Headhunters (story)

For other uses, see Headhunters (disambiguation).

Headhunters is a short story in Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, a collection of short stories by a multitude of authors. It tells the story of a specialist team of SPARTAN-IIIs, mainly Roland and Jonah, two top echelon elite SPARTAN-IIIs who are selected by ONI Section Three for a special branch under the Beta-5 Division. Headhunters is written by Jonathan Goff.

Headhunters has been adapted into a motion comic series by the animation studio MoreFrames, with sound production by Pyramind Studios. The series was released on June 18, 2011.

Synopsis
The story focuses on the ghost-like SPARTAN-IIIs codenamed "Headhunters" in their top secret missions, and also shows a contrast between the openly celebrated SPARTAN-IIs and the highly classified secretive force of SPARTAN-IIIs, in that only ONI Section Three operatives know of their glories and failures. The characters and their close bond is revealed throughout the story, with entertaining and engaging dialogue between the central characters.

The Headhunters are a top-secret group of unique SPARTAN-IIIs that were "a secret, even to their peers", which were sent on top secret missions. Individuals had to survive two or more specially assigned training missions before being evaluated in the additional, grueling training regimen (seven months of supervised field exercises, followed by six months real-world wartime insertions). At the program's height there was a maximum contingent of six squads - six teams, with a total of seventeen soldiers rotating in to fill gaps when half or all of a team was lost in the field. Fireteams are comprised of two headhunters, initially paired via exhaustive interviews and ONI profiling. Jonah and Roland have excellent compatibility with 97.36 percent - only one other pair scored higher.

The Headhunter's objective on this mission was to slip onto the Covenant-held moon (which was believed to be a dig-site for a hidden artifact), and remove six of the ten identified base camps situated around the outer perimeter of a much larger central compound. A second team of Headhunters would remove the four outstanding camps in preparation for what was to follow. The confusion and reshuffling of troops and supplies by the Covenant contingent following each base camp's dismantling was simply the opening salvo in a full-scale assault by a dozen SPARTAN III fireteams and associated orbital backup.

The story continues with an explanation of the gear Roland and Jonah have (armed with M7S Caseless Submachine Guns and M6C/SOCOM pistols along with various experimental UNSC-developed equipment), and then finally the story begins as they stealthily recon, infiltrate, and rig a Covenant digging site on a remote planet. Roland and Jonah sneak past a perched Kig-Yar sniper, and into the outskirts of the camp, using VISR mode to help navigate and to look out for cloaked Elites. After gathering intel for two days, they make way. Roland, with an experimental active camouflage module on his armor, will be rigging the reactors in the base to explode while Jonah begins to hunt and kill Covenant in the camp. Other new equipment featured in the story comes in the form of an Energy Disruptor, a device that disables the Covenant's plasma weapons and energy shields (those of personal armor systems as well as force-field doors in the camp). Jonah uses one of his several disruptors to attack and confront a group of Unggoy, Kig-Yar, and Sangheili.

After Roland has set the charges using his av-cam, he meets Jonah on the other side of the camp as Jonah is about to battle his enemies, having just sliced off a dead Elite's head to taunt the enemy. Together, they kill the Covenant guards. Jonah disables the last Elite with two shots to the Elite's kneecaps. After some brief questioning, Jonah stabs the Elite in the neck, and then unloads an entire clip from his pistol into the corpse. They are caught off-guard by a squad of cloaked Spec-Op Elites. Roland is killed by an Energy Sword with a blood-red blade held by a Spec-Ops Sangheili wearing highly customized armor, and Jonah is surrounded by several other similarly-clad Sangheili. Jonah then taunts the specialized Covenant warriors, mocking their cowardice and disrespecting their honor (an offense that would surely drive an Elite to a feral state, similar to looking a Jiralhanae in the eye) yet they kept their cool. After subsequent taunting Jonah is attacked and severely injured--it is apparent that these Sangheili were different than most, as these different Elites seemed to toy with Jonah. This is uncommon as most Sangheili honorably kill their enemies instead of psychologically intimidating them. Jonah realizes the importance of the Spec-Ops warriors due to their advanced unseen technology and is comforted by the thought of trading his one life for the six Sangheili specialists'. Even after being severely lethally injured from an energy sword, Jonah is still able to release the trigger for the explosives that Roland had rigged around the camp. The Covenant camp is vaporized, along with Jonah and the advanced Sangheili specialists.

Trivia

 * In the short story, Roland covers Jonah with a Covenant carbine, firing three shots into a Sangheili's head and then expending the rest of his magazine on the remaining hostiles. In the motion comic, Roland dispatches the Sangheili with a single shot from a particle beam rifle, then kills several of the remaining hostiles with single shots; however, Roland's particle beam rifle emits the report of the Covenant carbine when fired.
 * Halo: Reach features a game type known as Headhunter, in which players must collect flaming skulls dropped by their defeated enemies.