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Frederic turned back up the passage with the other two female Spartans Naomi looked at Vaz and did a slow headshake that was reement She’d obey orders, but that didn’ta hard time with it

"Come on," he said He decided to try another tack "You’re a Spartan You don’t need to hear her excuses She doesn’t control you"

"Okay, but can I ask a favor, Vasya?" She used the Russian short form Nobody else did that "Osht to see the whole thing, like there’s worse to come"

"And do you want to?"

"I don’t knoish I did I don’t have the courage to look"

But she had the guts to take on a hinge-head with her bare hands, and any nuet even a Spartan kil ed Vaz understood why it was too h Once she read the detail, she could never forget it Most of her childhood ue her consciously But she was al what her parents had been like, and how the events had devastated the a lot worse than the reality His automatic response was to do it, like he’d do the saiving the fire

"What do you want me to do?" Vaz asked "Just say"

"Would you read my files and decide whether I should know or not?"

Damn How the hell will I know?

It was a ht be too painful, and if he didn’t, she’d knoas because the details were too awful and ine worse anyway Even for a Spartan, there was such a thing as the final straw

But an ODST didn’t let his buddies down

"Okay," he said "You trust me to do that, do you?"

"Of course I do Thanks, Vasya I’l let the Captain know you’l need the file"

She looked past hi held, and for a stupid moment he was tempted to let her in and face the consequences But he could see Halseyexcuses for what she’d done, and then he’d be sorely tempted to punch the shit out of her, sixty years old or not

The other Spartans--the ones they cal ed the Spartan-IIIs--were huddled in the senior rates’them with coffee and a mountain of snacks So these were the expendable suicide troops, the colonial cannon fodder Daers: none of thehteen If they’d been purowth hormones and ceraular-sized kids One of the girls was so sh to be out of school, let alone given firearms She stared at Vaz like a ood guys, are we?

"Everyone okay?" he asked, looking froy was an understatean in an hour She’s got a proper doctor"

"We’re okay," said one of the lads His na to Earth?"

"Yes, you’re getting a debrief at HIGHCOM in Sydney Bravo-Six Are you old enough to drink? There’s stil soood bars in Sydney"

Ash stared at Vaz as if he was senile "I’m thirteen," he said "And we’ve never been to Earth"

That brought Vaz up short "Jesus What about the rest of you?"

"I’m twenty," Tom said "So’s Lucy here" He patted the uys are about Ash’s age, yes"

It was just limpse of why so h of al this Spartan crap

"We’l ratitude," he said at last "We’l talk to your CO about it"

Vaz walked off Devereaux cae after hiirlie? She decked Halsey She’s the one who blacked her eye They’re al psychos"

"You’d be crazy as wel if they gave you a rifle when you were six"

"Chief Mendez ic touch to cope with al that"

"Either that," Vaz said, "or he’s a complete bastard"

Devereaux held her hands up in her I’esture and returned to mind the delinquent Spartans Vaz went in search of Mal and found hi quietly in the corner, arms folded, with that seen-it-al -no-shit expression peculiar to senior NCOs Two cans of beer sat on the counter Mendez was in his late fifties or early sixties, a real thug of a guy hipcord forearms and a broken nose So this was thewhile Halsey was doing the Frankenstein stuff on the kids? Vaz couldn’t work out why Mal was sharing a beer with him, but he nodded at him anyway Maybe Mal needed to hear Mendez’s side of the story first

"Everything quiet out there?" Mal asked

Vaz shrugged "The lieutenant wanted to talk to Halsey, but I told the her off our hands?"

Mal checked his watch "Six hours Then we head back ho ar stub out of his top pocket, staring at the frayed tip "At least I get to replenish my supply of these"

"So you and Dr Halsey" Vaz just couldn’thad to be said "You’ve worked together a long ti suspicious He certainly looked suspicious now "I worked with her a long tio, if that’s what youwith a couple of Spartans It’s hard to knohat to say about a project like that"

"Then it’s probably best to say nothing"

Vaz bristled Okay, so Mendez trained the Master Chief and was soend, but Vaz couldn’t let that intimidate him He wanted to kno al this Spartan stuff could possibly fit alongside the Navy’s sense of decency He’d always despised people ouldn’t stand up and be counted And here he was now, dithering like so that ele

Okay, they can stick ot to live with myself

"One question, Chief," Vaz said "If you kneas happening to those kids, why didn’t you do so? Any of you? I mean, how many people does it take to create dozens of flash clones and run a program that size? There must’ve been a whole ar on it Just telputting his cigar away and ht he was preparing to swing a punch