Chapter 37 of All That Is Gold Does Not Glitter (ATIG)

The lights of the landing field flickered on as the first Pelican came in for a landing. Scrub grass danced in the air currents from the engine wash, and the Pelican’s own headlights lit up the mountainous canyon’s walls with silver fire.

The compound had been empty and quiet for the last four days. Not a single soul had inhabited the place for that time, not even a caretaker.

But no longer. Now, its people had returned.Uniformed men and women of the United Nations Space Command exited their dropships and started reactivating the base. They were smiling as they turned on the lights, warmed up the buildings, and started the kitchen stoves. More Pelicans came in. Every single trainer from the Spartan-II program, as well as every single cadet. Some of them pretended that things were normal, keeping a straight face, but everyone knew it was a lie. Trainers were handing out small chocolate bars from their own rations to the children, and the children were hugging the trainers in gratitude for everything they had done.

The mood was jubilant, ebullient, triumphant. The investigation of their program and of Doctor Halsey was over.

For one brief moment, all was right in the world.Or so they thought.

I walked out of the final Pelican, staring straight ahead as I strode towards the administration building. No one bothered me, though I saw them moving in the peripherals of my vision as they headed towards the largest mess hall for a late dinner.The administration building was dark, and I was the first to enter. I didn’t bother turning on the lights, and instead navigated purely through my own memory of the place, until finally I came to my own office, and entered. I sat down in my office chair, engaged the security blackout, and remained there in the dark. After a long moment, I slumped backwards in my chair, and exhaled.The best of days, and the worst of days, I thought to myself, morosely. The hour of my greatest success… and my most terrible failure.Just six hours ago, I had been sitting inside a prison cell, alone with nothing but four walls, a bed, and a toilet. For the past three days, I had been trapped there, given no information about the ongoing investigation of my Spartan program. Social isolation is a well understood tool of psychological warfare. Humans are pack animals, and they desire contact to remain well-balanced. Even I, as a person that was not… always the most normal of humans… needed that contact, as much as I didn’t like acknowledging it. This had been worse. If I had known that my children were taken care of, that my schedule was being executed, that my science teams were progressing in their goals, then a three-day stay in the hole would have been bearable. Instead, I had sat there in agonizing worry. How could I not have been worried? Every single adult in this program either despised me, or they performed their jobs purely out of professional integrity. Given the chance to stab me in the back, even my old friends from the Party House would have happily driven a knife into my spine. The various Navy and Marine Corps trainers were professionals through-and-through, and would obey any order from my potential replacement.In that situation, with Section Zero clearly looking to replace me with someone more controllable after all the trouble I’d caused them, it was inevitable that my end was near.Abandoned by all the allies that I’d gained over the years through gifts, aid, and honest effort, there was no other outcome. None of them had risen to my defense, save for Captain Stanforth, and even then, he could have simply been lying to my face, before turning around once I was out of sight.

I hadn’t seen any of the testimonies, I couldn’t have known what any of those supposed allies said – and given the way the wind was blowing, it was only natural to assume that they were about to dump my dead weight overboard and pretend they’d never known me.

Except… that hadn’t happened.

Xxxx

Today, on the fourth day of this investigation, I had been freed from my cell, escorted to a conference room.

There I was greeted by dozens upon dozens of UNSC officers. They welcomed me with salutes when I entered, to my surprise and shock.

Among them were a cadre of the senior NCO’s from my trainers, including Wentworth and Swanson. Representatives of the special forces units that I had convinced to train with my Spartans, ranging from Captains Silva and Ackerson to Major Thatch of the UNSC Air Force, and Master Sergeants Terry McDowell and Jack Kawalski from SPECWARCOM’s Group Three. Even the Orion-I’s were present, with Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson and Nolan Byrne standing aside from the group.More individuals were present from the wider reaches of ONI. Naval Captains Ned Rich and Aaron Gibson, who ran two of Section Three's wet-works divisions, and whom I had spent many days coaxing onto my side. Rear Admiral Dvørak from Section Two’s propaganda division, whom consulted me for opinions on economic messages for the Outer Colonies, given my PhD on the topic. Even Rear Admiral Ysionris Jeromi, the doctor who should have hated my guts the most, was present with only a mild look of distaste on his face.Standing at the front of the crowd had been the core officers from the Spartan-II program, the same people that I had met with monthly for the last several years: Captain Hieronymus Michael Stanforth, Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, and Doctors David Meyer, Paul Wu, and Steve Sullivan.

