Halo: A New Life, Perhaps

Halo: A New Life, Perhaps is a short story written by user slowfuture. It is about a brief conversation between Hera and Cassandra as Hera reminisces on old times, and ponders a new possible future.
==Contents==
A ship, Sangheili in origin, drifted in the heavenly sea of stars; the deep eternal black threatening to engulf it. A world below, ready for conquest, spins slowly, its inhabitants aware of the fight to come. The seas of turquoise and fields of brown, trampled grass pray to the gods above to be spared. The Redemption of Sanghelios loitered at the edge of the system, the order not yet given. Inside its soldiers; humans, Sangheili, Spartan, prepared. The neon purple that decorated the railings of old Covenant ships coated everything in a synthetic hue. Skin tones lost in the pulsating violet. 
The ship is quiet, as they often are before combat. Each combatant taking their time to prepare, to offer supplication to their god of choice, others pray to themselves, hoping they will be better than they’ve ever been before to survive the battle of blood and plasma and metal and spittle. Many who make this prayer to themselves will not survive. Many who pray to the god will not survive. Divine intervention has no part to play in the quarrels of sentients; violence of their own making, an affront to the gifts provided to them. They are alone. God has turned His back on them, His gaze elsewhere. 
Still, a young dark woman sat by herself in a hanger of this gargantuan ship. Her back against the wall, her knees up by her face. Her rifle and kitbag sat carelessly at her side. A book rested on her knees, taking up her full attention. She chewed on her lip as she eyed a passage. 
Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
It had been underlined, but not by her. Hera was not terribly familiar with God, or His teachings. She had never been interested in it before. She’d found there was no need. Yet now, with the galaxy in turmoil, with deaths happening on a scale not even she comprehended, something had given inside of her. Her loneliness, the loneliness she’d felt since Josh’s death, was consuming her. What had been sorrow had turned to anger and that had further been mutilated by apathy. She didn’t want to be apathetic. She didn’t want to lash out at those around her, to burn bridges built in her past life. She couldn’t control it, like a river whose banks can no longer hold back the torrent, a lifetime of pain and suffering had burst out and flooded and consumed all within reach. 
Hera had suffered, just as every other Spartan had suffered under the innumerable stars. Free to roam unlike before, free to be with her thoughts, Hera could not find any justification for it. Yes she had been an orphan, and in some ways that life had been spared from her, but she had never really had a choice. She was going to be taken regardless of whether she believed it or not. She had watched friends known from childhood die. Maria’s body, ripped to shreds by the Flood, still haunted her when she slept. The rasping gasps as Josh suffocated in space rung in her ears when there should be silence. In every moment of her life, Hera was reminded of the decisions made for her, she had ended up where she was not through her own volition, but by the whims of others. She gave a wry smile as she remembered Frendsen suggesting she could have let Josh die all those years ago - she never had that power and she knew it. 
She placed the velvet string bookmark on the page she was reading and closed the book. She ran her hand over its course, roughed cover. Frendsen’s monologue about Josh perhaps being left to die should she decide not to work with him again drifted softly in her head. The memory hazy, addled by the painkillers they poured into her blood. The entire interaction is covered in cotton candy; soft, sickly sweet and easily torn. Moments play out of sequence, Josh’s destroyed collarbone, the eggs Frendsen brought, her waking up to find her body covered in plaster. She wouldn’t be sitting here, on some doomed mission, in a rebel Sangheili faction’s ship if she had said no to working with Josh. She didn’t believe she really held any power over him, over his life, but they would have been used differently. Maybe she would be dead, still known as Amy, and Josh would be alive. 
She focused on the world around her to kill those memories. There was a cacophony of chatter. Humans and Sangheili talked, discussed plans, and made jokes. Hera had to try hard not to hear every word of what was said, her cybernetics gave her perfect hearing and if she surrendered herself to it it would consume her. She had to keep changing direction, focus on a new conversation every few moments to keep herself centred. Once again, she cursed what was done to her. The surgical scars ached at the thought, a small pulsating burning sensation crept up her spine. The implant in her head felt like it was readying to burst through her skull and paint the walls with her brain. This dysphoria in her own skin was another reason for her seeking God. Why did this have to be? Was this ordained by Him under the sun? Did that make it better?
“What are you reading?” someone asked.
Hera looked up.
“Hi, Cassie,” she smiled forcefully, “oh nothing.”
“I can see what it is, you know,” Cassandra-G006 said, former Spartan like Hera, and long-term target of Hera’s half serious affections. 
“Then why ask?”
“Make conversation,” Cassandra shrugged, “do you mind?”
