DT 2024: Kill Your Kind

2561…
Andra’s vision rested in darkness, but she wasn’t asleep. A sugary flavor of lemon-strawberry soda tickled her nose and tongue with bubbles and synthetic sugar. She set the glass bottle down on the table next to her, leaning her bulky MJOLNIR-armored form back against a seamless permacrete wall as if on a lounge chair rather than some unforgiving gymnasium.
She almost sighed in comfort, if not for approaching footsteps. Her ears twitched first and her eyes snapped open to a rat nest of her tangled brown hair after two hours in a haircap and augmented reality training. Pushing her hair and sweat aside, she wrinkled her nose at her always-odd-looking Naval Intelligence superior officer.
No face. Helmeted, with a skull visage of transparent ceramic allowing just a shadow of beady eyes hidden beneath. A winter overcoat and office tie over very apparent body armor beneath.
“Rear Admiral Kallas, what do I owe the pleasure?”
The flag officer bobbed his helmet up and down, as if nodding but seeming more to observe his subordinate’s current condition.
“This your training?”
Andra shrugged, “More like breaktime.”
The rear admiral hummed in acceptance. He continued, holding up a thin digital tablet.
“It’s been a little while, but you remember the Battle of Archangel’s Rest?”
The female supersoldier snorted. “Hard to forget. Three months freezing my ass off alongside aliens and rebels, fighting someone else’s pointless war.”
“I recall you killed a few rogue Spartans without benefit of power armor,” Kallas supplied.
Andra could only raise her eyebrows. “You have my report, Callum’s report on file. You know Simon-G294 claimed those kills.”
The rear admiral shook his head, raising a hand to her. “Now. Let me remind you the ONI does not recognize the Onegin traitor’s recount of events. Either way, if you were given the opportunity to take those lives during the battle, could you have?”
Andra pushed herself off the ground, forgetting her drink to the side. She clasped a hand against her armor chest plate in contemplation. She remembered their faces, their names. Their lifeless bodies as she and Simon’s forces dumped body after body into shallow graves of snow and frozen earth beneath an alien forest. No grave markers. Very few words to send enemies, and friends, off into the great beyond.
She fought them. They fought her. They tried to kill one another. Their names. Loic. Mireia. Citlali. Shaima. Akoni. She didn’t bother with their Delta Company numbers; a matter of private, personal respect.
Andra stood a little straighter, she answered honestly. “Back then? Maybe not, even if they were in my crosshairs. But—now? Yeah. I could do it.”
Kallas bobbed his helmet again.
“Alright, think you can do it one more time?”
The rear admiral placed the digital tablet on Andra’s table before she could inquire or protest further. A humanoid figure in apparent Mjolnir power armor, but not components Andra was familiar with. She took the tablet but looked to Kallas instead. It was a red and orange armor assembly, distinct human features, and control surfaces with human-derived materials. But alien, brutish in appearance. Like a Jiralhanae officer's assault harness. Alien troops and their unit banners of the Banished army stood in the fires of war around the human warrior.
“Augmented corporate mercenaries? Or some kind of mimicry armor concept the R&D Section Three cook up?”
“Your new target—actually. Ilsa Zane.”
Andra couldn’t help glancing back at the dossier and then Kallas, offering a nodding dance of confusion. “The so-called ‘ultimate’ rebel supersoldier? I thought she died.”
Kallas shrugged. “We’ve tried bigger bombs. She walks away alive.”
Andra frowned, but handed the tablet back to her commanding officer.
“Alright, well, I’d say she's challenging, but not impossible. Headhunters are better suited for this thing.”
The rear admiral nodded again. “Of course, they’re on mission already. A dozen officers would like to take her head. I want you to get her for me first.”
“Clean kill?” Andra hummed, asking herself a rhetorical question. “A traitor I don’t have to fret about strings or complications would be nice.”
Kallas nodded, making a smile gesture with his finger over his mask. A ‘Spartan’ smile. Supposedly it was a SPARTAN-II originated sign but to think it would remain a Spartan cultural secret forever was foolish promise.
Andra offered her a Spartan smile with her thumb. “So, yes, then?”
“As simple as it gets,” Kallas confirmed, some giddiness in his voice.
Maybe the scarred man underneath enjoyed handing out kill lists. No, the rear admiral Andra knew was a soft-spoken, cougher of a man who enjoyed needless dress up and impeccable tailorship. The helmet didn’t give anything useful away towards Kallas’s emotional state.
“Alright, where do you need me?” Andra asked finally, standing over her commanding officer’s head with determination and a little enjoyment of her slight, intimidating stature.
A spot in the air warbled next to Andra and projector lights from her purple power armor assembled a tiny, blue hologram girl in a hooded overcoat. With Andra’s face. A mini-Andra.
The AI Althea spoke with a similar, devout interest as her indirect progenitor “Yes. Please tell us where we can find Ilsa Zane?”