Parisa

Lieutenant Parisa is a Company Grade officer of the UNSC Marine Corps who served during the Human-Covenant War. She was a childhood friend of the future SPARTAN-II and Master Chief Petty Officer, John-117.

Childhood
Even into her adult life, Parisa kept with her a picture of herself and John on a beach at Lake Gusev on their homeworld of Eridanus II; taken some two weeks before John was abducted into the SPARTAN-II program, as a lucky charm. She believed, like many others, that John had died not very long after the picture was taken. In fact, he was replaced with a flash clone to hide his disappearance, said clone dying soon after.

She had stated that after John saved her life from walking out into the lake too far, he promised to marry her and keep her safe. Years later she said that although it was silly and John was "dead", she intended to hold him to that promise.

Battle of Mombasa
During the Battle of Mombasa in October 2552, she was in command of First Platoon of Kilo Company, part of E2-BAG/1/7. She was coordinating the city's defense effort in a command post in a hotel next to Beria Plaza when John-117 arrived to the command post with a squad of Marines to assess the situation.

At the time, Parisa was holding the picture of herself and John as children. Just as John was about to tell the lieutenant to not bring personal items to a combat zone, he recognized the picture. Parisa, obviously not recognizing John because of his armor, explained the story behind the picture to him. Despite the sudden flood of memories, John couldn't bring himself to reveal who he was, knowing that doing so would be detrimental to his own morale and the morale of their soldiers, as well as being a massive security breach for ONI. Instead he maintained his stoic façade and the two of them began planning a counterattack to the Covenant.

Operation: HOURGLASS
At some point in 2557, Parisa was recruited by the Office of Naval Intelligence. At a prior point, Parisa suffered an injury that left her with a unique memory loss condition; she would lose all short-term memory after 7 hours, however she holds a perfect memory prior to this cutoff. This allows her to perfectly memorize encryption keys; a skill she would use on her mission to deliver a key to the Master Chief.

During the Created conflict, in late 2559, Parisa awoke on an ONI ship, with no memory of her location or orders, or of her previous encounter with John. She was guided by a young officer named Mateus to a classified briefing, where her orders were explained by a prior hologram recording of herself.

To deliver the encryption key, Parisa was to use a shuttle to depart from the prowler, before the jumped away via slipspace. Shortly after departing, Parisa ordered her shuttle's AI, Oliver, to search for first-hand accounts of the Master Chief. Following a read account, Parisa requests for her own UNSC file to be read, however she is informed none exists.

During her voyage, her shuttle began leaking an anti-freezing chemical, requiring Parisa to physically clear frost from an aft-control configuration using a screwdriver. As she cleared ice, a first-hand account from Carol Rawley, Foehammer, during her support of the Master Chief during the Battle of Installation 04.

Once Parisa had cleared the aft-control, the leaked chemicals posed a risk to being detected by nearby ships. An enemy fleet was detected, and Parisa responded by ordering Oliver to fake a collision course with a nearby gas giant - tricking the enemy into believing her shuttle was space debris. During her maneuver, Parisa experienced a memory of her past, consisting of birdsong and distant laughter, a stream, the moon and wind, from Eridanus II. She returned her attention to her spin after losing focus.

As Parisa focused on her memory, Oliver queued a third Master Chief account, recorded by Chips Dubbo, praising the Chiefs loyalty. On searching for the earliest recollections of the Chief, Oliver uncovered an classified listing of Eridanus II, their shared planet of origin. A further account by Franklin Mendez was played briefly, before Parisa questioned Oliver on who Doctor Catherine Halsey is, and why Mendez held "reservations".

Following Mendez's account, Parisa requested more information on him, but was told that information was classified. This prompted Parisa to dig deeper into her own records, finding that she had been lied to about this being her fifth mission; it was in fact her fifty-third. On learning this, Parisa aborted the mission in anger.

After waiting 30 minutes, Parisa asked Oliver why ONI wasn't communicating with her to resume her orders, remarking how she wanted to see the official who recruited her. Oliver then informed her that she had in fact volunteered her service. On pondering which version of her would be court-martialed for her insubordination, she jokingly asked for reports of the Master Chief being court-martialed, prompting an account of Colum McGinnis during the Flood Infestation in Voi. Inspired by Colum's speech, Parisa resumed her mission to deliver the encryption keys to the Master Chief. Shortly after resuming course, Parisa fell asleep, waking to be boarded by the Master Chief. On awaking, she lost her memory of all events up to now, including the encryption key.

Confused and unable to recall anything, Parisa was inspired by the Chief to fight against an approaching Phaeton squadron. Taking random evasive maneuvers, Chief engaged Promethean soldiers that translocated onboard. Parisa detonated the leaking chemicals by timing a thruster as the enemies entered their gas trail, destroying three and setting the ship into an uncontrollable spin. During this, Parisa fell unconscious and recalled her previous memory of Eridanus II.

It was then discovered that when carving ice from the aft-control panel, Parisa used a simple primitive knock code cypher to mark a clue to her encryption key. This allowed for John to obtain the needed information, ordering Oliver to set a course for his nearby Pelican. Before departing, Chief praised Parisa's ingenuity, and agreeing with her sentiment on Eridanus II's beauty, referring to her as Lieutenant Parisa. Parisa then referred to John by name as well. Parisa was then communicated with by ONI, ordered onto another mission, with her name unlocking additional UNSC reports for her. Parisa set course, and queued her files to be read out, with a focus on Eridanus II.

Canon status
Palace Hotel is of debatable canonicity because it greatly contradicts the events, characters, and locations shown in the Halo 2 level Metropolis, on which the story is based. Parisa's unit from the short story (Kilo Company, E2-BAG/1/7) corresponds to A Company from Metropolis. In-game dialog suggests that A Company's lieutenant, which would be Parisa, was put out of action before the Spartan's arrival.

Parisa's canonical status was later confirmed in the 2021 audio drama Halo Infinite: Memory Agent, in which Parisa features as the protagonist of the story. Throughout the short, Parisa is never referred to by name and slowly uncovers memories of Eridanus II - though whether she had been friends with John-117 is left ambiguous.

Production notes
In Halo Infinite: Memory Agent, Parisa was portrayed by voice actress Zehra Fazal, who also lent her voice to the Spartan Vedrana Makovich in Halo Infinite and Spartan Voiceprint 16T3 in its multiplayer.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Palace Hotel
 * Halo Infinite: Memory Agent