It was a sunny summer morning, and even better, it was a Saturday.
Daddy was grumpy, since he had work even on Saturday, but Miranda didn't have school, so she got to watch cartoons and eat big bowls of her favorite cereal and run around at the playground with the other kids and even eat ice cream so long as she didn't eat too much and put it away, so it didn't melt after she was done.
Miranda was even willing to say that living with Daddy was better than living with Grampa and Gramma, but she didn't want to say that in front of Daddy, because he got really sad whenever she mentioned them.
Reach was a weird planet compared to Earth, but it was full of kids like her, with Daddies and Mommies in the military, so they knew what she meant when she said she was sad that Daddy was away all the time working. Some of the older kids tried to be mean about it, and they said she was a whiny little girl when she mentioned it, but one of the olderolder kids pushed them over when they did, and said there was nothing wrong with missing your family, and then they got a teacher, and the teacher said the same thing and punished the mean kids.
Which had really made Miranda wonder how much fun Daddy had at his job, when she wasn't around him. Daddy was always tired when he came home, even if he came back way earlier than most other kids Daddies and Mommies came home.
He must be worrying about her, because he was always asking how her day went, and what she did in school, and if she was happy here, and if she was making friends, and all sorts of things. And he never talked about himself, either – he just said his job was important but boring, and stuff like that, which meant his job was really, really boring, if he never had anything fun to talk about!
So today, while he was busy at work, and she had the day off from school, she was gonna go find where Daddy worked, and make sure he was happy!
That's why Miranda had been very careful to be on her best behavior last night and this morning, so that Daddy wouldn't think she was up to anything bad! She'd also made sure they had bread and sandwich fixings, so she could make herself a lunch, and Daddy a lunch, and an extra lunch just in case she got extra hungry or in case Daddy had a work buddy he wanted to give it to.
She waited until Daddy had left for his work, and then she wanted to wait a little bit longer just in case he forgot anything and came back, and then, after twenty minutes were gone, she climbed up onto the kitchen counter and started making the sandwiches.
Daddy was usually gone from seven to three, so she wanted to bring him some food at eleven, which was halfway in the middle… but she didn't know how long it would take her to reach Daddy's office, so she should leave early, to make sure she was there on time!
Miranda put the sandwiches in plastic hard cases to make sure they wouldn't smush, then grabbed her little foil-lined backpack and put them inside. It was nearly too much to fit, especially with her water bottle, but she managed to zip it shut.
She ran to her room and changed into her best clothes – good shorts with lots of pockets, a comfy long-sleeve that would keep her skin safe from the sun, and good boots for running or kicking or whatever she'd need to do!
Before she left, she made sure to grab her little keycard, and lock the apartment door very firmly. Then she ran to the elevator, pressed the button, and waited patiently so she could ride it down. She'd asked Daddy to let her climb the stairs once, because she was a big girl, and she was never doing that again!
Miranda made her way to the bus stop, and climbed aboard as soon as it pulled along the curb. She'd never ridden it alone before, but Daddy had told her that because they were on a military base, it was all free, and she knew that she could hop on board and be safe.
The bus driver gave her a weird look as she climbed up into the seat closest to him.
"And where are you off to, young lady?" he asked, raising an eyebrow like one of the old cartoons.
"I'm off to see my Daddy at work," she told him happily, smiling broadly. "He goes on this bus to… Fairchild, I think!"
"Uh-huh," the bus driver replied. "Well, missy, you're on the right bus, but I don't think they're gonna let you through the gate. So, I'll tell you what. If you sit there real nice and quiet, and you promise to listen to the gate guards, then I'll let you ride the bus there and back, okay?"
"Okay!" Miranda said, nodding.
She didn't think he was right, because why wouldn't they let her go see Daddy, but if they didn't, then she'd listen to them, because she'd always been told to listen to grownups who were in charge, and 'gate guards' sounded like they were in charge.
The rest of the bus was fairly full of people, with grownups and teenagers and even a couple kids like her, though they were with their families. Most of them weren't even in uniform, and were instead wearing outdoor clothing like they were gonna go for an adventure, or go swimming, or do something else fun.
The bus lumbered into motion, and Miranda watched through the enormous glass windshield as they pulled out onto the road and started driving. Kisköre Base was huge, much bigger than the old town that Gramma and Grampa had lived in. Their apartment building was taller than any of the buildings there, and it wasn't even the tallest building! It was like a big city, but it was all just for military people.
