The hatch hissed as it equalized pressure with the docking bay outside.
I stood inside the Pelican as the door cycled through its procedures. I was at the front of the troop compartment, closest to the hatch. I would be the first to step out after our painfully long ride up into the orbit of Reach, where the subject of all my fears awaited me.
As a rational person, I would like to say that I was patient, calm, and completely in control of myself.But that would be a lie.
The crew chief stepped to my side and activated the door’s release. He was a long-standing affiliate of the Spartan-II program. I’d seen him nearly every day for the past eight years, as I flew this Pelican to check up on the researchers in Menachite Mountain or stopped by the FLEETCOM Complex to talk with Stanforth or other ONI operatives.
That familiarity was the only reason the man got within a foot of me without being attacked.With a loud clunk, the Pelican’s bulkhead lowered, revealing the cold grey metal of the UNSC Hopeful’s primary docking bay.
There was a welcome party at the far end, with a dozen doctors in working uniforms, led by a Rear Admiral. I recognized them all, of course. The doctors were all members of David’s Surgery Team, and the Rear Admiral was Ysionris Jeromi, the commander of the Hopeful.I strode out to meet them. Behind me came Chief Mendez, Captain Stanforth, the newly promoted Gunnery Sergeant Johnson, and the team leaders. John, Kurt, Frederic, Jerome, Joshua… and Visha.To our sides, more Pelicans had landed, and were currently unloading the rest of the Spartan-II cadets. They were carrying kit-bags with them, containing enough clothes and toiletries for the next several weeks.
Seventy-five souls, preparing for five surgeries each. Five hundred and twenty-five surgeries, total. We had the best surgical teams in all the UNSC, but even then, we could not augment every single Spartan in one day. They would be augmented gradually, over the course of many days. Of course, that didn’t mean that the wait would be easy for any of us. Each individual Spartan would undergo all of their augmentation surgeries one after another, so as to minimize the chance of complications, alterations, or otherwise unforeseen consequences. Who will have it worse? I wondered to myself, as I walked up to David Meyer and Rear Admiral Jeromi. The last Spartans on the list, their worries growing as everyone else goes before them? Or the first Spartans, watching and hoping that they don’t have to leave behind their brothers and sisters?
“Doctor Halsey,” Jeromi greeted me, extending a hand to shake. I glanced at it, and ignored it. The man was perfectly acceptable, but my own mood was far too tense. If I shook his hand, he’d be able to tell how nervous I was. My pulse was jumping like a cadet doing PT. Not the best look at the moment.“Rear Admiral,” I said, inclining my head. “Is everything prepared?”It had better be. David and Paul’s people had been aboard the Hopeful long enough to ensure that. But I wasn’t taking chances. Not with this.
“Yes,” he said, turning his hanging handshake into a sweeping gesture towards the door. He started walking, and I fell into line. “As you know, we’ll begin the surgeries tomorrow. It will give the cadets a night’s sleep to adapt to the ship, as well as allowing us to monitor their vitals for at least twenty-four hours. In the meantime, Doctor Meyer has prepared… recreational activities for them.”
I noticed the pause in the man’s speech, and dove in to attack before he could cover it up.
“What kind of recreational activities?” I demanded, quirking a thumb at David as he walked by my side. “I don’t care what this muscle-head says, I’m not allowing the cadets to exercise while they wait. With the mental burdens placed on them, it would be far too easy to lose their focus and overdo it, injuring themselves in the process.”
“Movies, board games, that kind of thing,” David told me. “Novel and intellectual enough to keep their minds occupied.”
I grunted out an approval, though I didn’t really care.
As cruel as it was, this was triage time. If the children had to sit in their bunkrooms and play cards to stave off their dread, then so be it. I didn’t want them to suffer unnecessarily, but mental trauma can be recoverable with time and expertise. You can’t heal the dead.
Our party walked down the corridors of the unusually shaped hospital ship, with Jeromi leading the way. I already knew where we were going – the primary surgical section.
