Log buoy

"Professor Anders captured. Obtained lock on her signal. Covenant ship leaving Arcadia, preparing slipspace jump. Intercepted communication... Hard coordinates obtained. Intend to follow. Serina out."

- A priority alpha message contained in the log buoy.

A log buoy is a communications buoy used to hold a ship's logs for possible later recovery.

Operational history
During the Battle for Arcadia in February 2531, the dropped a log buoy containing a long list of automatic system reports and a priority alpha message from the ship's smart AI Serina detailing the capture of Professor Ellen Anders and the Spirit of Fire's chase after the Covenant vessel containing the missing woman. Though the  was assigned to recover the buoy during the battle, Captain Terrence Hood instead chose to focus his efforts on destroying the  Radiant Perception, ultimately forcing the Roman Blue to take off without the buoy. The buoy was recovered by the Radiant Perception instead before it was wrecked on Laconia. Hood subsequently viewed himself as responsible for the Spirit of Fire's disappearance due to his failure to collect the buoy.

In January 2557, salvager Rion Forge, daughter of Sergeant John Forge who was aboard the Spirit of Fire when it disappeared, led a salvage operation on the wreck of the Roman Blue. Rion discovered the personal logs of Captain William Webb which revealed the Roman Blue's failed attempt to secure the buoy and how it had been found by the Radiant Perception. Determined to find her father's lost ship, Rion and her crew tracked down the wreckage of the Radiant Perception and retrieved the buoy. Niko was eventually able to crack its encryption which allowed Rion to view the message embedded within by Serina and the coordinates of where the Spirit of Fire had gone to. The coordinates led the Ace of Spades to the remnants of the Etran Harborage, destroyed in February 2531 by the Spirit of Fire. Crewmember Kip Silas, in reality an ONI agent, reported back to his superiors on the recovery of the log buoy and the data within.

Trivia

 * The dropping of the log buoy is teased in the opening cutscene of the Halo Wars level Anders' Signal when Serina asks if they will be leaving a note behind.

List of appearances

 * Halo Wars
 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo: Fractures
 * Into the Fire
 * Halo: Smoke and Shadow
 * Halo: Renegades