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      Connie lets us drift along Io's atmosphere with the Valhalla in tow; drifting somewhere near Io's equator with all the fast-talking satellites and hard-hitting space debris.

      Having spent most of my pre-teen life daydreaming about being a Spartan and sitting so close to the screen to be in their promos; what I don't know about the Spartan training program, I could fit on the back of a microchip.

      But each Spartan is unique beyond their training program, blossoming into a warrior that is more than the sum of its parts. In the field is where they pick up a lot of their combat nuances. A battle-dipped soldier might pick up a few pointers from theatre but a Spartan develops a knack for categorizing every conflict he or she has ever participated in. It's what makes them special. The ability to act on the fly with whatever resources are at their disposal and see its effects on the bigger picture.
      These warriors are born of the purest salts, they're moulded on the training grounds, tempered on the exercise yard and then fired in the kiln of war; forged into that most sought after of vases: Spartans.

      And usually I'd start where our targets left off, gather up a bit of background intel and pick up the scent of their sweet little derriere from there, but all background info regarding Spartans simply read: CLASSIFIED, right where you need to see the fucking details.

      It's one thing to have access to personal statements with their biographies including their M.O., their mission achievements, battle strategies, medals and then take it from there. It's quite another to be handed a few pictures –like I've never seen a Spartan before: a squad designate –basically a prison number, and doctored footage and transcripts of all their rogue activity.

      A real haberdashery of information, some of the Spartans have such wonderfully minute, fantastic (read useless) details like their birthplace and induction date, some don't even have that, just the enlightenment of a name and a call sign.
      The only other non-essential info missing is their favourite colour and I'm kind of figuring it's a toss up between green, red and blue!

      Garrison might as well have had his lapdog write me another note saying:

      Dear Mr. Ephialtes (the pointless formality of mister continuing to irritate).

      We regret not being able to help you in any way, shape or form. Due to our extremely stupid operating procedures and general shittiness towards outsiders solving our problems, we will not be offering anything in the way of helpfulness or assistance other than pointing you in a random direction!

      Yours obstinately, signed [blank]

      What a cock. I could probably have got more telling info from the spit workers of Hell's Kitchen.


      I circle my workstation, staring intently at a seven fingered limb of evidence; a holographic image of seven Spartans posited around a charred Sangheili corpse; behind them, extends a few large mountains shadowed by grey skies. The image revolves around with me and I feel eyes, behind ambiguous golden visors, following me around the room.
      "What am I looking at, Con?"
      "The last official photograph of the remaining seven members of Spartan Fire Team Delta Romeo." She replies all matter of factly.
      "The Devil's Rebels; taken after the unanimous victory over Covenant forces on Plate one-oh-one."

      I click my fingers either side of my head, waiting for a spark of inspiration to leap out between them or ignite something from the picture.
      "But what am I seeing?"
Connie reads the question all wrong:
      "Clockwise from top left we have Spartan five-two-one: Jack Witterquick, standing in military posture number four: right-side profile with back straight, right elbow slightly raised, clutching a BR-five-five-HB SR in his right hand while the left hand cradles the barrel…"
      "No, Connie." I interrupt her droll tone. "That's not what I'm seeing."

      As much as I love her, abstract thought is sometimes wasted on the young and artificial.
      "Then I don't understand." She says.
      "Then." I offer, taking her by the imaginary hand.
      "Allow me to elucidate."


      I caught the film bug shortly after being seduced by a big fat cheque from the documentary production team. By the time of my second series, I'd begun to take a more dictatorial role in proceedings, which looking back, is probably why there was no third outing for Ephialtes: A Life Less Ordinary. But having sown the seed, I never lost the penchant for drama; the bug is always there, looking for theatrical angles.
      "I'll tell you what I see."
      I stop walking around the workstation, coming to a halt in front of the cockpit and shooting orchestral arms all over the picture.

      "Leading us in from the left we have number 21, Jack 'The Rabbit' Witterquick; then we stumble into a raging bull by the name of Jonathan 'Wet-look' Maidstone: number 22 stands in our path, snorting rings of fire and stomping his feet with one hoof stirring to charge."

      I take a deep breathe and step back from the image before starting up again.
      "Followed by three white stallions coming up around the bend."
      I swoosh my hand through the air in an eccentric arc of the picture, imitating their positions with the dashes of an artist's brush; carving them out and striking them off individually:

      "17: Arthur 'Echo' Wellington."
      "25: Leonard 'Rocious' Kingsley."
      "22: Azrael 'J.D.' Ford."

      The picture wavers from the swooping motions as my aggrandised synopsis draws near an end.
      "Then we have number eighteen: Jason 'Rodeo' Reins, a black mustang that will need taming."
      I stroke the head, like a Greek deity admiring the magnificence of his creations.

