Staff Sergeant Avery J. Johnson sipped his beer, and looked out over the bar.
The little baby Spartans had spread out, not clustering up like scared children, but happily mingling and chatting with the roughest, toughest shooters in the whole UNSC.
He had to hand it to Halsey. For all her own lack of charisma and her unsettling, vampire-like behavior, the kids had turned out to be the complete opposite of her, in that regard. Kind, polite, charming in some ways, and always eager to make friends. Of course, they hadn’t been that way a few years ago, but a little time under the Orions had helped polish those rough edges off.
Some of the squad leaders, John, Kurt, Jerome, and some of the others, had commandeered one of the big tables, and they were diagramming out some military exercise they’d done. Salt shakers, spare cutlery, even beer bottles had been pressed into service. They were teaming up against a rag-tag mix of officers from all over the damn place. The Sergeant saw an ODST Lieutenant rubbing shoulders with an Army NCO as they planned their counter-attack, while a Navy Warrant Officer just stood back and watched with wary eyes.Eight of the tables had turned into a poker tournament with no grand prize. Winning earned you a promotion to the next table up the chain, and losing kicked you out. Plenty of grown men getting taken to the cleaners by teenagers, and vice versa. No money was on the table, but there were other forms of payment. Unit patches, little notepads with ‘favors’ written on them, and promises to tell war stories.
Donovan would have been spitting mad at that last one, since it came real close to the bar’s one and only rule, but the bartender was over at the pool tables. He was playing scotch doubles with one of Johnson’s fellow Orions, working against that red-headed sniper Spartan and a giddy-looking woman that Johnson recognized from the PTG: the UNSC’s top snipers.
Yeah, this is working out nicely, Johnson thought to himself, as he leaned against the bar and smiled.
This was all Mendez’s idea, supposedly, but watching all these cold men warming up to the kids, reminding themselves of their exercises together… Johnson couldn’t help but wonder if this had actually been the Doctor’s idea, instead.He’d never known the Chief Petty Officer to lie, and maybe he hadn’t. Maybe the Doc had heard his idea, and simply encouraged Mendez to go forward with it, knowing that it would only advance her own objectives. All this intermingling, all this comradery. Yeah, it helped the kids by giving them a reward for all their work, but it also formed a group. Everyone in this bar would remember this day for a long, long time. They’d still be friends with each other, ignoring all those interservice rivalries and old grudges, just because they’d once bonded over beating some kid’s ass at ping-pong or whatever.
These kids would have favors. Not just the chips in the poker game, but the respect and friendship of some of the deadliest men and women in the UNSC’s arsenal. To a more paranoid mind, the motivation behind this little get-together was obvious: networking.Where else would you find the Air Force chatting with the Navy, without all those old worries about being made obsolete, and being absorbed into the Navy’s all-consuming bloat? Where else could you find enlisted and officers shooting the shit like they were out on some abandoned rock halfway across the galaxy, safely out of sight of all the regulations, when they were actually in the heart of Reach itself?
It was too neat. Too clean. It worked out for the Doc in too many ways for it to be a lucky coincidence. Now, if it was John who was behind it all, then that luck might have made sense, but the cadets hadn’t been involved at all in the planning, so that was out.
And yet, for all that this was a glorious success for Doctor Catherine Halsey… she didn’t look too happy.
The Doc was sitting on a barstool near the far edge, holding a classic German beer stein of some unpronounceable brew from Bavaria. She hadn’t gotten involved in any of the gambling, or the skill games, or even just the good ol’ fashion bullshiting. She was alone. She was just sitting there, watching.
Little Debbie Downer, staying out the party… Johnson thought to himself, bemused. She’s that worried about the augs? Cold bitch like her? Really?
Johnson had lived at the Spartan-II Compound for nearly two years now. He’d talked with Catherine Halsey more than once, including some one-on-one interviews. Yet she was still a mystery to him, a total unknown with motivations that he could only guess at.
Even now, he suspected that she was some high-flying ONI executive, an ambitious political climber that saw these kids as nothing more than stepping stones on her path to more power.
