The Next Step

Callum knew he could take off his armor, but he hadn’t bothered to. Without the assembly device it’d take a solid hour if he meant for it to be usable, and even if they were supposedly among friends on the Soul Ascension, he didn’t trust it. After the doc had cleared him for action, he’d suited up, and for the most part hadn’t bothered to strip out of it again. Some Split-Jaw work party leader had thought that meant Callum was volunteering for work as a one-man power loader, and it’d taken a rather bitter disagreement to resolve the matter. And a pair of broken mandibles on the hinge-head’s part.
It’d been Argo ‘Varvin who reminded his fellow Sangheili that there was no honor in being slain by a crippled demon, and swayed him to yield. That’d almost turned into another scuffle, both for the insult and daring to imply Argo had the slightest care about his people’s view of honor. Andra had deescalated, while Merlin had been subtly going for a knife. It was good to have the kid back, to have him safe and where Callum could keep an eye on him.
But that’d been hours ago, and even as they sat in the hull of their private vessel, over freshly heated rations that made Curahee’s chow seem pleasant, Callum could not keep his eyes still. Every entry point had to be visually checked for the shimmer of active camouflage, incase one Split-jaw finally decided that he needed to teach Callum some manners. If his helmet wasn’t off, laying at his side atop a crate, around their makeshift table in the cargo hold, he was sure Alt would be in his ear assuring him all was well. He didn’t need assurances, or for her to tell him that they’d be able to eat more comfortably in the galley if they took off the armor so they didn’t crush the chairs beneath them. Callum just needed to be sure.
“So, uh,” Merlin spoke first between a spoonful of slop, intent as ever to break any silence however merciful. He’d spent months doing it with Callum, be they deep in a cave on a Corporate hellworld, or in the bowels of a Free Domain Firebase, he always had something to say. Callum could only hope it would be something with saying, which to Merlin’s credit, it tended to be. The kid was too smart to not have something interesting to say.
“Andra, Callum, what’s the armor like?” They’d avoided the subject to the best they could. The former owners had been friends to Merlin and Andra, even in their betrayal, the bulk of Callum’s suit had belonged to some kid Andra had watched die right in front of her. She couldn’t kill him, so the story went, the tough sonofabitch had been brawling even with a skewer through him and a dozen other breaches, no chemical cocktail to cheat his way into a final stand, just willpower. 
They’d spent days making the suit fully functional again, especially the visor, which sported a rather horrendous patch job, though one that preserved the functions of his HUD. And even through all that time, he and Andra hadn’t spoken a word about it. She didn’t have to tell him that wearing her friend’s skin wouldn’t make for a good conversation, but Merlin had to know.
“This BDS stuff is more like GEN2 then it isn’t, the basics are identical, and most of the extended stuff might as well be. Softwares the same, just a different color HUD, fonts are different, a bull instead of an eagle, all that. But your stuff, I mean it’s new, new. Phoenix had it, Gravity had it, no one else though. Alt was saying it registers as GEN3?” Andra looked up from mid-bite, and flicked her gaze from Merlin as he finished, then to Callum as he shrugged.
“I guess even AI uprisings and the upending of the galaxy doesn’t cut into Material’s Group budgets.” Callum waved a hand dismissively.
“Halsey must’ve made record time for jumping between being a wanted fugitive and holding the UEG’s checkbook.” Andra added with a bitter chuckle. None of them knew the good doctor, none of them wanted to, her reputation proceeded her by lightyears. “Handles a lot like the GEN1 stuff, more…weight, I guess? You don’t feel any heavier, don’t move any slower,”
“I get it, it’s just more. You word it better than I would.” Merlin finished his partner’s thought, and she nodded in affirmation with a small smile, and a slight blush. If Callum had been any less properly socialized, he’d have groaned, instead he forced down a spoonful of gruel, only to find lamentation on his lips once again, but he stomached that too. Then Andra’s eyes turned back to him.
“Maybe it’s just that we had the post-war stuff, was the older MJOLNIR like this too?” Callum stopped, mercifully sparing himself from another bite of the gray sludge, his gaze locking with Andra’s. An awkward silence hung with the question, and Callum recognized she wasn’t making some strange attempt at a joke.
“Wouldn’t know, never used it.” He shoveled the bite down his gullet, and returned his focus to the meal without a further word, in some vain futile attempt to avoid further questions. But there were always more questions.
“But I thought you weren’t stationed on Onyx?” Andra had set aside her meal now, some internal drive forcing her to continue. Maybe she’d learned with Stray to keep pressing until she got answers or he got angry, and Callum didn’t have it in him to get angry.
