“…thank you, Doctor Halsey,” said the new head of ONI, as the rest of them sat and looked down.Admiral Stanforth looked down at the civilian scientist, and wondered how it had come to this. How the UNSC had ever thought it was appropriate to create child soldiers. How Margaret Parangosky had ever believed that she could hide it from them.The large arcing table around him was filled with the current members of HIGHCOM. It was not a full gathering, because that was impossible, not so long as CENTCOM zones needed their commanders, and departments needed administering. It was still the largest gathering of the UNSC’s High Command that had ever happened in Stanforth’s service. Four days ago, he had believed that this briefing was going to be about the looming war with the Covenant. The destruction of Harvest. The intelligence gathered from the heroic actions of Captain James Ackerson and his Army Rangers.Instead, they’d been gathered here today to listen as Admiral Keeler informed them of his predecessor’s secret project, her ace in the hole for the Insurrection: the Spartan-II Program.
And sitting there among the summoned leadership of that program, alongside Doctor Catherine Halsey, Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, and Gunnery Sergeant Avery Johnson… was Stanforth’s own son: Rear Admiral Hieronymus Michael Stanforth.Oh, Michael… Harold Stanforth thought to himself, pained. What are you doing down there, sitting with these monsters?But Harold Stanforth already knew why his son was down there, and it was his fault. He had been the one to encourage his son to enter the Office of Naval Intelligence. He had done it both because he believed it would be good for little Michael’s career, and because it was the best way to help the UNSC (a cause that was dear to both father and son). He had known that ONI was a dangerous, morally dubious place. He had known that ONI officers were more likely to have to make horrible moral choices than the regular Navy. He had known… or so he had thought. Yet this was so far beyond the pale. Conscripted children, psychological indoctrination, even surgical alterations. It read like the propaganda once blasted at him from Eridanus II, accusing his fleet of using child-soldiers and science-freaks and all sorts of morally abominable troops.Michael, his son, was sitting there in the middle of a den of wolves. At long last, the younger Stanforth looked comfortable in his own skin. More than he ever had at home. The father and son had always had a good relationship, but it was always ever so slightly distant, thanks to the needs of the service. Harold Stanforth had spent years at home, and years on ships, leaving the boy to be raised by his mother for many of them.
That separation wasn’t a large problem; he trusted Claudia more than anyone else in the world, and she had raised a wonderful man… but there was always the awareness between Harold and Michael that the UNSC came first, and that distance was very hard to overcome. He had often wished that he could be warmer, friendlier, or softer to his son, but he’d had so much difficulty knowing what was too little, and what was too much.
Harold had welcomed his son’s desire to join the Navy. Not just because of the family history of service, but because he hoped that Michael would understand why his father had spent so many years away from home, and understand it.Well. It looked like he had gotten his wish. Michael understood, now… but that understanding had taken him into a far darker place than Harold had intended.
The new head of ONI, Admiral Keeler, looked back to the rest of HIGHCOM with a blank face, as if waiting for their reactions.General Macomb from the Army was the first to speak.“What the hell were you people thinking?” Macomb barked, glaring at Keeler. “Why the hell was this project ever authorized? Were you trying to encourage the Insurrection?”“Why didn’t you tell us before now?” said General Carter of the Air Force, adding his own comments in a rare sign of agreement between the two branches – although his tone is far more measured than Macomb’s.“Those decisions were made by Admiral Parangosky,” Keeler said, his voice just as calm as before. “Including the classification. The Security Council was informed, but informing all of HIGHCOM itself was deemed unnecessary by CINCONI.”Someone scoffed dismissively among the assembled officers. “Excuses,” muttered an Army general, shaking his head. “You could have let something slip, if you had wanted to.”“Regulations,” Keeler countered, addressing the general with the same emotionless look as before. “Under UNSC Military Security Code 447-R20, unauthorized distribution of this information would have resulted in the imprisonment or execution of both myself, and anyone I told this to.”Keeler swept his cold gaze across the arc of the table, fearlessly meeting the eyes of the dozens of HIGHCOM officers without flinching. The Office of Naval Intelligence was sharply limited in HIGHCOM representation, and Keeler was the only ONI officer allowed to sit among them – but that isolation didn’t seem to scare him at all. He looked as if he was not trapped in a room with them, but instead, they were trapped in a room with him.“What matters right now is not how this program was created,” Keeler told them. “What matters is that all of HIGHCOM is now informed of its existence, and its potential uses, either against the Insurrection, or against the Covenant, or neither of those.”“What do you mean, neither?” Harold Stanforth said, speaking up before anyone else could.“Doctor Halsey, if you will answer that?” Keeler asked, turning to indicate the civilian, who was still sitting at the table in front of them.“Thank you, Admiral Keeler,” Halsey said, nodding to the man. “Ladies and gentlemen, at this moment, the Spartan-II project is not yet complete. We are still working on the power armor section of the program, which was envisioned to ensure that this enormous financial investment in my Spartans is not wasted by the first Insurrectionist to detonate a bomb in their face.”‘My’ Spartans, is it doctor? Harold Stanforth thought to himself, his eyes narrowing.“In the wake of the discovery of the Covenant, and the threat they pose,” Halsey continued, unaware of Stanforth’s thoughts, “we instead are proposing to delay the deployment of all active Spartan-II’s until either the completion of the power armor, or until a better strategic understanding of our situation is available.”“And in the mean time?” Keeler asked, clearly offering her a lobbed softball.“They would attend Officer Candidate School,” Halsey said.The arguing began almost immediately.