Now, sure, Halsey did appear to care for the kids, and maybe that should have disproved Johnson’s theory… but it didn’t.
Just because you wanted to make super soldiers, and use them to get a promotion, didn’t mean you had to be an evil jackass about their actual well-being. You could argue that a smart sociopath would actually care about the kids, just to make sure their promotion was even more guaranteed. If the kids turned out bad, it would only hurt Halsey’s career, not help it.
At the same time, it was clear to him that there had to be something more to Halsey’s motivations than just caring for the kids. Sure, she doted on them like a mother, particularly her favorite. She threw them headfirst into dangerous situations, but only after she’d trained them to be capable of handling those situations.
But Johnson would never forget that she’d openly admitted to writing the original whitepaper that started the program. That conversation in her office, two years ago, just after he’d been brought onboard with the other Orions. The way she’d been so cold, so… robot-like.
It was impossible to square those two things… so Johnson didn’t even try.
Halsey’s character contradictions were damn near a running joke among the Orions now.
‘What does the Doctor want? Reply hazy, try again.’
‘Why’s she doing all of this? Ask again later’.
‘What’s the reason behind it all? Better not to tell you now.’
Like a damn magic 8-ball, you could come up with any interpretation of Halsey’s motivations, and squint hard enough to see your chosen hypothesis in her actions. She did so much wacky bullshit that nearly anything could be discounted as an outlier that shouldn’t count – and once you started picking and choosing what counted as evidence, there was just no point.
So why even bother with that? That was Johnson’s opinion.
Instead of trying to figure out why the Doctor did what she did, what was driving her like a bat out of hell, Johnson had focused on a much simpler question.
How is Doctor Halsey doing?
Don’t look at her success or failure, not her competence or lack thereof.
What was her mood? How was she acting?
That was the clearest sign of how a day would go in the Compound. If Halsey was happy, then it was all gravy. If Halsey was angry, then something, somewhere, had gone wrong, and every single person in that valley was gonna be walking on their tiptoes, trying not to draw her attention. It was like being trapped on a boat with a tiger, and praying the damn thing didn’t decide to eat you one morning.
It was a knack that every good soldier picked up sooner or later. The first time they went on patrol with an old man who’d seen the worst and come out, or supervised a bomb squad, or went into a negotiation as a bodyguard. When you didn’t have the skills to determine how bad a situation was, you looked at someone who had those skills.
If the bomb squad was happy, then you were happy. But if the EOD tech suddenly started swearing, then you got ready to run.
The same thing applied to Halsey, in Johnson’s mind. He didn’t need to know what her game plan was, he just needed to know if it was going to explode in her face – and the best way to know that was to gauge her mood, monitor her stress.
And right now? When everyone was relaxing, enjoying themselves, and having a good time?
Halsey was stressed.
She needed a distraction. Something that would punch through that world of worries and brush them all away for a night.
Normally, Johnson would have happily volunteered Nolan for the job. Granted, that wouldn’t have been his first choice back when the Orions first arrived. The asshole had lightened up a little after being reassigned away from endless Innie suppression ops, but some people are just surly, and that was Nolan Byrne to a tee. Yet somehow, he’d clicked with Halsey, and the two could happily spend upwards of half an hour just swapping caustic insults like they really wanted to kill each other, and then just walk away like it was nothing.
This time, Nolan was busy in the poker tournament, where he looked to be losing to a teenager, judging by the ferocious scowl on his face.
So it would have to be him.
Johnson sighed, once more wishing that he could be smoking a cigar, and set down his empty bottle on the bar itself, before turning towards the reclusive woman.
“You gonna sit there all night, or you gonna actually do something?” Johnson called over to Catherine Halsey.
“I enjoy watching the children play,” Halsey said back, her voice cool and calm as she kept her gaze fixed forward. “Why don’t you join them, Staff Sergeant?”
“Because I gotta get me an answer to a question,” Johnson shot back, playing up the accent just to prick her temper a little more.
“And what question would that be?” Halsey asked, finally turning her head to look at him.
“If you take that stick out of your ass, is it long enough to play pool?” Johnson asked.
