Bailey-132

Senior Chief Petty Officer Bailey-132 (callsign Sapphire One), sometimes jokingly referred to by his fellow Spartans as "Banana" due to his unusually colored armor, and more formally known to the at large as Project ORION, Generation II Subject, Candidate Designation Number 132, was a Class I  supersoldier and the leader of Sapphire Team.

Early life
Bailey was born on the colony of on February 3, 2511. A quiet and passive child, Bailey avoided conflict and usually kept to himself, generally preferring to draw or quietly play alone than to take part in the loud games of his rowdy peers. This often put him at odds with his older brother, Marcus, who was a highly extroverted individual, and did not understand why Bailey wanted to be by himself so much. Bailey often felt frustrated by the fact that no one seemed to understand that he just wanted to be left alone, and felt like no one understood him or his needs.

Bailey soon drew the attention of ONI, after they learned that he possessed all of the genetic markers necessary for SPARTAN-II candidacy through a blood sample secretly obtained via the. He was kidnapped soon thereafter and conscripted into the SPARTAN-II program in August 2517, being replaced with a so as not to draw unwanted attention.

Training
Upon arrival on, Bailey and the other kidnapped candidates awoke from in the   in the  of. There, he and the other candidates were introduced to, in which they would be taking part. The candidates were then informed that they would never be allowed to see their families again.

The following morning, on September 24, the six-year-old SPARTAN-II candidates were awoken at 0530 hours by CPO, the man who would be responsible for conducting their training. They were instructed to head to the showers, and any who protested or refused were struck with a. From the showers, the children were sent outside, where they were put through 100 reps of jumping jacks, sit ups, deep squats, knee bends, and leg lifts. Afterwards, they jogged roughly a mile to the, where they would be given lessons by the. This was to become the Spartans' daily morning routine.

Augmentation
Finally, in 2525, the SPARTAN-II candidates underwent the toughest part of their journey thus far: augmentation. Through this process, the candidates would be transformed from already exceptional physical specimens into something far beyond human. However, the process was risky: in addition to the risk of implant rejection and side effects, there was the chance of lethal physiological stress, as the whole ordeal would involve minimal anesthesia, and thus although the Spartans would be technically unconscious during the procedures, they would stil be able to feel everything happening to them.

Battle of Chi Ceti IV
"Uh, why is it yellow...?"

- Bailey upon seeing his brand new suit of MJOLNIR Mark IV armor.

Upon completing their training, Bailey and the rest of the SPARTAN-IIs were sent to to receive the MJOLNIR Mark IV armor. Unfortunately, this trip was complicated when the SPARTANs arrived to find the planet under attack by alien invaders known as the.

The Spartans were forced to put their training to the test and fight their way to the into an underground research facility, where they were given their new armor. Bailey's armor specifically had received a number of special modifications, courtesy of the Delta-3 Division, an ONI cell which had recruited him several years earlier for unknown reasons.

While leaving Chi Ceti IV, a team of Spartans was forced to board a Covenant warship and destroy it from the inside. While this succeeded, the Spartan was killed in the process.

Early Harvest Campaign
After returning to, Bailey and his team were sent with to the colony of. Upon arriving in the, they found the breadbasket world of Harvest to be mostly and beginning to suffer the effects of nuclear winter. Battle Group X-Ray also discovered a in orbit above the colony, which they quickly destroyed at the cost of thirteen of their own ships.

After a short-lived search for survivors on Harvest's surface (which was quickly called off upon learning how horrifyingly thorough the Covenant had been in their ruthless genocide of the population), UNSC forces began to establish bases on Harvest's now frozen surface, in preparation for ground operations that would be conducted with the intent of taking what was left of the colony back from the Covenant forces remaining on its surface. Sapphire Team was attached to the aptly-named "Utgard Base"; a particularly large base located less than two kilometers from where the city of had once stood.

Though the Covenant's forces were initially disorganized and easily defeated, this changed when a group of arrived above Harvest after patrolling the fringes of the Epsilon Indi system. These ships forced Battle Group X-Ray to hastily pull back away from the planet and regroup, leaving UNSC ground forces suddenly without valuable orbital support assets. Confusion spread and UNSC troops quickly became disorganized. To make matters worse, the Covenant began deploying fresh ground troops, and those already on the ground were able to operate more cohesively thanks to tactical support from their ships in orbit above.

Sapphire Team was quickly deployed to key locations in order to provide assistance to UNSC with whom contact had been lost as Battle Group X-Ray fought to regain control of the situation in orbit. They left their commanding officers speechless; they were able to engage Covenant troops toe-to-toe and win almost effortlessly, succeeding with ease where even the best of normal human soldiers would struggle.

By the time Battle Group X-Ray had regained a hold on the situation in orbit, many marines had gone missing in the confusion, and Sapphire Team was sent to help recover them. While patrolling an area in which contact with a group of marines had been lost from a pair of, the Spartans spotted signs of Covenant activity near a cliff, and landed to investigate. They traced alien footprints in the snow to a cave opening near the cliff's edge, which they cautiously entered. As they made their way deeper into the cave, the natural stone walls gave way to an artificial metal tunnel, with architecture not resembling that of any human or known Covenant designs.

