Retirement

João Hawthorne got up from where he’d been sleeping on the floor. A bed would have been nice, although most civilian beds weren’t designed for the weight of MJOLNIR armor, even when it wasn’t mostly made of machinery. Besides, the armor was comfortable enough - it was designed for him to live in it, which was especially important given that it was the only thing keeping him alive.

He was sure he’d never be able to move again after the attack. During the Battle of Earth, Covenant ground forces had ambushed his base, and he had suffered a supercombined explosion from a Needler, which had almost completely torn him in half. By all rights he should have been killed. For the two years he’d spent attached to an array of stationary artificial organs while countless flash-cloned replacements were rejected by what remained of the organs they were supposed to have attached to, he wished he had been.

Wartime advancements in prosthetic limb and internal organ replacement technology had culminated in the Spartan-IV physical augmentations, which included the outright replacement of several of the organs that, on João, had been destroyed in the Needler attack. Someone at HIGHCOM then had the idea of using Spartan-IV augmentations as a way to restore mobility to wounded UNSC servicemen who would have otherwise had to spend their entire lives on stationary life support, and when João was told about the procedure he volunteered for it immediately.

The augmentations held, although because of the damage to his abdomen and spine his body was unable to support itself on its own. He therefore had to be surgically attached to framework within his armor to give his body structural support. It was uncomfortable at first, but to João having his mobility restored was worth it. As a Spartan, he had mostly been tasked with missions that, while prominent, weren’t in keeping with his abilities as a soldier, and as a result he had started to believe his role was mostly propaganda. The New Phoenix cemented his belief that he would be better off serving in a more civilian role, and as a result he requested to be transferred to the Home Guard and go into partial retirement. To his surprise his request was accepted; perhaps the UNSC wanted to use him as a guinea pig to test the UNSC’s ability to provide for the needs of retired Spartans in the future. Nevertheless, he packed his belongings and headed for Earth.

João wasn’t sure why he picked Earth. He had known he wanted to take up farming, but if he was looking at it from a purely logical point of view he should have gone to Biko, which had much cheaper land since it was far less inhabited than Earth. Perhaps fighting for Earth throughout his wartime service but never seeing it personally until he was transferred after the fall of Reach influenced his decision.

He looked up from his breakfast, wondering why he was pondering his past when his farmer’s almanac, heavily battered from being handled by the reinforced gloves of his armor, said that it was about the right time to start planting corn. He walked out to his tractor and sat down. The seat groaned under his weight, but held. He drove to the shed in which he kept his farming equipment. The old man from whom he’d bought his farm had told him that the device with which he would be planting corn was a "combination cultivator and a sowing machine, so you don’t have to make two passes during planting season." João still wasn’t sure he truly understood what that meant.

The farm equipment sat in the dark shed, looking to João as alien as the Covenant as he’d spent a significant part of his life fighting. He almost wished he was confronting a pack of enraged Brutes or a Hunter pair instead, since he knew what to do with those. On his farm, nothing was familiar except the armor he called home. The controls of his tractor made those of Covenant vehicles look intuitive, and he still didn’t understand what all the connections by the hitch were for. He’d wanted to farm because there were very few farmers left since many agricultural centers had been abandoned during the war. Even when agriculture worlds were evacuated, he was only certain that they’d evacuated the people in the cities…

Thinking about war dead isn’t going to get this machine connected to the tractor, João thought to himself. He contemplated the myriad of connectors again before adding, but neither will staring at it not knowing what I’m doing.

He set to work trying to hitch up the machine. By midday he’d managed to connect it up, and he set to work trying to plant the corn seeds, but he’d set the cultivator’s height incorrectly and damaged it. Disgruntled, he got in his civilian-issue utility Warthog and headed for the local bar.

João hadn’t even managed to go inside when he was confronted by an older man. “Why do you have one of those fancy suits when ODSTs in the field can’t get them?” The Spartan regarded the man before turning to head inside. The man shoved João, screaming “My son would be alive right now if he had one of those!” In response, João gently pushed the man aside, who crumpled to the ground gasping for air.

Two hours later, João left the hospital. Thankfully, the man was still alive, although his broken sternum would keep him from work for the next month and they were still checking his heart and lungs for signs of shock. João drove home with an increasing sense of despair, becoming less and less convinced that his current course of action was correct. The next day João woke up early, but didn’t get up for several hours. Eventually, he got up and decided to place a call, but when he picked up the receiver he accidentally crushed it in his hand.

Word count: 1000