Grace-093

Grace-093 was a SPARTAN-II supersoldier. She was the SPARTAN-IIs' principal explosives expert.

Conscription and training
Grace-093 was a genetically, intellectually, and physically gifted child chosen for the SPARTAN-II project. She was abducted by the Office of Naval Intelligence and replaced with a flash clone when she was around six years old. She and seventy-four other children were taken to Reach in the Epsilon Eridani system. There, she 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, she was taken alongside her 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, Grace 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, Grace and her fellow Spartan-IIs had begun facing the formidable and ruthless UNSC Marine Corps' Tango Company in simulated war games. On March 9, 2525, Grace and the rest of the Spartan-II candidates underwent their augmentation procedures at Medical Facility Endurance orbiting Reach. After successfully enduring the procedures, Grace later attended a military funeral aboard the carrier, the UNSC Atlas, 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.

War with the Covenant
After the Covenant attack on Harvest and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, Grace 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 Grace 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 Paris-class heavy frigate, 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-117 had Grace 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-087, and Samuel-034 made it aboard.

Netherop
By early 2526, Grace had been assigned to Gold Team, led by Joshua-029. On March 5, Grace, her teammates, and eight other Spartans were organized into an assault squad led by John-117 with orders to board and capture a Covenant frigate, Radiant Arrow, orbiting the planet Netherop. To accomplish this, they were all deployed from the prowler for an EVA boarding action. Using a flight of Type-27 Banshees for cover, the Spartans stealthily approached the alien vessel. They boarded the frigate via its underslung hangar and eliminated the Covenant forces stationed there without the rest of crew realizing they had been boarded. As Blue and Green Teams pushed further into the alien vessel, John instructed Gold Team to collect weapons and corpses to be piled into the Banshees, which would then be pushed out into space for ONI to recover later on for study. Once that task was completed, Grace and her team acted as support for Blue and Green, watching their backs. As the two forward teams continued on, a sensor operator aboard one of the prowlers "accidentally" broadcast a transmission on the Spartans' SQUADCOM, revealing their presence to the frigate's crew. Unbeknownst to them, the crewman's apparent mistake was part of an insurrectionist plot designed by Hector Nyeto, who intended to get the Spartans killed. With their presence known, Blue and Green Teams split up, with John leading his team to the bridge. John was unable to prevent the frigate's shipmaster from activating a self-destruct sequence, forcing him to order all of his teammates to abandon ship immediately. All of the Spartans—including Grace—made it to safety before the Radiant Arrow detonated.

The Fall of Reach
During the Covenant's invasion of Reach, she was designated Red-Twenty Three and assigned to Red Team under Frederic-104 team by John-117. Their mission was to defend the generators for the orbital MAC guns around Reach. As their Pelican, Bravo 001 was descending to the surface, it was shot down by Covenant AA plasma fire, and their pilot Mitchell was killed. The Spartans were forced to jump to the surface of the planet, gaining many injuries and a few deaths.

Grace was then assigned to "Gamma" team, along with Anton-044 and Li-008. They were sent to evacuate Vice Admiral Whitcomb. They found him but were unable to rally with the rest of the Spartans due to Covenant activity. They then retreated to Camp Independence, where they broadcast Oly Oly Oxen Free and went on hit and run missions for three weeks until they were found by John who recognized the Oly Oly Oxen Free tune. They then proceeded to rescue "Alpha" and "Delta" teams from the Forerunner caves beneath CASTLE Base. Grace then boarded a captured Spirit and went to the captured Ascendant Justice, under control of the AI Cortana.

The vessel then became trapped and ensnared when it tried to jump into Slipspace. The Forerunner crystal Dr. Halsey found warped Slipspace into an anomalous Slipspace bubble, and several Elite survivors of the ship sabotaged its main drive conduit. Grace was designated Blue-Six during this operation. Despite the rogue plasma and an ambush by the Elites, Grace managed to survive, as did John-117, Frederic-104, and William-043. However, Anton-044, Li-008, and Petty Officer Second Class Polaski did not survive.

Operation: FIRST STRIKE
Grace then participated in Operation: FIRST STRIKE, boarding the Covenant space station Unyielding Hierophant with the other Spartans. However, as they entered a temple, they were ambushed by Brutes. Three rounds from a Brute Shot hit Grace in the stomach, and blew her midsection apart, killing her. John was forced to activate the fail-safe detonation system on her MJOLNIR armor, and it self-destructed the armor's fusion pack. She took out four Elites and a dozen Grunts in her "funeral pyre". John thought Grace would have liked that.

Personality and description
Grace was the Spartan-IIs' explosives expert. She could shape a charge to cut into a single steel bolt with only a whisper of sound, or rig a hundred thousand litres of kerosene to blow into a "firestorm from hell". Ironically, her temper was nonexistent. It seems that she liked calamari, a type of seafood, which she fondly remembered eating during one the Spartans' training missions on Emerald Cove.

List of appearances

 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Silent Storm