Further down, the tunnel opened into a large cavern. To their astonishment, within this cavern they discovered Brutes using captured human civilians to help them access a large structure which also appeared not to be of Covenant origin. Bailey did not hesitate to open fire on the Brutes, ordering Ryan-144 to take out the leading the group. Once the Chieftain was dead, confusion erupted amongst the aliens, and Sapphire Team moved in to engage them. Unfortunately, the Brutes began to slaughter their prisoners, and the Spartans were only able to save one of them. This survivor, a dirty, emaciated fifteen-year-old girl, had to be forcibly pulled away from the mutilated corpse of a four-year-old female, which was later identified as the body of her younger sister. She tried to attack the Spartans, not believing that they were human, but she stopped when Bailey removed his helmet and showed her his face. The girl passed out from exhaustion moments later, and Bailey was forced to carry her back to the Falcons. The Spartans returned to Utgard Base, where the girl received medical attention and ONI personnel questioned Sapphire Team about what they had seen in the cave.

Two days later, on April 12, the Covenant had appeared to have begun to withdraw their troops from the colony's surface, and the UNSC believed that victory was nearly at hand. However, the next day, exited  above Harvest, and immediately began to deploy ground forces. When these forces landed, UNSC marines discovered that a new alien species, which were soon nicknamed, were replacing the Brutes as the commanders of the Covenant's troops. The Elites proved to be far more disciplined and potent foes for Sapphire Team, but the Spartans still managed defeat them all the same.

After the arrival of the Elites, the situation on Harvest regressed into a bitter stalemate. The UNSC fought the Covenant for months on end without making any considerable progress. In the meantime, Bailey began to talk frequently with Addison Solaski, the girl whom Sapphire Team had rescued from the Brutes in the cavern. Bailey had taken pity on her, as everyone she knew had either died in the cavern or had been vaporized when the Covenant glassed Harvest, and she was to be held in military custody indefinitely due to the then largely unknown alien technology that she had seen during her time as the Brutes' prisoner, as well as her knowledge of the existence of the SPARTAN-IIs. But as they began to talk with each other more often, Addison became an outlet for expressing his thoughts, and he began to confide in her his feelings about the fight against the Covenant and life as a Spartan in general. As time went on, romantic feelings developed between the both of them, and Bailey was unsure as to how to address these feelings, not believing that a relationship with Addison would work. This resulted in anxiety for Bailey, and after a few months, it began to noticeably impact his performance in combat. This would nearly cost Sapphire Team their lives.

In November 2526, Sapphire Team was sent to extract a squad of whom had been deployed to retrieve a group of high value individuals (ONI personnel, specifically, though this was not disclosed to the ODSTs or Sapphire Team) whose Pelican had been shot down by Covenant anti-aircraft fire. Though the ODSTs had managed to successfully retrieve the high value personnel, they had become pinned down by a large force of Covenant troops that had been drawn to the area by the Pelican crash.

Throughout this relatively simple mission, Bailey made multiple bad calls, ultimately resulting in Sapphire Team being flanked and pinned down themselves. Fortunately, the ODSTs at the crash site managed to push back the Covenant troops attacking them, thanks to the Elites (who now already recognized the significance and potency of Spartan supersoldiers) diverting much of their heavier troops towards eliminating Bailey and his team. The ODSTs, led by Staff Sergeant Viktor Kidrov, were able to flank the Covenant forces attacking Sapphire Team and allow the SPARTANs to fight off the enemy, saving their lives.

There was now no doubt in the minds of his teammates that something was bothering him greatly (as it was unlike Bailey to break focus even under extreme pressure), but he himself refused to admit that anything was wrong. However, Rachel, having a hunch as to what was troubling her commanding officer, asked Addison if she knew about anything that may have been bothering Bailey, and through this Addison realized that Bailey reciprocated her feelings for him. Addison soon confronted him and told him about her feelings. Despite Bailey's doubts about maintaining a relationship with Addison, he agreed to give it a try anyways.

The conflict on Harvest dragged on without any progress being made by either side for the next several years, with Sapphire Team seeing frequent deployment. However, in February 2529, Sapphire Team was sent to the colony of Roleath, which intelligence suggested was the next target of the Covenant's genocidal campaign, aboard the UNSC Enola Gay.

Battle of Roleath
Sapphire Team arrived in the DX Cancri system on May 26, 2529 along with the elements of the 4th, 17th, and 24th fleets. Although had already been in effect for months, due to the semi-independence of the colony of Roleath and the total cover-up of the Covenant's existence by the Roleathan government, the UNSC was unable to carry out the full extent of the WINTER CONTINGENCY protocols. The increased military presence was explained as being a response to a nuclear bombing threat by.