Xxxx
“Enough!” snapped General Arnold from the Air Force, nearly two hours of arguing later. “We’re at an impasse. That’s plain enough. I propose a thirty minute recess.”“Seconded!” said General Vandegrift from the Marine Corps, nearly growling the words.There was some grumbling, but after a few moments, enough heads had nodded. The Security Council – the heads of the Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force – stood up as one block and walked out of the room.
It was the first time in hours that the majority of the room had agreed on anything, Harold Stanforth noted. Chairs rolled back away from the table, and low chatter filled the space that had just been left vacant. It was still much quieter than the room had been during the debate, filled with less angry pointing and harsh questions.Down in front of the arc-like shape of the table, the four members of the Spartan-II project’s leadership cadre were slow to rise. They probably didn’t want any more attention. It was not a good thing for civilians or enlisted men to be drawn into HIGHCOM arguments, and most of them had tried to avoid getting entangled to no avail.Admiral Keeler’s revelation of the Spartan-II program was a live hand grenade placed on the table. Most of the assembled admiralty was unified in anger about the project. If the project hadn’t been almost complete, or the super-soldiers so capable, then ONI might have found itself ordered to burn the entire concept to the ground and salt the ashes.
The secrecy was almost worse than the moral implications. Parangosky had hidden this project from almost everyone, save for the Security Council, the four highest members of the UNSC itself. The rest of HIGHCOM had been treated as untrustworthy; an affront worth repaying. Being treated like mushrooms was not an insult born lightly by people wearing stars on their shoulders, and they were eager to make Keeler pay for it.But it hadn’t been Keeler’s decision to conceal the program. It had been Parangosky’s, and she was now retired, beyond their reach. One final insult from the notoriously spiteful woman. Harold almost couldn’t blame Keeler for this. The man had scheduled this meeting as soon as he had inherited leadership of ONI from Parangosky. Most of the generals and admirals had forgotten that, because of the all-consuming horror of Harvest. Even he had made the mistake of assuming this briefing would be about the Covenant, when the reminder popped up on his calendar a week ago.
If that was all that happened, then Harold could forgive the man. But it wasn’t. Keeler was too cold for this to be a straight admission of ONI’s guilt. The new head of ONI hadn’t just briefed all of HIGHCOM so that he could personally accept the blame on behalf of his organization.
Instead, Keeler was throwing all the blame onto the now-retired Parangosky. Even dragging the Spartan-II leadership to Earth was a subtle way of distancing himself from the mess. By bringing them, he forced Halsey to explain the project and handle all of HIGHCOM’s questions, rather than do it himself. If a general or admiral didn’t like any particular answer or explanation, then they’d remember that Halsey had been the one to annoy them, rather than Keeler himself.Harold disliked that behavior, largely because it was the same kind of political maneuvering that every good office politician used – and he had hoped that Keeler was a step up from Parangosky. Humanity couldn’t afford the waste from ONI’s shenanigans at the moment, and Harold dearly hoped that this was not the beginning of a pattern.Worse than Keeler, however, was Halsey.One could argue that Keeler had taken the best possible path out of the quagmire that he’d found himself as the new Commander-In-Chief of ONI. Immediate disclosure to HIGHCOM was a good decision. As much as the program was a live grenade, it at least hadn’t gone off yet, and informing them reduced that possibility.But as soon as Halsey had finished explaining it, she’d pulled the pin on that grenade, and lobbed it into the room. The ‘grenade’ was a simple question: What should be done with the Spartans?Horrific origin or not, the capabilities of the seventy-five super-soldiers was far too potent of a gift to waste. Their intelligence, their speed, their strength… even without the power armor, these teenagers were probably some of the most lethal humans in existence. So, what was the best use for them? The original mission objective of sending them to decapitate Insurrectionist cells? A revised goal of sending them against the Covenant? Or the third option, delay it all until the power armor was complete?Oh, Keeler might have been the one to imply the question, but Harold Stanforth had caught the flicker of motion from Halsey, and she had been the one to ask it so directly and bluntly – this was her doing. Likely, the pair of them had coordinated their strategy so that Keeler would open the door, and Halsey would throw the grenade into the room.Because now, all of HIGHCOM was debating angrily over which of those three options was best. Hunting the Insurrection, fighting the Covenant, or agreeing to hold the Spartans in reserve for months, potentially years.
