Editing Grace-093

{{Status|Canon}}

Grace-093 was a genetically, intellectually, and physically gifted child chosen for the [[SPARTAN-II]] project. She was abducted by the [[Office of Naval Intelligence]] and replaced with a [[flash clone]] when she was around six years old. She and seventy-four other children were taken to [[Reach]] in the Epsilon Eridani system. There, she was trained by the [[dumb AI|"dumb" AI]], [[Déjà]] and [[Chief Petty Officer]] [[Franklin Mendez]], with the two serving as the Spartans' teacher and drill instructor, respectively. In [[2519]], she was taken alongside her 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, Grace 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]], Grace and her fellow Spartan-IIs had begun facing the formidable and ruthless UNSC Marine Corps' [[Tango Company]] in simulated war games. On March 9, 2525, Grace and the rest of the Spartan-II candidates underwent their [[augmentation]] procedures at [[Medical Facility Endurance]] orbiting Reach. After successfully enduring the procedures, Grace later attended a military funeral aboard the carrier, the [[UNSC Atlas]], 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]].

By early [[2526]], Grace had been assigned to [[Gold Team]], led by [[Joshua-029]]. On [[2526#March|March 5]], Grace, her teammates, 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 all deployed from the [[prowler]] {{UNSCShip|Starry Night}} for an [[Extra-vehicular activity|EVA]] [[Naval boarding|boarding action]].{{Ref/Novel|Id=HSS1|HSS|Chapter=1}} Using a flight of {{Pattern|Elsedda|Banshee}}s for cover, the Spartans stealthily approached the alien vessel.{{Ref/Novel|Id=HSS2|HSS|Chapter=2}} They [[Skirmish over Netherop|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 Team|Blue]] and [[Green Team]]s pushed further into the alien vessel, John instructed Gold Team  to collect weapons and corpses to be piled into the Banshees, which would then be pushed out into space for ONI to recover later on for study. Once that task was completed, Grace and her 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' [[COM|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 [[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 Grace—made it to safety before the ''Radiant Arrow'' detonated.{{Ref/Novel|Id=HSS3|HSS|Chapter=3}}

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. 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 weapon|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''<nowiki>'</nowiki>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 tactical nuclear weapon|Fury nuke]].{{Ref/Reuse|HSS14}}

Just then, a [[Karo'etba-pattern Ghost|Ghost]] appeared out of the fog, firing at John, who killed its [[Jiralhanae]] driver with his MA5B's [[M301 grenade launcher|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. A plasma bolt narrowly missed John, and crashed into the fog-filled quarry floor. Grace was caught in the blast radius and cried out over SQUADCOM, 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 [[grenade]]s worked a bit too well, bringing the avalanche down on top of all twelve Spartans, but successfully delaying the Covenant in their boarding attempt.{{Ref/Reuse|HSS14}}

Six of the Spartans were buried under the ice flow, with Grace'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 [[Linda-058|two]] [[Malcolm-059|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. Just as the nuke was finished arming, the looming Covenant corvette finally made its move and began slowly levitating the ''Starry Night'' up and into its hold using a [[gravity lift]]. John ordered Fred's team to activate the nuke and flee from the prowler with the surviving crew, which they did via escape pod. He also warned the others that the nuke would detonate in thirty seconds, urging them to escape the blast radius immediately. Each of the Spartans made it to safety, including Grace. Colonel Crowther extracted them after the resulting [[electromagnetic pulse]] had dissipated.{{Ref/Novel|Id=HSS15|HSS|Chapter=15}} The blast also destroyed the intrusion corvette, and some of the Spartans assisted in the recovery of a [[Kelguid|starholo]] from its wreckage. They and the starholo were transported back to the ''Vanishing Point''.{{Ref/Novel|Id=HSS16|HSS|Chapter=16}}

On [[2526#March|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 [[Fleet of Inexorable Obedience|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]].{{Ref/Reuse|HSS16}}

