Editing The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole

{{Title|''The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole''}}
{{Status|RealWorld}}
'''''The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole''''' is one of several short-stories in ''[[Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe]]''. The story is framed as [[Historical/Psychological Analysis of Cole, Preston J.|a report]] by [[Codename: SURGEON]] to [[Codename: USUAL SUSPECTS]] summarizing the life of [[Preston Cole|Admiral Preston J. Cole]]. Throughout the report, the narrative sometimes shifts to the moment in Cole's life that is being summarized.<ref>'''[[Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe]]''', ''The Impossible Life and the Possible Death of Preston J. Cole''</ref>

It was written by [[Eric Nylund]], bestselling author of ''[[Halo: The Fall of Reach]]'', ''[[Halo: First Strike]]'' and ''[[Halo: Ghosts of Onyx]]''.

==Plot synopsis==
The story is written as a report from [[Codename: SURGEON]] to [[Codename: USUAL SUSPECTS]] on the early life, military career, and supposed death of [[Vice Admiral]] [[Preston Cole]].

Preston Jeremiah Cole was born on November 3, [[2470]], to [[Jennifer Francine Cole]] and [[Troy Henry Cole]], in the rural reconstituted township of [[Mark Twain]], [[Missouri]]. He was the third child of seven (three sisters and three brothers). Growing up he was described as a precocious child who obeyed his parents. He had wild black hair and dark brown eyes. His father was a dairy farmer with no criminal record, and no military background, and followed the [[Wikipedia:Quakers|Quaker]] faith with no particular zeal. His mother was arrested once at the age of 21 for protesting taxes (released on one year parole), and both her grandfathers served in the [[Rain Forest Wars]] (one surviving, Captain [[Oliver Franks]], received the [[Bronze Star]]). Tax records show that despite living in humanity's Golden Age, Cole's family struggled to make ends meet.

In fifth grade, he achieved an unprecedented perfect test score in Mr. [[William Martin]]'s pre-algebra class. Upon being accused of cheating and retesting, he once again produced a perfect score. A social worker was sent to Cole's home to investigate the school's claims that Preston was being overworked at home, but they found no evidence of physical or psychological abuse.

When he was fourteen, Cole wrote a paper in English class entitled "The Viability of Extended Colonization." Although it was not well received by his teacher, [[Alexander (teacher)|Miss Alexander]], it turned out to be prophetically accurate in predicting the [[Insurrection]] about a decade before the Callisto Incident. Although Cole wished to enlist in the [[UNSC Navy]] upon graduation, his low grades in high school kept him from immediately attending a prestigious military college. Instead, Cole enlisted as a mere crewman.

On September 21, 2488, Cole enlisted in the UNSC Navy. Upon graduation from the Unified Combined Military Boot Camp (aka "barf school"), Cole was assigned to the [[CMA Season of Plenty|CMA ''Season of Plenty'']]. While on the ship, Cole formulated a new way of calculating slipspace input parameters. This combined with his strong work ethic resulted in his being recommended to the [[Luna]] [[Officer Candidate School]].

At OCS, he would fall into a scandal involving the overnight disappearances of [[Inna Volkov]], the daughter of [[Admiral]] [[Konrad Volkov]], from her family quarters on base. Sightings of the girl in the company of a young man were reported. Soon, a child was produced, presumably by those liaisons. On June 7, [[2492]], six cadets, one of them Cole, were brought before a Board of Inquiry to testify. Though Cole was not found guilty of any wrongdoing, he married Inna two months later, with the Admiral acting as a witness. They had a two-week honeymoon, then Cole was reassigned to the destroyer {{UNSCShip|Las Vegas}}. [[Ivan Troy Cole]], who was not Preston's biological son, was born on December 12, 2492.

Codename: SURGEON suggests three reasons why this marriage took place. The first was that the Admiral knew which cadet was the true father and didn't like what he saw, and thus found a suitable replacement for his daughter: Cole. A second was that the child was not the offspring of any of the cadets and thus the admiral's grandchild would have been fatherless. The third was that Cole had the liaison with Inna, though was not the father of the child. Either way, Admiral Volkov either made Cole marry his daughter, else Cole was compelled by a sense of chivalry, or (as some of Cole's detractors claimed) a desire for political advancement within the UNSC military by being the son-in-law of an Admiral.

The two remained married and over the next eight years had two more sons and a daughter. However as the Insurrection flared up Cole saw very little of Inna and their children, being engaged on the frontier for months and even years at a time.