He gestured at one of the pool tables, where Li and Anton had just finished taking some money from a pair of Army Rangers.
Some of the nearby adults and kids were starting to look over in their direction. They’d probably heard Johnson’s booming voice, but that was OK. A little peer pressure might just be what was needed to convince the ever-practical Halsey that she needed to actually show a social life, if only to better blend in with the warm-skins.
“Is that a challenge, Sergeant?” Halsey asked, with a trace of some emotion in her voice.
“Why?” Johnson asked back, grinning as he stared her down. “Are you chicken?”
Doctor Catherine Halsey looked at him for a moment, and then raised her beer stein. It was still half full, since she’d been taking it slow and steady, but now she raised it to her lips and steadily drained the entire thing. Halsey wasn’t a German name, but that didn’t mean much these days. The way she drank it, though, it sure looked like she’d picked up the old German drinking abilities.
“Very well,” she said after she finished her drink, setting the stein back down on the bar. “If you insist.”
“I do,” Johnson said, smiling with bared teeth at her.
Someone whistled by the pool tables, and one of the kids called out to the rest of the room, announcing the match.
They walked to the pool table, ignoring how the crowd started growing around then.
He took his time selecting a good quality pool cue, dragging it out. Halsey, on the other hand, simply picked one up, weighed it in her hand for a moment, then deemed it acceptable. Johnson tutted when he saw that, and shook his head in mock disgust, as if he couldn’t believe anyone was so disrespectful.
That wasn’t what he really felt, of course. Aunt Marcille had raised no fool. He wouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that Halsey was bad at pool until he’d seen her play.
The brunette scientist racked the balls, and Johnson broke. He sank three right away, and took solids for the advantage.
Johnson sank two more in quick succession, but then he was trapped by the break. No clear shots left, he tried to bank one off the far side, but the rebound was a little too soft, and the ball stopped short, hanging just a centimeter from the edge. Still, at least it would block one of the pockets. A decent defense.
Halsey circled the table with clipped steps, her eyes scanning the table for opportunities. After a single lap, she stopped, turning on a dime, and lined up a narrow shot for a corner pocket. There was no hesitation in her movements, no unfamiliarity.
Crack went the cue, and Halsey sank her shot with smooth efficiency. Then, without pausing, she moved to where the cue ball had ended up, and lined up another shot.
Another crack rang out. Then another, and Halsey was tied with him.
Johnson didn’t really care about the game. There wasn’t any money on the line, and he didn’t give a damn about the bragging rights of beating or losing to the woman.
What mattered was poking the tiger a little, just to see if he could get her to relax. Oh, if Johnson could understand her better, that would be a cherry on top, but the most important thing was just getting Halsey to stop fussing so damn much. Especially where the Spartans could see her – it was bad for morale, and the Doc was so worried that she didn’t even realize she was scaring the kids.
That was the important part, really. As long as Halsey was tense, the kids were tense. Even now, Johnson could see it in the eyes of the ten or so that had gathered around the edges of the pool section to watch their surrogate mama play.
He wanted to figure out how close Halsey was to snapping, and make sure the kids didn’t realize the exact same thing. If he could chill the Doc out, then all the better. But the kids couldn’t be involved. God knows if they were, they’d try to do something to help out the Doc, and that was just a recipe for disaster.
This close to the augmentations, everybody needed to focus on their own jobs, and not worry about everybody else, so they didn’t screw something up. Even the kids, whose job was to get knocked out by a doctor, and have the surgeries. If they were all worrying about some other crap, it might throw off their stress hormones or whatever the hell medical crap mattered.
Right now, though, it seemed like Johnson wasn’t getting anywhere on that first problem… which meant he needed to try something else.
“Daisy,” he called out, looking over at the blonde Spartan standing near the edge of the crowd. “Have you told Doc Halsey that you’re joining the Marine Corp yet?”
Halsey was weighing up her next shot when he spoke, and she showed no reaction, probably assuming that Johnson was just messing with her, saying nonsense. Unfortunately for her, this time he wasn’t.
