Hector Nyeto

"If General Nyeto had been afraid to fight when he faced the same odds, Gao wouldn't be a free world today."

- Minister Arlo Casille

Hector Nyeto was a human politician and general on the Outer Colony of Gao, notably serving as a President of the Gao Republic. A hero of the Insurrection, Nyeto served as a lieutenant commander in the Office of Naval Intelligence's Prowler Corps, before defecting to aid his homeworld in rebelling against the Unified Earth Government.

Insurrectionist spy
At some point during the Insurrection, Hector Nyeto enlisted in the UNSC Navy. Early in his career, Nyeto served in a number of missions with Robert Watts. It was theorized that either Watts or Nyeto radicalized the other to fight on the side of the insurrectionists instead. By 2526, Hector Nyeto was a lieutenant commander in the Office of Naval Intelligence's Prowler Corps, and held command of a unit of four s called Ghost Flight. Over the estimated course of years or even decades, Nyeto quietly replaced the crewmen of all four ships with insurrectionist personnel.

Sabotaging the Spartans
At least one of Nyeto's prowlers was present during the SPARTAN-IIs' daring mission on March 5, 2526 to board and capture a Covenant frigate as it orbited Netherop. After the Spartans stealthily infiltrated the vessel and made their way to the bridge, one of Nyeto's sensor operators deliberately transmitted over an open communications channel in an effort to kill the Spartans by alerting the Covenant crew, playing it off as an accident. With their cover blown, John-117's Spartans had a much harder time capturing the frigate. When John made it to the bridge, the vessel's shipmaster had already prepared a self-destruct sequence. Despite the Spartan's best efforts, the sequence was activated, forcing him and his compatriots to abandon ship. Although the frigate was destroyed, each of the Spartans were able to escape safely.

SILENT STORM
A few days later, Lieutenant Commander Nyeto and his flight were assigned to Task Force Yama—a splinter group of Battle Group X-Ray—for the duration of Operation: SILENT STORM, a daring UNSC operation that would see the SPARTAN-IIs and the ODSTs of the 21st Space Assault Battalion boarding Covenant vessels to destroy them from the inside using nuclear weapons. The hope was that this would slow down the Covenant's advance enough that the UNSC would have time to formulate an effective defensive strategy. Upon learning that Dr. Catherine Halsey, mastermind of the SPARTAN-II program, would be assigned to the unit, Nyeto or one of his subordinates outfitted her temporary lab on the with hidden surveillance equipment and software, in an effort to learn crucial information about her supersoldiers. Ghost Flight and the rest of Task Force Yama soon left for the Kolaqoa system and Biko, which was theorized to be the Covenant's next target. An ice quarry on Seoba, one of Biko's three moons, was selected as the staging point for the UNSC's operation there.

Battle of Seoba
Arriving in the Kolaqoa system, Task Force Yama approached Seoba, and Colonel Marmon Crowther of the Black Daggers—the nickname for the 21st Space Assault Battalion—decided that it would be a great time to practice the mass deployment of the Spartans and his ODSTs. However, it was soon discovered that insurgent forces were occupying the quarry. Operation: ICE DANCE was no longer a drill. As the battle began, Nyeto's flagship, the, was assigned to drop off First Platoon from the Black Daggers' Alpha Company, along with John-117, above the ice quarry. Prior to their deployment, the lieutenant commander confronted John and pulled him into a secluded passageway next to the troop bay. Nyeto apologized to John for the "mistake" made by one of his sensor operators during the Spartans' raid on the Radiant Arrow. Then, he furtively steered their conversation toward a rumor he had apparently heard from an associate that the Spartans were trained as children on Reach, and that they were still only in their mid-teens. Although John denied this, his defensiveness only confirmed that Nyeto's information was accurate. Soon after, he ordered his ship to begin the insertion run and launch a missile strike on the insurrectionist relay station when the Ghost Song was fired upon by rebel anti-aircraft bunkers. The missiles damaged but ultimately missed a direct hit on the transmitter, which left it open to be repaired. He ordered his flight to abort the drop, but after John exited the prowler and took out all the hostile emplacements, he was forced to continue with the deployment. His flagship and the other prowlers in Ghost Flight delivered the remnants of Alpha Company to the field, and launched a final salvo against the rebels before pulling out when the was shot down.

After the battle concluded and the UNSC had taken the ice quarry, he was summoned by Captain Halima Ascot for a debriefing in the quarry's Assembly Chamber 4L430. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss what went wrong during the operation and what led to Alpha Company's unusually-high casualties. Ultimately, the conversation turned to the Spartans and their qualifications, which led to a discussion about their true ages. With some careful hinting from Nyeto, Colonel Crowther became curious about John's age. As Nyeto began sharing the rumors and evidence he had to suggest that the Spartans were only about fifteen years old, Dr. Halsey all but confirmed the assertion. Now that he had a good reason to do so, Crowther refused to send the Spartans into any of his future battles. After this, the discussion turned to how the insurgents had seemingly prepared for the UNSC's arrival. John suggested that they were waiting for someone else, the Covenant. Just as everyone else began to see the logic in his reasoning, a Covenant flotilla arrived in the system. Nyeto and Ascot immediately rushed back to their ships to prepare for battle.

