Steele's POV

We finished watching the video. The teacher stood up and clasped his hands together, turning to face the class. "Well can anyone give me a summary of the procedure we just watched?"

A caucasian boy raised his hand and said, "It strengthens the bones, making them virtually unbreakable, Sir."

"That is correct. Thank you! Furthermore, they do that by grafting strengthening materials, the exact materials being classified, directly into the bones and bone marrow. However, this procedure does not have a high success rate, and has been reported to cause the subject significant pain despite being anesthetized. That's why now these procedures are done by grafting the material to the exterior of the bones. The Spartan IIs were the only class of Spartan that received the procedure as we have watched, but we use these videos as the newer procedures are still classified." he said.

"Well, that's it for today, I'll see you next week. Dismissed."

We all filed out of the room. As I walked past the teacher on my way out, I looked back at him as he seemed to be in deep thought. He was looking at his roster, muttering under his breath something about "underaged". Strange, but I shouldn't get involved in the matters of adults. I shrugged and checked my schedule on a small tablet that had been distributed to all of the trainees. Man, I have drills again today. I sighed and dragged my feet as I walked to the physical fitness areas of the base. Drills were my least favorite type of training to do that the moment. Since I was supposedly becoming a 'real' spartan, I had to do 3 times the work as everyone else. If they did 100 push-ups, I had to do 300 in the same amount of time. But at least it's not like the first 2 years I had begun to train with the intention of becoming a Spartan. During that time I really was pushed to my limits. I did at least 10 times what everyone else did and was trained until I dropped, and I rarely dropped, but I may have thrown up a time or two. I cringed at the thought of embarrassing myself back then by doing that, but it wasn't my fault. They wanted to see what my limits were, and how successfully they could push me past them. I shook my head, I must have received enough training to make at least three Spartan IIIs. Those years were not pleasant, but I don't regret them either. I am proud of what I can do now because of that time spent training, although I definitely don't ever want to do that level of training again. While shuffling half-heartedly down the hall, the intercom came on and said, All afternoon drills taking place outside are canceled. Once it clicked off there was a loud cheer throughout the hallway.

That's odd, I thought. They would almost never cancel drills, even for holidays. Maybe today was an exception? I had a nagging feeling that something might have gone wrong, but as for what I had no idea. I went back to my quarters and logged onto my computer. I absentmindedly tapped my finger on the desk, thinking about what I should do now. I hadn't had a moment of free time for a quite a while, and now I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do with it. I ruffled my hair in a surprising bout of boredom and looked at my computer. Hmm, I could always do some research. In battle often the most mentally prepared opponent would be able to take the advantage, and I wanted to get ahead as far as I could above our enemies. As for what to look up... I guess I could learn more about my own planet. I knew a ton about Reach and Earth and Harvest, but I wasn't even sure where our planet was located in relation to the core worlds. I knew we were kind of far, but not specifically how far. I did a quick general search and read the first AI-catered description.

The planet's name that has the base Fort Cause on it is called Atrius. It has many facilities all over the planet and 2 oceans, Segha Ocean and Calid Ocean. Atrius is a colony planet used for agricultural and military purposes alike. Neither field dominates this planet's functions, but both are seen as important assets to the core planets. Atrius supplies 15% of all agriculture to human-inhabited planets, a 14.9% increase from its previous .1% after the fall of Harvest. Atrius is also a pivotal military outpost for the protection and control of the outer colonies, as well as one of many first defense planets against threats towards inner colonies. Planetary resources were also updated and their military functions improved after the fall of Reach.

It continued, but at that moment I heard a lot of heavy footsteps approaching from down the hallway. I turned off my computer and got up, opening my door to see what was happening. Looking out my door, I had to bring my head back in quickly to avoid getting hit by the butt of a rifle going by. The footsteps belonged to an older squad of soldiers from one of the barracks farther down. They seemed to be heading towards the pelican bay. That's weird, what were they doing? The squad was too large for it to be just a routine patrol or training drill. The guns they were carrying were real too, not the usual training rifles for scenarios and base exercises. No doubt there was some kind of battle about to go down, but what they heading to fight? Not the Covenant surely? We still had a treaty with the covenant, despite there being splinter factions that liked to cause trouble for the UNSC every once in a while. But at the same time, Atrius didn't have any problems with Insurgents, so they had to be going to fight Covenant. What were the Covenant doing here? It's not like Atrius had significantly special resources or a major military force, and taking the planet had no strategic merit despite the planet's function as an outer defense world. Think of it like taking out a pawn in a game of chess, not very consequential in the grand scheme of things. I did remember that I had managed to hear via some gossip circulation the higher ranks. It was about how the covenant had been seen in small squads excavating planets in the near space just outside of the UNSC's control. It's possible they were searching for something, and decided it would be worth it to take a risk and land here.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I watched them go by, but as I watched I saw one of them put his hand on his ear and speak softly. He said something like "-peration is a go. Coordinates received. Getting the peli-". He passed and the rest was drowned out by the sound of their boots thumping on the metal floor. Hmm, maybe I can look up those co-ordinates and see what's there and what's going on here. I closed my door as the rest of the troops came through and sat back down at my computer. I pulled up the map of Atrius and logged in the coordinates. It focused the map on a broad area with a small black spot in the middle. Zooming in, I sighed in frustration. The area with those co-ordinates and everything around it was covered in the black spot. Why does everything have to be classified? I growled at the inconvenience and reluctantly used the credentials that I had picked up the last time I needed access to something like this to log in so I would hopefully be able to see what was there this time. I had to be careful using them though, too many log-ins and someone might investigate.

