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The following is a fan-based

FICTION

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"Admirable Love"

March 7 2528 - Hour 1512

MAJ Logan 'Log' Sutton

WHITE TOWER, Planet of Reach

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"I am actually surprised. I would have thought you would have been less keen to speak with me."

Thela's words grated at my nerves right as I pushed the door to her interrogation room. I didn't answer at first, taking a seat as the Field Master quietly studied me. Curious, amused and intensely perceptive of anything that she could harness through my reactions.

She was wearing her armor, but her shield's battery had been removed, same for any sort of weapon within the scaled-suit. She had requested to keep the armor, willing to strip it of any combat capacity, but requesting to still keep her 'uniform' on. A valid request, and one the researchers around managed to do it quite swiftly.

"Your full name is Field Master Thela 'Vadamee, and you held the position of 'Supreme Commander of the Invasion Force' after your former superior got killed through an assassination attempt."

"Would it be even considered an assassination attempt? Why not a 'massacre'?"

Indeed, truly a tragedy, but I didn't reply to that. "Are you?"

Her mandibles twitched in brief irritation at the lack of exchange and at how one-sided this talk felt.

"Yes."

A slow nod, then I moved to the next question.

"You were capable of withstanding more of what you deemed enough to surrender. What drove you to seek an early capitulation?"

"Two reasons, really. The former is more of an official reasoning- the war is not going as intended, and as much as the Covenant can muster enough effort to make it last for a few more decades, the unity of the council is faltering between efforts to exploit advancements of candidates to further expand their reputation. Tartarus was meant to overshadow me through a successful campaign... until you destroyed his ship."

A tiny smile appeared on my face and she... replied with one of 'hers'. Awkward, but I couldn't exactly ignore the irony of the big bastard being in charge of the biggest ship and getting screwed because of it.

"So, you sought to turn this in a sort of 'revenge' for getting outplayed?"

"No."

I frowned. "You just said-"

"Their plan was to weaken my position, yes, but it was a pretext to then have me resigned and then executed for being 'source of issues'."

That made things a bit spicier as it meant that-

"...You wanted to kill them before they could have killed you."

"Yes," Thela answered with a giddy tone. "And I believe I succeeded from how chaotic the channels were when I announced a general surrender."

That was really big. I knew the war was getting to the Covenant's politicians, but I didn't know it was that bad...

"You mentioned two reasons," I remarked, getting back on track. "What's the other one?"

"Oh, the other one is, obviously, you."

Well shit.

"Flattering but-"

"You were the one to inspire me after all. The one that gave me insight on how to be great," Thela remarked, interrupting me. "You gave me ideas, you showed me what the common soldier lacked in both our factions. Drive, dedication, awareness, pure excellence for the sake of doing the right thing."

I was a bit startled by this. "How... long?"

"Harvest. I was there when you first escaped. And you gave me a spark of creativity to rely on," Thela continued, engrossed by the thought. "A mere human, someone that was seen at the time as an inferior brute, unimportant and yet capable of such a... grand destruction."

"We're better than that."

"Obviously, even now you still are able to do it. Again, it felt amusing to see it happen again despite the loss of lives on our side. So amusing because it could have been avoided but... so amusing because of the nostalgia."

I remained quiet for a while, a bit surprised by this discover as I was the one that kickstarted her career. The original Thel 'Vadamee would have taken the path of leading ships, but while the Field Master did that at times, Thela was geared to handle ground forces- to be close and personal, like I tend to do when in action.

All because of me.

Before I could have continued the interrogation, we both tensed up at the noise of gunshoots filling in the base as the alarm was given and right as I put on my helmet and retrieved my rifle, a powerful EMP struck the entire base. The suit's HUD was deactivated and so where other important functions like the shield.

"Shit," I muttered while noticing the little electricity left in my suit sizzling before vanishing. "Up and ready to move, Thela."

A mere nod was all I got as she complied to my order, following me to the door as I passed through and saw other interrogators now holding their handguns while three ODSTs rushed from the frontal entrance.

"What happened?" I asked to the three special troops.

"Sir, EMP struck most of the base, we have got reports of an assault from the Insurgency but-"

"They are equipped too well, sir."

I slowly nodded at the two answers I got. "Then we move to the closest area out of the EMP's radius. Where did the reports said the attackers were coming from?"

"Northwest. We can go to Delta Floor and then proceed to the hangars."

I nodded, taking note of the prisoners being escorted out. "Let's do that," I turned to the Sangheili. "We got a few troublesome elements trying to kill you from the looks of it. Keep close and we will get you to a safer place."

I saw most of them nods but they all did follow without hesitation and-

"So, you humans have 'troublesome elements' too?" Thela inquired quietly.

"I would say seditious bastards of the intelligence kind if I have to guess. They don't like people that are not humans. At all."

"I can tell," She mumbled calmly, keeping up with the pace I was going at. "Say, could we have some weapons to defend ourselves too?"

"No."

"I doubt that you see us as dangerous to defend ourselves and other humans," She remarked, glancing at the other nervous Sangheili as they were still cuffed. "Would you like to hear 'please'?"

"We don't have extra guns on us," I rebuked, trying my hardest to not get distracted. "Keep your attention on-"

Right as I was turning the corner, I heard people rushing through and... Thela moved fast to push me away and onto the next part of the cross-section, while she got a wild strafe stabbing on her side.

"Grahh!"

While I managed to get up fast from the ground, I noticed Thela struggling to do the same and, before the shooters had another chance to get her, I pulled her to cover. Nothing that stopped her by much as she had three holes by her lower hip.

She had to now lean on me as the three ODST took care of the hostiles and then resumed the rush as more troublemakers were coming from us from that very way. Despite the slight slow-down due to Thela's slouching form on me, we still managed to get to our destination. A checkpoint had been set there and I managed to alert it as we approached by telling them we had VIPs.

Surprise flashed on some of the marines' faces as they saw the Elite troops, but said nothing as we passed through.

"Sir, we thought you had been captured," The leading officer greeted me while medics helped me by getting Thela on a stretcher. "What's going on?"

"Several boogies behind us, they say they are rebels, but they are a bit too prepared for this attack. Let the machineguns drill them dread as soon as we are through."

A nod, the captain relayed the order to keep ready for an assault, with the VIPs all pulled to safety before the guns started to take care of our chasers. The butchery was brief, but the toll was of twelve marksmen, all of which were known convicts from other colonies.

Meanwhile I got stuck in quite the position as Thela was still handcuffed but decided to tightly hold onto my left wrist while she was being operated on the spot.

"Let go?"

"Nope."

And that stupid smile just felt as odd as frustrating!

AN

Next time, some truth on the brainfarts committed by ONI. And it's going to be infuriatingly reasonable for some readers that were upset by the general ONI's stupidity.