Chapter 11 – Agente
June 4th, 2545 (16:25 Hours – Military Calendar)
Aboard Parabola-class freighter Mayweather, in slipspace
:********:
Being back aboard the Mayweather was a welcomed reprieve, especially given the events of the last few hours. Stewards had successfully convinced the Laden's captain to rendezvous with their ship in a nearby system. Little did he or his crew know as they shared docking umbilicals that they were latching onto a ship that had once possessed a crew similar to theirs, one working for Misriah Armory. The similarities ended there. For whatever reason, as Duncan was even more relieved to find out, there was no plan to hijack the other freighter, the Cappadocia. Whether they just weren't in any state to perform selective murder on the rest of the crew, or if there genuinely was no plan for it, he couldn't say for sure. Nevertheless, he was happy to stride through the umbilical with Gypsy and their two remaining trailers into their own ship's cargo bay. As happy as he could be anyway. It was more of a muted sense of peace dulled by the fact that the trailer driving beside him contained a fifth of Gypsy. Moreover, the one further up carried a body bag with a living occupant that he had no plan for, that no one else was aware of or could ever know about.
That would be a whole kettle of fish soon enough. He'd need to think of what came next, where he would take Christa and who he could leave her with. For now, though, his main concern was the bullet buried in his right shoulder.
O'Reilly was the first to notice it; the redness in the material on Duncan's upper arm. Grimes took a look at it and found the wound. Apparently, someone had gotten a good shot off on him at some point between leaving the storage facility and reaching the starport. He assumed it was when they came into that ambush between the burning buildings and he took a decent amount of fire. The fact he hadn't even noticed when he'd gotten shot really said something about the situation they were in. One wrong move, one wrong turn and it could have been the end of all of them.
He didn't bother going to the med bay like Grimes insisted, not until he helped them secure the two trailers in the cargo bay. They removed the fusion cores and settled them in more secure mobile container units that were then placed under a rotational guard. Knowing he would need to get food and water to Christa sooner rather than later, he convinced Quinn to schedule him for one of the watches once he got back.
Walking into the med bay, he found a grid of cushioned operating tables. There were enough for everyone in Gypsy. Today, they only tended to the two others that were wounded.
Once they'd gotten a good idea about his condition, a nurse led him to rest atop a table on one side of the bay. As she left him to roll back the part of his shirt above the wound while she went to finish something else, he saw exactly where the doctors were. On the opposite side of the room there was an operation taking place on a table set aside from the others, closer to the strip-window running along the nearby wall. The table was sectioned off by blue curtains, although thanks to the sterile lights inside, he made out several silhouettes standing around it. He overheard a man's occasional request for a 'scalpel' or 'tweezer'. They had to be removing the shrapnel from Garrett's chest while keeping him anesthetized. It only could be Garrett since the last patient from Gypsy was sitting on the operating table to Duncan's immediate left. He was wide awake despite a pair of robotic arms actively sifting through his insides.
Duncan looked over. It was near impossible for him not to feel uncomfortable at the sight of Captain Stewards. The captain lay with his head leisurely propped against the table's headrest while its in-built medical suite operated on him. He had his shirt off which left much of his abnormally athletic and well-defined build exposed. Duncan had to admit for a man as deceptively average sized as Stewards, he was actually pretty ripped, even for a person in his profession. However, his skin was once again pale, not as bad as what he'd seen before but definitely close.
The business of the arms was tending to the bullet holes in his lower abdomen. With the aid of overhead lights, one arm utilized a small speculum to hold the first wound open while the second arm went in with an inquisitive set of tweezers. Their movements were surprisingly dexterous and fluid for something so biconical. That, he guessed, had to be why the doctors chose them to handle this treatment while human hands dealt with Garrett's more severe case. However, Duncan had to wonder how non-serious the captain's situation really was, because the patient himself certainly wasn't taking it very seriously.
O'Reilly had told him about what happened at the starport before he got there: what Stewards had done and how he got those wounds. It explained why he briefly saw a few bodies lying around when he drove through the gate. He didn't like to think on it too hard or try to moralize what was essentially a mass-shooting. The worst-case scenario was that it would make him reconsider his decision to even be here, and risk jeopardizing his original aims for joining up. Yet the captain looked unphased by any of it. Though Duncan said nothing, the fact he sat so close to someone capable of such an act was a uniquely unsettling experience.
Stewards should have been unconscious on anesthetics for something as painful as a bullet removal and repair. Duncan was no medic but he was sure Renni would have agreed. Stewards obviously wasn't of the same mind. He was sitting there wearing a kind of resting version of his usually amused face. It was somehow more daunting now knowing the abilities of the man wearing the expression.
When Duncan came in, he didn't so much as turn his way, keeping his attention on Garrett's operation and what he realized was a seperate, walled off section of the bay.
The door to that section was directly in-line with his column of tables and was wide open. Through it he saw a wall further back lined with two rows of body storage containers from end to end. Four of the lower container doors lay open. Their trays were extended out to show four figures wrapped in white blankets. A pair of feet slightly stuck out from three of them, a dark pair, an ivory pair and a tanned pair while the last one had only a right foot colored like the second.
