Stuff and Things? Mostly Halo, DC Comics (Nightwing), writing.

There had been hundreds of thousands of UNSC personnel on Onyx. Was this all that was left?

Miranda bowed her head and shut her eyes.

Kai.

There would be no apologizing to the Spartan now. Onyx was gone. If Kai returned to base, she would be infected. If Kai didn't return, she died in the battle with the Covenant with her Spartan IIIs and half the navy. Miranda didn't even know why she'd been so spiteful when Kai arrive on Onyx.

No. That was a lie. Miranda knew exactly why she lashed out. Because Kai's arrival was days after news of the fall of Reach made it to Onyx. Because Miranda was abruptly an orphan, both her parents confirmed deceased, and Kai hadn't been on Reach to save them.

Kai had been confused, brow furrowed while working at the puzzle of Miranda cursing she never wanted to see Kai's face again. "All right. I'll... be around if you change your mind, Commander Keyes," Kai said, removing herself. That was months ago.

Miranda's head ached as Spartan Miller muttered to himself about monsters.

Monsters.

Monsters that had been human hours before. Mutated by spores that had been locked deep in the alien structure inside the planet. Miranda should never have laid a hand on the vial, let alone removed it outside of containment. It was stupid. It was against protocol. But her mother showed up, not dead, and had been looking at her for the first time. She just wanted to impress Halsey, which was even stupider.

And she left Halsey behind.

Left her behind with the best chance of recovery from... whatever they unleashed. Miranda knew she regretted her last meeting with Kai, but she didn't know what she felt about leaving her mother. It was the right choice. Halsey would have done the same. That Halsey would make the same call, maybe that was why it seemed wrong.

The entrance to the bridge opened and Miranda lifted her head to see Vannak's armor walk in, without Vannak. 

Lieutenant Kurt Ambrose.

Miranda had seen the name referenced in passing, but never met him. Different divisions, Ackerson said when she asked why she wasn't getting data from the science department at Camp Curahee. She hadn't pushed, her focus has been on the alien installation. Now she realized it was intentional. If she had met him, she'd have known Lieutenant Ambrose was one of Halsey's Spartan's in an instant.

He saved her from Onyx, along with Spartan Miller and a few others. She hadn't a chance to ask him about the AI he uploaded, who kept appearing in Spartan armor. Or about the heavily armed children, a dozen in the supposedly unproduced SPI armor, who had been defending the landing pad. But she had horrible suspicions about what had been going on in Colonel Ackerson's different division.

Ambrose spoke to the young man in SPI armor, Carter, before walking over and kneeling in front of Miranda. "How are you doing, Commander?"

"I've been better," Miranda said. She needed to shake herself out of this. It wasn't productive or helpful. 

"No doubt."

"Onyx needs to be quarantined."

Ambrose nodded. "I agree. But I don't know how we can issue or enforce a quarantine until we find out the status of the rest of the UNSC forces. Any idea what the contagion was?"

"It's alien."

"Covenant?"

"No, something older," Miranda said, rubbing a hand over her face. "Self-replicating within a host. And by alien, I believe it is the alien. A hive mind."

"This is way above my pay grade," Miller said under his breath.

The AI flickered into being on the holopad, startling Miranda by appearing as a six-year-old and pointing at a screen displaying the debris field. "I have an anomaly."

"Define an anomaly," Ambrose said.

"The angular distance of a planet from its perihelion as seen from the sun," the AI recited, then grimaced, like she hadn't meant to give a definition. "It's a locate beacon from Spartan armor."

"The deployed III's?" Miller said, hopefully.

"No, but I have found signs that UNSC crafts evacuated the area. It's from Spartan II armor configuration."

"Master Chief?"

The AI's brow furrowed like she was thinking hard. "Scanner readings are distorted, but it seems to be Spartan-125's IFF. Just... floating out there."

Spartan-125. "Kai?" Miranda said. "She's still alive?"

"She has to be," said the AI as she image flickered into an older iteration. "Otherwise her armor would have self-destructed."

"It should, but we know that's not always how it works," Ambrose said, pushing to stand. "Is it a trap?"

"Not tactically advantageous for it to be," Carter said, and then looked at Ambrose. "Is it, sir?"

"No, but that doesn't mean it isn't. We have to be cautious."

"We have to get her," Miranda said, climbing to her feet. "She's one of you..."

"Calm down," Ambrose said as held up a hand. "We're not leaving a Spartan out there. Carter, have Wolf Pack get a Pelican ready."

"Yes, sir."