If it had been up to Harold Stanforth, he would have chosen to ignore both the Spartans and Halsey for the moment. This was a false dilemma. There were far more than three options here. They could have ordered the Spartans to hold in place for a month while they debated it, and then given a considered, well-planned response. They weren’t required to decide the next four years at this single moment.
But by proposing the question directly, and reminding them all of the dangers that faced the UNSC, Halsey had all but guaranteed a feeding frenzy in the chamber. Too many Army generals were frustrated with the Insurrection’s repeated terrorist strikes killing their men. Too many Navy admirals were furious about the loss of an entire colony world. Too many officers of every branch was horrified at the idea of using child soldiers at all.
Catherine Halsey was a menace. A monster. She was playing a political game even more subtle than Keeler, and Harold Stanforth wanted no part in it.
Fundamentally, the debate was not actually about how best to use the Spartans. Nearly everyone agreed that there was no use crying over spilled milk. On the surface, the past hours of arguing had been about deciding which of the UNSC’s problems deserved sixty super-soldiers dedicated to it… but that was only the surface layer. It wasn’t the real issue.
The real issue was much larger than the Spartans. It was the same issue that had been rattling around HIGHCOM’s chambers for the past several weeks, ever since the discovery of the Covenant.
Which enemy was more important to focus on: the Insurrection, or the Covenant?
Advocates for focusing on the Covenant had a simple but effective point: the Covenant had killed more than twice as many people as the Insurrection, and they did it in a month as opposed to thirty years. The Covenant were an existential threat to humanity, and they’d happily kill every single person for no reason other than the fact that they were human. Even the Innies weren’t that bad! Toss in their technological advantage, and they deserved the full attention of the UNSC, even if it meant ignoring the terrorists.Proponents of the Innie-first strategy had a more nuanced take. They agreed that the Covenant was the bigger threat, even as unknown as it was… but that was just it: the Covenant were unknown. Throwing plenty of resources into fighting them risked losing those resources in poorly planned operations and non-optimal strategies. Better to finally crush the Innies, so that they didn’t have any distractions screwing up their supply chain and population, and then the UNSC could devote both its full attention and its full might to the problem.But ideals are flimsy, incomplete things. Plenty of criticisms raged between the groups, pointing out flaws in the logic.
The anti-Covenant faction argued that if they hadn’t been able to crush the Insurrection in thirty years, it was foolish to plan on magically solving that issue before handling the literal planet-burning enemies. Better trigger-pullers were nice, but the Innies had survived this long not because they won gunfights, but because they were hard to find.
The anti-Insurrection faction sardonically asked where they’d deploy their mighty fleet of warships, or their new Spartans? Which Covenant planet would be first? Oh, that was right, they didn’t know anything about the Covenant beyond how powerful their ships were. Even the possibility of a boarding action, as done by the Army Rangers on Harvest, required actually finding a Covenant ship, and somehow battering its shields down.
And then there was the third possibility, which nobody wanted to admit: the waiting game. The unfortunate reality was that the UNSC could make whatever plans it wanted, but in practical terms, they had far too little information. Harold Stanforth agreed that it was a good idea to send an offensive strike against the Covenant so that they could buy time to spool up the UNSC’s industries and recruitment, but they simply didn’t know where or how to do it.The Spartans were a perfect microcosm of these three possibilities. A miniature version of the larger problem. Perhaps that was a secondary reason for why Keeler was revealing them – as a prod to force HIGHCOM to finally make up its mind about which of those three options it wanted to take.
But, in the privacy of Harold Stanforth’s mind, he could admit that he didn’t care about any of that at the moment.