Thanks to David’s relentless work, we had four ‘full’ surgical teams prepared, and we would be augmenting four Spartans at a time. Each team had a complete set of replacements, in case of fatigue, stress, or any other unexpected impediment to their work. I didn’t care if one of the doctors fainted in the damn operating room, so long as they didn’t fall on the patient, and their replacement took over their job before anything went wrong.
The Hopeful contained far more than just four operating rooms, of course. We were limited by expertise, not by resources here. Rear Admiral Jeromi had volunteered the services of his best teams, but I had refused him. ONI had already picked through Hopeful’s roster all those years ago, and taken the best for Orion-II. A less skilled doctor would increase the risk of complications. A less trustworthy doctor might flinch at the responsibility, or worse – declare a moral objection, and try to sabotage the process.
Given how long Paul had labored to improve the odds, I was not risking anything by including new, untested, unvetted doctors in Project ASTER.
The layout of our section was highly suspicious. The four operating rooms sat adjacent to each other, with a central walkway dividing each from the next, criss-crossing in the middle… in the shape of a gigantic cross.
I tried not to take the obvious symbolism as a sign that Being X was watching me.
It was entirely possible that this was a practical design to best support the operating rooms, while providing observation of all rooms simultaneously. Even if it was symbolic, a reference to the Christian faith did not automatically indicate Being X’s involvement… or so I hoped.
Alas, regardless of my personal distrust of the layout, this section was the only place where Project ASTER – the Spartan-II augmentations – could take place. It was a private wing of the Hopeful, and was near enough to a private mess hall and bunkrooms where the children would be staying. It was also easily secured from all other prying eyes thanks to corridors designed to enact quarantine procedures, with multiple airlocks separating it from the rest of the ship.
There were utilitarian couches in the cross-shaped section, which had clearly been brought in as a recent addition. Four quarter-section couches, which worked together to form a circle, right in the center of the cross.“We are aware that you’ll likely want to supervise, at some point,” Jeromi said, indicating the couches with a nod. “These are for you, Chief Mendez, and Captain Stanforth.”I frowned. I wasn’t sure I liked that idea.“I don’t believe it would be wise for the surgeons to be distracted by our presence,” I told him, glancing pointedly at the large, wall-size panels of glass that separated the viewing area from each operating room.“The operating rooms can’t see out,” Jeromi said, smiling slightly. “That’s one-way glass in there.”Biting my tongue, I held back my instinctive comment about how much money it must have cost to install an entire wall of one-way glass into each of their operating rooms. The Hopeful wasn’t under my command, and for all I knew, this was where HIGHCOM’s VIPs got their surgeries done, so they wanted the extra luxury. Jeromi walked away, off to handle some administrative tasks, and I resumed pacing down the cross-shape, eyeing the rooms and looking for any sign of issues, any misplaced items, anything that might screw things up.
“Doctor,” said John, behind me.
I turned, and cast my gaze quickly over the entire crowd of Spartan-IIs that had followed us into the surgical rooms.
We’d discussed simply showing the children to their rooms and leaving them out of anything to do with the surgeries, but David had recommended against it. Better that they be acclimatized to their eventual destination, so they wouldn’t get as nervous, and thus risk being too tense, raising their blood pressure and their instinctive muscular responses.
“Yes, John?” I asked, looked to the designated commander of all Spartan-II’s.
The young man was standing at parade rest, his hands folded behind his back. I had to suppress my instinctive urge to flinch at the sight. At fourteen years old, with seven, almost eight years of expert physical training and nutrition, John was in the best shape that any human being could be.
It was painful, in some ways, to see the children so grown up. Even though I saw them every day, sometimes I’d turn around and still be surprised that they were no longer the adorable six-year-olds that I remembered from that bleak day.
“Will we be allowed to watch as well?” he asked.
“Absolutely not,” I snapped at him. “Do you want the surgeons to work under seventy sets of eyes, knowing that their every move is being scrutinized by their future patients? That would be a negative for both your own mental health, and for theirs – at a time when both of those things are paramount.”
John didn’t react, his face completely still, but the moment I finished speaking, a flash of regret raced through me.
