Joshua-029

"If anything goes wrong, we end up in the middle of ten thousand pissed off bad guys."

- Joshua-029

Joshua-029 was a SPARTAN-II supersoldier and an electronics expert. Throughout the Human-Covenant War, he led numerous teams of fellow Spartans, including Gold Team. He had a close working relationship with Kelly-087, Frederic-104, and John-117.

Early life
"You have been called upon to serve. You will be trained . . . and you will become the best we can make of you. You will be the protectors of Earth and all her colonies."

- Dr. Catherine Halsey to the abducted child conscripts.

Joshua was a genetically, intellectually, and physically gifted child chosen for the SPARTAN-II project. He was abducted by the Office of Naval Intelligence and replaced with a flash clone when he was around six years old. He and seventy-four other children were taken to Reach in the Epsilon Eridani system. There, he was trained by the "dumb" AI, Déjà and Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez, with the two serving as the Spartans' teacher and drill instructor, respectively. In 2519, he was taken alongside his fellow trainees to a Military Wilderness Training Preserve for a mission that required each trainee to be left alone in the woods with a only a single piece of a map. It was up to them to find one another so that they could piece the map together and locate the designated extraction point. The mission was ultimately a success. At another point during training, Joshua and the others traveled to Emerald Cove for an underwater mission. There, they abandoned Mendez and lived on their own on an island for a few days. By July 14, 2523, Joshua and his fellow Spartan-IIs had begun facing the formidable and ruthless UNSC Marine Corps' Tango Company in simulated war games. On March 9, 2525, Joshua and the rest of the Spartan-II candidates underwent their augmentation procedures at Medical Facility Endurance orbiting Reach. After successfully enduring the procedures, Joshua later attended a military funeral aboard the carrier, the, in the Lambda Serpentis system for the Spartans who died during the process. Afterwards, they all returned to Reach for their final training phase in the Highland Mountains.

The Covenant War begins
After the Covenant attack on Harvest and the beginning of the Human-Covenant War, Joshua and the rest of the Spartan-IIs were brought to the Reach FLEETCOM Military Complex, where Rear Admiral Michael Stanforth and the AI, Beowulf, briefed them on the emerging Covenant threat. In response, the training of Joshua and the rest of the Spartan-IIs was accelerated, and the Spartans were sent to Chi Ceti IV in the Chi Ceti system to receive their new MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor from the Damascus Materials Testing Facility in order to aid in combat against the alien threat. While en route to Chi Ceti IV aboard the, the , they were attacked by the Covenant warship, Unrelenting. The Commonwealth was able to ward off the Unrelenting and the Spartans were deployed to Chi Ceti IV with Halsey, where they each received a set of armor. While the Spartans were returning to the Commonwealth, the Unrelenting returned and engaged the frigate. To provide aid to the Commonwealth, John-117 had Joshua and the other Spartan-IIs use thruster packs to embark towards the Unrelenting so that they could destroy the warship with Anvil-II AS missiles, though only John, Kelly-087, and Samuel-034 made it aboard.

Radiant Arrow
By early 2526, Joshua served as the leader of Gold Team, which was then composed of Naomi-010, Daisy-023, and Grace-093 as well. On March 5 of that year, Joshua, his team, and eight other Spartans were organized into an assault squad led by John-117 with orders to board and capture a Covenant frigate, Radiant Arrow, orbiting the planet Netherop. To accomplish this, they were deployed from the prowler for an EVA boarding action. Using a flight of Type-27 Banshees for cover, the Spartans stealthily approached the alien vessel. They boarded the frigate via its underslung hangar and eliminated the Covenant forces stationed there without the rest of crew realizing they had been boarded. As Blue and Green Teams pushed further into the alien vessel, John instructed Joshua and his team to collect weapons and corpses to be piled into the Banshees, which would then be pushed out into space for ONI to recover and study. Once that task was completed, Gold Team acted as support for Blue and Green, watching their backs. As the two forward teams continued on, a sensor operator aboard one of the prowlers "accidentally" broadcast a transmission on the Spartans' SQUADCOM, revealing their presence to the frigate's crew. Unbeknownst to them, the crewman's apparent mistake was part of an insurrectionist plot designed by Lieutenant Commander Hector Nyeto, who intended to get the Spartans killed. With their presence known, Blue and Green Teams split up, with John leading his team to the bridge. John was unable to prevent the frigate's shipmaster from activating a self-destruct sequence, forcing him to order all of his teammates to abandon ship immediately. All of the Spartans—including Joshua—made it to safety before the Radiant Arrow detonated.

