Chapter LXXIV: Doesn't Really Make Sense

September 1, 2542 (UNSC Calendar)/two months later

UNSC Inconvenience, in orbit above Emerald Cove, Caribe System

"Why are you even complaining?" Agnarsson asked Lamberti. "We're going down to a tropical paradise."

"I'm just saying," the Italian replied, "I prefer to have air conditioning in my room."

"I'm pretty sure you'll get air conditioning down there," Pavel said as he heaved his bag into the bay of the pelican. "Besides, the rooms down there are the same as up here, they're built under the same specifications. Ain't that right Frankie?"

"Shut up," I said. The rooms being the same in a base and in a ship had cost me a couple hundred credits in a bet I made against Pavel. It had been my fault for betting so much on such a stupid thing. "Everyone ready?" I asked.

"We're good sarge," Sutton said with his deep, booming voice. "At least the males in the squad," he added.

"I see," I said, getting through the fact that I understood what he had said. "Where's Seppa by the way?" I asked.

"Girls always take longer to get ready sarge," Konstantinov said with a shrug. "She'll probably be here in a few minutes carrying two more duffel bags than necessary."

"Probably," Lamberti laughed.

"Got anything to add to that Naveen?" I asked the small marksman. He shook his head and slacked in his seat. "No? All right then."

"Sarge, why exactly are we being deployed?" Lamberti asked. "It's not like they need us down there."

"I know," Sutton agreed. "We aren't usually grounded in this kind of assignments."

"Sarge?" Grigori asked.

"Frank?" Pavel mocked.

"We're going to be doing some exercises," I admitted.

The comment was received with a unanimous grunt, even little Naveen rolled his eyes. Exercises were good and fun every- who am I kidding? Exercises suck completely. It pretty much involves walking around with your gun raised and shouting clear at carefully timed intervals. I could literally do it while I had a screen in my helmet playing porn. I could use less than half a percent of the attention that I could muster to achieve completion of most exercises.

Unless, of course, they were live-fire, in which case they were marginally less boring. You know, because of the explosions.

"Wait! Don't leave!" someone shouted. Camilla Seppa was struggling with three duffel bags, one on her back and the other two on each arm. Her arrival was greeted with whistling from the regulars in the hangar and some choice comments, they flew right over the Helljumper's head as she struggled to make a quick pace while arriving with some dignity. All without managing to drop the duffel bags that she was juggling. She finally managed to arrive and dropped both of the packs that she was carrying and gave me a quick salute while trying to stand at attention.

"Staff Sergeant, sorry I'm late," she said.

"Yeah, you are," I agreed. Seppa didn't know what to say and instead looked uncomfortable and glanced around with those beautiful blue eyes of hers. I took in her face managing not to look like a pervert. She was wearing a looser shirt this time, but it was equally flattering to her figure, then again, PFC Camilla Lilja Seppa could dress up in a radiological suit and still manage to knock it out of the park. I had very conflicted feelings about her.

She bit her lower lip, forcing me to stifle a grunt and looked guilty. I had no idea if she was doing it on purpose or not, but it damn near forced me to fall in love with her.

"Get on the ship," I ordered, managing to keep my voice and expression normal.

"Yessir," Seppa said as she tossed her duffel bags to the pelican's blood tray and hopped on. While she did that I couldn't help but catch a very nice and long look at her ass. I shook myself back and hopped on the ship, sitting on my usual seat next to the hatch door on the back. I looked around the hangar to see if Marina was coming, but I couldn't spot her anywhere nearby.

"Why's our pilot so late?" Sutton asked.

"Because she's a girl," Pavel replied.

Everyone in the ship laughed at that except for Seppa, she had missed the original joke, but the meaning of Pavel's comment wasn't lost to her. She glared at my friend before sitting on her own seat. Her bags had just been neatly arranged on the compartment for them on of the craft. I raised an eyebrow at her. The rest of us had simply tossed them at our feet, maybe it's a girl thing. Seppa shrugged and started meticulously examining her nails, looking incredibly sexy while doing it. The rest of the squad looked at her for a few moments before they managed to snap themselves back to reality as well.

"So sarge," Lamberti started, "did you come up with any call signs yet?" I could hear the eagerness and nervousness in his voice as he asked.

"Actually, I just came up with on," I said.

"While you were staring at my ass?" Seppa said with a smile.

"Actually, yeah," I replied. The sad thing is that it was true.

"What?" was the unanimous response. Even Pavel was startled by my reply to Seppa's joke.

