Sunray 1-1

Sunray 1-1
Affiliation:	UNSC Marine Corps Orbital Drop Shock Troopers 9th Shock Troops Battalion Boomerang Company First Platoon; ; ; ; ;
Type:	Orbital Drop Shock Troopers
Size:	Five ODSTs;
Engagements:	Human-Covenant War Harvest Campaign; Battle of Arcadia; Battle of Trove; ; Post-Covenant War conflicts Second Ark Conflict Operation: SPEARBREAKER; ; ;
Commanders:	Major Elijah Vaughan;

"Id Quot Circumiret, Circumveniat (What goes around, comes around.)"

— Official motto^[1]

Command Squad Sunray,^[2] known by the callsign Sunray 1-1, is a small team of UNSC Marine Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, and the lead element of Boomerang Company - one of the UNSC's elite forces of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers.^[3]

Members[edit]

Sunray 1-1's current roster.

Major Elijah Vaughan - Team Leader, CO of Boomerang Company.
Warrant Officer Alannah Quinn - Technical Liaison.
Petty Officer Helena Gruss - Medic.
Corporal Chloe Turpin - Drone Operator.
Lance Corporal Devon Sparks - Designated Marksman.

History[edit]

Human-Covenant War[edit]

Sunray 1-1 was assigned to UNSC Spirit of Fire in the early years of the Human-Covenant War, and were present on the ship in February of 2531 when the ship was pulled to the uncharted Korinth Prior system. During the ensuing fight against the Covenant on the surface of Trove, a Forerunner shield world, Sunray were deployed on the ground against the forces of the Fleet of Glorious Interdiction. After the ship's Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine was sacrificed to destroy the shield world, the members of Sunray 1-1 entered cryostasis along with the rest of the crew.^[2]

War on the Ark[edit]

Main articles: Second Ark Conflict, Operation: SPEARBREAKER

Over twenty-eight years later on March 28, 2559, Sunray 1-1 and everyone else were awakened to find themselves drifting above the extragalactic Installation 00, also known as the Ark.^[4] There, the vessel's forces were forced to contend with the Banished, a heavily-armed faction of ex-Covenant that sought to control the Ark largely due to its capacity for producing Halo superweapons.

In May of 2559, a month following the departure of Installation 09 from the Ark, Sunray were deployed onto the Ark to investigate a cloaking field set up by the Banished to hide a new site of operations commanded by the Mgalekgolo Swarmlord, Colony. Sunray landed on the Ark 1.8 miles from the site perimeter, and were tasked with performing a reconnaissance and observation mission. After the Banished presence was confirmed, Spirit of Fire deployed India Company to reinforce Sunray as they began to push deeper. Eventually, Sunray stumbled upon a Banished base of operations, and were able to acquire intelligence on the nature of their plan: reactivate an ancient Forerunner Despair-class fighter and use it to destroy Spirit of Fire. However, the fighter was still a dormant design seed, which meant that there was a short amount of time available to stop the plan before it could be brought to completion. Sunray proceeded to act as the spearhead of a large combined-arms force supported by Spirit of Fire in an attack on a number of control points critical to the operation of the cloaking field surrounding the site, successfully fending off numerous Banished and Sentinel attacks including a large Retriever Sentinel.^[5]

With the first stage of the operation a success, Sunray then proceeded to move on to an assault on the launch site itself. This second attack resulted in the deployment of numerous Mark II Colossi to help destroy the Forerunner mechanisms constructing the Despair-class fighter, delaying the fifteen-minute countdown sufficiently long enough to allow UNSC forces an opening to destroy the site with an AV-14 Hornet air strike.^[6]

Upon returning from their successful mission, Sunray were quickly moved on to conduct more missions against the Banished. Shortly following the success of SPEARBREAKER, the team were used to perform a series of assassinations on Banished officers identified as critical to the operations of Atriox. One mission in particular was a resounding success, with Corporal Devon Sparks using tactics gleaned from after-action reports of the war-era Operation: GREY VEIL assasination on Heian to land a killing shot against a Jiralhanae Captain that quickly became legend among the Spirit of Fire's crew. Throughout the later months of 2559, they were deployed among several Banished-occupied regions of the Ark in strikes against a variety of hostile forces including the aforementioned Banished, and those of both Sentinel and Armiger threats.^[1]