What really bothered him was not Halsey’s mad science project, or even the UNSC’s existential threat.It was his son.Yes, he hadn’t been the best father. Yes, he’d left the boy with his mother for years at a time. Yes, he hadn’t talked to Michael as much as he should have over the last eight years.None of that changed the fact that Michael Stanforth was a good person, and that Harold was very proud of the man he had grown into. A man of principles. A man who should not have gone along with this madness, not for a moment, much less a near decade!
Harold was tempted to pull Michael aside right now during the recess and demand answers, but he couldn’t do that. Nepotism was not acceptable. It was bad enough that a father was judging the work of his son. If he went down there and had a conversation, it would look like he was arranging some deal, or checking in on a planned strategy, or some other form of corruption.And even if he was willing to throw away the Stanforth name, after hundreds of years of self-sacrificing service to the state… it would also require Harold to treat his son like a child. To doubt him and his actions, rather than have faith and trust in him. Michael Stanforth was thirty-nine years old. Harold had to move past his old memories of little Michael running around in diapers. That day had passed, and it was not a fair assessment of the grown man who was now the head of Section Three’s special projects division.
So while almost everyone else left the briefing room to stretch their legs, eat a meal, or get some fresh air, Harold Stanforth stayed put, sitting in his seat at the table and thinking deeply. He stayed there as every single person left, including the Spartan-II Program’s military leadership, until it was just him in the room by himself, his chin resting on his folded hands, all alone with his thoughts.
Ten minutes into the recess, his flag lieutenant appeared in the doorway, carrying a paper bag. He gestured silently, asking for permission to enter, and Harold gave it with a nod.Inside the bag was a sandwich. A Chicago Po’boy, if he wasn’t wrong. Not from one of the big chains.“From Rear Admiral Michael Stanforth,” his flag lieutenant said. “He, ah, said he’s very sorry he can’t stay for dinner, and so he’s bought you lunch.”Harold looked down at the sandwich, and then chuckled.
Maybe his boy hadn’t changed, Harold mused with a smile, as he dismissed his flag lieutenant.He took a bite. Then another. His stomach suddenly burst to life, informing him of a critical fuel shortage in the bunkers, despite no prior reporting on that pivotal issue. It was just like Michael to remember Harold’s tendency to work through a lunch. A small way of showing his appreciation for his father.Perhaps… there is a way of getting to the bottom of this dispute, Harold mused as he worked his way through his sandwich.HIGHCOM didn’t vote, per se. Voting required democracy, and democracy allowed superior officers to be mobbed under by enough stupid privates and crewmen. But nonetheless, the on-going debate about what to do with the Spartan-IIs required an actual winner to be declared at the end. The Security Council had made it clear that they wanted a majority, or at least a plurality, of HIGHCOM’s members to support a single decision, no matter what that decision was.
It was another way that the Spartans themselves didn’t matter, but what they represented did matter – and in this case, a single winner would demonstrate that HIGHCOM was not so hopelessly divided, and that they could reach a consensus on something. Indecision was death in a war, and if the collected wisdom of the admiralty couldn’t figure out what to do with seventy-five children, then how the hell could they figure out what to do with all the Inner and Outer Colonies?After all, as good as these teenagers might be – and according to Gunnery Sergeant Johnson, they were damn good – they nonetheless numbered less than a hundred individuals, and that was far too few to genuinely tip the scales of a war. If the assembled officers of High Command got this decision wrong, it wouldn’t automatically doom the war effort.
Harold Stanforth was starting to suspect that the Security Council was using this debate to determine if they should start purging officers. Testing how many generals and admirals needed to quietly retire right now, before their politicking could harm the UNSC. Or perhaps they’ve already started, he realized.Margaret Parangosky had ruled ONI with an iron fist for many decades, and her decision to retire had been a very sudden one. Especially right at the start of a major war with an alien threat, the kind of thing that would only increase ONI’s power and importance. Some people might be misled into thinking that Parangosky had done it out of humility, understanding that her time was past, but Harold had actually met the woman, and she didn’t have so much as a gram of humility.
But on the other hand, the problem with cutting out incompetence was that sometimes, you fired the wrong people. A person could look like a moron on their worst day, but be utterly invaluable on every other day. The Navy understood that, because sometimes specialist roles could get very quirky.
Sure, some of them were idiots. Harold could think of no fewer than three generals and two admirals that label applied to. Even those that he didn’t already dislike, he wasn’t impressed with at the moment.
Yet he also knew that they were very good at their job. This sudden bout of argumentative absurdity was a much better demonstration of how badly the Covenant had rattled them than it was a demonstration of their general capability. He refused to give up on them, or on the UNSC, by allowing his petty dislike of them to endanger humanity as a whole. That would have been wrong.Thus far, almost every member of HIGHCOM had already weighed in on the topic of the Spartans. The only remaining few were Stanforth and a couple neutrals that he could persuade to follow his lead.