“Congratulations, Doctor Halsey,” Michael Stanforth said, stepping forward and shaking my hand. “You have been cleared of all charges.”“What?” I asked, my voice faltering. Stanforth smiled knowingly, and gestured to the rest of the crowd with a sweeping hand. “The evidence and testimony was overwhelmingly in your favor,” he told me. “Section Zero will be preparing a disciplinary hearing for Major Arnold Wilson for his own violations of security regulations.”Those words washed over me like a wave of soothing water. A relief, unexpected and all the more amazing for it.I didn’t remember exactly what I had said back to Stanforth, but he nodded back to me, and walked away, leaving me to face the three men I had once trusted most in the world, and whom had the most reason to despise me.For the past several years, I had believed that David, Paul, and Steve had each managed to shelve their personal distaste for me. Yet I also believed that their hatred simmered under the surface, informing their actions and fueling their behaviors. For the past few days, I had known – known, with absolute certainty! – that this was the perfect opportunity for them to act upon those perfectly understandable feelings, and hurt me as much as I had hurt them.“David?” I asked the man, my voice weak as he approached. The tall, broadly built man lifted his enormous arms, and I tensed up just in time for him to wrap me in a warm hug. I froze. An experienced medical doctor, not even to mention David’s planetary-level wrestling career, could have killed me in any number of ways in this position.

And yet, he didn’t. There was no move towards my neck or spine or brain-stem. “I know you didn’t start it,” David Meyer whispered in my ear, squeezing me gently. “I don’t blame you. You didn’t do this. We all trust you, Catherine. Please, trust us back.”David pulled back, and I nearly toppled forwards, my muscles giving out under the enormity of the revelation he had bestowed upon me. Before I could collapse, Paul Wu joined him, grabbing me by the shoulder with one hand in a far rougher display than the meek man normally preferred. “I’m sorry for doubting you,” he told me, his eyes locked on mine, wide and huge. “I should never had believed otherwise.”It was a perfectly disguisable sentence, I noted distantly at the time. The kind of sentiment that, had it been overheard, would have easily been misunderstood as a comment about my potential violation of security regulations. Steve joined us, and carefully laid his arm over my shoulder, pulling all four of us into a brief group hug in the exact same manner that he had often done, back at the University of Circumstance.

“I thought they hired you years before it started,” Steve confessed, hanging his head for a moment, before glancing up at me in apologetic contrition. “But I was wrong. And I should have told you that years ago.”

The three men blocked me from the line of sight of all the UNSC officers, and I looked between them, trembling slightly. “How?” I breathed. “Why? Why did you not say this earlier?”“We thought you knew,” David Meyer said softly, with an expression of great pain. “Right up until a few days ago, when they walked you out of that hall.”I remembered the moment vividly. It was when my courage had failed. As the four Military Policeman had marched me from that underground amphitheater, I had locked eyes with David, and I had let my mask slip. I had shown him my true feelings. I didn’t bear him any anger or ill-will, but I had believed at that moment that I was a dead woman walking, and that nothing could change that. “You looked like you didn’t trust us,” David murmured. “And it hit me like a missile – we never talked to you about it.”“I thought that we couldn’t do that,” Paul whispered fiercely, his eyes darting up to the corners of the room. “I thought it was safer that way…”“But we still should have,” Steve countered. “We should have said it anyway, even if we thought you already knew. We shouldn’t have given up trying.”“Agreed,” David said, nodding towards Steve. “I thought you knew that we had your back. Just like back at University. It’s my fault for not finding a quiet moment to talk to you. Please, forgive us. We’re with you to the end, Catherine.”“No matter what happens,” Paul agreed, shuddering as he said the words. “No matter how bad it gets.”“The four musketeers, together to the end,” Steve said.“There were only three musketeers,” I replied on instinct. “You know full well that d’Artagnan doesn’t count.”“There are four of them,” Steve insisted, as he always had. “The title doesn’t matter, it’s the content inside that matters! A glorious last stand, fighting to the death together!”“If you want to be pedantic, then technically they didn’t all die together,” Paul said, rolling his eyes as the familiar debate started once more. “That was only in the movie, not the book.”“It’s a metaphor, goddammit!” Steve muttered, shaking his head at us. David laughed, loud and strong, and he hugged us all even tighter. Somehow, some way, my arms had spread to Steve and David’s shoulders, and I was hugging them as well, tears leaking from my eyes as I laughed and cried at the same time.