Hera didn’t reply but moved her kitbag and rifle further away. Cassandra took a seat next to her, their shoulders pressed up against each other as Cassandra leant over to grab her bible. There was a soft longing in Hera, wishing the pair of them weren’t in their combat armour so the warmth of their bodies could be felt against each other. She swallowed hard. Hera let herself sit in desire for a moment, to enjoy the impossible, the tantalisingly close but the forever out of reach. Cassandra knew of these feelings somewhat, knew they were largely there to joke and try and elicit a reaction from her, but to Hera there was a modicum of truth that never quite went away. The expectation was of course non-existent. This was not for this life, maybe in another, less cruel one far away across the stars.
“I didn’t know you were such a devout follower,” Cassandra said, her back now matching Hera’s against the wall. 
“I’m not.”
Hera looked over at her. Cassandra’s hands were investigating the outside of the Bible. Its cover was ragged, the corners dogeared and parts of it were peeling away. She turned it to look at the spine. Several deep creases ran along it, indicating it had been pressed open and forced to remain that way for someone to write along the edges of the Word. The corners of the pages were frayed, curling upwards, smooth and difficult to pick apart. It was a well-loved and well studied book. Cassandra looked at Hera, eyebrow raised, and lifted up the book, turning it over as she did so.
“It’s not mine,” Hera began, “or rather, it was someone else’s first.”
“Whose?”
Silence. Hera looked away from Cass.
“Josh’s,” she said, almost in a whisper. 
“Josh’s?” Cassandra said, unsure if she had heard correctly.
Hera nodded. 
“I know it doesn’t make sense,” she said, “after how I’ve been talking about him.”
“That’s certainly an understatement, Hera,” Cass replied. 
She had set the Bible down reverently in front of them both. She had taken a small piece of cloth from her pocket and placed the Bible upon it. Despite its tattered appearance, it was still the Word and deserved respect. 
“Why do you have his Bible?”
Hera sighed.
“I don’t know, truthfully,” she began. 
Hera turned to look at Cass, but kept her eyes from looking into Cass’s.
“It’s all I took from his personal effects, and I just - I can’t really explain to you why I took it,” she said, playing with her fingers, still looking at Cass without looking at her. “There was just something about it that drew me to it.”
“God perhaps?” Cass said softly.
“Yeah, maybe, Cassie, could have been God,” Hera said somewhat absentmindedly, but to Cassandra it felt sincere and genuine. “You know Josh was devout once, right?”
Cass nodded.
“I don’t really know how much of what you know about what we went through when they took us out of Gamma Company all those years ago.”
“Nothing, honestly,” Cass said. She folded her arms.
“Well, we came up against the Flood and we lost our entire team. Colin, Andrew, and Maria all gone at once.”
Hera’s hands balled into fists tightly. So tight her skin struggled to keep her bones from escaping. She had never been given the opportunity to think about them. Josh had demanded so much of her attention, her teammates had never been buried. They still existed at the edges of her mind, regret and pain and sorrow ignored for too long. A quiet sob left Hera’s mouth. Her head low in penitence. 
“I miss them,” she said, “Josh never let me talk about them, but I miss them. I miss them so much, Cassie.” 
Cassandra lifted her arm around Hera and brought her in. Hera’s head lying uncomfortably on the shoulder pad of Cass’s armour. Cassandra awkwardly took off the glove on the hand closest to Hera and gently ran her fingers through the long, sweat soaked hair of her fellow Gamma. Cassandra had not expected such vulnerability from Hera, especially not after the almost carefree interaction they had earlier. The flirting had come so easily, so effortlessly. The callousness with which she had dismissed Josh, almost revelling in his death, had shocked and alarmed Cassandra. But here she was, comforting one of the hardest, most iron-clad souls she had ever met. The pair said nothing, but they were drawing stares from those around them. Cassandra had a hard time looking at Hera, she was acting on instinct. She was unused to seeing Spartans like this, it caused a pit of anxiety to sit at the bottom of her stomach. Cassandra saw some concerned looks, but she shook them off. Her fingers ran in soft, soothing circles on Hera’s scalp. 
“Thank you,” Hera said after a few more moments. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her gauntleted hand. “I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be,” Cass said, “I have had plenty of time to grieve, I get it.”
“Thanks, Cassie,” Hera said.
