Chapter 4

Later that night, there was much celebration in the barracks. While the human population was dwindling away from the Covenant invasion and their advanced technology, the men protecting the refugees on this particular planet felt elation at even the smallest of victories.

As Alan walked into the mess hall in his fatigues, he was happy to be out of his armor. Without the armor, he felt like, if just for a minute, he wasn’t stationed on a far-flung planet, engaged in a war for all time. Suffice it to say that he felt like both a figurative and literal weight was lifted from his shoulders. For the first time in weeks, he let himself relax and try to be comfortable. He saw Leo sitting in the bar section of the mess hall, and took a seat next to him.

“Good evening, soldier,” Leo said to him in his usual gruff tone. “And the same to you!” Alan said. "Nice job with that diplomatic shit out there. I didn’t think my CO could be so charismatic, especially toward some eight-foot-tall split-jaw who just the other day was trying to kill his men.”

Leo looked back at him with a bit of annoyance, which was most likely fuelled by celebratory alcohol imbibing. “Well, I don’t know if any of us like them alien bastards. Hell, I certainly don’t, but would you rather have them fighting us, or on our side?” He didn’t give Alan a chance to answer. “You’ve seen those monsters in combat. Hell, I even saw a big one rip one of my men in half. Their whole species is a warrior society, Sophia tells me. These guys live to fight and prove themselves. So I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely glad that they’re fighting the brutes with us.” The CO took a long pull of his beverage, and then changed the subject.

“Have you heard of the armor upgrades coming through?” Leo asked him. Alan was usually fairly well informed, but this particular bit of news had eluded him. His superior saw the baffled look on his face. “I guess not,” he said. “Yeah, there’s some upgrades coming in from some of our controlled worlds, you know, where they still have money to do research. I already looked over the options, and for the type of work we’re doing, there won’t be many of them that will be useful to us. I guess, being my second-in-command, you can see for yourself if there’s anything that catches your fancy. Here.”

He punched a few keys on a datapad sitting on the bar and slid it over to Alan. As he flipped through the options, the veteran officer provided his commentary. “That one there – the “C” variant – is the one I picked. They say it’s better for close-up fighting, and you know me,” he said with a wink and a smile. Continuing his own inspection, Alan checked out the other variants. There was one for space combat - which wasn’t a concern for them – and one for explosive ordinance disposal – again, not really in their realm of operations – and another set that looked like something out of one of those old Japanese movies he had seen as a kid. A smile crossed his face.

“Hey, I’ve picked one out. I like this one, the H- hay—“

“Hayabusa powered armor,” Leo finished for him. “It’s pretty flashy, boy. But… you’re my best soldier out here. I know we’re all supposed to be enhanced and crafted to fight this war equally, but some of us have something special. Sure. I’ll tack it onto the order. Hell, you’re a good leader, and maybe this’ll provide some of the other guys with a little bit of incentive, too.”

Alan smiled at the compliment, and he knew deep down that Leo’s little talk was probably influenced by whatever he was drinking, but it still made him proud. If the man who was scared to death of failure so paralyzingly that Sophia once tapped into his helmet to snap him out of a daydream could be the best soldier in his unit, and earn such an honor from a man who rarely gave such compliments, then he must have been doing something right. He had been working on that too, lately – the fear. He tried not to let it consume him so entirely tried to let it become something tangivle he could strive against. Every Covie he killed he associated with his fear. And with every burst of his rifle, he felt like a little piece of his fear was killed off. It was silly when he thought about it, but when it came down to it, doing so was the only thing that got him to sleep at night.