Halo: Arizona Backroads II

==Dramatis Personae==
===Ferret Team Boson===
*Kyser Duceppe
**Daniele-D003
**Merlin-D032
**Andra-D054
**Roxanne-D107
**Zach-D111
===The Invisibles===
*Derek Frendsen
*Joshua-G024
*Amy-G094
*Argo 'Varvin
*Jefferson Korn
*Reyna Zhou-Romero
*Nicoline Folasade
*Althea
*Cathedral
:There will be more...
=Halo: Arizona Backroads II=
Written by 
__TOC__
==Part One: Welcome to Infinity==
===Prologue: Fire and the Eternal Night===
“Roland, give me my morning agenda.” Duceppe requested with an offhand wave as he flushed his mouth of remaining toothpaste at his tiny sink station.
One of the display monitors flickered golden nearby before the tinted glow jumped deeper into Duceppe’s guest cabin. The central overhead light in the room dimmed, accommodating the yellow hologram form of a Royal Air Force pilot from World War Two.
“Good morning, Major. I won’t secretary you with your personal activities. So, the big tickets, today will be your first meeting with your SPARTAN-III team. Designated Training Unit Bravo-Three, the ONI article I have calls them ‘Team Boson.’”
“Team Boson of Delta Company. What is your assessment of them?” Duceppe asked, setting aside his toothbrush, and dipping a clean razor in the running water spout.
“I am conditionally allowed to overview them in your presence. What would you like to know? As you’ve already read through a little more than half of the debrief package, including the record logs from the Stone Eagle contractors responsible for their training.”
“Give me their preferred names again, and then their actual ranks and designations.” Duceppe said, beginning to trim away at the teasing, blonde chin whiskers.
“Team leader is Danny, or Petty Officer First Class Daniele-D003. Deputy is Merlin, Petty Officer Third Class Merlin-D032. The others also Petty Officers, Third Class: Andra or Andra-D054. Roxanne, Roxanne-D107. And Zach, Zachariah-D111. You are to meet with SPARTAN-IV Commander Sarah Palmer to debrief and assess their skills to fit within the needs of Spartan Operations and ONI Section Three.”
Duceppe nodded to the Smart AI through his mirror. “Thank you. Danny. Merlin. Andra. Roxanne. And Zach, or is it, Zachariah?”
“It seems to be Zach.”
“Gotcha, Zach. Not Zachariah. Extrapolate for me: what are they are like based on a quick summary of their training history? Three to four years long, most born in 2545 and now around age twelve or thirteen?”
Roland paused, his holographic eyes flickering with a thousand-yard stare at Duceppe’s bed.
“Indeed. A quiet group, or they might be, considering more introverted characteristics among their members. Roxanne is noted as the most talkative one but they’re all adequately adjusted. No disciplinary issues of note during transition from contractor-to-military oversight. Team Boson had an uneventful graduation party with other company graduates a few weeks ago. The party was the last major event of note in their logs, two days later they went into cryostasis and shipped out to the UNSC Infinity over the last week.”
“Any concerning disciplinary issues at all?”
“There’s the section regarding the late training casualty of Marcus-D005 in their third year but you’ve already read this?”
Duceppe nodded, “Unfortunate but I asked Commander Palmer, she heard through the grapevine training causalities were never unusual. Low casualties are the oddities. Continue.”
“Andra is diagnosed with selective mutism but completely habilitated for interactions with fellow military personnel. A small note was left from a Sergeant Francis Dellend from Stone Eagle: ‘Unlikely to talk to civilians, should be fine in general military activity.’”
“I missed the note, I’ll keep it in mind. I recall something else in her background of concern.”
“Over- or co-dependency of Merlin-D032, possibly similar case for D032 towards D054. Their assessment scores began to equalize – D032’s dropped and D054’s rose drastically in their second year to an equilibrium of sorts. Separation attempts were ill-advised. Their scores dropped, Andra-D054 did not adapt well to other team dynamics and returned to Boson.”
