Vasily Beloi

Corporal Vasily "Vaz" Beloi, sometimes referred to as Vasya, is a non-commissioned officer in the UNSC Marine Corps and an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper. In January 2553, he was assigned to Kilo-Five, a highly covert intelligence unit under the command of Captain Serin Osman.

Early life
Vasily was born in Russia on Earth. When he was four, his father, Oleg Beloi, left Earth for a few weeks to work on a construction project on Lostwithiel. However the Covenant attacked the colony while he was there, and Vaz never saw him again.

Human-Covenant War
After enlisting in the UNSC, Beloi saw eight years of combat until the end of the Human-Covenant War, and participated in over 100 SOEIV drops. He served in the same unit as fellow ODSTs Malcolm Geffen and Emanuel Barakat and a solid camaraderie developed between them. During a battle on Imber, Beloi, Geffen and Barakat hijacked a Spirit to exfiltrate from the planet. They stashed it on Criterion and Vaz later wondered if the dropship was still there.

At some point in his life, Beloi dated a woman named Chrissie. However, she left him, and this kept Vaz awake at night. He then moved into a phase where he would get angry if someone mentioned her around him, but he eventually got over her. Later, Mal would occasionally joke on Chrissie's expense to comfort Vaz.

Post-war
In January 2553, Beloi and Geffen were hand-picked by the Office of Naval Intelligence Commander-in-Chief, Admiral Margaret Parangosky, to serve under Captain Serin Osman as part of a black operations team designated Kilo-Five. The team, comprised of pilot Lian Devereaux, Dr. Evan Phillips, Spartan Naomi-010 and the AI, Black-Box, were to incite an insurrection between the various Sangheili factions. On their way to the initial briefing in HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 in Sydney, they stopped by the ruins of the Parthenon bar to honor Emanuel Barakat, who had been killed in action during the final stages of the war.

After being assigned to Kilo-Five, Beloi accompanied the team on a number of missions, operating on the. These included dropping off tagged weaponry to Avu Med 'Telcam on New Llanelli to aid the Abiding Truth insurgents, evacuating ONI agent Mike Spenser from the planet Reynes, and an attempt to aid the, dead in space near Venezia, only to arrive too late and witness the ship's destruction.

At one point, they seized the Covenant auxiliary ship Piety and captured a Huragok named Requires Adjustment. Later on, they entered Shield World 006, a Forerunner Dyson sphere, and recovered the human survivors inside while arresting Dr. Halsey under orders from Admiral Parangosky. Having learned the tragic truth behind the Spartan-IIs and the fate of their parents, Vaz approached Dr. Halsey’s compartment in an attempt to kill her but was convinced by BB to walk away.

In February 2553, Vaz, along with Captain Serin Osman, Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood and Evan Phillips, were the first humans to visit Sanghelios. There, Thel 'Vadam and Lord Hood discussed continued peace and the fragile state of both their species. Phillips accepted an offer from 'Vadam to return and study Sangheili culture on their homeworld. Equipped with a fragment of BB, Phillips journeyed to Sanghelios, but not before being jested by Vaz about how the Sangheili couldn't pronounce his name correctly.

Shortly after, Vaz and Mal were assigned to meet with Spenser on Venezia. Once in Spenser's hideout in the city of New Tyne, Spenser showed them pictures of all the insurrectionist leaders based on the planet. Vaz looked through the pictures and found one of them to be Naomi’s own father, Staffan Sentzke. However, their investigation was put on hold after an explosion in Ontom, Sanghelios severed Kilo-Five's communication with BB's fragment and Phillips. They were retrieved by Port Stanley and sent in to recover him.

Mission on Sanghelios
Arriving at Sanghelios during 'Telcam's assault on Vadam, Kilo-Five searched for Phillips in the Temple of the Abiding Truth. They were initially refused entry into the temple by Olar because they were non-believers. As BB negotiated with him, a nearby Sangheili crowd became aggravated by their presence. Olar relented and allowed Kilo-Five inside the temple. After they realized that Phillips was no longer inside, they evacuated as the Sangheili mob stormed the area.

BB eventually located Phillips through an intercepted communication and they quickly traveled to Nes'alun Keep in Acroli to evacuate him. They extracted Phillips in the midst of a skirmish at the keep. When asked by the keep's lady, Elar 'Nas, why they were abandoning them, Vaz replied "Not my war." During their evacuation, their Pelican Tart-Cart was damaged by a Banshee, forcing Devereaux to put her down for repairs. They were followed by a Phantom piloted by Forze 'Mdama, who had been sent by 'Telcam to recover Phillips for them. Vaz conversed with Forze as he waited for 'Telcam's consent to hand Phillips over to them. After being instructed to help them with repairs, Forze handed over some pipes and wire and left. Devereaux was then able to get Tart-Cart off the ground.

On their flight back to Port Stanley a fire erupted and they had to re-route to the. There, they witnessed Infinity in action as it helped the Arbiter by destroying many of the Abiding Truth's vessels. Parangosky then ordered them to extract their informant 'Telcam from the ground. As Kilo-Five abducted 'Telcam from the battle, Port Stanley posed as a Kig-Yar pirate ship and destroyed a few of 'Vadam's ships in order to maintain the stalemate between the two factions. They dropped 'Telcam off on New Llanelli and were later retrieved by Port Stanley.