That was too harsh, I thought. My outburst had attracted attention from most of the Spartans.
“The desire to know more is usually a laud-worthy one,” I said, more slowly. “But there is also a time for classification. Not simply because of the importance of state secrets, but also for the wellbeing of a mind.”
The young man nodded once. I turned away from him, trying to lower my hackles as I walked up to Chief Mendez. It wasn’t easy. My shoulders were tight, and I felt far too energized for the severity of this situation.
“Chief Mendez,” I said quietly, attracting the man’s attention. “Perhaps the Spartans have seen enough.”
The Navy NCO didn’t say anything, didn’t make any face, like the reliable and trustworthy subordinate that he was.
“Cadets,” he said loudly, projecting his voice throughout the cross-shaped corridors where the Spartans were milling around. “Follow me to your new barracks.”
I stepped aside, back from the tide of humanity, and watched as the children that I had raised for the past seven years marched off. I’d see them again, I knew, but… somehow, my stupid brain insisted that I wouldn’t. Ridiculous.
Sighing, I turned around, and started inspecting the operating rooms again.
There had to be something else I could do to improve the odds, even now. Something that might make the tiniest, most pivotal amount of difference.
Johnson and Stanforth both left as well, citing the need to supervise the children and liaise with Rear Admiral Jeromi.
After the cadets had left, it was only myself and David remaining in the cross-shaped viewing gallery.
I waved a hand and called him over to me.
“The layout of the operating rooms doesn’t appear to be optimal,” I told him. “The anesthesiologist should be on the right-hand side of the patient, not the left.”
David stopped by my side, and followed my pointing hand.
“With the surgeon standing at the feet,” I continued, “it would be better to shift their staff slightly closer, for better accessibility to any sudden commands.”
“What?” David asked, turning his head back to me, with a confused expression.
I wanted to smack him, but I restrained the urge. It wouldn’t help matters. He needed to listen, and assaulting him would only backfire.
“You see-” I started to say, but then David cut me off.
“Stop,” he said firmly, staring hard at me. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I am doing my best to ensure that the operations go smoothly,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“Did you get a medical degree when I wasn’t looking?” David demanded, his voice rising.
“No, but I don’t need one to find problems with this layout!” I insisted, waving my hand at the nearest of the four operating rooms.
David opened his mouth to reply. He stopped, his eyes widening. I didn’t know what was going on, but the fact he wasn’t continuing this pointless argument was a relief.
“You’re fussing,” he said.
“Fussing?” I repeated, almost offended by his assertion. “I’m helping.”
“This is not helping,” David said. “Your changes are not needed. You don’t have to do this.”
An ugly burning feeling crept into my chest, and I had to resist the urge to spit out my next words.
“Need has nothing to do with it,” I hissed, stepping closer and jabbing a finger into his chest. “I am thinking of the children, as you should be.”
“Catherine, you are scaring the children,” my friend said.
The words struck me like cannon rounds bouncing off a mage shield. My world rang like a bell. The four bright white surgical theaters seemed to shimmer for a moment. As if resonating with the impact. The darker floor of the cross-shaped corridor shook beneath my feet.
Not possible, I thought to myself. I would never.
“You just did,” David countered. “You snapped at John. All he did was ask a question, something that you’ve encouraged them to do for years.”
I flinched. I hadn’t thought those words. I had said them out loud. Where had my self-control gone? My heart started accelerating. My chest moved faster. Inhaling and exhaling at a far more rapid pace.
“I…” I started to say, before my voice failed me.
“You just tried to tell me how to organize my operating room,” David continued, pressing home his point, like digging a bayonet deeper into the wound.
I wasn’t hyperventilating. I wasn’t panicking. It was normal stress. Nothing more.
“I understand that this is a hard time,” David said, placing one enormous hand on my shoulder. “But you need to calm down and loosen up. Scaring the children will only make things worse. As will giving my doctors the jitters right before they have to operate. Can you do that for me, Catherine? Can you calm down?”