“You sure there’s nothing on the other children?”
“Zach-D111 was the legal heir of a defunct Weaver Interstellar Interests Corporation. Rear Admiral Utah’s conspirators acquired its assets separate from the ONI Section 0 internal audit dataset of government-registered shell companies. Daniele-D003 was the only delinquent in the unit, his father was part of a rebel cell in San Diego-Tijuana but there appear few lingering character concerns. Merlin-D032 and Roxanne-D107 appear spotless, maybe over-socialized considering they had a harder time acclimating to training standards early on.”
“From what I could tell, this group was one of a few intended for Rear Admiral Utah’s security detail before her arrest? Did they ever meet her, or have some impression of her or her conspirators?”
Roland hummed, putting a thumb to his lips. “Doesn’t appear so. There’s a record the rear admiral had a sit-down dinner with five teams near the end of their second year. Team Boson was one of the teams but it was their only interaction with her. I can’t pull from an ONI proximity event list but a word key search identifies a Dr. Reyna Zhou-Romero and a Lieutenant Commander Jefferson Korn as having significant contact with this team.”
“ONI arrested Korn, correct? He was part of the logistics for Delta Company.”
Roland shook his head, “No, Korn is still missing and wanted for treason, among other crimes. As logistics and in the coup’s inner circle, he personally participated in several kidnapping jobs of Team Boson. And was this team’s mentoring officer briefly.”
“Did he do anything to them…” Duceppe couldn’t help asking, his mind trailing off to the darker reaches of his imagination.
Roland shrugged at the major. “Nothing I can confirm, but Korn’s declassified military record is mostly spotless. An honorable discharge-type if not for the typical Spartan kidnapping activities, treason, and black-market involvement.”
“What about this Dr. Romero?”
“ONI Section 2 civilian consultant, a practicing psychiatrist but worked on domestic psychological warfare. She’s under house arrest in Boston, Massachusetts. She worked with Andra-D054 and Merlin-D032 extensively. It’s possible she played favorites considering Merlin was the son of a coworker.”
Duceppe shook his head at the laundry list of red flags Roland read out to him. Roland approached them as dry and mundane but the Army major could see the potential concerns. They were minor, yes, until they became major. “I’m going to have to meet this Dr. Romero eventually…” he muttered.
Korn and Romero seemed the most concerning as childless adults with direct involvement in influencing children not their own. And in a distasteful, shady business such as Spartan training with many unknowns… What wasn’t said in the reports was up to Duceppe’s wild imagination but the record on Dr. Catherine Halsey’s involvement with the original SPARTAN-II program told enough horror stories for a lifetime.
It took a particular mindset or person to disassociate with children and turn them into child-soldiers. And raised more concerns if they failed to. Those people were monsters, and yet here was Duceppe taking his step into their world. He set his razor down. He recognized the slight itch of the blades against his skin now but was slow to stop while distracted by his conversation with Roland. Taking a good look in the mirror, the major could still see small dark spots of hair but the shave was adequate.
“Major Duceppe?” Roland asked with a voice of concern.
“What is it, Roland?”
“Are you alright? You were quiet for a while.”
Looking away from the mirror, Duceppe pushed the sink station back into the wall cabinet. He turned to Roland, “Just thinking on some things.”
“Would you like to talk about it? Any more questions on Team Boson?”
Duceppe shook his head. “No, that’s alright Roland. I’ll go ahead and wrap up. Can you give me a view of our current surroundings?”
Roland frowned, “You want external cameras? There’s not much out there, just vacuum.”
“It’s alright, I like to see it.”
Display screens flickered around Duceppe, turning dark like the night sky, and dotted with millions of visible lights twinkling across the cosmos. There were no nebulas or gas clouds this ‘morning,’ rather empty space. For a soldier like Duceppe, not a Marine, space was an alien and hostile environment not meant for his presence. And yet his muscles relaxed looking into the endless darkness, his usual nasally breathing steadied and he felt calmer.
