Chapter Text
1604 Hours, April 10, 2529 (Military Standard Calendar) /
Planet Huitzilopochtli, Cholula Outpost, Temporary Spartan Barracks
The marines had difficulty calling the Children of Huitzilopochtli a militia instead of insurrectionists. In turn the militia had a hard time calling the marines anything but creative variations of fascist shit spawn. About the only thing the two groups agreed upon was distrust and unease with the Spartan Teams in their midst.
Honestly, if they gave it a chance, Joshua thought both parties could bond over the fact no one wanted him to be here.
Intervention on Huitzilopochtli was requested by planetary leadership after, one, discovering aliens destroying human worlds was not a UNSC hoax, and, two, realizing said aliens had taken an interest in the planet, likely due to its wealth of resources like Titanium A. Since options were limited to fight alone or ally with the UNSC, leadership chose to work with their human enemy. That didn’t mean they liked it.
Spartan Teams Gold and Green were deployed with Kappa Company to the plant’s surface after sightings of Covenant scouts were confirmed. And since then, everything had been at a standstill.
Huitzilopochtli was prone to intense storms. Thunder, lightning, tornados with fire in the center, wind gusts of 250 kilometers per hour. The continent of Zocalo had a massive weather hazard touch down just hours after UNSC forces made planetfall. It was so bad, even satellite communication with their ship, the UNSC Annabelle Lee, was intermittent at best.
Still, Joshua would have taken Gold Team out on recon if it were up to him. Their armor could (probably) handle the weather, and if Covenant forces were on the planet, a storm could provide assault cover. But NAVSPECWEAP left them under the command of Captain Delano Franklin, a cautious man who wanted all marines to ‘sit tight’ until the storm blew over. Never mind no one could determine if it would take an hour, a day, or a week for that to happen.
In Joshua’s experience, the Covenant didn’t offer extra time for inclement weather before glassing a place.
Everyone—militia, marines, Spartans, even a janitor or two—remained holed up at Cholula Outpost with limited intel. Annabelle Lee was failing to get any passable orbital scans, and the Children of Huitzilopochtli were reluctant to hand logistics information to bastards they had no doubt would use it against them later.
Which, in fairness, was probably an accurate assessment—if the planet was still habitable at that point.
The Outpost was the husk of an ancient settlement carrier, La Pepa, that crashed near a hundred years ago. They repurposed the old colony ship into a hub for trade between the main city of Tenochtitlan and the various mining towns, complete with store, bar, and hotel.
Joshua could only imagine the uproar when the Children of Huitzilopochtli closed everything down and sent the civilians away to let UNSC personnel use levels five and six for a staging area and the hotel as temporary barracks. Not knowing what to do with Spartans outside of combat, the marines put them out of sight and mind until the mission clock was ready to start.
Gold and Green Team were assigned to a docking bay on deck five, made half its original size by the intrusion of a jutting rock wall during the crash. The area was ringed with mangled catwalks and piles of broken equipment hauled in and left forgotten. There were missing floor plates revealing a six meter drop into a crevasse, and its entry doors were blown off and left open. A regular squad of marines might have protested the lack of beds, or any other comfort. The Spartans’ only complaint was the room’s poorly defensible nature.
Currently, it was day three of ‘sitting tight,’ and the Spartans were cycling through rest periods to maintain optimal efficiency. And they were bored.
So very bored.
Gold Team was doing weapon and armor checks, fighting the looming specter of mental fatigue because of inactivity with mind-numbing pre-combat procedure, and a deck of cards Joshua suspected was lifted from somewhere in the Outpost. Green Team was attempting yet another six-hour nap.
Joshua walked the perimeter to take a break from repeatedly, and thoroughly, losing to Daisy and Naomi at rummy. The two switched over to poker when he left and were trading ownership of a combat knife in lieu of other currency.
Grace had her helmet off and was sitting with her back to the intruding rock wall, facing the open entrance. She had one submachine gun in easy reach as she curled delicate copper wire off a spool and around the fingers of her right gauntlet.
“What are you planning on rewiring now?” Joshua asked as he crouched beside her, careful not to block her line of sight.
“Our remote detonators,” she said, picking up one with her left hand and tapping it against his faceplate.