Calm down? As if I was a machine? Some mechanical dial for my emotions? Impossible. Impractical. No such system existed. You cannot force an emotional shift from within. He might as well have demanded that I lift the moon.
There were other options. Better options. David was an idiot if he thought I could calm down. That didn’t make him wrong about my behavior affecting the outcomes.
I simply needed to hide my true thoughts. Mask my emotions. It should be easy. I was a master of that skill, after so long. No one could read my poker face.
“I understand,” I told David, flattening my voice as much as I could. “I apologize.”
David didn’t look convinced, but after a few moments, he accepted my apology with a nod.
“You should go put away your bags in your room,” he told me, softening his voice. “I will handle this. Trust me. You know I care about these children as much as you do. You can’t be a mountain forever. You’ve got to trust us.”
Biting my cheek, I kept my instinctive retort from spilling out. Trust them? How could I? The ex-members of the Party House were friends in this third life, yes. But they knew nothing of my last one. They were unaware of the malicious imp that was stalking me. They did not understand that anything that could go wrong, would go wrong through his machinations.
Yet David was right in one way. I could not show these emotions in public. I needed to appear calm and rational. I had to pretend.
I nodded deeply to him, adding a slight bow as an apology.
Once again, I had been reminded of the importance of appearances.
My feet carried me out of the viewing hall, and into one of the many long gray corridors of the UNSC ship. I already knew my way around, as I’d studied the provided map on the journey upwards.
No one crossed my path as I made my way to my temporary room. Despite my protests, Rear Admiral Jeromi had given me a stateroom intended for VIP guests in this wing. Given the space constraints on a warship, it wasn’t ludicrous, but it was still far more than I was comfortable with.
I locked the door, and sat myself down in front of the bathroom sink.
Conceal it, I thought to myself, staring into my own eyes through the mirror. Don’t scare other people. Fear is a virus. You cannot let it spread. Discipline. Focus. Will. That is all that matters.
David was right to warn me, I realized.
Naturally, there was nothing wrong with my suggestions. However, implementing them at the last second was not ideal. The doctors were accustomed to their previous, inefficient layout. It would take them time to get used to the new ones, and time was the one resource we did not have.
I returned to the main cabin and unpacked quickly, setting aside my clothes, toiletries, emergency pistol, and more.
Then, carefully, I pulled out my Type 97 Elenium Magecraft Orb from my pocket, and placed it down on the room’s desk. I stared at it for a long moment, and sighed.
We still didn’t know what was causing our magic to fade. The more we used it, the more it faded… but even abstaining was not enough. It dripped away, bit by bit, until now, I had only the tiniest remnants of my once mighty abilities.
I sighed. Even without its power, the Type 97 had become a genuine keepsake.
Placing it back in my pocket, I sat down and prepared for tomorrow.
Xxxx
Project ASTER commenced on March 9th, 2525, at seven o’clock in the morning.
The initial subjects were Alice, Daisy, Frederic, and John. In preparation for the surgeries, they had fasted the day before. There was no room for involuntary bodily functions once they were on the table.
A doctor spoke lightly to each of the Spartans as they entered the white-floored rooms. It probably didn’t help their nerves. Nothing would, I imagined.
We were proceeding in order of compatibility. The most compatible would go through the augmentations first, and the least compatible would be saved for the end. It was David’s hope that he and the other surgeons would become more comfortable and capable with the procedures by the time they got to the end of the list. It was a higher risk strategy.
Theoretically, you could argue that the least compatible should go first. It would increase their odds of failure, but statistically, they were the most likely to die anyway. The lessons learned from those failures would save the rest.
It was the classical argument: did the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?
Horrible logic, even if it hadn’t meant sacrificing lives in this instance. The people who used that quote were never the few, sacrificing themselves to save the many. They were always the many, justifying their selfishness with that pithy quote, as if it was holy writ. Self-justification, and nothing more.
Yet that was the logic of the Spartan program, all the way back to my original paper. That was my logic, in that paper. The Office of Naval Intelligence had turned me into one of the exact people that I despised – and for the past seven years, I had been forced to spout that abominable line so many times. My hatred of that quote had grown from a mild dislike of a theoretical to a seething hatred of the all-too-real practical.
