2554
Author's note: This chapter takes place during the book New Blood. Part of it is actually the text from New Blood.
The front of the place still bore bullet holes and plasma scars. They kind of added to its charm. At least they'd cleaned up the blood.
The inside looked like someone had gutted it from stem to stern and then gotten bored with the refurb and just started tossing tables and stools into it until it felt more like a bar. The place stood empty except for a couple of retired fishers who were old enough to prefer talking about the sea to actually being on it. I didn't recognize the bartender, but that wasn't any surprise either.
After a bit of chitchat, I started in on a bottle of some local-made baijiu. I didn't have any plans to stop.
I was half way through my drink when Sarah sat herself down in the seat beside me. She didn't say anything, or really make any sign she was aware that I was beside her, so I ignored her as well. The bartender approached and set a drink down in front of her without comment and giving her a charming smile. I couldn't help but feel jealous. Not because he was flirting with her, but because her drink was free and also a higher quality alcohol than my own.
"Must be desperate," I couldn't help but mutter. Maybe I just didn't care, but I didn't bother to hold back my annoyance at the person beside me. Maybe I'm not as above the ODST tradition of hating Spartans as I want to be.
"You're only insulting yourself." Sarah's words startled me and I tried my hardest not to look surprised. I didn't know she'd heard me and I probably wouldn't have been as brave in insulting a Spartan if I did. "If he's desperate, so were you."
"That was completely different." Which wasn't really true, as the situation was a lot like what happened eight years ago. The lie was that I'd been desperate. Even after all these years Sarah still looked like that ODST I'd pulled out of the fire - almost as though the war hadn't touched her. But I knew better than to think any ODST could have gotten out of the war unaffected. "What are you doing here anyway?"
"I'm here to pay your tab while you get plastered." Sarah took a swig of her drink, and to her credit she didn't seem to notice how bad it was. "So order whatever you think will get you wasted the fastest."
"If you're looking for a repeat of eight years ago, I'm in a committed relationship now." She laughed in response and I couldn't help but be offended. I still remembered our encounter, and her being content at the end of the night. "You weren't laughing back then." I'm not proud of snapping at her, but I'm not above pride.
"I also wasn't a Spartan back then." She calmed her laughter and was grinning like I should have expected. She may have been a Spartan, but from how much pleasure she took from my discomfort she was clearly still an ODST. "Back then I couldn't crush your bones with one hand. If we repeated that night's events now, you'd be dead."
I wasn't sure if she was making a threat or not. I mean with Jun I could tell when the man was serious, but with Sarah I couldn't stop seeing her as an ODST, which made her harder to read. "Well if you aren't interested in screwing me, I know you aren't here simply to get me drunk."
"Well I might be here for more than just helping you drown whatever sorrows you have. I might be here because Jun told me that you turned down the offer to become a Spartan."
"So you came to take a crack at it." I couldn't understand why she thought she could convince me when Jun couldn't. Then again I didn't really know Sarah well enough to know what she was capable of at that point. It was sort of stupid of me to still think of the Spartan who had saved my rear as the ODST I'd saved years before...but we all make mistakes. "Do you know why I said no?"
"Yeah." Sarah had a cocky smile on her face and I wasn't sure if it was because she was actually confident, or just part of the posturing ODST made a habit of. "If there's one thing I know about you, Buck, it's that you're a loyal man. You don't abandon your soldiers." I knew that she wasn't only talking about my current team. "They're starting up a second class of Spartan-IVs. And lucky for you the first class surpassed expectations so the second class has been allotted a bigger budget. One big enough for you, your rocket jockey, and your pain-in-the-ass marksman."
"What about Dutch?"
"His heart isn't with the UNSC anymore. It's with his wife, and she's not a soldier."
She was right, and it made me wonder about myself for a moment. I wasn't married to Veronica, but I loved her like I'd never loved anyone before.
I needed to tell her that.
I'd considered what life after the war would be like with her. A reasonable apartment on Mars? Maybe a ranch in Draco III? A house filled with a child's laughter?
But those were all just daydreams I indulged in when things were quiet. The thing was that Veronica was doing work she was proud of and was doing good for humanity - even if my security clearance wasn't high enough to know what that entailed exactly. And I liked to think I was doing some good myself too.
Maybe one day we'd settle down. Make a new life. Stop just trying to protect what we had now that survived the war...but not today. I didn't have a right to make that choice alone anyway.
"Would they have taken the Rookie?" It didn't matter now, but I couldn't help but ask.
Sarah gave me a look that told me I shouldn't ask questions like that. Every ODST comes to a point where they get that look from a fellow trooper. It's always because someone's dead. Still she indulged my question, answering in a classic ODST way. Knocking me down a peg. "What makes you think he wasn't already being considered without you?"
I don't really know what answer I had been hoping for, but Sarah gave me the right one. I still planned on hiding away in the bottle in my hand but I did feel better. I'd have to be careful not to overindulge though, or I might end up in a motel room with Sarah. I certainly didn't want to do that to Veronica, but few things helped the grieving process like getting drunk.
"Mind if I make my own...argument?" Sarah had dropped the cocky demeanor, either having realized she'd appropriately countered my objection to becoming a Spartan or she was genuinely serious. I nodded, giving her permission to continue, curious as to what she wanted to say.
There's a certain tone an ODST uses when they want another ODST to know that they're absolutely serious. I didn't need to have ever heard it from Sarah before to recognize it. "At this moment I could break your neck with a flick of my wrist before you'd even realized I'd moved. That's a lot of power for one person to have. Super strength, speed, sight, hearing, and healing. In comic books the good guy gets these powers and rise to the responsibility, or fall and become a villain. But what if you get to decide who gets the powers, not leave it up to fate? You'd be damn sure that your super-humans would be heroes, not villains."
"What does this have to do with me?"
"You'd be a hero, Buck. You'd be a hero that others could follow and learn from. What I'm saying is the Spartans need people like you."
"Why would they need me? They've got you."
"According to the Captain I've got an attitude problem." Sarah scowled, and I couldn't help but smile. It was one of those grouchy-old-man scowls, but Palmer still looked so young that it was out of place. "It's why I avoid interacting with him. Well that, and the fact that the Commander is cute and far better at making conversation."
"Is he a Spartan?"
"No, but unlike a certain ODST I know of the Commander is far more...commanding." I laughed and it felt good. When someone dies on your team there's a span of time it feels like laughing is wrong to do no matter the reason. The time is different for each person, but when you get past it, get that first laugh, it's like everything settles and you can look forward to the future again. "So what do I tell Jun?" Sarah asked.
"There's someone I need to talk to before I decide." I needed to speak to Veronica about all this and get where she stood before I could really give an answer.
"I'm not looking for a 'yes' or 'no' right now. Just a 'make the offer' or 'go to Hell'."
"Make the offer," I told her as I raised my bottle. She lifted hers, and we knocked them together and downed what was left.