It took me a minute to collect myself, wipe my tears away, and hug each of them one last time.What a relief that had been. What a glorious feeling, to know that your closest friends hadn’t betrayed you. Some part of me wanted to berate them. To be angry with them. But that would have been foolish. There was no point in dwelling on the years of fears that I had possessed. It wouldn’t have replaced those horrible memories, nor improved my lot in life. A temporary revenge at the expense of long term stability.

I had my friends back. That mattered far more than any amount of anger that I could have mustered.My friends – my oldest, truest friends – peeled away from our group hug, and took up positions on my flanks, forming a flying wedge of support. It felt like standing at the head of a parade, with David at my left hand. Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez stepped forward, and nodded politely to me. “Doctor,” he greeted me, his voice as perfectly controlled and professional as it always was. “I’ve made several plans for the next two weeks, so that we can resume the training schedule after the disruption of the past few days. You can look over them at your leisure.”I smiled softly at the man. Others might have mistaken Mendez’s words as some kind of hyper-fixation, but I knew the man too well after the last few years. Mendez was achieving multiple objectives at the same time. He was fulfilling his duty as head trainer, of course, and handling the disruption in the training schedule… but he was also offering me a sign of support by telling me that I didn’t need to worry about the training schedule, because he was handling it.“Efficient as always, Chief,” I said to the man. Mendez extended a hand to me, his face like a stone mask, and I shook it, nodding back to him. How could I have ever doubted him? I wondered to myself, as Mendez moved aside, standing at my right hand. Professionalism does not mean a lack of integrity… but yet, I did doubt him. I faltered. I erred. I should apologize to him, somehow. I shouldn’t have given up so swiftly. My emotions… dratted, wretched things, they are.

I spent the next hour shaking the hands of every single officer that had stood up for me. From ONI to the Marines to the Army to the Air Force. “…and then he asked why ONI cared,” said Captain Silva of the ODSTs. “Asked why there was so much fuss about a bunch of fifteen year-olds getting an early start on their training.”

Sergeants Kawalski and McDowell laughed at the story, while Major Thatch shook his head wryly in embarrassment.“They’re nice kids!” Thatch protested, his voice strained. “Screw me for accepting the cover story, alright?”

“ONI asked you to train a bunch of kids, and you believed the cover story,” said Sergeant Byrne, the older Orion-I NCO grinning at the Air Force man. “Oh, I believe you, sir. How could anyone lie for the UNSC like that?”Avery Johnson rolled his eyes from his position standing alongside Byrne, and gave me a significant look. I nodded to the man, acknowledging the hidden message. I hadn’t talked much to Johnson, but he was an unofficial leader among the Orion-I trainers that had joined my Spartans in the last several months. Not so much because of tactical or strategic skills, but because he had raw charisma and leadership skills in ample helpings… on top of what appeared to be a genuinely good heart.Johnson would want to talk to me, and soon. I had known that, but I had also pushed the meeting off in the past, due to being too busy. Well, no more of that. The others had told me that Johnson had supported me staunchly in front of the tribunal, and I needed to reward that behavior. From a pragmatic sense, it was only proper to pay the debt I owed him. In a more personal sense, I had just fallen prey to my own paranoia in a ridiculous display of foolishness – to ignore the man was to ignore that weakness in myself, and allow it to fester instead.I made a note in my mind to talk to Johnson, and soon, and then moved on from the chatting group of special operators, all of whom seemed to be either already good friends, or fast on the way towards becoming so. he higher ranking officers had already left the impromptu celebration, but I had talked to them before they left.

Rear Admiral Jeromi, the medical legend, had given me a hand-crushing handshake that I could not resist with my magic so low after using it on the first day.  He’d told me that if it wasn’t for Stanforth, he would have come down on me like a MAC strike. The violation of medical ethics alone was atrocious, and he told me in no uncertain terms that he would be joining David and Paul’s Surgery and Augmentation teams immediately, until the surgeries had been performed.

