. Loic approached him with a casual salute. Damien had only known him from the initial briefing. Frenchman, ex-ODST, recently augmented. A solid fighter, all told.
"You have my thanks, Damien. You have balls, as they say."
"They wouldn't be saying that for much longer if you hadn't shown up, Trident One. Appreciate the assist."
Loic nodded, then indicated to the north, where Red Team had initially dispersed from.
"They will be regrouping soon. Trident will hold the surface. The bunker is yours to take, my friend."
Only it wasn't. Chimera discovered this once they ducked inside; helmet flashlights piercing the shadowy gloom of the bunker's interior. It had already been cleared. It was an abattoir. A scattered pile of red-armoured bodies lay strewn across the rough stone floor of the permacrete bunker. Knife wounds, clean and precise. The prize, Red Team's flag, was missing from its plinth.
"Damien, we've got company." Rashid's voice announced over the com. He had boosted his system's sensor suite to account for the thickness of the bunker walls. New radar contacts had become apparent. It was Red Team, regrouped and charging en masse. Alone against three revenge-set fire teams, Trident's tenuous position topside would be overwhelmed.
"Upstairs, now!"
Suddenly, the bunker vanished. The smell of scorched earth was gone, and the sounds in his ears too. The deck around him was smooth metal. He was suspended in a frame not unlike the Armour Assistant. The jungle was naught but a vivid memory.
He had been in a battle; a vivid, visceral, jaw-rattling battle. He could still feel the grime on his armour. The simulators were powerful tools, well capable of confounding his advanced senses. The restraints holding his arms aloft popped open with a clack. He stepped down onto the cold metal deck. Damien could still feel every bruise and bump covering his skin. His armour was spotlessly clean though, as pristine as it had been when mounted this morning. He shook himself, running a hand along the guardrail lining the walkway. Reminding himself what was real.
He glanced up at the combat scores displayed on the wide-screen projector mounted on the wall of the chamber. Out of the six teams participating in the exercise, Chimera had placed third, shortly behind Trident, whose impressive flanking effort had won them the second highest position on the board.
"Strange isn't it?" a voice said. It was Loic, who had doffed his helmet and approached Damien's Simulation Frame. He was Earth-born, a hard eyed Frenchman of Algerian descent, with tanned skin and a gaunt face. "To have fought so hard, only to come second place."
Damien looked over to where Loic was pointing.
Fireteam Platinum topped the board. It had been a flawless performance, with a perfect score to prove it. They had infiltrated the bunker, secured the objective and eliminated Fireteam Jackal without alerting the defenders above. No casualties. Chimera and Trident's assault had been all the distraction they needed. Chimera and Trident's had been an impressive assault, certainly, and a textbook counter ambush by anyone's measure, but success in this scenario had predicated on the timely extraction of the enemy flag. In this endeavour, Platinum had used their attack entirely to its own advantage. Their combat score reflected this.
Damien could feel somebody looking at him.
He looked over. It was Platinum One, the candidate known as Chase Keller. Outside of the simulation, his Pathfinder armour was dressed in the uniform pearlescent white shared amongst all members of Fireteam Platinum. Even hidden by a golden visor, Damien could tell Chase was watching him. Waiting to see how he'd react, knowing that he'd use them in such a fashion. The man's ambition was palpable. Damien turned his back on him, removing his helmet and smiling at Loic. He'd be damned if he gave him the satisfaction.
"There will be other battles." Damien shrugged.
"And doubtless fights where we are not all on the same side." Loic replied, extending his hand. "Chimera fight with fury. I look forward to the day when you stand at our side, and the fight is real."
Damien shook it. He could still feel Chase's eyes burning two small holes in the back of his helmet.
"It never hurts to have friends."