The Proto-Spartan Project: Guided Tour

Finally away from Simon, Tom was able to ask a question that had been bugging him.

"What is going on?"

"I'm giving you a tour..." responded Jordan, "is it really that boring? I knew I shouldn't have started with the mess..."

"No, oh no. I meant, what is going on here. With the aliens."

"Platumen is under attack. What kind of answer are you expecting?" Jordan opened up a door that led into a common room; there was one other person in there, sleeping on a couch. Save for his missing helmet, he had to be wearing some of the bulkiest armor Tom had ever seen. They sat down in two nearby chairs.

"What I mean is why? Why are we under attack? Why did the UNSC shoot first? I figured that you guys would have some kind of protocol when it comes to encountering an alien species."

The sergeant looked at him in an almost puzzled state. "...we have encountered them...about two decades ago. How could you not know?"

"You should know that our planets cut off any contact with Earth and her colonies when the insurrectionist war started off."

"...Yeah, I know. But it just seems like something like a war with aliens would have reached you somehow."

"So it really is a war?"

"Yeah."

"Are we doing any good?"

"If we are, I'm not comfortable with our particular track record."

"How could something like this actually happen though?"

"No one really knows...All I know is that they fired first, and that Earth must be defended."

"So, why are they sending people out here?"

"To tell you the truth, there is almost nobody out here except about five recon teams...We're just here to warn any nearby UNSC ships incase the Covenant decide to stop by."

"Ya'll were kinda late for that one."

"Yeah...It's not so much for defense of where the ships are spotted, but it's too try and figure out their movements."

"So, you guys really are just leaving us out here with nothing."

"I'm not leaving you out here, I'm trying to evacuate as many survivors as possible. There is still a UNSC ship that is waiting to pick up any remaining people."

"Really?"

"Of course, this planet is going to fall, that is a truth, but we want to save as many human lives as possible."

"How many can you guys save?" Tom asked, skepticism seeping into him.

"...About as many people as we can fit into that Pelican dropship. Not too many."

"Can those saved be the one in our bunker?"

"Bunker?"

"Yeah, before your soldiers got us, Simon and I were holed up in a bunker with about twelve other people."

"It would be a squeeze, especially with us soldiers inside also, but I'm quite sure that we could pull that off. But we need to get them pretty soon, that ship will be popping out of Slipspace four days from now. Can we get them out by then?"

"Yeah! The bunker was a block down from where you picked us up from." Tom had stood up from the excitement, knocking over a bottle on a nearby table.

The sleeping soldier awoke from the noise and sat up groggily.

"Don't worry Tyler, nothing to worry about." Jordan told the stirring man.

"How can you sleep in all that armor?" Tom asked.

Tyler looked down at his armor and said, looking back up, "It's too much trouble to take off the damn armor every time I want to take a nap."

"How often do you take naps?"

"About any chance I can get...downtime, lunch, showers, assaults...you know..."

"I really don't think I do."

Tyler shrugged his shoulders and walked off into another room.

Simon stood outside with the other three soldiers. He refused to move anywhere without their sergeant giving him the order. Truthfully, he didn't want to move even if the sergeant showed up again, but he didn't want to let that one soldier, Jay, seize a victory out of his compliance.

"Come on..." complained the pilot, "let's at least go stand under the Pelican or something." Simon noted that he was the only one of the three soldiers to be wearing a full helmet. He had heard Jay—apparently the squad's special ops sorta guy---talking to their medic about loosing his helmet earlier when they were running to the dropship, he didn't understand the fuss...the UNSC would be throwing him another one in their next supply drop or something...those soldiers really didn't know how well off they were. The medic had a helmet on; it was in the shape of a roughly half shell, with a folding down purplish visor for covering his eyes, the medic's hair was noticeably longer than what he figured any soldier in the UNSC would be allowed to wear. But the pilot's helmet was strange. It reminded him of a bug, a very spherical shape, with a giant, rounded, mirrored visor that wrapped around the front half equator of his head. Below the visor, covering his mouth was what looked to be a breathing apparatus connected to his chest armor. In fact, the pilot was almost wearing full armor compared to the other two, who were noticeably less encumbered. Simon kept studying the armor since the pilot was looking over at the Pelican, to his right.

"Are you done eyeing me?" The pilot suddenly said, not turning to face Simon directly. Simon almost took a step back, not realizing that the pilot had been secretly watching him behind that mirrored bubble.

"Sorry, it's just that whenever I see something completely ridiculous, I can't help but stare." The pilot didn't respond, so Simon considered that a win.