Miranda stared at the glass fronted apartment blocks, and the concrete-walled military buildings, and the trees along the parks, and the jets taking off in the distance. She'd seen a lot of it before, when Daddy took her on the bus to her school, but it was still so exciting, and she watched eagerly.
It took them about ten minutes to reach the Fairchild stop.
"Fairchild, now stopping at Fairchild!" the bus driver called out as the bus came rumbling to a stop. "This is the last stop on this line."
Everyone on the bus got up and filed out of the exits, and Miranda waited patiently for them to go first, because Daddy also insisted that she not get 'lost in the crowd'. Then she got up, smiled brightly at the bus driver that was looking at her with a weird, concerned looking expression, and she marched out towards the gate guards, following the line of uniformed men and women.
The line was long, because the guards were taking their job really seriously, and so every person had to answer questions and show ID cards and explain why they were going onto the 'airfield' today.
Finally, it was her turn, and she held out her ID card just like all the other people had.
"What are you doing here, Miss… Miranda Keyes?" the big guard asked her, taking her card with a bemused look at his buddy folded his arms and leaned back against the little concrete hut in the middle of the road.
"I'm here to see my Daddy!" she told him. "I'm bringing him lunch, 'cause he's always grumpy."
"You are, huh?" the guard asked, his voice kinda bland as he passed her back her ID card. "Well, I'm sorry, but you can't go past this line. This is for military personnel only, and you're a little too young to be enlisted. The airfield is off-limits to civilians."
"Well, can you call my Daddy and ask him to come out and see me?" Miranda asked, biting her lip. She needed to cheer Daddy up, and if she couldn't surprise him at work, then maybe she could still give him food.
"Sorry, but I can't," the guard told her, firmly. "I'm not a messaging service. I don't know your father, or where he works on the base, and I can't ask. This is for security reasons, you understand?"
"Oh…" Miranda whispered, as disappointment started filling her stomach. "But… I can't see him?"
"You can't see him," the guard repeated patiently. "This is a secure area, and that means only authorized people are allowed inside."
"Well, she might be able to see him from behind the security perimeter," the other guard said, joining the conversation and pointed off to their left, where a paved path walked off towards the trees in the distance, with a low hill rising up in the distance. "There's an observation point to the west. You could sit there and watch the planes take off, and maybe you'll see your dad from a distance."
"Jerry, shut up," the first guard said. "You know that not what she means."
"Trying to cheer her up," the second guard said defensively.
"Thank you Mister Jerry!" Miranda said quickly, cutting off their argument. "I'll try that!"
She smiled, wide, so they knew she wasn't mad at them, and then quicky turned and started running down the path.
It wasn't all for nothing! She could still see Daddy!
The path was nice and smooth, without any cracks that old pavement got, and within a couple hundred feet it got all surrounded by trees! The shade was nice, much better than the sun glaring down straight at her, and even though she missed the air conditioning from the bus, getting to see Daddy was worth it.
There were a bunch of signs along the pavement, but they were much more boring, and she already knew where she was going, so she kept running. Though she did slow down a little into what one of her teachers had called a 'jog', which is what you did when you were gonna run for a while!
Miranda ran along the path for a long while, looking up at the swaying leaves, and the beautiful bushes full of flowers, and the sunbeams dancing through the branches. It was way better now that winter way over, and she could run around outside without having to bundle up into a whole bunch of layers.
A ways into the forest, the paved path turned left, away from the hill, and the base.
Miranda stopped, and looked up ahead, where the hill was still rising up. There wasn't a lot of bushes, and she could see that the hillside was pretty smooth, without big holes or too many rocks, or other unsafe stuff. She wanted to get up to the top, but if the path wasn't going to it, then she didn't need to be on the path… right?
Right! Miranda thought to herself, clenching a small fist and tightening her backpack.
She stepped off the path, and started walking on the forest's dirt floor – slower than she had been running before, but still with energy, with enthusiasm. She was gonna make it to the top of the hill, where that observation point was, and then she'd be able to see Daddy, and he could see her!
Going uphill like this was more difficult than she'd thought, and she found herself breathing harder, but it was all good, because it was for a good purpose.
The problem was that the hill was a lot bigger than she'd thought. There wasn't a fence or a sign or anything to guide Miranda, so she tried to keep to as straight a line as she could.
It took her a long time, but finally, she got to the top. Miranda let out a huge breath, and turned back to where she'd come, so that she could see the airfield and see Daddy.
But there was no airfield behind her, or to the north, or in any other direction. There were no buildings, no roads, no fences. There was only a carpet of trees stretched out over a flat plain, and mountains on the far side, and a river gently winding down to the south.
"Uh oh," Miranda whispered.
