Out of Place

Two soldiers recuperate on the UNSC Infinity's nature dome after surviving a bloody ambush.

"It's a step up from the old days, that's for sure," Staff Sergeant Arregui observed. He walked down the garden pathway and inhaled deeply, breathing in the thick air of the Infinity's garden dome. Glancing down the rows of vibrant foliage the sergeant shaded his eyes against the glare from the artificial lighting overhead with his left hand. The stump of his right arm hung in a sling at his side.

Beside him, Corporal Suh forced a smile. Even the smallest of gestures sent slivers of pain racing beneath the gel-pad covering half his face. He followed Arregui's gaze over the rows of neatly maintained shrubs and tried to fight down the strange unease they stirred within him.

"Look how far we've come," Arregui said, walking further along the garden path. "Never thought I'd see something like this on a warship. Orbital stations, sure, but a warship? Those reporters are right. The Infinity really is the ship of the future."

Corporal Suh wordlessly followed his squad leader but looked away from the greenhouse plants and over to the vast dome stretching over the garden expanse. He could only partially see the stars peeking in through the dome's shutters. No matter how many times the crew and Roland assured him of the dome's security it felt wrong to be walking anywhere on the Infinity's hull, let alone a picturesque garden.

"Do you remember Reach?" Arregui was saying. He stopped in front of a large willow tree. The strands from its branches draped down over his burly shoulders. "Aboard the Iroquois? Might as well have been a drop pod compared to this. Just a tin can shooting through space."

"Yeah," Suh rasped, doing his best to talk despite the pain. "I remember." He remembered huddling in a cramped alcove just outside the hangar bay, bawling his eyes out as the ship shuddered from plasma impacts. Metal everywhere, crew shouting and dashing from one fire to another. Arregui kneeling beside Private Shmeul, the maimed soldier missing both his legs and draped out in an access corridor because there was no room left in the med bay.

He'd died minutes after the Iroquois jumped away from Reach.

"Didn't think we'd ever survive on that mess of a ship." Arregui brushed the willow branches aside to make room for Suh beneath the tree. "But I never thought we'd ever have something like this."

Suh joined Arregui beneath the willow and indicated his missing arm. "How's it doing?"

Arregui offered him a crooked smile. "They say I'll be ready for a prosthetic in a few days. You want to come with me to the appointment? It'll be fun. You can help me pick the color for my new arm."

Suh imagined a warehouse stocked full of brightly colored prosthetic arms, lined out on display like shoes in a clothing store. He wouldn't be surprised if the Infinity had one of those, maybe tucked away in a shopping mall somewhere within this gargantuan ship. If they could fit a garden on top of the most advanced warship in the UNSC's fleet-and maybe even a zoo, if the rumors Suh kept hearing were true-then a mall was child's play. "Maybe you can help pick out a new face," Suh said, words stunted by the gel-pad. "For me." He tried again to smile.

"Aw, I'm sure you're still plenty pretty under there. You just need rest, like we all do." Arregui indicated the garden around them. "Perfect spot for it, too. Much better than moping in your quarters."

"Yeah," Suh agreed. He tried to mimic the sergeant's cheerful appreciation, but the garden turned his stomach. Where Arregui saw soothing trees he saw the forest where the Covenant had blown off the sergeant's arm and seared a plasma grenade into Suh's face. Where half their platoon had died.

Where he'd been lying, screaming into the mud, not twenty-four hours before.

It wasn't right to feel this way about accommodations like these. Even with half his face held together by medgel and stitches, Suh knew he was one of the lucky ones. He'd at least survived to come back to this immaculate garden. And if this were the old war, he might still be lying in some filthy, overcrowded medbay or worse trapped in a triage center planetside as Covenant ships prepared to glass him from orbit.

But everything about the Infinity-and all the new ships and facilities he'd seen since the war ended-felt wrong to him. The sterile hallways and clean board rooms felt more like scientific laboratories than fighting platforms. The older ships were coated with rust and grime, but at least he'd always felt as if he was a part of them. Resting with his squad in those rickety junkers was strangely comforting.

On the Infinity, he felt out of place with his ravaged face and maimed friend. Even when the medics hauled him and Arregui off of the dropship and rushed them to surgery he'd felt. embarrassed. As if his ugly wounds and filthy armor didn't belong in such neat, clean surroundings.

It was stupid to think this way. He could learn from Arregui, a man who could take even a cup of water and crust of bread and treat it like a feast. There was a man who deserved these lovely surroundings. All Suh could do was wax nostalgic for the most horrific war in human history, one he'd just barely survived.

But the feelings were there all the same.

Suh followed Arregui down the winding path. He reached up and tugged at one of the willow strands as he passed by. At the very least the trees were real and not a bunch of holograms. Maybe headquarters would pull him off combat duty thanks to his face. Suh wouldn't mind being whatever duty staff helped maintain this strange sanctuary's tidy foliage.

Perhaps then he wouldn't feel so out of place.