      "And finally, we have the Titan princess herself."
      Moving on, I sweep my fingers beneath the central Spartan's throat and a pulse ripples through the holographic veil:
      "Number thirteen… Gabrielle 'Angel of Death' Vixen."

      Connie fakes a yawn, even though she doesn't sleep and has no sense of energy in the traditional manner, it still brings a smile to my face.
      "So is that what you see is or is it just what you'd like to believe?" She says, pretty resolute in her opinion. "Because all I see are seven Spartans, a victim and a million gruesome ways to die."

      "Let me tell you what I see, Connie." I mutter beneath my breathe, reaching behind my neck and undoing the lock mechanism of the Symbion shell before stepping out of its footlinks:
      "I see a Milky Way best seller."
      Milky Way because outside 'mother's bosom', nobody gives a shit about anything humans get up to.
      "I see money from a movie deal that would make Garrison's bounty seem like small change. I see us returning home to a hero's welcome!"

      "The only thing I see returning…"
      Connie chips in to rain on my parade.
      …is a body bag and the coroner's verdict of death by misadventure."
      It seems everyone's got a bad feeling about this one.

      I clasp my hands together and hold my arms out behind me, leaning forward to emerge from the shoulder sockets of the shell.
      It's been a long day involving a lot of travelling.
      I wearily turn around to admire the best suit that money can buy and the only suit I'll ever love.
      It stands nearly as tall as me yet weighs next to nothing.

      Krohlm designed and tailored specifically for my body, the Symbion shell is a lightweight, dense varilium alloy that begins on the front of my toes, goes over the bottom of my feet and has two horned spurs on the back of the heels, a custom job and my one and only insistence in the shell's design.

      The shell runs up the back of my legs before going around the buttocks; extending eight reflexive spikes around my ribs that nestle on the oblique muscles for support and to emphasise twisting motion.
      The bulk of the suit forms a second skin over my back with my real arms slipping into the shoulder sockets to control basic movement.
      Crucial dexterous operations come from electrical signals passed from me to the Symbion's control base, located at the top of the neck and slipped beneath the skin when we're linked together; a binary connection that allows me to receive information like temperature, weight and texture as well as initiating movement. Since the suit slots in at the base of my skull and is plugged directly into the cerebellum, it took forever to get used to working from the instinctive side of my brain.

      But working from instinct gives me a distinctive edge in unarmed combat, it's faster, more lucid and there's no hesitation. The only drawback is that the fight or flight mechanism goes awry because when we're combined, I feel unstoppable.
      It wasn't always that way; the shell came with a steep learning curve.

      The human mind being what it is and being naturally quite greedy and scatty, eating food and looking at juice usually meant the signals would bottleneck; thinking I wanted to eat and drink at the same time, the suit would try to do both, choking me in the process. I had to fight long and hard to slow it down and there are other problems too but the shell is worth it, I've lost count of all the times it's saved my life.

      The gauntlets strike out a fully-fledged one hundred and fifty big ones and can be deadly in the right hands, The arms bear-hug close to the three-fifty mark: twist out 125 from the hip and when pushed to the limit with a rolling start, the Symbion's legs pull close to seventy-five thousand kilo –about half my Connie's weight– before folding over like a French soldier.

      After wearing the Symbion for nearly twenty hours straight, the get-up begins to chafe and even though it makes me feel light on my feet, sometimes it can be a bit of a hindrance.

      I make eyes at the corner between the hallway to the ramp and the wall leading into the cockpit, to where the suit's recharge station is and right next to the False Gravity Switch on my ship. Perfectly positioned to turn it off when we both need forty winks.

      Turning the gravity trap on helps me walk around and get things done, turning it off means I can strap in and float off.
Sleeping's so much easier in zero gravity, no such thing as tossing and turning, just drifting and floating.

      The line of eight small LEDs, resembling spider's eyes, flash amber from the top of the outfit, indicating its thirst for a top-up. The suit plugs itself in and after a brief rethink of its needs, the lights start at five onwards and the last three digits continue to flicker. Even with twenty hours on the clock, I'd barely touched the juice.

      After a few hours spent analysing the contents of the black folder, I did a thirty minute stint on the treadmill to let the details sink in. Then I delved back into the madness of Princess Gabrielle.

      I'd ran through the first three data sticks twice but skimped several of their paper transcripts -having seen the film, I'm unlikely to read the book; besides, Connie'll let me know if there's anything different or of particular interest.

      I'd kept the siege of Candy's Valhalla til last, not just because she was the last hunter on the job but as one of those quirky, unexplainable signs of respect.
      Sitting at the workstation with my feet up on the table, I think now's as good a time as any.
      "Play." I tell Connie, and the holographic representation above the workstation beams into life…

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