The living were also present. Three of them surrounded a tray. Al stood on the left side. O'Reilly was on the right along with Thurston who was kneeled down with one hand on the tray and the other grasping his forehead. Duncan could tell by the heaving of his chest and the muted sounds he made that Thurston was crying. O'Reilly had a hand on his shoulder as he and Al looked mournfully on Palakiko's blanketed body.
"Thurston's taking it the hardest," Stewards said, at last breaking the minutes-long silence between them. "There's a chance he might not recover from this."
Duncan turned a little to face him. "How can you tell?"
"Because he's done it before." Stewards replied, his attention affixed to the sight inside the morgue. "I'm sure Al told you his story. Back before he joined the AMADDS, when he was in the Army, he ran over his company CO by accident. The man was like a father to him, and he's been running away from that guilt ever since." He nodded at the body. "Even though he didn't kill him himself, he saw his good friend get run over by the trailer he was personally behind the wheel of. Two deaths of people close to him, both ending practically the same way? He won't see it as an accident. He won't see it as a coincidence either."
Duncan looked over Thurston as he sobbed softly. He felt genuinely sorry for him. Even with the mix of emotions and the split-second axing of his conscience that he'd soon have to contend with, he was relieved that he could still feel some empathy, regardless of the feeling's rightness. He hoped Thurston wouldn't live with that misplaced guilt on his mind. Then something about what Stewards had said triggered a memory. He'd mentioned how Al would have told him Thurston's story. The mention just so happened to remind him of how there was only one person in Gypsy whose story Al specifically refused to tell, saying it would be better if he explained it himself.
He slowly turned to the captain.
Stewards was focused expectantly on a nurse that came to his side. She was carrying a vial filled with that recognizably translucent, blue liquid. "This should help with the pain, sir." She said as she screwed out the empty vial from the catheter in his right arm and inserted the new one. Like before, a portion of the contents fizzed into his body. For a few seconds Duncan witnessed the veins in his arms as well as all over his torso gradually become visible with the same blue tint. Then it faded back at a similar pace.
"Thank you." Stewards said calmly, flashing her that honest smile of his. "I feel better already."
The nurse replied with an equally calm "Your welcome, please let me know if there's anything more I can do for you."
She walked off towards the morgue, leaving Duncan struggling not to stare at the man next to him. The question needed to be asked. He steeled himself.
"Is that an anesthetic?"
Stewards finally turned to him. "What?"
Duncan pointed over at the catheter.
"Ah, that..." Stewards' jaw shifted around as he looked about the room, perhaps trying to find what the answer was for a question he already knew. "It's...like anesthetics, though not exactly. It does something similar." He breathed in deep and let it out. "I guess you saw that reaction just now?"
Duncan gave a tentative nod.
"Right." Stewards exhaled again. "Phenylcyclohexylpiperidine, ever heard of it?"
Duncan shook his head. "Is that even English?"
"No, it's science. That nice tongue twister I gave you just now has another name. Three actually. One is Phencyclidine, one of the official titles. Back in the day it was also called Angel Dust. Today, though, we know it better as a Rumbledrug."
The name instantly rang a bell. Duncan could still recall how much livelier Yuri had been after getting treated with the stuff on Miridem. And that was saying something given the hot-headedness everyone in Epsilon had grown to be both annoyed by and to love him for. On the other hand, Stewards wasn't showing any signs of that same jitteriness Yuri had during the attack on the De Gaulle, nor did he act in any way similar when he took that first vial outside the Bastille Building.
"I know a little about those. I've seen folks that took way less of it than you are now. Isn't that thing supposed to make you like some sort of overpowered superhero for a few minutes?"
"Quite the contrary. Rumbledrugs have many different kinds or derivatives meant for different purposes. I know which one you're talking about and it's a lot more orange. That one's meant for fighting...a certain group of specially enabled people." Stewards pointed down at the blue liquid inside the vial. "While that one boosts one's physiology exponentially, this one here helps to maintain an already boosted physiology. Like mine."
Duncan sensed that the end of his statement was a lead-on. Did the captain actually want him to ask more questions? He was seeming unnaturally open towards them all of a sudden. "What do you mean by that sir, 'an already boosted physiology'?"
Stewards' smile widened a bit, showing Duncan he'd asked the right question. "I actually planned to explain this to you earlier after you saw me outside the Bastille Building." He said in a confessional manner. "Due to mission prep, I just didn't have the time. Now..." he looked to see that the bulk of the medical staff were still divided between Garrett's operation and monitoring what, thanks to the round of personal remarks being made, had become Palakiko's unofficial wake. "Now, I guess we have plenty of time."
Stewards spent several more seconds observing the wake in the morgue before continuing. "My body is...abnormal, as you can already see." He gestured down at the pair of robotic arms sifting through his innards. "I can hardly feel any of this so I don't really need anesthesia, which is why I'm currently neither unconscious nor screaming my lungs out."
Duncan scrutinized him closer. "You mean you literally can't feel pain?"
