Halo: Heaven and Earth/Alternate Interrupt

She made no effort to slip down into the cargo bay. Her boots rang against the metal stairs as she entered the catwalk overlooking the cargo bay. Andra had made no effort to hide. She stood in plain view next to a former shipping crate that now housed the ship’s combat gear. Apparently, Simon had set up the makeshift armory during his own time aboard the ship.

Andra pretended not to look in Cassandra’s direction, though Cassandra caught her sneak a glimpse to see who it was that had entered the bay. The older girl sighed, ignoring the pit that formed in her stomach as she descended the stairs from the catwalk. She was keenly aware that Andra was standing next to a small arsenal of military-grade weapons. Cassandra herself was unarmed, save for the utility knife she always wore on her belt.

“I see you found the guns,” she said with as much levity as possible. “Guess you really are a Spartan.”

“Did you really doubt that?” Andra’s voice was tight. “Your weapon selection is terrible. I’ve seen Innie militia with better specs than this.”

“This is a smuggling freighter, not a warship.” Cassandra reached the bay and crossed over to the armory, though she maintained a careful distance from the workbench Andra stood at. She seemed to be making modifications to a stripped-down battle rifle. “We grab what we can and make do. You certainly didn’t waste any time getting acquainted with the weapons. It never hurts to ask before you start messing with someone else’s gear.”

“Of course it hurts to ask. You probably would have said no.” The younger Spartan kept her eyes on the workbench, pointedly not looking in Cassandra’s direction. She’d taken her pistol out of her jacket and set it on the table beside her—within easy reach, Cassandra noticed. “And for a smuggling ship, your security’s terrible. The door to this thing wasn’t even locked.”

“Things have been a bit hectic around here lately,” Cassandra replied, doing her best to keep her voice light. Just like before, something in Andra’s voice rubbed her the wrong way. Every word was a judgment, a criticism, a reminder that this Spartan—this Delta, as it were—saw herself as Cassandra’s superior. “Guess we’ll have to step things up. You weren’t planning to try and storm the ship, were you?”

“Of course not. Like you said, you have me outnumbered four to one. Not that that red-haired kid would be much trouble, but I guess you and Argo and that other guy would be tough to take by myself.” Even a sidelong glance from Andra was frigid.

“You know, Zoey might actually be a couple of years older than you,” Cassandra said with as much civility as she could muster. “She’s sixteen, and she knows her way around a gun. I know it’s a bit hard to tell, what with your augmentations and everything, but I’ve got you pegged as, what, fourteen?”

Another dirty look told Cassandra she might have been too generous with her number. Her mind burned with questions about this Delta program. When had they been commissioned? Where was the training? Had there been another camp on Onyx where even younger children were being trained even as Gamma Company neared the end of their own training? Had the UNSC even bothered trying to rehabilitate these children when the Great War ended?

“Of course she can use a gun,” Andra muttered.

“Frontier’s a tough place.” Cassandra shrugged. “We trained her as best you could.”

“Right. Where’d you pick her up, some Innie training camp?”

“I’m not an Insurrectionist,” Cassandra pointed out. “Never have been, never will be.”

“Sure. You’re a freedom fighter, just helping out against the big bad UNSC.” Andra did turn to glower at Cassandra now, one hand was conspicuously close to her pistol. There was anger in her voice, but also a layer of pain. “Or maybe G294 was the one for ideology and you were just in it for his di—”

“You really don’t want to finish that sentence.” Cassandra’s voice was quiet, but it still managed to cut Andra off. It took work to offend her, but the implication that she had vapidly followed Simon into treason was the worst thing someone had said to her in quite some time.

Andra at least had the grace to look ashamed of herself. “Sorry,” she muttered, glancing down at her boots. “I didn’t mean that. But you’re a traitor, just like him.”

It took a few moments for Cassandra to steel herself back into a conversational mood. It disgusted her to think that other Spartans might see her like that. Did they really think Simon had seduced her to follow him away from the UNSC?

That was the price she paid for having her name left out of the Philadelphia bombing, she realized with an unexpected stab of guilt. Simon took all the blame for that one and left the others to wonder how she could possibly have been involved with him.

“The war with the Covenant was over before either of us left the UNSC,” she said, though she wasn’t sure why she bothered adding Simon to that defense. “I did my duty to humanity. I was only thirteen years old and I’d already done more than plenty of adults who’d been fighting longer than I’d been alive. So yes, I went my own way. I’d spent my childhood in a military boot camp, just like you. I’d earned my freedom. Sorry if that offends you.”

She was proud of her service as a Spartan, even if she was just as proud of her decision to walk away from it all. Andra was quiet for a few moments, perhaps guarding against another embarrassing outburst. When she did speak, her voice was low. “You think I’m just some kid who doesn’t know anything. Kahn was the same way, him and that Syndicate woman, Tatiana. They acted like I was nothing after they captured me.”