“Uh…” Daisy muttered, her eyes widening slightly. “Not… yet?”
The teenager had spoken at the perfect time: just as Halsey was about to strike. When Halsey heard those words, she flinched – a violent, fully-body motion, and her cue skipped off the ball, sending it careening wildly off course. It struck one of Johnson’s own balls, then ricocheted off into a pocket. A scratch.
“What?” Doctor Halsey demanded, her head turned at an awkward angle so that she could stare directly at Daisy. “The Marines? Why?”
“Why not?” Johnson asked cheerfully, picking the cue ball out of the pocket and tossing it lightly in the air, before catching it. “Better life in the Corps. Way better than you Navy pukes. Every meal is a feast in the Marine Corps.”
“Do we feed Marines these days?” one of the Army Rangers in the crowd asked, loudly. “I thought they just scavenged for scraps.”
“What’s wrong with the Navy?” Halsey asked, still staring at Daisy. “The Navy is…”
The brunette trailed off, catching herself before she said something. Johnson pretended that he didn’t notice as he placed the cue ball back down on the table, right where he wanted it inside the kitchen.
Interesting, he thought to himself. What’s in the Navy, doc? And why do you want the kids to be Navy, when they’re gonna be trigger-pullers no matter what?
“Well, y’know, the ODSTs have always been nice to me,” Daisy said, hesitantly. “I learned a lot from them.”
“You learned a lot from Chief Mendez and his trainers,” Halsey pointed out, her voice clipped. “Far more.”
“That’s right, she did,” Johnson agreed, before slamming his cue home and banging another ball into a pocket with smooth, clean efficiency. “And aren’t some of those trainers Marines?”
“Thirty-percent Marines,” Halsey corrected, her tone still frosty. “Seventy-percent Navy.”
“Well, you know, the Navy’s just a jobs program,” Johnson said musingly, as he circled the table, looking for his next shot. “Keeps the unemployment numbers down, having all those boys in jumpsuits swabbing the deck. All the real work is done by the Marines.”
“Silva,” Halsey said, almost hissing the name. “This is his fault.”
“Hey Cap, it’s your fault!” called out one of the ODSTs watching the game. “You hear that?”
“Whatever it is, it’s ain’t my fault!” Captain Silva shouted back across the room, busy with something else. “You can’t prove shit!”
“Daisy’s joining the Marines!” the ODST called back.
“Still not my fault!” Silva shouted. “She’s a natural Marine. Born to wear the EGA! That’s not my fault, that’s God’s!”
Johnson kept a wary eye on Halsey through all this mocking – and at Silva’s last comment, he caught another flinch from the woman. It wasn’t a huge, full-body flinch, though, but something far more subtle. She wasn’t playing it up like she had earlier. This was the real deal.
Now what’s the deal with that? Johnson wondered. She was playing her part well, up until that last word.
He couldn’t tell why Halsey had reacted quite like that… but he could tell something far more important: if that was the real deal, then everything before now was fake.
That big dramatic flinch when Daisy spoke? Fake. That frosty, ice-cold voice? Fake. Blaming Silva with a snake-like voice? Fake.
Halsey was faking so hard that Johnson had actually believed it was real, up until he saw what her genuine reactions were like.
And that was good.
Because if the Doctor was faking all that stuff, she was doing it for a reason. The most obvious explanation was that she was doing it for whatever ambitious plan she had cooked up.
“If the Marine Corps can draft Daisy, then I call dibs on Linda!” interjected the sniper from the Precision Targeting Group. “She’s ours. No take backs!”
Linda, for her part, seemed a bit torn by that announcement. Johnson watched as the red-haired girl’s eyes flicked back and forth beneath her Army Ranger baseball cap, as she looked between Doctor Halsey and the sniper
“So long as she’s in the Navy,” Halsey said loudly. “Not the Marines.”
“Now why on Earth would you ever say something so rude?” Johnson demanded loudly, playing it up for comedy.
He thought about asking if she’d banged a marine and been disappointed, but cast that aside instantly, both because it was probably over the line for this celebration with the kids, and because more importantly, it insulted the Corps.
