THREE; I CAN HEAR YOUR SMILE.
"Come with me."
Vance didn't move for a moment, still in awe of the Spartan who was the whole reason he had even wanted to join up. When the Master Chief looked like he was about to get annoyed, though, Spartan Vance finally nodded his agreement and followed.
"I have been ordered to bring you to a very important person. She is technically a civilian, but I will not stand for any disrespect. Do you hear?"
"Yes, sir," Vance said. Though he now technically outranked the Chief, he knew he would never be the older man's equal. Ever. SPARTAN-117's deeds were legendary.
"Good. Without her, the Spartan Program would never have been started, much less completed. I would not exist, and you would not exist. We would have lost the war against the Covenant in very short order – humanity would therefore not exist. This woman has single-handedly, albeit indirectly, saved the entire human race. She is not a person you ever tell no."
"Yes, sir." Vance thought he knew who it was he was being taken to see, but he wasn't going to form any expectations.
"She will have an assignment for you, which you will accept, regardless of what you may think on the matter."
"Yes, sir. Understood, sir."
The Chief stopped outside a door. Vance thought it would be a good idea to do the same, and when the sound of his boots against the floor faded away into silence, the Master Chief rapped sharply on said-same door.
"Enter," a female voice said from the other side. An older woman, not exactly elderly but not young either. Consistent with what Haydn expected, if he was right.
The Chief tilted his head towards the door, a clear and overt signal to get the hell through before someone had to get rough. Vance glanced at his boots briefly, nervous, and then did as he was told. As he had come to expect, the door slid open at a light touch in the right place, and he stepped through.
"Spartan Haydn Vance reporting as ordered, ma'am," he barked, snapping a smart salute.
"At ease, Spartan Vance." The woman spoke with a kind of familiarity that already had Haydn feeling like he had known her his entire life. Perhaps he had.
"Doctor Halsey," he stated.
"Indeed. I am surprised you know who I am by sight. We have never met, and I lead a fairly private life." Halsey smiled at him, a familiar smile. "Sit, sit. Tea?"
"Um." Haydn preferred coffee, but if it wasn't offered, he didn't like to ask. "Please."
"Haydn – do you mind if I call you Haydn? – I'm sure you already know I have an assignment for you." Halsey spoke and poured tea at the same time, a knowing look on her face. Haydn had the distinct impression she knew he wanted coffee, though how she knew, he had no idea.
"Not at all, ma'am, not at all. I do know, yes."
"Please. Catherine."
"Catherine, then." Vance hadn't actually known Halsey's first name until just then. Somehow he wasn't surprised. It suited her. It suited her in a more subtle way than Spartan Ellen Cross's name suited her – Cross was a cranky, bitchy type, naturally, and had to work to rein that in – but Halsey was definitely a Catherine all the same. Any other name simply would not suit her.
"I'm sure you're curious about your new assignment, but first I must beg you to humor me a while. How do you like your tea?"
"Uhhh. I don't normally drink tea. Cream, no sugar, I guess?" Haydn wasn't really sure what to make of tea in and of itself, and much less that Halsey had offered it to him and 'removed' the option of coffee. It felt like some sort of test.
"A creature of habit, I see. You like your coffee white with no sugar."
It was a test. Haydn smiled to himself, just a small smile, a secret smile. He was quite quickly becoming comfortable around Halsey. "I suppose I am. I'd wager you already know more about me than I do about myself."
Halsey smiled, showing a row of surprisingly perfect, bright white teeth. "I wouldn't be so sure about that. There are a lot of things I don't know about you."
Vance had no idea what this was all about, and just wanted to be given his assignment. While Catherine Halsey wasn't so bad, she was a civilian, and he was supposed to be taking orders from her. It would be easier to do that if she didn't seem so civilian. "Like what?"
He wasn't so sure asking that was a great idea, but the words slipped out before he could stop them.
"Like, do you sleep on your side, your back, or your front? Do you prefer the top or bottom bunk? Closest to or farthest from the door, or somewhere in between? Is the first thing you do in the morning to brew coffee, or do you eat first? Do you shower in under two minutes as per regulations, or do you bend the rules a little bit? It's amazing how much that information can tell you about a person and how they're likely to react."
"People are creatures of habit, and entirely predictable," Haydn agreed. "Just a matter of knowing a few little details."
"People are fascinating. I can't tell you how many times I've been surprised by Spartans, but I have never yet met a 'normal' human who surprises me. I'm still not quite sure what to make of your generation, you know. You're somewhere between what I'm used to… and normal. My Twos don't show emotion and do their best not to feel it. You've met the Master Chief. He is pretty much that trait incarnate. But you – you are professional, but sensitive and understanding of civilians at the same time. Your generation understands people. My Twos don't realize how hard they try not to."
"Twos, plural? There are more of them?"
"More than just the one most people know as 117, Master Chief, et cetera et cetera? Of course. Thirty-three of them made it to combat deployment. There were of course more in the beginning. My, you are perceptive."