“I wasn’t. Was in the field.” He shoveled another bite, looking over the battered shell he wore. He hadn’t wondered before now, if this must’ve been what his dead friends must’ve felt like. Even when the odds had been overwhelming, even when he was wounded, something about the armor made him feel invincible in a way his own MJOLNIR never had. He’d been stronger, faster, and better protected sure, but the smooth designs and minimal plating left him feeling exposed even with years of use. This was different, better, but he’d seen how false that illusion truly was.
“Then why would you not have been in MJOLNIR, that doesn’t make any-“
“Unnecessary expenditure,that’s how they called it.” Merlin intervened on his behalf, recognition dashed through his voice. Callum’s eyebrow arched, and he tore his gaze up from the viscous mess of nutrients. He’d forgotten that he’d ever told Merlin the exact verbiage, it must’ve been when his mind had started slipping after prolonged withdrawal, that was the only way he’d have mentioned it. That or Althea had told him, but it didn’t seem like something he’d have bothered looking up.
Andra’s brow furrowed, frustration spreading across her features alarmingly fast. What’d some logistics choice from before she was able to read matter to her?
“But why, you’re a Spartan, they’d already dumped millions into making you. You survived Pegasi Delta,”
“Because I ran.” He cut her off, only for her expression to grow even more sour.
“Spare me the excuse you’ve made to keep punishing yourself, I’ve had plenty of that in the last few months.” Something in his stomach twisted, and in spite of the evidence he was rather sure it wasn’t the food. She’d changed since ‘58 and the Imperium, and the young soldier hadn’t bothered to stop showing that since their reunion. The boldness was still funny in comparison, but Callum didn’t betray the amusement he found in it. 
“You’re a fully trained Spartan, on consistent deployments. We studied Operation DEPTH CHARGE in training, Lieutenant Kyle used it as a teaching point all the time. He stayed in SPI ‘cause it worked better for him, he was a sniper, but you weren’t, so why did you?” Callum had expected the worst part of this meal to be the food, not an interrogation where his subordinate demanded justification for his issued equipment nearly a decade ago.
“Andra, it’s not a big deal, really let’s just-“ Merlin again tried to interject, this time earning a cold glare from his partner rather than a sweet smile. 
“No, why did they send you out with inferior equipment on purpose. It wasn’t a whole company, it was one Spartan. There’s no way they didn’t have enough made, there’s no way they,”
“Andra, they didn’t expect me to make it that far.” She stopped when he spoke, and Callum took a moment to be sure it’d been him that’d said the words. It sounds too put together, there was no bite to it, no frustration, such composure was still as alien as the bulk of the Soul Ascension’s crew. “I wasn’t all the remarkable, what’s the point in dumping funds into a suit you’ll lose the first time it hits the field?”
“But they didn’t lose you, you came back, even when,” She stopped short, thinking better of what she’d meant to say, but Callum knew. But it was okay, he decided it was okay. He’d come back every time, even when no one else did. He’d asked all the same questions he knew she wanted to, like if he thought the others might’ve lived if he hadn’t been essentially handicapped, but if she’d asked he’d have told her the truth; that it didn’t matter. His friends were dead, and he wasn’t.
“Goddamnit, they just, they- they send us out to kill these people, to fight and die and they don’t even-” Callum saw it now, written across her face, etched in the clutched fists and reddening cheeks. It wasn’t Callum, it was everything. All three of the Spartans had lived among the enemy, only Andra had turned those foes into friends. 
The Insurrection were no strangers to child soldiers with substandard equipment, but that was desperation, the UNSC had done it by choice. They could write it off as necessity when it’d been 300 Spartans in a company, that the SPI was all they could feasibly afford on such a scale, but they’d chosen to pinch their purse with Callum time and time again for what? Because they didn’t think he’d been worth it?
He didn’t like the question, so he didn’t ask himself for an answer, but Andra’s explosion of a response told him he knew where the answer might lead him. He thought about Ambrose, and Mendez, hoping they might’ve left him with some teaching to help him rationalize it to her, but he had nothing. Andra had him beat.
“Yeah, was a tough break.” Callum shrugged as he looked to his hand, and balled his fingers into a fist, gently unfurling them only to pull them tight again. Andra’s gaze fell to her slop as something somber replaced the fury, and Merlin sat in silence, wishing he’d never asked the question.
“Feels good though Merlin, feels right. You’ll love it.” He assured the boy with a slight smile.
“Yeah,” Merlin muttered awkwardly, “Yeah I bet.”