“They’re accurate within point-seven seconds.”
“I can get it closer to point five changing the wire for better conductivity,” Grace said as she snipped a wire and started braiding the filaments.
“No doubt.”
If Grace-093 couldn’t make something explode faster, stronger, better… it couldn’t be done.
Joshua sat beside her against the rock. He leaned an armored shoulder against hers as he held out his left hand for her to drape the braided strands over once she was done.
She once told him working with wires, especially colorful ones, reminded her of braiding friendship bracelets. He hadn’t known what she was talking about, so she made him one out of blue and green wires. Their instructors came down hard on both of them. Grace for misusing supplies. Joshua for having personal items on him. The bracelet had been confiscated by a prick of an instructor, Valdez, who hadn’t lasted long. The offensive definition of prick and how to use it most offensively was all Joshua learned from That Prick.
Joshua’s hand was full of meticulously woven copper wires and Grace was prying open detonator casings when they heard the sound of footsteps.
That wasn’t unusual.
Superior Spartan hearing combined with the armor’s audio amplification meant they heard every time someone walked through the outer hall and bypassed their docking bay. However, these steps weren’t passing, they were approaching. And not in an even rhythm. It was as if the person kept stopping at random intervals and staggering their line.
Joshua’s right hand dropped to his pistol and he was on his feet, moving forward. Grace shifted into a crouch with her M7 submachine up, ready to provide backup. Daisy and Naomi’s cards lay on the ground in favor of rifles as they spaced out to keep from providing a joint target.
A person Joshua suspected to be a militia member wandered through the open entryway. Male presenting. Early thirties in physical appearance, discounting the possibility of time in cryo sleep. Black hair, brown eyes, and a narrow mustache to hide a scar over his lip of unknown origin. He wore a long jacket—popular among the militia members—that fell to his ankles, over old body armor. The man swayed as he came into the docking bay. No weapons were visible, but a lot could be hidden in the jacket.
“So, these are Spartans,” said the stranger, slurring his words but enunciating as he spit out Spartans.
Joshua tucked Grace’s wires into his belt pouch as he rested his pistol against the thigh mag mount to attempt a peaceful approach. His fingers flexed as he motioned for Naomi and Daisy to cover him and Grace to get her helmet on. “Is there something we can do for you?” he asked, stepping closer so the man’s unsteady attention focused on him instead of his team. “I think you may have made a wrong turn.”
The man sneered. “That a threat?”
It wasn’t. Joshua simply couldn’t imagine why a member of the militia would come looking for them without either orders to do so or with weapons ready. “No, I just am not clear on why you are here.”
Green Team was awake and on the move. Solomon and Malcolm kept to the shadows with their rifles low while Anton covertly made for higher ground on the partially destroyed catwalks. Kurt was the only one to make himself known as he moved to Joshua’s side. And Joshua was grateful. Among their fellow Spartans, Joshua was considered outgoing and sociable, but he didn’t know how to interact with non-Spartans. Especially one he was starting to suspect was intoxicated.
“So that one’s a girl, huh,” continued the stranger, jabbing a finger at Grace.
True to her name, Grace was calm and did not react. Her helmet was on now and she looked no different from any of the rest of them in her Mjolnir. But Joshua did not appreciate the man’s tone, and neither did Daisy.
“What in fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Daisy asked. Joshua was proud of her for using TEAMCOM and not yelling over external speakers.
“We’re all soldiers here,” Kurt said, making a subtle gesture to show his hands were empty as he neared.
“Not so sure about that,” Solomon muttered over COM.
“Contact the Lieutenant,” Kurt said to Joshua on a direct link before attempting to ask the man his purpose again.
In addition to being overcautious about the storm, Captain Franklin made his dislike of having NAVSPECWEAP put a pair of ‘untested’ Teams—a determination he made after ordering Joshua and Kurt to respectfully remove their helmets and seeing their faces—with his people quite obvious. He was severe in reminding them there was a chain of command, and he was not to be disturbed by Petty Officers.
Fortunately, it meant their point of contact was Lieutenant Lore Kim. She barely stood at chest height on a Spartan, but she was one of the few who hadn’t flinched at their arrival.
“Lieutenant Kim. This is Spartan Gold Team Leader, Sierra-029, please respond.”