SILENT STORM
A few days later, Joshua, Gold Team, and the rest of the Spartans that had participated in the pervious mission were given a new assignment. Operation: SILENT STORM would have them and the ODSTs of the 21st Space Assault Battalion boarding and destroying Covenant vessels and stations in an attempt to slow their destructive advance through the Outer Colonies. For the duration of the operation, the Spartans would be assigned to Task Force Yama, a small fleet of prowlers that would serve as both transport and support. As a Covenant fleet was currently glassing the colony of Etalan, the nearby world of Biko was chosen as the theater for the task force to launch its first attack. Specifically, an abandoned ice quarry on its third moon of Seoba was selected to house the prowlers until the time was right.

During the ten-day voyage through slipspace, Joshua and the other Spartans trained with the ODSTs in the 's mission preparation hold. The Spartans made short work of the marines in every exercise until Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson taught them some unorthodox strategies that proved much more effective against the supersoldiers. After four days of training, Colonel Marmon Crowther had them all gather in the drop hangar to be briefed on the specifics of the operation. Despite their exemplary performance against his ODSTs, Crowther was skeptical about deploying the Spartans to the front lines due to their inexperience on the battlefield as well as their apparent young age, much to their frustration.

Seoba
Upon Task Force Yama's arrival in the Kolaqoa system on March 18, 2526, Colonel Crowther planned to practice the mass deployment of the Spartans and his ODSTs into the Seoban quarry, in an exercise dubbed Operation: ICE DANCE. However, insurrectionist forces were detected in the very same quarry, prepared to stage a coup against Biko's chancellor. Crowther decided that ICE DANCE would proceed as planned, but now with the objective of taking the quarry. An intense battle ensued, with the Spartans leading the way. Blue Team focused on destroying a convoy of Civets moving to repair the rebels' damaged communications relay as the other Spartans—including Joshua's Gold Team—were engaged elsewhere. Ultimately, the insurgents were defeated and the quarry fell under UNSC control.

The next day, Captain Halima Ascot, commander of Task Force Yama, held a meeting to discuss the events of the previous day's battle. John was reprimanded for his maverick actions at the start of the battle, and his Spartans' experience was called into question once more. Due to Lieutenant Commander Nyeto's loose lips, the truth about their young ages was revealed to the small group of key personnel present at the meeting. Because of this, Colonel Crowther refused to send the Spartans into battle again, instead ordering them to guard the insurrectionist prisoners captured during the fighting and prepare them to be sent to Biko to be processed. While this meeting was being held, a Covenant flotilla arrived in-system and began heading for Seoba.

As the rest of Task Force Yama mobilized to meet the alien vessels, Joshua and the other Spartans were sent to Subsurface Maintenance Grotto 6M430 where they would direct the captured insurgents onto a transport. While the line of roughly 300 prisoners marched onto the vessel, John noticed that a group of them were hiding the presence of an officer, General Harper Garvin of the United Rebel Front. He had the line halt, which Joshua questioned, saying that they needed to get the prisoners headed toward Biko before the Covenant got to Seoba. John pulled Garvin out of the line so that ONI could interrogate him later. He began trying to pry information out of John, but this effort was interrupted when a situation with Captain Ascot's flagship was relayed over the task force's command channel. The had been shot down on takeoff, crash-landing back into the quarry some distance away. Crowther was unable to send a unit of his Black Daggers to search for survivors without putting more prowlers at risk. Since they were the only unit available to assist, John decided that he and his Spartans would go for the Starry Night once the transport was loaded. After sending Garvin back to his people and ordering the transport pilot to launch, John had his Spartans move out, much to the concern of Joshua and Kurt-051. Not only would they be disobeying a direct order from Crowther, operating without the support of the task force in such a situation would be very risky.

Joshua and the others proceeded to the grotto's access vestibule and entered its airlock, sealing the inner hatch. With that, they stepped out into the dense sublimation fog coating the quarry floor. Visibility was so poor that each of the Spartans could barely even see the ends of their rifles, but the flashes of plasma bolts could be seen dancing through the clouds above. John accessed the command channel and requested that he and his teammates receive a waypoint leading to the downed prowler. Crowther quickly responded by asking what he thought he was doing. John stated that they were checking on the status of the Starry Night as they were the only unit that could do so at the moment, carefully choosing his words so that Crowther could deflect blame onto the Spartan if need be. This would make it more likely for Crowther to not stand in the way of their self-assigned mission. While John waited for a response, he signaled Joshua and Kurt to spread out their teams in a hundred-meter-wide search line. Joshua had Gold Team space out on the right of the more tightly-gathered Blue Team, as Green Team spaced out on the left. Doing this, the Spartans would be more likely to find any debris from the Starry Night that might have otherwise been missed in the fog. John also ordered them to advance at a trotting speed, leading them away from the dockyards where Blue Team had engaged insurgents the day before. When Crowther still had not responded, John added over the command channel that they would simply take a look at the crash site and report what they found.

