Battle of Havana

The Battle of Havana was a major engagement during the Battle for Earth between the United Nations Space Command and the Covenant in Cuba's capital, Havana. Numerous Marine forces, and later three SPARTAN-IIs from Blue Team, were sent to retake Havana and its Centennial Orbital Elevator. They succeeded in reclaiming the elevator, though it was destroyed shortly afterward.

Background
After the disappearance of John-117 and the Mombasa Slipspace event on October 20th, a massive number of Covenant occupation fleets arrived at Earth, attacking targets worldwide. The SPARTAN-II Blue Team, now consisting of Frederic-104, William-043 and Linda-058, were deployed to repel the invaders in numerous battles on and around the planet during the two weeks after the initial Covenant invasion. In orbit, the Covenant fleets constantly fought the UNSC Home Fleet, including the Second, Seventh, and Sixteenth Fleets.

The constant fighting had depleted the UNSC nuclear weapon stockpile, and all that was left were older, low-yield FENRIS nuclear warheads originally intended to be converted to peaceful purposes. These nukes had been transported to Havana, Cuba, where the Covenant had recently inserted forces.

Ground battle
There had been scattered reports that the Covenant had invaded the Centennial Orbital Elevator in Havana, before all contact with COE Control had been lost. Marines had been sent to Havana to retake the elevator, but they had not succeeded.

Operating from Base Segundo Terra, Blue Team was deployed to Havana on a D77-TC Pelican piloted by Sergeant Laura Tanner with Jim Higgins as its crew chief. Three Covenant capital ships hung in low orbit above Havana, and Banshee patrols circled around the orbital elevator. Spotting a hole in a Banshee patrol pattern, the Pelican dropped the team down into the jungle. They moved out northeast, towards the space elevator where the jungle ended at the warehouse complex of the COE.

Upon arriving at the edge of the jungle, the team discovered a Scarab walking through the warehouse complex nearby. Observing the area through her sniper rifle scope, Linda spotted a group of dead Marines and a dozen Jiralhanae moving in groups of four towards the space elevator, carrying cargo pods containing the nukes. The Spartans made a plan; they would part ways, with Will and Fred moving to opposite directions while Linda would provide cover for the team with her sniper rifle. In one of the garages, there was a massive tank truck full of explosive fuel which Will would use to disable the Scarab, while Fred would move to the elevator's base and secure the ascent car.

As Fred advanced, Linda provided him cover, killing Jiralhanae patrols headed his way. As Fred sprinted closer to the elevator, he ran into a single Jiralhanae. After Fred had neutralized the alien, he took its weapon. Meanwhile, Will crashed the huge tanker out of a garage, through a gate, and straight to the Scarab. The explosion engulfed the walker, destroyed its core and completely obliterated it.

Fred moved towards the orbital elevator, where the Jiralhanae were already loading the nukes into the car and shutting its doors. Fred stormed into the car, engaged the Covenant there with his Brute Shot but was nearly overwhelmed before the rest of the team arrived. They secured the car and the twelve nuclear warheads inside. As soon as they got the car moving, Wraith tanks, Banshees and large amounts of ground forces began to converge on their position.

Orbital battle
During their way up, Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood contacted the team from Cairo Station. Hood told them they had a new mission, and a prowler was dispatched to extract them. Hood then relayed a message from Dr. Halsey on Onyx, received by the Remote Scanning Outpost Democritus. As they ascended, the team reviewed the message, which contained information about the recent events on Installation 05, the Flood and that John-117 was on his way to Earth aboard the Forerunner Dreadnought. Finally, Halsey requested Fleet Command to send Spartans to Onyx in order to retrieve valuable Forerunner technologies.

Hood had prepared one of UNSC's fastest ships, the corvette, to transport the Spartans to Onyx. Fred, however, realized it would still take weeks to reach the system with a UNSC ship and that there had to be a faster way. Near the elevator, they noticed two Covenant s. Fred formulated a plan to hijack and use one of them to get to Onyx. The plan was approved, and the corvette was sent to distract the Covenant ships while the Covenant sent dropships to retrieve the nukes from the space elevator. However, the Spartans hid under the hull of one of the dropships and managed to infiltrate the shuttle bay of one of the destroyers, the Bloodied Spirit, undetected.

In the bay, there were ten Kig-Yar and several Unggoy. The Spartans killed all of them, and Fred sent Linda to defuse the nukes while he would hack a control terminal in the bay. Using an ONI data pad with new translation and infiltration software, he managed to get in the system. He then depressurized the entire ship, killing all Covenant aboard. Meanwhile, Linda and Will managed to defuse the nukes aboard Bloodied Spirit, while the other Covenant dropship took the rest of the nukes to the other destroyer. Unbeknownst to the Covenant, the warheads were still armed.

The Blue Team then got to bridge, where Fred hacked the control system with his ONI datapad. He proceeded to enter the Slipspace jump solution and coordinates to Onyx, when the crew of the other destroyer realized that Bloodied Spirit had been boarded and moved to intercept the human-captured ship. As the destroyer started to charge its weapons, the nukes transported aboard it went off, completely obliterating the ship and Station Wayward Rest on top of the Centennial Orbital Elevator. Simultaneously, the Bloodied Spirit made a successful jump into Slipspace.

Aftermath
With no orbital anchor station, the Centennial Orbital Elevator crumbled down to Earth's surface. Blue Team would make it to Onyx in a few hours and join the Onyx Conflict. Lord Hood would remain uncertain if Blue Team managed to complete a Slipspace jump or if they were obliterated by the nuclear explosion.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx