Halsey Reviews the Data
Three days later.
The ward door slid open.
Ethan was currently undergoing rehabilitation training—walking.
It sounded simple, but for a body that had just endured augmentation surgery, every step felt like walking on the moon.
His brain had to relearn how to control muscles that were far faster and far more powerful.
The floor beneath his feet seemed softer, air resistance felt heavier, and everything was different from before.
He paused his movements and turned toward the doorway.
Dr. Halsey.
She wore a white lab coat and held a data pad in her hand.
Her expression was cold and professional as always, but Ethan noticed faint dark circles under her eyes.
She likely hadn’t slept much these past few days either.
“007,” her voice carried no emotion.
“How do you feel?”
“Still alive,” Ethan answered, keeping his tone as calm as possible.
Dr. Halsey walked over to the chair beside the bed and sat down.
She looked down at her data pad, her fingers sliding across the screen.
Ethan couldn’t see what was displayed, but he could see her eyes moving rapidly—she was reviewing the data.
Silence stretched on.
Finally, Dr. Halsey looked up at Ethan.
“Your data… is very interesting,” she said, a barely perceptible flicker of emotion in her voice.
“Meaning?” Ethan asked.
“Zero rejection across all surgical procedures,” Dr. Halsey began to read from the log.
“Bone density exceeds standard Spartan parameters by fifteen percent. Muscle fiber arrangement… abnormally orderly.” She paused briefly.
“Force output efficiency increased by twenty percent. Full catalyst absorption with zero side effects.”
She closed the data pad and looked directly into Ethan’s eyes.
“A one-hundred percent surgical success rate, 007. You are the top performer among all candidates in this batch. You even surpassed 117.”
Ethan said nothing.
“But what intrigues me most,” Dr. Halsey continued, her voice dropping lower, “is your brain activity data during the Neural Synaptic Enhancement.”
Ethan’s heart skipped a beat.
“A peak reaching five thousand percent of a normal human’s baseline,” Dr. Halsey said, as placidly as if reading a weather report.
“For an average Spartan, the peak is roughly one thousand percent. Yours was five times that.”
She stared at Ethan.
Ethan stared back.
“Can you tell me what you felt during the surgery?” she asked.
Ethan remained quiet for a moment, organizing his words, deciding how much to reveal.
“I had a dream,” he said softly.
“What kind of dream?”
“I dreamed of stars. So many stars.” He paused.
“And… war.”
A flicker passed through Dr. Halsey’s eyes.
Ethan knew what she was thinking.
She was doubting, guessing, trying to unlock the enigma surrounding him.
Yet she did not press further.
She stood up and walked toward the door.
Before stepping over the threshold, she stopped, her back turned to Ethan.
“007,” she said.
“Yes, Doctor?”
She turned her head to look at him, a strange look in her eyes.
It was not the curiosity of a scientist, nor the scrutiny of a military officer, but something else entirely—a far more complex emotion.
“Survive,” she said.
“You must survive.”
Then, she left.
Ethan stood in place, watching the door close.
He knew that phrase.
One day in the future, she would say those exact words to John.
But right now, she had said them to him—a child.
What did she know?
Or was it merely intuition?
Ethan had no answer.
But he knew one thing—those anomalous brain activity logs would be erased by Dr. Halsey.
She would pretend nothing had happened, pretend that data had never existed.
Because he was a mystery.
A mystery she did not want others to discover.
At least for now.
Recovery progressed faster than Ethan had imagined.
Three days.
He had regained control over his body.
Walking, running, jumping, making a fist—every motion required his brain and muscles to establish new coordination mechanisms.
But for a child possessing an adult soul, the learning process was far swifter than for the others.
John adapted to his new body almost instinctively.
He rarely spoke, constantly testing, training, and pushing his limits.
On the first day he walked the corridors, on the second day he did push-ups, and by the third day he was engaging in combat simulations with Chief Petty Officer Mendez.
The training drills that terrified ordinary soldiers came as naturally to John as breathing.
That was genius.
Or rather, that was the future Master Chief.
Tucker took four days.
He recovered slower than Ethan, but faster than most.
Ethan visited him twice, and each time Tucker was trying to climb out of bed, failing, and trying again.
A stubborn fire burned in his eyes—a street kid never admitted defeat.
Riley took five days.
The boy genius’s brain performed remarkably well in coordinating his new body, though his physical endurance remained a weak point.
Ethan remembered what Riley had said on the eve of surgery: “No matter what happens tomorrow, I’ll remember tonight’s starry sky.” He had survived.
He would remember that sky.
Cohen took six days.
He suffered the most severe rejection reaction.
For three days after the surgery, he ran a high fever, experiencing temporary organ failure.
When Ethan went to see him, Cohen lay in bed hooked up to numerous tubes, his face as pale as paper.
The nurse mentioned his first words upon waking were, “When can I train?”
Yet he had survived.
Gritting his teeth, he endured without making a sound.
One day, when Ethan visited him, Cohen opened his eyes.
He looked at Ethan, his lips moving as he squeezed out a few words:
“…I still owe you a fight.”
Ethan smiled.
“Talk after you’re fully recovered.”
