Spike

This article contains information about the Silver Timeline, and is not a part of the established Halo canon.

James Ackerson: "Parangosky lied about the Spike. It doesn't do what we told them."

John-117: "Let's go."

James Ackerson: "It's not an override. The virus compresses the ship's fusion drive, creating a reaction powerful enough to incinerate everything within a million miles."

Kai-125: "Wait, what?"

James Ackerson: "Their fleet. Our fleet. Perhaps even the Halo itself."

— Ackerson reveals the Spike's true nature to the Master Chief and Kai.

The Spike was a device created by the UNSC to deliver a virus to a Covenant and cause a cataclysmic explosion.

History

Simulations

"One mission. Infiltrate the ship. Deliver the Spike. The bridge is the nerve center. It's protected on the outside, not on the inside. Not from this. Our intel indicates that their system is vulnerable to override. This Spike delivers a virus. Full system shutdown. Lights out. Like a bullet to the brain."

— Kai describes the plan to the Spartans.

Under the guidance of Kai-125, the Spartan-IIIs engaged in numerous simulations where they attempted and failed to deploy the Spike on a Ceudar-pattern heavy corvette. Finally, under the leadership of Talia Perez, Javelin Team successfully deployed the Spike and escaped with no further enemy contact.

The truth uncovered

However, the fact that once the Spike was delivered the Spartans had no more enemy contact made both Perez and Kai suspect that something wasn't right. After John-117 told her that ONI had abandoned Reach to the Covenant, Kai ran the simulation herself before being stopped by James Ackerson. Kai questioned Ackerson about the Spike, pointing out how impossibly unlikely it was that the team would encounter no resistance trying to escape from a Covenant ship and accused Ackerson of manipulating the simulation to hide the truth, letting the Spartans win. Ackerson defended that the simulation didn't reflect reality but rather conditioned soldiers. Ackerson designed it to be difficult, but to give the Spartans hope in the moment when death seemed like the only outcome. Unconvinced, Kai changed the simulation from the Spike delivery to the Fall of Reach to demand answers about that.

Later, Ackerson had the computer run expanded simulations on the effects of the Spike, revealing that the virus wasn't an override but rather compressed the ship's fusion drive, creating an explosion powerful enough to destroy a star system. Confronted by John and Kai, Ackerson revealed the truth to them, having realized that Admiral Parangosky intended to sacrifice as many Spartans as it took to deploy the Spike and destroy the First Fleet of Solemn Accord and Installation 04.

Battle of Installation 04

Main article: Battle of Installation 04/Silver

"Parangosky's throwing Spartan-IIIs at the Covenant fleet in swarms because she doesn't need all of them to make it. She just needs one. One team. One Spike. One ship. The Spartans are Parangosky's insurance policy. Her failsafe. If we lose this battle against the Covenant, we won't get the Halo. But with Parangosky's Spike, neither will they."

— James Ackerson

After detecting the arrival of the Covenant First Fleet of Solemn Accord in the Soell system where Installation 04 was located, Admiral Parangosky dispatched a large UNSC fleet led by Vice Admiral Michael Stanforth to confront them while sending swarms of Assassin Condors with teams of Spartan-IIs to deploy the Spike. Having learned the truth from Ackerson, Kai chose to join the Spartans while John took Condor 325 to the Halo ring to stop Makee.

Under heavy attack, Kai, Perez and some of the Spartans managed to make it to the bridge of a Ceudar-pattern heavy corvette with the Spike. However, before Kai could deploy it, John came to their rescue and took out the Covenant forces outside of the bridge. As the other Spartans exfiltrated, Kai stayed on the corvette but, instead of using the Spike, rammed the ship into the Syfon-pattern assault carrier acting as the Covenant flagship, destroying it and allowing the UNSC to win the space battle.

List of appearances

• Halo: The Television Series Season Two
  • Onyx (First appearance)
  • Thermopylae
  • Halo