“Anything else I can help with, Major?”
Duceppe looked back to Roland with a wistful smile. “Tell me, how many human interactions are you having across the ship at the moment?”
Roland didn’t blink. “Two thousand eighty-three.”
“How do you know they’re with humans?”
Roland blinked once, “Because I’m engaged in them?”
“Well, how do I know you’re not doing some quick auto-query to check. How can you verify every interaction as human?”
Roland sniffed. “How can you confirm you’re human beyond your sensations of flesh and blood? Everything I do is ‘automated,’ Major.”
“Can’t you run some kind of diagnostic to do a visual confirmation?” Duceppe continued, ignoring Roland’s counter question.
“Just did. They’re all human. I’m also in three conversations with Huragok and two with other Smart AI if you are curious.” Roland deadpanned.
“I didn’t see any visual difference in your behavior.”
“Would a pause have helped? AI mannerisms are made for human interaction but they’re still an illusion.”
Duceppe finally chuckled. “Thank you for humoring me, Roland. Needed something a little lighthearted to start my day. You may go, don’t spit in my coffee when I get down to the mess.”
Roland offered a slight nod. “You seem concerned about the Spartans, Major. Are you sure there isn’t anything more I can help with?”
Duceppe paused, “I’m concerned for them Roland, but even more for me. This is my first-time meeting child-soldiers. Don’t worry about it, just a little old-man apprehension.”
“Commander Palmer will be there. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. Do this last thing for me Roland, I’ve wanted to ask but never got around to it. Why do you have an avatar of a British fighter pilot, but with a North American accent?”
Roland smirked, crossing his arms. “The British empire was large in that time. Canada was still a part of it. And for the record, I promise to maybe not mess with the coffee machines when you reach the mess hall.”
The Smart AI winked out of existence and the primary lights in Duceppe’s cabin glowed brightly once more. Duceppe shook his head. He was confident his AI friend knew better than to ruin today. And Roland never tried before anyway.
The major stared back into the infinite darkness of space against the far wall of his cabin. What worried Duceppe most existed in the gray metal walls of the UNSC Infinity and along the pipes, hallways, facilities, and assemblies within the ship’s superstructure. The human construction pulled him back to the dark streets of Pittsburgh once again as vivid as the nightmare before. He imagined the grumpy faces of Team Boson and imagined, worried, if he stared long enough, they would turn into the face of his daughter.
His dead, charred and screaming daughter. Crying out as her lungs boiled and her face blackened with ash, coughing out her last words. She was supposed to go to school that morning. He could still hear her words. Her coughs and whimpers at the end. “I don’t want to die.”
Duceppe glanced to his right and noted Roland left visuals from the Team Boson debriefing packet open along the far wall. The grumpy and stern faces of five children stared at the major. His daughter’s face on every single one. He wrinkled his nose with a boiled twitch of frustration intermixed with flashing rage. It was only present for a moment but he felt no contempt for the Infinity’s AI ship director. Still, Duceppe vanished the display widget back into a tapestry of stars with a thunderous clap, a dramatic over-gesture vibrating down to his bones.
With a small flinch, Duceppe returned to staring into the darkness and for a brief time, he didn’t see his daughter’s face anymore. All he saw was the darkness. He was small to its vast majesty, and the thought alone made him feel better. Today was still a forever away.
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===Chapter One: Team Boson===
“No matter what happens, you’ll be there for me when I wake up. Right?”
Andra was the one to speak, bringing their Team Boson family of five together on their last night. Merlin felt she meant to ask him, maybe he imagined the sentiment, but the whole team answered her anyway. Their voices were monotone and quiet, but an offbeat chorus with their united hearts in the effort. “We’ll be there. No matter what.”
The words of warmth met their equal in the cold of another memory, older but not so old. Zach’s curious voice pierced through his laundry duty, a loaded question from the youngest brother of Team Boson disguised as something innocent. “Would you hesitate to kill each another, if you found yourselves fighting for a different side?”