"You serious Frankie?" Pavel asked me.

"Yeah," I said. "Ok, let's face it Camilla, you've got a great ass, agreed?"

"Agreed," Pavel said.

"Now that we've got that past us, let me explain your new call sign," I told her.

"Ok?"

"From now on, you'll be Grass."

"Grass?" she asked.

"That's what I just said wasn't it?"

"You're an asshole Frank," Pavel said while holding back laughter.

"But why Grass?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah," Konstantinov. "I'm not sure I get it either."

"Grass. Great ass," I explained.

"Oh," Lamberti said. "As long as you don't tell anyone how you got your call sign you'll be fine."

"Provided whoever you're telling a fake story doesn't look at your ass," Naveen said. Everyone turned to look at the shy and quiet sniper and we all started laughing loudly. Except Seppa, she had the grace and decency to at least blush a little before smiling at the quasi-compliments.

"I hope you weren't talking about my ass."

"And there's our pilot," I said.

"I wouldn't mind talking about it," Lamberti said to Marina.

Pavel slapped the Italian man in the back of the head so hard that it hurt me. He didn't tell anyone in the ship that the pilot was my girlfriend, that was my own thing to tell.

"Try that again and I'll chop your hands of," Marina warned.

"You're late," I said.

"It's my ship," she replied. "You're early."

"So that's how it is?" I asked jokingly.

"It is," she replied in the same tone.

"Well then, I might ju-"

"Staff Sergeant, Warrant Officer, may I remind you that I can hear everything you say?" Sheppard's voice came from the cockpit. "And so can the other seven people on this ship."

"Sheppard, I forgot you were here," I said.

"Don't worry," the pilots said boringly. "You usually do."

"Yes, sorry," Marina apologized. She tossed her duffel bag at the floor before entering the cockpit and walked inside.

So it isn't a girl thing…

"Ok guys," she said. "Closing hangar doors and sealing."

The entire hangar was closed off and there was a small hiss as the retractable doors pressed against the ceiling and the walls. The hatch doors closed as well and sealed themselves against the vacuum they would face soon. The pelican's cargo bay went dark before lighting strips were lit on the roof of the craft and red warning lights started shining on the floor.

"So sarge," Seppa asked. "How long have you two been… fucking."

"Whoa there!" Marina exclaimed from the cockpit. "Someone's got a big mouth."

I directed my attention back to Seppa and gave her a glare. With time and patience I had perfected my glares until they were as good as Layla's and Marina's. I could melt through steel with my eyes and I could send pretty much anyone scurrying back with their tails between their legs if I felt like it. Seppa shuffled uncomfortably in her seat and apologized for the question.

"Two years," I replied.

There was silence inside the ship as the hangar doors opened and the ship was sucked out into space.

"Yeah, sorry about hitting on your girl sarge," Lamberti said nervously.

"Don't worry about it, besides, it's not like you could call that hitting on somebody," I said.

Lamberti laughed nervously and sighed with relief.

"So, Pavel?" I asked.

"I think that he can do the HEV checks before launch for the next ten drops," Pavel suggested. "And be point man in our next combat mission."

"Sounds about right," I agreed. "Lamberti, you heard the sergeant, you know your work."

"Yessir," the man said through clenched teeth.

The ship shook violently and the temperature increased by more than a couple of degrees as the pelican entered Emerald Cove's atmosphere. I felt my stomach lurch a little bit as gravity got a hold of me again and pushed one duffel bag away from me as it fell to the floor. The rest of the bags slammed into the metallic floor, producing clanks. All of the large bags had one set of ODST armor inside of them in addition to spare shirts, socks, pants, and a pair of leather boots.

"Everyone strapped on?" Sheppard warned.

I reached for the straps as quickly as I pulled and placed them over my shoulders. Pavel did the same and we were both secured by the time Konstantinov started asking why the hell should we be strapped on. He didn't get time to finish his condescending question, as Marina did what seemed like eight consecutive barrel rolls with the pelican. The centrifugal force kept everyone pushed against their seats and relatively safe, but not one of the new squad members refrained from screaming in terror as the ship spun. I placed my hands over my face and bent my knees, protection against flying objects such as titanium armor or people.

The pelican stopped its turning as abruptly as it had started them. Everyone flew from their seats to the floor and groaned in pain as they landed on the hard metal floor of the ship.

"Welcome to the team boys," Marina said from the cockpit. "Welcome to the team."

"And clear," I said in the most monotone tone I could manage.