Illumination was still at ‘Lights Out’ level, and a glance at the one narrow window at the end of his bunk show showed it was still night. There were no klaxons going off and no drill instructors standing over them with batons. Though, that hadn’t happened in years. He sniffed the air for smoke or other gasses, but detected nothing. Then he heard that soft sound of a door.

He sat up and met Nora’s brown eyes, sitting up on her own bunk. She made the sign for J and then 013. He inclined his head in question and she gave a gesture for unknown. Kurt narrowed his eyes in consideration. The facilities were in the opposite direction. Julia left by the exit to outside.

Both he and Nora slipped on their waiting boots and made their way down the line. Other recruits were awake, but didn’t join. Kurt took the lead going out, looking for handlers or other personnel before motioning to Nora it was clear.

There were only so many directions Julia could have gone without immediate detection. They wound up climbing a storm drain to the roof. Over months, recruits had been nudging some of the surveillance equipment to create blind spots. Centimeters at a time so The Watch wouldn’t notice. Kurt suspected Dr. Halsey and her AI assistant noticed, but it didn’t seem to have been mentioned to their drill instructors.

Julia sat on the roof with her knees folded so she could rest her chin on them. “I’m not making a break for it,” she mumbled at Kurt and Nora’s approach.

“This would be a shitty starting point if you were,” Nora said, crouching next to her. “Maybe if you make the jump to the commissary...”

Kurt glanced at the adjacent building, maybe twelve meters away, and considered. They were getting to a point where they could almost make it with a running start.

“What are you doing up here?” Nora asked.

“I had a dream,” Julia said. “Wanted some air.”

Kurt moved to sit on Julia’s other side. “What was it about?” he asked. Nearly everyone hated talking to the camp phycologists, but more of his fellow recruits would talk to him. Sometimes it made them feel better, and that made him feel better.

Julia didn’t talk for several minutes. “Do you ever think about your old name?”

“No,” Nora said, while Kurt admitted, “I don’t remember it.”

Julia pressed her forehead against her folded arms. “A lady was calling for me by a name. I knew it was mine from before I was Julia-013, but I can’t quite remember it, just ‘Julia Ah...’“

“You need to forget that. Dr. Halsey says all the before stuff is a distraction,” Nora said mumbled, eyes focused on an owl swooping in the tree line. “Becoming a Spartan is all that matters.”

“And I want to be a good one,” Julia said. “I just can’t help remembering before, sometimes. I miss my brother.”

Nora shifted uncomfortably while Kurt gently put his hand on Julia’s back, because it seemed like the right thing to do. His instincts were usually right about this sort of thing.

“He always held my hand and kept me safe,” she said, and her voice cracked. “I wish I could remember the name we shared. Ah... Something.”

Kurt rubbed Julia’s back as the three of them sat in silence until they had to get back to their bunks.

Dropship Ares In descent to Camp Currahee, Onyx

Ackerson, Kurt thought to himself. Ackerson was the name Julia had been searching for all those years ago.

There was a jolt of thrusters coming online as the dropship transitioned from the vacuum of space into planetary atmosphere. Safety straps strained against his chest, reminding him of his lack of armor. The regulation uniform was uncomfortable. Its stiff collar chafed his neck, laden with the Lieutenant insignia he didn’t feel was earned. 

He did a scan of the other four, no, five occupants of the transport. Dr. Henry Glassman was absorbed with whatever was on his tablet, while drill instructors Kerrigan and Hardy were discussing the results of some sporting event. Project Hauteclere was in a case next to him. Nora. Or what was left of her. He wondered if a crystal matrix being transported felt like sleep or if it was claustrophobic.

Kurt shook his head a fraction. It was still awkward having to be concerned with emotions. But, back in training, he always had been. John was better at mustering the troops. Kurt had been better at understanding them.

His gaze flickered over to the final occupant of the dropship. Colonel James Ackerson. Kurt’s new superior officer and Dr. Halsey’s replacement.

There was a chance he wasn’t related to Julia, but Kurt knew in his gut this had to be her brother. His age was right. He had the same coloration in skin and hair. Similar bone structure with the high cheekbones, but Julia never had the chance to lose the ‘baby fat’ and gain definition. The question was, did he know Julia had been part of the Spartan II class? It seemed impossible to be a coincidence. Did he know what happened to her?

“Is there something you want to say, Lieutenant Ambrose?” Ackerson asked, noticing the attention and meeting Kurt’s eyes.

There it was, in Ackerson’s eyes. That hostility that Kurt felt directed at him and not at the same time. The sense taking over the Spartan Program was not simply a post, it was personal.