Mona Lisa

''Mona Lisa redirects here. For the story, see The Mona Lisa''

Mona Lisa was a prison ship that was in service into the late years of the Human-Covenant War.

Background and layout
Being a prison ship, it was a converted freighter, meant to transport prisoners and ore to and from penal colonies. As it was, it was mostly unarmed, as prisoner ships usually were, though mysteriously without an escort to prevent escaping convicts.

A large and heavy vessel, the Mona Lisa ' s hangar bay was located near the front on the lower decks, near the prison cells. The bridge was situated at the uppermost decks, with the kitchen, mess, infirmary and berths, the majority of which were repurposed as cargo holds, in the decks between them. In the ship's infirmary, there was a small safe room that could only be opened from the inside as a precaution against a prison riot. The ship also had an expansive recycling plant and a cavernous engine room.

Flood outbreak
Some time after the Battle of Installation 04, the Office of Naval Intelligence Section III scientist Major John Smith and his team took command of the ship. Intending to use it as a research laboratory for the Flood in order to find a way to control the parasite, they also brought Sangheili prisoners on board to be used as test subjects. The ship then jumped to the wreckage of Installation 04 in Soell system, where they recovered samples of the Flood and used both human and Covenant prisoners to experiment on it. However, the Flood soon broke quarantine and infected the ship, beginning the process of building a proto-Gravemind to attempt FTL travel without needing access to the bridge, which was locked off.

Shortly afterward, the Office of Naval Intelligence sent a prowler,, to assess the status of the Mona Lisa. A squad of Marines among her crew was sent to investigate it, at first presuming it derelict. They split up, with the mission of initiating the Cole Protocol by purging the ship's navigational databases, but were quickly alerted to the horrors of the ship. Among its survivors were "Henry", an Elite who teamed with a prisoner named Patrick Rimmer, and John Smith, the ONI operative responsible for the experiments on board, who had locked himself into the panic room near the medical bay.

The squad was slowly whittled down as the action continued, until they reach the escape pods. Only four members of the squad survived (Lopez, MacCraw, Clarence, and Benti), along with Henry and Rimmer. Upon reaching the escape pods, Clarence shot Rimmer and it was revealed that he was an ONI operative sent to make sure no one but the Marines escaped the ship. The remaining survivors were caught in a standoff pointing guns at one another as the Flood was approaching their position and during this pause, MacCraw took off in one of the escape pods. A wounded Benti jumped on Clarence and took them both out into the hallway where they were overtaken by the Flood. Sergeant Lopez, the leader of the squad, and "Henry" fought over the last remaining escape pod, presumably to one or both of their deaths. The ship was subsequently destroyed by a Shiva-class nuclear missile launched from the Red Horse in order to contain the Flood.

Trivia

 * It is most likely named after the famous painting Mona Lisa drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.
 * The Mona Lisa bears a striking resemblance to the USG Ishimura from the video game Dead Space. Like the Mona Lisa, the Ishimura was overrun by an alien parasite - the Necromorphs - capable of infecting dead hosts.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * The Mona Lisa