"Nicely done Staff Sergeant!" Albaf's said in a completely fake happy tone. She did it so overtly fake that it felt even more insulting to me.

"We're done for the day," I said, ignoring Albaf's voice in earpiece. "Nicely done team," I said. "I think we beat our record time."

"Sarge, I walked through the drill," Sutton said. "I don't understand how I could go any slower than this."

"Sarcasm George," I said. "Sarcasm."

"Oh," he said, no doubt he was worried that I would use this for his call sign. And I just might.

"I totally nailed that last one," Lamberti said.

"Man, you didn't even fire your gun," Grigori replied whiles shoving him lightly.

"Sarcasm Konstantinov," Lamberti said in an excellent imitation of my voice. "Sarcasm."

"Do you actually want a crappy call sign?" I asked him. "I swear, one more and I'll call you ALF."

"ALF?" Arcangelo asked me.

"Annoying little fuck," Pavel said.

"Because that's what you are," Naveen snarked.

Light bulb.

"I just came up with the second one guys!" I said excitedly.

"Aw man," Lamberti said. "Give it straight to me, tell me sarge," he wailed in a fake distressed voice.

"Not you Lamberti." I said as I left the exercise area.

"Sarge?" Sutton asked nervously.

"Relax big black man," I said. "You're off the hook."

"Shit," Naveen said.

"Actually, it's Snark now."

"Snark?" the little guy asked confusedly. "After the cruise missile?"

"Wha- no!" I said, remembering the name of one of the first cruise missiles in history. "How do you even know that?" I asked.

"The Snark ICBM?" Grass asked. Notice how I already wrote down Grass instead of Camilla or Seppa? Cause that's her call sign, I gave it to her.

"Yeah," I said. "How do you even know what that is?" I asked.

"You know that too," she pointed out, to which Naveen quickly agreed with several nods.

"I'm the sergeant here," I said. "And I ask the questions."

"Fine, I know a lot about missiles," Naveen said.

"I know a lot about everything," Grass said.

The comment was received with groans of annoyance by absolutely everyone in the squad and Albaf all the way up in outer space. I couldn't tell through her visor but I would bet that she was smiling behind the safety of her full-face helmet.

I depolarized my own helmet and turned towards her and Naveen. "No, Snark after the sailboat," I said.

"What's a Snark sailboat?" he asked.

"A sailboat," Pavel explained helpfully.

"Well no shi-" Grass started.

"No what?" my friend asked. "Hmm? What's that, cat's got your tongue?"

"Pavel, who even says that anymore?"

"I just did," he said.

"Such a good memory," Schitzo said.

I groaned.

"Jeez Frank, you don't have to groan so loudly."

"Pavel," I said. "Shut the fuck up."

I said it with a tone in my voice that everyone in the squad stopped talking at the same time and gave me a weird look. At least their helmeted heads bobbed towards me and they stopped walking for a second.

"Now you made them sad," Schitzo said with an annoying tone.

Shut the fuck up you fucking asshole.

"Avninder, you're Snark. Everyone else, deal with it."

The training area was a moderately large-sized piece of land with twenty feet tall walls on forming a square and improvised plywood structures that did a crappy job at looking like covvie buildings all over the place. There were some paint splats and the wood from some previous exercises and then there was nothing else of interest. We had been running drills for the past three hours, doing nothing but tossing flashbangs into empty rooms and scanning the walls with our empty guns. I was fucking sick of the place.

"So Francisco, how do you feel about a nice cold beer right now?" Schitzo asked. "I know I could certainly use one."

I trotted up the last few steps, forcing my hallucination to speed up to keep up with me. "I see what you did there," he said. "Made me rush. I like it, very… assholeish."

I shouldered my rifle and started climbing down the old stairs on the other side. There were two things that were worth noticing on the other side of the wall. One, the ocean; two, the military base. The first one was huge and blue, the second one was large and gray. The military base had one main building in addition to several smaller barracks and the mess hall. It was an improvised base, with all the buildings having been dropped from orbit a few years ago, they moved them whenever they needed to be moved.

The ocean was, well, the ocean, it did have a lovely green tint to it though.

My temporary home was a tent-like structure where I bunked in with the male section of my squad. Camilla had one tent all to herself, lucky… woman. Can't really call her lucky bitch now can I?