"Oh no, I can still feel pain, plenty, believe me." Stewards' gaze fell back to the operation taking place on his lower abdomen. "It's just that the pain I'm used to is...let's put it this way. When you've been sleeping your whole life on a bed of nails, you tend not to notice bee stings. Does that make sense?"
"...I don't fully get it, sir."
Stewards scratched at his chin. "This example isn't meant to pry but it probably will anyway. Have you ever lost anyone to cancer?"
The mention alone pulled Duncan's mind back to the face of his mother, to the death that started him on this journey. He nodded quickly so as not to betray how off guard the question had caught him. "I have. Why'd you ask?"
"Because cancer is simply DNA in a state of disrepair, one big genetic mutation. It can be circumstantial, hereditary," Stewards' eyes shifted back to his. "Or even engineered."
This conversation was starting to make Duncan a lot more uncomfortable than he was prepared to get. "Wh-, what does that-…"
"In my case it's a good mix of the latter two." Stewards said and pointed a finger at himself. "In that regard you can think of me as one giant, sentient collection of cancer cells."
The silence that followed was one that Duncan wasn't ready for, because it came with answers to questions he hadn't even thought to ask yet. His voice came out hoarse. "H-, how-, can that be the case? You're human, aren't you?"
There was another lengthy silence, this time accompanied by Stewards' piercing glare.
"The better question would be what in the world counts as human. The world may not look it, but it's a place where those lines are blurred on the regular. For me, I have to take injections of this stuff every day. Otherwise, I risk my, how would you call them... 'defective augmentations' rapidly growing out of control, strengthening certain parts of my anatomy at the wholesale expense of a few important others." He pointed again at the vial. "Essentially, this stuff here is all that keeps my body from killing itself."
"...A genetic stabilizer?"
Stewards nodded. "Now you're getting it."
The third silence was much longer and far deeper than the others. First there was the word 'cancer'. The next word in the captain's vocabulary to take him on an unwelcome trip down memory lane was the combination of words 'defective augmentations'. Though neither Ambrose nor Mendez ever told him anything during his time on Onyx, and expectantly so, never for a moment did he believe the kids of Beta Company were normal, or that they'd grown that way out of a natural means. There was obviously the suspicion of biological engineering. The moral ramifications of that Epsilon had done its best to ignore while repaying its blood debt to ONI. Yet that begged another question.
"What do you think of Spartans?"
The question didn't come from Duncan's mouth. However, it seemed as if the captain had peered into the recesses of his thoughts and read off the teleprompter of his mind. "Spartans, sir?"
"What do you think of them? Have you ever met any?"
Loaded questions. He responded with an unloaded answer. "A few."
"What were they like?"
"Amazing, all of them. Sometimes you could hardly believe they were even human."
"Hardly." Stewards parroted as he trailed off then refocused. "You know, they can come in different shapes and sizes other than the ones you saw. They can be smaller, even less powerful, but still more than capable of putting even the most above average person in a box."
Duncan's eyes narrowed. "And what would that make you, sir?"
Stewards' smile mellowed out to one of latent satisfaction. "Straightforward, huh?"
"As straightforward as I can be, sir."
"I see." Stewards inhaled as he repositioned himself on the table. In the same second, the robotic arm with the tweezers came out holding a bloodied bullet. "Well, I told you all that to give you some idea of what I'm getting at when I say that I'm a Spartan 1.1"
Duncan's train of thought ground to a complete stop. His interest peaked, he had to take a couple seconds just to process what he'd heard. He was aware of the fact that there was a distinction between the Spartans, mainly the larger and older Spartan IIs and the smaller but still lethal IIIs. By that chronology it made sense that there would be a first generation of Spartans, Spartan I. But 1.1 was an idea that fell well outside his scope of comprehension.
"Have you ever heard of something called the ORION Project?" Stewards asked, once more reading well ahead of Duncan's thoughts.
"I haven't."
"Would you like to?"
Duncan started to feel the pulsing pain of the bullet in his shoulder. His increasing curiosity though caused the sensation to dull out of his awareness. He nodded.
"It was a program started up, as far as I know anyway, in the early 2490s by a certain Office of Naval Intelligence." Stewards peered off wistfully to the strip windows on the wall and the sight of the void lurking beyond. "At the time, the UEG and UNSC were facing a rise in rebel activities in the outer colonies. Progenitors for what eventually became the Insurrection began becoming more prominent, like the Secessionist Union. It was clear the Colonial Military Administration and a then increasingly influential United Nations Space Command couldn't handle the growing situation groundside with ordinary grunts. So, ONI decided to commence the ORION Project, a program aimed at creating specially bio-engineered soldiers capable of taking on certain missions, the type your average jarhead couldn't so much as step into without getting KIA'd. It was an all-volunteer outfit. No one was forced or coerced or anything like that. They chose to be that way, to get themselves irreparably altered." Stewards shook his head at the idea, laughing under his breath. "They chose that."
"Don't you mean we?" Duncan asked, daring to probe just a bit further. "Weren't you one of them too?"
Stewards turned to him with the most tired smile Duncan had ever seen. It somehow made the captain seem decades older than his actual 30s. However, if he was involved in this 'Project ORION', a program that by his own admission was in the 2490s, that would make him at least 75 years old.