Apparently, he had been yet another member of Wilson’s coalition, and had rallied against me for the heinous crimes involved despite our previous collaborations. Just another case where I owed much to Michael Stanforth. The Captain had informed Rear Admiral Jeromi that while I might have designed the Spartan program, I was not the one who had actually ordered its creation. That, combined with my genuine efforts to ensure the wellbeing of the children, had swayed him.Dvørak, too, had been awkward to talk to. The thickset man told me that my program was the most idiotic thing ever designed, and if word ever got out, that he’d shoot me himself for destroying the UNSC… but that given the choice between Wilson and me, he had no choice but to rally to my side. The propaganda puppetmaster lamented that much of his job was just to clean up the messes of the other branches. It was merely a matter of picking the lesser evil. Wilson’s actions would have all but guaranteed a Spartan defector, or a breach in security classifications. While Dvørak was not happy about the Spartan-II program’s existence, he did begrudgingly admit to me that he hadn’t heard a single whiff of the program until Wilson had come to his doorstep on his crusade.

Naval Captains Ned Rich and Aaron Gibson had laughed when they met me. They’d told me a tale of patiently listening to Wilson’s hidden probes around the metaphorical water cooler, and then quietly approaching Section Zero themselves to report the man for his breach of classifications. I had long known that neither of the men would be happy about my program, but apparently, I had misjudged them. “It doesn’t matter if you make super-soldiers, Doctor,” Ned told me, smiling with a devilish charm. “After you finish training them, who do you think they’ll be working for? Me, of course. Your boys and girls will be the best damn covert operatives we’ve ever had.”

“Ignore the moron,” Aaron Gibson rumbled. “Covert ops is a waste of their talents. No armor, all that spy work? No, they’re made for Black Operations. Your friend Steve’s briefing on the prototype power armor has given me a few ideas, Doctor.”“Why not both?” I asked, patting each of them on the arm. “Gentlemen, I assure you, mutual cooperation is one of the foremost priorities in my training of the cadets. Pigeon-holing them into one specialty would be an enormous waste.”“In many ways,” Ned Rich replied, nodding with his eyes half-hooded.On any other day, that knowing statement would have driven me to fits of paranoia. It was almost an outright admission that the head of Covert Operations knew of my plans to make the Spartans into high-ranking officers, shepherding their careers until they were some of the most powerful people in the UNSC. But not today. Today, I was just happy that all of the people in this conference room shared the most basic of all opinions: that it was wrong to abuse children. The natural extension of that opinion was that Wilson could not be trusted with the Spartans, given his history.They left with well-wishes, and promised to stay in touch.Soon enough, there was only one remaining person that I needed to talk to. Only one ally that I had not thanked, and shown my everlasting gratitude for his support. “Captain Ackerson,” I said, walking up to the Army Ranger standing quietly in the back of the room. “I appreciate your assistance in this matter greatly. Particularly given the… rushed nature of it.”“It was no problem at all, Doctor Halsey,” Ackerson said, his eyes betraying nothing. “This was an unfortunate inevitability.”“You think so?” I asked, taken aback slightly. “I’m not sure I agree. Not with the competence displayed by the other side.”“Perhaps it wouldn’t have been the same man behind it,” Ackerson said, acknowledging my point. “But someone, sooner or later, was going to try to stop you.”

I inclined my head, silently admitting the possibility existed. I wasn’t quite so certain as Ackerson was, but I could understand why he believed it to be so. The man was ambitious, a fast-climber with his eyes set firmly on the highest seats. That kind of person expected to face resistance at every turn. I wasn’t quite the same, either in ambition or pessimism, but it didn’t hurt to get an alternative perspective from someone like him.“You might want to check your program for leaks,” Ackerson said, giving me perhaps the most pointless advice I’d ever received from the man. “Of course,” I said, restraining the urge to roll my eyes. “After something like this, that’s the natural next step. I’m confident in my trainers and scientists, but perhaps some of my liaisons or contacts were less than perfect.”“Your ‘cadets’ would be a better focus,” Ackerson said, with a hard expression. “Wilson claimed that one of them was willing to testify to your supposed abuse.”“What?” I blurted out, my eyes widening.That was impossible. While I held no allusions that the children shared the same familial feelings towards me that I felt towards them, they were still absolutely loyal. Many of them likely didn’t even remember Major Wilson, both from how long it had been, and because the man had never been particularly hands-on with the training. Yes, there were a few Spartans that were more undisciplined – more than a few names sprang to mind – but that was only in relation to the rest of them! Each and every one of my Spartans was good enough to guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier! And beyond that, they believed in the mission. They all understood that vital importance of preventing the Insurrection from growing into a full-fledged Civil War, even if I still believed that there was a non-violent answer to the problem.