Venezian movement
Following the "Thursday war," Kilo-Five quickly resumed its previous task and returned to Venezia. With Spenser's help, Vaz and Naomi went undercover as UNSC deserters and investigated Venezia's black markets. During their investigation of Insurrectionist activity on the planet, they spotted Staffan Sentzke in company with the T'vaoan Sav Fel, the possessor of the battlecruiser Pious Inquisitor, which had been prioritized as one of the objectives of Kilo-Five. Out of risk that Naomi's past with Sentzke might compromise her cover, Mal replaced her as Vaz's partner. The two ODSTs set out to infiltrate the Venezian militia in order to gain information on Sentzke and Pious Inquisitor.

Vaz and Mal met Nairn and were successful in infiltrating the local militia. They then met Staffan Sentzke and his son Edvin and were taken to see Pious Inquisitor due to their professed experience with Covenant equipment. Using a tracer planted by Vaz, Kilo-Five attempted to seize control of the ship using Venezia's slipspace communicator. However, their hack was foiled by the ship's Huragok, Sometimes Sinks, who alerted Sentzke of the attempted intrusion.

Staffan Sentzke had Mal and Vaz captured and interrogated at the Stuttgart armory. Vaz revealed that he had information about Staffan's daughter; Sentzke subsequently took him into a more secure location in a nearby warehouse, where he continued to question him. Meanwhile, however, Black-Box used Mal and Vaz's neural transponders to locate them. While Naomi went to rescue Mal with the team's new dropship, Bogof, Lian Devereaux took Tart-Cart to retrieve Vaz. Out of both sympathy for Sentzke and guilt over his own association with ONI, Vaz ensured that Devereaux would not harm him and that he would instead be taken prisoner. They subsequently returned to Port Stanley where Sentzke was informed about the Spartan program and allowed to reunite with his daughter.

Pious Inquisitor
Meanwhile, a Kig-Yar privateer crew, led by Shipmistress Chol Von, was contracted by 'Telcam located Pious Inquisitor. The Kig-Yar boarded the Inquisitor and attempted to commandeer the ship for themselves. Sinks, distrustful of the Kig-Yar and only compliant to Sentzke's orders, placed the ship in complete lock-down. Once Kilo-Five located the ship, Sentzke convinced Sinks to allow them to come onboard. Planning to escape, Sentzke had Vaz promise to take care of Naomi and in turn gave his word to cease his aggression against Earth.

With Kilo-Five closing in on the ship's command center, Shipmistress Von set the ship to explode and escaped with her remaining crew. While Kilo-Five escaped to their dropships, Sentzke took a Spirit from the shuttle bay but stayed in range to ensure Naomi was safe. Vaz requested BB to give Sentzke the file on Naomi's kidnapping to prove him right to his doubting family; BB complied and sent the files to Sentzke's Spirit. BB discovered Sinks had secretly rigged the Spirit with a miniature slipspace drive which would enable him and Sentzke to escape. Black-Box knew ONI would never stop hunting Sentzke if they knew he was alive and chose to erase his own recollection of the incident, leaving Kilo-Five to conclude that Sentzke had died when the ship exploded.

With Pious Inquisitor no longer a threat, the mission was deemed a success. Kilo-Five was granted shore leave on Cascade. Vaz and Mal went to drink at a bar in the Old Admiralty Hotel in Kowloon. After returning aboard Port Stanley, Vaz received an anonymous package in the mail. Naomi and the others gathered to inspect the contents, which were revealed to be a miniature chair for a doll's house Staffan was building for Naomi, and a planetarium lamp he had planned to give her on her sixth birthday. From this, Kilo-Five surmised that Sentzke was still alive, but they chose to honor their agreement with Sentzke and not inform the rest of ONI.

Personality and traits
Like many ODSTs, Vaz displays a characteristic gung-ho attitude and strong camaraderie among his peers. However, he also holds strong personal concepts of right and wrong and is uncompromising in his moral views, having a tendency of seeing moral conflicts as black and white. As a result, he was greatly distraught after learning about the origins of the SPARTAN-II and SPARTAN-IIIs programs as well as the young age of the SPARTAN-IIIs of Gamma Company. His sense of justice can be quite extreme, as demonstrated when he planned on killing Dr. Halsey for the suffering caused as a result of the SPARTAN-II program, convinced that justice would never be served otherwise.

Due to having lost so many friends in the war, Vaz harbored a strong hatred for the Sangheili and privately believed it would be better if they were simply wiped out. This led to a number of arguments with Evan Phillips, the team's expert on the Sangheili.

He is of Russian descent and is a Russian citizen. This is evident, among other things, by his name, his heavy accent, and his referring to World War II as the "Great Patriotic War." He usually keeps three antique silver coins his grandmother gave him as lucky charms.

Vaz greatly enjoys watching the GlobeWar doomsday movies. He also enjoys hockey; during his time with Kilo-Five, he wondered if he could watch the finals, which were being held in St. Petersburg, on Waypoint.

Physical appearance
Beloi is described as having characteristically Slavic facial features, with high cheekbones, close-shaved hair and a lean overall appearance. He has a scar running the full width of his jaw, a result of a close-quarters encounter with a Sangheili warrior.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Glasslands
 * Halo: The Thursday War
 * Halo: Mortal Dictata