In 2494, while posted on the Las Vegas, Cole was involved in what would come to be known as the [[Callisto Incident]]. That year, Insurrectionists captured the corvette {{UNSCShip|Callisto}}. In response, the UNSC dispatched a battle group consisting of three light destroyers - the {{UNSCShip|Jericho}}, the {{UNSCShip|Buenos Aires}}, and the {{UNSCShip|Las Vegas}} - to hunt down the renegade ship. Their crews were inexperienced and their weapons untested and they were caught by surprise when the Insurrectionists detonated a nuclear weapon hidden inside an asteroid, destroying the Buenos Aires and severely damaging the Las Vegas and Jericho. The entire bridge crew of the Las Vegas, save Cole, were either killed or incapacitated, leaving him in command of the ship. Cole signaled the Callisto, declaring the crew's surrender. However, Cole ordered the crew to remove the ship's last [[Ares Missile]] from its silo and transport it to Cargo Bay 5. When the Callisto docked with the Las Vegas, the missile was fired directly into the corvette, crippling it and forcing its surrender.

Cole's faked distress signal was both a stroke of genius and a breach of protocol so severe that UNSC CENTCOM dithered over whether to award him the [[Legion of Honor]] or to have him court-martialed. Ultimately they did neither, to avoid setting precedent. However, from that point on Cole could never again send a distress signal in enemy territory; no one would believe it.

Cole was quickly promoted to Commander and given a small corvette to patrol the Outer Colonies. After a dozen successful engagements in five years against insurgent forces and privateer fleets he was promoted to Captain and received the honor of commanding the first heavy destroyer-class vessel armed with a [[Magnetic Accelerator Cannon]], the {{UNSCShip|Gorgon}}. Cole led the vessel in numerous engagements, most notably in three against the captured frigate [[UNSC Bellerophon|UNSC ''Bellerophon''/''Bellicose'']], which escaped twice and fought to a draw once. In their final encounter, Cole and the opposing captain engaged in a tête à tête through a series of text messages.

Inna filed for divorce in [[2500]]. Cole wrote her, accepting responsibility for the failure of their marriage, stating that she never wanted a long-distance military marriage, and though he would always love her, he could not ignore his duty to humanity. He continued to write home to his children, but received no replies, leading him to believe that Inna was burning his letters. Cole spent several years fighting Insurrectionists across the Outer Colonies. He scored victories in nearly all his battles, though he suffered psychological problems due to his divorce.

Preston took a leave from duty in [[2502]] and married his second wife, [[Lyrenne Castilla]]. Unfortunately for Cole, she turned out to be a high-ranking Insurrectionist and captain of the former ''Bellerophon'', now renamed the ''Bellicose''. When [[ONI]] found out about Lyra's double-life, his integrity in question, Preston's talents were put to waste as the Navy reassigned him to desk duty after promotion to [[Rear Admiral]]. Only the efforts of Admiral [[Harold Stanforth]], a close friend of Cole, kept him from facing a court-martial. Shortly after, Cole was informed that during the [[Battle of Theta Ursae Majoris System]], the ''Bellicose'' was caught in a gas giant's gravitational pull and is presumed to be lost with all hands. This event further compounded Cole's psychological problems.

By [[2525]], after being sent to a desk job on [[Earth]], Cole retired after being skip-promoted to [[Vice Admiral]] and was living alone in his apartment. He had gone through three much-publicized divorces, and his health was worse for the wear, including two heart attacks and a cloned liver transplant.

After the {{UNSCShip|Heracles}} returned to [[Reach]], badly damaged from first contact with the [[Covenant Empire]], the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] requested that Cole return to service to lead the largest battle group in human history, consisting of 40 ships, to [[Harvest]] in hopes of defeating the extraterrestrial threat. He reluctantly accepted their request.

Cole fought the [[Second Battle of Harvest]] in [[2526]], in which [[UNSC Battle Group X-Ray|Battle Group X-Ray]], 40 vessels in total, engaged a single Covenant vessel. The aliens' superior weaponry and technology overwhelmed the fleet, and Cole was on the verge of retreating. However, Cole realized that Covenant shield technology was vulnerable to massive, concentrated fire. Cole ordered all ships to fire everything they had at the ship, with MACs first, followed by [[Archer missile]]s and [[Shiva-class nuclear missile]]s. Although his fleet defeated the vessel, thirteen UNSC ships were destroyed during the fight.

Due to the impossibility of keeping the war a secret, ONI's Section II went public and gave Cole command of the majority of their warships. Cole continued the fight throughout the [[Outer Colonies]] for five more years.

