Someone Else's Victory

“…reports of celebrations pouring in from across the colonies as word of the Treaty of Voi spreads. UEG officials confirmed today that all military action against Sangheili forces will cease immediately. Henceforth, humans and Sangheili pledge to launch joint ventures across known space to drive back remaining Covenant forces and repair the damage done through this terrible conflict. The war is over, people. I say again, the war is over!”

Corporal Chuan Santiago, Mamore militia, fought back the urge to cut loose and throw the transmitter against the tavern wall. “War’s over,” he repeated under his breath. “Peace with the hinge-heads. I don’t believe it.”

Beside him, Private Maria Estebar curled a fist around the barrel of her rifle. “Peace,” she snapped, practically spitting the word out into the dry Mamore air. “Typical UEG. It’s all ‘exterminate the alien’ and ‘fight to the death’ when the Covenant glass our worlds, kill our people, but the second the Inner Colonies burn they get a peace treaty.”

Chuan gritted his teeth. “Unbelievable.” He glanced across the table at Maria. “And what about here? Do you think they’ll speed up the—“

“Is it true?” a new, strained voice demanded. “The war’s over? It’s really done?”

Chuan and Maria both glanced over to see a small group of street urchins—no rare sight in Mamore’s dusty towns—clustered about the tavern entrance. Maria grimaced but took her hand off her rifle. “Scram, punks. Unless you rats want another beating.”

A grubby girl at the head of the gathering smiled and spread her hands. “C’mon Estabar, cut us some slack.” But it wasn’t this girl who had spoken.

“They said the war’s over,” the first voice said. “Is it true?”

Chuan’s gaze fixed on an urchin at the back of the gathering, dirty and scrawny like the others but strangely well-muscled for an orphan raised on scraps looted from trash bins. He crouched at the tavern threshold, dog-like, peering up at the militia from beneath strands of matted black hair.

The corporal snorted. He pitied these orphans, to be sure, but he didn’t want them thinking him a soft touch. “Sure, it’s true. War’s over.” He tapped the transmitter. “They’re saying we won, back on Earth. Not that it matters to you. Think anyone on Earth gives a damn about you or any of the rest of us?”

“You’ll be bleeding in another one just like it once they stop licking their wounds and remember us back here.” Maria aimed a kick at the lead girl, who leaped back just in time. “Now go on, get out of here while I’m in a good mood.”

The urchins stood undaunted until their leader backed off, the smile never leaving her face. She slipped away and the others followed after her; a few urchins scurried out from behind the militia, no doubt driven off by other tables. Only the crouching dark-haired boy remained, staring up at the transmitter with a hungry, wretched longing.

“C’mon, Stray!” the lead girl called. “Get a move on!”

The crouching boy vanished from the doorway. It took Chuan and Maria nearly an hour to realize that someone had made off with half their food while their backs were turned.

The one called Stray slunk after his companions, news of the war’s end burning within him more painfully than a dozen nights without food. The war had ended while he languished on this dusty hellhole of a world. While he begged for scraps, the others had fought on without him and done the impossible. Even lost and abandoned, he was a failure.