10 YEARS AGO

LOCATION: CLASSIFIED

On a desolate planate a team of five Spartans are fighting for their lives. One of them though severely injured. They had gotten lucky and found a defensible position and proceeded to lay down suppressive fire so as to thin the enemy ranks. But no matter how much lead the sent down range or however many Elites, Grunts, Hunters,or Jackals they killed more just seemed to come.

Their mission was to try to retrieve an AI from a downed destroyer by the name of the UNSC Patton. This ship was an experimental heavy destroyer that was the cutting edge of human technology with its loss the UNSC was at its wits end to destroy all evidence and retrieve the AI before the Covenant could get there and inspect the crash. When they arrived they were completely surrounded by Covenant forces. The retreated into the rec as to have more cover. They found the AI and proceeded to try to retreat away from the combat zone ton get off world. As they were retreating Commander David took a plasma sniper shot to the back hitting his armors central power system shutting down his over shield. When this happened three more plasma rounds hits him in his leg, back, and shoulder. When he went down the second in command Lieutenant Commander Grif 379 stopped and proceeded to lift him up and carry him to the extraction zone. When they got there they were told by there ship the UNSC Spirit that they had to hold there position for 20 mikes before they were able get a pelican down to extract them. When the pelican came down from the atmosphere Lt Cmdr. Grif proceeded to move towards Cmdr. David to pick him up. But as he was doing this. Cmdr. David was shot in the head through his visor. Lt Cmdr Grif Cursed and proceeded to go towards him anyway to get the AI unit. When he got to Cmdr David's body he turned him over and cursed again. The AI unit had been completely destroyed by the plasma shot.

When the pelican finally landed Lt Cmdr Grif ordered his men to enter the pelican. As they retreated another of their squad mates went down leaving only three. Once the rest of the his team were in the Pelican he yelled for the pilot to take off. Which the pilot gladly did.

"Spirit this is designation gold team Gold 2 speaking. Gold 1 and 3 are K.I.A and the AI along with all classified information are destroyed."

"Roger that Gold 2 the Admiral and Captain would like to speak to you once you arrive at the Spirit."

"Roger that Gold team out. See you on board the Spirit."

When gold team finally got to the Spirit they were immediately sent to the Captains office. Once their they were debriefed and told to get rest leaving Lt Cmdr Grif behind to talk to the Admiral and Captain.

"Lt Cmdr Grif I'm afraid that we are at a bit of an impasse as all UNSC AI's are valuable pieces of property. This failure can not go unpunished. Not only this but your commanding officer and fellow spartan fell their armor falling into covenant hands. That being said someone has to be punished. So is it going to be you or your team. I'll let you decide." When the Admiral was done speaking Lt Cmdr Grif went into a deep amount of thought.

"Its my fault not my teams. I'll take the full brunt off the punishment."

"Very noble I'll try and make it so that you have the minimum sentence time for this as possible."

"Thank you."

And with that Spartan Grif 379 was sentenced to be transferred over to Project Freelancer to see how they could use a Spartan for training experiments. But over the next 10 years Grif would go through a bunch of crazy shit.