Then Stewards shook his head. "No, not me. My parents."
Duncan's eyes widened with shock as the realization became crystalline clear. He put things together quickly, much more quickly than he wanted to. He wanted to slow down his analytical consideration of what he'd never so much as considered before now. What might have been someone else's hypothetical conjecture was Duncan's reality and it was sitting on the operating table next to him.
Duncan checked around to make sure no one else could hear and lowered his voice. "You're the child of a Spartan?"
"Spartans actually." Stewards corrected with a grimness that didn't match his expression. Then that too changed with the wavering of his smile. "Tell me something, how much did you know about the Spartans before you actually met one?"
"Not much. They just kind of came crashing down through a terminal window and into existence for me."
"Yeah, that's usually how it goes, for UNSC at least. But the Insurrectionists knew more about the Spartans than even the average Marine personnel. That was because we had to worry about them popping up in our backyard. Watts, Graves, Kirkley, they all had to be aware of them or risk getting taken down. It worked up to a point. Now only Kirkley's left along with a few castaways from the United Rebel Front scattered across the systems, myself included."
"So, you were a rebel then?"
"I was, still am. I followed Kirkley from his days on Andesia all the way to when he formed the AMADDS."
Duncan's brow furrowed. "Why?"
"Why? How about this, why did you join the UNSC, your main reason?"
Good question. Duncan could think of the reply easily enough. "To protect our worlds against..." The Staff's words to him on the Luna Alta made him reconsider his own. "To protect humanity from the Covenant."
"Interesting. So, tell me, why were you able to shoot those militia back on Kroedis with little issue?"
It was a less than desirable quandary that threatened to undue the rough-shot moralism Duncan had to perform in the last 24 hours. "Because they were shooting at me."
"And why were they shooting at you when, like everyone else in Gypsy, you were once the one protecting them?"
"I guess they wanted to survive, sir."
"Ah, so they were more dedicated to their own survival than trying to understand whatever it was you were there for, right? What I'm getting at here is that back in the UNSC you literally cared about a generalized mass of people that, in all practicality, just tried to kill you. They just tried to off you for a Hog that they ended up not needing at the end of the day."
Even while he was supposed to be preaching to the converted, Duncan felt a piece of himself desiring to fight back on that assumption and everything it entailed. "Well, in that case what were you going after, sir? What made you go out there for this assignment?"
Stewards' reply was succinct. "For myself. For my platoon. For the people of Hayth. See? I know the specific faces of the persons I do this job for. It's not an idea, it's a reality, and you'll want to orient your priorities a similar way since you're with us."
"What about the people you shot at the starport?" It had slipped out before he could take the time to think about it or to filter out the accusatory tone. It alarmed him for the split-second right after, but seeing no immediate response from Stewards, he risked testing the boundaries of their conversation. "With respect, you saw the faces of each person you gunned down when they breached that gate. That wasn't a generalized idea of humanity, that was people in the flesh. I know many of the folks in Hayth were once civilians from the outer colonies that you guys saved when the Covenant showed up. So what was the difference between them and the ones you stopped at the gate?"
Stewards side-eyed him for a long moment. He slowly raised his forefinger. "Two things. One, they were in the way of us doing our job for the wellbeing of the people of Hayth. That's something I couldn't allow."
"That's what I'm saying, sir, what's the diff-"
"Two." Stewards said, raising his middle finger to join the first. "I didn't care."
"...You...didn't care?"
"No. I didn't."
"...Why?"
"Because I don't care for people that I don't respect, simple. I care for Jinx, I care for Gypsy, for Ambers, Quinn, O'Reilly, Al, Thurston and now you among many others." He pointed to the morgue where things were wrapping up and the bodies were being returned to their storage units. "I respected everyone we lost back there as well, and I'm still not sure how I'm going to break this to their families."
The two of them stopped to watch O'Reilly, Al and Thurston leave the morgue. O'Reilly and Al, while tired, hailed them as they passed through the exit. Thurston didn't respond, however, as he left looking more dejected than Duncan had ever seen him.
"The difference, Duncan," Stewards continued, regaining his full attention, "Is that I didn't respect the people of Kroedis II. The reason I don't see them the same is that the people of Hayth are the fighting kind. They're not like rats trying to flee a sinking ship, they're pioneers looking for a better life than the one they'd left. Where do you think those guys from Kroedis would've gone had we given them the chance? To more UNSC-ruled worlds like Reach, Sigma Octanus IV, Tribute or even Earth. They would have settled for the permanent life of second-class citizens, refugees living in ghettos and squalor all for the sake of having the same United Nations Space Command fleets hanging over their heads again. The same protection that abandoned them at a moment's notice. Don't think for a second they hated the UNSC enough for what they did to join us on Kholo had we offered it. No, the UNSC is that abusive partner that they just can't pry themselves away from, and they'll keep clinging to them until they burn together. The idea of going to a world outside UNSC control and one already glassed would be unpalatable, because unlike before, no one really wants to be a pioneer on the edge of the unknown anymore. So they'd rather go back to what they know while the fire gradually catches up with them." Stewards lowered his fingers as he leaned back into his seat. "I've seen it a hundred times and I'll see it a hundred times more, the one thing I can never respect, that unwillingness to save oneself when they can see the coming danger afar off. That is the worst kind of cowardice. Which, again, is why I respect you all and the good people of Hayth who knew where we were taking them and came hoping to make something new."
