DT 2021: In Conclusion

Even after three hours of staring, the essay didn’t write itself.
Andra glared with her signature Spartan-killing stare born from years of intensive training and one-sided “character building exercises” she preferred to call “jawbreaker signaling.” As in when a pet name exited a fellow SPARTAN-III’s mouth, she put her right hook in it and blasted them scarlet.
Not that she could give a homework assignment a bloody knuckle sandwich. She was getting nowhere with the reflections paper.
A glance out the dorm window exposed the near-dark of Earth’s light-choked night. The city lights of southern Baltimore flickered behind the Blackwater salt marshes reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean. It was a nice evening by Earth and Northeast URNA standards. An evening breeze held the infamous Patuxent River mosquitoes at bay while a colder southerly draft kept the spring of 2558 preferably mellow.
Her fellow undercover-Spartan, Merlin-D032, finished his essay hours ago, because of course he did. Writing wasn’t necessarily his thing but when it came to pointless things like dreams and imagination, he brimmed with useful nonsense at a time like this. Also, he spent a longer time in public school than Andra and had a better grasp on what teachers expected. Lucky bastard.
The boy offered to help with her paper but Andra sent her best friend packing for the night. Her infamous stubborn streak compelled her to prove she could complete a simple task alone as her fellow Spartan and their regular military cadet classmates seemed capable of.
It was a reflections essay; how hard could that be?
Quite difficult in fact. Her desk clock suggested she had fifty minutes to crank something out before the deadline. Oh, how her fellow Spartan trainees and the drill instructors from Camp Ambrose would be tearing into her right about now.
A Spartan procrastinator? Impossible!
Oh, but see, right here. One in the flesh.
Andra could hear Merlin’s chuckling and good-natured teasing from the earlier afternoon. He made it sound so simple, so easy. His laughter dominated her imagination, crawling in and out of her head for hours.
The essay prompt felt like learning fundamental Slipspace theory all over again. Irritating, frustrating, any other words that meant ‘royally pissed off.’
As the cursed paper proclaimed: After reading through the semester modules, write a thousand-word report on which Covenant wartime event or figure resonated with you the most and what can analysis of your chosen topic reveal about yourself and your understanding of the war effort? Support your discussion with contextualization and references to readings.
It really was a complicated topic to defuse. Particularly for Andra, as both a properly inappropriate bomb tech pun and as a Spartan with a classified history and background. What could she say? It’s not like she could bring up the Army Ranger missions her mother went on or the interstellar signal dumps her dad dug through in his career. She couldn’t explain she was a created as part of a government coup plot or that she was an example of Naval Intelligence bending human rights to create biologically-augmented child soldiers.
Lieutenant O’Connor was asking for too much of her students as far as Andra cared. It was supposed to be an Cadet Personal Development assignment, not a senior thesis on a citizen’s understanding of an alien holy war and what the war effort meant to them. Well, Andra was technically a senior cadet transfer, if only by proxy of her cover.
Andra frowned at the little black box resting on the desk, finally throwing caution and her self-pride to the wind. Doctor Romero gave her a rather odd and late birthday gift but she might as well make the most of it.
“You. Get down here. I need paper help.”
The box flickered as a blue hologram sprouted from its surface with a brief flicker. A figurine-sized blue avatar hovered mid-air while wrapped in a fluttering black cloak with its hood down to reveal an annoyed mini-Andra with a half-cocked eyebrow.
“This construct has a name.” The familiar AI remarked with a hint of distaste.
“Don’t care, ALT. I’m on a time crunch and I need this grade.”
The AI glanced down at the empty sheet of paper and then back at Andra.
“I can see that.”
“Save the snark.”
“You first.”
ALT 5032-4 and Andra glared at one another but the former relented regardless, flickering through hologram menus as she examined Andra’s homework assignment and attached documents.
“Well, I guess I could write it for you. At least tell me what you want or what you have in mind so its still kind of yours.”
“I got zilch but I do have a conclusion.”
“What that be?”
“In conclusion, children make great cannon fodder against an unstoppable alien war machine.”
“No. Not even.”
Andra shrugged.
“Then in conclusion: Cadet proctors, go get mowed down in a hail of plasma fire.”
“You’re horrible at this.”
“Just tell me what to write already!”