Silence once again settled upon them. Each of them looking away, the awkwardness of what had transpired sitting with both of them. Life, Cassandra thought, was funny. The God above brought folks back together in the strangest of ways. His plan was obfuscated by the all too often contradictory desires of Man. It was unusual to her that Hera, who just a few months ago would have been an enemy, was now openly weeping with her, talking about the boy who was glued to hip for almost ten years. Cassandra remembered the sullen boy from Onyx hazily, he was half-formed and shaped mostly by what she had heard about Xiphos on the frontier. What she did remember for certain was his unhappiness, the quiet melancholy that seeped from his pores. She never remembered a smile on his face, but she did remember Hera, then Amy, smiling less and less as time went on. 
Hera did not find the irony, nor was she looking for it. To her, the loss of agency was hard to reconcile with. One of the few things she remembered positively about Josh was his willingness to talk philosophy with her. When he did, she remembered, he seemed alive. A real person. He may not have always believed what he was saying, she definitely saw through the lies when he would look away or take part in his annoying habit of chewing his fingernails, but it gave him some semblance of purpose. She could see him now, tongue out, pencil in hand, bent crooked over the Bible that now sat in front of her, scribbling away some heretical thoughts of his. This Bible was Josh at his most redemptive; it was the Josh worth remembering, drowned as it was by his nihilism and misery.
“So, Hera,” Cassie began, looking at her again. This time their eyes connected, drawn into the deep pools glazed over in a shared trauma. “Why did you keep his Bible, of all things?”
“I guess… I guess, it was the only part of him worth remembering.”
“His faith?”
“No, not exactly,” Hera said as she shook her head, “he had lost his faith long ago but something kept him reading this, looking for answers I think.”
“There is a lot to be found in it,” Cass said wistfully. 
Hera shrugged.
“Yeah I don’t know, Cassie,” she replied, “it didn’t seem to do him any good.”
“What do you mean?” 
“When he spoke about, however infrequently it was, he seemed to be rejuvenated. Back from the half world he lived in.”
“Half world?” Cassandra asked. “What do you mean by that?”
“You know how he was, on Onyx?”
“Somewhat, yeah,” Cass replied, her shoulders shrugging as she did so. 
“God, it was so long ago. But, that got worse. He barely spoke, he didn’t talk to me unless he was giving orders or instructions.”
Hera’s fists balled again.
“Or when he was fucking feeling sorry for himself,” she spat. Her spittle landed in neat globs near the Bible. “He was always fucking apologising for some fuck up I didn’t even think about. Needing me to soothe his ‘broken soul’ as he called it. Not once did he think to ask about me! See how I was doing!”
Hera inhaled deeply.
“God he was insufferable.” 
Cassandra was once again taken aback. By all accounts the two had been close, friends, some had even rumoured they might have been more than that against regulations. But Hera was angry talking about him, she couldn’t contain it it seemed. 
“But that doesn’t explain why you kept his Bible, of all things," Cassandra said.
“I guess it doesn’t.”
Hera took a minute to steady her breathing, to centre herself on the hanger she found herself in. The company she was keeping. 
“He just… If you saw him when he was talking about what he was reading, or writing about on the margins, he just,” Hera gestured with her hands carelessly, “he just felt human - alive. There was something there that was worthy of the love I felt for him.”
“You loved him?”
“Of course I did, Cassie,” Hera sounded genuinely shocked. “I resent a lot of what he’s burdened me with, but, how could I not love him?”
“It’s a shame he never got to return that,” Cassandra said, her thoughts drifting towards Simon. “I wish he could’ve been like that for you all the time. Been the person you deserved for you.”
Hera smiled.
“Are we still talking about me?”
“Yes,” Cassandra said sheepishly. Her voice soft, the words drifting gently into the expanse of the hanger. All meaning dissipating. Her face towards the ceiling, beseeching her God above. Hera did not push it, she knew better. 
“There’s a lot of Josh in here,” Hera said, picking up the Bible, “that’s worth remembering and maybe I can get to know him a bit better.”
“Do you miss him?”
“No,” Hera said quickly.
“Really?” 
“Really.”
“Why not?”
“For the reasons I’ve said,” Hera said, “He… He was ready to die. And I think he knew our time together was drawing to a close.”
Hera shifted her position, sitting somewhat taller.
“He died knowing he saved my life,” she laughed, “he got to die knowing he had done me some good. Lucky bastard.”
Cassandra didn’t know how to respond to that.
“He apologised, you know,” Hera said, not really to Cassie, but to the world. “I’ve not told anyone that, but he apologised at the end. I don’t really know if he knew what he was apologising for, but he did it.”
“Maybe he really knew all along.”
“I don’t think so,” Hera said, shaking her head. “Ultimately it doesn’t matter. He’s dead, I’ll never know.”