“This is Kim.” Her voice was gravely, like he woke her from a rest period. “What is it, Sierra-029?”
“We have a situation in the docking bay on deck five. Non-combat related.”
“Elaborate.”
The stranger hadn’t taken kindly to Kurt’s inquiry as to why he was seeking out Spartans. It started with a profanity laden diatribe about how this was his fucking planet, and it was an offense UNSC dogs were here. Now Kurt was putting up with a lot of bizarre questions on what was under all that fucking armor that devolved into some fairly obscene suggestions, along with accompanying gestures, about what a real fucking human could do. And he’d show Kurt. He’d show all of them.
“That’s... educational,” Malcolm said. “And disgusting.”
“And cannot be anatomically possible,” Naomi added.
Sometimes marines, especially ODST, were lewd and overtly sexual when their COs weren’t around. But this tirade was graphic and getting personal, and far outside of the usual aggression of an insurrectionist forced to work with UNSC. Joshua didn’t know how Kurt was staying cool and collected. He wanted to smack the man on Kurt’s behalf and explain exactly why armor wasn’t used that way.
Joshua took a breath as he responded to Lieutenant Kim. “Probable militia member approached us. Male. Estimated early thirties. No identifying insignia.” Joshua hesitated. “He appears to be intoxicated.”
The intruder chose that moment to start shouting: “What? Nothing to say to a real man? You fucking tin soldier!”
“And belligerent,” Joshua added. “Please advise.”
Kim probably didn’t realize her COM wasn’t muted. “Slagging fucker! Klinebarger swore all intoxicants had been removed from the outpost,” she growled. Quickly, she recollected herself and responded to Joshua. “Take no action, 029. I will be down with a militia representative in a moment to handle the situation.”
“Copy,” Joshua said, and then on TEAMCOM, “Everyone else copy?”
Seven green acknowledgement lights flashed on his HUD, as grudgingly as a light could flash.
“You know what you lot are?” said the man, jerkily moving forward.
Joshua hadn’t consciously noticed he and Kurt were keeping out of effective grenade blast range. ‘Suicide jacket radius,’ Mendez called it. When the man lurched their direction, Grace whispered, “Too close,” and they both back-stepped almost instantly.
The man blinked at them and started to laugh. “You’re scared? You? Scared of me? You in your big, overpowered armor, scared of me?” He jumped and stomped both feet as he cackled.
“This nutjob...” Solomon muttered.
“Might be in the middle of a psychotic break,” Naomi concluded.
“Be advised, I have a clean shot,” Anton announced from wherever he was perched. “If needed.”
Kurt made a subtle cutting gesture for Anton to stand down as he continued the fruitless task of trying to communicate. “If you have reason to be looking for us,” he said, in a tone no longer friendly—the stranger had no idea how overboard he’d gone to make Kurt not friendly, “I’d appreciate if you informed me, sir.”
“I’m here to see the murders of the revolution!” He raised his hands like a deranged preacher calling the masses to some sort of violent repentance. “I am Calvin Killborne! I will be your death!”
Now every Spartan had a weapon drawn and aimed. Kurt and Joshua took four steps back. It was probably literal crazy talk, but it was also a threat. Joshua marked a spot on his HUD with several missing floor panels. They could drop into the hole for cover if Mr. Killborne was rigged to explode. He sent it to both teams.
“I’m not picking up power sources,” Grace said. But scans wouldn’t show inactive sources, like a dozen grenades.
“Boo!” Killborne shouted, stomping his foot again and laughing. And asking to be shot, in Joshua’s opinion.
That was when Lieutenant Kim and four marines came through the entry with a woman in her late forties Joshua recognized as one of the militia commanders. Hahn, he thought. She had six soldiers with her, wearing combat armor that was out of date when Joshua was born. Of course, that only meant twenty years, but still. Every one of the militia soldiers stuttered at the bay threshold, seeing all the Spartans in attack mode. The marines, at least, didn’t falter, but Joshua saw how their hands flexed on their weapons.
“Is that really necessary for one unarmed man?” Hahn said as she took in the Spartans, weapons aimed, safeties off.
“Stand down,” Kim ordered, but she was frowning at Hahn.
