Gray Team

"And what ever happened to Gray Team on a mission far outside the confines of UNSC space, now missing for over a year?"

- Halo: Ghost of Onyx

Gray Team was a UNSC Naval Special Warfare Group SPARTAN-II unit. It consisted of Adriana-111, Jai-006 and Mike, the most independent and individualistic of the SPARTAN-IIs. These qualities were used to create a unit trained to operate for extended periods with minimal supervision and support. Their MJOLNIR Mk. IV armor was colored gray.

Background
Gray Team was formed from the three SPARTAN-II candidates who were the most difficult to control during training. This manifested in resistance to indoctrination, constant attempts to escape training, and lack of social integration. This disruptive behavior was costly, resulted in injuries to trainers, and the theft and destruction of at least one Pelican dropship. The decision was made to train the trio separately from the others and form them into their own unit.

Compared to the other SPARTAN-IIs, Gray Team's training placed additional emphasis on individual thought and action. This made them suitable to execute and survive covert missions deep behind enemy lines. Their assignments focused on disruption of enemy operations followed by a stealthy extraction.

History
The Cole Protocol was implemented to slow the Covenant advance by denying them navigational information of UNSC space. Some Insurrectionist enclaves survived the Covenant advance by remaining hidden; these rebels did not fall under UNSC jurisdiction and had no obligation to honor the Cole Protocol. In the 2530s, Gray Team was sent to locate and infiltrate these enclaves and enforce the Cole Protocol by purging the NAV databases of the rebel ships found. This led to the Battle of the Rubble. Gray Team aided the Rubble under the command of Lieutenant Keyes and participated in the Battle of Metisette which led to the destruction of the majority of Covenant forces in the area, hundreds of thousands of Grunts and Jackals. With the help of the Midsummer Night and her crew they completed their mission in the system and returned to UNSC controled space on the Midsummer Night. There they asked for another ONI Prowler, having abandoned their frieghter, the Petya. They were given a Prowler and assigned a new mission deeper behind enemy lines and farther from UNSC forces which they happily accepted.

During the Battle of Skopje in 2547, Covenant forces had begun to overrun a group of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers who were defending the headquarters of an important ship-building company, as its assets were relocated to Reach. As numerous Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and Brutes charged through the ODSTs' lines, a gray-armored Spartan with a "powerful baritone voice" rescued some of the shock troopers, including Gage Yevgenny, and escorted the survivors to the UNSC headquarters. Yevgenny was then informed of the Spartan program, which ONI had recently unveiled.

In 2551, Gray Team was deemed too inaccessible to be recalled in the lead up to the Battle of Reach. They had been out of contact for about a year. Gray Team were the only operational SPARTAN-IIs not present at the fall of Reach and did not receive the MJOLNIR Mk. V armor. Later that year, Gray Team was listed as Missing In Action, but were some of the few Spartans to truly be so.