That same day, Grace-093, the other Spartans, Staff Sergeant Johnson, and Dr. Halsey left the [[Kolaqoa system]] aboard the ''Vanishing Point'', with two prowlers trailing them as escort. On [[2526#March|March 22]], the three ships dropped out of [[slipspace]] at Etalan and the ''Vanishing Point''{{'}}s analysts spent the next four days observing the logistics fleet's movements, trying to discern which vessels should be designated as priority targets. By [[2526#March|March 26]], they felt confident that four of the fleet's fifteen vessels were equipment [[freighter]]s 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 leave Etalan and regroup with the main force, evidenced by the fact that they had begun syncing their orbits and bringing their [[fusion reactor]]s to full power. Since time was running out, Grace, the rest of Gold Team, and Green Team were deployed in four [[S-14 Baselard]]s with the objective of destroying the equipment freighters while Blue Team remained on the ''Vanishing Point'', preparing for their phase of the attack. The four Spartan-manned fighters flew at the center of a formation of twenty total Baselards, and the plan was for the squadron to pierce through the logistics vessels' screen of Banshees and [[Seraph]]s, then the eight Spartans would go [[Extra-vehicular activity|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 their HAVOK nukes before fleeing. Due to the high risk involved with performing these maneuvers, both teams were given strict orders to abort the mission if it became apparent that they would not reach their targets.{{Ref/Novel|Id=HSS19|HSS|Chapter=19}}

 

After Blue Team launched from the ''Vanishing Point'' in the captured Banshees from the ''Radiant Arrow'', they managed to infiltrate a larger formation of Covenant fighters. With that, the next phase of the mission began and Gold Team ejected from their Baselards as Green Team did the same. As planned, the eight Spartans boarded the four equipment freighters, planted their nukes, and abandoned ship before the nukes detonated. The fourth detonation [[Electromagnetic pulse|disabled]] the Banshee formation that Blue Team had infiltrated, forcing them to go EV. Afterwards, when the two escort prowlers moved to extract Gold and Green Teams from orbit over Etalan, their retrieval caused an unintentional diversion that drew attention away from Blue Team as they destroyed the logistics fleet’s "[[Bladder ship|air-skimmers]]."{{Ref/Novel|Id=HSS20|HSS|Chapter=20}}

{{Main|Battle of Zhoist}}

Grace was then assigned to [[Team Gamma|"Gamma" team]], along with [[Anton-044]] and [[Li-008]]. They were sent to evacuate [[Vice Admiral]] [[Danforth Whitcomb|Whitcomb]]. They found him but were unable to rally with the rest of the Spartans due to Covenant activity. They then retreated to [[Camp Independence]], where they broadcast ''[[Oly Oly Oxen Free]]'' and went on hit and run missions for three weeks until they were found by John who recognized the Oly Oly Oxen Free tune.<ref>'''Halo: First Strike''', ''pages 111-112''</ref> They then proceeded to rescue [[Team Alpha|"Alpha"]] and [[Team Delta|"Delta"]] teams from the [[Forerunner]] [[Menachite portal complex|caves]] beneath [[CASTLE Base]]. Grace then boarded a captured [[Taaku Xur-pattern Spirit|Spirit]] and went to the captured ''[[Ascendant Justice]]'', under control of the AI [[Cortana]].

Grace then participated in [[Operation: FIRST STRIKE]], boarding the Covenant space station ''[[Unyielding Hierophant]]'' with the other Spartans. However, as they entered a temple, they were ambushed by Jiralhanae. Three rounds from a [[Type-25 Grenade Launcher|Brute Shot]] hit Grace in the stomach, and blew her midsection apart, killing her. John was forced to activate the [[fail-safe detonation system]] on her [[MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor|MJOLNIR]] armor, and it self-destructed the armor's fusion pack. She took out four Elites and a dozen [[Unggoy]] in her "funeral pyre". John thought that Grace would have liked that.<ref>'''Halo: First Strike''', ''pages 315-317''</ref>

Grace was the Spartan-IIs' explosives expert. She could shape a charge to cut into a single steel bolt with only a whisper of sound, or rig a hundred thousand litres of kerosene to blow into a "firestorm from hell". Ironically, her temper was nonexistent. It seems that she liked ''calamari'', a type of seafood, which she fondly remembered eating during one of the Spartans' training missions to [[Emerald Cove]].<ref>'''Halo: First Strike''', ''page 220''</ref>