Four teenagers sat down on the blue tables, clad in nothing but their standard-issue space-black UNSC underwear. Even that would be removed, shortly, as it was destroyed by scalpels and pulled away by whirring pincers of the auto-surgeons.
The anesthesiologists tested their instruments one last time, and then started the procedures with the first anesthetics.
Intravenous tubes were inserted in bare skin, and monitoring diodes attached. Brainwave function, electrical cardiograms, and more.
The Spartans inhaled and exhaled in a steady rhythm. They were following the doctor’s instructions to count backwards from one hundred. They were obedient. But they were also fighters. Their eyelids fluttered as they instinctively tried to fight off the anesthesia. They failed, and slowly, one by one, my poor children fell asleep.
I watched it all from the center of the cross. My breathing was harsh, already irregular, as I watched each of the surgical teams go through one last set of checks, inventories, and preparations.
The one-way glass was a blessing and a curse. In order to ensure that the doctors were not distracted, the Hopeful employed the same trick used by zoos for centuries. The surgical rooms were brightly lit, and their walls, ceilings, and floors were all in white. The connecting corridors through this viewing gallery were all dimmer, darker.
It felt like I was sitting in the cold void of space in comparison to those shining white rooms. Like I was a starving orphan child once more, standing in the cold and looking in through a window at a warm restaurant full of happy families.
I couldn’t help but feel that this was a poetic version of the true reality. The Spartans in the bright shining light, representing all my hopes and dreams that they survive. Me, sitting in the dark, watching from outside, unable to help.
Because that was the truth: I was powerless.
There was nothing more I could do. No innovations I could make. No chemical refinements. No better coating mechanisms.
It was a wretched feeling. The kind of emotion that normally would have driven me to the heights of motion and mania. The drive to succeed. To push forward. To over-achieve.
And yet I could do nothing!
There was no battle to fight. There was no great conflict to win. I had already spent seven years grinding away at the wheel of pain, and there was nothing left but a wasteland.
A meal was brought to me, some unknowable amount of time into the surgeries. Paul Wu’s doing, I think. A tray was set down beside my seat.
I ignored it. I had no stomach for food or drink. I had already skipped breakfast. The mere thought of eating made me nauseous. How dare I partake in life’s pleasures and necessities, when my children could not? When they were about to suffer the greatest pain of their lives?
Five surgeries. The time required would stretch the limits of their bodies, both the Spartans and the surgeons. To sit or stand in one place for so long a time, focused so tightly on your work, lest the children die in front of you.
Occipital capillary reversal. Not eye surgery, as it sounded like, but brain surgery. They would alter the body’s natural bloodflow to enhance their ability to perceive. And it was still the least morally dubious and least dangerous of all surgeries.
Carbide ceramic ossification. The grafting of hyper-advanced carbide ceramics onto the very bones of my children. It wasn’t plates of metal, but a gooey substance that would meld into their skeletons.
The catalytic thyroid implant. The smallest of the surgeries, in scale. A simple incision to the neck, opening up the thyroid glands to insert a pellet of growth hormones to supercharge the last stages of their growth.
The muscular enhancement injections. Injecting cocktails of steroids more potent than any bodybuilder had dared.
The superconducting fibrification of neural dendrites. A process so complicated that even I did not understand it.
And I was powerless to help with any of it.
I sat and watched for hours, my rage building the entire time… until finally, something clicked into place.
This is why people pray, I thought to myself in stunned realization.
At this moment in time, I had no agency. I was trapped in a horrible situation, and I had no ability to alter it into a more preferable one.
What better time for a con-man to swoop in, and offer me his snake oil?
I leaned back in my seat. My eyes were no longer fixated on John, unconscious as David Meyer carefully worked with his scalpels and needles and clamps.
Zoning out, I thought about it, and more and more, I finally began to understand the mindset of the religious person.