"And now?"
"The Master Chief is the only one still considered to be in 'active duty'. I have full knowledge on the location of two others, and Gray Team is floating in space somewhere, aboard the Spirit of Fire. I have it on good authority that they are alive. Frozen, but alive."
"With respect, Catherine," Vance said, the name feeling odd in his mouth after being conditioned to call people he respected 'sir' or 'ma'am', "I don't see what this has to do with any assignment…"
"Everything and nothing, Haydn. Everything and nothing. When you understand what I mean by that, you will understand. Now, to business. Firstly, thank you for humoring me. You will find what you learned today most useful in the future."
"Yes, ma'am." Vance stopped himself a moment too late, then cracked a mock-guilty smile.
"I feel like I'm a thousand years old when you call me that," Halsey said good-naturedly. "Most military people call me Doctor, if you'd rather that to my name."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"Your assignment… I hope the Chief warned you. You may not like this. I want you, and only you, to accompany me to a planet we never officially colonized. This planet is known as Haven. You have been there."
"Yes, ma'am. It was glassed in 2548, but the underground infrastructure is and was so deep and so extensive that many people survived the glassing and they have been living underground ever since."
"It is also where Spartan Martha Slover fell several miles to her death. I need to explore that specific chute in detail. I know she was your friend… can you handle it?"
"Yes, Doctor. I always carry out my orders." Vance wasn't sure if he would be able to do this, but the Chief had said there was no refusing Halsey, and the last thing he wanted was to be forced to go on leave.
"It's not the orders I'm worried about," Halsey told him.
-MEANWHILE-
John had six Marines – all of them large and muscular – hanging off his legs. The hangar truss cum chinup bar was groaning under the weight.
"Ninety-eight… ninety-nine… one hundred," he puffed. He was unfit, compared to his best. He could do better than this.
"All right, everybody off!" one Marine barked, and they all let go at once. That was actually more of a slip risk to John's fingers than the weight of all of them plus himself, but he stayed hanging off the bar for a moment longer before dropping to the ground, knees bent to absorb the impact, small though it was. From a crouched position he dropped to lie flat on his stomach on the floor, then got his left hand in underneath him. He reached behind his back with his right hand and grabbed a fistful of his own shirt, and started doing one-handed pushups. Two Marines came over to sit on his back and a third soon joined them, sitting on his legs.
"Thanks again," John said, his voice a bit gruffer than usual from the exertion. Damn it, but he was so unfit.
"No problem, buddy. Always happy to help," the heaviest one – a three-hundred-and-some pound, six-foot-eight, bodybuilder type Sergeant – said cheerfully.
"Can't believe you haven't broken a sweat yet," one of the men sitting watching him commented. "I'd be drenched if I even tried to do that much time on a treadmill… Much less the strength stuff."
John puffed out a short laugh. "I'm a Spartan. I'm actually – really unfit – compared to my best."
"No you're not," the Sergeant said. "You're not breathing properly, is all. All the top of your chest, no diaphragm. So you get out of breath faster."
With a genuine, though subtle, jolt of surprise, John realized the man was right. He had picked up some bad habits over the years. The relief he felt at the fact that he wasn't just slowing down was ridiculous. He really wasn't that old. Not with cryo-time considered. He concentrated on taking some deeper breaths, using his whole lung capacity, expanding his whole chest, and immediately felt like he could sprint a marathon on top of what he had already done.
"Thanks," he grunted, switching hands more because he had completed the amount of repetition he allotted for his daily workout than because his arm was getting tired. "Worked like a charm."
"Even us old farts need a bit of a reminder to breathe now and then," the Sarge said, laughing. "Need to get you some proper weights, huh?"
"And a tougher treadmill. That one will probably only last another week." John cracked a rare smile. "A sparring partner would be nice, too, but I think that's too much to ask."
"You'd kill one of us," a Private commented. "What about one of them younger Spartans? The Fours?"
John shrugged with the one shoulder he didn't have weight on. "Their team leaders have control of their workouts. I have asked. I'm hoping Doctor Halsey clears one of the two other Spartans from my generation we have here. Soon."
He had briefly spoken with Kelly and Linda since discovering they were both alive and onboard the Infinity, but the only 'spare' hours he had that he didn't fill with eating and sleeping and showering and important things like that, he filled with these workouts. That didn't leave much time over for idle chatter with old friends. John would not get to properly catch up with his sisters in arms until after they both were cleared to return to a full training load. If that ever happened. Halsey was being incredibly paranoid with the both of them.
John had to assume something big had gone down without him. Oddly, he felt a brief pang of jealousy, before he reminded himself that something huge had gone down without Kelly or Linda. Two Halo rings, the Flood, a Gravemind, the Ark, the end of one war, the start of another, alliances made and tested… he had been there for all of that. He had in fact been instrumental in much of it.
He just wasn't used to being left out of things.