It was more than just being well-trained. They understood the exacting methodology of their own training. It was another of my attempts to ensure that the children knew exactly what had been done to them, so that they would have the knowledge and judgement to decide for themselves – to restore to them a small portion of the free lives that had been stolen away from them.The idea that any one of them would be angry enough at their lives to betray the program was a horrible thing… because it meant that I had failed to give them a good enough childhood! That despite all my efforts, they were still unhappy. I was well aware that I was not their parent, but at the least, I hoped to be a halfway decent care provider for the children.

I was halfway through a depressive spiral when Ackerson spoke again, interrupting my free-fall.“She didn’t testify,” the Army Captain said, holding my gaze firmly. “Wilson was wrong, again. Your girl argued with him for a few minutes.”She? I thought to myself, my chest clenching. With an odd number of Spartans, the number of female cadets was lower than the number of males, but it didn’t narrow things down that much.“That doesn’t change that Wilson believed she would turn on you,” Ackerson continued, his face giving nothing away. “He certainly seemed surprised by her actions.”“I’ll have to ask her some questions, then,” I said, the words coming out robotically as my mind flailed frantically within its human limitations. “What was the name of the cadet, if you would be so kind?”

Ackerson didn’t answer immediately, choosing instead to inspect my face, searching for some kind of clue or hint. I didn’t bother trying to conceal my shock. It was too late for that, he’d already seen my horrified reaction.

“The name was Victoria Pelham,” he said. “She prefers to go by Visha, I believe.”My eyes bugged out. My jaw dropped. My mask, fragile as it was, shattered like glass in an automobile accident. I stared at Captain Ackerson and tried to respond, but the words refused to come from my lips.

“That’s… impossible,” I finally managed to say, after more than a few seconds of stunned silence. “She was on your side,” Ackerson said with a shrug. “Perhaps she thought she was sabotaging Wilson’s case?”“Visha would have told me,” I muttered, shaking my head slowly as a dreadful mantle of ice settled on my shoulders. “She would have said something. This… this can’t be true.”“That is all I know, Doctor,” Ackerson said. “Beyond that, you’ll have to uncover yourself.”I shuddered, and looked the Army Captain straight in the eye as cold iron filled me once more.“I will,” I told him.

Xxxx

The door to my office opened. My eyes snapped open, dismissing the memories of earlier that day, and I stared forward as my oldest and dearest friend in this life entered the room.Visha turned the lights on with the ease of long familiarity, and moved straight to the coffee machine on the side-counter of my office. She busied herself there for a few minutes, making a quick cup of coffee on the machine. I almost thought that Visha was deliberately avoiding my gaze, and my anger at her grew in that time. My stare grew heated, and I felt a stirring of anger in my heart.

Was it not enough to keep this secret from me, Visha? I thought to myself, glaring at the young girl. Must you mock me by pretending that nothing has changed? Acting as if this was nothing in the grand scheme of things?Then Visha turned towards the desk, holding the cup of coffee in her hand. Her eyes met mine, and she gasped.The coffee cup dropped from her fingers, and shattered on the floor. Fresh black coffee splashed all over the carpet. Neither of us looked away. Visha looked ashamed, but she still stared at me like a child seeking forgiveness.“Doctor,” she said, biting her lip. “W-why were the lights off?”“Visha,” I said, ignoring her question. “Sit down.”

The twelve-year-old swallowed heavily, and walked slowly to the chair on the other side of my desk. She pulled it out, the legs scraping, and sat down with a lethargic finality, energy draining away from her under my gaze.