Which gave him the tie-breaking vote in the debate. He could throw his support behind any one of the three options – sending the Spartans to fight the Innies, to fight the Covenant, or to attend the Naval Academy – and everyone else would settle down, thus allowing the Security Council to avoid purging their own ranks at the worst possibly time.But which option was the best one to pick? The Spartans might be relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things, but Harold wasn’t going to send them to die on the frontlines just for the sake of backroom politics. Harold looked down at the half-finished sandwich in his hands, and smiled. The choice, it seemed, was obvious.Michael had backed up Doctor Halsey at every step of the briefing. Each criticism of her had been met with the younger Stanforth’s steady defense. The man was clearly a strong supporter of Halsey’s, and given his new fiefdom, he was well positioned to continue supporting her. Which option did Michael prefer? Harold thought for a moment, and remembered: the third option. Delaying the deployment of the Spartan-II’s until their power armor was finished, and more operational intelligence would be prepared. Not using them up prematurely, as some of the debaters had phrased it.
It was an attractive option. Not just for preserving the lives of the teenagers, but also because it admitted the truth: that a rushed deployment would be a poor decision no matter which option was selected. Not only would a misuse of the Spartans this early on would be a waste of the past eight years of training them, but it would also demonstrate an attitude of chasing short-term gains over the long-term benefits. Catherine Halsey had declared quite insistently that the Spartan-IIs had the potential to be far more than their current status. She’d been vague about what, exactly, that potential was – weaving together such possibilities as wider scale distribution of advanced technology, or the Spartans as force multipliers through an integrated arms approach, or a new Spartan program, or even them becoming proper leaders.Was it worth gambling the UNSC’s future on Halsey, and her vague plans? Perhaps not. But the Security Council had believed so when they approved the Spartan-II project eight years ago. Parangosky had believed the same. Keeler, despite his clear attempt to distance himself from his predecessor, still believed the same.And Michael Stanforth, his son, believed in Halsey. He still had the same tells, the same little revealing twitches that Harold remembered from raising the boy, and it showed him that Michael had some kind of plan, some scheme behind his support of the Spartan-II program.
Perhaps that was all that Harold really needed, in the end. To trust his son, even without knowing what his plan was.He made up his mind.The rest of the recess passed quickly. He polished off the sandwich, dumped the wrapper and bag in a trash can, and waited as the room filled back up with the most powerful officers in the UNSC. It was silent for a short while as everyone took their seats. Nobody seemed willing to speak first. Everyone’s expressions were calmer, save for one: Halsey herself. The tension was apparently getting to her, as Harold watched his son Michael lay a reassuring hand on Halsey’s shoulder.Harold looked around, and then decided to break the ice himself.“I believe that there is little point in re-hashing all of the previous discussion,” he said, his voice ringing out through the silence of the room. “Many good points have been made. However, after weighing all of them, I find that I am most convinced of Doctor Halsey’s view.”Some of the officers frowned. Others pursed their lips. A couple nodded slowly.“The best use for the Spartan-IIs would be to send them to the Naval Academies,” he continued. “Keep them in reserve for deployment, either once their power armor is ready, or when we have a better opportunity to use their skills appropriately.”Nobody else spoke, and for a few moments, everyone mulled his words.“I agree with Admiral Stanforth,” said General Ryan from the Air Force, another of the uncommitted votes. “Besides the excellent points already raised, this way the kids can get away from ONI for a little bit, and actually interact with the regular military.”“Seconded,” said Admiral Vidrine, out of the Navy. “No offense, Admiral Keeler, but letting the Spartans out of your direct supervision would reassure us that ONI is not about to repeat this… lapse in accountability.”“None taken,” Keeler answered.“Anyone else?” asked the Security Council’s chair.
It was quiet.“Done,” the chairman said, rapping his knuckles on the table twice, in lieu of a judge’s gavel. “Doctor Halsey, your request to send the Spartan-IIs to OCS is granted. Your present supervision under ONI will suffice for now. If you could please refrain from throwing any more rocks in my ponds, I would dearly appreciate it.”Chuckles filled the room as the tension dissipated. Harold noticed some of the Security Council looking around subtly, gauging the mood of their subordinates. It seemed that he had been right – breaking the deadlock had been a good thing, indeed.“I will do my best to avoid that,” Halsey replied, smiling weakly.