She looked around, jerking her head to the side, but she didn't see anything on the second look around, and worse, she didn't see how she'd come up the hill in the first place. It was so twisty, the bushes covered so much.
Miranda was lost.
"Okay, alright," she said to herself, swallowing. "Don't worry. You can get home. Just…"
Tears started leaking, growing into big bubbles at the corners of her eyes.
Before Miranda could let out a sob, there was a dull roar in the distance. She looked up, and saw an aircraft – one of the bird name dropships that Daddy had tried to teach her, but which she didn't always recognize.
The dropship was swooping down lower and lower, towards a clearing in the plains. It was coming in for a landing.
The woods were nice and quiet, and John liked that.
Today was a relatively new experience for the young Spartan cadet. The Chief had said they were getting 'too familiar' with the terrain around their compound, so today they were being dropped deep, far away from their usual haunt.
It was weird. John wouldn't have thought that two years of training was enough to get 'too familiar' with a place, but he couldn't help but admit that this new environment was odd. The valley's walls were much broader, much smaller. These weren't mountains, but hills. There was far more sky to look at, and he felt exposed.
Even the trees were different – far less cedars and far more broad-leaf trees that were flourishing in the summer breeze. The wind was stronger, less constricted. It was easier to breathe, somehow. Maybe it was the wind, maybe it was the lower altitude.
And, of course, he was alone for the first time in… years.
Most training expeditions like this, the cadets were grouped up for their own safety, and to make it easier for the trainers to track them. This time, they'd given him a radio and a knife with the usual backpack full of water, rations, and emergency survival gear, and told him that if he needed help, to call for an overwatch team, and they would be there.
They even said that there were no wolves or other wild animals, save for maybe some skunks, which was an unprecedented admission, since normally the trainers tried to make sure they were prepared for any eventuality, even an unlikely one.
The first thing John did was get his bearings. The forest was much clearer, with less undergrowth blocking his view of things, and the trees were much, much taller. He waited for the ramjet engines of the Pelican to die away, and then he waited a little bit longer, for his ears to acclimatize to the sound of the wilderness around him.
He didn't hear many birds, but there was water in the background, maybe a river. That would be a good place to aim for. The trainers liked to use rivers for navigation practice, and the cadets had picked up on it early. A river meant both their objectives would be easier, and they could link up for better odds of success.
While John waited, he cracked open the first water bottle and took a small swig, and opened one of the waffle-wafers. It had been an hour long flight in the Pelican, and he'd been the last cadet dropped off, so he was getting a little hungry, and that wasn't the best for a wilderness expedition. Better to eat a little while you could, before it started messing with your mind. The honey-soaked snack was a bit thin, but it was good for giving you a burst of energy while still being lightweight, and he'd be able to fill his stomach with a heartier, more filling meal once he was back at the compound.
Once he finished, he put away his trash and repacked his satchel, ready to move on. Today's exercise was another navigation exercise, and nothing more. John knew that the trainers might have been lying about that, because they liked to slip in little tricks and surprises.
A week ago, they'd drilled on basic marching and formations, the Chief had been the only trainer present, and that should've been a tip-off. When they were twenty minutes in, the rest of the trainers showed up on the rooftops of all the buildings, and they were shooting paintball guns down at the cadets, turning it into an improvised lesson on urban ambushes.
Or like that time during the last winter, where Gunny Wentworth had hidden paint-bombs in the snow before the cadets had to shovel all the paths, and unlucky cadets had to show up to all their lessons covered in blue or green or yellow paint.
John didn't know what the trick on this exercise was, but he knew there had to be one. 'Just forest training instead of mountain training' was way too simple. It was too clean of an operation for anything else. The trainers wouldn't be letting them off easy like that.
He stood up, but before he could go more than a few feet, he heard a voice call out behind him.
"Excuse me!"
John turned. He was surprised – he hadn't expected to run into another Spartan-II cadet for at least an hour. He'd kind of been looking forward to it, to be honest.
The speaker was a girl, but not one he recognized. She wasn't wearing the wilderness survival gear that he was, nor one of the cadet jumpsuits that they wore back at base, but a long sleeved shirt and cargo shorts, on top of running shoes that were not suited for the terrain at all.
In fact, she wasn't the right age, either. The girl was younger than John by a couple years.
"Hello?" John replied hesitantly. "Uh… what are you doing here?"
On the list of surprises that he'd thought possible, running into a six-year-old girl was not one of them. He'd thought that the trainers would have a sniper, or that he'd be dropped off with a handicap, or that he was actually in the wrong valley. Something that would have made a specific aspect of the exercise more difficult.
