Annabelle Richards

Captain Annabelle Richards is the head of special operations in the Office of Naval Intelligence. After spending several years in the Navy during the Human-Covenant war, Richards was promoted to head of ONI special operations by 2555.

Operation: FAR STORM
In 2555, Richards was present for a meeting by the Office of Naval Intelligence in Sydney's HIGHCOM Facility. She was joined by CINCONI Serin Osman, several military representatives, William Iqbal and Bob Casper. After Iqbal informed them of the countdown Luther Mann and Henry Lamb had discovered on Installation 07, Casper told them it was very likely a countdown to the activation of the Halo Array. Richards suggested sending an expedition to the Ark to stop the activation, to which they agreed to send a joint UNSC-Swords of Sanghelios team. Serin Osman then tasked Richards with overseeing the repairing of the Portal at Voi and the expedition to the Ark.

When N'tho 'Sraom, Usze 'Taham and the Huragok Drifts Randomly arrived at Earth in their corvette Mayhem, Richards was there to greet them when they departed from their Phantom dropship near the artifact at Voi, Kenya. She then ordered Spartans Frank Kodiak and Elias Holt to bring the Sangheili and Huragok to Research Center Alpha to begin repairs on the artifact. Two days passed and the fact the artifact wasn't operational yet was starting to anger Richards, so she called Doctor Luther Mann in to explain the situation. As she was expressing her concern to Mann about the portal not being active Drifts Randomly managed to reactivate it, within seconds a Retriever appeared and started excavating near the portal, but it was soon destroyed by. A meeting was then organized on Mayhem ' s bridge, as per N'tho's request. N'tho suggested entering the portal immediately, but Richards insisted they wait for consent by her superiors. Not wanting to waste any time, N'tho ordered his crew to fly Mayhem into the portal, but before they could enter, another Retriever appeared. Mayhem quickly took care of the sentinel and then entered the portal.

Instead of taking weeks, Mayhem arrived at the Ark in a matter of hours. The vessel was soon engaged by multiple armed Retrievers and was overwhelmed, the corvette crashed onto the surface of the Ark and suffered severe damage. Richards and the rest of the expedition exited the ship and N'tho informed them of where they were heading. After journeying for a while the group were approached by a pack of Blind wolves but managed to avoid them thanks to Olympia Vale's advice, however they were promptly attacked by a group of Chaefka and the sound of the fight attracted the blind wolves back. During the fight Olympia Vale was attacked by one of the animals and her mind started to be controlled by an unknown force which made her walk away with one of the Chaefka. After learning of her disappearance, Richards ordered three Marines to take the dead back to the ship, and she split the remaining members of the expedition into two groups, with one team consisting of N'tho, Luther Mann, Spartan Kodiak, Zon 'Vadum, Kola 'Baoth, the remaining four Marines and herself tasked with heading straight to the Citadel and the other team consisting of Usze 'Taham, Spartan Elias Holt and Henry Lamb tasked with searching for Vale. Shortly after, Richards injured her leg after falling into a small crater. N'tho suggested she head back to the ship with the four remaining Marines, to which she agreed.

After successfully stopping the activation sequence for the Halo Array and defeating the Ark's monitor, the rest of the team head back to Mayhem where they find Richards fully healed thanks to the Sangheili's advanced medical technology. Several UNSC ships exit slipspace above the Ark and manage to locate Mayhem and bring it and the expedition back to Earth. Upon their return, Richards visits Osman at her office. Osman offers her a Medal of Honor and a promotion, though she declines the latter as she believes she failed to properly lead those under her command due to her injury.

Operation: BOOKWORM and the Ace of Spades
In 2557, Richards worked as Director of Operation: BOOKWORM, a mission to capture 343 Guilty Spark and extract everything ONI could from him, their interest drawn by the Bornstellar Relation recovered from Sarcophagus and the data drop containing Spark's story to the crew of the which claimed that the Librarian was still alive. With a distress call from the Rubicon having been relayed by a cargo ship, Richards directed efforts by the and  to recover Spark from the wreckage, only to be thwarted by the crew of the salvager ship Ace of Spades, who Agent Hahn and ONI had previously clashed with by seizing all of their property and assets. After the failed attempt to capture the Ace of Spades crew, Richards was, however, pleased that Hahn and his agents apparently secured Spark. Richards was the first to realize that something was wrong after viewing footage from the skirmish at Port Joy and realizing that she was witnessing an armiger from her experiences of the Ark. Richards deduced that it was Spark, and what he had done too late to stop Spark from shutting down her facility and hacking its records on Catalog. After the encounter between Spark and the Librarian's personality imprint under Mount Kilimanjaro, Richards and her team secured and investigated the Forerunner installation, determined to learn everything they could from it and to capture the Ace of Spades and Spark.

Personality and traits
Richards harbors a great dislike and mistrust for the Sangheili because of the genocide they committed during the War. However, she recognizes that the war is over and fighting the Sangheili is not the right thing to do. She is both willing and able to put her feelings aside for the good of the mission and species relations.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Hunters in the Dark
 * Halo: Renegades