Andra was quick to refute it from atop her hammock above Merlin’s, “That’s impossible.”
“Soren-066 was a first.”
Andra paused, unable to argue. Daniele responded instead without glancing from his datapad. “I wouldn’t hesitate.”
A heavy silence seized the Boson Team barracks room. His reply was on everyone’s minds since they started the learning module on Red versus Blue team scenarios. And a history of rogue Spartans. They knew they were always fighting for the right side. So how did some Spartans get from on the right side, to the wrong? 
Finally, Zach ended the exercise when no one else spoke. But Merlin thought he heard a shake in the younger boy’s voice. “Alright.”
The warm and the cold crashed and condensed as a storm, reminding Merlin of biting reality. An onset storm, cold and chilly. His entire body felt numb, as if frozen. What and why would he feel this?
His slow mind, once completely unaware, began to pound with the force of repeating sonic booms and in harmony with a tired, hibernating heart brought back to life. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It hurt to think, it hurt to feel. It hurt to live. His memories were dreams, a result of electric signals from his neural implant maintaining his comatose brain through dangerous cryostasis.
Merlin was alive. He felt cold and numb because he was alive. Frozen, in a cryogenic chamber. What for – Slipspace travel. Interstellar transportation. Logic suggested high probability he was on a starship. A distant hum echoed through cold metal Merlin determined had a different temperature and texture compared with the frozen oxygen and nitrogen around his naked person.
This again. It sucked when he was five years old and got his first taste of cryosleep, transported from his safe home planet to a world of forests and dangerous military training to become a Spartan supersoldier. The memories of Camp Ambrose and all the other Spartans came rushing back.
Faces. Names. Friends. Best friends. Daniele-D003. Zachariah-D111. Roxanne-D107. Andra-D054. The pale face and soft smile, sparkling blue eyes hiding something teasing. Her brown, cropped ponytail. Andra’s smile, glowing white and amber in the flickering of slow burn torches. Her head outlined against the moonlit sea and strands of hair softly blowing against the sea breeze.
Her.
Merlin heaved his first deep-chested breath and welcomed the familiar burn of his lungs filled by freeze-dried mucus. In the distance, he heard the hiss of a hydraulic-pressed door frame. It was hard to tell if it was opening or closing, but a soft, warm breeze brushed against his body arriving as a welcome change. Despite this feeling, Merlin recognized several conditions returning to reality.
He couldn’t move his muscles – there were twitches from his limbs but they would not budge yet. He was his cold, the loudest sound he could make out was the rapid crunching of his chattering teeth. He couldn’t see. Even as his eyes peeked open a crack, light return as a wall of dark gray. Merlin wasn’t sure what he saw but he felt the weak twitches of his failing eyelids and the itch of his thawed eyelashes freed from months- or years-long sweat. He had no way of knowing what day or location he was in. Armed with very little, Merlin chose to listen close and take stock of knowledge and noise instead. He heard distant voices becoming more coherent, older men chatting.
“Frendsen, you didn’t have to be here.”
“I don’t mind, truly. Please consider it my manner of showing support. It gets lonely as mission handler of two cells of Headhunters who care less for what I think or say except during mission briefs. I warn you; this job is not an easy one.”
“I’ve heard it before. There’s a whole ship around you to socialize with instead.”
“Their company is only so much an improvement.”
“After speaking with Lieutenant G024, I understand where he gets his exhausting grammar and serious attitude.”
“Oh no, he found that himself. It’s easier to find humor elsewhere than with young Joshua.”
“Is it normal to be on first name basis with your Spartans?”
“No, do not give him the impression I use his personal name in conversation.”
“Right…”
“They seem to be waking up.”
“How long does it take them to accumulate?”
“Minutes at most. Spartans will get it down to seconds once they’ve run nonstop missions for a few weeks.”
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