The girl was trembling, John noticed. Had he been too blunt?
No, he realized. Her shirt had small cuts in it from thorns, and there were green hitchhikers all over her shoes, socks, and shorts. She'd been bushwacking without an actual trail… and if she was out far enough to run into his training exercise, then she was probably lost.
"I was…" the girl started to say, before choking up, and letting out a hiccupping sob. John's eyes widened, and he stepped forward, bending down slightly to make himself look a little smaller to the younger kid.
"Woah there," he said, keeping his voice soft. "It's okay. I can help you. What's your name?"
"Mir-" she said, before another sob cut the word off. She swallowed hard, and tried again. "Miranda. I'm Miranda Keyes."
"Keyes?" John repeated, a suspicion growing in the back of his head. "Do you know a Jacob Keyes?"
The girl's sobs dwindled, and she looked up at John like he'd just declared himself to be Santa Claus, with bright eyes and a smile.
"That's my Daddy!" Miranda said, nodded quickly. "Do you know where he is?"
I'm never going to underestimate the Chief's surprises ever again, John thought to himself, as he realized the 'twist' of today's exercise with a dawning sense of horror.
"I do," he said. "I can lead you to him, if you want?"
John braced himself, ready for her to keep crying, or to loudly yell in his ear.
Instead, the little girl scrambled to pull off her backpack, and started quickly digging through it for something. Despite himself, John tensed, ready to intervene if she was going to pull out anything dangerous.
After a moment, his paranoia was proven wrong – Miranda had pulled out a little hardcase container, and pried it open to reveal a sandwich inside.
"Here," she said, holding it out to John with both hands. "Daddy said you're supposed to thank people when they do good things for you, and giving gifts is better than saying words."
"Thank… you?" John replied, uncertainly.
He reached out and took the container. It was a nice gesture, and he could use extra food.
Miranda giggled.
"No, no," she said, shaking her head. "I'm thanking you. You don't need to need to thank me – you're helping me find my Daddy, after all!"
"Just a little further now, Miranda," John encouraged her, looking back at the six-year-old trailing behind him. "We're almost there."
They'd been hiking together now for three hours, and John knew that he probably could have made the trip in just two hours without Miranda slowing him down.
Was that the lesson of this exercise? That you could run into complications that would slow you down, and threaten the completion of the mission? Burdens to bear, rather than assets?
John didn't think that was the point. For all her slower speed, Miranda had been a pleasant enough hiking partner. She'd talked occasionally, pointing out some beautiful natural sight that John wouldn't have cared to notice on his own, and she'd even offered him a sandwich thick with ham and cheese to supplement his comparatively meager trail rations. He'd accepted. Even if he didn't really need the food, the gesture was appreciated.
Maybe Miranda's presence was why they'd been taken on this long trip to the southern edge of the mountain range in the first place, down to where the landscape was less severe and steep.
Regardless, they were closing in on the rendezvous point, and the waiting trio of Pelicans. It was atop a nearby plateau, with a winding path circling around the cliff edge to the top.
"John!" a voice called out ahead of him in greeting.
He looked to his left, and saw Kurt waving a hand as he emerged from another path in the trees. Kurt was a good friend, one of the few that could really challenge John in the tactical leadership exercises – though none of them were good enough to beat either the Chief or the Doctor, when they joined in.
Kurt looked far more comfortable than John had expected, like he'd just emerged from a hide. He'd been whittling a fallen branch down with his utility knife, and now had a half-decent spear going, which he wouldn't have done if he'd been walking. The suppressed yawn as he stretched was the bigger giveaway.
"You're on watch?" John asked, as Kurt approached, frowning as he looked at Miranda with clear curiosity.
"Yeah, we were just about to send out a search party for you," Kurt replied. "Everyone else arrived half an hour ago. Where'd you pick up your friend?"
"At the drop-off," John said. "Miranda, this is my friend Kurt. Kurt, this is Miranda Keyes."
"Nice to meet you!" Miranda said, huffing as she came to a stop next to them. "This is a long way to go to see Daddy."
"Keyes?" Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow and glancing back at John.
"Yup," John confirmed, nodding once. "Lieutenant Keye's daughter."
"The Chief likes his surprises," Kurt shrugged, resting his short spear on his shoulder and pulling a stalk of grass from his pocket, sticking it in his mouth and chewing on it.
"I think it was the Doctor, this time," John admitted. "It's not exactly conventional, and that's more her style."
"True enough," Kurt said, before turning back to the little girl. "Miranda, do you want to fly?"
