Chapter 30 Confusion

Beeping.

That was the first thing Jameson Locke recognized as he drifted out of unconsciousness.

Beep-Beep. Beep-Beep. Beep-Beep.

It took him a moment to recognize the sound of a heart monitor. He must be in an infirmary. How had he gotten hurt, though? It was hard to think. He felt so tired. It was probably whatever medication they had him on. Locke struggled to open his eyes.

The sight that greeted him was not the UNSC infirmary he had expected. The walls and the curtains blocking his view of the rest of the room were burgundy rather than gray, for starters. Also, all of the furniture had a more rounded, organic style as opposed to the utilitarian edges that human designs favored. They gave the space an uncomfortably alien atmosphere.

The only familiar parts of the room were the medical equipment. These were clearly based on human designs, from the heart monitor to the IV drip hung just to the side of his bed. Even the machines' control layouts were similar.

As his mind began to clear, Locke realized that he must be in a sangheili infirmary. He started to remember snippets of the battle he and the rest of Fireteam Osiris took part in. Allies or not, he didn't like the idea of being immobile in a sangheili installation. He moved to sit up.

"Whoa, easy there, Lead," a familiar voice said. Locke turned his head and saw Buck get off of a stool on the opposite side of the bed from the IV drip. He gently but firmly pushed Locke right back down onto the uncomfortably firm mattress. Locke felt a spike of annoyance at being treated this way, but found that his body just wasn't up to fighting back just then. He'd have to reprimand his subordinate later.

"Glad to see you back in the land of the living, sir," Buck continued.

Locke grunted in agreement. "How long was I out?" he asked.

"About a day and a half," Buck replied. "We've been watching you in shifts."

"Bullshit," Locke grunted. "Bet you all drew straws and you got the short one, am I right?" Locke was well aware of the low opinion the rest of his fireteam had for him. It was a continuous point of concern. Unfortunately, he had yet to think of a solution for this problem.

"Heh. You caught me," Buck chuckled obligingly. Locke wondered if his subordinate recognized that he'd only been half-joking.

Locke forced himself to focus. He wanted intel now. "So how'd I get here?" he asked.

"We got your distress signal," Buck replied, sitting back down. Locke was impressed that the sangheili had a seat capable of withstanding the bulk of a fully armored Spartan IV. Maybe their heavy troopers weighed more than he thought. Buck continued, "We found you unconscious in an alley. No sign of any hostiles. Vale managed to apply some emergency first aid that kept you stable until we could evac you. We flew you out on the first dropship and rushed you here for treatment. That about covers what we know. You remember anything from before we found you?"

The events of the end of his ill-fated mission rushed in on the injured Spartan. The plasma grenade. The sniper shots. The injury. Rushing to cover, only to find himself helpless before his assailant. Then...

The Master Chief.

The legendary Spartan II had appeared out of the smoke like a goddamn nightmare. He'd approached Locke, depolarized his visor...

The look in the Chief's eyes...

Locke shook himself. He tried to reason out what had happened. The leader of Blue Team had tried to kill him. That made sense; Locke was hunting them, after all.

What didn't make sense was why Locke was still alive.

The Master Chief had had Locke dead to rights. There were no obstructions, no distractions. Hell, it had practically been point blank range. Yet, right at the last moment, the Chief had simply...walked away.

What the hell was that about?

It was unthinkable that the legendary Spartan II would chicken out at the last minute. Yet, he had left without finishing the job. Why shoot Locke through the chest, potentially inflicting a fatal wound, only to leave without delivering a killshot?

Locke realized that Buck was still staring at him. He decided his course in a heartbeat. "I can't remember anything," he lied. "Everything's all...fuzzy."

Silence. Buck just stared at Locke with a contemplative expression. Did he not believe him? Locke wondered if he was losing his touch. That, or maybe Buck was a lot more perceptive than he had given him credit for.

"So," Locke said, trying to find something to change the subject. He decided on their current location. "I'm surprised the Arbiter's forces had the capability to treat humans. If nothing else, I would have thought human plasma would be in short supply," he said, gesturing to the IV drip of what he surmised was spare blood.

Buck stared at Locke for a second. The look left his face, the man apparently deciding that he wouldn't get anywhere here. He indulged Locke's inquiry, stating, "apparently the Arbiter kept some supplies handy in case he ever hosted human ambassadors or somethin'. Lucky our host's such a forward-thinkin' SOB."

That, or he wanted to accommodate his other Spartan guests, Locke thought darkly, careful to keep his face neutral.

It was a near-certainty that the Arbiter knew that Blue Team was on Sanghelios. He was the most likely party they would go to for aid. If nothing else, the fact that Locke was ambushed on a mission the Arbiter's forces had sent him on would be one hell of a coincidence.

If that was the case, though, why did the sangheili bother to treat Locke at all? They could have easily lied and said that they had no medical supplies compatible with human physiology. That, or they could have sabotaged his treatment in some other way and claimed inexperience with treating augmented humans was to blame. The Arbiter had effectively wasted the perfect opportunity to be rid of him.

First the Master Chief wasted a chance to kill him, now it turned out the Arbiter had as well. What the hell was going on?

Locke was getting frustrated. He needed answers, now more than ever.

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The drive back to the encampment felt quieter than the drive away from it had.

This was in spite of the fact that neither the Master Chief nor Blue Two had spoken in either voyage. They both kept quiet as statues as the scenery rushed past them. The surroundings were also silent, aside from the occasional echo of the Ghost's gravity drive and propulsion system.