I walked inside my tent and tossed my helmet on the bed, I reached towards my butt-pack and pulled out my bottle of meds. There was a nice pop as I unscrewed the lid. I pulled out a single pill while Schitzo was pestering me about some shit or other. As per custom, I threw the little white oval into the air and caught it in my mouth. I swallowed and closed my eyes for a second. Schitzo was still there saying a bunch of bullshit when I opened them, but that was expected, he would disappear eerily in a few seconds.

"Frank, you ok?" Pavel asked as he opened the curtain door. Incidentally, the door hit Schitzo and for the briefest moment completely covered him up from head to toe. Once Pavel was in the room the door flew back to its place and Schitzo disappeared with it. "What was that all-" he stopped when he noticed the bottle of pills on my hand and the expression on my face. "We're having some chow in the mess hall," he said after thinking about his answer.

"I'll be right up," I said.

I took off all the pieces of my armor that went above my waist and switched my sweaty shirt for a clean one, tossing the one I had been wearing into the laundry bin. I walked across the yard and let the sea breeze hit me for a while. If I closed my eyes it almost felt like I was back in Jericho VII. But then I opened them again, and the illusion disappeared, leaving me in this crappy replacement home. At least the military base looked similar enough.

I shook my head and walked towards the mess hall. I opened the door and was greeted by the smell of crappy food and sweat. The noise that the marines in here made was also annoying, but nothing I wasn't used to. It wasn't so hard to find my squad, they were the ones dressed all in black. Most of them had taken off the heavy chest piece that protected their chests (thank you captain obvious). Grass, of course, had taken off everything and was looking killer in her sweaty undershirt. At least she was wearing a bra.

Funny that I could tell.

I sat down next to Pavel and Sutton scooted over to make space for me. The entire bench groaned with effort. Everyone on the squad glanced at the man and shrugged theatrically with a goofy grin on his face. We all chuckled at it and I dug into my pile of goo with glee.

There were three or four conversations going on at the time in the table, it usually goes on like that with more than three people on one table. Grass and Konstantinov were asking Naveen, no, it was Snark now. Well, Grass and Konstantinov were asking Snark awkward questions and the little man just dug deeper and deeper into his seat with no way out of the situation. Lamberti was talking to Agnarsson about some sort of hilarious thing he had done in training camp and Pavel was asking Sutton what the best way to get large pecs was. I gave him a weird look while I swallowed down my pasta. Or it could've been mashed potatoes, who knows? All the while I was thinking of clever and punny call signs that could function as inside jokes and would sound cool to everyone who didn't know the story behind the name. So far I was one out of two for those. Snark sounded pretty good regardless. At least in my book.

"People!" I called out. They stopped their conversations immediately and looked at me expectantly. "Tomorrow we have a live-fire exercise. I know, I know, you don't have to groan pathetically. We're up at 0530."

"Why you telling us now sarge?" Grass asked, pouting. I swear, this woman was a walking boner machine. I knew I'd get used to her presence soon enough, but right now I wasn't entirely comfortable with her. I hope combat would change that.

"Yeah, because we were having such a good time clearing the plywood buildings," Sutton said sarcastically.

"No, because we were having a good time now," she said.

"I wasn't having a good time," Snark added.

"Shut up kid," Konstantinov said jokingly.

"Now, I know it may seem like a comfortable time to wake up for an exercise," I said, "but I don't want any of you zoning out during the exercise and shooting me in the back. Especially since someone gambled away our team's supply of caffeine."

"I said I was sorry alright!" Pavel complained. "It was a good bet that only went wrong due to a last minute play."

"You bet against St. Louis on the Mega Bowl! Who the hell does that?"

"Even I know that's wrong," Grass helped. "And I'm a girl."

"Well there you go Pavel, a girl says you're wrong, so you are. Rest of the team, bed by twelve, five and a half hours of sleep should do. Grass you too," I added.

"Yes sarge," she said.

"I'm waiting," I told the male part of my squad.

"Yes Staff Sergeant, sir!" they all said while standing up and giving me their best salute.

"That's what I thought," I said while I suppressed a smile and brought my lemonade to my mouth.

We would go to bed at around twelve, get five hours of sleep five or take a few minutes, wake up and get dressed for the exercise and get it over with. After that I would manage to get us a short leave and then maybe I could squeeze a skinny-dipping session with Marina in the beach. She would love that, so romantic. Then we would do some more exercises and then we would be called back to whatever front to fight a new battle.

I was wrong. We didn't even get to sleep five hours.

Hey guys, so I heard you liked more action, so I made you wait one more chapter to get it. Mua-ha-ha.

-casquis