I re-searched the area at the coordinates and zoomed in on the spot that had previously been covered up. There was a base there marked Naval Intelligence. I switched my view over to a live satellite feed and enhanced the image. As I got closer, it was clear to see that there was a battle going on, explosions erupting every few seconds and flames dotting the landscape. People were running from Elites, Hunters, and Grunts. Half of the military vehicles there were in pieces, blown up by plasma canons.

The Covenant were advancing as the soldiers guarding the base were slowly but surely pushed back. I saw a pelican drop into view and the soldier I saw talking into his helmet earlier got out with his group of soldiers and started covering for the wounded soldiers who were retreating from the front lines. I smiled, thinking to myself that now the Covenant would be driven back.

I was so wrong.

Only a few moments passed when lucky grenade thrown by an Elite and a plasma blast blew up half the squad that had just arrived. The Covenant pressed their advantage over the reinforcements and drove the rest back into the base. The fight was now inside and I didn't feel like watching something I couldn't help with anymore. Although I did send an anonymous mayday out for the base, maybe someone could get to them in time even if I couldn't do anything. I sighed and then looked at the base's inventory. What could the Covenant possibly want here as to risk so many casualties?

I shook my head as I scrolled down the list. Besides the usual weapons and supplies, it was all research and maps of known space. Why would they want maps? There were a few unidentified Forerunner artifacts that seemed like important maps also, but still, why the maps? The only possible explanation would be that they were searching for something beyond what the base contained, but what?

As I watched, the Forerunner maps disappeared from the database but nothing else. Forerunner! It finally clicked. They must be searching for other artifacts or even planets of Forerunner origin. That's bad. Forerunner tech was super advanced. After all, they were the ones who built the massive Halo rings that wiped out the life in all of known space a long time ago. Anything they might find had a similar chance to be a weapon of mass destruction.

I went back to the live satellite view and saw the Covenant leaving. The base was half destroyed, a huge hole in the left side. The soldiers came out and started carrying out the wounded and cheering, thinking they drove the Covenant off, but I knew the truth. I would probably get in trouble if I did much more, but just to help I made some anonymous flags on the virtual storage spaces where the maps had been. Someone would look into it.

I logged out and was about to go to one of my friends rooms to tell them about it but the intercom came on again. It said, Curfew has been moved to 1800 hours, lights out in 10 minutes. Guards are being posted in each hallway from now on. 2 hours earlier!? Guards? Did we possess something similar to what that base was holding? That incident must have made them beef up security, but if it had, I had to wonder what we were hiding too. That also means I can't see Scott, Kade, or Selina anymore, and on top of all of that, I'll miss some training.

I thought back to the battle again and ran my hand through my hair, overwhelmed by all of the new information. I better get to sleep, it's been a long day. As I laid my head down, the lights went off in all of the rooms as per the new curfew. I sat there for what seemed like forever before sitting back up. Who am I kidding, I won't be able to sleep. I turned on my computer and decided to do some random searching. I typed in some general topics and clicked. I didn't realize that I was still logged into the commander's profile.

There was a kid in front of me that popped up on the monitor, details so clear I could see the hairs on his neck. He had red hair, green eyes, and a scar on his nose. He was smiling, which was odd because people in training or the military rarely smiled in their official photos.

Then I zoomed out from him, revealing a huge ship. The side if the ship identified it as The Infinity. The ship got smaller as I was zoomed out from it and the planet it was orbiting. I felt my cursor glitch or something because it continued to zoom out despite me no longer touching the computer. Then that solar system shrunk from view and the video feed came to my own solar system and started zooming in on Atrius. It continued until I could see Fort Cause.

Then it zoomed in even more on one area of Fort Cause, the view changing to the top of the inside of the facility. It slowed down again, closing in on a room and someone sleeping in it. I could see an officer in the hallway. I was confused until I realized the person was Me. I could see myself sleeping. Suddenly the terminal flashed red and turned off. I was startled and jumped back. I heard boots in the hallway, and fearing I had been caught I ran to my bed. There was a flash of a bit of blue from a uniform through the crack at the bottom of my door, but the person was too far away from my door to be coming for me. I sighed and laid down. Probably just my imagination, I thought.

That ship, The Infinity, I am going to look up that ship and that kid tomorrow. That was the weirdest experience I've had since I arrived here. Now that I think about it, it was one of only two times that I've looked up Atrius since my time being at Fort Cause. Weird. I laid back down and tried to sleep, thinking about the kid with the scar and strikingly green eyes.

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-Spartan_steele