The six-year-old was tired, and John had been encouraging her to keep going this far, but with those words, she lit up, her eyes shining as she looked up at the older boy.
"Flying?!" Miranda repeated, enthusiasm filling her voice. "Like, in a plane?"
"In a Pelican," John told her. "It's a VTOL, not a plane, but yes."
"What's a VTOL?" Miranda asked, as Kurt led them up the winding path around the plateau.
"It's an acronym, it means vertical take-off and landing," John explained, as he let Miranda pass him, and then took up the rear position, so that she was safely positioned between the two Spartan cadets.
"And what's that mean?" Miranda asked, with the same tone.
"It means they don't need runways," Kurt said, looking over his shoulder. "They can just go straight up and down, and they can land pretty much anywhere."
"Wow!" Miranda replied. John couldn't see her face, but he could picture her eyes, all wide. She'd made the same expression a couple times, including when he'd mentioned that her Dad was one of his teachers, and that he did 'hikes' like this all the time.
The path ahead of them turned, and Kurt ducked underneath the overhanging branch from a half-fallen tree. Miranda wasn't much smaller than Kurt or John, but it was just enough of a difference that she could walk right beneath it. John followed behind them, and after he stood back up, he saw the rendezvous point waiting.
Three Pelicans waited for them, and there were cadets lounging all around them, chatting idly, stretching, some tossing rocks off the plateau's edge or weaving together strands of grass into rudimentary rope, or all sorts of things to kill time.
"Hey, look who I found!" Kurt called out, drawing surprised looks from the crowd, though most of them weren't looking at John, but at Miranda.
"You found a kid?" called back Alice, with a confused voice.
"I found John." Kurt said, shaking his head. "John found the kid."
"There's a lot of you guys," Miranda said, looking around at them all.
John looked around himself. About half the cadets were already sitting down in the Pelicans, having taken the bench seats before anybody else could, probably so that they wouldn't have to stand for the flight back. But that still meant that there was roughly thirty or so cadets looking at Miranda with expressions of bemusement, surprise, or curiosity.
"Alright, let's get aboard," he said to Miranda, nudging her gently towards one of the Pelicans.
"What's with the kid?" Sam asked, walking over with a raised eyebrow that he had definitely imitated from the Chief.
"I'm Miranda Keyes, and my daddy teaches you history!" Miranda blurted out, before John could answer his best friend.
"Really?" Sam said, taken aback. "Well, I guess I can see it. You kinda look like him."
Miranda beamed up at Sam, and reached out a hand, insistently waving it slightly at him. Sam glanced down at it, and extended his own, and Miranda grabbed it and shook it excitedly, before moving forward and tugging him along into one of the Pelicans.
"Tell me more!" Miranda said, as she sat down on the dropship's deck, pulling Sam down to sit next to her.
"John?" Sam asked, giving him a pleading look.
John chuckled, and moved over to join them.
"Alright, that's everyone! Load up!" Jerome yelled to the rest of the cadets, and they quickly dropped whatever they were doing and started to pile into the dropships.
"What do you want me to tell you about?" Sam asked, carefully, as the Pelican filled up with cadets.
"What does Daddy teach you?" the six-year-old asked. "He teaches me about veggies, and math, and cleaning my room, but John said he teaches you about history and stuff, and he never does that for me. What's it like learning about history? Is it better than veggies and bedtimes?"
"I don't know," Sam said, as the dropship's ramp lifted up and sealed, enclosing them within the thankfully air-conditioned interior. "Your dad doesn't teach us veggies or bedtimes, so I can't compare between the two of them."
Miranda gasped, either from Sam's words, or from the rumble beneath them as the Pelican lifted off, soaring upwards into the air.
"That makes sense!" she whispered. "But then, who teaches you guys about those things?"
John wasn't sure what to say back.
The obvious answer was the Chief and the Doctor, and the trainers and the shrinks. Staff Sergeant Swanson ran the kitchens, and he made sure their meals were nutritionally balanced for their level of physical activities, and even made the desserts that were frequent rewards for the top performers. The trainers made sure that the cadets went to sleep on time, and that they made their beds up to military standards. Déjà taught them math, and science, and history, though the Doctor sometimes helped out with that, whenever she had spare time.
But just because it was true didn't mean they should tell her that. They'd been taught about security classifications, and how important it was to not talk about things like the Program.
It was entirely possible that part of why the Chief had chosen a young girl to be the extra objective was to see what the Spartan cadets might let slip with someone who wasn't officially part of the program.
