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- Jared Miller: "Roland, Crimson’s at the coordinates you provided. Where do we start?"
- Roland: "Find me a comm terminal and I can tell you."
- Jared Miller: "Hear that, Crimson? Don’t let anything stand in your way."
- — Jared Miller and Roland give Crimson instructions.[1]
The Battle of Control was an engagement in the Requiem Campaign at the location known as "Control" when UNSC forces battled Covenant and Promethean forces while trying to trace Doctor Catherine Halsey's signal.
Prelude
During the early stages of the Requiem Campaign, at the location known as "the Cauldron," Spartan Fireteam Crimson recovered a mysterious artifact[2] which sucked in Doctor Henry Glassman when he accessed it aboard the UNSC Infinity.[3] Subsequently, Doctor Catherine Halsey was brought aboard where she determined that the artifact was communicating information from the ship to Requiem.[4]
As Halsey later attempted to understand the artifact, Jul 'Mdama utilized it to contact Halsey via her data pad to entice her into helping him, offering Halsey the truth about a great many things, including the Prometheans.[5] As proof, Jul ensured that Fireteam Crimson retrieved "the Didact's Gift,"[6] a Durance containing the "soul" of a Promethean Knight who was originally a human digitized by the Composer during the New Phoenix Incident. Having provided proof, Jul further enticed Halsey by mentioning the Librarian, but Commander Sarah Palmer noticed Halsey's suspicious behavior and Captain Thomas Lasky had her arrested.[7] However, Halsey subsequently escaped using an override code on Infinity's AI Roland and made contact with Jul whose identity she quickly deduced. Halsey offered Jul her help with the Librarian, but the communication was cut off by Roland who regained control of himself and alerted the ship's crew to Halsey's actions. Jul subsequently launched an invasion of the ship[8] that ended with a Promethean Knight abducting Halsey.[9]
On Requiem, Halsey was brought to "Librarian's Rest" where she was able to deactivate the protective shield that Glassman had inadvertently activated and enter the shrine containing the Librarian's imprint.[9] In the shrine, Halsey met with the Librarian herself who provided Halsey with the Janus Key, a Forerunner artifact that provided the real-time location of all Forerunner technology in the galaxy. The Librarian warned that Requiem's time was almost at an end and ordered Halsey to take the Janus Key to the Absolute Record before sending her back to "Librarian's Rest."[10]
After being alerted of the situation, Rear Admiral Serin Osman ordered Lasky to eliminate Halsey.[9] Despite Lasky's objections, Palmer deployed to Requiem to carry out the assassination while Lasky contacted Fireteam Majestic, who had just delivered a rescued Glassman to a Pelican and asked them to rescue Halsey. However, in the fight that followed, Jul escaped with Halsey who was shot in the arm by Palmer while trying to kill her. Jul also escaped with one half of the Janus Key while Halsey tossed the other half to Spartan Gabriel Thorne.[10]
With Halsey missing, Lasky dispatched all Spartan fireteams from the Infinity and three Vindication-class light battleships to search Requiem for her. At "Cyclone," Crimson was able to help Roland trace Halsey's signal as it bounced to "Control" where they were redeployed to.[11]
Battle
Tracing the signal
By the time Fireteam Crimson arrived at "Control," Boa Squad was already under heavy Covenant attack, including from Hunters. Crimson was ordered to clear the area of Covenant forces and find Roland a comm terminal to try to trace Doctor Catherine Halsey's signal. Boa Squad fell to the Covenant, but Crimson managed to clear out the Covenant. After Crimson activated the terminal, Roland determined that Halsey's comm traffic had definitely been routed through the area and directed Crimson to another terminal nearby that it had been routed to next as Halsey had bounced the signal around the area a few times.
Crimson activated a second terminal Roland determined that Halsey had bounced the signal through and he determined that Halsey had bounced the signal through a dozen terminals in the area. However, he found one in particular that Halsey had kept coming back to and directed Crimson to it. At Roland's request, Crimson accessed the terminal for him so that Roland attempt to untangle Halsey's signal and trace it.[1]
Holding the position
As Crimson accessed the terminal, Covenant heavy orbital insertion pods and Phantoms began deploying reinforcements to the area. Crimson managed to eliminate the Covenant, only to have Promethean forces translocate in. As the battle continued, Spartan Jared Miller demanded to know what was taking Roland so long only to be told that the terminal had a 64-zetabyte encryption and required time to crack. As Roland continued to work on the decryption, Crimson battled against multiple waves of Promethean forces, repelling each wave, only to have them be replaced by more Prometheans. Finally, Crimson cleared out the area as Roland finally finished the decryption.
However, Promethean Knights began to rapidly translocate in and Crimson came into danger of being overrun by sheer numbers. Miller quickly contacted Robert Dalton for an extraction and a bombardment to deal with the Promethean forces. Roland directed the Spartans to an area where they would be relatively safe from the coming bombardment which the Spartans managed to retreat to as the enemy chased them. Once Crimson was clear, Dalton commenced a massive aerial bombardment of "Control," destroying all of the Promethean forces present and ending the battle.[1]
Aftermath
With "Control" clear, Roland revealed that he had managed to track Doctor Catherine Halsey's transmission to "Lockup." Fireteam Crimson were extracted from the area,[1] but were first redeployed to "Apex" to follow up on another of Halsey's comm signals which ended up being traced to "Lockup" as well.[12]
List of appearances
- Halo 4
- Spartan Ops (First appearance)
Sources
- ^ a b c d Spartan Ops, S109 Clean Up
- ^ Spartan Ops, S101 Core
- ^ Spartan Ops, S102 Artifact
- ^ Spartan Ops, S103 Catherine
- ^ Spartan Ops, S104 Didact's Hand
- ^ Spartan Ops, S104 The Didact's Gift
- ^ Spartan Ops, S105 Memento Mori
- ^ Spartan Ops, S107 Invasion
- ^ a b c Spartan Ops, S108 Expendable
- ^ a b Spartan Ops, S109 Key
- ^ Spartan Ops, S109 The Search for Halsey
- ^ Spartan Ops, S109 Science Mountain
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