Battle of Installation 04

The Battle of Installation 04 was the name given to a series of skirmishes between the forces of the UNSC and the Covenant on the surface of Halo Installation 04.

In the latter part of the battle, the UNSC and Covenant were joined in battle by the Forerunner Sentinels and Flood.

September 19, 2552
Following their disastrous defeat at Reach and the loss of a third of her tech staff, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn made an apparently blind jump, but possibly planned by the AI Cortana, through Slipspace from where they would then make their way to Earth. The Pillar of Autumn and the approximately 1,100 humans on it were followed and, upon arriving in orbit above the planet Threshold, were intercepted by the pursuing Covenant vessels.

As the Covenant began boarding the Pillar of Autumn, the vessel managed to destroy four of the Covenant vessels and force one, the Truth and Reconciliation to retreat for repairs. As the boarding of Pillar of Autumn continued, Thom Shephard was ordered to release Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 from his Cryo-chamber by Captain Jacob Keyes. Thom was later killed by a conduit explosion.

The Master Chief then proceeded to the Bridge of the Pillar of Autumn where he was joined with the shipboard AI Cortana. He then evacuated to the recently discovered Installation 04 aboard a Bumblebee, along with most of the Pillar of Autumn's crew. The pod's descent systems failed in mid-flight and the following impact killed all of the marines on board, save for the Master Chief.

Meanwhile, a battalion of ODSTs led by Major Antonio Silva and Lieutenant Melissa McKay "helljumped" to Halo in their Human Entry Vehicles. Once on the ground, the ODSTs made contact with Major Silva and established a temporary headquarters. Silva then instructed McKay to capture a Covenant-held butte that Silva's AI had projected during his descent. The rest of the battalion stayed at the headquarters established landing zones, to allow Pelican Dropships to pick up troops for an aerial assault on the base. The Covenant then staged an assault on the Helljumpers, sending one-hundred Ghosts and later, Banshees. The marines fended of the attack, killing more than 50 Elites, including a Zealot, but suffered twenty-three killed and sixteen wounded. McKay lost only one marine, while the fourth company lost a few more performing an aerial assault on the butte.

Upon arrival on the ring, Captain Jacob Keyes, a marine fire team led by Corporal Wilkins and the surviving command crew were able to fend off Covenant troops, who were attempting to capture them. However, one officer, Ensign Ellen Dowski was beginning to crack, and wanted to surrender to the Covenant. Believing that she might stir up similar thoughts in the marine fire team, the team ties her up and leaves her to surrender to the Covenant herself. However, upon discovering that the gulch they landed in is a box canyon the humans were captured and were executed by the Covenant, save for Captain Keyes, who was captured.

The Master Chief managed to rescue 63 naval personnel and Marines before executing a successful rescue operation aboard Truth and Reconciliation, with 36 marines and ODST's killed and 3 marines plus the Captain rescued.

The survivors also raided a dozen other locations, stealing enemy equipment such as Shades and a large number of Banshees. This would motivate the Covenant to take the humans seriously and place a large amount of effort into stamping out the human forces.

The UNSC forces, led by Lieutenant McKay staged a raid on the crashed Pillar of Autumn, destroying a large force of Ghosts and a Spirit dropship as well as killing many Covenant troops. They then retrieved a large squad of Warthogs, trailers and four Scorpions from the cruiser's vehicle bays and drove them in a convoy to Alpha Base. At a trio of hills, the Covenant attempted to ambush the humans, attempting to destroy the convoy with Wraith mortar tanks, Banshees and Ghosts. Despite the size of the attack, The Covenant forces only managed to inflict moderate damage before losing the tanks and a large portion of their ground forces to the Scorpions' return fire. The tanks would later see use around the ring world, most notably in the defense of Alpha Base.

September 20, 2552
The following day, the crew of Pillar of Autumn launched an attack on the Silent Cartographer island, in their attempt to uncover the purpose of the ring. Fighting their way through the heavily defended Covenant positions, the Master Chief and a handful of Marines, supported by Echo 419 and Bravo 22, discovered the location of Alpha-Halo's Control Room. However, a pair of Covenant Dropships landed and engaged the defenders of the LZ, appearing to kill all the marines that were with the Chief.

Making his way to the Control Room with help from the marines of Fire Team Zulu, Master Chief discovered that the weapons cache that Captain Keyes was looking for was actually an underground containment facility, and that Halo was a Forerunner construct. Master Chief left the Control Room for the swampy areas of the installation. Captain Keyes and Sergeant Johnson had led their two marine groups to the "weapons cache," losing a pair of marines from fire by Covenant defenders. Taking their dog tags and ammo, Fire Team Charlie with Keyes and Johnson continued on while Second Squad watched the exit.