Still, for some reason, it felt like a heavy silence had descended that wasn't there before.

The Master Chief sat in the modified Ghost's passenger seat. He had ordered Blue Two to take control when they first got back to the vehicle, after they had exfiltrated the Storm fortress.

After he had let Locke live.

A storm of confusion was still raging in the Chief's mind. Why had he done it? His enemy was on the ground, helpless before him. All he had to do was pull the trigger and a significant enemy would have been eliminated for good. They could have even attempted to ambush the rest of Fireteam Osiris as they left the warehouse.

Instead, he had done something he could not remember ever having done before:

He had hesitated.

He had hesitated, then run away.

The confusion was still dominating his thoughts when he noticed, belatedly, that Blue Two was bringing the vehicle to a stop.

They were in a narrow chasm of sandstone. The Chief couldn't remember having passed through it on the initial trip, meaning that Blue Two had deliberately taken them out of their way. His subordinate had parked the Ghost under an overhanging piece of rock; if a ship came by overhead, it would be fairly easy to duck out of sight. This suggested that Blue Two intended to remain here for a while.

This hypothesis was proven correct as the Spartan climbed out of the vehicle and walked a few meters off. The Chief exited the vehicle as well, careful to draw his weapon in case of hostiles.

His teammate had stopped and stood still, seeming to stare into space, for several minutes.

"Care to explain yourself, Blue Two?" the Chief demanded. This was a significant deviation from the plan.

Blue Two seemed to start at his words. She turned around and faced him, her body language showing clear disbelief.

"Explain myself?" she asked. Her tone was largely neutral, as usual, but her stance added an uncharacteristic degree of emotion to the sniper. "With all due respect, sir, I should be asking you that."

The Master Chief cocked his head. "Excuse me?" he asked in turn.

Blue Two shook her head in apparent exasperation. "Just what was this whole thing about?" she demanded. "I know it wasn't logical. You provided no counterpoint to my objections back at the camp. Not to mention your behavior during the mission itself. Do you even know why you did all this?"

That took the Chief off-guard.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "Fireteam Osiris is an imminent threat. We needed to take the shot at eliminating them."

"Then why didn't we finish the job?" Blue Two demanded. "I know you had him. I saw him on the ground before I fell back. Not to mention the fact that we left without even trying to eliminate the rest of the fireteam."

The Master Chief had to restrain himself from shrinking back. He had yet to find answers for these questions, himself. Still, he had to offer some kind of explanation.

"The mission went south," he offered weakly. "It made sense to pull out."

Blue Two's fists clenched at her side and she looked away for a moment. The Chief got the impression that, if she were a more expressive person, she would have thrown her hands into the air in frustration.

"You can't seriously believe that any of this was based on logic," she argued, turning back to him. "For God's sake, you wouldn't even let someone else take the shot. You literally ripped my weapon out of my hands and then dropped it on the roof so you could finish your target off up close and personal." She walked a bit closer to him. "Thanks for that, by the way. I had to grab it myself before scrambling out of there. Almost losing another weapon was exactly what I needed right now."

This was getting frustrating. Blue Two was growing dangerously close to insubordination.

"He's a threat, Blue Two," he insisted, angrily. "He's an ONI Agent. He's done their dirty work for years."

"So did we!"

The response was sudden and unexpected. Both in tone, and in content. It took the Chief a moment to even process what Linda had said.

"That's...that's different," the Chief insisted. "He knows better."

"Does he?" Linda demanded.

Now it was the Chief's turn to stare into the distance and think. She couldn't be serious. It was clear from what they had pieced together that Locke was involved with operations that the Spartans would never have taken part in. He had to be aware of ONI's true nature.

Didn't he?

Was it possible that their enemy was, also, in the dark as to the extent of ONI's true nature? Or was he deluded enough to think that his superiors would never sink as low as they, in reality, had done years ago? Could he be brought to see reason?

The Master Chief shook his head. Vehement disagreement rose from within him. This couldn't be right. He turned back to Linda.

"He's a threat!" he insisted.

"And betraying the trust of the Arbiter isn't?" she demanded. Her voice seemed to rise with each word she spoke. "Undermining the truce between humanity and the sangheili isn't? Almost getting us both killed isn't?!"

"He has to die!" the Chief shouted. "You can't tell me you don't know it too!"

Linda shook her head once again. "Do you even hear yourself? You're not thinking rationally. Believe me, I know how you feel, John!" Linda seemed to lose her way here. She was struggling to express what she was thinking. Finally, she shouted, "She was my mother too!"

This last shout stunned John into silence. His whole body froze up. Linda, too, seemed unable to move.

Several minutes passed in near-absolute silence. The only sounds were that of the wind blowing through the canyon.

Eventually, Blue Two moved back toward the Ghost, apparently deciding that nothing would be gained by further conversation. The Master Chief followed, once again climbing into the passenger seat.

The remainder of the ride back was the quietest the Chief had ever experienced.

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Kelly could tell something was wrong as soon as the Master Chief and Linda got back. Their postures were both...wrong. She couldn't quite figure out what they were feeling, but she knew it couldn't have been good.

"What happened?" Kelly asked.

The Chief stared at her from behind his polarized visor. He seemed to be at a loss for words.

"When I figure it out, I'll let you know."

So, pretty short chapter here. I had originally planned to include more but I decided that doing so would take too much attention away from the scene with John and Linda. I'll try to get the next chapter out quicker.

Thanks for reading. Love you guys.

Slipspace Anomaly