The Spartan Effect

The glory and The Fall

October 28th, 2558. Sol System.

       The sound of metal boots on polished titanium floors echoed off the hallway as people parted like the red sea for the figure marching in perfect time to his destination. The facilities on this ship were just as expensive as on its sister ship. As such, they were built with two beings in mind. Humans, and what some believe to be humanity's next step. Spartans. Soldiers to the core, warriors of unparalleled might, and defenders of humanity's future, tasked with ensuring its survival and prosperity through any means necessary. They have been the one thing standing between humanity and its extinction for years. So, ships like the Infinity and her sister, the Eternity are equipped to keep these men and women in top physical condition, requiring equipment well beyond what the average human body can survive. Treadmills are topping out at over eighty miles an hour and can withstand three hundred pounds. Check. One-ton dumbbells, check. Reinforced pull-up bars and obstacle courses, check. 

     It was a Spartans playground for those who took the role seriously. Sadly, most Spartan IVs acted like children aboard the Infinity, where Commander Palmer failed to demand and instill the same cold, machine-like discipline the Spartan IIs had beaten into them from childhood, or the Spartan IIIs ruthless efficiency and near suicidal dedication to the mission, having lost everything to the covenant, and more than willing to give their lives to strike back. Their homes, families, friends, loved ones . . . whole worlds turned to glass in a lie told by false prophets. Those Spartans were little more than cheap copies of the legends they were named after and those who came before them.

     The hiss of pressurized doors opening shook the spartan from memories of battlefields long past as he stepped into the training deck of the Infinity. To the left, a large glass wall showed a War Games session going on, a big team battle from the sound of it. To the right, rows upon rows of standard spartan training equipment. Striding towards a bench with weights and a bar, he noticed a nearby fireteam in only tech suits, their color a deep blue, showing they were fireteam Azure, one of the teams under his command. They quickly stood to attention, heels snapping together, backs straight, hands saluting in perfect sync. These Spartans weren't normal spartan IVs. Ninety-two fireteams, comprised of four Spartans each, were on the Eternity. Out of the four hundred assigned to her, thirty-two had decided as teams to take shore leave, showing that most, if not all, the Spartans of the Eternity were staying onboard while the ship slip space drive was being swapped out, having burnt out from constant jumps between inner colony worlds and systems to raise morale post-human-covenant war. 

     These Spartans were atypical because of their commander. Thomas R-095. Originally put into the service at 6 after being kidnapped from his home world, he was sent through with the second class of Spartan IIs, augmented at fourteen, and retired at twenty-two to search for his home and his family. He found a planet broken by war, covered in glass, and nothing left to come home to. First, he had lost reach, watched as his friends and his family fought, bled, and died for the planet they had been raised on, trained on, and became Spartans on. Fifteen years they had been on reach, and it had made them family. 

     They had been split at first, angry and distrustful of each other, they were old enough to know they had been kidnapped, and stolen from their homes and families, but they had also known what was out there, the danger the covenant represented. They had all heard by the time the UNSC came for them what happened to the outer colonies, and eventually, they banded together as the First Class had and became the soldiers humanity needed them to be. At fourteen, he and seventy-four others were put through augmentations, thirty didn't make it, and twelve were permanently disabled.

     For those that survived, it was a proud moment, and for seven years, they would fight in several battles for the UNSC, truly earning the nickname given to them by the covenant. They were, in every sense, demons. To Thomas, that was what a spartan was, a soldier so effective, so ruthless, that even alone their enemies feared them as nigh untouchable beings made for one purpose. To kill any threat to humanity.