War is Sacrifice

It hurt to open his eyes. Or at least his remaining eye. Redmond Venter didn’t need a mirror or even need to reach up to feel the bandages to know that his right eye was gone. He remembered the knife in Stray’s hand, the arc of the swing, the force of the impact against his skull. He was lucky to have just lost the eye. Lucky…

The ceiling rumbled above him. Venter realized he was lying on a cot in one of the antechambers beneath the mountain stronghold. No doubt the battle was still raging up above them as the UNSC finished the bloody reconquest of Mamore. A medical tech worked quietly in the corner, monitoring the vital signs of half a dozen bodies spread throughout the antechamber. And there, beside Venter’s own cot, face and clothes still caked with dirt and grime, sat Gavin Dunn.

Venter grimaced and turned away from his comrade. Former comrade. “You shot me,” he muttered. A statement, not an accusation.

He expected to see a flicker of guilt, that usual trace of uncertainty from poor, insecure Gavin. But there was none. The eyes under that grimy cap were filled with anger and disgust. “You were going to kill Stray.”

“Yes. I was. He was trying to kill me.” Venter reached up and touched the bandages over his face. The wound didn’t hurt as much as he’d expected, but the venom in Gavin’s eyes more than made up for that. “And why are you still here?”

“I got you out.” Gavin folded his hands; they were trembling. “For old time’s sake.”

“Old time’s sake?” Venter couldn’t remember being this angry, not since he’d been discharged. “Traitor. I should have you shot.”

“Have me shot?” Gavin let out a bitter laugh. “Oh, you really sound like one of them now. A two-bit warlord, just like all the rest. I thought you were better than that. I thought I knew you. Haven’t you killed enough? How can you live with yourself after everything… after Emily…” His voice cracked and he stared down at the floor. His hands were shaking.

Venter tried to muster up a retort, but his throat was suddenly dry. For a moment he was back in Halorale’s jungles, marching with Arthur and the others along the highway of death past the mounds of corpses heaped along the trail. He realized, too late, that even now after everything they’d endured together on Mamore that Gavin knew nothing of what it meant to fight a war.

“Why are you still here?” he murmured.

“I don’t know. To say goodbye. To tell you to rot in hell. I don’t know.”

The ceiling rumbled again. Venter stared back up and tried to imagine the embattled mountain fortress. “They’re dying up there. Dying for the cause. Our cause. The cause you gave me.”

“Don’t… it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“Really? Then what was it supposed to be like?” Venter hissed. “One of those godawful songs in one of your bullshit propaganda broadcasts? War is sacrifice.”

“Yeah.” Gavin’s eyes darkened. “And you got pretty good at sending people to make those sacrifices, didn’t you?”

Venter turned away. He couldn’t stand that accusing gaze a moment longer. “Go on. Run. Before I wring your neck myself. Before I tell what’s left of our troops that Lieutenant Dunn is too good for us now. I’ll wait for the order before I come after you. For old time’s sake.”

“You’ll wait for the order. Yeah. You always follow orders, don’t you?” Gavin stood and strode towards the exit. He hesitated at the door as yet another tremor shook the antechamber and spared one last glance back at the cot.

Venter realized then that no matter how their paths might cross in the future, this was the final parting between those two boys from Reach. He tried to recall that old, desperate freedom, but there was only his duty. Only the cause. And Gavin Dunn had betrayed that cause.

He struggled to get up from the cot but his strength failed him and he couldn’t rise as Gavin Dunn turned away and disappeared.