Duncan clenched his jaw, his emotions moving his mouth for him. "So it was better then that we left them there to burn?"
"Yes." Stewards said plainly. "Yes, it was. We saved them the suspense of what would have happened anyway. Otherwise, they would have simply been made to suffer longer before the inevitable. What we showed them was mercy."
That earlier knot in Duncan's stomach came back with a burning vengeance. "Mercy? Sir, we-...okay then, so what about those two kids whose parents you saved after shooting them? The mom and dad of the boy that put those rounds in you, why prolong their suffering?"
The captain's smile changed back to a nominal amusement. "That?" He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. "That was me being selfish, that's all."
"Care to explain?"
A commotion made them turn to the sectioned off area where the sterile lights were being shut off. Garrett's procedure was finishing up.
"What do you want out of your life, Duncan?"
Another unexpected question that demanded an unprepared answer. Was Stewards switching topics because he knew he had a point? "I want it to be of use to people, mainly my family, Erica, Noah. I want to protect them, to be there for them whenever I can." That all too familiar ache in his heart reminded him how honest he was being, only it was more so gnawing at him now rather than aching.
"I meant, what do you want out of it for you?" Stewards corrected. "What do you want for your own life that at the end of it, you can say it was everything you wanted it to be? I've asked or told this to plenty of people like Mr. Roman, you remember him don't you, that site manager at La Grotte. Him and plenty of others could hardly give me a good answer for why they did what they did. So I ask you, what do you want out of your own life for yourself? Fellow citizens, family, friends, loved ones, you can care for them all you want but they shouldn't be an excuse for not having some mission of your own."
"...Why shouldn't they be?"
"Because the second they are, you're no longer a person, you're a slave. And they won't be people to you either. You'll just see them as your excuse for why you are what you are." Stewards leaned over. "So, what are you, Duncan?"
Duncan wasn't sure what to say. He could feel himself on the defense. "I-...um-…." After several uncertain seconds his gaze fell away.
"Ah, I see."
"And you?"
Stewards peered down at the robotic arm presently searching for the last bullet in his abdomen. He smiled reminiscently. "When I said I was being selfish, I was saying that I saved that kid's parents for my own sake." He met Duncan's fallen gaze. "I was returning the favor, evening the score between me and the kid that gave me these."
Duncan marveled at him. "Sir, that doesn't make any sense."
"It does if you understand what I'm after."
"And what's that?"
"I guess I'll tell you since you so readily told me yours. More than anything else, more than serving in the AMADDS and working for the good people of Hayth," Stewards looked up hopefully to the sterile lights overhead so that his pupils constricted. "I want someone to kill me who hates me just as much as I hate me. I'll accept nothing more and nothing less."
There came the fourth silence, deeper and more profound than the others combined.
The sudden tightness in Duncan's throat, the deepening furrow of his brow and the dropping of his jaw were merely indicators of how confused he truly was. Stewards, however, never wavered in anything he said. It was as straightforward as saying he was going to take a shower or to get some lunch.
With no more questions coming from his subordinate, the captain felt free to continue. "Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not suicidal, although as a kid I used to be. These days, not anymore. I have a better, more fulfilling way to handle myself."
"...Why?" Duncan croaked.
His uncertainty was met by a muffled laugh. "Why? Why? Duncan, look at me."
He did.
"Notice how I look normal now, how I'm talking to you even though I can feel this medical suite here tugging at my intestines. How was I doing that before I got the stabilizer?"
Duncan offered no answer.
"It's because I have lived every day of my life, from the day I was born to now, in a perpetual pain that most people would find unimaginable. Don't let my smile fool you, I learned how to keep it there for everyone else' sake. That way they won't worry about me so much. The truth is, when my parents got themselves augmented as part of ORION, no one, not them or ONI really put any thought into what would happen when people like them had kids. Hence why me and the 1.1's came out the way we did, not as augmented as them or any of the other Spartans but far above average. There's always an abnormality in any series of births, a black sheep in the fold. That was me. In my case, I inherited an abnormal condition with my genetics that, like I told you, causes my body to kill itself. They had me when they were retired and from day one, they had to work with ONI to get me the treatment I needed just to keep me alive. I was that sickly kid on the block that never lived a normal life. When I wasn't literally dying inside, I was chalked full of chemical cocktails that messed with my health in every perceivable way. When it wasn't agony from not taking my prescriptions, it was a different kind brought on by the symptoms of taking them or overdosing. That's how I've lived my whole life until now." Stewards stopped to catch his breath. "John and Kyla Stewards, I hated them. For years I hated them because I saw them as the reason I was born like this. The one life I get and this is what they give me?" He leaned over, his amused smile vanishing without a trace. "Imagine being 8-years old around others your age on a playground. They're thinking about when it'll be their turn on the swing. You're thinking about how the doctor told your parents you'll never reach your 50s."