After a short time, the "weapons cache" Keyes was looking for reveals itself in the form of the Flood. The Flood attacked second squad who barely got a message to Keyes and escaped. However the message was too late as the Flood attacked Keyes' Fire Team, infecting Keyes along with Privates Riley, Kappus, Jenkins, Mendoza, and Bisenti, and about 3 others before a pair of marines got out of the room, one of who was killed just outside and the Crazed Marine who escaped. Most of second squad escaped, but three marines were separated and six others were killed. The Chief fought his way into Alpha Halo's main Flood containment facility in his mission to stop the newly released Flood. He then attempted to get the surviving 10 marines of Corporal Lovik's second squad through the swamp to extraction, but was unsuccessful. Almost none of these marines survived long enough to extract.

Battle of Alpha Base
Meanwhile, the Covenant sent the captured Pelican Charlie 217 and its captured pilot Lt. Rick Hale to insert 30 Spec Ops Elites commanded by Zuka 'Zamamee to assassinate the (absent) Master Chief and clear a landing for six Spirit Dropships or try to capture it. Although six of the Elites managed to escape into the base, the rest were killed when the ODST forces flooded Charlie 217 with jet fuel before igniting it, killing the Elites that had remained on the platform. The surviving Covenant forces had by this time neutralized the human control rooms, and liberated a large number of Covenant prisoners.

However, the MLA auto-cannons and various other defense systems managed to destroy one of the Spirit dropships and killed many Covenant troops in the others. Groups of Rocket-using marines then added to the casualties. Despite their numerical superiority, the Covenant forces landing on the butte were soon either killed or captured, and the assault on Alpha Base stalled.

The Covenant ground assault, lead by a Zealot Field Master, made significant progress against the humans due to their use of Spirit dropships to clear the way ahead of the ground forces. However, the seeming rout was designed to lure the Covenant into the firing range of a pair of concealed Scorpion main battle tanks, which then tore into the ranks of the aliens and inflicted major casualties.

The Covenant Field Master 'Putumee was killed by the third shot from the tanks, throwing the alien forces into chaos, and of the 150 infantry with him, only a few survived to retreat.

Meanwhile, the Covenant Spec Ops team and the freed Covenant troops ran into a Marine ambush in which all members of both sides were killed other than the Elite Zuka 'Zamamee and the grunt Yayap. By this time, however, the Covenant ground assault was in full retreat.

The only known Covenant survivors of the aerial assault were Zuka 'Zamamee and the grunt Yayap who then fled the battlefield in a recaptured Banshee.

September 21, 2552
343 Guilty Spark then transported the Master Chief to the Library of Installation 04, where he was tasked with locating the Activation Index. After succeeding, Master Chief prepared to active the ring, but was stopped by Cortana, who, after a brief argument with 343 Guilty Spark, revealed the true function of the ring to John-117; 343 Guilty Spark delightfully confirmed Cortana's belief.

During this time, the humans of Alpha Base planned to counter attack the weakened Covenant. Using the debris from the destroyed Charlie 217 and "wounded marines," a 30 man platoon of marines were able to fool the Covenant into thinking a crash had occurred and that they had a chance to eliminate more humans, sending out a dropship. Once it landed though, the marine snipers and rocket launchers eliminated their two Hunters and 5 infantry. The dropship returned fire, letting the survivors get into cover. Then the Flood attacked both sides. Calling in reinforcements, the humans were able to win, but lost 15 ODSTs.

Master Chief, deciding not to activate the ring, made an enemy of 343 Guilty Spark and had the Sentinels sent against him. The Master Chief destroyed the three pulse generators that magnify the signal sent out by Halo, disabling the facility for the time being. The Chief was then teleported with Cortana to a Covenant cruiser, where Jacob Keyes was being held. During a second rescue attempt the Chief was too late to rescue Keyes, who had been taken over by the Flood and transformed into a Brain form. The Chief took the neural interface from Keyes, fought his way back through the ship, to the landing bay where he commandeered a Banshee; he then set a course for the Pillar of Autumn, with the intention of destroying the vessel.

Meanwhile, near Alpha Base, the ODSTs set up a trap consisting of the dead from the Battle of Alpha Base, wreckage from Charlie 217 and some Marines to 'draw pinpricks' of blood from the Covenant. However, during the battle, a group of Flood came and ambushed the combatants, killing fully half of the marines under Lt. McKay.