“Tell me everything,” I said to her, re-engaging the security lockdown as I spoke.Her head ducked, and she inhaled a deep, trembling breath. She grabbed the armrests of the chair with both fists, clenching them until her knuckles were white with pressure.“Before I met you, I was approached by one of Wilson’s men,” Visha said to me, the words coming sluggishly. “Before I knew that you were Tanya. He asked me to keep an eye out for any abuse. To remember the horrible things that happened to me.”“Which trainer?” I asked, my fury rising despite the iron chains I wrapped around it. “What is his name?”“Corporal Ashcroft,” Visha told me. “I fired Corporal Ashcroft,” I said, remembering the name distantly. “That was six years ago.”“Yes,” Visha nodded shyly. “I had no other contact with anyone about this matter until a week ago, when Major Wilson locked down the compound.”“Six years,” I repeated, narrowing my gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me about this at any point in the last six years, Visha?”“Because you’re wrong about the Insurrection!” Visha burst out, her voice frantic as the words poured out of her in a torrent. “I understand shutting down this program, Major, I do! It’s wrong, and the children don’t deserve to suffer through the augmentations. But without the Spartans, the rebels will just keep going! I didn’t like Wilson, Major, please, believe me in that. I was going to use him. I thought that if Wilson tried to use me as evidence, then I’d get a chance to show off magic in front of an Admiral.”Magic?! I thought, my eyes widening. I wanted to interrupt her, to tell her how insane that idea was.

But Visha looked too nervous, her expression too guilty, and I glued my tongue to the roof of my mouth as she continued.“Do you remember our conversations, Major?” Visha asked desperately. “The ones about how ONI would never shut down the Spartan program? HIGHCOM will never admit that they made a mistake. So I was going to offer them magic as an alternative. Instead of needing the children, they could just train Aerial Mages, like the Empire did. A good Aerial Mage would rip through Innies without needing the surgeries, or the power armor, or the conscription!”It was true, an Aerial Mage was a terrifying weapon in close combat… but already, the flaw in that logic was clear to me.Our magic was draining slowly in this new world, as both Visha and I knew well. It was a slow drain, so slow that we hadn’t even noticed for years. Already, I was incapable of flight magic, even with my replica of the Type 97 computational orb. Reflex enhancement was still within our grasp, but we had no idea how much longer that would be the case.How or why, we didn’t know, but the truth was inescapable: in the coming years, the last of our magic would fade, and we would be powerless again.“If I could give them Aerial Mages, then they could shut down the program,” Visha continued, oblivious to the thoughts spinning in my head. “They wouldn’t punish you like Wilson wanted, and the children could live, and everything would be fine… but then…”

Visha trailed off.

“But then our magic started fading,” I said softly. “Yes!” Visha said, nearly choking the words out. “I tried to teach the other Spartans some formulas, I tried to figure out if anyone else had magic, but nothing worked! And the longer things went, the worse they became!”“Why didn’t you tell me about this, Visha?” I asked, numbly, stunned by this. “Why didn’t you ask me for help?”Her earlier words hit me then, and I inhaled sharply, understanding it at the exact moment that Visha spoke up.

“Because you’re wrong about the Insurrection,” Visha said once more, shaking her head fiercely. “They won’t accept peace. Faster engines and better radios won’t convince them to lay down their guns. They don’t want to talk to us, they want to kill us! There is no way to end this war except violence, Major, and I didn’t want-”Visha’s voice cut off as a sob hiccupped through her throat. There was a glimmer of a tear in her eye, growing but not yet spilling down her cheeks.“I didn’t want to tell you,” Visha confessed. “I saw this before, Tanya. I saw what the revolutionaries did in the Czardom. I watched them kill their own neighbors. I ran from them. I saw exactly how horrible those people were. There is no negotiating with them. Our only option is to kill them all, before they kill us all!”

