Gray Team

"Early on during the war, we targeted prominent commanders and religious leaders. We made sure their backup strategic minds were under the constant threat of assassination. Then, as things got worse and more human colonies fell, we were asked to do more."

- Jai-006 about Gray Team's line of work

Gray Team is a group of Spartan-II supersoldiers of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Group. It consists of Jai-006, Adriana-111, and Michael-120, the most independent and individualistic of the Spartan-IIs. These qualities were used to create a unit trained to operate for extended periods with minimal supervision and support. In contrast to the typical green coloration used by most Spartan-IIs, Gray Team's Mjolnir armor is painted gray.

Compared to the other Spartan-IIs, such as the conceptually similar Black Team, Gray Team's training placed additional emphasis on individual thought and action. This made them suitable to execute and survive covert missions deep behind enemy lines with no support from friendly units. Their assignments focused on disruption of enemy operations followed by a stealthy extraction.

Team composition

 * Jai-006 – Team leader
 * Adriana-111 – Infiltration specialist
 * Michael-120 – Technical expert

Operational history
"Mike"

- Adriana

Training
Gray Team was formed from the three Spartan-II candidates who proved the most difficult to control during training. This manifested in resistance to indoctrination, numerous escape attempts, and a lack of social integration with other personnel. This disruptive behavior was costly, resulted in injuries to trainers, and the theft and destruction of at least one Pelican dropship. Being unconventional recruits in an unconventional project, the decision was made to train the trio separately from the others and form them into their own unit. Together, these Spartans would come together to form Gray Team, with Jai as the leader.

Early Human-Covenant War
In November 2525, the members of Gray Team were briefed on the massacre that took place on Harvest shortly after first contact with the Covenant. A short time later, the, under the command of Captain Wallace, brought Spartans and Dr. Halsey to the Damascus Testing Facility at Chi Ceti IV, where they were to receive the MJOLNIR powered armor for the first time. When a Covenant ship, the Unrelenting, attacked the Commonwealth, Gray Team, as well as any other active Spartan-II, took part in their first engagement with the Covenant. The Spartans used thruster packs to launch themselves from a Pelican dropship. Each Spartan carried an ANVIL-II warhead to be used against the Covenant ship. However, they missed the ship and only Blue Team managed to board the vessel through a puncture in its hull, caused by a MAC round from the Commonwealth. They succeeded in completing the mission and destroyed the Covenant ship.

Battle of the Rubble
During the Human-Covenant War, Gray Team operated behind enemy lines, wreaking havoc on both the Covenant and the remaining rebels. They flew through Covenant and Insurrectionist-held space, looking for targets of opportunity, in their ship and base, the freighter Petya.

In 2535, Gray Team was sent behind enemy lines in order to destroy the navigation data held by the survivors of Madrigal, a world in the 23 Librae system that had been glassed by the Covenant not long after Harvest. The survivors were living in the Rubble, an asteroid space station built by the insurgents orbiting Hesiod. A small Kig-Yar fleet, led by Reth, had created an alliance with the insurrectionists to trade weapons and slipspace drives. However, these Kig-Yar were ordered by the Prophet of Truth to steal data from the humans that would lead the Covenant to other human colonies and Earth.

Later, Adriana returned to the Petya with Ignatio Delgado, a resident of the Rubble that was attempting to find information about the Kestrel. Unlike Jai, Mike did not care about Adriana's apparent favoritism of Delgado, whom Jai believed was an Insurrectionist. While aboard the Petya, the Spartans were contacted by the Rubble's artificial intelligence, Juliana. Despite their attempts to originally prevent her from communicating, the Spartans eventually agreed to hear Juliana out. In exchange for defending the Rubble from the Covenant, Juliana agreed to give the Spartans the data they wanted.

When the arrived in the system, it was under attack by multiple Insurrectionists. The Spartans correctly came to the conclusion that they could not save the Midsummer Night from all the ships. Shortly afterward Juliana informed Gray Team that the Midsummer Night's crew would survive if the Spartans aided the Rubble. She sent the coordinates of Delgado's location to Mike, and ordered them to keep Delgado protected and she would help free the Midsummer Night crew. While Delgado and Jai aided the Midsummer Night and her crew, Adriana and Mike pursued smuggler Peter Bonifacio to prevent him from giving the navigation data to the Kig-Yar. The two Spartans encountered the insurgent leaving the Rubble aboard his freighter, Distancia. Mike quickly disabled his ship and Adriana boarded the freighter. Bonifacio promised that he would tell the Spartans where he hid the data if they allowed him to escape, which the reluctantly agreed to. After retrieving the navigation data, Adriana returned to the Petya and the Spartans agreed to let the Kig-Yar betray and kill Bonifacio in time.

Battle of Metisette
As Kig-Yar ships closed in on the mass drivers, Rubble ships flew in and fired missiles to prevent the destruction of the mass drivers. Meanwhile, more and more asteroids emptied as the thousands of citizens of the Rubble evacuated. Although Juliana lost some asteroids to both the Sangheili and Kig-Yar, she managed to move several more asteroids to meet with the UNSC forces moving in on Metisette.

While over Metisette, Midsummer Night performed a high-speed SOEIV deployment to the Redoubt on the surface of Metisette. As Midsummer Night came under fire from Kig-Yar anti-aircraft guns, the ship slowed down to allow the pods to drop, then sped out the atmosphere. The pods landed in the Redoubt's plaza, where Unggoy were waiting in buildings. Two main forces of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers were deployed, one with Jai-006 and the other with Adriana-111. Adriana landed among a large group of Unggoy, though she fought them off and soon rendezvoused with the ODSTs. Jai's team landed with the Shiva-class nuclear missile, and planted it in the sensor hub, setting a 2-hour timer.

