Remembrances

Former Sergeant Leon Graves, retired, with honours, strolled about as easily as one could stroll when they were pushing 70 years old. His frame, once strong and honed through years of training, now bore the frail wrinkles and sagging of a man long past his prime.

He held a burnished wooden crane in one hand, pushing it forward along the ground whenever he brought his left leg up, and using it to support that same leg when it came back down. Even after all these years, it still hurt.

He walked through the warehouse, alone. He had been here so many times that he could’ve made this walk blindfolded. Seen all there was to see in the Camber Museum of Tanks & Artillery.

He had seen the comparatively small, trapezoid shape of the Mark I, the robust and rotund form of the Panzer, Tiger, and Sherman. The big, bad silhouettes of the Russian T-14 Armata, then onto the M1 Abrams, the United Nations’ failed attempts at a Walker-type, then, finally, the M808 Scorpion. which phased the Walker out entirely, and found the perfect balance between multiple tracks and armour.

He stepped out and around the last exhibit of the Scorpion, and up to the section of the exhibit dedicated to the conflict which took place right here. Right where he stood, years and years before. Where the 84th Mechanised Infantry smashed a Covenant force, and he ambushed a lone Wraith tank near a mountain pass.

Well, he and the rest of Echo Squad.

He fished around in his pocket for a photograph. He had it printed, on real paper, because he wanted this visit to be a special one. His last visit.

He eyed the photograph of them around an ammo box, and smiled at the fond memories. He was way past the age of regrets and ‘what if’s’, now he was firmly in the fond reminiscence of what was. What did happen, good and bad. It all deserved to be remembered for its own reasons.

Which is why he was here, among other relics of bygone eras, as old now and decrepit as he was.

Stepping out through the doors, the cold of the Camber winter hit him full force. His leg seized a little, and his cane staggered. The wind whipped his photograph, but he held onto it with a firm grip as he bundled his black coat around his waist, and pressed on.

This open-plan exhibit, right after the warehouse, carried genuine relics of the battle. Broken remnants of vehicles, human and covenant, lined the brown grass and bushes of the plains.

He stepped up to the mostly-intact form of the Wraith tank. Parts of it looked like they had been taken apart by inexperienced hands, then welded and riveted back together. The craftsmanship was unmistakably Human in origin. But, he had to be sure.

He gave no mind to the signpost or the red ticker barrier in front of it. He stepped into the exhibit, and walked around the left hand side. He smiled as wide as a cat when he saw the scratches carved into the chassis. The initials of all of Echo Squad. His, right at the top, next to the name of their unit. He reached for the panel, pried it open, and slipped the worn photograph inside it, making sure it stayed put when he pushed the panel closed with a snap.

Tears stung his eyes, but not of grief or remorse. Tears that came unbidden, of nostalgia and hope. They had made it through the war, thick and thin, together as a unit. They made it from the first shots to the peace treaty, from Camber to Earth and beyond.

When the time came, they accepted old age, and quietly passed into that good night.

Leon stepped back out from behind the tank, and froze. A figure had snuck up on him. He didn’t know how, considering the lumbering, 8 foot tall beast looked like it couldn’t breathe without shaking the rocks beneath him.

It was staring up at the Wraith, mandibles flexing, and reptilian eyes blinking with all the speed of a glacier. It turned its head slightly to face him, and Leon instantly went for a side-arm. A side-arm that wasn’t there. He caught himself after he did it, and then looked back up to the Sangheili.

It gave a deep rumble. “A not at all uncommon response.” It said.

Leon climbed out over the railing.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“I often wondered. Stayed awake at night, staring into the darkness,” it said.

Leon listened. Age respected age, no matter the origin. This alien—this Sangheili—needed him to hear this.

“I wondered how you Humans did it. I heard the stories, from outside my cell. Stories of defeat, after defeat.” It—he—made a vague motion with a hand. “Each one would cause more, and more grief and pain.”

The Elite looked at him. “Yet, still, you carried on. And you carried on, and you fought, and you fought. I never knew how, or why, you did it.”

He looked back at the Tank. Leon did the same.

“Humans,” they both said at once.

Leon smiled. “We’re stubborn like that.”

The Elite’s mandibles twitched, and he shook his head. “I know what I did to your kind, what my people did to yours, can never be forgiven.” He turned fully, to face the Human. “But, perhaps, just this once, we can put it all aside.”

“You still haven’t told me who you are,” Leon said.

“I once operated the gun of this very machine,” the Elite said. “Field Master Thesa ‘Refumee. You, and your human soldiers, captured me, and my machine.”

Leon was struck by the most vivid memory he had ever felt, as though he were re-living the events for the first time.

“You fought well,” the Elite said.

The human, stunned for words, merely nodded. “I could say the same for you.”

“Old enemies,” the Elite said. “Older soldiers, we’re ancient relics, this these things surrounding us.”

Leon huffed with mirth. “Yeah, you got that right.”

The Elite held out a hand towards him; a mighty-looking thing, even aged as he was, it still held the strength to crush his. Leon put his hand into it without a second thought. “Old Relics.”

Leon nodded. “Old Relics.”

It was there, in front of the half-melted wreckage of a Scorpion tank, that the Elite and the Human laid their hands on each other with non-lethal intent, for the very first time in either of their lives.