After the conclusion of the [[Battle of the Great Bear]] at [[Groombridge-1830]], a [[Sangheili]] [[Subject 386|survivor]] was recovered. Admiral Cole began formulating what would become the Cole Protocol after interrogating it, having now realized that the Covenant had little knowledge of humanity; he knew that secrecy would be their best defense against them. He created [[United Nations Space Command Emergency Priority Order 098831A-1]], better known as the Cole Protocol, which was a plan to prevent the Covenant from finding the location of Earth or any other human population center. Essentially, it was a series of orders forbidding all UNSC personnel from allowing the Covenant to have any opportunity to retrieve data exposing the location of Earth and forbids retreating vessels from setting a direct course to Earth, as the Covenant were able to track [[Slipspace]] vectors and use them to calculate the destination. The policy also stated that if escape is impossible in order to prevent capture, any UNSC or human vessel is to self-destruct after wiping all data matrices in order to prevent the advance of the Covenant.

In the [[Battle of 18 Scorpii]], the ''Bellicose'' was revealed to have survived the engagement four decades prior and assisted UNSC forces in destroying a single Covenant vessel. The revelation pushed Cole's already deteriorating mental health to the breaking point. Codename: SURGEON noted that his personal logs stopped shortly after, and his behavior slightly altered.

The last and most successful battle in Cole's career was the [[Battle of Psi Serpentis]] on April 18, [[2543]], in which Cole led a fleet of 162 warships against a fleet of over three hundred Covenant ships. The engagement began when Cole's fleet, [[UNSC Battle Group India]], exited Slipspace on the far side of the gas giant [[Viperidae]]. The Covenant fleet which had assembled there moved to engage the human ships, but Battle Group India split into two parts and attacked the Covenant from both sides of the planet. Tricking the Covenant into splitting their own forces, Cole's fleet quickly regrouped on one side and opened fire at one group of ships. With two-thirds of the Covenant fleet decimated, the alien fleet regrouped and attacked Cole's fleet. Battle Group India scattered across the system, being picked off by the Covenant.

Just then, however, an Insurrectionist fleet led by the ''Bellicose'' suddenly exited Slipspace and charged the Covenant ships. The Insurrectionist fleet blew through the Covenant ships, and as suddenly as they appeared, jumped back into slipspace. With only a handful of Covenant ships left, Cole's fleet began to finish off the stragglers. But just then, two Covenant fleets, numbering over 200 ships, then exited Slipspace to reinforce their other fleet. Cole ordered the remnants of Battle Group India to fall back from the planet, leaving Cole's command ship, ''[[UNSC Everest|Everest]]'', to face the enemy alone. The ''Everest'' sped towards Viperidae, powered down all non-essential systems, but opened all missile silo doors. Cole beamed an open-com transmission to the Covenant fleet, openly mocking them and questioning their religious superiority.

{{Article quote|Listen to me, Covenant. I am Vice Admiral Preston J. Cole commanding the human flagship, ''Everest''. You claim to be the holy and glorious inheritors of the universe? I spit on your so-called holiness. You dare judge us unfit? After I have personally sent more than three hundred of your vainglorious ships to hell? After kicking your collective butts off Harvest - not once - but twice? From where I sit, we are the worthy inheritors. You think otherwise, you can come and try to prove me wrong.}}

The Covenant then ignored Battle Group India and all moved towards the ''Everest''. Cole plunged into the immense gravitational pull of Viperidae, now unable to get back out. The Covenant fired at the ship, but the gravity's interference prevented a kill. Cole taunted the Covenant one last time:

{{Article quote|Is that the best you can do? Watch what one unworthy human can do!}}

Cole then fired everything the ''Everest'' had - not at the Covenant, but into Viperidae. The super pressurized hydrogen inside the gas giant's atmosphere was ignited by the 100 Shiva nuclear warheads fired at it, and Viperidae exploded into a brown dwarf. When the explosion ceased, every Covenant ship, along with Preston Cole and the UNSC ''Everest'', appeared to have been obliterated.

