Linda-058

Petty Officer Linda-058 is a SPARTAN-II supersoldier. She is one of the closest friends to John-117 and one of the few known surviving Spartan-IIs. She is best known for her skill with the SRS99-S2 Sniper Rifle Systems.

Personality and description
Linda is notorious for her unparalleled abilities with the sniper rifle; John-117 and Frederic-104 have noted on several occasions that she makes sniping seem like an art. She never requires a spotter, and her accuracy allows her to pull off remarkable shots: on one occasion, she was able to take out several Covenant Banshees in mid-flight by firing between the gaps between the upper and lower sections. In addition, she once eliminated two targets so quickly that even the Master Chief couldn't tell who she had targeted first. She is notably the quietest member of Blue Team, excluding John, and has been labeled as a "lone wolf". She is also a practitioner of Zen.

Linda is very pale, with blood-red hair and emerald green eyes. She, like every SPARTAN-II, was trained by CPO Mendez on planet Reach. John once described her as the emotionally "strongest" Spartan, as she does not rely on other members of her squad for advocating support on or off the battlefield. John-117 also once mentioned that "If any one of the Spartans could be called a 'lone wolf', it was Linda."

Childhood
Prior to her conscription into the SPARTAN-II Program, Linda oversaw an "intelligence network" among her classmates, which she used to spy on her teachers. In 2517, at age six, she was singled out as a physically and intellectually superior child by Dr. Catherine Halsey. She was then abducted, replaced with a flash clone, and sent to the SPARTAN training facility on Reach. Linda then trained there with the SPARTANs under the guidance of Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez and Déjà. She took part in training missions at Military Reservation 01478-B, the Military Wilderness Training Preserve, and several missions in the Highland Mountains.

Early career
Linda adapted successfully to her augmentations in 2525, and recovered quickly enough that she was chosen for the SPARTAN-IIs' first mission in the Eridanus system; at this point, the Spartans did not yet have their later-trademark MJOLNIR Mark IV Armor. She, along with John-117, Frederic-104, Sam-034 and Kelly-087 boarded the Laden and traveled to Eridanus Secundus where they infiltrated the facility and captured Colonel Robert Watts, the then-leader of the Eridanus rebels.

She was present at numerous battles during the Human-Covenant War, including Jericho VII in 2535. She was also at Sigma Octanus IV during the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV. She was designated as Green-One, leading SPARTAN-II Green Team into the suburbs around Côte d'Azur. Her team scouted out the residential section of the city and found no survivors. Green Team helped escort the twenty civilian survivors that Red Team (led by Joshua-029) had found and was able to successfully evacuate them before Blue Team detonated a HAVOK nuclear warhead in the heart of the city, destroying tens of thousands of Covenant forces stationed there. Linda and her team then dusted off in a Pelican which docked with the and returned to Reach for debriefing.

Fall of Reach
Linda was aboard the for a short time until the Fall of Reach began. She was designated as Blue-Three, part of John-117's team to Reach Station Gamma to destroy the unsecured NAV database of ONI's. During that mission, James was out of commission (and presumed KIA) so she and John were forced to enter the station, which was filled with Elites and Jackal Rangers. She found the bay and assisted Staff Sergeant Johnson's squad in holding off the Covenant forces long enough to escape. However, as they jumped out of their Pelican to open the bay doors, she was hit by several overcharged bolts from Plasma Pistols and Plasma Rifles, which penetrated her armor and flesh all the way to the bone. One of the globules of plasma hit her in the back of the skull. Linda was recovered by a horrified John, but her vitals flatlined, and she was presumed dead.

Installation 04
John-117, disheartened over the death of his close teammate, took her to the cryo facilities where they immediately froze Linda's body in a cryo chamber. The Pillar of Autumn then jumped to Installation 04. As the ship was shot down by Covenant forces, most of the cryo chambers, including Linda's, were ejected as per standard UNSC procedure. She floated above the Halo for several days until after the destruction of the the Installation. Linda was then detected by Cortana and John, who were in a Longsword fighter. They picked her and two other cryo pods up, but both of the other occupants had died when their chambers failed.

When John-117, SSgt. Avery Johnson, Cpl. Locklear, Lt. Haverson, and PO2 Shiela Polaski captured the Covenant flagship Ascendant Justice, Linda, still in her cryo-chamber, was brought aboard. Due to the extent of her injuries, she was left frozen until certified medical staff was available. She stayed on the Ascendant Justice until Dr. Halsey was rescued from Reach along with Frederic-104 and the survivors of his team. Dr. Halsey revived Linda aboard the. Doctor Halsey ended up performing surgery on Linda, transplanting her with newly flash-cloned kidneys and a liver which needed to be replaced due to her injuries. The operation was successful and Linda survived, but Doctor Halsey said it would be at least a week before she should even get out of bed; however, Linda disregarded this due to the imminent threat to Earth, and seemed to recover at least enough to go on a mission within a few days.

Operation: FIRST STRIKE
Linda was then geared up and made ready for battle, but did not exhibit her exceptional skills until Operation: FIRST STRIKE. Linda was one of the Spartans who infiltrated the Unyielding Hierophant, providing cover for John-117, Fred-104, William-043, and Grace-093 with a Sniper Rifle. She made sure they made it to the vessel's fusion reactors and allowed their overload by the team.

