Li-008

Petty Officer Li-008 was a Spartan-II supersoldier. Even among the Spartans, he was noted for his expertise in zero-gravity combat and hand-to-hand fighting. He survived the Fall of Reach only to be killed shortly thereafter in a battle within slipspace between Covenant ships and an ad hoc singular vessel created through the fusion of the and the captured Covenant, the Ascendant Justice.

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 received 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 in orbit around Mars.

The Fall of Reach
"Danforth Whitcomb"

- Li-008

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. Frederic-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. They were successful in locating and securing Whitcomb, but Fred ordered everyone to stay in hiding because their fallback point had been overrun by Covenant forces.

Li, Anton, Grace, and Whitcomb were forced to retreat to Camp Independence for three weeks, where they secured NOVA bombs and from which they attacked the enemy repeatedly with guerrilla tactics over this span of time. They also continuously broadcast Oly Oly Oxen Free on the UNSC E-Band until the signal was picked up by Cortana and John-117 aboard the captured Covenant, the Ascendant Justice on September 23. Shortly thereafter, John-117 led a team of survivors from the Battle of Installation 04 in a dropship to find the source of the broadcast. Anton found him and led him to a cavern where both Li and Grace were manning chainguns. Grace abandoned hers and followed Anton and the Master Chief inside but Li remained to stand guard at the entrance. Whitcomb provided information about the last known location of Halsey and the rest of Red Team. She and the remaining Spartan-IIs were trapped in an underground Forerunner complex beneath Menachite Mountain. The cavernous interior was accessed via a hole the Covenant had dug. Whitcomb told Li to stay with the captured dropship operated by Petty Officer Shiela Polaski to act as a rear guard as the others were dropped off. When the entire group of humans soon found themselves surrounded and pinned down by thousands of Covenant fighters, they only managed to escape thanks to Polaski and that dropship. While making their escape up the Covenant's gravity lift that had been set up to ferry people to and from the interior of the subterranean complex, Li opened a hatch so he could crawl topside and fire an M41 SPNKR at the enemy forces accosting them. Escaping Reach with a Forerunner crystal of some sort, the group disembarked inside the Ascendant Justice, which was soon fused together with the, the , for the sake of power.

Death
"Li, you're at three o'clock."

- John-117 assigns a specific direction for Li to cover while Fred and Grace use welders to repair a breach in the Ascendant Justice's hull.

The humans fled Reach aboard the Gettysburg-Ascendant Justice but thanks to the presence of the strange crystal, they inadvertently brought surrounding Covenant ships with them into an anomalous form of slipstream space when they jumped. Several cruisers and s attempted to fire on the humans' combined ships to limited success, owing to the unpredictable way their weapons performed in this form of slipspace. A group of Sangheili that had remained hidden on the Ascendant Justice since it was captured then revealed themselves by detonating explosives and intentionally blowing a hole in its hull and damaging the ship's main power conduit. John, Li (now designated "Blue-Two"), Fred, Grace, and Anton moved to engage the Sangheili and repair the damage as well. While on the outer hull, a stray plasma bolt from an enemy ship struck Ascendant Justice, killing Li, Anton, and Shiela Polaski, who had piloted them to the breach. Following their deaths, the Master Chief listed Li and Anton as missing in action in accordance with ONI Directive 930.

Personality and traits
Li-008 was not one to sit out a fight. When Whitcomb told him to remain behind to guard the dropship during the extraction of Halsey and other Spartan-IIs from Reach a hint of bitterness could be detected in his voice for being forced to take what he then considered "soft duty". Li 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.

Trivia
"Li" is a traditional Chinese name.

List of appearances

 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Reach
 * Dr. Halsey's personal journal