September 22, 2552
By this day, only 312 humans (236 marines, 76 naval personnel) remained alive at Alpha Base. To escape, they attacked the Flood-infested Truth and Reconciliation and tried to use it to escape. However, knowing there was Flood still onboard, Lt. McKay destroyed the connection between bridge and engines, crashing the ship into Halo. Although killing the remaining personnel, it stopped the Flood from reaching Earth.

Crashing aboard the Pillar of Autumn, Master Chief made his way to the bridge of the vessel and activate the self-destruct sequences, only to have 343 Guilty Spark cancel the order. Realizing that only a manual self-destruct would work, the Chief made his way to the rear of the ship.

Finally arriving, the Chief destroyed the Pillar of Autumn's fusion reactors which initiates a chain-reaction of explosions. He raced toward the hangar using a Warthog to traverse the spine of the ship. He was about to escape with the help of Foehammer before it was destroyed by a Banshee. The Chief then commandeered a C709 Longsword-class Inteceptor to escape. The Master Chief and Cortana, onboard the Longsword in the debris field of the destroyed Halo, would, after 2 weeks, find a a cryotube containing Spartan-058 Linda and a Pelican containing Sgt. Major Johnson, Lieutenant Elias Haverson, Warrant Officer Polaski, and ODST Corporal Locklear.

Evacuation of the Autumn
The Pillar of Autumn, after dropping out of slipspace into realspace, was engaged in combat with the Fleet of Particular Justice. Cortana used the cruiser's MAC Cannon and other weapons to hold off the Covenant, but the cannon was disabled due to heavy enemy fire. The ship was then boarded by Covenant troops, under orders from Ship Master Orna 'Fulsamee. Captain Keyes, the commanding officer of the Autumn, initiated Cole Protocol Article 2, and evacuated the ship. While most crew escaped on the ships Bumblebee lifepods, the ship's ODST contingent "helljumped" to Halo, an orbital insertion in Human Entry Vehicles. As the Master Chief evacuated on lifeboat Lima Foxtrot Alpha 43, Keyes began to bring the Autumn down to Halo.

Seizure of Alpha Base
Under orders from Major Silva, Melissa McKay leads her team of ODSTs in a ground assault on Alpha Base. They fight their way up a ramp spiraling up the butte, while the Covenant attempted to eliminate the humans by raining plasma grenades on them.

Meanwhile, Antonio Silva begins to insert troops onto Pelicans for an aerial assault on the butte. However, the Covenant sends a force of one-hundred Ghosts to kill the humans. However, the humans effectively repel the Ghosts and later, Banshees.

After fighting their way up the butte, McKay's team os halted by a rockfall. However, a door set into the side of the butte allows access, and McKay orders a rocket launcher to be handed to her. She fires, wiping out any Covenant inside. Inside, they discover a large grating, whose purpose is unknown, and a lift. Riding it up, she finds that Silva has arrived and has eliminated the remaining Covenant.

Raid on the Truth and Reconciliation
The Master Chief and a platoon of ODSTs were dispatched in the area surrounding the Covenant CCS-Class Battlecruiser Truth and Reconciliation. Using both his S2 AM Sniper Rifle and MA5B Assault Rifle, the Chief fought his way to the ship's Gravity Lift loading zone, where the ship discharged multiple waves of troops and a pair of Hunters. Once inside, the marines were ambushed by sword-wielding stealth elites and other Covenant. After fighting through a storage depot and a large hangar, the marines made it through to the ship's command center, where they killed the Ship Master and many other troops. While the Chief rescued Keyes and three marines, the marines, holding position in the control center, were slaughtered by two more stealth elites. They then fought their way back to the hangar, where Keyes hijacked a Covenant Dropship and flew it out of the hangar.

Silent Cartographer
The Master Chief was then inserted onto an island, where the "Silent Cartographer" was supposed to be hidden. The Cartographer was a map room of Halo, and was held by the Covenant. After clearing a beach of troops, he made his way to the facility where the map was stored. However, the door leading into the facility was locked, and the Chief was forced to deactivate the security system, opening the door. After clearing many floors of troops, he activates the map, determines the location of the control room, and fends off reinforcements. Once topside, the Chief is extracted by Foehammer.

Flood Containment Facility
The Covenant accidentally released the Flood, and in panic, sealed the Flood in a room deep within the containment facility in order to protect themselves from the horror they had uncovered.

Captain Jacob Keyes, along with 2nd Squad landed nearby in Pelican dropship Victor 933 and proceeded to infiltrate the structure. They later met up with Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson's "Fire Team Charlie", who had proceeded to the structure and engaged the Covenant they encountered in the upper levels of the facility. After receiving a transmission from a troubled marine present further into the facility, they set out to provide aid.