John sighed and pulled himself out of his thoughts, completing his pushups and gently dumping the Marines onto the floor before moving onto one of the gym machines. He would have to do literally thousands of situps to work his abdominal muscles sufficiently without these machines. He double checked that they were all laden with the maximum weights load and then got into position on the machine he wanted to use. Again, unbidden, a pair of Marines added their weight to the mix, taking the total weight to nearly nine hundred pounds. This was roughly equivalent to working in almost triple Earth gravity… unfortunately he wasn't allowed in the hypergravity chamber until he could provide the right people with the right plans and reasonings and with only one of him, he couldn't do that.
"Master Chief?" Spartan Ellen Cross was in full armor, and shoved one of the Marines out the way, adding her own weight – plus armor weight – and effectively stopping John's workout until she got off. He hadn't warmed up enough for that much weight yet, and would pull something if he was stupid about it.
"You're looking for Spartan Haydn Vance," John said.
"Yes."
"I can't help you. I delivered him to Doctor Halsey, and was dismissed. They should be finished by now, and I guarantee the Doctor will not tell you what she wanted of him, so don't bother."
"The team needs him."
"Tough." John wasn't normally such an ass about team relations, but Cross was in the way, and he didn't like it when people interrupted his workouts. Especially people like Cross who had nothing better to do than be annoying. "Like I said, I can't help you. Vance has orders, which I am not privy to, and even if I was, it wouldn't be my place to share them."
Cross huffed an irritated sigh and got off the weights. The Marine she had displaced reclaimed his spot and John went back to his workout, completely ignoring the younger Spartan until she went away.
-MEANWHILE-
"I know Cross is looking for me." Vance sighed. "I have orders."
"I know that," the Marine said, nothing but sympathy in his voice and body language despite a determinedly blank expression on his face. "But she sort of has a way of shooting the messenger… you know her, you know what I mean."
Haydn stopped packing supplies and turned to face the Marine. "I really am sorry. But there's no refusing Halsey. I had that made more than clear to me before I was given my orders."
"Ok then, but if you hear of a brutal murder… be guilty."
Barking out a laugh, he went back to work. Cross might have been a bit of a bitch at times, but she wasn't violent. Not with allies, at least.
This kind of menial physical work was boring, but it took his mind off Martha, so Haydn welcomed it, throwing himself into the task with gusto. Unfortunately that meant that the work would be finished soon, but on the other hand, the sooner it was done, the sooner Halsey would get him off the Infinity and doing something more useful with himself than training, training, and more training.
Vance was combat fit and more than ready, but the team hadn't been sent out in a while. Not since Operation Eye of the Storm. A few other teams had – Crimson, Majestic, even Gallant – but not Grimm. Cross liked to say that meant HIGHCOM had nothing fitting for those of the highest caliber, implying that no team could hold a candle to Grimm. Holden was probably more accurate in saying that it was a matter of having any missions befitting Spartans. Perhaps most accurately, Ware was convinced it was due to Vance's less-than-perfect scores on training exercises lately. He was dragging down the whole team.
This mission would do him good… even if it did re-open the wounds. Sometimes an old wound needed to be opened and scrubbed before it could heal properly. Or at least, so Martha used to say.
"Damn it, stop thinking about her," he growled to himself, slamming down a crate full of Warthog parts just in case there was someone nearby.
He wasn't naïve enough to think that this mission wasn't a test. It absolutely was. Halsey could read Spartans, but she couldn't hide from them. Haydn Vance knew that the Doctor was concerned about his mental health. That was why she had chosen him in particular over someone who was consistently scoring well. And him in particular, because this would be a far bigger test for him than it would for anyone else.
Vance put the last crate into its place, then moved about the Pelican, securing everything. Some of the crates only needed to be clipped into place, others needed to be tied. He tied those with knots that would not accidentally come undone under any circumstance, but could not physically be over-tightened. They were not easy knots to tie and the only people who bothered to even try were Spartans – there was no mistaking who had packed this Pelican.
He thumbed the comm unit in his right ear, knowing it would connect directly to Halsey unless he specifically tuned it to one of the other frequencies. "Doctor Halsey, this is Spartan Vance. The supplies are packed and ready."
"Confirmed, Vance. I'm on my way."
"Yes, ma'am." Vance pulled the comm unit free from his ear and slipped it into the tactical hardcase on his left thigh, then fetched his helmet from where he had left it to 'claim' a seat. He had where he liked to sit and through force of habit, always marked 'his' seat on the Pelican using his helmet. Even if he was only sharing with one, maybe two people, he still marked his seat.
Putting on his helmet, he settled in to wait. Depending on where exactly Halsey was onboard the Infinity, he could be waiting anywhere from five minutes to half an hour.
AN: If anyone's getting bored with the lack of combat, let me know... I'm having way too much fun exploring how John fits in on the UNSC Infinity and Vance's internal voice is fascinating to me.
As always if you see a continuity error, spelling error, grammar mistake etc let me know. Please review!
Halo, canon characters and canon concepts belong to 343 Industries. OC's and this story are mine.