As John, Will, and Fred evacuated, Linda, with some of her best and potent shooting skills, managed to shoot 7 Elite pilots right out of their airborne Banshee fliers one-handed and hanging upside-down from a cable. She refused to give up her position to make sure her three comrades got out alive, even at the expense of her own life, until John ordered her to let him rescue her over the COM. She then sent the Spartan-derived Oly Oly Oxen Free over the COM and uploaded a NAV marker with her location to John's HUD. It turns out that she was actually hiding in broad daylight, but angled so that the sun would not reflect off of her suit, thus providing an undetectable cover from which she eliminated the Banshees.

She then retreated in John's Banshee to the Gettysburg, upon which she returned to Earth.

Battle of Earth
Following her return to Earth, Linda, as well as Frederic-104 and William-043, were called upon to perform a number of operations during the Battle of Earth up until November 3rd, 2552. These operations included numerous operations in orbit around Earth, such as stopping a Covenant invasion on Mount Erebus in Antarctica with a HAVOK tactical nuke, and destroying Covenant forces on the sea floor off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Following these operations, they were deployed to the Centennial Orbital Elevator (also known as Tallo Negro del Maiz) in Havana, Cuba to stop Covenant forces that had gathered there. Linda, along with Blue Team, stopped the Covenant forces that had captured multiple nuclear warheads. The Spartans ascended the orbital elevator, destroyed one of the Covenant destroyers at the top, and captured another one: the Bloodied Spirit.

Onyx
"To absent friends."

- Linda, thinking of her fallen fellow Spartans aboard the Bloodied Spirit

Using the Bloodied Spirit, Linda and the other SPARTAN-IIs traveled to the planet Onyx at the request of Dr. Catherine Halsey. Linda arrived with Frederic-104 and William-043 in a crash landing on the surface. There, she met Kelly, Dr. Halsey, Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose (a Spartan she had thought dead for twenty-one years) and many Spartan-IIIs - most notably Holly, Ash and Dante. There they were assaulted by multiple Onyx Sentinels. The Sentinels attacked in groups of three, one watching and reporting Spartan tactics to the other Sentinels at three thousand meters in the air, and the other two attacking at close range. Linda was able to shoot the over watch Sentinel out of the sky with aid from two SPNKr rocket launchers.

Linda then accompanied the rest of the human survivors as they used one of Bloodied Spirit's dropships to reach a massive underground Forerunner city within Zone 67 on Onyx. Once they had located Onyx's map room, Endless Summer assigned them on a mission to destroy a Sentinel factory, in which they succeeded.

Translocating to another section of Onyx, they found Spartan-III Team Katana, who were trapped in Forerunner slipspace field pods. As such, the Spartans were unable to resuscitate them and fled to a chamber within Onyx's core, taking Team Katana with them, whilst being pursued by a Covenant army under command of Fleet Master Voro Nar 'Mantakree. The Covenant forces assaulted the small group of Spartan-IIs and Spartan-IIIs, who were holding their ground at a slipspace portal in the center of the core room. Linda was able to kill many Elites and Grunts, but they were quickly being overwhelmed, and Kurt ordered a retreat into the slipspace rift while he stayed behind to make sure the Covenant did not follow them inside. Linda's final act during that battle was to shoot two Elites out of their Banshees before retreating through.

Shield world and recovery
On the other side of the slipspace rift, the human survivors found themselves inside a massive micro Dyson sphere contained within a compressed slipspace bubble in the heart of Onyx. After Linda and the rest of the human survivors had explored the sphere for several days—over three months in normal spacetime—they discovered a group of Huragok which helped them establish contact with the outside and eventually bring the sphere back into normal space. They were then recovered by the ONI team Kilo-Five and taken to a debriefing in HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 aboard the. She, along with the rest of the surviving SPARTAN-IIs, was present in the Voi Memorial ceremony on March 3, 2553.

Trivia

 * In the audiobook version of Halo: The Fall of Reach, Linda speaks with a southern American accent. This may have been a reference to the famous sniper Carlos Hathcock who came from Arkansas in the south of America or perhaps it was just taken from the stereotype of Americans from the south being really good shots.
 * "Linda" is one of the name options for customized loadouts in Halo: Reach, along with the members of Noble Team and several other SPARTAN-IIs.
 * In Halo: Fall of Reach - Boot Camp, Linda's body suit is incorrectly emblazoned with the tag "-059". This tag actually belong to Malcolm.
 * In the same issue, on the panel which the Spartans are seen aiming at Watts's men with their weapons, Linda is depicted as left-handed, holding her rifle's trigger by her left hand.
 * In Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Linda's life signs can be seen onboard the level The Pillar of Autumn in Anniversary Mode on red terminals in both sections of the "Cryo B" control room, her heart monitors clearly showing that she has flat-lined. Her name, Spartan tag and rank appear on the screen stating her to be a Petty Officer, but it does not specify which class.
 * Linda's move of sniping pilots out of Banshees is actually a valid tactic in Halo: Reach, though requires either extremely good marksmanship or a lot of luck.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: The Flood
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Glasslands
 * Halo: Fall of Reach
 * Boot Camp
 * Covenant