DT 2023: We Always Meet A Certain Way

"A conversation of what-ifs between Spartans with nothing better to do."
NDRA: Merlin. Have you ever wanted a different life?
MRLN: Hard to say. I never really, hmm… Really never thought about it.
NDRA: But if you did for a moment. What would it be like? If you had to go back and write your story different?
MRLN: Is this a story I can make up, whatever I want? Would things go the way they happened? Or can I change things that happened without my involvement?
NDRA: Sure. You can change things about history.
MRLN: Well, the Human-Covenant War would’ve never happened. Maybe the Insurrection doesn’t happen. Yeah, let’s say that. No wars.
NDRA: Hard to believe that one. Why no wars? You wouldn’t be you without them.
MRLN: I know. But maybe that’s okay? Being a Spartan is cool. It’s all I ever known. But if they don’t need me. I could be anything else. I wouldn’t have to make a life, of taking life.
NDRA: What would you be?
MRLN: A fish-farmer maybe. My family were fish-famers.
NDRA: Would I be there?
MRLN: Well… I wouldn’t meet you, I guess… No, you would be there. You would be there.
NDRA: Fish-farmer’s girlfriend, huh?
MRLN: Do you want to be a fish-farmer’s girlfriend?
NDRA: …Maybe. I guess I don’t see the harm in it.
MRLN: What would you like to be?
NDRA: I don’t know either I guess. What we’re doing right now is boring. It pays for our housing and food though. We’ve been Spartans since we were kids, but if we grew up normally, we wouldn’t have jobs until we were like fourteen or something. What’s the Outer Colonies labor age?
MRLN: Sixteen, sometimes younger depending on the job.
NDRA: Okay, sixteen then. I turned sixteen in 2561. It feels so weird, knowing you’re older than a certain age from augmentation but you’re that age anyway.
MRLN: Well, time is relative and subjective. Earth age is not the same as on Argus V or Furthest Point. And not the same as Ballast time—
NDRA: —or time on Sigma Octanus IV. Yeah.
MRLN: You’re right, it does feel a little weird. To be just about to be twenty, but physically be… I don’t really know. What age do I look like to you?
NDRA: Compared to the kids at Pax River. I’d say we’re older than them. They got out by age eighteen?
MRLN: Okay, eighteen in 2558. And twenty-one in… no, twenty-five by 2565. And only twenty chronologically in the same year. Spartans have different biological clocks.
NDRA: True. Still, time doesn’t matter to what I’m asking, I guess. I’m wondering what your life would be like if you were never a Spartan?
MRLN: What about you, Andra? You didn’t say what you would do.
NDRA: My parents would live. No war, nothing bad would happen. I would be happy. I’m certain of it.
MRLN: What would your parents do?
NDRA: Mom probably would be an athlete, and then a xenoarcheologist maybe? She used to like that sort of stuff as a kid. According to the old ONI files. Dad would probably have some kind of desk job, but he also liked holding a gun even as an officer. So maybe he would still be military, maybe Mom too.
MRLN: My parents were also military contractors but civilian side. Mom grew up on Earth, went to college for propaganda stuff. Dad was a Marine and a fish-farmer. Both ONI-civilians. Maybe they would still be military.
NDRA: Maybe that’s how we meet then. Military school? Go to Patuxent River Academy?
MRLN: Maybe. That sounds cool. Would you still beat me up the first day?
NDRA: We were at Argus V for a few months before I beat you, Merlin.
MRLN: Okay, well time feels fast. It felt like a few days or the first day.
NDRA: First day you really knew me. And I won that fight.
MRLN: Oh no, I won that fight Andra. I was the one holding you while you cried. Remember?
NDRA: Do you want me to come over there and relive it? I can make that happen, Merlin.
MRLN: Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry.  Didn’t mean to start that again.
NDRA: Don’t apologize, but you’re still an idiot. Bozo.
MRLN: You’re a Bozo too.
NDRA: I know. That’s why it works. Or, how about Showerhead? Remember that one?
MRLN: I do, Princess. Or do you like Doll better? Do boyfriends call their girlfriends that?
NDRA: I’m going to beat you up.
MRLN: Shutting up.
NDRA: No. Not until you finish your idea.
MRLN: Alright, well… We meet at Patuxent River, I guess. Can’t really decide whether that makes me a military cadet or a fish-farmer, Andra.
NDRA: Pick one. Or both. How would you manage both actually?
MRLN: Family business. From what I hear about fish-farming; my parents didn’t tell me much but its really automated. Like a safari. You set up large nets close to the shore, but far out enough for coral to grow. And then you create artificial fisheries that the fish eggs are put in and you let them grow inside that pen until they mature. And then you get them out when fish season ends.
NDRA: Sounds cool. I don’t know what my career would be if I wasn’t a Spartan. I like military stuff, and my parents were all about that. I guess I would end up the same.
MRLN: What would you do in the military that’s different?
NDRA: I like the ODSTs. Maybe that.
MRLN: I don’t think I got the heart for ODSTs. Pods are one thing but doing it every day isn’t good for someone’s health.
NDRA: I like their armor. Not much else really to think about there, I guess?
MRLN: Oh I’ve noticed.
NDRA: Shut up, Merlin. If you were military but different, what would you do?
MRLN: I’d do ODSTs then. Same unit as you.
NDRA: You’ll follow me anywhere? Really?
MRLN: Why not? We’ve done it this long?
NDRA: What about fraternization?
MRLN: Don’t we already do that now?
NDRA: I don’t actually know how we got away with this. Someone should’ve noticed. Duceppe actually knew by the way.
MRLN: He knew? How?
NDRA: I told him.
MRLN: Andra!
NDRA: It was my crush; I wasn’t sure you and I were like that. Okay? Before Earth, I didn’t even know what a relationship looked like!
MRLN: Alright, well fine, I would be close. Just not that close.
NDRA: But ODSTs then.
MRLN: Yeah sure, ODSTs.
NDRA: Did I ever mention I saw myself in a dress down in the Silent Garden?
MRLN: I’ve never seen you wear a dress. When was this?
NDRA: Asphodel Meadows. When we went back to save you.
MRLN: Oh. Did you like that dress?
NDRA: I don’t know, I guess.
MRLN: I’ll buy you one next time we get a chance if you want. You can be a real princess then.
NDRA: I’m coming over there and murdering you.
Category:Short stories
Category:The Weekly