“You are just a kid,” Cassandra said. She was picking her way through a minefield of bad answers, doing her best not to set Andra off. The girl’s hand was still dangerously close to her gun. “And you think I’m some self-centered anarchist who bailed on the Spartans because I thought that life was too hard.”

“You are just a self-centered anarchist,” Andra rejoined, regaining her fire.

“Maybe. Or maybe I just decided I didn’t want to be part of a government that apparently thinks it’s alright to keep using child commandos even when humanity isn’t on the brink of extinction. It’s funny how half the nasty things High Command said they were only doing to fight the Covenant kept on going after the war ended.”

“The Spartans gave me a purpose in life,” Andra said coldly. “I was nobody before they recruited me. Nobody. Just another war orphan after my dad offed himself. They gave me a new start. They gave me a family. They gave me everything I have.”

“Do you honestly think there aren’t countless Insurrectionist child soldiers who don’t think the same way? The UNSC, hell, the entire UEG, will happily take something humanity has considered a crime for thousands of years and repackage it as something noble and necessary. It doesn’t end with Spartans or even the military. Earth never saw civil liberty it couldn’t find an excuse to take away. And you wonder why the Innies want out.”

Andra gave her a disgusted look. “The rebels bomb entire cities. They send children with suicide vests onto school buses. I’m a soldier. Half of what I do is cleaning up the messes people as you make.”

“And you do it without a second thought, I’m sure. How many people did you kill back in the nightclub? How many people have you killed since you were graduated?” Cassandra’s voice was rising. She needed to be careful, or Zoey and the others would come running. “Most humans, I’ll bet, seeing as you’re so fixated on the Insurrection. You haven’t even mentioned the Covenant once. And I’m the same way. I’ve killed twice as many like you, and probably more.”

“What, are you trying to scare me? I bet I can take you.”

“It’s not a good thing, you idiot. The ability to kill someone isn’t something to be proud of. But you don’t hesitate, and neither do I. David Kahn would be proud.” Heat rose in Cassandra’s face. It wasn’t just Andra she was arguing with, but every Spartan who had ever spoken to her like this. “They made us like this. And we’re so proud of that purpose they gave us, so happy with the family and the armor and the augmentations that we never wonder if we were meant to be something different. Because that’s what the UNSC does. It takes good people, decent people, and makes them happy about doing evil. And then they take the moral high ground when the rebels do the same thing. You never even knew the real Covenant, did you? Just the battered shell they kept parading around as an excuse to pretend the war was still on. It’s even easier to think you’re the hero when your side has all the power.”

She’d let herself get angry. Once again, she was making a bad situation worse. Cassandra tried to reel herself back in, but it was already too late. Her heart sank when she saw Andra’s fingers twitch towards the pistol.

“Don’t do it,” she said, but the plea meant nothing in the face of what she’d just said. She’d just spat in the ideals this girl had built her life around. “You don’t have to do it.”

“I don’t know.” Andra’s voice was strangely calm. A humorless smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “They made me happy about doing evil, right?”

Cassandra leaped for the gun but Andra was even faster than she’d expected. A crack split the air and then Cassandra found herself on her back, struggling for air as blood seeped from a hole in her chest. Andra stood over her, smoking gun in hand. She pointed the gun at Cassandra’s forehead for the coup ‘de grace.

Gunfire rang through the hangar, but it wasn’t Andra. The younger Spartan jerked and toppled over with a look of surprise as the bullets cut her down.

Vision failing, Cassandra leaned back and dimly perceived Zoey and William standing on the catwalk, weapons drawn. William looked shocked. Zoey stared down at the scene in horror.

Andra snarled through a mouthful of blood and tried to rise.

“Don’t,” Cassandra tried to say, but her mouth didn’t seem to be working anymore. Her body felt cold.

Once again the plea was useless. Andra raised her pistol on the attackers. A final shot from Zoey pierced her temple and the girl slumped lifeless to the deck.

They were rushing down the stairs now, Zoey yelling for William to get a med kit. She was probably wasting her time, Cassandra observed dimly. She’d treated wounds like the one in her chest before. Most of her patients hadn’t made it. She probably wouldn’t either.

She rested her head back against the deck and tried to steady her breathing. If she could just keep breathing, everything would be alright. There was no pain. Just the cold and an unexpected terror that this really was the end.

Someone was standing over her. She squinted through the shadows that danced across her vision. Maybe she could pretend it was Dyne.

But it wasn’t Dyne. A different, harsher face stared down at her with uncharacteristic concern.

“Si—” Cassandra murmured as the breath slipped from her lungs.

The last thing she saw was William and Zoey kneeling beside her, struggling to seal the wound in her chest. They were doing things all wrong. She wanted to walk them through it, tell them how to do it properly, but she couldn’t speak. She was tired.

So tired.