DT 2023: Full of Surprises

January 2558, (regarding the ...)
“Hold on for a little longer, you’re in for a surprise.”
Roxanne stood alone at the center of a stale aircraft bunker, observing in stealthy foot-tapping interest as noncommissioned officers from the UNSC Army shuffled about their morning routine. Above the works, hundreds of ancient overhead lamps glowed with a harmonic low, yellow glow and irritating buzz. Standing and watching got boring quick, drawing out microfeatures she normally held down.
She had no role here, and even as she voiced her offer to help, the airfield crews turned her down without question. Roxanne didn’t know if it was because she was a Spartan and during the Covenant War, her kind received special treatment from soldiers regarding access to military resources. But they were not supposed to know Roxanne was a Spartan.
Maybe because she had the appearance of a pink-haired, carefree child, they chose to treat her as some elevated guest. However, considering the slight stench of stale oil and itch of human dust on the thick air inside, she wasn’t sure a guest warranted whatever the surprise was.
Staff Sergeant Michael Silverthorne finally returned from the dark shadows in the back of the aircraft hangar, lazily flipping through virtual documents on his reinforced datapad.
“You doing alright? You got a frown on your face, kid.”
Roxanne schooled her raised cheeks and frown, reforming it into her trademark soft-smile but she knew a tightness remained at the corners of her eyelids. There wasn’t time to bottle up her irritation.
“I’m okay, I’m not frowning.”
Silverthorne shrugged, “Can’t fool me. You would make a great spy if you worked on your emotional control when no one was looking.”
“You were looking,” Roxanne pointed out.
“It’s easier to tell someone is lying when they’re outside their element. New situations encourage strong reactions – frustration, fear, boredom, and so on. Spartans aren’t so different from what I can tell.”
Roxanne let an irritable twitch flicker from her mask. To her own benefit or Silverthorne’s was unknown.
“Hah, see! You’re annoyed. So, what’s the matter?”
Roxanne shook her head. “Did you tell them I was a Spartan?”
Silverthorne’s slight teasing turned serious. “No, why? Did someone allude to it?”
Roxanne looked away from him at the small crowd before looking back at her temporary ONI minder. “Of course not. I’m just not use to special treatment. It’s one thing to get it as a Spartan. We were taught expect special treatment, and to ask for anything and everything if we needed it to complete a mission. But here, to the Army, they shouldn’t be treating me special.”
“Oh, right. You’re a prospective cadet for the next few weeks, remember?”
Roxanne nodded, “I got that. Still a little absurd a cadet wouldn’t be asked to help or participate in something. I’m just waiting here.”
Silverthorne couldn’t help but snort and chuckle as Roxanne squinted at him in confusion. “I shouldn’t laugh, I apologize. You Spartans expect to be involved in everything, huh?”
Roxanne shrugged, “I didn’t expect to do nothing.”
“Whether you’re a cadet or Spartan, they’re not going to ask anything from you. If you were a normal child, you would get in the way. Teaching you how to do things efficiently, giving you orders to follow. If you don’t know the process, you shouldn’t be involved.”
Roxanne paused for a moment, mulling over the staff sergeant’s point. “Logistics, you mean? I’m a Spartan, so I fight. They just make sure I’m equipped to fight.”
“Exactly, you don’t need to worry about logistics because its not your job. The only thing you need to understand is to protect them from harm’s way and appreciate their hard work because it keeps you alive.”
Roxanne looked away, hiding a warmth in her cheeks. “They taught me that already…”
“Don’t sweat it, we all forget things.”
Roxanne didn’t look at Silverthorne, her mind was locked on her unspoken response: ‘Not Spartans…’
“Anyway, don’t worry about that. Your surprise is ready.” Silverthorne announced a little louder. Roxanne looked to the staff sergeant but he directed her eyes to the hangar bay doors. The thick titanium doors screeched apart as louder gears and nanowire pullies split the doors into open sunlight.
The Pacific Northwest morning began with thick cloud cover, a remnant of a Pacific storm, however, the early afternoon cleared way for a cloudless blue sky and pressing bright sunlight reflecting off the tarmac. The glare forced Roxanne to raise her hand but as the bay doors subsided, she could no longer hear the buzz of incandescent bulbs but something larger, louder, and more violent. Small shadows fluttered over the taxiway somewhere out of sight, kicking up dust along the grass in the nearby field ahead. Then the shadows descended and through the cracks in her fingers, Roxanne understood.
Over the flurry of helicopter blades, Silverthorne managed to speak by taking a step closer. “Major Duceppe requisitioned you some flight time with the Exterminators’ air wing. You’re young, but your record was edited accordingly. Today you’re a cadet pilot, and for as long as you’re in Seattle, you’ll be improving on those simulator skills you picked up with Delta Company.”
Roxanne lowered her hand as her eyes adjusted to the sunlight. Along the tarmac, five black, open-cockpit airframes lowered to the ground, slowing their dual turbofans to a halt. She read about them, but never saw them in person.
“I thought the Army scout pilots used the Misriah Wasp these days?”
Silverthorne gestured to one of the noncommissioned officers approaching them quickly. “Staff Sergeant, the squadron freed up a half-company for the cadet’s training but they can’t guarantee resources every day. The squadron commander did say if the girl’s as much a prodigy as described, he’ll make accommodations.”
Roxanne couldn’t help breaking her masquerade; she was a Spartan down to the bone. A challenge was a challenge, and she faced them head on. She spotted his rank before his name, “Bring it on. Sergeant…?”
“Nikodem, Sergeant Nikodem,” The Army sergeant confirmed and looking Roxanne dead in the eyes. “I like your flare. My crew and I will be retrofitting whatever you need from our reserve hangars. Most of these frames haven’t flown since before the Covenant War, but we’ll have you a JOV-99 up in twenty minutes. You’ve flown one before, right?”
Roxanne shook her head. “Only in simulation. But it was an AV-49 Wasp, not a .”
“How much sim time?”
The Spartans shifted in thought trying to recall, “A little short of two thousand hours?”
Nikodem pursed his lips and nodded. “Not an expert but that’s more than respectable, I suppose you would’ve been put behind a real cockpit given proper resources. The controls are similar. Do you have a neural lace? It will make adjustment and diagnostics quick.”
Silverthorne stepped in, “She’s more than ready. Like you said, just a matter of resources.”
Roxanne pulled back her dyed, shoulder-length hair to reveal a silver glint at the base of her skull. The sergeant ignored Silverthorne’s intrusion, glancing at the Spartan’s well-hidden neural implant.
“Damn, is that a Command-grade? Or wait, it looks more… Oh.” Sergeant Nikodem paused, glancing back at Silverthorne with a nod of understanding with a hint of confusion.
Silverthorne offered a careless shrug with a slight smirk. “She’ll do more than fine.”
Nikodem looked back at Roxanne and glanced at his fast-approaching Army aviators who wanted their own introduction with the hotshot kid they heard about. “I guess there’s a lot of things I can’t ask. But whatever you want to know or need, we’ll see what we can do.”
Roxanne nodded. “When can I get in the air?”
Nikodem offered a hesitant smile, offset by the young woman’s confidence. “Like I said. Twenty minutes. Welcome to the Nightstalkers, Spartan.”
Category:The Weekly
Category:Short stories