Finally, Crowther replied and acknowledged John's plan, but ordered him to not take action unless immediately warranted. He also informed the Spartans of Biko's naval response to the alien bombardment of Seoba and that Nyeto believed that the small Covenant flotilla would either be in full retreat or destroyed within the hour by the approaching overwhelming force. An inexact waypoint was placed on each of the Spartans' HUDs and John had them adjust course to match the new trajectory. With the fog still as dense as ever, John ordered them all to advance at a full run while keeping their eyes on their feet, since that was all they could see anyway. As they ran, the Emmeline departed the grotto and flew over the Spartans, churning up the fog and allowing a brief moment of visibility. Through the haze, they could see five Covenant vessels fire towards the transport as it crested the horizon.

As the Spartans neared the provided waypoint, the fog had lowered to shoulder-height, allowing the Spartans to discover that the Starry Night was indeed seemingly intact, but sat atop a large avalanche about seven hundred meters up the quarry wall. Frederic-104 spotted a Covenant intrusion corvette sliding over the rim of the quarry and descending over the prowler. Kelly-087 theorized that they may be trying to recover the Starry Night themselves. Realizing the danger, John declared to his teammates that the mission was no longer a rescue mission. Their primary objective was now to deny the Covenant from recovering the prowler and the data stored within. Joshua acknowledged the directive in an almost cheerful manner and asked John what the plan was. He said he was open to ideas, but that he needed to check with command first. Opening the command channel again, he relayed this information to Crowther, who echoed John's concerns and insisted that they could not let the Covenant take possession of the Starry Night. The vessel's navigation computer and other onboard data devices could reveal the locations of UNSC outposts, entire force deployments, or worse. Crowther asked Nyeto if there was any way that the prowler's nuclear self-destruct system could be remotely activated, to which the lieutenant commander responded in the affirmative. However, there were only three positions that had access to that ability. The first two were the flight commander and wing commander, both of which were roles held by Captain Ascot, who was either dead or unable to be reached aboard the Starry Night. The final person with the ability to remotely detonate the prowler was the captain of the Vanishing Point, which was holding station two planetary orbits out from Seoba. At that distance, it would take nearly an hour for the request to be sent to the cruiser and for the return signal to arrive. By then, the Covenant might already have retrieved sensitive data from the wrecked prowler. Crowther began to reluctantly order the Spartans to prevent the Starry Night ' s capture, but John cut him off, assuring him that they would not fail. The Spartan requested that Task Force Yama assist them by keeping the assaulting corvettes off their backs. Nyeto began to say that their prowlers were not designed for ship-to-ship combat when Crowther interrupted him, promising that they would find a way. Crowther started to tell John to standby for instructions on how to manually activate the prowler's self-destruct, but he reassured the colonel that his Spartans already knew how to activate a Fury nuke.

Just then, a Ghost appeared out of the fog, firing at John, who killed its Jiralhanae driver with his MA5B's underbarrel grenade launcher. Shortly after that was handled, more Ghosts entered the quarry, so John ordered Green and Gold Teams to deal with them as Blue Team went with him to the prowler. At this point, the looming intrusion corvette had begun deploying EVA-equipped Sangheili, Jiralhanae, and Kig-Yar warriors via gravity lift, with the first already looking for a way inside the ship. Another corvette crested the edge of the quarry, firing its main cannon on the Spartans. Grace-093 took a hit, prompting Joshua to order Daisy-023 to tend to her injured teammate. With the situation quickly deteriorating and Nyeto's support still setting up, John realized that immediate action was necessary. He ordered Blue Team to simultaneously fire on the avalanche just below the Starry Night with their grenade launchers to cause the vessel to fall to quarry floor and prevent the Covenant from gaining entrance. Despite Fred and Kelly's warnings that such an action could bring the whole slope down on top of them, each member of the team acknowledged and followed his order. As they has feared, the volley of grenades worked a bit too well, bringing the avalanche down on top of the Spartans, but successfully delaying the Covenant in their boarding attempt.

