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| - Maria was rather pleased with herself that morning. The day’s test had gone flawlessly, with the new Mark VI armor’s reentry capabilities living up to every expectation, and in taking down at least one squad of veteran Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, she was happy with her own performance. All around her, of course, the test squad was laughing off their latest resound beating with disguised chagrin as they left the Special Warfare Center’s main complex, the base’s commanding officer having just dismissed them. “Okay, Casillas, you lost,” one of them smirked. “Grab your credit chit and let’s go out for some real food.” “Agh, I swear you cheat by telling her to shoot me first.” Casillas moaned, his streak of lost bets holding strong. “Bulgogi barbeque, anyone?” “Here’s to the Bulgogi Gambit!” the first one laughed, and the others joined him. He led them towards their barracks when he noticed Maria had fallen behind and called back, “Hey, you coming, Spartan?” She flashed a visible smile, her visored helmet slung under her arm. “You go ahead, I’ll catch up. This suit’s a bitch getting out of.” The troopers chuckled in response and continued walking away, eager to get out of their own sweat and TTR-drenched body armor under this warm sun. They were a good bunch, really, after they’d learned that a Spartan could deck any one of them with a single punch. Maria turned and strode away between two of the Center’s many prefabricated steel buildings, headed towards the maintenance block to disassemble her armor. No, not her armor, she reconsidered. John’s armor. As soon as she got out of it, the suit would be sent up to Cairo Station, and he’d be stepping into these boots and looking through the same visor that helped her now by reducing the glare coming off the structures’ smooth, silvery surfaces. The building came into sight a few corners later, and Maria allowed herself a moment to simply relax without thinking for a second. Her eyes absently drifted down, following the corner of the building, when she noticed an angular, olive-drab boot stepping out at the bottom. The rest of a tall figure followed, clad from toe-to-head in the rest of a new Mark VI frame. Maria froze in her tracks, unaware anyone else had been cleared for testing. They’d have to be a Spartan to even be able to wear it . . . and that thought suddenly interested her. Standing there, and staring back at her from within another titanium MJOLNIR suit and identical but for the scorchmarks over her otherwise fresh coat of paint, was one of the siblings she hadn’t seen in years. Whoever it was, they started jogging over at once, obviously eager to reunite too, and Maria’s mind raced to guess who this was. They were unusually short, even in the powered armor. Maybe 070, but the updated suit moved differently and made it difficult to tell without actually seeing their face. This set moved differently and lacked the tiny battlescars that went unmended as marks of experience, whether of pride or shame equally respected. But she was left without an answer when the Spartan came to a stop in front of her. “Man, this stuff feels incredible! I’ll bet you could take down a Hunter with your bare hands.” The voice filtering through her TEAMCOM caught her off-guard; it was completely unfamiliar, and he sounded . . . young. Maria stayed frozen, staring at him as if it would allow her to see through his gilded faceplate. The MJOLNIR suit’s wearer, however, didn’t seem to notice, glancing down to observe how his gauntlet clenched and unclenched. “Hey, you’re Maria, right? Spartan Oh-Six-Two? You’re the one who did the orbital drop test an hour ago.” He looked up, sounding excited. “I was watching through the helmet cams! Cutting loose from the airfoil early was genius, those troopers never saw you coming! Of course, my instructors would probably yell at me for doing something like that, but . . .” “Thanks.” She replied, concealing a trace of disappointment. “And you are?” “Dyne.” He said, without the expected “ma’am” to follow. The boy lifted two fingers in an unsoldierly salute that was a little too familiar. “Well, Sierra Three-Gamma Two-Seventeen, if you want to get technical.” Maria’s brow furrowed as she tilted her head, and her helmet tilted along with it. “Sierra . . . Three? As in, Spartan Sierra?” “Yep,” Dyne said proudly, “just graduated about a week ago. I drew the lucky straw and got to test the armor in person. My team’s still on the orbital elevator. Lieutenant Commander Ambrose really seems to admire you Twos, and now I see why. Tagging those hologram targets by shooting on the way down, no Covie would’ve seen you coming! I’m a marksman myself. I have to learn how to do that.” “Mhm.” She muttered, stepping around him to proceed to the armory. Spartan Threes? Maria wasn’t sure just yet what her feelings on that were, but the first signs weren’t positive. Hardly two months had gone by since Reach had burned, and already here was some kind of replacement. Perhaps High Command hadn’t meant it to be a slap in the face, but it stung seeing this kid wearing the armor meant for one of her brothers. She just wanted to be on her own for a minute, get the feelings locked down and dealt with, but Dyne turned and fell in right behind her. “I hope we get to use this in the field.” He said, still marveling at the way it amplified his every movement. “If the whole company had these, we’d be the ones on the offensive in this war. I’ll bet I could take a Hunter with just this.” He really was young. But Maria kept silent until Dyne asked her, “Are you going back out there soon? Test this armor on some real Covenant?” “No, I’m not.” She answered, without breaking stride. “I’m actually retiring.” “What?” Dyne said on an impulse reaction, and almost stumbled even with the MJOLNIR suit’s enhanced balance. “Wait, we can do that? But I mean . . . why?” “You wouldn’t understand.” She told him. Her pace quickened a bit, hoping to leave the Spartan-Three behind. She’d already had to decline another of the Captain’s offers today to return to the Navy, and Maria didn’t want to go through another argument about it at the moment. Enough officers had tried proving to her the moral rightness of staying already. The boy kept up, walking sideways to face her. “How can you be retiring now? Is it because you think you’re old? Because I’ve gotta say, you moved faster than the troopers’ helmets could track you out