Sgt. Johnson

It happened 4 years after the pause, about 11 years into the war. I was a fresh recruit just out of basic, I was one of the lucky ones because I got into the shit just after they cracked personal shields enough to make them standard issue. Sure they were shit compared to the stuff the Spartans used but the dying went down by a factor. So like I said just got out of basic and I was sent to this world, one of those places that were in the golden zone and had been terraformed, and I was in the jungle.

The system had bought an IF field and some forcefields from the Front and the enemy was trying to bombard the cities. But this wasn't the city, this was the jungle. We were protecting a small village that barely had barricades up and, out of the jungle, a score of enemies walks towards us.

We froze. They were in the open, we were behind cover. They saw us, we saw them, a bunch of Grunts and a single Brute. The brute pointed at us and bellowed, letting loose a scream. We loaded our guns and waited, waited for them to rush our position. The Grunts however didn't move and, for some reason, we held fire. The Brute yelled and pointed at us and screamed and yelled but the little guys... they just were not moving. He grabbed one of them and lifted him up in the air and screamed at him and threw him to the ground and gestured towards us.

Then it happened, the Grunts took their weapons and shot him. These little guys just opened up fire on the Brute, shooting him again and again. I felt shocked. I had never seen the enemy do that, never heard of the enemy doing that. The little guys just stopped and stared at the creature. The guy who had been tossed on the ground talked to the others, and they nodded. Then he put his gun on the ground and walked towards us with his hands raised in the air.

None of us moved, he stopped in front of us and knelt down on the ground then he drew a peace symbol on it. We stared at him and I remember nodding at him.

He put his hands back up and walked back to his boys, then three of them dropped their weapons and dragged the Brute to us. Like they were giving us an offering they motioned to him and then one of them snapped. He started kicking the Brute, screaming and yelling. The other two put their arms around him and hugged him as he screamed, still kicking the corpse until he calmed down. When the screaming stopped he panted for a while and the three of them started walking back.

Except for one, the Kicker. He looked back at us, unarmed, at our mercy, and gave us a thumbs up. For some reason, I don't know why, I returned it then they just walked away. That moment stuck with me, haunted me, and I hope those little guys survived.

Jameson Locke - Colony World Teenage Kid

I looked at the crashed ships that littered the landscape.

"Come on, James."

It happens every time. After the all-clear, people go out and scavenge. You were not allowed to fix up the ships to fly again without registering them first, because the Front doesn't want someone killed by the automated defenses. Outside that, the government's attitude tended to be that if you paid your taxes on what you sold then you could go ahead, rip it apart, and sell whatever you could.

I got my plasma torch out and walked with my dad as mom wished us luck. In a way I think we all looked forward to it, to those moments after a battle, after the enemy was dead, after the all-clear. Before, the colony was an agro world so we farmed. We sold food to the inner colonies, mostly stuff that lasted like wheat, meat, rice, staples like that. It never paid very well and taxes were higher back then, from what dad tells me.

Scavenged goods... They pay well, real well. There's a large market for enemy everything in the UNSC, and even if a ship is fucked sideways you can sell the scrap metal for a pretty penny. I looked at the wrecked ship and the cops looked at us.

"All right, people! There's plenty enough salvage for everyone and I don't want any fighting about claims. We're doing this by lottery: you come up and you grab one ball, that ball is your ship to scavenge and sell. That's one ball each. You can take whatever you like and either use it to fix up your home or sell it onwards."

Rules were one person per ball, but if you had a large family with kids? Then each kid could take a ball. Lots of folks taking advantage of that. After a fight, a large family could live damned well off the salvage. I took a breath, hoping and praying for a capital ship. I could share crop that and walk away a rich man.

My turn came and I sighed.

"What is it?"

"Got a fighter."

Dad looked at my claim.

"A Seraph, that's not a bad find. Could be worse, could be a Banshee. It's got shields, big market for that."

"What did you get dad?"

"A corvet. Hopefully, it's intact. Lots of companies looking to alter Covy ships to use them for transport."

I nodded my head as we got into our car and drove over to our lots. I froze at my first glance of my claim, the fighter was intact. I got up and rushed to it. There was a single blasted-out section, the cockpit window by the looks of it.

"Son."

The pilot was dead, I grabbed him and dragged him out of the ship before getting back inside. I scanned everything with my Omnitool.

"Hell! Yeah!"

I used the controls and it lifted off the ground, then I realized what I had done.

"Dad! Call it in, dad!"

Didn't want to be blown up. I smiled as I got permission to drive the ship back to the homestead while dad went to his own claim. I thought about selling my prize but we had a cheap Omniforge, I could fix this baby up and make it sky legal. I had my own ship now. I took it into the barn, smiled, and waited for dad to return, soon joined by mom. Dad looked at us when he arrived, stoic.

"So, dear?"

"Most of it is just scrap."

Mom looked down but dad started smiling.

"But the Fusion drive and shields still work. We just made 5 years' worth of money in a single day."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really. Already sold the scrap and the drive."

I smiled back at him. I always like salvage days, one lucky ball could give a homeless refugee enough money to buy some land, fortunes could be made. We gave a toast to our fighting men and were all smiles. Yeah the war was harsh, yeah it wasn't fun, but it wasn't all ugliness. After the battle, a good salvage day really lifted the spirits.