Cohen didn’t speak again, but the corners of his mouth tugged slightly upward into a barely visible smile.
Dr. Halsey had told them: “Your brains must relearn how to control muscles that are far faster and far more powerful. This takes time. But you are all carefully selected children; you will adapt.”
Ethan knew those words were not meant only for them, but for herself as well.
She needed to believe these children would survive—even if only a tiny fraction.
Space Funeral
They launched the urns into space.
Thirty of them.
Ethan stood in formation, watching the smooth stainless-steel cylinders pushed one after another into the launch tubes, then fired into the infinite void.
Every urn represented a life.
A child.
A child who would never grow up.
There were twelve more—but those twelve were still alive, at least by medical definition.
They could no longer fight.
Fajad sat in a wheelchair, trembling uncontrollably.
Kirk and Rene lay in neutral gel tanks, sustained by respirators, their bones twisted and deformed beyond human recognition.
Ethan did not dare look at them.
“A total of thirty honorable fallen soldiers!”
Chief Petty Officer Mendez’s voice echoed through the launch bay.
His face was carved like stone, utterly devoid of expression.
But having known him for three years, Ethan understood the meaning behind every subtle shift in Mendez’s demeanor.
At this moment, he saw what lay deep within Mendez’s eyes: agony.
Forty-two children saluted in unison.
Ethan’s eyes were dry, but his heart bled.
Every beat struck like a hammer against every nerve in his chest.
He had known those who died.
They had trained together, eaten together, cried together in secret late at night.
Some he had spoken with; others were mere acquaintances.
But all of them were Spartans.
All of them were his comrades.
John stood at the very front of the line.
His face was like carved stone, yet Ethan saw his hand trembling slightly.
John never trembled.
He was the squad leader, the pillar everyone relied on. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
But at this moment, he too was just a fourteen-year-old child, mourning his fallen comrades alongside the rest.
Tucker’s breathing was heavy as he fought back tears.
Ethan knew that if Tucker cried, the other kids would follow.
That could not be allowed.
Not now.
Cohen lowered his head, fists clenched tight.
Having known him for eight years, Ethan had never seen him so quiet.
Cohen was always loud and aggressive, but now he uttered not a word, merely standing with his head bowed.
Riley kept his eyes shut, his lips moving silently.
Ethan knew he must be reciting something—perhaps a poem, perhaps a prayer, or perhaps the names of those who had died.
Riley always processed grief in his own way.
A series of heavy thuds rang out as the urns were launched into space.
The sound reverberated through the bay like distant thunder.
Ethan watched the urns vanish from the display screen, drifting slowly away under momentum into the embrace of the stars.
A part of him drifted away with them.
Forever.
Yet he could not fall.
He would not fall.
He swore—he would not let these sacrifices be in vain.
Never.
They had survived.
Thirty-three of them.
Subtracting the twelve who could no longer fight, forty-two had yielded a thin sliver of hope.
They were Spartans.
They would keep fighting.
For those who had died.
For the future of humanity.
For those stars.
Augmentation Data Comparison
Post-operative test results revealed that Ethan’s body metrics far exceeded expectations.
Below is the comparative data following Spartan-II augmentations:
Metrics
Ordinary Human: Reaction Speed / Strength / Endurance / Visual Sensitivity / Intelligence / Peak Brain Activity = 100%
Average Spartan: Reaction Speed / Strength / Endurance = 300% | Visual Sensitivity = 200% | Intelligence = 150% | Peak Brain Activity = 1000%
John-117 / Ethan-007: Reaction Speed = 340% | Strength = 360% | Endurance = 340% | Visual Sensitivity = 230% | Intelligence = 180% | Peak Brain Activity = 1000%
Note: Ethan-007’s intelligence score exceeded normal child parameters by approximately 180%, largely owing to his adult experience from transmigration.
His peak brain activity reading—5000%—was wiped from official records by Dr. Halsey, classified as an “anomalous reading due to equipment malfunction.”
Although Ethan’s visual sensitivity data was listed at only 230%, this was the result of him deliberately suppressing his extra mutation.
In actual testing, his visual range extended to the edges of ultraviolet and infrared.
This capability exceeded the design parameters of the Spartan-II augmentation procedures, source unknown.
He chose to keep this secret hidden.
At least for now.
After the ceremony ended, John walked over to Ethan’s side.
“Are you all right?” John asked.
Ethan remained silent for a moment before replying:
“I don’t know. But I will survive.”
John nodded without another word.
He turned and walked toward Chief Petty Officer Mendez to prepare for the upcoming mission briefing.
Ethan stayed behind, gazing at the starry sky outside the viewport.
The light of Reach shimmered in the distance, like an eye watching over the universe.
He recalled the fragments he had seen during the surgery.
The blue plasma flames.
The giant ring structure.
The writhing shape in the dark.
And John—standing among the ruins, covered in blood.
That was the future.
Though he had long known it.
A future that perhaps could not be changed.
But perhaps—just perhaps—he could do something about it.
He tightened his fist.
His new body surged with power.
His new eyes could see far more.
His new nervous system allowed him to think faster.
He was a Spartan now.
Now, the true fight had only just begun.