there.” She had to admit, she’d never heard that angle before. She glanced once at Dyne, checking to see if he was serious, but she didn’t know him at all, and neither his posture nor the blank visor revealed anything. Maria returned her vision ahead, and this time Dyne caught on that she was trying to ignore him. “You know Earth’s just about the only major planet we have left, right? And we need every person we can get to fight. That goes a lot more than double for Spartans. You have a responsibility to fight for the ones who can’t!” He sounded more and more agitated, and finally stepped in front of Maria to plant himself unavoidably in her path when they were only a few feet from the armory. “Do you even know how many Spartans died at Reach?” Maria scowled under her implacable visor. She knew all too well how many siblings she’d lost, and she wasn’t going to be lectured about it by this excuse for a Spartan. She put a hand on Dyne’s shoulder and pushed him aside, continuing towards the armory’s door. “Hey! I’m not done talking to you!” Dyne’s hand shot forward and locked around Maria’s wrist. The older Spartan moved fast, wrenching her arm out of his grasp and dealing him a swift jab to the abdomen, meant only to startle him. But Dyne reacted on instinct, and his now-empty hand swung reflexively at Maria’s head. Though it was unexpected, she was still fast enough to catch it and twist, the rest of the armored SPARTAN-III following with a bark of surprise and was sent tumbling to the ground. Maria stood over the prone Spartan, and leaned just into his up-facing vision. “If you live long enough, boy, you’ll find there’s a lot more to life than fighting.” Before she could walk away, however, Dyne rolled over and got to his feet, gauntlets clenched. Now she read his posture clear as crystal; defensive, and probably angry he’d been taken down so easily. Something in the back of her mind said hostile. “At least I won’t sit back while they need people to fight!” he shouted, and the hint of humiliation was there. He advanced towards Maria, attempting to grapple, but she stepped back when they locked arms and swung him off-balance, ramming his back into the armory’s side. Dyne grunted as the metal crumpled before his heavy MJOLNIR armor, leaving a sizeable dent and creases all along the wall. Maria pulled him free and let him fall on his own, stepping back in case he tried lashing out. “Do us both a favor and stay down. We don’t want to break anything, do we?” He exhaled sharply, irritating the microphone in his helmet. “Tech, bones, rules. I’m good at breaking all sorts of things.” Dyne got to his feet by rolling backwards over his head and sprang at her, but by the time he was up Maria was more than ready. She ducked under, grabbed his arm as he overshot, and pulled hard down, flipping Dyne end for end. He found himself flat on his back again with the wind partially knocked out of him, but managed to scramble back to his feet before she could pin him there. A series of hard clangs sounded as the vambraces on Maria’s forearms deflected a series of punches from her attacker. He was taking every chance he had to go on the offensive, but the ferocity he had couldn’t last for long, even if he was augmented. Each strike deflected made another scratch in the paint, and Maria began to wonder where Casillas and his squad were right now; someone had to be seeing this and should’ve been doing something about it. But she wasn’t worried. She could easily handle this. Cutting through one of Dyne’s improvised attacks, she struck the side of his helmet and used the momentary disorientation to send him to the ground again. He still got back up, but he was noticeably slower to recover this time; the extra effort and his aggressiveness were beginning to cost him. Maria wondered if it was just vindictiveness driving him, but even if it was, he had admirable persistence. Dyne recklessly combined punches and kicks in search of an opening Maria wouldn’t expect, but she intercepted him at every turn with cool precision and eventually toppled him time after time. Every second brought a new attack and a new strain on a different muscle, but neither allowed themselves a break as minutes dragged by. At last, Maria swept the legs out from under Dyne, who’d been swaying with every in and out of breath, and planted him squarely on his back, forcing the remaining air from his lungs. Maria stood over him expectantly, ready for him to get up again, but Dyne’s only attempt to move was in dragging his arms through the dirt. After a few moments, he lay still, the body suit over his stomach rising and falling with deep breaths. Maria watched him warily, alert for some sort of trick, until a bead of sweat rolled down over her forehead. Only then did she realize how labored her own breathing was. She never felt like this fighting against trooper squads. Sure, today they’d managed to subdue her, but it had all been through fast, frenetic firefights and ambushes. Fighting Dyne had demanded her to constantly expend effort and search for ways to minimize that cost. The contest had pushed her endurance, not to near its limit, but farther than she’d had to in a long time. The rest now that it was over left her muscles relieved and her feeling calm again. Though Dyne wasn’t moving, she stayed a step out of his reach until she’d pulled him up on TEAMBIO to confirm he was unconscious. His tenacity had been impressive. He would’ve been no match for her old friend William, but Dyne definitely shared his boundless determination. She crouched beside him to make sure his breathing was normal, and glanced around as she considered just what to do with him. A single, gnarled tree grew to the side of the yard where the pair had been sparring, casting half-shadows beneath its sparse boughs. Maria took hold of the young Spartan’s armor and lifted him out of the dirt, slinging him over a shoulder and carrying him to it. Setting him down propped up against the trunk, Maria stood with her arms crossed and contemplated for a while longer before leaving him to sleep in the shade. Soon enough, Dyne would be somewhere out in what was left of human space fighting the good fight he probably thought it was, and Maria found herself hoping the team he mentioned would look after him. He had a lot he needed to learn yet, but if he lived long enough, she didn’t think he’d make a bad candidate to take over the defense of the human race.
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