With the flotilla nearing Seoba, the 21st Space Assault Battalion was spilt among the prowlers of Task Force Yama, including Nyeto's Ghost Flight. Captain Ascot's Night Flight received the final company of ODSTs. As the launched, it was hit by a blast from an intrusion corvette, causing it crash into the quarry. Nyeto frantically reported this over the task force's command channel, observing that the vessel was still intact. Before he could finish, Crowther interrupted him, informing Nyeto that he would advise if more information about Ascot's flagship was needed. Nyeto indignantly proclaimed that there could be survivors in need of help, but Crowther cut him off again, telling him to proceed as planned and to observe Protocol Echo. This was an instruction to treat communications as non-secure, and the colonel used it to warn to Nyeto that the extent of Covenant eavesdropping technology was unknown. With Nyeto silenced, Crowther attempted to hail the Starry Night, but received no response. Fearing the worst, he began searching for a Black Dagger unit that could be sent to the crash site. However, all of Crowther's ODSTs had already launched with prowlers, and sending them back would put more lives and ships at risk.

As no other units were available, John-117 decided that he and his Spartans would search for the Starry Night themselves, knowing that Crowther would not assign them to the task. Once they made it into the quarry, John accessed the command channel and requested that they be provided a waypoint leading to the downed prowler. Aboard the Ghost Song, Crowther responded and acknowledged John's plan, but ordered him to not take action unless immediately warranted. He also informed him of Biko's naval response to the bombardment of Seoba and that Nyeto believed that the alien flotilla would either be in full retreat or destroyed within the hour by the overwhelming force. Nyeto reaffirmed his estimation and told John not to worry, as his prowlers would have the Spartans' backs. John told him he would keep that in mind, inwardly noting that whenever Nyeto told him not to worry, it was time to start thinking the opposite. The crew aboard one of the prowlers—possibly one of Nyeto's—placed a waypoint on each of the Spartans' heads-up displays.

Nearing the provided waypoint, the Spartans discovered that the Starry Night was largely intact, as Nyeto had said. However, the prowler sat atop an avalanche about seven hundred meters up the quarry wall. They also spotted an intrusion corvette moving into position over the prowler, preparing to recover it for study. John opened the command channel again and relayed this information to Crowther, who insisted that they could not let the Covenant take possession of the Starry Night. The vessel's navigation computer and other onboard data devices could reveal the locations of UNSC outposts, entire force deployments, or worse. John asked if the prowler had any kind of self-destruct capability, to which Nyeto responded in the affirmative. He told the Spartan about the Fury tactical nuclear weapon in its engineering compartment and how it was programmed to detonate if it determines that there had been a catastrophic event, unless it detected survivors aboard. In that case, it would only detonate after two hours of no shipboard motion. John took this to mean that there were definitely survivors on the Starry Night, but Nyeto admitted that "definitely" might be overstating it. Crowther asked if there was any way that the prowler's self-destruct system could be remotely activated. Nyeto confirmed that there was, but that only three positions had access to that ability. The first two were the flight commander and wing commander, both of which were roles held by Captain Ascot, who was either dead or unable to be reached aboard the Starry Night. The final person with the ability to remotely detonate the prowler was the captain of the Vanishing Point, which was holding station two planetary orbits out from Seoba. At that distance, it would take nearly an hour for the request to be sent to the cruiser and for the return signal to arrive. By then, the Covenant might already have retrieved sensitive data from the wrecked prowler. John assured Crowther that they would find a way to destroy the prowler themselves. However, the Spartan requested that Task Force Yama assist them by keeping the assaulting corvettes off their backs. Nyeto began to say that their prowlers were not designed for ship-to-ship combat when Crowther interrupted him, promising that they would find a way.

When the Spartans reached the bottom of the avalanche, they witnessed another corvette entering the airspace above the quarry, charging up its main cannon to fire on them. Opening the command channel once more, John asked Nyeto where their support was. He assured the Spartan that they were setting up for an attack right now and that he should not worry. In reality, Nyeto was purposefully stalling his support in hopes that some or all of the Spartans would get killed. Furious, John asked him to stop saying that he should not worry and to hurry because the Spartans were under heavy fire, with some of them already injured. As Nyeto's support was too slow in arriving, John had his team fire onto the ice drift below the Starry Night with their grenade launchers, causing it and the surrounding ice to tumble down to the quarry floor and away from the Covenant.

