Full Debriefing

“Messy business,” Captain Olvera remarked. She flipped through pages of the report on her datapad, but Venter could tell she wasn’t really reading. Every few pages her eyes flitted back up to where he stood at attention before her desk. “I, for one, will be happy to put this all behind us.”
 
He was still at attention. She had not called him to ease like any officer should have done in a situation like this. Something was wrong. Deep in his gut he already knew but his mind had yet to reach that point. “My requests for replacement operatives…” he began, but the captain cut him off with a wave of her hand.
 
“Have been denied,” Olvera said flatly. “Reach is gone, Lieutenant. We can’t afford to waste resources on a defunct black ops initiative.”
 
You could afford it well enough a month ago.He thought of Connie and the rest of his team and all those militia troopers. The sight of Victoria O’Connell accepting her Colonial Cross still burned within his eyes. He saw Arthur, broken and discarded beneath Reach. Everything he’d known, ashes. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t think of the words.
 
“The Hound Unit is disbanded effective immediately.” Olvera’s voice rang with a curt finality. “It was destroyed by the agents of Project FREELANCER after going rogue and stealing critical military property.”
 
He had seen it coming, but the words caught him like a blow to the gut all the same. “Going rogue?” he asked, hardly believing the words. “We followed orders. It was the Freelancers who—“
 
Another wave of the hand. He cursed himself for letting such a simple gesture cut him short. “You’re lucky you aren’t facing court martial right now, Lieutenant. I suggest you stop blaming your failures on the heroes who stopped Agent Georgia’s plans short.”
 
I killed Arthur. I loved him, and I killed him there on Reach. His hands, balled at attention beside his legs, tightened into painful fists. So this was how they played it. His Hounds had faced down FREELANCER and lost. And with Church gone, ONI saw more useful tools in the Freelancer. Why was he even surprised? It seemed as if everything had fallen neatly into place. The crisp lining of Olvera’s uniform. The meticulously drafted report on her datapad. Everything had been decided from the beginning, and he had simply been running along the path set down before him.
 
“You’ll be reassigned,” Olvera assured him. “Your actions on Reach have at least proven your loyalty. I can’t speak for the rest of your unit. That’s up to someone else. I suggest you put it out of your mind and focus on the next mission.
 
So he couldn’t even save the ones who survived. He thought of the long treks through jungle and desert, months of ceaseless battle against the Covenant, nights spent huddled in ruined buildings. They came through all that, fought through it all, loyal soldiers to the end. And this was their final reward: false accusations and prizes for the ones who’d brought them low.
 
He felt cold.
 
Captain Olvera allowed her expression to soften, if only for a moment. “I understand how hard this must be for you,” she said sympathetically. “Don’t be resentful.”
 
“I’m… not resentful.”
 
“This is just the way ONI works. But I understand.”
 
For the first time, Venter let himself look his superior square in the eye. In her look and her words, he saw a lie. This woman knew nothing of his pain, his resentment. She merely pretended to understand so that he’d comply obediently with his orders, just as he always had. A lie stretched across a lie amidst the entire fortress of lies he and his team had given everything to defend.
 
“I can’t protect you anymore.” With that final lie, Olvera stood and nodded to the adjutant beside her. He stepped forward and read off the orders on his datapad.
 
“Because First Lieutenant Redmond Venter conspired with a known traitor, he is ordered to present himself at once before Office of Naval Intelligence Section Three for a full debriefing.”
 
At the words “full debriefing” Venter realized that a team of military police were waiting out in the hall. They were waiting to apprehend him if he realized the full implications of these orders and desperately tried to resist.