John felt mildly impressed with how devious the Chief and the trainers were. Was that why they'd chosen Miranda? She was a kind nice girl younger than them, with an existing tie to the Program… meaning she appeared to be safe to trust, when she was actually a test?
The Doctor had given them a lecture on intelligence work a couple weeks ago – just the basics, anyway – and she'd emphasized repeatedly that the most important stuff was the basics, both because of how much it could help you, and because of how much it could hurt you. Just like a lot of the military lessons, your own arrogance and assumptions would get you killed faster than any bullet.
"We learned them at our birthday parties," someone chipped in – Daisy, saving them all from the awkward silence that had filled the Pelican after Miranda's question. "When you turn seven, they give you a big book, and it's full of all the things you need to do to be a big kid. It was really convincing, so we all eat our veggies and go to bed on time and make sure our beds are done right."
"Ohhhh," Miranda said, nodding along. "That makes sense. What's your name?"
"I'm Daisy," the female cadet replied. "Hey, why don't you tell us about your Dad, rather than us? You probably know him much better than us!"
Daisy winked at John and Sam, and thankfully, Miranda didn't see it.
Instead, the young girl opened her mouth and started to chatter. It was mindless, aimless, babble. It probably wouldn't teach them anything important.
But it could still be a lesson. Perhaps they would be quizzed on what they'd learned from Miranda Keyes, to see if they'd been investigating the anomaly of her presence. And so he listened closely, for the entire one hour ride back to the compound.
Despite the suspicion that was still lingering in his head about her… John could admit that it was strangely calming to listen to Miranda talk about Lieutenant Keyes, and how he was as a father. It had nothing to do with tactics or weapons or regulations, and that made it novel, and interesting.
"Stay close to me when we come out, okay?" John told Miranda, as the Pelican came in for a landing. "We're gonna line up in a formation, and you need to be quiet and do what the rest of us do, alright?"
"Okay!" Miranda answered, nodding seriously.
The dropship touched down, and the ramp lowered. The air was much cooler now that they were back at the compound. The flight speed of a D77 Pelican at conventional altitudes, rather than a sub-orbital hop, was a little more than nine hundred kilometers an hour. Considering it lost time to take off, get up to speed, and land, and they were probably eight hundred kilometers further north now.
Miranda shivered as the cadets started trooping out of the bay. Where John was wearing multi-environment gear, includes long pants and a lightweight windbreaker, both with adjustable vents, the six-year-old only had shorts.
"Stay with me," John repeated, putting a hand on her shoulder as the crowd of cadets surged out, across the concrete landing pad, and into their formation for the after action assembly.
"Cadets!" came the booming voice of the Chief. "Fall in!"
It was a scramble for a moment, and John pulled Miranda along with him so that she didn't get lost in the mix. The trainers didn't really care what order the cadets lined up in, so long as their spacing was right, and they were in the proper stances.
The cadets formed into long rows of fifteen cadets, five ranks deep. John normally would have been near the front, because of his position as a squad leader. That wasn't actually required of him, though, so today he wound up in the third rank, just a little off the middle. He tugged Miranda into position so that she was just behind him, then put a finger up to his mouth and sshh'ed her so that she'd stay quiet for the initial part of the debrief.
"Cadets! Atten-shun!" one of the trainers – Staff Sergeant Callahan, it sounded like – called them to order. Seventy five sets of boots clicked together in stereo.
Even with his eyes locked forward, onto the back of the cadet's head in front of him, John saw the Chief walking along the ranks, inspecting them.
Staff Sergeant Callahan was doing the same, but Callahan was apparently checking the middle rows, because as John both watched and didn't-watch, he suddenly stiffened, and then started walking firmly… directly towards John.
Uh oh.
"Cadets!" a female voice called out sharply. "At ease."
It was the Doctor. Now that he was allowed to move his head around, John could see that the Doctor had just emerged from the office adjoining the hangar. John and the other cadets shifted, their feet spacing out and their hands going behind their backs as they were allowed to look around and relax slightly.
Sergeant Callahan, meanwhile, stopped moving as the Doctor walked to the head of the formation.
"-your performance was quite satisfactory," the Doctor was saying, smiling as she walked along the first row of cadets. "While I'm sure that the environment wasn't too dissimilar to the mountains around here, it is vitally important that you do not become hyper-specialized for mountain warfare, as impressive as that would be."
Specialized? John hadn't really considered them to be 'specialized' in anything. Not with only two years of training, and how far below their performance was compared to the trainers, or the Chief – or even the Doctor herself, on the days when she joined them for PT, or the range. Despite their best efforts, none of the cadets, not even Linda or Fred, could match up to the civilian level performance that the Doctor put up.