While exploring the lower levels, the UNSC forces eventually come across a sealed door, locked down by the Covenant to prevent the escape of the Flood. With increased curiosity the UNSC open the door and explore the room. The Flood attacked the UNSC forces and begin to infect any available host present.

Later on, the Master Chief arrived near V933s crash site on board Echo 419. He then entered the lightly guarded structure, being watched by the Flood. After entering the Containment Room, he found Private Jenkins' helmet with a built in video camera. After seeing the gruesome events through the eyes of Jenkins, the remaining Flood spewed out of nearby doors. John-117 proceeds after the remaining UNSC forces, combating Infection and Combat forms. The Master Chief soon catches up with the remaining UNSC forces, who are advised by Echo-419 to take refuge at a nearby structure, the Library.

The survivors went through the swamp in search of a tower, which would be the Evac site for E419. After making it to the structure, the Marines are aided by a mysterious ally, floating constructs known as Sentinels. The Sentinels, commanded by a Monitor, 343 Guilty Spark, defend the marines, eliminating any Flood in the vicinity of the Library. The Monitor then teleports the Master Chief into the structure, referring to him as "Reclaimer".

Covenant forces from the crashed Spirit dropship flee the Containment facility, and are all likely wiped out.

Flood forces in the vicinity of the Library are wiped out, majority of Flood forces escape the Containment facility and spread across the Installation, infecting any appropriate hosts.

Master Chief and 343 Guilty Spark proceed into the Library, Sentinels and UNSC forces survive. UNSC forces are evacuated by Echo-419. Captain Keyes is captured by the Flood.

Ambush on the Covenant
This battle was the UNSC's first encounter with the Flood in which they actually survived/won, excluding John-117. It turned out to be a costly victory, as half of the attack force was massacred by the new threat/Covenant. Originally, however, it was meant to be only a small skirmish against the Covenant, but soon erupted as the Flood also participated.

Prologue
Before, Silva wanted to engage the Covenant in a medium conflict that would "take the hurt to them. Nothing big, not yet anyway, but the kind of pinpricks that still draw blood", leaving Lieutenant McKay to plan out the mission. She decided to use bait in order to draw the Covenant in with "crashed" Pelicans (really Charlie 217's burned-out remains), mock-injured Marines, and a phony distress call. Since Wellsley believed that the Covenant took the Marine force seriously after the Raid on the Truth and Reconciliation, they should monitor human radio traffic and regular recon flights, allowing them to easily pick the bait.

Battle
First, the preparation of arranging for the bait took several hours (They had to scourge for bodies of comrades killed on the butte for "volunteer" casualties.) Sure enough, thirty minutes into the wait, McKay saw a Shee and signaled for the operation to commence. Members of the third squad, some of whom had mock-injuries, pantomimed surprise and hurried back to cover as the Banshee shot plasma fire at them. The Banshee then went away, presumably to tell the Covenant about a new Human location.

Later, a U-shaped dropship appeared, dropping Jackals, Elites, Grunts...and a couple of Hunters. These were a surprise, though McKay quickly ordered all the heavy weapons and sniper fire to concentrate on the walking tanks. Soon enough, they went down. However, the dropship returned and hosed the entire area, forcing the Helljumpers to go back to cover. Thus encouraged, the Covenant rushed into the rocks to engage. However, the snipers managed to pick off five alien soldiers before the dropship exacted the position. Two snipers were killed by the harsh plasma, and another was wounded.

Soon, the mission turned ugly, as the Covenant engaged in hide-and-seek with the Marines. Just as McKay was about to order a retreat, something even worse appeared.

Suddenly, the bizarre creatures, also known as the Flood, attacked both groups. While the Covenant had experience with the Flood, the Helljumpers simply had never seen them before. Three members of the second squad were going down under the Infection forms, while another was being massacred by the Combat forms. Confused pleas and requests for extraction filled the radio, tripling the radio traffic. McKay received her first look when she noticed a Grunt with two Infection forms; she put down the trio with a sustained burst. However, then, Pvt Jenkin's Combat form jumped out. In order to collect a specimen, she sidestepped and restrained the Flood form. In order to kill the Flood, the Marines and Covenant joined forces, and eliminated the Flood after 15 minutes. Then, they proceeded to return to their hide-and-seek. Finally, with half the Marines killed, the UNSC claimed a victory.

