Operation: TALON
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- "Your mission is to infiltrate the rebel base, capture Watts, and return him—alive and unharmed—to UNSC-controlled space. This will deprive the rebels of their new leadership. And it will provide ONI a chance to interrogate Watts and root out traitors within FLEETCOM."
- — Doctor Catherine Halsey[4]
Operation: TALON was an operation of the United Nations Space Command to capture Colonel Robert Watts from the United Rebel Front's Eridanus Secundus, a hidden asteroid facility in the Eridanus system's asteroid belt.[5][6] The mission was explicitly created to capture Watts and was undertaken by Blue Team, and would be the first operation in which the Spartan-IIs participated. Executed in September of 2525, the operation proved to be a great success, for Blue Team infiltrated the heavily fortified Eridanus Secundus and captured Watts, with minimal complications and injuries.[2][1]
Prelude[edit]
The leader of the United Rebel Front[edit]
- "In 2513, an armed insurrection in this system was suppressed by the UNSC force—Operation: TREBUCHET. The insurrection was put down. However, elements of the rebel forces escaped and regrouped in the local asteroid belt."
- — Doctor Catherine Halsey[4]
Colonel Robert Watts was once a decorated and highly regarded commander of the UNSC Marine Corps. However, as the Insurrection began in the Outer Colonies, Watts began disillusioned with the United Nations Space Command and joined the emerging insurrectionist factions.[5] In 2495, Watts led a takeover of the Outer Colony of Eridanus II in the Eridanus system from the Eridanus Government and Unified Earth Government. The UNSC responded harshly in 2496 through Operation: CHARLEMAGNE, in which a battle group of warships eliminated most of Watts' forces and retook Eridanus II.[7]
Eventually, Watts realigned the surviving insurgent factions in the Outer Colonies and took command of them. These forces eventually unified under the United Rebel Front. Watts and the URF continued to prove a threat to the UNSC as the insurgent colonel waged many battles against the UNSC and Colonial Military Authority on a number of worlds throughout the Insurrection.[3][5] Watts and the United Rebel Front eventually re-accumulated enough strength to attempt to overthrow the Eridanus Government once again, as Watts hoped to use Eridanus II as a base of operations for the URF and drag the CMA into a costly guerrilla war.[5] In 2513, Watts initiated another armed uprising on Eridanus II. Having anticipated the attack, the UNSC engaged United Rebel Front forces as part of Operation: TREBUCHET. A UNSC fleet of carriers, cruisers, and destroyers attacked Watts' own fleet of roughly one hundred smaller spaceships, while ground engagements waged across Eridanus II's surface.[4] Ultimately, the United Rebel Front's forces were routed and defeated by the UNSC before they could properly establish a presence on Eridanus II.[5] Watts called for the exodus of URF forces from the planet and the faction eventually fled Eridanus II through slipstream space.[8]
The United Rebel Front regrouped and eventually constructed a stronghold within Eridanus Secundus, a hollowed-out asteroid located in the Eridanus system's largest asteroid belt.[5] While the URF worked to regain their former strength yet again, the faction resorted to piracy throughout the system.[9] Efforts to locate the URF were met with either a lack of results or with an ambush by superior URF forces.[4]
The first test[edit]
- "We're taking them on a mission ONI has been saving for the right crew and the right time. This is it."
- — Doct