Things were starting to make sense, his condition, his demeanor. "...How much time do you have left?"
Stewards sighed. "I knew it from the beginning. In recent times though, every doctor I've been to, once they see my condition, confirms the same thing. I have just 10 more years left to live. Then that's it."
Duncan took half a minute to think on it. "I don't get it. If you only have so much time then why spend it like this?"
"Because it isn't my parents that I hate anymore. I matured to the point that I realized they couldn't have known what would happen. ONI? They knew. They just didn't care. I was an afterthought to their goals and that of the wider UNSC. Those came first, which is why I became an Insurrectionist the first chance I got; to upset all their goals, to make sure everything they tried to maintain control of the outer colonies, those aims they'd sacrificed my future for, failed." He cooled down slightly and scratched his head. "Then the Covenant came along and did all that for us, and torched the outer colonies in the process. That's a gray area for me to be honest. Still, we were replaced, so Kirkley got us to undermine the UNSC in a new way. Thus, Aegis Material Acquisition and Defensive Delivery Services was born."
"Okay, I can understand that. What I don't understand is why you'd kill so many civilians but save the parents of the ones that tried to kill you? You o-"
"You'll find it's very easy to end the lives of others when you've never valued your own."
"...I get that. Like I was saying, you obviously want to kick the UNSC in the balls. Why aim to purposefully get yourself killed when you can do that instead?"
Stewards rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I don't want to die the way that ONI set me up to. That would just be me giving in to the fate they set for me. At the same time, I hate my life because of what was given to me by virtue of simply breathing. No, as my last act of rebellion against everything they are and everything I am, I'm going to make sure my life is ended by someone who hates me just as much as I hate myself. Anything more than that won't be rational enough to kill me, and anything less won't be convicting enough to try."
"What about that kid that who put you on that table? You stopped him from killing you."
"I could see it." Stewards said somberly. "It was obvious he hated me, but I could tell by his eyes that he was afraid. He would have just shot me a couple of times then made a run for it with his brother."
The doctors and nurses came out from the curtains on the opposite end of the room. Their materials cleaned and vestures changed, they filtered past the other tables towards them.
Seeing his window of opportunity closing, Duncan wagered a final question. "He hated you enough to try to kill you, didn't he?"
"To try." Stewards said, shrugging. "Not enough to finish the job. I want nothing more and nothing less."
The conversation was ended by the arrival of the medical staff. He kept staring in anger, confusion and a slight sadness as he saw a nurse come to the captain's side. Another came to Duncan's to begin his treatment. The first nurse asked Stewards questions about his operation and the captain's casual smile returned, as though of its own genuine fruition.
The nurse put a needle in Duncan' arm to put him under for his treatment. In the last few seconds of being conscious, he drifted back to his time on Onyx and his many interactions with the Beta Company Spartans. He wondered if they would eventually turn out like Stewards, begrudging the UNSC for depriving them of the life they could've had. They never gave him that impression, or maybe they just never lived a free enough life to know the value of what they'd freely given up. Whatever the case, he wondered where they all were now before slipping into the darkness of anesthetized slumber.
:********:
It took 5 days for the trip back to Kholo. Their atmospheric descent was made rocky thanks to a dust storm passing through the area. Gypsy and Gator waited it out for a few hours then disembarked on their restored convoy for Hayth. It was evening by then.
Everyone left save for Duncan. He'd given them the excuse that he'd left something back aboard and needed to go back for it. Telling him they didn't have time to wait, Stewards instructed him to find a ride back to the Hill before they locked up.
Duncan then went back aboard into the cargo bay where he'd secretly hidden Christa. He'd gotten her out of her fusion core while on guard duty and spent much of the trip sneaking her food. While everyone in the flight tower or the Mayweather's bridge were busy, he carried her out of the bay and into the outer lands of Starship Row. It wasn't an easy feat given the patrols they nearly ran into. However, the bulk of his worries were mostly out of the way. The sun was going down so there would be less heat and less reflectivity. Also, the day's dust storm had passed, meaning that nothing would get between them and Hayth. Nothing except for a 2-hour long trot across the ruins of Kholo.
The trip wasn't much of a problem for him given his endurance. It was a different story for Christa. He had to carry her on his back less than 10 minutes into the journey. She said little, only responding to his questions about how she was feeling with a basic "good" or "okay".
Together the two of them crested the glassy hills, scorched valleys and sinking cityscapes of the surface.
When Hayth came within sight, Christa was fast asleep. He purposefully kept a kilometer's worth of distance between him and the town's walls. He stopped at the sewer entrance Arthur had shown him. He woke Christa and carefully lowered her inside before coming down to seal the way behind them.
They travelled down the murky corridor of the tunnel to where it opened up. With a decent amount of strain, he pushed the dumpster out of the way and found the sky above glimmering with the stars of night.
He quickly pulled her out of the hole and quietly escorted her around to the front of Dennis & Grandson's grocery store. He needed to make it seem as if they hadn't come from anywhere other than the town.
Passing through the revolving doors, they discovered the store mostly empty.
