Li-008

Petty Officer Li-008 was a Spartan-II supersoldier.

Early life
"You have been called upon to serve. You will be trained . . . and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies."

- Dr. Catherine Halsey to the abducted child conscripts.

Li was a genetically, intellectually, and physically gifted child chosen for the SPARTAN-II project. He was abducted by the Office of Naval Intelligence and replaced with a flash clone when he was around six years old. He and seventy-four other children were taken to Reach in the Epsilon Eridani system. There, he was trained by the "dumb" AI, Déjà and Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, with the two serving as the Spartans' teacher and drill instructor, respectively. In 2519, he was taken alongside his fellow trainees to a Military Wilderness Training Preserve for a mission that required each trainee to be left alone in the woods with a only a single piece of a map. It was up to them to find one another so that they could piece the map together and locate the designated extraction point. The mission was ultimately a success. At another point during training, Li and the others traveled to Emerald Cove for an underwater mission. There, they abandoned Mendez and lived on their own on an island for a few days. By July 14, 2523, Li and his fellow Spartan-IIs had begun facing the formidable and ruthless UNSC Marine Corps' Tango Company in simulated war games. On March 9, 2525, Li and the rest of the Spartan-II candidates underwent their augmentation procedures at Medical Facility Endurance orbiting Reach. After successfully enduring the procedures, Li later attended a military funeral aboard the carrier, the, in the Lambda Serpentis system for the Spartans who died during the process. Afterwards, they all returned to Reach for their final training phase in the Highland Mountains.

After the Covenant attack on Harvest and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, Li and the rest of the Spartan-IIs were brought to the Reach FLEETCOM Military Complex, where Rear Admiral Michael Stanforth and the AI, Beowulf, briefed them on the emerging Covenant threat. In response, the training of Li and the rest of the Spartan-IIs was accelerated, and the Spartans were sent to Chi Ceti IV in the Chi Ceti system to receive their new MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor from the Damascus Materials Testing Facility in order to aid in combat against the alien threat. While en route to Chi Ceti IV aboard the, the , they were attacked by the Covenant warship, Unrelenting. The Commonwealth was able to ward off the Unrelenting and the Spartans were deployed to Chi Ceti IV with Halsey, where they each recieved a set of armor. While the Spartans were returning to the Commonwealth, the Unrelenting returned and engaged the frigate. To provide aid to the Commonwealth, John had Li and the other Spartan-IIs use thruster packs to embark towards the Unrelenting so that they could destroy the warship with Anvil-II AS missiles, though only John, Kelly, and Sam made it aboard. At some point, Li trained extensively with microgravity equipment and in martial arts at the UNSC's extreme-conditions facility on Chiron inorbit around Mars.

The Fall of Reach
On August 27, 2552 Li and twenty-four other Spartan-IIs were gathered at FLEETCOM HQ on Reach, where they were brief on Operation: RED FLAG, an ONI operation with the objective of capturing a Covenant Hierarch. On August 30, Li boarded the with the others in preparation for RED FLAG. However, the mission was aborted when an order went out to all ships to defend Reach from the a massive Covenant assault that was underway at the planet. Li was one of twenty-two of the Spartans assigned to Red Team, which was sent to land on the ground and protect the power generators for Reach's orbital defense platforms. As Red Team's Pelican—Bravo 001—descended to the surface of the planet, the dropship was attacked by Seraphs and dove uncontrollably towards the ground. Fred-104 ordered Red Team to jump from the Pelican, which exploded shortly after. After regrouping and eliminating several small Covenant patrols, the Spartans traveled to Orbital Defense Generator Facility A-331, where they met with the four survivors of the nearly destroyed Charlie Company. While Red Team was building up defenses at the facility, the Spartans received a distress call from Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. Fred then divided the eighteen members of Red Team still living into four teams. Li was placed on Team Gamma with Grace-093 and Anton-044, who was given the lead. Gamma Team was tasked with rescuing Whitcomb and his staff.

The group was successful in rescuing Vice Admiral Whitcomb, but Fred-104 ordered everyone to stay in hiding because their fallback point had been overrun by Covenant forces.

Li, Anton, Grace, and Vice Admiral Whitcomb were forced to retreat to Camp Independence for three weeks, where they attacked the enemy repeatedly with guerrilla tactics. They also broadcast the Oly Oly Oxen Free code on the UNSC E-Band until the signal was picked up by Cortana and John-117 aboard the captured Covenant carrier Ascendant Justice. Shortly thereafter, John-117 took a team of survivors from the Battle of Installation 04 in a Spirit dropship to rescue them. On Whitcomb's order, Li then joined the team to rescue Dr. Catherine Halsey and the remaining Spartan-IIs who were trapped in an underground Forerunner complex.

The group then followed the Covenant to the subterranean remains of CASTLE Base. Vice Admiral Whitcomb ordered Li-008 to stay behind on the dropship and protect pilot Shiela Polaski and to provide covering fire in case they were ambushed by enemy forces. Meanwhile, the rest of the group saved Fred-104's team, Dr. Halsey, and a Forerunner slipspace crystal from an enormous Covenant strike force. All of them returned to the Ascendant Justice (which had been docked with the frigate ) and tried to initiate a slipspace jump.

Death
The crystal artifact warped local slipspace, creating a space-time bubble in which Ascendant Justice and all pursuing Covenant ships became trapped. During the ensuing battle, some of Ascendant Justice's surviving crew sabotaged part of the ship's main power conduit, forcing Li, John, Fred, Anton, Grace, and Will-043 to go out onto the outer hull of the ship and repair the conduit.

While they were repairing the conduit, a stray plasma bolt from an enemy ship moved toward the piggybacked vessels. Li opened fire a group of approaching Sangheili whose position had been revealed by the light emitted by the bolt. The bolt then struck Ascendant Justice, causing Li, Anton, and Polaski to disappear in a bright light. John later listed Li and Anton as missing in action in accordance with ONI Directive 930.

Personality and traits
He was a zero-gravity combat specialist and one of the Spartans' best martial artists. John-117 felt that Li was as much at home in free fall as the rest of the Spartans were on solid ground.

List of appearances

 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Reach
 * Dr. Halsey's personal journal