Attack on the Truth and Reconciliation
The Master Chief and Cortana arrived at the Truth and Reconciliation so they could save Keyes and have him activate the Pillar of Autumn's self-destruct sequence. They found themselves in the middle of a battle between the Covenant and the Flood for control of the CCS-class Battlecruiser. They fought through their enemies and entered the ship. They found that Keyes had become part of a Proto-Gravemind, so the Master Chief punched a hole in the Proto-Gravemind and took Keyes's Command Neural Interface. This would allow them to activate the self-destruct sequence themselves. The Master Chief and Cortana then fought their way to one of the hangars, stole one of the Banshees and escaped to the Pillar of Autumn.

Capture of the Truth and Reconciliation
The surviving marines were deployed in the area surrounding the Truth and Reconciliation. McKay's troops stormed the area surrounding the grav lift, killed the security team guarding it, and entered the ship. Using the schematics from the previous raid, the humans quickly secured the ship's control center and engine room, as well as 80% of the ship. While the human technicians studied the ship's controls, and Wellsley activated the ship's engines, a small group of Flood attacked the engine room. The Flood were quickly subdued, but the attack caused McKay to urge Silva to eradicate the Flood on board. Once Mckay returns to her post, Lieutenant Commander Gail Purdy points out a fiber-optic passage that connected the engines to the command center. McKay, knowing the Flood could not reach Earth, severs the passage, and destroys the ship.

Survivors
It is assumed that only 7 members of the Pillar of Autumn were in space and therefore survived the blast, 6 of which were on a Pelican, and the other one was on a Longsword fighter. Every other person at the battle presumably died when Installation 04 was destroyed. However, since Gunnery Sergeant Pete Stacker and Private Chips Dubbo, among others, have been seen again in later games, it can be assumed that there were other survivors.

However, it is explained in Halo: The Flood and Halo: First Strike, that the Autumn was operating as a skeleton crew, as the remaining non-essential crew remained in cryo. When the Covenant infiltrated the ship, most of the crew were still asleep and their tubes were shot into space to save them from being killed in the crash.

The Chief managed to retrieve 3 tubes, one containing Linda. The people in the other 2 had died in sleep due to malfunctions. It is not known whether this was a malfunction in one of the cryo storage rooms, or if it happened to almost every tube.

It is unknown how many occupied tubes survived Halo; however, most, if not all, would have been destroyed by the time High Charity arrived.

UNSC

 * Crew
 * Captain Jacob Keyes
 * Lieutenant Commander Gail Purdy
 * Lieutenant Dominique
 * Lieutenant Hall
 * Lieutenant Elias Haverson
 * Lieutenant Aki Hikowa
 * Ensign William Michael Lovell
 * Chief Petty Officer Thom Shepard
 * Petty Officer First Class Mary Murphy
 * Petty Officer Third Class Cho
 * Petty Officer Third Class Sam N. Marcus
 * Petty Officer Third Class Pauley
 * Crewman Abiad
 * Crewman Singh
 * Crewman Wang


 * Flight Crew
 * Crew Chief Cullen
 * Flight Officer Captain Carol Rawley
 * Flight Officer Mitchell
 * Warrant Officer Shiela Polaski
 * Lieutenant "Cookie" Peterson
 * Lieutenant Rick Hale
 * Lieutenant Frye
 * Ensign Ellen Dowski


 * Marines
 * Major Antonio Silva
 * First Lieutenant Melissa McKay
 * Second Lieutenant Dalu
 * Second Lieutenant Oros
 * Master Sergeant Lister
 * Gunnery Sergeant Pete Stacker
 * Gunnery Sergeant Waller
 * Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson
 * Staff Sergeant Marvin Mobuto
 * Sergeant Tink Carter
 * Sergeant Corly
 * Sergeant Parker
 * Corporal Locklear
 * Corporal Lovik
 * Corporal Wilkins
 * Lance Corporal "Snaky" Jones
 * Private First Class Chips Dubbo
 * Private First Class M. Fitzgerald
 * Private First Class Hosky
 * Private First Class Wallace A. Jenkins
 * Private First Class Suzuki
 * Private Bisenti
 * Private Kappus
 * Private Manuel Mendoza
 * Private Marie Postly
 * Private Riley
 * Private Satha


 * Al-Thani
 * Dawkins
 * "Doc" Valdez
 * Murphy
 * Yutrzenika

Covenant

 * Fleet of Particular Justice
 * The Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice

Forerunner Constructs

 * 343 Guilty Spark
 * Hundreds of Sentinels

Flood

 * At least one Brain Form
 * Thousands of Combat Forms
 * Thousands of Carrier Forms
 * Hundreds of Thousands of Infection Forms

Related Articles

 * Human-Covenant War
 * Installation 04
 * Raid on the Truth and Reconciliation
 * Battle of the Silent Cartographer
 * Battle of Installation 05