After his apparent death, there was speculation that Admiral Cole, after destroying two whole Covenant fleets, might have made a last-minute jump into slipspace. He apparently used the crippled {{UNSCShip|Io}} as a substitute for the ''Everest'', prematurely detonated a flock of [[Archer Missile]]s in front of his ship as a decoy to prevent anyone from seeing the slipspace rupture, and then safely escaped. According to [[Codename: SURGEON]], his AIs have analyzed footage from the Battle of Psi Serpentis, and calculated that there was an 89.7% chance that Cole survived and escaped in an emergency slipspace jump. It has also been speculated that he may have found a planet to settle on with his lover, Lyra, as he always wanted to retire to be a farmer. After the battle, rumors of independent human forces successfully fighting the Covenant begin to emerge, but eventually died out. Preston Cole was remembered by humanity as a brilliant military tactician and a symbol of hope, now lost, and the day of his supposed death was designated a day of mourning. Codename: SURGEON recommended to [[Codename: USUAL SUSPECTS]] that the [[UNSC]] should try to find Cole and persuade him to fight for humanity again, considering the highly unstable and weakened state of humanity following the [[Human-Covenant War]]'s conclusion.

==Appearances==
{{Featurelist|secondcolumn=title-5|title-1=Characters|
*[[Codename: SURGEON]]
*[[Codename: USUAL SUSPECTS]] {{1st}}
*[[Cole family]]
*[[Preston Cole]]
*[[Lillian Bratton]] {{1st}}
*[[William Martin]] {{1st}}
*[[Alexander (Halo: Evolutions)|Alexander]] {{1st}}
*[[L. P. Graves]] {{1st}}
*[[Lorelei]] {{1st}}
*[[Otto Seinmann]] {{1st}}
*[[Alexis Indara]] {{1st}}
*[[W. Handford]] {{1st}}
*[[Nevel]] {{1st}}
*[[Michael Cole]] {{1st}}
*[[Mitchell Lima]] {{1st}}
*[[Frank Welker]] {{1st}}
*[[Konrad Volkov]] {{1st}}
*[[Inna Volkov]] {{1st}}
*[[Quinn Lloyd]] {{1st}}
*[[Harold Yates]] {{1st}}
*[[Harold Lewis]] {{1st}}
*[[Rinkishale]] {{1st}}
*[[Taylor]] {{1st}}
*[[Subject 386]]
*[[Jorgenson]] {{1st}}
*[[Watchmaker]] {{1st}}
*[[Maliki]] {{1st}}
*[[Betters]] {{1st}}
*[[Lyrenne Castilla]] {{1st}}
*[[Harold Stanforth]]
*[[Jack Hopper]] {{1st}}
*[[Demos]] {{1st}}
*[[Sekmet]] {{1st}}
*[[Dale Kilkin]] {{1st}}
*[[Phoenix (AI)|Phoenix]] {{1st}}
*[[Lackluster]] {{1st}}
|title-2=Species|
*[[Human]]
*[[Sangheili]]
|title-3=Organizations|
*[[Covenant]]
**[[Covenant fleet]]
**[[Covenant military]]
*[[Insurrectionist]]
*[[Unified Earth Government]]
**[[Colonial Administration Authority]]
***[[Colonial Military Authority]]
**[[Luna Confederated States]] {{1st}}
**[[United Nations Space Command]]
***[[UNSC Navy]]
****[[Battle Group India]] {{1st}}
****[[Battle Group Tango]] {{1st}}
****[[Battle Group Sierra-3]] {{1st}}
****[[Battle Group X-Ray]]
****[[Board of Inquiry]] {{1st}}
****[[Office of Naval Intelligence]]
|title-4=Locations|
*[[18 Scorpii system]]
*[[26 Draconis system]] {{1st}}
**[[Lawrence Space Station]] {{1st}}
**[[Levosia]] {{1st}}
*[[Alpha Aurigae system]]
**[[Capella]] {{1st}}
**[[Origami Asteroid Field]]
*[[Alpha Cephei]] {{1st}}
*[[Epsilon Indi system]]
**[[Harvest]]
*[[Groombridge 1830 system]]
*[[Lambda Aurigae system]] {{1st}}
**[[Roost]] {{1st}}
*[[Leonis Minoris system]] {{1st}}
*[[Paradise Falls]] {{Fm}}
**[[Lazy Acres]] {{Fm}}
*[[Psi Serpentis system]] {{1st}}
**[[Viperidae]] {{1st}}
*[[Sol system]]
