Kelly-087

Were you looking for the ODST named Kelly?

"Kelly's the fastest Spartan."

- Kurt Ambrose

Petty Officer First Class Kelly-087, born Kelly Shaddock, is a SPARTAN-II supersoldier of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command. She is renowned for her incredible speed, even without her MJOLNIR armor. As of 2553, she is one of the few active SPARTAN-IIs. She had participated in 201 operations—104 of which were full campaigns—as of 2558, more than any other Spartan with the exception of John-117.

Early childhood
Kelly was born on the Inner Colony world of Imber on September 21, 2510. Kelly-087 was conscripted into the SPARTAN-II program at age six in 2517 when she was singled out as a physically and intellectually superior child by Doctor Catherine Halsey. During her abduction she eluded Retrieval team Gamma for six hours but eventually came forward when she thought the abduction was a game for her birthday. Her near-escape resulted in the implementation of new retrieval protocols to avoid further mistakes. After her abduction she was replaced with a flash clone. She was then sent to the FLEETCOM Military Complex at Reach to begin her training.

SPARTAN-II training
"I'm fast. Real fast."

- Kelly to John-117 and Sam-034

Under the guidance of Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez and Déjà, the Spartans began their SPARTAN-II training. On her first day of training, Kelly was teamed up with John-117 and Samuel-034 during a drill at Military Reservation 01478-B. Their team did poorly, because of the lack of teamwork, and finished in last place. They were not allowed to eat that night. The next day Kelly showed her true speed by running for a pulley lift, which she reached twice as quickly as John and Sam. They did not come first, but they did come in third. This was just the first of many times that her speed would be a key factor in strategies. The exercise led to the formation of a camaraderie between the three Spartan trainees and they became good friends. When the Spartans' heads were being shaved for the first time, Kelly disarmed the Master Sergeant barber of his clippers, requiring three aides to force her down and shave her head.

Kelly later trained with her fellow Spartans at the Military Wilderness Training Preserve, with each Spartan being dropped off at a different point in the preserve. The Spartans regrouped and made their way to the extraction point. There, they were almost forced to kill a squad of UNSC Marines. However, Kelly worked together with John, Sam, Fhajad-084, and Linda-058 to defeat the Marines—using her speed to distract the Marines. All the Spartans managed to reach the Marines' D96-TCE Albatross and then they commandeered the dropship to leave the preserve. Kelly participated in numerous training missions with the Spartans from 2517 to 2525, including those in Emerald Cove, Chiron Test Station, and the Military Wilderness Training Preserve in the Highland Mountains. By July 14, 2523, Kelly and the Spartans had begun facing the formidable Tango Company in simulated war games.

After her Spartan augmentation procedures at an ONI medical facility, Kelly was close to death. She was the slowest to recover from the operations, and many of her fellow Spartans were afraid that she would not make it. She did, and her already amazing speed was even further augmented. John-117 noted that she was "...almost untouchable, no one could touch her if she didn't want them to."

Early career
"Flawless amplification of speed and power. It’s like I’ve been training in this suit for years."

- Kelly, commenting on the MJOLNIR Mk. IV armor

Kelly participated in the Spartans' first mission to Eridanus Secundus in the Eridanus system. She, along with John, Fred-104, Sam and Linda, boarded the Laden and infiltrated the rebel asteroid base. They then captured Colonel Robert Watts, a leader of the United Rebel Front. After the First Battle of Harvest, Kelly later attended the UNSC briefing by Admiral Michael Stanforth and the AI Beowulf about the emerging Covenant threat. The training of Kelly, and the rest of the SPARTAN-IIs, was accelerated and the Spartans were sent to Chi Ceti IV to receive their new MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor from Damascus Testing Facility to aid them in combat against the Covenant. While in orbit over the planet, a Covenant ship appeared in the system and attacked the frigate the Spartan were aboard,. The Spartans were eventually able to retrieve the MJOLNIR armor and then left to return to the Commonwealth in a Pelican. However, Unrelenting returned to the battle and began to engage the Commonwealth, severely damaging it. Taking the Pelican's ANVIL-II AS missiles, all the Spartans used thruster packs to direct themselves into a hull breach in Unrelenting, however only Kelly, Sam, and John made it inside. Inside the ship, they engaged Kig-Yar soldiers, one of which created a breach in Sam's armor. Unable to return to the vacuum of space, Kelly and John reluctantly left Sam behind so he could detonate the missiles and destroy the ship. After the battle, Kelly was assigned to Blue Team.