What happened to mothers who cradled their sick children in their arms? What happened to fathers, fearing their wives dying in childbirth? What happened to children, crying over their dead parents?
They felt powerless. Exactly as I felt!
They had a problem that they could not handle on their own.
And like any rational human being, they demanded a solution! And lo, behold, that bastard Being X delivered them a promise: pray to me, pray to me oh weak and fragile human, and I shall heal your sick child, I shall spare your family from death, and I shall deliver your parents to a golden, gleaming paradise where everything is perfect and wonderful.
Lies, of course, but lies that satisfied their demands. When the sick child got better thanks to his immune system, or when the mother safely gave birth to her child thanks to the work of an excellent midwife, or when they never got a response about their dead parents, they still felt better.
Those grieving individuals could not solve their own problems, and so they demanded the next best thing: hope. They demanded emotional care and reassurance.
It was not their fault for seeking hope in such desperate times, and nor was it Being X’s… but it did explain, at long last, why so many people turned to that incompetent feckless failure of a personnel manager!
They were afraid.
That was why I had never gotten along with the monster. I was not afraid when I died. I was outraged. Even when confronted with proof of the divine, I did not fear going to the underworld, because I had done everything right. The fault for my death was clearly on the employee that I had tried to help, over and over, until I could not carry him any longer. He had murdered me, and thus the blame rested on him.
Yet Being X, that incompetent lackwit, had failed to understand that properly, and taken my rightful criticism as an insult, and then thrown me into Germania, just before the Great War began.
None of that changed the bare truth: this feeling right now, this weak, pathetic, grasping desperation for any source of reassurance… it was human. There was nothing wrong with being afraid of the unknown, and fearing for your loved ones. It showed that you cared, that you had all the proper human emotions that you were supposed to have!
And I cared for the children. I feared the dreadful possibility of their deaths. I worried that my actions over these past seven years had not overcome my actions prior to that, when I had written that damn paper.
I felt like laughing, but I could not laugh – not here, not now. If anyone saw me laughing as surgical blades cut and stabbed and sewed into the children, then they would rightfully think that I had gone mad! That I was crazy, and could not be trusted.
My hands shook, and I grabbed onto my legs, trying as hard as I could to suppress the shaking. Adrenaline had flooded my body, the same way that it always did when I realized that bastard had once again screwed me over.
Well, I thought to myself, hysterically. There is a traditional way to handle this realization.
Slowly, carefully, I stood up from the couch I was sitting on, and lowered myself down to my knees.
I knelt down in the center of the cross-shaped viewing gallery, clasped my hands together, in the proper form, so that my petition would obey all the proprieties. I bowed my head.
And I prayed.
Being X, I thought, addressing my prayers towards the appropriate authority, so that the heavenly routing system would send them onwards with speed and precision.
Being X, you miserable, odious, incompetent bastard, I know you can hear me!
I want you to know that none of this is because of you! I want you to know that I bear all responsibility here. If the children live, it is because of the labors of me, my teams, my scientists, my friends. If the children die, it is because of the failure of me, and the damnable paper that I wrote!
I know that you, like all slackers and mooching employees, like to take credit for everything that happens. Oh, that was your design, not mine. Fuck you! This was my design, not yours! At its worst, it was because of my lack of thought, my failure to appreciate how stupid and incompetent a government could be, because I thought that they couldn’t be as pathetic as you!
Don’t you dare try to claim anything. Don’t you dare take credit for the work of mortal hands, who labor out of love for each other, and not for you and your lies! Don’t you dare brag to any of your pathetic minions, or your enemies, or even your ignorant worshippers, that you had anything to do with this, no matter if it becomes a glorious achievement or an utter failure!
And if you do not listen… then to Hell with you!
I unclasped my hands, severing the connection with the same force as one might slam a phone back onto its hook. I stood up, my knees not aching in the slightest from that short kneel, and I stared at John, and then Frederic, and then Daisy, and then Alice.
Live, I thought, directing my pleas towards the children, rather than the capricious God. I do not need you to become Spartans. I only need you to live.
Can you do that for me?