Joshua-029

"If anything goes wrong, we end up in the middle of ten thousand pissed off bad guys."

- Joshua-029

Joshua-029 was a SPARTAN-II supersoldier and led teams of other Spartan-IIs on multiple occasions as well as being an electronics expert. He had a close working relationship with Kelly-087, Frederic-104, and John-117.

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.

Joshua 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. The mission was ultimately a success. At another point during training, Joshua 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, Joshua and his fellow Spartan-IIs had begun facing the formidable and ruthless UNSC Marine Corps' Tango Company in simulated war games. On March 9, 2525, Joshua and the rest of the Spartan-II candidates underwent their augmentation procedures at Medical Facility Endurance orbiting Reach. After successfully enduring the procedures, Joshua 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
"We’ll get it done."

- Joshua expresses confidence in Red Team's ability to evacuate civilians from Sigma Octanus IV.

After the Covenant attack on Harvest and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, Joshua 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 Joshua 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 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 had Joshua 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, Joshua led Red Team during the fight against the Covenant on Jericho VII alongside Blue Team and Green Team. Red Team's goal was to slip behind enemy lines and plant a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon that could be detonated the next time a Covenant ship landed and dropped its energy shields to deploy troops. To this end, Blue Team was to draw out the Covenant rear guard so that Red Team would be afforded the opportunity to accomplish its objective amidst the confusion. Red Team reported their success in planting the nuke after doing so to Blue Team and all Spartans were then extracted from the planet. Despite the efforts on the ground, Jericho VII was lost to the Covenant and was glassed.

On July 17, 2552, Joshua 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, Joshua one again led Red Team as "Red-One" (or "Red Leader"). He oversaw the setup of motion detectors, radar, and other automated defenses around Alpha Headquarters. He was then instructed by John-117 to take Red Team through the tree line along the coast. It was 1830 hours at this time, and John emphasized that by 1930 hours everyone should be in position. The plan was to conduct renaissance of the city of Côte d'Azur to ensure no civilians remained so that a HAVOK nuclear device could be used to kill every last member of the Covenant occupying the city. Red Team moved out and surveyed the tunnels near the city's wharfs. Whe Blue Team checked in with Joshua, he reported the discovery of twenty civilians that had hid out in a cargo ship. Some of them were wounded. He also let the Master Chief know they had witnessed a Covenant race he personally had never known about before: a Huragok. The Chief told him to coordinate with Green Team and to give them strategic control over evacuating the civilians back to their fallback position 50 kilometers south of Alpha Headquarters. Joshua did as he was ordered and they were successful. All the Spartans eventually left the planet in and came aboard 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
"We can handle a hundred to one. Maybe even five hundred to one with a little planning and support."

- Joshua-029 to Fred-104.

On August 27, 2552 Joshua 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, Joshua 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. John assigned Joshua to Red Team, made up of twenty-two of the Spartans which were sent to land on the ground and protect the power generators for Reach's orbital defense platforms. Joshua was given the responsibility of piloting Red Team's Pelican—Bravo 001. As it descended to the surface of the planet, the dropship was attacked by Seraphs. Joshua attempted to activate its autopilot but all of computer systems had been destroyed in the assault. As they dove uncontrollably towards the ground, Joshua managed to slow the craft enough so that the Spartans could jump just before Bravo 001 exploded. Once he landed, Joshua found a Sniper Rifle and was the first Spartan to arrive at ODG Facility A-331 and spot the survivors of the UNSC Marine Corps unit, Charlie Company. He radioed Fred and the Spartans were able to regroup at the facility. Fred then ordered Joshua to recon the area. Doing so, he discovered a Covenant landing zone and patched his imaging through to Fred via COM. While Red Team was building up defenses at the facility, it received a distress call from Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. Fred then divided Red Team into four smaller teams. Joshua was placed on Team Alpha, comprised of himself, Fred and Kelly. They were to destroy a nearby Covenant landing zone in the Longhorn Valley while Team Gamma rescued Vice Admiral Whitcomb and his staff. Operating Type-26 Banshees, Joshua and the two others successfully destroyed the landing zone by delivering fury tactical nukes into the gravity lift of a Covenant cruiser overhead. However, Joshua's Banshee took fire from Plasma Cannons and began to trail smoke and lose altitude. As a result, Joshua was killed in the ensuing nuclear explosion.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Fall of Reach
 * Covenant
 * Invasion
 * Scanned
 * Halo: Silent Storm