In 2526, the Spartans were deployed to Circinius IV to combat a Covenant invasion. During the battle, they received a distress signal from a cadet squad pinned down at Corbulo Academy of Military Science. Kelly was given command of Blue Team while John went to rescue the cadets. John later radioed Kelly, telling her to inform Command that he had four survivors. He then told her to take her team north for Pelican extraction and that he would rendezvous soon. Soon later, Kelly met with John and the three surviving cadets at the extraction point and they successfully evacuated on the Pelican. During the flight, Kelly and Fred removed their helmets. When Cadet Sullivan asked how old they were, Kelly and Fred exchanged glances and responded simply, "That's classified."

By 2531, Blue Team had repeatedly disrupted the operations of the United Rebel Front, including at Station Jefferson, onboard the destroyer Origami, in Micronesia, and at a high-explosives manufacturing facility at an unspecified location. On May 1, 2531, Blue Team, then consisting of Kelly, Linda, Fred, John, and Kurt-051, had infiltrated a URF military base on Victoria, Camp New Hope. However, the Insurrectionists successfully ambushed Kelly, Linda, Fred, and John using an antigravity plate which disabled the Spartans. Before the rebels could interrogate the Spartans, Kurt freed Blue Team using a M12 Warthog and Asteroidea anti-personnel mines. However, the rescue resulted in the death of the high-ranking rebel leader General Howard Graves.

Late war
"Kelly-087"

- John-117

In 2535, Kelly was present at the Battle of Jericho VII. She was designated as Blue-Two on John's Blue Team during a mission to distract the Covenant while Red Team would plant a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon to destroy a Covenant landing zone. However, after three days of hard fighting, they were forced to retreat as the planet was glassed.

In Operation: PALE SHADOW on Eirene, Kelly triggered a reactor breach that led to a 50 megaton blast towards a Covenant forward operating base, single-handedly saving the city of New Kona. In Operation: HEMORRHAGE, Kelly was secretly sent into a Covenant fleet to infiltrate an important capital ship. Upon entering the ship, she set it on a collision course for other ships in the fleet, and destroyed half of the fleet in the process.

Later, in 2544, Kelly also participated in an ONI-led operation which required a team of Spartans (consisting of Solomon-069, Arthur-079, Frederic-104, John-117 and herself) to assault a Covenant fleet using Booster Frames and recover a stolen package. The Covenant fleet was temporarily unable to enable their slipspace drive due to a stellar magnetic field, providing the Spartans some time to retrieve the package before the Covenant fleet departed. During the course of the operation, Arthur-079 and Solomon-069 were killed by the Covenant. The surviving Spartans then infiltrated the Covenant flagship and got separated as they made their way to the package which was revealed to be Dr. Catherine Halsey‎. The operation was successful with the Spartans escorting the "package" back to the ONI stealth ship that deployed them.

In 2552, Kelly was sent to Sigma Octanus IV during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV. She was designated as Blue-Two, part of John's team, and carried a HAVOK Nuclear Warhead to the Covenant-held city of Côte d'Azur. Successful, her team boarded a Pelican, docked with the and returned to Reach.

Reach
She was briefly aboard the in preparation for Operation: RED FLAG; the Spartans' mission to capture a Covenant Prophet. Unfortunately, as the Autumn was preparing to leave, they were recalled to defend Reach as a massive Covenant fleet entered the system. Designated as Red-Two, Kelly was assigned to Fred's team, with the mission to defend the generators for the orbital MAC guns. As their Pelican, Bravo 001, descended to the surface of Reach, it was shot down by Seraphs. The Spartans were then forced to jump from the crashing Pelican, which led to several Spartans being killed and more injured on impact. Kelly was apparently injured in this fall though she made no indication of it.

They eventually rallied at ODG Facility A-331. After receiving a message from Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Fred assigned Kelly to Team Alpha, along with himself and Joshua-029. They piloted Banshee fliers to a Covenant landing zone where she threw a Fury tactical nuclear weapon into the gravity lift of a Covenant cruiser. Though they successfully destroyed the landing zone, Joshua was shot down and later marked as MIA.

She and Fred were then forced to retreat back to Team Delta's position after it appeared that all the Spartans of Team Beta were killed at the ODG Facility. They were then forced to land, contend with a pair of Hunters, and commandeer Wraith tanks in order to get to CASTLE Base where Team Delta was hidden. They met up with Vinh-030, Isaac-039, and William-043. The five Spartans were unable to enter the facility until Kelly thought to whisper Oly Oly Oxen Free into the speaker, which opened the door, and it turned out that Dr. Halsey was still in the facility.

Kelly's injuries turned out to be life-threatening; she had a fever and low blood pressure due to moderate bleeding in her liver, and one of her lungs had completely collapsed. Dr. Halsey noted that it was amazing Kelly was still alive, let alone still fighting, despite these two potentially fatal conditions.

