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Spartan Fred-104 was no stranger to combat. He’d seen more of it than most soldiers would in two lifetimes.
He had never seen it like this.
Armor provided a layer of insulation from the onslaught of war. Polarized visors compensated for glare. The undersuit regulated temperature and wicked away sweat. The helmet muted sounds above a certain decibel level and filtered out dust and dirt—Fred didn’t want to think about what he was breathing. His fingers were simultaneously slick and gritty. His eyes stung with a mixture of sweat, dirt, gunpowder, and God knew what else.
Blue Team’s leader kept instinctively looking for a heads-up display that wasn’t there. No TEAMBIO, comms, ammo and weapons counts. No IFF tags. No zooming in on targets. No mission clock, not that it mattered this time. He couldn’t talk to his team unless they were right next to him, sometimes not even then. Hand signals only worked within line of sight.
Worst of all, there was nothing between Fred and the flying bullets, plasma, and shrapnel. Contrary to the rumors he knew circulated in the world at large, Spartans weren’t bulletproof. He didn’t even have the most rudimentary body armor the Spartans had worn in training. Whoever fled Reach with the Spartans’ Mjolnir armor had ensured that Fred would not only die here, but he would experience every second of it in excruciating detail.
Everything was too loud, too bright, too hot, too close.
“‘Don’t trust machines,’” Fred muttered to himself, imagining what Kurt would say if he were here. “‘Machines are easy to fool. Machines are easy to break.’” He rested his rifle on the ledge in front of him and took out two Jackals. Fine, Kurt. You win. He domed another. You’re dead and you’re still winning. A fourth jackal down. I’d at least like a helmet, though.
Fred’s rifle clacked empty, and he reflexively tried to holster the MA5B on his back. Damn. Something else he didn’t have anymore. He set the rifle on the ground and unholstered his pistol, ready for the next round of this losing battle.
For the moment, the onslaught had calmed. Fred let himself relax fractionally. He’d cleared the zone. Bought a little more time for the civilians. Made a few more Covenant bastards pay for a few more inches of Reach. Delayed the inevitable just a bit longer.
“Fred?”
Fred glanced up. Kelly was crawling next to him. “Where’s Linda?” she asked.
“Sniping,” Fred answered. He could barely hear Kelly over the ringing in his ears.
“Silver?”
“FLEETCOM, last I knew.” Normally, he would know. Normally Fred would simply radio John and ask for his location. Now he had no way to know if John or anyone on Silver Team was alive.
None of us will be alive much longer.
Kelly looked over the charred land in front of them. “This was the training compound.”
“I know,” Fred said.
“We grew up here,” Kelly panted. “It was our home.”
“I know.” Fred took in the burning hellscape around him. Reach, humanity’s bulwark, the only stronghold between the Covenant and Earth, incinerated and soon to be turned to glass.
After Reach would come Earth. The war would be over.
“We really are losing,” Kelly said breathlessly. “Aren’t we?”
A fireball exploded in one of the buildings. Fred tried to remember what it had been. The indoor shooting range, where they had zeroed their rifles and had unofficial shooting matches that Linda always won? The gymnasium, where Fred could have beaten John in sparring but never did? The barracks, where they had skirted lights-out more than once?
Whatever it had been, it was all ash now.
Fred inhaled a long breath and coughed on the exhale as his lungs protested the unfiltered residue of war.
“No,” he answered when he’d recovered. “We’ve lost.”