“Marines don’t rule the UNSC,” the Doctor replied, locking eyes with him. “When the Navy commands, the Marines obey.”
And how is that any different from how you treat ONI? Johnson thought to himself, but again, didn’t say it out loud. This was good fun, and neither of them were being serious about it. Killing the mood wouldn’t’ve been right.
“What if I promise to shepherd poor little Daisy’s career?” Johnson asked the Doctor sarcastically, as he started lining up his next shot on the pool table. “Take her under my wing, get her promoted all the way up to four-star General?”
Halsey raised an eyebrow – the only movement on that cold face. Johnson smirked at her, before looking back down at his cue, preparing to take the shot.
“Deal,” she said.
The cue skipped off the ball, just barely too hard. His aim wasn’t affected, but his force was. He sank both the ball he’d been aiming for, and the cue ball as well, scratching and losing his turn.
“What?” Johnson said, looking up at Halsey in surprise, taken off guard by the woman’s sudden switch.
“I will allow Daisy to join the UNSC Marine Corps,” the Doctor said calmly, as if she was reading a script from a teleprompter, not talking to another human being. “In exchange, you will ensure she becomes a four-star General.”
John blinked rapidly, trying to understand what the hell was happening. After a few moments, it clicked.
“And what happens if I can’t deliver that?” he asked the Doctor, squinting at her. “You got some penalty in mind, Doc?”
Doctor Halsey smiled at him, revealing rows of pearly-white teeth that seemed, for a split-second, as if they were a shark’s – but that was just a trick of the light.
“Oh, I’ll think of something,” Halsey drawled. “No need to worry about it, Staff Sergeant. I can be… amicable, when needed.”
More hoots and hollers sprang up from the crowd, as people laughed at Johnson. That didn’t happen too often, but the Sergeant could roll with the punches, in the name of a good joke. He’d done worse in his life, after all.
“Negotiating skills like that,” Johnson said, shaking his head good-naturedly. “Explains how you got all these knuckleheads to work together without killin’ each other.”
“No, that was just healthy fear,” added Linda, as she wandered over, her own game of pool apparently having finished.
“Of the Doc?” Johnson asked, playing along.
“No,” Linda said.
The Army Rangers laughed the loudest, though Johnson didn’t see what was so funny. The Spartan sniper wasn’t one of them, no matter that she was wearing that hat of hers. She’d be going Navy as well. She only liked wearing that thing because she’d taken it off some Ranger in a SERE exercise. A trophy, nothing more.
But, well, you have to make allowances for lesser beings like Army troopers. Give ‘em some extra leeway, since they couldn’t be Marines.
Halsey finished her last ball, and started lining up for the 8-ball. Johnson watched as she finished the game off, and stood up straight without any discernable expression… and yet, the Doctor still seemed a little happier than before.
“Alright, who has winner next?” Johnson called out loudly.
A chorus of hands and voices sprang up, and Johnson grinned as Doctor Catherine Halsey shot him a flat glare.
Credit to the woman, though, she didn’t walk away or tell the crowd to pound sand. She took her licks fairly, which was more than Johnson could say for most ONI spooks. Maybe that too was another aspect of her ambitious nature. Some mechanical calculation that decided it was more efficacious for her career to play along with jokes. That would explain why she’d put on such an act about Daisy joining the Marines earlier.
How much of this woman is just an act? Johnson wondered, not for the first time – and not for the last, he already knew.
Johnson retrieved another beer from the bar, and came back to watch as Halsey teamed up with Linda, against John and an Army Ranger.
He smiled, sipping from the bottle as he watched the kids try to copy him, saying outrageous stuff to rattle Halsey and throw her off her game. It wasn’t working. The kids didn’t really have the snappy patter and witty repartee to pull it off… but they were trying, and frankly, Johnson was happy to see them do it.
“If you beat her, John,” the Sergeant called out to the Spartan team leader, “I’ll give you a financial reward!”
The Spartan locked eyes with him and nodded, tensing up as he started taking the competition much more seriously.
Jokes on him, I’ve only got a quarter on me, Johnson thought to himself, wryly.