“He made a threat, ma’am,” Kurt said as he lowered his rifle. “We had to take it seriously.”
“Threat,” Hahn said with a snort, glaring at their armor.
Joshua segmented the whole incident from his helmet recording and sent it to Lieutenant Kim for later review. Her helmet was under her arm so she couldn’t watch it now. He carefully started the clip so as not to include their extracurriculars. There was nothing wrong in her seeing them playing cards and working on wires, but it felt private.
He tagged the crazed ‘I will be your death!’ part for easy access as he uploaded it.
“Calvin, what shit are you pulling?” Hahn demanded, grabbing Killborne’s arm and pulling him around.
Then Hahn slapped him across the face.
Joshua’s eyes went wide behind his faceplate and every Spartan stiffened uncomfortably at an officer striking their subordinate. Or superior. He didn’t know what rank Killborne held in the militia. Or Hahn, actually. Commander seemed to be an indistinct title applied to whomever commanded others.
He glanced at Kim and her people. The display likewise disconcerted the marines, while Kim looked like she had put up with too much of this and was done.
“What is even happening?” Malcolm asked out loud, too low for non-Spartans to hear.
“Anton, stay vigilant. Everyone else stand down,” Kurt said over the COM, settling his rifle over a shoulder. “Grace, keep curious on power sources.”
Two acknowledgment lights blinked.
Killborne clutched his bruising cheek and some of the slur was gone from his voice. “Sondra! Not in front of these UNSC fucks!”
“What are you doing down here?” Hahn demanded, ignoring the wounded pride in the man’s eyes and the wobbling of his lower lip. “I told you to keep away from these cyborg freaks!”
“Ouch,” Daisy murmured on external speakers, her voice an audible eyeroll. “That’s original.”
Joshua had to agree. It was nothing they hadn’t heard before. Cyborg was correct, technically. Given the neural implants everyone in the military had, so were Kim and her marines. Spartan augmentation was just... more intense. Freaks, on the other hand… well, if Killborne was exemplary of a non-freak, Joshua would happily be a freak.
Killborne swung his arm in a wide gesture at them, like a grenade toss. Joshua kept himself from reacting, but several marines did flinch. Whatever Hahn thought, Killborne’s manner conveyed a threat of violence. “I wanted to see for myself if any of the rumors about these Spartans were true,” he said, and spit on the floor to get the word out of his mouth. “But they’re cowards, like all UNSC scum.”
“Perhaps you would like to continue this discussion elsewhere,” Kim said, her tone and expression totally neutral. “Commander Hahn.”
“What? Afraid I’ll hurt your tin men’s feelings?” Killborne snapped before swinging an arm in Grace’s direction. Joshua wanted to snap both his arms off so he’d stop flinging them around. “Tch. I suppose that one’s a tin cunt.”
“That, actually, is original,” Anton said, deadpan over COM.
“His fixation on my physical sex is bizarre,” Grace added, her tone perplexed.
“Anyone else having flashbacks to when they tried to make us lose our cool?” Malcolm asked. “For training.”
“Temperament training,” Daisy said. “Grace and Linda are about the only ones they never got a rise from.”
“Cut the chatter. Maintain COM silence,” Joshua said, mostly so he wouldn’t join in. “At least until they’re gone.”
“Hahn,” Kim said, no longer extending the courtesy of a title. “You need to get your man out of here. And I’m sure Captain Franklin will want to meet with Commander Klinebarger about this incident later.”
“You can’t kick me out!” Killborne snarled. “This is our planet!”
Hahn grabbed Killborne by the back of his collar and shoved him at her soldiers. “Get him sobered up. Now.” She looked back at Kim and lifted her chin. “But he is right. Huitzilopochtli is our planet. You’re only guests.”
“Invited guests,” Kim said. “For help with your uninvited guests.”
Hahn pursed her lips together so hard they disappeared into a pale slash below her nose. She said nothing more as she spun and followed her quickly retreating people. Kim nodded for two of her marines to ‘aid and assist,’ a polite way of ordering them to make sure the militia members really went on their way.
Kim exhaled as she turned to face the Spartans. “I’m honestly surprised he had the balls to come down here and face you all,” she said. “I’ll need an account from one of your helmet cams for my report. And I’d advise using your spare time to figure out a door solution. You’ll get it done faster than I can get you transferred to somewhere else in this damn outpost.”