Arthur was restocking some shelves further back. Olivia was behind the checkout counter reading through one of the fashion magazines. At hearing their footsteps, she looked up. "Sorry folks but the store's..." She locked eyes on him, then Christa. The little girl clung to the side of his pants.
"Evening." Duncan said.
"Ugh, evening." She leaned down on the table and smiled welcomingly at Christa. "And how are you, sweetie? Is she your daughter?"
Duncan shook his head. "I-, um, saved her during a mission recently. I actually need to find some place for her to stay, and I was hoping..." Out the corner of his eye he saw Arthur peeking out from behind a shelf. "I was wondering if you might be able to take her in?"
Olivia blinked in surprise. She shared an uncertain look with Arthur. "She doesn't have any family?"
Duncan moved to speak when Christa perked up. "My mom-…" Her voice trailed off to silence as she turned away sadly.
"She doesn't." Duncan replied. "Her mother gave her to me to try and get her out of there. I don't know where else I can bring her."
"The Covenant?"
"...Yes."
"Oh."
Olivia stepped out from behind the table and approached the two with a careful eye for Christa's reaction. Arthur followed close behind. Olivia stopped and bent down to eye-level with her. "What's your name, sweetie?"
She pulled in tighter to Duncan. "Ch-…Chris-, Christa."
Olivia smiled warmly. "Hi, Christa. My name is Olivia." She pointed back. "This is my grandson, Arthur. We run this little store here. Want to help us out?"
The older woman's bright smile, the eager look on the boy's face and the concern on Duncan's made Christa glance around to the nearby shelves. After a moment, she shrugged, her voice hoarse and cracking. "I-, I guess."
Arthur ambled up beside his grandmother. "What's your favorite Gravball team?'
"Huh?"
"Gravball. What's your favorite team?"
"I-, ugh, I-...I don't..." Christa stopped and shook her head nervously.
"Okay-okay. Well, can you play soccer?"
"Soccer?"
"Can you kick a ball?"
Christa bit her lip then nodded, causing Arthur to smile. He turned expectantly to his grandmother.
"That's good to hear." Olivia said and offered her hand. Christa hesitantly took it and slowly released her grip on Duncan's pants.
"Come on, let's get you cleaned up." Olivia shared a nod with Duncan as she and Arthur led her towards the back door. Duncan turned to leave.
"Thank you."
He stopped. The voice had been crisp and clear. Turning, he saw that Christa had also stopped to look back at him. There was a gleam in her eyes that hadn't been there a second ago.
He felt a warmth well up from within that manifested in a smile of his own. "You're welcome."
She drew in a breath and waved goodbye as Olivia led her on. Duncan waved back until the back door closed behind them.
He moved again for the front when he felt a ball softly bounce off the back of his head.
"So, when's our next match?"
Duncan kept walking. "Next?"
"Yeah." Arthur insisted, jogging in beside him. "We've got a 5 to 1 ratio. I've won 4 more games than you. It's like you're not even trying."
"Or maybe you're just getting better."
He saw Arthur flinch, briefly shocked, then his chest swelled with pride. "Well, it is what it is, I guess."
"Yeah, maybe." They headed down the last aisle to the doors. "Take care of Christa for me, alright? She might not look it, but she's been through a lot more than I can say."
"Sure, sure, I'll try not to throw soccer balls at her or pull pranks on her or-…"
Duncan noticed when he stopped talking. He saw the kid's playfulness die out, probably thanks to seeing the watery glaze in his own eyes made faintly visible by the streetlights.
Arthur swallowed. "Yeah...yeah, I'll make sure she's okay."
"Thanks."
Reaching the revolving doors, Arthur stopped just short of them. "So, ugh, that next match?"
"We're off-duty for the next few days so how does tomorrow around 5 sound?"
"Sounds good." Arthur agreed, patting his soccer ball like a pet. "Just don't be late."
"I won't. I'll come to check in on Christa too while I'm at it. You better watch out for her like you said."
"I will." Arthur assured and the two waved goodbye. Duncan headed out onto the sidewalk. The nighttime streets of Hayth were lit up every dozen meters by a street-light which cast pockets of the town in an amber glow. The lights that were on in most of the homes and the few people walking out on the streets were a sign that things were settling down. He could see the precipice of the Hill in the southeastern corner and the housing on top. He glanced up at Kholo's lone satellite moon overhead and hoped its natural illumination would be enough. He made sure Arthur had walked back into the store before he made his move. Then he quietly went around to the side of the building and headed back to the dumpster.
:********:
The journey back outside of Hayth was a quick one. The moonlight acted as his guide after he'd reemerged from the sewer tunnel. Taking one last look at the wall and the guards patrolling its length, he made his way east.
The hike was made challenging by the slippery smoothness of the ground's more thoroughly vitrified patches. He kept to the shadows of the sinking husks of buildings, moving from one to the next. One kilometer passed, then two. At two and a half he reached the remains of a wide intersection set between four former skyscrapers. The empty structures with their darkened skeletons were now scraping the ground, having each been reduced to just several levels. The remains around them served as a tide of frozen debris and earth, making the intersection something of a ravine between four rising hills. He headed up to the 'scraper; to his immediate left and wondered into one of its shattered windows.