Cassandra had lifted the Bible from Hera’s lap but hadn’t opened it. Sometimes just holding the Word was enough to bring her comfort. She was deeply intimate with its pages. Her own copy looked very similar to this one. The spine was less cressed, for one. Hera had been honest beyond measure with her, she hadn’t really expected her old Gamma colleague to be this open with her. They had barely had a real conversation in almost a decade. Onyx had been dreadful for them all. A half frenzied Kurt trying desperately to find a way to keep them all alive where all others had died. Mendez tried his best to keep the worst of Kurt away from them. Maybe the bond forged there meant more than all the other stuff that had happened, causing them to drift apart. Hera, once a loyal servant of the UNSC and Cassandra, a frontier rebel and former Spartan, were friends despite all this as they sat together on a former Covenant warship. God in Heaven had a sense of humour.
“Is this Josh’s bookmark?” She asked Hera.
“Hmm,” Hera looked over, “Oh no, that’s mine.” 
Cassandra reverentially opened the Bible and lifted the string bookmark out, placing it gently hanging over the back of the spine. Her eyes quickly scanned the page.
“Oh, Romans, I like this one,” she looked up and smiled, her finger tracing over the words. “Is this Josh’s highlight too then?”
Hera nodded, “it is, but I’ve been chewing on it for a while.”
“Do you like it?”
“I do, yeah,” Hera replied. “I’m still trying to make some sense of it.”
“It’s similar to one I like, let me get it for you.” Cassandra quickly leafed towards the chapter she was looking for. 
“Luke 9:23,” she began, “while I’d not say it’s my favourite, it’s one of them. Do you know it?”
Hera shook her head.
“I’ll read it for you, it says: ‘Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’”
“I still don’t really get it,” Hera said.
“I’m no priest or scholar, but to me what it says is that to suffer has purpose, whoever wants to follow Chri-Him, must know suffering to know His glory and life eternal.”
“I don’t know if I believe that,” Hera said, “I have suffered a lot and don’t feel any better for it.”
“I’m not quite sure if you’re supposed to find… to find joy in your suffering.”
Hera shrugged. 
“I’m not the person to really help you through this, Hera,” Cass started, “I can give you some direction but it’s up to you to follow.”
Hera laughed.
“I know,” she said, “it’s a lot to put on someone but thank you for your patience.”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a warm smile on her face.
The two lapsed back into silence again. Cassandra took some time to read through some more passages, while Hera had taken out a datapad and was scrolling through some fantasy literature, grabbing a paragraph or two to herself. The hustle and bustle of the hanger continued around them as the pair remained frozen outside time. Their preparations for the upcoming invasion complete, comfortable to spend some time in each other’s company, no expectations to be made of the other. 
Outside the hull of the ship, the stars began to fade from view as they were dragged across the horizon. A slipspace hole tore apart the abyssal black of space and the Redemption went in. Inside, Hera and Cassandra and the rest of the hanger felt a lurch, the sickening nausea that accompanied slipspace jumps greeted them both. In a moment, an equally abrupt stop told them they had arrived. A siren began blaring throughout the hanger. Soldiers ran to their equipment and their transports. The battle having arrived.
“Time to go,” Hera said as she stood up. 
She turned to offer Cassandra her hand. Cassandra took it and was pulled up. 
“This is yours,” she said, handing Hera back her book. 
Hera nodded in thanks. Both of them took a moment to scrutinise each other. Hera took a long hard look at brown eyes and brown hair, the soft face that had captured her imagination all those years ago on Onyx. Cassandra saw a sad woman, scars criss-crossing her face. Eyes sunken and deprived of life. A person worthy of pity, but who would not receive any for Hera was aboving pitying.
Cassandra broke their gaze and smiled as she began walking away.
“Cass!” Hera called after her.
“Yeah?”
“In another life?” Hera asked in a tone that was a mixture of longing and humorous. 
Cassandra smiled sheepishly, averting her gaze, her eyes plastered on the floor. She took a deep breath. 
“In another life,” she said finally. “Goodbye, Amy.”
She walked one way and Hera another.
Under this Heaven things had been one way, but under a different heaven, a different set of circumstances things may have turned out in a new, unexpected way. Longing and desire in one life can be experiences and joy in another. This Hera had been denied her opportunities she had at one point desperately wanted, still, knowing that it was possible in another life brought some comfort. Maybe in that other life she’d found happiness. Maybe in this life she’d finlly seek happiness. 
She boarded her transport and cocked her rifle. All thoughts of what may have been pushed to one side. All she wanted now was to live. The door to the transport closed, the sickening purple light of the Covenant covered her. The gaping maw of space swallowed the transport, part of Hera was left behind.
The stars continued to shine.