Finding that some of his Spartans had escaped being buried in ice, John ordered them to board the prowler as he switched back to the command channel to report. When he asked once again where their support was, Nyeto told him that it was on the way and that he should not worry. Growing increasingly frustrated, John made it clear to him that they needed support immediately. Crowther interrupted to reassure him that they would be there soon, even though he did not seem very confident about that himself. Once more, Nyeto assured them both that he had a plan. While Fred-104 led a team inside of the Starry Night, Nyeto made his move and destroyed two of the approaching intrusion corvettes, celebrating their destruction over the command channel, claiming that the other ships were turning tail. However, the corvette attempting to recover the prowler remained unharmed and unfazed. John ordered Fred's team to activate the prowler's Fury nuke and escape with the few survivors found on the Starry Night—four Black Daggers and Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson. Fred decided that they would use one of the vessel's escape pods to flee the blast radius. When it launched from the prowler and soared out of the quarry pit through Seoba's low gravity, Crowther was surprised and asked what that was. John informed him that it was some of his Spartans and survivors from the crash, and that the Starry Night would self-destruct in twenty-five seconds. Nyeto sarcastically thanked John for the short notice, to which the Spartan responded in kind regarding the delayed support. Acting offended by the remark, Nyeto began to remind him of the two corvettes he shot down, but Crowther interrupted to tell them to can the chatter. He then informed John that they would land to recover his squad as soon as the nuke's electromagnetic pulse cleared. All of the Spartans and the five survivors from the Starry Night made it away safely before the detonation, which also destroyed the Covenant corvette that was attempting to take possession of the prowler.

Taking command
Following the discovery that Captain Halima Ascot had been killed when the Starry Night crashed, Hector Nyeto, the senior flight commander, became the de facto commander of Task Force Yama. As such, he was expected to perform all the ceremonial duties that used to fall to Ascot, including delivering a Committal speech during funeral services for fallen personnel.

On March 20, Nyeto attended one such service in the Vanishing Point's command hangar for the two-hundred-and-three men and women killed during the conflicts at Seoba. Aside from the twenty-two insurrectionist agents he had planted on the Ghost Star, he was internally glad that none of the dead would take up arms against the Insurrection ever again. When the chaplain finished giving the eulogy, she turned to Nyeto for him to commit the interment capsules to space. In ceremonial fashion, he ordered Staff Sergeant Johnson to call the two formations of the honor company to attention, raise the pressure barrier, and open the outer hatch. As the capsules were lifted out into the void by the decompression wave, Nyeto saluted and recited the Committal he had prepared. He then had Johnson close the outer hatch and dismiss the honor company. However, the Spartans and some high-ranking officers stayed behind to hear about their next course of action from their new commander.

Seeing John-117 staring at him intensely, Nyeto approached and complemented him on what he and his compatriots had accomplished the day prior. To get on her good side, he even complemented Dr. Halsey on her work with the Covenant kelguid that they had fished out of the remains of the corvette the Spartans destroyed. When John asked if he would reconsider sidelining them due to their age, Nyeto promised that they would be seeing all the action that they could handle for the rest of the operation. Hearing this, Crowther strode forward and told him that that decision was not his to make as the Spartans reported to him. Nyeto reminded the colonel that he now reported to him, and that they needed the obvious talents of the Spartans. When Crowther reminded him that they were only fifteen, Nyeto pointed out that Admiral Preston Cole had surely been aware of that when he formed Task Force Yama. Unfazed, Crowther told him that sending children into battle would be a big mistake, threatening the lieutenant commander by hinting that he would report him to a UNSC board of inquiry. Realizing that he could not afford having trained investigators poking around his ships and insurrectionist-aligned crews, Nyeto relented and promised to run their next ambush by the book, with only the Black Daggers participating in the mission. Nyeto and the Prowler Corps left the hangar together at the port exist while the Spartans and Black Daggers took the starboard exit.

Later life
By June 2526, he was believed to be hiding in the jungles of Gao, beyond the reach of ONI. Upon his return to Gao, Nyeto served the Gao Ministry of War as a general in the Gao militia and led its forces against the United Nations Space Command and Colonial Military Authority throughout the Insurrection. Nyeto was largely successful in his efforts using his captured prowlers to great effect, though this was mainly due to the UNSC and CMA being spread thin across the Outer Colonies at the time and Gao was only a small part of the war. Regardless, Nyeto's actions helped Gao gain more independence from the Unified Earth Government. During the Insurrection, General Nyeto was also responsible for creating and organizing the Gao battle-jumpers, armored stealth troopers.

At some point, Nyeto served as one of the first fourteen Presidents of the Gao Republic. His legacy was immortalized as a hologram in the People's Collection of Presidential Holographs, located in the Gao Cabinet Chamber in the People's Palace. Nyeto's hologram features him in armor on a fiery hangar deck with a cigar in his mouth as he smirks at the remains of a CMA AV-14 Hornet. The Hector Nyeto Conference Room in the Montero Vitality Center was named after Nyeto.

In 2550, at the height of the Covenant war, Blue Team are sent on a mission to the ice moon of Umagena to capture Nyeto. Nyeto ultimately proves to not be there, but John-117 would later recall it as one of their few insertions that had gone off without a hitch.

Nyeto's son, Ross, became an accomplished smuggler in the Isbanola sector, using his father's captured prowlers to smuggle arms across the sector. However, the Gao Ministry of War wanted him dead, believing that his smuggling activities were a stain on his father's heroic legacy.

Physical description
Nyeto had a roughly square-shaped face with a bushy black mustache over a heavy-lipped mouth. He also had curly hair.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Last Light
 * Halo: Retribution
 * Halo: Silent Storm
 * Halo: Oblivion
 * Halo: Shadows of Reach