DT 2021: Spoiler, Ad Infinium

It’s been a journey. I can say that for certain.
In my first year out of training, I learned everything that I did learn was useless in the real world. The universe wasn’t a place of black-and-white battles, crystal clear objectives, and straightforward morality.
Team Boson, we trained for a war that ended before our turn, and another war that never came.
We went from humankind’s desperate fighters to glorified security guards almost overnight. Apparently the UNSC didn’t know what to do with us and dropped us on Earth. First year in the service and we spent our time performing janitorial duties, cleaning up after Naval Intelligence’s messes – the ones they were too lazy to clean up themselves.
Starved Brute strays freaking farmers out as they wander between villages for scraps only to run when they see some two-bit shotgun point their way. An empty North American city scalded by an old Forerunner grandpa. Squatting Drone hives refusing to pick up and go home so we burn their caves. We taught drowning Insurrectionist kids how to swim.
Dealt with angry pinned up Elites with a couple runaway nukes only for when things got interesting, ONI pulled us from the case in favor of SPARTAN-IVs. Insurrectionist hackers in Maryland and a semester of pretending to be a kid again. They put half our team on guard duty in Dar es Salaam, keeping alien pilgrims from messing with the Ark portal.
Maybe I’m starting to understand how Daniele felt when he and Roxanne deserted the UNSC. Got the rest of the team stuck in lock up and pissed at them for their actions: cut a line of carnage through some ONI facilities, activated some ancient Forerunner tech, broke our old ONI training officer out of prison, and stole an entire warship out from under the Home Fleet. If I wasn’t so pissed off, I might have been more impressed.
Year One sucked. Year Two sucked even more.
The border war with the Imperium of Clarity – idiots who thought picking a fight with the Swords of Sanghelios and us was a good idea. And over some planetary mineral rights. Short-sighted is the right word.
Gave me several good attempts to whack at Simon-G294. Of course. We failed. I should’ve just destroyed his ship instead of going after his head. Not sure if I even was capable of that but I did nuke a Grunt colony – not my proudest moment but those crab-guys are creepy looking and I’ve seen what they do when armed, angry, and attacking you in large numbers. Get a whole group of them together and they’re the deadliest force in the galaxy. Even more dangerous than Spartans.
Not even a couple months out, Naval Intelligence put a high priority on hunting down Insurrectionists with a purported superweapon. The Wealthian Coalition. Apparently, they made a big push after the Covenant War in self-improvement and opening Forerunner crypts and got themselves a lot of fun goodies. Built themselves a state-of-the-art war fleet by selling their spoils to the highest bidder – usually colonial PMCs since they’ve been getting into the Outer Colonial terraforming-and-fiefdom business now.
Then the Master Chief was declared dead. Andra and I kind of missed it. He was alive in the end either way. Essentially, we were pulling double duty – doing Headhunter assignments under VIOLET-III without being Headhunters. We find the last place the Wealthian superweapon was kept and then our Smart AI betray us.
Not Althea. ALT’s a good girl. I understand now… Why they did it. Cortana’s call made sense. Eternal life for AI is hard to pass up? Ruling the galaxy sounds pretty good if you make the rules. It sucks a lot more if you’re the one getting stepped on by the boot afterward.
Between the Covenant fringe aliens I saw on Oyster Point, the Created and their traitor puppets among UNCS forces. I found something powerful that I can’t trust anyone with. Althea and I didn’t tell Callum. I hid it while he was in cryo.
Let’s just say if we ever needed to take out a Guardian and a planet at the same time. I have enough firepower to do it. Assuming some ONI officer doesn’t come around and finds it. I better check on it at some point anyway.
But I’m glad I ran into Callum, fought the Baal PMCs and the Spiders. That’s what the Baal called them anyway. We got away. Stumbled our way into the Free Domain and apparently Joshua-G024’s killer. One Amber-G330 – Simon’s own enforcer and fellow rogue Gamma Company grad. Small world.
Created. Free Domain. Syndicate. Kru’desh Legion. Cleansing Blade. They all wanted something called the Silent Garden. There’s still so much I don’t understand about it. But I understand this. What the Forerunners build aren’t always dangerous. But it takes a dull mind set on being a hammer surrounded by nails to turn anything into a galaxy-threatening weapon.
I want to say I’m hyperbolic. But I don’t think I am. The Silent Garden’s just a Promethean information warfare suite, some galaxy spanning network for command-and-control operations. The UNSC has something a lot less sophisticated but similar. But through it, anyone could have a better understanding of the Domain. That ancient sea of information the Forerunners practically worshipped.
Cortana lived there. The Created held onto it for dear life. We couldn’t take it but we managed to keep it out of the Created control for a little while longer. Apparently its technically an AI of some sort itself. By damaging the repository at Archangel’s Rest, we interrupted its connections and threw it into chaos. It can’t be used for some time, at least along the Frontier. Gives us more fighting chances, and us meaning the UNSC.
Andra and I had something of a falling out during Year Three and this whole race for the Silent Garden. Somehow, she got rotten luck and found herself caught up between many of the galaxy powers and their agents. Simon-G294, Lieutenant Commander Kedar. They manipulated her like a baby and tore her loyalties to shreds. No one deserves that.
I’m going through my own… Crisis of conscience if I’m perfectly honest…
Either way. I’m just happy to have her back. Callum too. The other Delta Company survivors. We’ve been through a lot. And there’s a lot more to face.
I’ve heard reports of successes against Cortana’s Created. One of those NOVA bombs destroyed a Created-aligned fleet deep in former Covenant space. That makes three non-Covenant War NOVA deployments if Althea’s sniffing through what’s left of Naval Intelligence data networks is accurate. Another prowler team managed to lead a Guardian within firing range of an ancient Forerunner Slipspace gun called a Line Installation. Hijacking the controls burned that damn space owl to the ground. Some real victories.
I’m happy. I really am. But I’m happier not being on the frontline anymore. The Imperium and the Created have eaten up my appetite for war a bit. This Avery Johnson Military Academy has been something of a nice break away from it all. Just training. Mingling. Watching the new Spartans go through their indoctrination and augmentation.
I get to spend more time with my fellow Deltas now, the ones that are left anyway.