He glanced around, and saw Sergeant Callahan still standing at the edge of the formation. The Sergeant's eyes were on John, and John met his gaze, nodding once.
Callahan, for some reason, didn't return the nod – he just stared at John with an intense, almost offended expression that John hadn't seen any of the trainers make in at least a few months.
John swallowed. He knew what that expression meant. He was in trouble.
But why? He'd succeeded in his mission, and located the unmentioned VIP for rescue.
Unless she wasn't part of the mission, he realized. Unless he'd been wrong in his assumption.
Oh.
"There are all sorts of combat environments that you will be forced to engage within," the Doctor continued, not aware of John's thoughts. "Within the coming months, we will begin a series of extended training operations in other locales, so that you may acclimatize to their temperatures, flora and fauna, and other factors that might affect your performance in the fut-"
The Doctor abruptly cut her words short. John couldn't quite make out her expression, because she was directly in front of him, and there were two cadets in between them, but her head was looking towards him.
"Cadets!" the Doctor barked suddenly, the whip-crack of authority ringing out like a gunshot. "One step – LEFT!"
The cadets, John included, stiffened reflexively, and they quick-stepped one pace to the left, doing their best to keep the formation lines straight without resorting to 'dressing' the lines with their arms.
A moment too late, John remembered Miranda, who wasn't a Spartan cadet, and who didn't know how to follow the commands. He glanced over his shoulder, and sure enough, Miranda was now standing in the open, unshielded by him.
The Doctor's summer-wear boots were not heels, like the teachers at John's old school, but he still thought he could hear them clicking loudly as she approached, cutting right through the ranks and coming to a stop right in front of Miranda.
"John," the Doctor said slowly. "I see you made a new friend."
"Doctor Halsey, this is Miranda Keyes," John said, keeping his body still and gesturing only with his head towards Miranda.
He was pretty sure that he was wrong about all of this – that Miranda hadn't been a part of the exercise… but he had no way of explaining that now.
The only way out was through. He'd have to stick to his original assumption and pray that he didn't get in trouble for it.
"She's Lieutenant Keyes's daughter," he continued. "Per the unmentioned additional objective, I've brought her back to safety."
"Unmentioned… additional… objective?" the Doctor asked him, sounding each word out as if tasting them.
John opened his mouth to reply, but the Doctor raised a hand and stopped him before he could. She crouched down, squatting so that she wasn't looming over Miranda, and held out a hand gently to her.
Though he didn't – couldn't – dare look away to check, John felt the heat of more than eighty sets of eyes staring at him, from all the other cadets and the trainers. He was pretty sure that the other Spartans were amused, both at the situation and at his embarrassment in particular.
"Hello, Miranda," she said slowly. "My name is Doctor Catherine Halsey. I work with your father. It is nice to meet you."
That was the Doctor in a nutshell – always trying to be nice, always offering out a hand in friendship and teaching.
Unexpectedly, Miranda didn't react well to the Doctor's words. She tensed up, and stepped to the side, ducking behind John. Her arms grabbed onto the sides of his ribcage, as if to use him as a human shield, and he felt her head press against his spine.
"There's no need to be shy," the Doctor coaxed gently. "We're all friends here, aren't we?"
"You're weird, lady!" Miranda said loudly, poking her head out from behind John just long enough to say the words, and then retreating behind him.
Rude, John thought, offended on the Doctor's behalf. He looked over his shoulder at Miranda, and frowned down at her. Miranda glanced up at him, and stuck out her tongue. He recoiled slightly, forehead furrowing at the expression.
Kelly chuckled from her position a few spaces down the formation, and John glanced up to see the other Spartans matching his half-confused, half-insulted feelings. Further away, some of the trainers looked angry at the situation, but he also saw at least one of them – Corporal Navarro – turning bright red and pinching his lips shut, probably to avoid laughing.
"What a… spirited young lady you are," the Doctor replied, politely refusing to rise to Miranda's taunt as she slowly walked around John. "Your father has been a disciplined and intelligent teacher to my cadets, and I see he has done the same with you."
"Where is my Daddy?" Miranda demanded.
Her fingers bunched up on John's windbreaker as she sidestepped, keeping him in between her and Halsey. The two of them were circling around him like snakes winding their way around a staff, and it was awfully distracting.
"He's inside, preparing for the lesson that John and his fellow cadets will be attending in an hour," the Doctor told her. "Of course, that's assuming that they get done with their debriefing… which you are distracting them from."
