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Terminal This fanfiction article, Echoes of Dust, was written by LastnameSilverLastname. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission.
HALO Title

ECHOES OF DUST[]


Echoes of Dust Timestamp 1






At the bottom of a shell crater, Spartan Kennedy chose to gamble her life away. A flick of her practiced wrist, and an entrenching tool came free of her magnetic thigh plate. Flicking it open, she drove it into the dirt.

Her canteen came next, mashing it to an intake on the front of her helmet that retracted, and fed a sucking tube to her lips. She downed the entire litre, shook the last drops free, and stooped down to the hole she’d made in the muck, before scooping the driest spots she could find into the empty metallic container.

The Spartan to her left looked down, watching every movement. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t even pause. “Collecting dirt.”

An exasperated sigh sounded over their team comms. “Why?” he asked, a tilt of his helmet catching the light over the rim.

“It’s not gonna be dirt for much longer,” she said.

He looked back out over the rim of the crater, scanning over the shelled-out field beyond. “How long have you been doing this for, now?”

“Thirteen years.” She didn’t have to think about it.

“How—”

She cut him off. “Twenty two planets. Thirteen glassed.” Looking up to the sky, she sighed. “About to be fourteen.”

“Hmm,” he hummed. “What do you even do with it all, boss?”

She paused, screwing the cap on, furrowing her brow in thought. “I guess…” she stopped. “I guess I keep it in the containers.”

He clicked his tongue. Shifted his weight onto the other foot. “Seems tragic. If it’s the last little bit of this planet left, you should do something with it.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” He turned to look at her, attention waning for a split second. “Something.”

She didn’t get a chance to reply before a plasma round sheared off half of Spartan Cairne’s faceplate.

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Echoes of Dust Timestamp 2





Twenty three metal containers—canteens, candle tins, MRE preserved cans, and even a spent 90mm shell, capped with plastic wrap and tied with weathered elastics. She laid them out on the workshop desk in front of her, packed away in a tight little corner of the MJOLNIR maintenance ward. They didn’t give her a lathe, soldering iron, or even a press. They didn’t give her gloves, wraps, or stowage space. They gave her a sheet of steel, two rags, different coarseness like she wanted, and the spent shell of a 30mm, sawn in half to be the size of a pickle jar. In short, everything she asked for, tucked away in her own little cubby, away from the more pressing issues of repair and refit for their highly-expensive armour systems.

She got to work. Emptying out the first container onto one of the unfolded rags, the one with the most porous fibres and most gaps between the threads. She lifted the edges, folded them, and shook it in gentle motions, up and down. The finer, dusty particles slid through, collecting on the table in an ashen heap.

The thicker clumps left behind were wet, mixed, and sponged into a tight ball. Crushed, pulped mud caked her hands, and the odd looks from the maintenance staff went unheeded while she worked. Mulching, mashing, folding the dirt in on itself.

Sighing, she set the muddy ball down with a thud. It deformed the ball, and she cursed. Picking it back up, she mulched, mashed, and folded, then set it back down—gently.

The spent 30mil casing came up in her belighted fingers. Fumbling with it, it clattered to the table, now caked in its own layer of wetness. She groaned, tossed it away, and wiped her hands down on her skinsuit. The mud came free and spread across her suit in lines of brackish brown, from sternum to abs.

The casing touched the ball, open end first, and she began to move the ball across it. Soft, fine controlled movements, smoothing sides, conforming the deformed shape. She pressed too hard at once, shell and hand, and the casing sank into the sphere. Half of the wet orb fell away with a plop, and she stood up. Tossed the shell at the wall, hurled the orb down on the table with a thwack.

Kennedy growled at it, mashed it into the table, and sighed. Then, she began again. Crushed, pulped, molded, mashed. Shell casing, muddy fingers fumbled. A curse, a sigh, more wiped lines on black skinsuits joined the first set of tiger stripes. Cleaner fingers, a huff of approval. Smoothing, back, forth, round and round, shell on dirt and eyes transfixed.

Eventually the near-perfect sphere almost slipped into the shell. Kennedy gasped, caught it, and the half-fist of dirt rolled around in her hands.

She smiled, nodded, and picked up the clean-ish cloth.

Next came the dry particles, the finer ones, sieved and set aside and not touched with a dram of water. She dusted the shell, then wiped,. Dusted, then wiped .

For her entire free time slot she sat there on the chop shop deck, drawing eyes from the staff on first and second shifts when they changed.

She continued to polish.

When the final crew call went out to signal last mess, she leaned back. Focused sweat stained a heavy brow, dirt caked her left cheek, and a polished mass of dirt sat in her hands, reflecting the overhead lights.

Kennedy turned the sphere in her hand, resting an elbow on the table.

“Well Cairne,” she pulled out the dog tags from around her neck, holding them up to the light. The polish was just enough that she could see the ghost of metal in the surface.

“I finally took your advice. Not bad for a first try, eh?”

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Echoes of Dust Timestamp 3





The Marine watched the hulking mass of Spartan stoop low into the dust, and drive an entrenching tool deep into the European soil. After a few seconds, the Spartan stopped digging, before taking out her canteen. She popped the lid, downed the contents, then kept the lid unscrewed while shovelling fine particulates of dirt and mud into the neck.

“What are you doing?” the Marine finally asked.

“I’m collecting the dirt,” she said after less than a heartbeat’s pause. “It’s about to be the last little bit left. I think I should do something with it.”

“Like what?”

The Spartan pulled a bag out of her backpack, from the reinforced container down at the bottom of the combination pack and relay. Opening up a drawstring bag, she pulled out a metal container, the perfect size, she saw, to hold the contents. A reflective brown sphere, polished to a shine, perfectly curved, absent of any blemishes.

Craning her neck to look, the Marine saw three dozen of those exact same containers.

The Spartan held out the polished ball to the Marine in an armoured hand, far too gentle for the massive size and cold titanium grip.

The Marine took it, delicate fingers wrapped it, cradled it like a fragile egg.

The Spartan looked up from the sphere into the Marine’s face. The Marine could swear she could see human eyes behind the visor now.

“Remember it,” the Spartan answered.

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