“Noted,” Kurt said in a curt tone. For Kurt, that was pretty pissed off.
“I’ve already uploaded the relevant recording to you, ma’am,” Joshua added.
There was a brief look of surprise on Kim’s face. She put on her helmet and was still as she reviewed it. Kurt ordered his team to return to their rest period, since they’d have a building project to work on soon. Joshua kept his team at the ready, at least until Kim and her remaining marines departed.
“Varda’s Ghost! He sounds like a villain from media,” Kim said, shaking her head as she removed the helmet.
“Have there been other incidents, Lieutenant?” Kurt asked.
She should have kept her helmet on if she wanted to hide her scowl. “Not to this extent, but there has been constant friction between us and the militia.” Joshua was surprised she included Spartans in us. “Since Killborne is unlikely to apologize for himself,” she went on, nodding to Kurt and then Grace. “Neither of you should have been subjected to that kind of sex based harassment. It’s against the UNSC charter, but...”
“The militia isn’t under the UNSC charter,” Kurt said, giving her a nod. “We understand, ma’am.”
Kim motioned for her two remaining marines to head out. “I appreciate your not shooting him on sight. Killborne is in charge of what qualifies as airborne support around here, and popular with the militia members. He even seems competent when not... under the influence. It would have been messy if he were harmed. I’ll advise Captain Franklin to look into this incident.” The last she said in a way that implied the Captain would not be looking into it on behalf of the Spartans.
“We appreciate your quick response, Lieutenant Kim,” Joshua said, because what else was there to say?
Kim gave them a salute, which Joshua and Kurt returned, and departed. Naomi and Daisy shadowed her as far as the entry, taking up stations on either side to monitor and ensure that all their guests were truly leaving the area. Malcolm and Solomon had followed Kurt’s directive and were in the enclosed area where equipment was long ago stored, but Anton was taking a page from Linda’s book and hunkered down to rest on his catwalk perch. It didn’t look comfortable when Joshua sighted him. The section was at an angle requiring Anton to tether himself in place, but none of this was comfortable.
“You all right?” Joshua asked Kurt. “That was...”
Kurt cut him off. “And I was worried about air support when I saw what they were flying down here,” he said, patting Joshua’s shoulder. “See if you can find material for a door.”
Joshua nodded and let it drop as Kurt went to get the remainder of his six hours with Malcolm and Solomon. Grace moved next to Joshua. “We could pull up panels from the floor for material. Make an old-fashioned swing door with creak hinges.”
Naomi added over TEAMCOM, cutting Green Team out so they could rest, “If we pry the wrecked slide panels out, we might salvage some of the door mechanisms.”
“We’ll have to steal a welder,” Daisy added.
“They’ll probably lend us a welder,” Joshua said as he made a motion for them to check out the mechanisms.
“I don’t feel like being polite about it,” Daisy said. “Stealing doesn’t require talking to anyone.”
“We’ll figure out the welder once we have materials,” Joshua said. It wasn’t leaderly to agree with the sentiment—even if he did.
He inclined his head for Grace to follow him over to where some of the floor panels were less intact, near one of the smaller holes. “Are you all right?” Joshua asked as he crouched down and directed his headlamp for a look. Grace braced herself and tracked the path of his light with her M7. They checked the hole before and had not left the area unattended, but it was good to keep checking.
“Sticks and stones,” Grace answered.
“What?”
“‘Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,’” she said. “It’s a thing I remember being told from before.”
“There are some dark idioms out there,” he said as he started pulling at one of the floor plates.
Grace chuckled and then cleared her throat. “Are you all right? I thought you were going to snap him in two before Kim showed up.”
Joshua winced inside his helmet. “Was it obvious?”
“To them? Doubt it. But I know you better,” Grace said as she set aside her gun to help him pull at the floor panel. “Glad you didn’t, though. I’m still not convinced Our Death wasn’t packing something. How’s Kurt?”
“Avoided the question when asked,” Joshua answered. “I’m sure he’ll be okay. ‘Sticks and stones,’ as you said.”
“Best hope we don’t need air support.”
“Air support best hope they don’t need us.”