Heaven and Earth Interlude: Fulfilling Selfish Honor

It was a Spartan affair.
Argo chose not to intrude, but he stayed to watch the four human supersoldiers bury their fellow number ever aware they fought on different sides of the bloody Created conflict. Andra and Simon called them Team Gravity, a young group of Spartans from Andra’s Delta Company. Argo understood at one time they were her brothers-and-sisters-in-training and arms.
The Spartans took their fallen brethren and wrapped them in repurposed silk clothes from the nearby castle, laying them together in the snow beneath the hallowed forest. No one spoke but the deputy soldier, Mohsin, who offered quiet prayers in a religion Argo knew very little of. A low breeze whistled between the trees, and the Spartans said nothing as only sorrow ruled in the remaining daylight.
It was a familiar sight for Argo who murdered more than a few of his own kind to survive in the unforgiving galaxy he called home. It wasn’t that long ago he killed his teammates once converted into the parasitic Flood’s zombie abominations or as a “race traitor” fighting on behalf of his specie’s enemies to advance the agenda of human benefactors.
The uncomfortable memories crawled back in from the burial scene. Despite the warming of air in the blizzard’s passing, the saurian warrior had to wrap the winter garments he stole from the ransacked Baran keep over his exposed scales. The cold didn’t leave, it held firm and bit at his body as the dower memories scrutinized his conscience.
The battle here was over along with the winter storm, but the war wasn’t over. Another blizzard would come again. There was more fighting to come. This was only a lull.
Simon’s Kru’desh Legion sacked the enemy castle and those that would remain here likely faced a coming famine. But such was the war with the Created, and to the victors went the spoils.
As Simon’s new spymaster, Argo played a decisive role in ensuring innocents and survivors of the losing side would die a slow, painful death unless they join with their conquerors and leave their home behind. This wasn’t an honorable act but Argo learned a long time ago from the humans that honor was a subjective affair. And the Argo forged in the clutches of the Flood and human interests no longer had need for honor, except for when advancing other selfish pursuits.
He was the one to open Baran keep’s gates to the Kru’desh. The slaughtering of its loyal defenders and the sullying of its innocent inhabitants rested on his shoulders. Simon was merciful by some more-vile Sangheili standards, only a partial stranger to Covenant customs. And as a human, he had no need of poisoning or unrooting the Baran name. But still starvation and death would come. And Argo did it for him.
Simon owned the battle and victory. The sin of Baran’s destruction rested with Argo. He traveled a long distance and time to reach this point. He didn’t need to be here – he could’ve stayed with Shinsu ‘Refum’s fleet and instead assaulted the Gilboan Citadel shield world. But instead, his cursed luck smiled on him once more.
The new Spartan to join the humans that conquered Baran keep, one called Callum, brought news of Shinsu’s defeat by a Created coalition fleet three times their number. Argo survived once more on dumb luck, and a higher power’s crueler sense of destiny.
Argo focused on the shortest Spartan of the funeral crew, the brown-haired Andra wrapped in a drop trooper’s body suit and repurposed winter, purple garments once favored by the Baran children. She was the single reason for Argo’s survival now. A terrible irony as she nearly died and survived from his own antics that brought them both on this wild adventure, they could not imagine a year or more ago.
Before becoming Simon’s conflicted rogue, she was a fanatical agent of her nation. With every loss in the opening days of the Created uprising, she held on dearly to her United Nations Space Command ideology. Her commander at the time was Ryder Kedar, a Naval Intelligence agent, and a new generation of Spartan. The ever-smiling man sent Andra alone with only a small ragtag team of ONI assassination troops to kill the most-protected mob boss in the known galaxy. Argo was their inside spy and he told them their mission was a suicidal one. Ryder sent them anyway. Andra and her forces fought anyway. They all died, except for her.
It was Argo who pulled her out of a fate worse than death as the Syndicate acted as a human proxy for the Created upstart gods. Callum revealed Ryder as a traitor in their midst.
Andra’s dearest companion may very well be dead now, along with the crew of the Chancer V. Good people who saved Argo and Andra time and again.
Argo noted with some humorless amusement that the Spartans reached an adequate depth in their digging and turned to shooting verbal jabs across the five craters now filled with the wrapped corpses of their former friends. Old wounds and old betrayals ended slowly, dying cold deaths. They remained as scars for long times to come. But today, the rogue Spartans and their fellow UNSC loyalists set aside their differences to respect the fallen who only died fighting and believing in the wrong thing.
Team Gravity weren’t traitors in this sense. Just soldiers fighting for the wrong cause, and they paid the price for their choice. More bodies would still follow them soon as Simon prepared to assist Callum in going back to Gilboan Citadel.
The Kru’desh would march again at Simon’s order. His victory here hardened their loyalty to the rogue Spartan warlord. They marched once more towards their final resting places. Survival in these fights was mere dumb luck. But at least this fight had purpose for some.
Simon fought for his friends on the Chancer. Andra fought for her Merlin. And Argo fought in the pursuit of purpose. And an oath to himself, a promise to keep.
His eyes lingered on Andra’s tiny form as she sauntered through the snow to stand at Callum’s side near a flickering fire. The Kru’desh camp packed up and prepared themselves for the next battle. Simon and Amy talked about something out of earshot.
Andra and Callum whispered out of earshot as well. But Argo saw something more there. A closeness she shared with Simon, but even deeper – a closeness and familiarity she shared with Callum. This new Spartan was a specter of her old life before joining Simon’s ilk. Someone who represented order in chaos.
According to Andra, Callum was a Spartan she served under two years before. Someone she called a friend.
If she had a friend now, Argo’s oath approached its end. She was almost home now. He promised himself for all the human fallen and Ryder’s betrayal, he would make up for it all and ensure her safety no matter what. He didn’t imagine the ultimate consequence of such a promise. He just needed to honor his mistake. His own rare and selfish sense of honor belonging to him alone.
Andra would make it home. And then finally, Argo could be free.