“Well, of course,” I said, the words spilling from my lips instinctively, without a conscious thought. “Those were Communists, Visha, not people.”Visha giggled, before the sound was interrupted by another choking sob. “You are wrong, Visha,” I continued. “Yes, the Russy Revolution was horrible, but you are assuming that the Insurrection is exactly the same, and that is not logical.”“Tanya,” my old subordinate began to say, before I cut her off.“You should have told me,” I insisted. “You should have trusted me with your opinion.”“You wouldn’t have agreed!” Visha argued.“I could have changed my mind!” I shouted, slapping a hand down on my desk.Visha stopped talking, her eyes wide.“That is where you went wrong, Lieutenant!” I told her angrily, pointing an accusatory finger at her. “If you were right, if the evidence supported you, then I would have changed my mind. You assumed that I would be delusional enough to insist on a failed course of action even when proven wrong! You didn’t trust me to be a rational person. You gave up on me, Visha!”“I didn’t!” the young girl cried out. “I thought it would be better!”“Better in the short term, mayhaps, but what about the long term?” I demanded from her.We were both standing. I didn’t know when we’d risen from our chairs, but now we were facing each other from across the desk, faces flush with emotion, our voices rising.“They wouldn’t need to conscript children anymore,” Visha argued.“And you think that would stop them?” I snapped back. “Yes, if you were right, they could have made mages from adults, but ONI didn’t just steal children because they wanted to be evil! They did it to brainwash you all into zealots! Who is to say that they wouldn’t continue kidnapping children for more Spartan programs, and teach the newer classes to be mages?”“But wouldn’t it be better?” Visha pleaded with me. “Less risk to the children, if they’re not undergoing augmentation?”“The point is that this program should never happen again, Visha!” I screamed at her, my entire head shaking from the force of my yell. “If ONI didn’t need genetic compatibility, there would only be more kidnapped children, not less! You would have provided them with an economic incentive to do so. One brainwashed Aerial Mage can do more than an entire company of infantry, as we both know.”I paused for a second to draw breath, and then I continued:

“And what of the current Spartans?” I demanded.“W-what of them?” Visha answered, stuttering slightly as she stepped back. “They’d be free.”“You don’t know that,” I said fiercely, shaking my finger. “You have no way of knowing if ONI would release the cadets, or simply turn them into regular officers, or just execute them all! You are trusting ONI blindly, without any leverage to force the issue.”“ONI wouldn’t do that!” she said shaking her head. “It would be pointless!”“This entire program is pointless, but that didn’t stop them the first time, now did it?” I snarled. “If the Spartans are augmented, then they have value to HIGHCOM. They could not simply be disposed of. They would be important.”“Major, I don’t-” Visha tried to say, before cutting herself off, a lost, confused expression on her face.

“I remind you of why my standards are so high,” I lectured her. “If I make the Spartans into officers, then I will be giving them a chance to fight for themselves. A chance to rise, and be promoted, and gain power. And if they gain enough power, then perhaps one day John or Kurt or you might be sitting on HIGHCOM. And then, when some fool proposes a Spartan-III program, you would have the ability to shut it down! That you would have that power, that choice! Nobody else! No foolish bureaucrat who has no idea what kind of a life they are condemning a child to.”

My old adjutant stared at me, and for a long moment I held her gaze, my eyes fierce as I glared at her.

She has no idea how close she came to destroying it all, I thought to myself, the thoughts bouncing like shrapnel in my skull. She failed to think about the second-order effects of her actions.A harsh, half-choked sob emerged from Visha’s throat, and tears started pouring down her cheeks.

Lightning jolted through my veins, and my anger vanished instantly.“I-I’m sorry, Major,” Visha said, fighting to keep her face still – and losing badly, as more tears flowed. “If – if you w-want me removed, or not to talk to me again, t-then I understand.”

I’m doing it again, I realized, as an icy chill swept down my neck. I’m not listening to her.

This was exactly the same mistake that I’d just made a few days ago. When I had believed that all of my allies had betrayed me, only to be completely wrong. I’d made an enormous mistake, and only the loyalty of men like Stanforth, Mendez, Silva, and the rest had saved me from meeting a horrible fate.

It wasn’t just that I’d made a wrong assumption, but that I had made an assumption in the first place.

Assumptions were horrible things, things that should be discarded or denied as much as possible, and only accepted when you had no other option. A weapon of last resort, and nothing more.

Whenever someone makes an assumption, they are all but admitting that they do not care to invest the time or effort into properly understanding something. Perhaps that was reasonable for large, complex issues, but it was a horrible practice when it came to relationships with real people. That was little more than a fast way to ruin all your relationships, and become disillusioned about humanity as a whole. It was shooting yourself in the foot, and then blaming society for pulling the trigger.And that was what I was doing.

I was assuming that Visha had the same knowledge and skills as I did, and disdaining her for being too lazy to use those skills.I was judging Visha as if she was me. But she was not me. She had never been raised in a peaceful society, educated at modern schools and attended a proper university. She had not labored away at a corporation, doing her best to help other people with the inevitable mistakes of human psychology.

And worse than that! I was denying Visha her agency. Her individual right to make and choose decisions. Her very free will!

