Battle of Laika III

This article is based on canon information, but the article's title is conjectural and/or uses descriptions as the title, as there is currently no official name for the subject.

Previous:	Battle of Conrad's Point Battle for Sanghelios
Concurrent:	Battle of Genesis
Next:	Created uprising
Battle of Laika III
Conflict:	Post-Covenant War conflicts Created uprising Cortana Event Insurrection (post-war resurgence)
Date:	October 28, 2558
Location:	Laika III
Outcome:	Indeterminate
Details Belligerents Unified Earth Government United Nations Space Command Office of Naval Intelligence New Colonial Alliance Created FERO's group Commanders Ilsa Zane Cortana Maya Sankar† Strength Orbital Drop Shock Troopers Wiley Ilsa Zane Several NCA forces 1 Guardian Custode Maya Sankar Bostwick Mshak Moradi Black-Box's fragment Casualties None Maya Sankar†

The Battle of Laika III was a military engagement fought on October 28, 2558 between the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) and New Colonial Alliance (NCA). The engagement came at the intersection of the resurgent Insurrection of the post-war era and the more recent Cortana Events, with the battle coinciding with the awakening of a Guardian Custode beneath the planet. Ultimately the battle was one of the final Guardian Emergences prior to Cortana's declaration of the Created uprising later in the day. The timing of the Guardian ensured that neither side was able to decisively win the engagement.

Background

A Guardian crater on Queen Anne VI.

In October 2558, Laika III became the site of one of many Cortana Events; the awakening of Guardian Custodes hidden beneath the planet's surface. This was done by Cortana, who had taken control of the domain after the New Phoenix Incident the year prior and was set on using the Guardians to enforce peace across the galaxy. Throughout the weeks leaving up to the Laika Guardian's awakening, similar events had occurred on other worlds including Ursa IV, Oban, Adelaide, Queen Anne VI, and most recently Conrad's Point. The destructive and mysterious nature of these events contributed to significant unrest throughout human space, which culminated in a battle on Conrad's Point between the UNSC and NCA as both tried to secure the site of the Guardian's awakening for study.

Commander Maya Sankar, an operative for the UNSC Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), was deployed to Conrad's Point with a Smart AI companion Black-Box with the goal of infiltrating the NCA as part of her undercover guise FERO to gain intelligence on the nature of the NCA encampment. However, while on the ground, Black-Box transmitted intelligence back to ONI that the NCA detachment there was being led by Ilsa Zane. With such a high-priority target present, the UNSC elected to strike the site in an attempt to kill her, kickstarting the fighting. This broke Sankar's cover as FERO and forced her to retreat from the planet with her friend Bostwick. The UNSC strike did not kill Ilsa Zane, and enraged the turncoat ex-Spartan. Zane promptly gathered the survivors of the battle on Conrad's Point and then began to pursue the two.

Commander Sankar, now distrustful of ONI for her near-death in the UNSC strike, retreated to a safehouse run by Mshak Moradi while she worked out what to do next. This resulted in ONI growing suspicious of her own allegiances and deployed a special operations team to capture and bring her to Midnight Facility. After escaping the ONI team and a brief detour aboard a pirate ship, the group were able to discern the suspect location of the next Guardian awakening by analysing readings taken from a data chip given to Sankar by another ONI infiltrator in the NCA who had died on Conrad's Point. Black-Box analysed the data from the chip and found a pattern of gravitational and electromagnetic anomalies on each of the affected worlds prior to their G