The Covenant attacked immediately and Dr. Halsey was forced to activate Operation: WHITE GLOVE. In addition, she gave the Spartans new MJOLNIR parts which were being field-tested, but had not yet been certified. Kelly received an improvement to her neural induction circuits, giving her twitch response time a speed boost. The Spartans were then trapped beneath the base for several days until Fred came across the entrance to a Forerunner installation. After exploring the vast complex for some time, the five Spartans and Dr. Halsey discovered a Forerunner crystal at the center of a vast chamber.

The crystal sent a spike of radiation that allowed the Covenant to triangulate on the Spartans' position. The Covenant breached the underground complex, and used a gravity lift to send massive amounts of ground forces inside. The group was forced to retreat, but Vinh and Isaac disappeared after their satchel charges exploded. Kelly, Fred, Will and Dr. Halsey were then trapped in a cavern for several days until they were rescued by John-117, Anton-044, and Admiral Whitcomb. During the operation though, Kelly was hit by the assault cannons of two Hunters as she tried to protect Dr. Halsey. Once again, she was critically wounded. With burns on seventy two percent of her body, she required dermacortic steroids to recover.

Kelly was whisked aboard a Spirit and taken to the captured Ascendant Justice/Gettysburg. Some time after she was healed, Halsey sedated her and had Corporal Locklear carry her aboard the Beatrice; a retired stealth ship and the private vessel of the rebel Governor Jacob Jiles, without anyone's knowledge or permission. The Beatrice then entered slipspace, heading for Onyx.

Onyx
"Why are they so...twitchy?"

- Kelly, expressing her skepticism of the SPARTAN-IIIs' efficiency to Kurt Ambrose.

On November 3, Halsey and Kelly eventually made it to Onyx, where the Beatrice immediately came under attack by Onyx Sentinels. Kelly awoke from her sedation only moments before, and was forced to land the ship safely as Halsey passed out due to extreme acceleration caused by their entry maneuver. On the surface, Kelly and Halsey soon reunited with SCPO Mendez and some of the remaining SPARTAN-II and SPARTAN-III soldiers. Soon after, Kelly, as the fastest Spartan, served as bait for the Onyx Sentinels and with coordinated teamwork, they managed to destroy several of them.

After the arrival of Will-043, Linda-058, and Frederic-104, the humans used a Covenant dropship to enter a vast, excavated Forerunner city within Zone 67, and located Onyx's map room. They then destroyed a massive Sentinel manufacturing facility under orders of AI Endless Summer. After recovering Team Katana, whose members were in slipspace field pods, they teleported to Onyx's core room, soon followed by a Covenant army under the command of Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree.

The Spartans then held off the Covenant forces at a slipspace portal in the center of the core room. When Kelly killed a group of Elites in close quarters in an attempt to buy them more time, a Hunter pair took her by surprise, and Holly-G003 sacrificed her life to save her, soon followed by Will. Kurt then ordered Kelly, along with Dr. Halsey, Fred, Linda, and the rest of the surviving SPARTAN-IIIs, to enter the slipspace rift, while he stayed behind and detonated two FENRIS nuclear warheads to stop the massive Covenant army.

Shield world and post-war years
"Damn, I've finally been outrun. Oh, the shame of it."

- Kelly, upon failing to catch a small Forerunner medical drone in the shield world.

Having passed through the slipspace rift, Kelly and the rest of the human survivors found themselves trapped in a massive Dyson sphere contained within a slipspace bubble of compressed space-time, formerly hidden inside the core of Onyx. She and the others then began trying to find a way to revive Team Katana to find a way out of the shield world.

After the survivors had explored the sphere for several days—over three months in normal space-time—they discovered a group of Huragok which helped them establish contact with the ONI ships outside the sphere and eventually bring the sphere back into normal space in February 2553. They were then recovered by the ONI team Kilo-Five and taken to a debriefing in HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 aboard the. Kelly, along with the rest of the surviving SPARTAN-IIs, were present in the Voi Memorial ceremony on March 3, 2553.

Shortly thereafter, Kelly and the rest of Blue Team would escort a UNSC research battalion sent to investigate a disturbance on the planet Gao.

In the years following the war, Kelly, Fred and Linda continued to serve under Naval Special Warfare on numerous highly confidential missions under ONI's direct oversight, deploying to the outer fringes of human-controlled space to eliminate hostile Covenant remnants.

Gamma Halo


On July 26, 2557, Kelly along with Linda, Fred, and John, deployed to Installation 03 to investigate the recent loss of contact with a local science team and their SPARTAN-II escort, Team Black. Soon after their arrival Linda found tracks left by a Crawler. Fred and Linda found the bodies of Team Black while John and Kelly found the scientists. Shortly after they left the camp they were attacked by Promethean Knights, but managed to fend them off. They continued following the Crawlers' tracks and came to where the Composer was originally located. Kelly found a tunnel which they followed down, soon finding the Composer's Abyss.

