Halo: Glasslands by Traviss Karen

back to face forward, BB materialized a meter in front of the bulkhead.
    “And where’s Naomi?” she asked.
    “Heading this way,” BB said. “You might as well tell her.”
    The Spartan had been giving Osman odd looks all the way out here in the shuttle. Naomi seemed to realize she knew her but couldn’t place the face. Osman thought she’d changed a lot since her early teens, but some features didn’t alter with age.
    “Yes, we’ve already got enough secrets to keep from one another.” Osman got up and stood facing the doorway onto the bridge, resting her backside on the comms console. “I’ll tell the others too. If we’re running arms for Sangheili psychos, I suppose my status pales into insignificance. No reason why I can’t, is there?”
    BB moved around to settle in her line of sight. “The Admiral gave you carte blanche. Weapons free, repel all boarders, no prisoners, et cetera et cetera. Do whatever you need to get the job done … just don’t get caught, there’s a dear.”
    BB had a rather arch way with him. Osman found herself smiling. Dear. Things were going to get very informal. She could hear Naomi coming now, the steady thud of her boots on the deck as she strode along the passage in that massively heavy armor she didn’t actually need at the moment. Spartans had their comfort blankets too.
    How would I have coped with the Mjolnir? Would I feel naked without it? Would I know where I ended and it began?
    Naomi loomed in the doorway. She had that faint frown that said a memory was still eluding her. “Ready to slip, ma’am?”
    “Five minutes.” Osman realized BB had disappeared, or at least his avatar had. “Anything you want to ask me, Naomi?”
    Using her name rather than addressing her as Spartan got a slight reaction. Osman noted a couple of rapid blinks.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Naomi said at last. “I think I know you, but I don’t know where from.”
    “It’s been a long time. And my name wasn’t Osman back then. Like you, I didn’t even have a surname.”
    Osman had rarely come face-to-face with Spartans from her batch. On the handful of occasions when she had, she found they were pretty good at forgetting because they’d been made to forget so much. She concentrated on Naomi’s pale gray eyes, searching for the moment the penny dropped. The Spartan had now stopped blinking completely.
    Naomi struggled with the name. “Sarah?”
    “ Serin. Serin-Zero-One-Nine. Remember me now?”
    As Osman watched the revelation build on Naomi’s face, she felt the tension drain from her own shoulders. The relief was both unexpected and incredible. She hadn’t realized she’d been that worried about it.
    But it’s out. Thank God for that. Someone other than me and the select few in ONI knows who I am.
    Nearly half of the seventy-five children who’d been taken for the program didn’t make it past augmentation treatment at fourteen. The few who didn’t die were left disabled. Osman didn’t know what Halsey had actually told her successes about the fate that had befallen her failures.
    “We thought you’d died,” Naomi said.
    Well, that answered Osman’s question. “I did, near as damn it. ONI put me back together again, so now you know. And don’t tell me how normal I look. I still have some enhancements, but nothing skeletal.”
    All Osman had needed was to see the look on Naomi’s face. It was a kind of validation. She’d been wiped out of existence twice, first as a kidnapped kid taken to Reach, then erased from the Spartan program, but now nobody could erase her again.
    I exist. I’m here. And I’m going to head up ONI.
    Naomi settled at one of the comms stations and secured the seat belt as if nothing had happened. “We’d better get going, ma’am.”
    Osman wasn’t sure if the subject was closed or not. If it wasn’t, it would have to wait. She was about to summon the ODSTs when they arrived on the bridge with Phillips and BB. All three of them—even