**[[Earth]]
***[[Scandinavia]] {{Mo}}
***[[United Republic of North America]]
****[[Mark Twain]] {{1st}}
****[[Missouri Rain River School District]] {{1st}}
*****[[Wallace Fujikawa Elementary School]] {{1st}}
**[[Luna]]
***[[Mare Nubium]] {{1st}}
****[[Newton]] {{1st}}
*****[[Asimov Center]] {{1st}}
******[[Academy at Mare Nubium]]
*******[[Rutherford Science Magistrate]] {{1st}}
*****[[Shadow Perimeter 3]] {{1st}}
**[[Pluto]]
***[[Kelvin Research Station]] {{1st}}
*[[Theta Ursae Majoris system]] {{1st}}
*[[UCMB Sierra Largo]] {{Fm}}
*[[XI Boötis A system]]
|title-5=Events|
*[[Human-Covenant War]]
**[[Battle of 18 Scorpii]] {{1st}}
**[[Battle of Alpha Aurigae]] {{Mo}}
**[[Battle of Chi Ceti]] {{Mo}}
**[[Battle of Leonis Minoris]] {{1st}}
**[[Battle of Psi Serpentis]] {{1st}}
**[[Battle of the Great Bear]]
**[[Battle of Theta Ursae Majoris]] {{1st}}
**[[Engagement at Alpha Cephei]] {{1st}}
**[[First Battle of Harvest]]
**[[Harvest campaign]]
**[[Second Battle of Harvest]]
*[[Insurrection]]
**[[Callisto Incident]] {{1st}}
**[[Skirmish at Capella]] {{1st}}
**[[Skirmish at Theta Ursae Majoris]] {{1st}}
*[[Interplanetary War]] {{Mo}}
*[[Rainforest Wars]] {{Mo}}
|title-6=Vehicles|
*''[[Bellicose]]'' {{1st}}
*{{Pattern|Ket|battlecruiser}}
*[[Colony ship]]
**[[CMA Season of Plenty|CMA ''Season of Plenty'']] {{1st}}
*{{Pattern|Rasus|interdictor}}
*{{Pattern|Sinaris|heavy destroyer}}
*[[D77-TC Pelican]]
*{{Class|Halcyon|light cruiser}}
**{{UNSCShip|Constantinople}} {{1st}}
*{{Class|Marathon|heavy cruiser}}
*[[Prowler]]
**{{UNSCShip|Edge of Umbra}} {{1st}}
**{{UNSCShip|Wink of an Eye}} {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Austerlitz}} {{1st}}
*[[UNSC carrier]]
*{{UNSCShip|Campo Grande}} {{1st}}
*[[UNSC corvette]]
**{{UNSCShip|Callisto}} {{1st}}
*[[UNSC destroyer]]
**[[UNSC Agincourt (destroyer)|UNSC ''Agincourt'']] {{1st}}
**{{UNSCShip|Buenos Aires}} {{1st}}
**{{UNSCShip|Jericho}} {{1st}}
**{{UNSCShip|Las Vegas}} {{1st}}
**{{UNSCShip|Seattle}} {{1st}}
**{{UNSCShip|Thermopylae}} {{1st}}
**{{UNSCShip|Virginia Capes}} {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Excellence}} {{1st}}
*{{Class|Able|heavy destroyer}}
**{{UNSCShip|Gorgon}} {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Io}} {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Lance Held High}}
*{{UNSCShip|Lowrentz}} {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Maelstrom}} {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Midway}} {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Sacramento}}
*{{Class|Point Blank|prowler}}
**{{UNSCShip|Point of No Return}} {{Mo}}
*[[UNSC Tharsis (Harvest)|UNSC ''Tarsis'']] {{1st}}
*{{UNSCShip|Troy}} {{1st}}
*{{Class|Valiant|super-heavy cruiser}}
**{{UNSCShip|Everest}}
*{{UNSCShip|Waterloo}} {{1st}}
|title-7=Weapons|
*[[Archer missile]]
*[[Ares missile]] {{1st}}
*[[Energy projector]]
*[[Magnetic Accelerator Cannon]]
*[[M810 Helix point defense gun]] {{1st}}
*[[Plasma turret]]
*[[Point-defense gun]]
*[[Shiva-class nuclear missile]]
**[[VE-3 nuclear missile]] {{1st}}
|title-8=Technology|
*[[Active camouflage]]
*[[Artificial intelligence]]
**[[Avatar]]
**[[Smart AI]]
*[[Electromagnetic pulse]]
*[[Encryption code]]
*[[Energy shielding]]
*[[Flash cloning]]
*[[Fusion drive]]
*[[Navigation computer]]
*[[Photoreactive panel]]
*[[Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine]]
*[[Slipspace guidance beacon]] {{1st}}
*[[Texture buffer]]
*[[Umbilical]]
|title-9=Miscellaneous|
*[[NIGHTINGALE]] protocol {{1st}}
}}

==Sources==
{{Ref/Sources}}

{{Evolutions}}
[[Category:Halo: Evolutions]]