The floor before him was really an amalgamation of many that had collapsed atop one another, forming a maze of dead wires, scorched office supplies, and tunnels that mostly led nowhere. There was one corridor however that would lead him to where he needed to go. Keeping his head down, he followed it. The viny wires slipped over his shoulders as he moved deeper in.
It took a minute for him to see moonlight up ahead. He came out into a ruinous chamber with enough space for a tank to have ample room. Except that room was taken up by a pile of debris. The mound had piled up around a section of the building's steel framework that had refused to give way. There was a hole in the 'roof', allowing the moonlight to shine down through it.
He saw what he'd come for glinting in the light.
He carefully navigated his way up to the crest of the pile. At the top, he slipped around into an alcove formed into the side of the steel framework.
Sitting there was a small metal box slightly larger than a datapad. It was camouflaged with a dark green paint, making it far less noticeable than the 2-meter-long transmission pole sticking out of its top. And at the top of that, angling up towards the open air above, was a small satellite dish reflecting the night's radiance.
Duncan sat down next to it. He breathed in deep and mentally prepared himself. Reaching down, he pressed the main screen on the box. The indicator lights on the long-range communications device pulsed a rhythmic yellow then flashed green. The screen winked on with an interface listing only a single contact.
He pressed it.
An initialization icon swirled around followed by a strobing list of codes in the upper-right corner. Once the signal encryption process finished, the contact went through.
A face appeared on the screen. At first the high brightness made him think it was the device, but he realized it was actually coming from the location that the other person was in. Gradually, his vision adjusted enough to make out the man on the other side. He was in a kind of op's center and sported a grayish-white uniform. On his shoulder was a golden star flanked by slanting, L-shaped chevrons, the insignia of a commander. His hair pure white despite looking somewhere in his 40s, his steely silver eyes leveled, Duncan looked into the expectant face of Commander Henozé White.
He snapped off a salute.
"At ease." White said and raised a brow. "Alright, Iris, let's hear that report on your mission to Kroedis."
"Yessir." Having already gathered his thoughts, the details came out in basic bullet points. "We successfully extracted all of AMG's assets at Coliseum-1. During the extraction op, Gypsy platoon mounted a side operation to AMG's storage facility on the south side of New Palermo. We took casualties 1 wounded, 5 dead including our exfil Pelican that was shot down by local militia. Before we left the facility, a Covenant scout ship showed up but didn't engage right away. It took up a temporary overwatch position to the southwest of the city. We managed to reach the private starport and used one of their freighters, the Cappadocia. We escaped just as the main Covenant fleet arrived to glass the planet." Duncan looked around. "And now I'm here."
White considered the intel. "I see. What did you go to that storage facility for?"
"Fusion cores."
"For Dr. Schonberg's Pele-5 system, I'd assume?"
"That's correct. We went to acquire 50 of them. In the end we lost too many vehicles and personnel and ended up with only 20. As far as I know, those have already been transported to Land Control."
White rubbed his chin. "Right," He looked to someone off camera. "Make sure you're recording."
"We're recording, sir." Another agent replied.
White turned back to the camera. "From the intel you've gathered for us on Land Control, and with these new cores, I'd say they're preparing to finish with Grid-19 and to shift over to Grid-20. Is that an accurate assumption?"
"That's also correct, sir. The last time I was there the site-workers were making comments about moving to the next location."
"Hm. Alright, we'll keep that in mind. How about those garrison numbers?"
"It's still the same, sir. Rather consistently, there are always 300 AMADDS stationed in Hayth on rotational duty, though Land Control also gets a few for additional helping hands." Duncan thought about it and asked. "Permission to speak freely sir?"
"Granted."
"From what all I've seen, I don't suspect anything they have here will be enough."
White nodded. "We'll see soon enough. Is that the end of your report?"
"Yessir." The memory of Stewards in the med bay flashed through his mind. "Actually, there's one more thing."
"Go on."
"It's about the captain, sir. Stewards. He's-"
"We're well aware of what he is." White said, stopping him cold. "That hasn't escaped our attention in the least." White straightened up with his hands behind his back. "We may not tell you everything, Iris, because for obvious reasons we can't. But you're there to tell us everything you can. That said, whatever information Stewards shared with you must remain confidential. Continue to keep us posted until your deadline, understood?"
Duncan saluted again. "Yessir."
"Good man. Check in with us in three days, same time. By then you'll have more details for us and we'll have more updates for you."
"Yessir."
With a final nod from White, the screen went offline. Duncan methodically shut off the device and carefully folded down the transmission pole into its housing, an act he'd forgotten to perform the last time he'd given a progress report. He was lucky it wasn't damaged. Then again, with the denseness of the ruins, the chances of anything or anyone damaging or even stumbling across it were astronomical.
He carefully packed the communication device deeper into the alcove in the steel girding. He made his way down the pile and through the labyrinthian passages of the collapsed skyscraper back out onto Kholo's nighttime scenery. He turned west and headed for Hayth where he would, as he had been for the last two weeks, continue to pretend to be a loyal member of Aegis Material Acquisition and Defensive Delivery Services.
Agente - Agent