Eventually, the Spartans were picked up by Delgado in a Pelican and they returned to the remains of the Rubble. All remaining UNSC and insurgent personnel were led to the Exodus asteroid or aboard Midsummer Night. The asteroid, powered by slipspace drives, and the frigate escaped into slipspace to escape a large Covenant fleet entering the system.

The Exodus asteroid and Midsummer Night arrived safely at the 18 Scorpii system. The asteroid's inhabitants are safely evacuated before the asteroid shakes itself to pieces while in orbit around the human colony of Falaknuma. After, Gray Team meet with Admiral Preston Cole and Commander Hadley who grants them the use of a prowler, as the Petya was abandoned in the 23 Librae system. Commander Hadley gave Gray Team new orders to venture even further into enemy lines, much to the Spartans' satisfaction.

Late Human-Covenant war
"Commander Hadley"

- Jai-006

In 2551, Gray Team was deployed on a mission against a Covenant facility within humanity's former territory and were deemed too inaccessible to be recalled to Reach. A major mission that Gray Team was deployed on early in the war was to target prominent Covenant commanders and religious leaders. The purpose of this mission was to make sure the Covenant's backup strategic minds were always under the threat of assassination. However, as the war raged on, Gray Team was asked to do more and more by ONI. They were not present when the Covenant invaded the planet, having been out of contact for about a year. This was not cause for undue concern, as many of Gray Team's missions had been executed in a similar fashion. Gray Team were the only Spartan-IIs assigned to Naval Special Weapons who were not present at the briefing for Operation: RED FLAG. They returned to UNSC held territory at some point after the Battle of Installation 04 and learned about John-117's encounter with Installation 04.

Glyke and cryosleep
"We voted. We took the intel we had and we made a decision. We followed protocol. With Earth backed into a corner, we were confident humanity was about to be destroyed. So. What would you do if you knew everything you'd spent your life fighting for was about to be erased?"

- Jai to Melody Azikiwe on Gray Team's decision to destroy Glyke.

Soon after the Fall of Reach, on September, 2552, Gray Team participated in a top secret ONI mission called Operation: SUNSPEAR. The mission's goal was to locate and terminate as many Sangheili naval commanders responsible for the destruction of human worlds as possible. As the members of Gray Team proceeded with the operation, they received a message from command, that the Covenant had managed to locate the Sol system, and they had to follow through Condition Endgame. After that, they lost contact, and, unable to reach Sanghelios, as it was too well protected, Gray Team decided to venture to one of the other Sangheili worlds. Without knowledge that the war was over with a peace treaty, in December, 2552, the Spartans arrived on Glyke, where they deployed and detonated a NOVA bomb, which resulted in the complete destruction of the planet. As they escaped the blast, their prowler was heavily damaged, so the Spartans had to use the lifeboat. Without any deep-space comms equipment, Gray Team spent few days waiting for pickup, thinking about their decision, before going into cryosleep.

For the next six years they drifted in space among the debris of Glyke, until in mid 2558, their lifeboat was recovered by Sangheili fleetmaster Rojka 'Kaasan and brought to his flagship, the Unwavering Discipline. He hid the Spartans' cryo chambers in one of the ship storage rooms under guard, as he understood the Spartans' role in the destruction of his homeworld, Glyke. He kept this find a secret, as he planned to use these Demon Three as a mean of trade with humans in order to gain from them what he wanted for his new home, Rakoi.

Rough awakening
"We're still Gray Team. It's us against everything else, same as it ever was. Even when it's all gone to shit. We head toward the fight, not away from it, and we'll figure it out when we get there. That's what we do."

- Mike-120 on the Spartans' camaraderie when Melody asked what happened to make Gray Team drift apart.

Reintegration
"The war we were fighting appears to be over. We've obviously got some catching up to do. But even we can see that whatever is left of the Covenant is still causing trouble. The UNSC can barely control whole worlds like Carrow this far out from Earth. You're not done with us, sir. I think we all know that. So, what's the other choice?"

- Jai to Commander Yarick refusing his offer of Gray Team's decommission.

A few days after the fighting was over, the members of Gray Team and Melody Azikiwe arrived at the. There, the assembled crewmembers greeted the Spartans as war heroes, saluting them. As they proceeded to the briefing room, they were greeted by ONI Commander Ivrin Yarick. Before continuing the briefing, Yarick quickly dismissed Melody, informing her that the Office of Naval Intelligence highly regarded her services, but no longer required them. As Melody left, he also informed the Spartans that as most of the commanding officers Gray Team dealt with earlier are no longer operational, he will be taking over as their new CO. As such, he provided the Spartans a choice to decide their own fate. Because of their actions on Glyke, some people see the Gray Team as war criminals and insist on decommissioning with general discharge or hardship discharge, while ONI would secretly employ the Spartans' skills in other ways. The other option, which was more preferable to ONI, was to keep Gray Team intact and active, for them to continue operating deep in the Joint Occupation Zone with the promise of a formal pardon from Thel 'Vadam, leader of the Swords of Sanghelios. However, this option implied that the Spartans should become a part of a specialized interspecies strike team under the authority of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Believing they could not be anything but Spartans, Gray Team agreed to work for ONI, though quite reluctantly, additionally making their own requests, such as a prowler by Mike and a long list of Covenant weaponry by Adriana. Some time after the briefing, Commander Yarick reported to Admiral Serin Osman, who secretly arrived via prowler to take a look at Carrow for herself. He informed the Admiral of the Spartans' decision and requests. Osman granted their demands, additionally ordering to outfit the Spartans with new sets of armor.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: The Cole Protocol
 * Halo: Reach
 * Dr. Halsey's personal journal
 * Halo 2: Anniversary
 * Terminals
 * Halo: Envoy