Traveling through a slipspace portal at the end of the Abyss, Kelly and the other Spartans found themselves in a deserted Forerunner city where they came across a plaza housing six Composers. The Didact then appeared behind them and announced that the Spartans had arrived in the Composer's Forge. A firefight broke out and the Didact called forth an army of his newly-created Promethean constructs to combat the Spartans. While Kelly and the Spartans battled the Promethean machines, the Didact took one of the Composers and departed toward the portal, intending to use the device, as well as Gamma Halo, against Earth. Kelly and rest of Blue Team pursued the Didact through the portal and to the top of the Composer's Abyss on Installation 03, where they barely managed to get out of the way of the Composer rising from the pit. The Didact attacked the Spartans, planning to kill Kelly first. However, John sneaked up on the Forerunner and stabbed him in the eye, focusing the Didact's immediate attention on the Master Chief.

The rest of Blue Team recovered and attacked the Didact. Kelly attempted to use a Z-180 Scattershot against the Forerunner, but he simply crushed it in his hands. After a brief fight, the Didact subdued all four Spartans but Static Carillon suddenly appeared behind him and disabled the Didact with his laser and teleported the Didact away before he could finish them off. While John went to pursue the Didact at Gamma Halo's control room, Kelly and the rest of Blue Team returned to the Longsword. After John succeeded in "containing" the Didact, Static Carillon teleported himself and John into Blue Team's Longsword. The monitor subsequently left to repair the ring and Blue Team returned to Earth.

After John was debriefed by Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood, the admiral gave orders for John and the rest of Blue Team to have some rest after years of combat. However, John returned to Blue Team and told them that Hood gave them the all-clear for their next mission. Kelly asked where they would head next; John replied "anywhere we're needed". Blue Team then left to take on a new mission unknown to Lord Hood.

Personality and description
Kelly is the fastest of the SPARTAN-IIs, making her easily the fastest human to have ever lived. She is capable of running at bursts of up to 62 kph (38.502 mph) and has quicker reflexes than her peers. In order to keep her reflexes sharp she exercises routinely with "twitch-response drills" and Zen "no-thought" practices. Before a mission she has to slow herself down considerably to spar with another Spartan. She has demonstrated an incredible tolerance for pain, as she has been injured quite gravely on several occasions and managed to recover fully each time.

Fast not only physically but mentally as well, Kelly is highly perceptive and observant. She has a cynical sense of humor and often cracks jokes over her and her team's situation and mission. She is less proficient at concealing her emotions than most of her comrades; as such her body language tends to belie her mood. Early in her SPARTAN-II training, she resisted initial indoctrination generally out of fear and anger. Her speed has led her to being termed the team's "Rabbit", acting as quick bait to draw enemies into traps laid by the other Spartans.

At age six, Kelly had her hair dyed blue and was taller than John. John eventually outgrew her and her hair color returned to its natural brown color. Like most of the SPARTAN-IIs, she wore her hair close-cropped, though by 2557 it had grown almost to her shoulders and was worn in a ponytail.

Equipment
Kelly-087 prefers armor with full-shield masks in combat. As such, she favored the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor Mark IV to Mark VI models of the EVA and Pilot armor variants. Kelly's initial Mark IV armor was base green, with a rabbit painted onto it as a reference to her speed and nickname. The Mark IV EVA armor she later donned was colored white, although her Mark VI armor was painted gray. Kelly began wearing the Hermes armor variant, patterned after EVA armor, once Blue Team transitioned to the Mjolnir GEN2 platform.

Due to her speed and ability to quickly eliminate any distance between herself and opponents, she prefers to arm herself with close-range weaponry such as the M90 shotgun. However, she has also frequently wielded various models of assault rifle, typically of the MA5 series. During the Spartans' escape from CASTLE base, she armed herself with dual M6D pistols. Kelly prefers to use human weaponry, comparing using Covenant weapons to be barely better than throwing rocks. She has also used Promethean weapons on occasion, beginning with her deployment to Installation 03, though her preferred weapon loadout as of 2558 remains the M90 shotgun and an M6H magnum sidearm.

Production notes

 * In The Package, Kelly was voiced by Luci Christian, who also voiced a Marine in Prototype. Jenna Berman portrays Kelly in Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.
 * "Kelly" is one of the name options for customized loadouts in Halo: Reach, along with the members of NOBLE Team and several fellow SPARTAN-IIs.
 * In Halo 4 during the beginning of the level "Shutdown" one of the SPARTAN-IVs lounging around the hangar bay can be heard saying, "I wish 087 were here. Could've really used her speed back there".

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo Legends
 * The Package
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Palace Hotel
 * Halo: Reach
 * Dr. Halsey's personal journal
 * Halo: Fall of Reach
 * Boot Camp
 * Covenant
 * Invasion
 * Halo: Glasslands
 * Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
 * Halo 4
 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo: Last Light
 * Halo 5: Guardians