UNSC Battle Group: NEEDLE
Docked around Space Station: VIRTUE
April 29th 2526
0800 Hours
(Lasky Pov)
"Those injuries are healing nicely," the doctor in her white labcoat said as she scribbled notes down on a datapad.
"Good," I said, mostly to fill the silence.
I took a glance around the white, sterilized room as I waited for hopefully a discharge. It was funny, just a few hundred years ago, it would have taken someone with my injuries months to heal. But now? Now, after a few days and probably a week or two of rest, I would be as good as new.
'We've come far as a species,' I thought. Strangely, after having a run-in with the Covenant, I have been seeing things with… a different perspective. It was as if I were on an island before, only knowing that the world consisted of my land and the water that surrounded it. Then, suddenly, I find out that there are 7 additional continents. Just like Plato's Allegory of the Cave, from which I couldn't help but draw similarities.
'In the face of…them, my problems seem pretty small,' I say that, but couldn't help but still feel stagnant, stuck in place.
As I was pondering my choices in life, the doctor looked back up from her pad, "Well, Cadet Lasky, I think you are sufficiently healed to be able to move out and about. But for the next week, I don't want you straining or doing any manual labor. Otherwise, you might just undo everything I fixed. Am I clear?"
"Yes ma'am," I nodded, standing up from the patient bench and making my way out of the room.
I paused as I stood in the hall and looked down toward the room I knew Chyler was in. I had checked on her every day, and she was no longer in critical condition. The medical staff reassured me that she would make a full recovery.
As I thought back to the moments we shared and things that were said over the past days, I couldn't help but feel my face heat up before I pushed the thoughts out of my head, 'Let's figure out what to do next before I have to face those feelings.'
Slowly, I began walking through the station, thoughts heavy and with little to no answers. I felt as though I needed to do something, but I wasn't sure. But more importantly, I couldn't help but sense that the motivation was hollow, as if it had no foundation, nothing to stand on.
The question that hung in my head while I walked through the doorway to the cargo bay was, 'Why?'
'What is the reason for me to do this? They already took Cadmon, am I doomed to the same path?"
Even with these questions filling my head, I stopped in my tracks as a shadow was cast down on my form, one that I would never forget as long as I lived.
"Captain," the word came out of my mouth almost unintentionally.
"Yes, cadet?" the Spartan said as he turned around.
In the light, I could see each scar on his armor from the battle or battles he had been through. The light still reflected off his visor as if you were looking into a star, despite the thin crack that ran down it vertically. Through it all, the white 003 remained on his left chest plate, covered in a thin film of ash but present.
My eyes were drawn to a stack of orange cases piled onto his shoulder. The bolded SPNKr indicated that they were filled with rockets. In his other hand, down by his side, was a chain gun that he held as if it were a bag of groceries. Each side held at least a couple of hundred pounds, and yet there was no sign of strain from the Spartan.
'I need to stop being so surprised. What can't he do?' I thought before looking up to the visor that peered down at me, "Can I talk to you for a second, sir?"
He looked over his shoulder for a moment before turning back to me, "Can you talk as I walk?" he asked
"Uh, sure," I said, agreeing.
"Then let's move," he said, walking past me toward the exit.
I moved to catch up and stay in line with him, but struggled. He moved faster than a regular walking speed for me, but slower than an outright jog. Sensing the uncomfortable pace he slowed down to what almost seemed like a crawl for himself.
"What did you want to talk about, cadet?" he asked, still facing ahead.
"I-" I hesitated. I thought of all the ways I could dress up what I wanted to say, all the methods I could obfuscate the point and avoid the answer that I knew I needed.
But in the end, I was honest and went straight to the point, "Why do you fight?" Speaking the words felt like taking a dose of cough medicine.
"Because someone has to cadet," he said with some form of finality in his voice, "And while I cannot force anyone else to do it, I can decide for myself what action I take. And so, I decided to fight,"
"...Just for that?" I couldn't help but ask. I couldn't help but feel his answer was flimsy under scrutiny.
"Do I need any other reason?" he shifted, "Everything I do stems from that fact. 'Why do I protect my team?', 'Why do I help civilians?', or 'Why did I save you?' The answer remains the same, because someone has to,"
I looked down as I thought about his words. White lights passed briefly, illuminating our shadows in a smooth rhythm, "But why does someone have to?"
He paused, not immediately answering as he had earlier. I thought for a moment he had decided to ignore the question entirely until he spoke again:
"Because we live in a reality where evil doesn't stop itself. Whether it's a genocidal alien empire or a terrorist group that blows up department stores, either way, they must be stopped."
"But what if it doesn't matter?" I begged the question.
"I-," I felt embarrassed spilling personal details to what was effectively a stranger, but in the vastness of the space station. I felt that only this Spartan, Sierra-003, could help me.
"My brother Cadmon died a few months back. Circinius and the academy burned. You fought harder than anyone I've ever seen, and the Covenant still won."
"Does…Doesn't that make things meaningless in the long run?" I asked as we turned down a corridor separating the medical center and the cargo bay from the rest of the station.
"I was able to protect my team, which alone gave the mission meaning, but…" he trailed off as a group of nurses rushed down the other side of the corridor with a patient on a gurney. I couldn't help but glance at the patient, sensing familiarity with his features.
He nodded his head in the group's direction, "-but if you think it's meaningless, why don't you ask him?"
'He was one of the survivors I saw on the prowler,' the realization came to me as I stopped in my tracks and turned around.
My eyes tracked the gurney as it proceeded down the hall before the staff turned down a side corridor. It was a fact that the Spartans were the only reason he was on that gurney now, and they were the only reason he had a chance at survival.
I swallowed hard before turning around and catching back up with the Spartan, "Are you ever afraid?" I couldn't help but ask quietly.
"Never," the reply came quickly.
The answer came so quickly, so matter-of-factly, that it unsettled me more than if he had said yes.
"But I do understand the consequences of failure," he followed up
A thin veil of silence set in as I thought on his words. We stepped into a cargo elevator as I contemplated. Gears and pulleys whirred around the cabin. I let out a deep breath that I had been holding the moment I felt the floor stop moving.
"This is the end of the line, cadet," 003 said as he stepped out of the elevator and looked back at me. In front of us was the docking bay of an enormous Punic-class Super carrier. "I will board that super carrier and will engage in a battle where more than likely other people will die,"
He shifted, "Despite that, I will march on," he paused, "Cadet, find something worth fighting for and hold onto it,"
Having said his piece, the Captain turned around and began walking toward the starship.
"Good luck, Captain,"
"You as well, Cadet,"
I watched the Spartan disappear into the hangar, swallowed by the shadows beneath the supercarrier.
The questions in my head still remained.
But for the first time since Circinius, they no longer felt impossible to answer.