Operation: COALPEPPER
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- "The Talitsa incident served as a warning for the UNSC, who were forced to acknowledge the risks involved in the recruitment of the new Spartans, even those who had loyally served the UNSC for years."
- — Curator on the mission[3]
Operation: COALPEPPER[4] (or the Talitsa incident[5]) was a military operation conducted by the United Nations Space Command (UNSC) Spartan Operations division in the early postwar era, in August 2555. The mission involved the deployment of SPARTAN-IVs against insurrectionists of the United Rebel Front (URF) for the recovery of several high-value-targets (HVTs) who had been captured by the URF. These included a Huragok, Quick to Adjust, and his human handler Sadie Endesha.[1]
Background[edit]
The moon of Talitsa had a long history of insurrectionist sentiment dating back to the 2490s, with portions of the planet outside of heavily-fortified cities considered to be effectively "ungovernable".[6] The world was ultimately spared the destruction of the Human-Covenant War, though emerged from the conflict as an independent entity with no Unified Earth Government (UEG) presence on the planet.[7] This caused the world to become a hotbed of insurrectionist activity, especially that of the re-emerging URF.
The anarchic moon became the target of multiple Office of Naval Intelligence R&D and special operations deployments, with ONI using the URF as a proving grounds for MJOLNIR armor.[1] These included the development of the GEN2 WETWORK-class Mjolnir armor, and its use by Delta-Six operatives in key strike and assassination missions.[8][9] Quick to Adjust and Sadie Endesha were both involved in some of these tests under ONI guidance, though were ultimately captured by the URF and taken to one of their military bases on the planet. Due to their past experiences with the Huragok, Captain Veronica Dare of ONI Section One selected Alpha-Nine; a fireteam of SPARTAN-IVs consisting of Edward Buck, Kojo "Romeo" Agu, and Michael "Mickey" Crespo, for the mission to Talitsa to rescue the two. Alpha-Nine were selected due to their preexisting familiarity with Quick to Adjust thanks to their previous experiences with him during the 2552 Covenant invasion of New Mombasa.[1]
The mission[edit]
On the way to the base Alpha-Nine was surrounded and forced to surrender by a large number of insurgents; it was revealed that Crespo had betrayed the team and revealed their mission to the URF. As the rebels, led by Doctor Schein, led Buck and Romeo back to their base, the latter began to insult Mickey and Schein. In response, Mickey attacked and inadvertently pushed Romeo down a hill. While the URF soldiers chased after him, Buck used the opportunity to attack Mickey and succeeded in moving the fight just out of sight of Schein, and Romeo and his pursuers. Romeo learned of Buck's situation and began to massacre the rebels. As their brawl continued, Buck eventually managed to knock Mickey unconscious with a headbutt. However, Buck was shot in the back by Schein. The doctor held him at gunpoint and attempted to use him to force Romeo to surrender, but while Schein was distracted, Buck threw his helmet at Schein's chest and knocked him to the ground. Buck grabbed Schein's rifle and smashed the shoulder stock against his face, killing him.[2]
Taking Schein's rifle, Buck waited for Mickey to regain consciousness and watched as Romeo eliminated the rebels. After eliminating the rebels nearby, Romeo moved on to rescue Quick to Adjust and Sadie Endesha. When Mickey awoke, he asked Buck to kill him. However, Buck opted not to and the two sat down together until a dropship arrived to extract them.[2]
Aftermath[edit]
- "We can't just send Spartans to an ordinary prison, you understand."
- — Leonidas on Mickey's imprisonment at the Spartan training station.[10]
Mickey's turncoat nature was cause for an activation of the STOLEN GAUNTLET protocol.[10] Alpha-Nine returned the traitor Mickey to Spartan Operations' Chief of Staff Jun-A266 rather than the ONI operatives assigned to take him, as they believed he was still a Spartan and should be dealt with within Spartan Operations.[11] Rather than a regular prison, Mickey spent the next three years housed in a specially-built cell inside of the SPARTAN-IV training station where the team had originally trained in their earlier careeers, as his augmented strength meant that no regular prison was fit to contain him.[10] Buck and Romeo were both debriefed in light of the issues regarding conflicting loyalties and emotions among the soldiers of the SPARTAN-IV program. Buck later told his life story to ONI archivists, beginning with his early life to his career as a SPARTAN-IV supersoldier.[5]
The incident left Alpha-Nine with a staff of just two Spartans - Buck and Romeo. Romeo's "disgusting" and "cocky" nature, without Mickey's more serious and humble demeanour, served to make Buck more bitter and resentful, and the resulting fallout between the two remaining Spartans resulted in the two being reassigned to other teams.[12] As part of his reassignment, Buck requested that he be assigned as a member of a new team rather than its leader[11] - by October 2558 he was assigned as one of the four Spartans of the newly-formed Fireteam Osiris aboard UNSC Infinity while Romeo was reassigned to the Unggoy homeworld of Balaho.[12] However, this reassignment was relatively brief, as the events of the Created uprising ultimately forced Alpha-Nine's reactivation in late 2558 for a mission to Cassidy III.
The near-loss of a valuable Huragok specialist also forced ONI to stop deploying Quick to Adjust and Sadie Endesha in field operations. The duo were reassigned to a facility on Luna much closer to Earth, with the Huragok assigned to work with a number of other Huragok as part of a "think tank" of hyper-specialists which scientists could book time to use for their projects. This allowed ONI to keep them much more secure from Insurrectionist (or any other) threat.[13]
List of appearances[edit]
- Halo: New Blood (First appearance)
- Halo 5: Guardians
- Limited Edition dossiers (Mentioned only)
- Halo Mythos
- Halo: Bad Blood (Mentioned only)
Sources[edit]
- ^ a b c d Halo: New Blood, chapter 1
- ^ a b c Halo: New Blood, chapter 17
- ^ Halo Mythos, page 157
- ^ Halo 5: Guardians Limited Edition, Dossier files - Edward Buck
- ^ a b Halo: New Blood, Archivist's Note
- ^ Halo Waypoint, Talitsa (Retrieved on Nov 27, 2015) [archive]
- ^ Halo Encyclopedia (2022 edition), page 47
- ^ Halo 4, Spartan Armor Customization: Wetwork Description "Experienced widespread use during the classified raids against rebels on Talitsa."
- ^ Halo Waypoint, Halo 4 Interactive Guide - Armor Types: Wetwork (Retrieved on May 1, 2013) [local archive] [external archive]
- ^ a b c Halo: Bad Blood, chapter 8
- ^ a b Halo: New Blood, chapter 18
- ^ a b Halo: Bad Blood, chapter 3
- ^ Halo: Bad Blood, chapter 5
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