I was being a hypocrite of the highest order. Denial of free will was the most heinous crime imaginable.

Yes, Visha was wrong about this, but I was not angry because Visha had been wrong, but instead because she had acted against me.

For one terrifying minute of hypocrisy, I was acting against Visha in the exact same way that Being X had acted against me. I was lashing out against a person due to my own injured pride, and nothing more.

It was completely wrong to act that way.

“Visha,” I said, my voice cracking as my anger dissipated. “No. No, I’m not sending you away.”

I walked around my desk slowly, moving with hesitation as I approached my Lieutenant. She didn’t flinch, which was good. If she had flinched at my approach, if she had associated me with physical abuse, I think it would have broken what little remained of my heart.

My arms wrapped around Visha, and I hugged her close, resting my chin on top of her head in a familiar motion. “I’m sorry,” I murmured, my own tears fighting to escape confinement in my cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I shouldn’t have been so harsh on you. I’ve failed you, Visha.”“No, I failed you,” Visha replied, still sobbing.“We both failed each other, then,” I countered, a wet chuckle fighting through the sobs. “You should have trusted me with this information, but I should have noticed. I should have seen the weight that you were bearing before this ever came up. I should have trusted that you had a good reason for your actions.”“I did,” Visha protested weakly. “I do.”“You do,” I agreed. “But good reasons are not enough in this world. I had good reason to be angry, but that does not excuse me screaming at you like a petulant child.”I relaxed my arms, and guided Visha gently over to the couch at the side of my office. We sat down, and Visha pressed herself closer, laying her head to my side. I brushed her hair gently, trying to straight it out as I hugged her close.“I am a horrible person,” I said, the realization slipping out of me. “This is exactly what a horrible person does.”“No, you’re not,” Visha argued.I shushed her gently.“You don’t have to defend me,” I whispered, bitterness in my voice. “I made the mistake of judging you by the standards I set for myself. I treated you like you were a clone of me – and that is what horrible people do. They don’t respect other people as individuals with their own rights and agency. What a hypocrite I am, to work so feverishly on securing the agency of your fellow Spartans, but to deny that same agency to you. You are your own person, and to not respect that is abominable.”I pressed a chaste kiss on the top of Visha’s head, and swallowed the lump in my throat.

“Can you forgive me, dear Visha?” I begged her gently.Visha turned to look at me, and her eyes latched onto mine with a desperate fervor.“Always, Major,” she replied, before hugging me tightly, her arms wrapping around my stomach like steel cables, compressing my lungs.“Ach,” I grunted, at the sudden pressure. “Too tight, Visha. Too tight!”Visha didn’t hear me, and she held the pressure tight on me for a long few moments before finally releasing me.

That’s what I get for training all the Spartans up to a proper PT standard, I thought to myself, restraining the urge to chuckle at the absurd thought.“I suppose there is no helping it now,” she said, softly. “There’s no way out of the augmentations. There’s no escape.”“…no,” I agreed gloomily. “But… that doesn’t mean you were wrong to think about magic. Maybe there’s something there, something we can use. I should have done more research on the topic. Maybe that’s where I’ll find an answer that keeps everyone alive.”“What point is there in looking now?” Visha asked rhetorically, shaking her head like a sad dog. “We have a year before the augmentations. Two at most, if you can persuade Captain Stanforth to delay them. It’s not like we can become magical surgeons, that would be impossible. Even if our magic wasn’t fading, we don’t have enough time.”“No, we don’t,” I concurred. “But that doesn’t mean that we should give up on it, no matter how dark things seem. I could probably sic the Artificial Intelligence team on the issue. They’ve hit a dead end on their original assignment, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t help us with this one.”“But they don’t know anything about magic,” Visha said. “How could they help us?”“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I believed the same thing about our friends. I thought that Silva, Ackerson, Jeromi, Dvørak, and all the others had betrayed me. I was wrong to do that. I don’t want to make that same mistake again. And besides, if we don’t even try, then we’re giving up. I didn’t train you to be a quitter, Lieutenant.”“No, Major,” Visha agreed, smiling as she hugged me again.

We sat there on the couch for a long while, embracing each other and enjoying the other’s presence. I’d celebrated my own survival with David, Paul, and Steve earlier at the Highland Military Complex, but this smaller moment in my office was even better.