James-005

This article is about the SPARTAN-II. To see other characters with the same name, see James.

Petty Officer James-005 was a SPARTAN-II supersoldier. He participated in numerous battles during the Human-Covenant War as part of Blue Team. During the Fall of Reach in August 2552, he was presumably killed during an EVA mission after his thruster pack was struck by needles from a Type-33 needler and he was sent spinning away into the vacuum of space.

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.

James 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. After everyone met up with one another, James, Fhajad-084, and Linda-058 were chosen by Samuel-034 to scout the area with at the behest of John-117. The mission was ultimately a success. At another point during training, James 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, James and his fellow Spartan-IIs had begun facing the formidable and ruthless UNSC Marine Corps' Tango Company in simulated war games. At some point prior to that date, members of Tango Company brutally beat James during such an exercise and then claimed he had simply fallen down a flight of stairs in a one-story jail while they were escorting him from one cell to another. It took him an entire week to recover, but the abuse did not break him mentally. On March 9, 2525, James and the rest of the Spartan-II candidates underwent their augmentation procedures at Medical Facility Endurance orbiting Reach. After successfully enduring the procedures, James 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.

Covenant War
"Welcome mat is laid out, Chief. Ready when you are."

- James-005 during the Battle of Jericho VII.

After the Covenant attack on Harvest and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, James 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 James 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 James 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.

From February 9 to February 12 in 2535, James, as the fourth member of Blue Team, fought the Covenant on Jericho VII alongside Red Team and Green Team. The three days of combat were effectively a stalemate. Blue Team's objective was to draw out the Covenant's rear guard so that Red Team could slip behind its lines and plant a HAVOK tactical nuke in hope of destroying the next Covenant ship that landed and deactivated its energy shielding. These few Spartans of Blue Team were able to kill hundreds of Unggoy, destroy Shade turrets with little difficulty, and neutralize Banshee air support by using fougasses they planted. During the engagement James took responsibility for detonating Lotus anti-tank mines that killed many Unggoy. The UNSC lost control of the space around Jericho VII, but Captain De Blanc of the was able to evacuate the Spartans before the enemy fleet began glassing the planet.

Sigma Octanus IV
"Point to team leader: enemy contact. Enemy troops within one hundred meters of my position, ten degrees left."

- James to John during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV.

On July 17, 2552, James and eleven other Spartan-IIs arrived at the human colony of Sigma Octanus IV in the Sigma Octanus system with Vice Admiral Stanforth's Battle Group Leviathan to aid UNSC forces in the ongoing battle on and over the planet. Deployed to the remains of Alpha Headquarters to assist the local marine forces as part of Operation: OCEAN BREAKER, James was assigned to Blue Team—along with Kelly-087 and Frederic-104—as "Blue-Four" under the command of John-117; James was given control of the unit's extra COM equipment. After meeting with the surviving marines at Alpha Headquarters, Blue Team departed for the city of Côte d'Azur to investigate unusual Covenant activity and to destroy the city with a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon, provided no civilians remained. The Spartans traveled through a jungle in a slightly staggered single-file line to reach the city, with James in the lead. Every hundred yards, James signaled the group to halt while he methodically surveyed the area for any sign of the enemy. As the team's scout, when a patrol of ten Unggoy was sighted James concealed himself at the bottom of a hill and indicated to the rest when it was okay to strike after the rear guard had passed by. When Blue Team finally arrived at Côte d'Azur, the Spartans began scouting Covenant movements throughout the city while Red Team and Green Team escorted the city's surviving population to safety. As the other Spartans left the city with the civilians, Blue Team infiltrated the Covenant-held Côte d'Azur Museum of Natural History to investigate unusual Covenant activity. Within an accessway that led underneath the museum, James attached a ground-return transceiver to pipes overhead to establish contact with Green Team.

Within the museum, Blue Team discovered that the Covenant were scanning what appeared to be a simple piece of igneous rock and sending the information to a ship in orbit. James and his compatriots quietly eliminated nearby Kig-Yar patrols inside the museum but then encountered a pair of Mgalekgolo. The Spartans engaged the creatures but James had his left arm burnt away from the elbow down after being hit with a blast from one's assault cannon. Upon John's orders, Blue Team switched to shredder rounds and fired at the floor beneath the massive aliens. The Spartans managed to make the floor collapse under the Mgalekgolo, causing them to fall into the museum's basement. To finish off the pair, Fred, Kelly, John, and the wounded James pushed a large quartz monolith into the pit, trapping the Mgalekgolo but not killing them. Recovering the rock that the Covenant were scanning, Blue Team left the museum and escaped the city by traveling through Côte d'Azur's sewer systems. John helped James make the trip and even carried him after he had collapsed twice and finally slipped into unconsciousness. Upon rendezvousing with the rest of the Spartans and surviving marines, Linda had her team carry him aboard a Pelican. Before they could take off, James regained consciousness and use his remaining hand to salute John, who directed Kelly to administer an analgesic that knocked him out once more. They all returned to Stanforth's, the , in the planet's orbit. As the battle drew to an end, Battle Group Leviathan returned to Reach in the Epsilon Eridani system for repairs with the Spartan-IIs aboard.

The Fall of Reach
"Can—control—They’ve—everywhere—"

- The last recorded words of James-005, punctuated with static as he drifted away.

On August 27, 2552 James and twenty-four other Spartan-IIs were gathered at FLEETCOM HQ on Reach, where they were briefed on Operation: RED FLAG, an ONI operation with the objective of capturing a Covenant Hierarch. On August 30, James 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. James and Fred were ordered by John to refit a D77-TC Pelican by attaching a shaped charge of C-12 to its nose so it could potentially be used to blast into a Covenant vessel that had its shields knocked out. Following this, James was selected by John to come with he and Linda on a mission to sabotage the navigation data on the, a small ONI prowler docked aboard Gamma Station. Covenant intrusion software had detected the unsecured database aboard the prowler and three Covenant frigates were en route to take control of it. The three Spartans, designated Blue Team, took the refitted Pelican and crashed it into Gamma Station. As "Blue-Two", James was ordered to police the undetonated explosives as Sangheili and Kig-Yar rangers were deployed from the frigates near their position. James had almost freed the C-12 rigged to the Pelican's nose when a shower of blamite needles from a Type-33 needler struck him and the tank of his thruster pack. One the needles that penetrated the tank exploded and the explosion of exhaust from the pack sent James tumbling away from Gamma Station without any means to control his erratic trajectory. After John returned to the Pillar of Autumn he asked Lieutenant Hall to scan for FOF tags in the region to no avail.

Personality and traits
"I’m good, sir."

- James calmly assures John-117 he's okay after they and Linda crashed into Gamma Station.

James-005 was known for his calm demeanor and persistence under trying circumstances. He remained mentally fit following the beating he received as a preteen and when he lost his arm he did not even whimper. He was known as someone who never gave up. During missions, James had an instinct for walking point. John-117, reflecting on his fellow Spartan-IIs following the destruction of Reach, thought of James as someone who had made a difference in his life.

During the end of the war, James wore an EOD variant of green Mark IV Mjolnir. After losing his left forearm, he was promptly provided with a replacement.

Trivia

 * In Halo 3: ODST a license plate on a HuCiv Genet reads "KPD 005J".

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo: Fall of Reach
 * Covenant
 * Invasion
 * Halo: The Television Series
 * Unbound