"No, you're distracting them," Miranda replied childishly. "I was already here, and they weren't distracted before."
That wasn't true in the slightest, but John didn't blame Miranda for not noticing the way the Spartan cadets had been cautious around her, watching her movements and avoiding their usual conversation and chatter.
"Well, perhaps it is my fault," the Doctor conceded. "But we can't keep distracting the cadets, can we? So why don't I take you to your father, and the cadets can go back to their training?"
Miranda leaned around John and squinted at the Doctor for a long moment.
"Okay…" she agreed slowly. "But first, I gotta do something."
"What?" the Doctor asked, confused.
Before the Doctor could ask what she meant, Miranda wrapped her arms around John and hugged him tightly.
"Thank you so much for helping me John!" she said, looking up at him and smiling. "I was really scared until I saw you, and I'm really glad that we're friends now."
John opened his mouth, and found that he didn't have the words to reply. He wanted to ask when they'd become friends, because as far as he'd been concerned, he was being polite and doing his job – but there was no way to actually say that without being incredibly rude, so he was left there with his mouth hanging open for a long moment before he finally shut it.
"No problem," he said after a few moments. "I'm just glad I could help."
Miranda released him from the hug, but rather than accepting the Doctor's patiently outstretched hand, she scampered off down the ranks of bemused Spartans, and wrapped Kurt in a hug too.
"Thank you for letting me fly with you!" she said to the brown-haired Spartan, who managed to react better than John – perhaps because he had a little more warning – and hugged her back.
"Any time," Kurt said, not saying that it hadn't actually been his decision to make, and that the Pelicans had already been there anyway.
The girl stepped back, then turned her head back and forth, apparently not seeing who she was looking for.
"Over here, kid!" Daisy called out, waving an arm in a flagrant display of unprofessionalism, breaking the 'at ease' stance as she did.
Miranda smiled and ran towards Daisy, crashing into her with an inexperienced and poorly formed tackle. The rowdy Spartan cadet laughed, picking up Miranda and spinning her around to bleed the kinetic energy off.
"Great to meet you," Daisy said as she set Miranda back down. "Now go on, go see your pops, alright?"
"Okay!" Miranda nodded, as she turned back and skipped over to where the Doctor had been watching this all unfold with a blank, emotionless face.
"Come along now, Miranda," the Doctor said, grabbing onto one of the six-year-old's hands, probably to keep her from running off yet again.
"It was nice meeting all of you!" Miranda cried out, nearly walking backwards as she turned around to wave at all the Spartan cadets while the Doctor hustled her away from the landing pad.
John barely managed to restrain the urge to wave back, but a couple of the others – Daisy, Alice, and maybe Isaac – waved back.
"Cadets…" the Chief called out a few moments later, with a languid, drawling casualness that instantly made John stiffen back into the proper stance, suddenly aware of how out of place his hands and feet were. There was a rustling as the other Spartans did the same. "Would anyone like to comment on what just happened?"
It was a trap. They all knew it. The Chief wouldn't be happy with the lack of discipline they'd just displayed, much less John's colossal mistake of bringing a civilian back to the compound.
"Cadet 023, how about you?" the Chief said, stopping in front of Daisy. "What do you think?"
There was no way out. None of the cadets or trainers could pretend this was anything other than a failure.
But at the same time, the Chief had asked Daisy a direct question, and so she had to respond.
"Sir!" Daisy cried out, stiffening to attention. "Civilians are weird, sir!"
There was a long, pregnant pause as the Chief stared at Daisy with an inscrutable expression. The man was a brick wall. None of the Spartans had ever seen him display as much as a gram of emotion.
"…you are half right, cadet," the Chief Petty Officer finally said. "But never forget that civilians are a group of people, and like any group, it is made up of individuals, including exceptional ones."
"May I correct my answer, sir?" Daisy requested, still in picture-perfect stance.
The Chief eyed her, and even without a single display of his thoughts visible to the naked eye, John felt himself almost tense up.
"Proceed," the Chief allowed.
"Miranda Keyes is weird, sir!" Daisy announced, loud and proud.
Off to the side, John saw Corporal Navarro abruptly turn around and walk away from the landing pad as fast as he could, probably so that the cadets wouldn't see him break out into laughter. A couple of the other trainers were doing the same. Staff Sergeant Callahan had closed his eyes and seemed to be taking a long, slow breath.
The Chief briefly eyed the retreating trainers for a moment, before turning and walking back to the head of the formation without acknowledging either Daisy or the trainers, choosing to pretend like he hadn't seen anything in the last few minutes.