Six of the Spartans became buried under the ice, with Joshua's teammate, Naomi-010, becoming completely incapacitated. John-117 was also buried, but not totally immobilized. While he worked on freeing himself, John gave Fred command of the mission to board and destroy the Starry Night. Fred and two other Spartans boarded the prowler as the available members of Gold and Green Teams coordinated attacks on the seemingly endless stream of enemy ground vehicles, supported by at least three Covenant corvettes. John freed himself from the ice flow and began helping repel would-be boarders while Fred's team prepared the vessel's Fury tactical nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, Nyeto's support finally arrived the form of strafing runs that destroyed two of the intrusion corvettes assaulting Gold and Green Teams. At this point, Joshua and Anton-044 decided to assist John, who had just killed two bloodblade-wielding Sangheili. As soon as he dispatched them, two Kig-Yar began firing on him, landing a hit that breached John's armor. Anton provided cover fire, and Joshua assured John that he had a patching kit to fix the breach. Just as the nuke was finished arming, the looming Covenant corvette finally made its move and began lifting the Starry Night up into its hold using its gravity lift. John ordered Fred's team to activate the nuke and flee from the prowler with the survivors, which they did via escape pod. After ordering everyone to clear the blast radius, John led Joshua and Anton away from the prowler, taking cover behind a wrecked Ghost just before the detonation. Each of the twelve Spartans made it to safety, but John wanted to check on each of them personally, once he had Joshua patch up the breach in his back armor. Colonel Crowther had the Spartans extracted after the nuke's electromagnetic pulse had dissipated. The blast also destroyed the intrusion corvette, and some of the Spartans assisted in the recovery of a starholo from its wreckage. They and the starholo were transported back to the Vanishing Point.

On March 20, the six Spartans that had not been confined to the infirmary attended a funeral service for the two-hundred-and-three men and women who lost their lives at Seoba. Held in the command hangar of the Vanishing Point as it sat in a high parabolic orbit around Biko, the ceremony included an honor company of a hundred-and-one enlisted personnel in their dress blues, including the six Spartans and Avery Johnson. After the service, Lieutenant Commander Nyeto—now the de facto commander of Task Force Yama after Ascot's death—approached John-117, who asked if he'd reconsider sidelining them. Nyeto promised that the Spartans would be seeing all the action they could handle for the rest of the operation. However, Crowther again contested this on the basis of them being too young, forcing the lieutenant commander to back down by threatening him with a report to a UNSC board of inquiry. The Black Daggers would board the incoming fleet alone. As everyone left the hangar, Crowther revealed to Johnson that he did not trust Nyeto. He believed that the Spartans were combat-ready, and he was instead sending them on a mission to disrupt Covenant supply lines at Etalan.

Etalan
That same day, Joshua-029, the other Spartans, Staff Sergeant Johnson, and Dr. Halsey left the Kolaqoa system aboard the Vanishing Point, with two prowlers serving as escort. Two days later, the three ships dropped out of slipspace near Etalan. The Vanishing Point's analysts spent the next four days observing the logistics fleet's movements and trying to discern which vessels would be the best to target. By March 26, they felt confident that four of the fleet's fifteen vessels were equipment freighters carrying spare parts and other materials that would be used to keep the Fleet of Inexorable Obedience operational. At this point, the logistics fleet was seemingly preparing to break from orbit, evidenced by the fact that they had begun syncing their orbits and bringing their fusion reactors to full power. Since time was running out, Joshua, the rest of Gold Team, and Green Team were deployed in S-14 Baselards to destroy the equipment freighters while Blue Team stayed on the Vanishing Point and prepared for their phase of the attack. Gold and Green Teams were split up into groups of two to pilot each of their Baselards. Their four Baselards flew at the center of a formation of twenty total Baselards. The plan was for the squadron to pierce through the logistics vessels' fighter screen of Banshees and Seraphs, then the eight Spartans would go EV after faking the destruction of their Baselards. To camouflage their approach, their fighters were equipped with pods of chain-linked debris that would deploy upon the crafts' destruction. Then, the Spartans would board the target vessels and plant HAVOK nukes before fleeing. Due to the high risk involved with performing such maneuvers, Joshua and Kurt-051 were given strict orders to abort the mission if it became apparent that they would not reach their targets safely.

FALLEN WALLS
From February 9 to February 12 in 2535, Joshua led Red Team during the fight against the Covenant on Jericho VII alongside Blue Team and Green Team. Red Team's goal was to slip behind enemy lines and plant a HAVOK tactical nuclear weapon that could be detonated the next time a Covenant ship landed and dropped its energy shields to deploy troops. To this end, Blue Team was to draw out the Covenant rear guard so that Red Team would be afforded the opportunity to accomplish its objective amidst the confusion. Red Team reported their success in planting the nuke after doing so to Blue Team and all Spartans were then extracted from the planet. Despite the efforts on the ground, Jericho VII was lost to the Covenant and was glassed.

OCEAN BREAKER
"We’ll get it done."

- Joshua expresses confidence in Red Team's ability to evacuate civilians from Sigma Octanus IV.



On July 17, 2552, Joshua and eleven other Spartan-IIs arrived at the human colony of Sigma Octanus IV in the Sigma Octanus system with Vice Admiral Stanforth's Battle Group Leviathan to aid UNSC forces in the ongoing battle on and over the planet. Deployed to the remains of Alpha Headquarters to assist the local marine forces as part of Operation: OCEAN BREAKER, Joshua one again led Red Team as "Red-One" (or "Red Leader"). He oversaw the setup of motion detectors, radar, and other automated defenses around Alpha Headquarters. He was then instructed by John-117 to take Red Team through the tree line along the coast. It was 1830 hours at this time, and John emphasized that by 1930 hours everyone should be in position. The plan was to conduct renaissance of the city of Côte d'Azur to ensure no civilians remained so that a HAVOK nuclear device could be used to kill every last member of the Covenant occupying the city. Red Team moved out and surveyed the tunnels near the city's wharfs. Whe Blue Team checked in with Joshua, he reported the discovery of twenty civilians that had hid out in a cargo ship. Some of them were wounded. He also let the Master Chief know they had witnessed a Covenant race he personally had never known about before: a Huragok. The Chief told him to coordinate with Green Team and to give them strategic control over evacuating the civilians back to their fallback position 50 kilometers south of Alpha Headquarters. Joshua did as he was ordered and they were successful. All the Spartans eventually left the planet in and came aboard Stanforth's, the , in the planet's orbit. As the battle drew to an end, Battle Group Leviathan returned to Reach in the Epsilon Eridani system for repairs with the Spartan-IIs aboard.



The Fall of Reach
"We can handle a hundred to one. Maybe even five hundred to one with a little planning and support."

- Joshua-029 to Fred-104.

On August 27, 2552 Joshua and twenty-four other Spartan-IIs were gathered at FLEETCOM HQ on Reach, where they were briefed on Operation: RED FLAG, an ONI operation with the objective of capturing a Covenant Hierarch. On August 30, Joshua boarded the with the others in preparation for RED FLAG. However, the mission was aborted when an order went out to all ships to defend Reach from the a massive Covenant assault that was underway at the planet. John assigned Joshua to Red Team, made up of twenty-two of the Spartans which were sent to land on the ground and protect the power generators for Reach's orbital defense platforms. Joshua was given the responsibility of piloting Red Team's Pelican—Bravo 001. As it descended to the surface of the planet, the dropship was attacked by Seraphs. Joshua attempted to activate its autopilot but all of computer systems had been destroyed in the assault. As they dove uncontrollably towards the ground, Joshua managed to slow the craft enough so that the Spartans could jump just before Bravo 001 exploded. Once he landed, Joshua found a Sniper Rifle and was the first Spartan to arrive at ODG Facility A-331 and spot the survivors of the UNSC Marine Corps unit, Charlie Company. He radioed Fred and the Spartans were able to regroup at the facility. Fred then ordered Joshua to recon the area. Doing so, he discovered a Covenant landing zone and patched his imaging through to Fred via COM. While Red Team was building up defenses at the facility, it received a distress call from Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations. Fred then divided Red Team into four smaller teams. Joshua was placed on Team Alpha, comprised of himself, Fred and Kelly. They were to destroy a nearby Covenant landing zone in the Longhorn Valley while Team Gamma rescued Vice Admiral Whitcomb and his staff. Operating Type-26 Banshees, Joshua and the two others successfully destroyed the landing zone by delivering Fury tactical nukes into the gravity lift of a Covenant cruiser overhead. However, Joshua's Banshee took fire from Plasma Cannons and began to trail smoke and lose altitude. As a result, Joshua was killed in the ensuing nuclear explosion.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo: Fall of Reach
 * Covenant
 * Invasion
 * Scanned
 * Halo: Silent Storm