Bailey and his team were to be stationed in Roleath's capital city of Lotora, near the base of the Kimberly A. Moorstead Memorial Space Tether. There, they masqueraded as civilians (as ONI felt that having five seven-foot-tall muscle-bound teenagers walking around the city would be less alarming to the planet's populace than five seven-foot-tall, muscle-bound teenagers clad in power armor), with Addison attempting to aid them in behaving normally. During this time, Sapphire Team walked the streets of various strategically critical locations within the city and taking notes on ways to take advantage of the environment. However, this was cut short when an incident occurred between Bailey and a trio of street thugs, in which the three gang members attempted to hold him and Addison at gunpoint. Two of the attackers were left with nonlethal gunshot wounds, while the third was left with traumatic injuries to his teeth and jaw from having the barrel of the .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol that had been used to threaten the Spartan forced down his throat. ONI responded by having Sapphire Team remain inside of a firebase that had been set up on the grounds of the Moorstead Academy, a private school located around the perimeter of the space tether, until the Covenant arrived. Both Bailey and Addison were dismayed by this, as they had intended to use their time in Lotora to be alone together, something that had been difficult on Harvest. Bailey protested the decision, but failed to convince ONI officials to change their minds.

At roughly 11:00 PM on the night of June 28, the Covenant began landing their forces in Lotora. Bailey and Addison both awoke to the sound of alarms, as Brute shock troops began leading Covenant troops onto the grounds outside the firebase. The two woke up the other members of Sapphire Team, and the Spartans went to be fitted with their MJOLNIR armor. Upon receiving their armor once more, they found that their weapons had not been sent down from the Enola Gay. Instead, they each received a set of factory-fresh Army-issue equivalents of the weapons they each preferred to carry. These were supplied courtesy of Brigadier General William Hughes, the man in charge of UNSC Army forces in Lotora, whom had been excited to have Spartans on-site to aid his men against the Covenant.

Not long after, the Covenant managed to gain entry to the firebase, and Sapphire Team was forced to redeploy elsewhere in the city before Addison could receive safe transport away from danger, and thus she was forced to tag along with the Spartans as they were sent to Lotora's central power and communications facility, where they were to prevent Covenant troops from attempting to blind the entire city. While Sapphire Team would succeed in driving away the Covenant from this location, Addison would seem shaken by the experience, despite the fact that she had been kept away from the worst of the fighting and had not been hurt. When Bailey questioned her about what the matter was, she refused to answer.

While Sapphire Team waited for Army forces to arrive to keep the facility secure, they watched as Roleath's prime minister, Jonathan Matthews, finally granted Admiral Allen Hestly, the man in charge of the Naval forces in orbit around Roleath, full authority to enact the WINTER CONTINGENCY protocols over a live broadcast before shooting himself while still on air. Once the reinforcements arrived, the Spartans headed back into downtown Lotora, where hysteria had broken out over over the combination of Matthew's broadcast and the ongoing Covenant attack. They were directed to Lotora General Hospital, which had fallen under airborne Covenant attack and was simultaneously being besieged by a mob of confused civilians in the streets below, as doctors within attempted to triage military and civilian casualties alike.

With Air Force contesting the airspace above the hospital, Sapphire Team was deployed via Falcon onto the hospital roof, although their Falcons were destroyed by  as they attempted to depart afterwards. From there, the Spartans entered the top floors of the hospital, which they found to be a slaughtering ground. Bloodied bodies of patients, soldiers, and medical staff were strewn about, many in the halls as doctors and security had been funneled into choke points as they attempted to move patients to the lower floors. Patients that had no chance of being stabilized in time were simply left to die in their hospital beds. Making their way down numerous flights of stairs (the hospital's elevator systems had been disabled to prevent the Covenant from using them), the Spartans finally caught up with the Covenant forces attempting to murder their way down through the building.

Late Harvest Campaign
In September 2530, the 17th Naval Fleet, including the members of Sapphire Team, returned to the Epsilon Indi System, where fighting continued to rage over the fate of what little remained of the colony of Harvest. Upon their arrival at Utgard Base, Sapphire Team was greeted by the first fellow SPARTAN-II they had seen in nearly five years: Colin-142.

SPARTAN-142 had been serving primarily as a solo operator for Section III the Office of Naval Intelligence since the events on Chi Ceti IV, but had been sent to Harvest to bolster the ranks of Sapphire Team. ONI had recently discovered intelligence suggesting that a Covenant general whom had been previously encountered on Roleath was now leading troops on Harvest. This leader, believed to be known as the, was suspected to possess considerable significance within the Covenant hierarchy, and thus ONI believed that the removal of this individual could prove beneficial to the war effort against the new Covenant threat. Colin was to aid Sapphire Team in their new and especially dangerous task of hunting down this Arbiter, as well as to serve as an ONI liaison for the team.

Bailey was initially displeased with the temporary addition to his team, and went out of his way to make SPARTAN-142 feel unwelcome, excluding him and belittling him at every turn. However, Colin never seemed to mind anything that Bailey did to try and anger him, remaining his usual talkative and snarky self. Bailey would soon come to enjoy his presence, and would come to respect his combat skills. Within two months time, the aqua-armored Spartan would be as close to what one might call a friend to Bailey as one could be, and the two Spartans considered each other equals, both on a personal level and in terms of combat skill.

Fall of Reach
"You'd make one helluva Spartan, kid."

- Bailey to Leon Sikowsky as they escape.

Erebus VII
In 2557, Sapphire Team saw deployment on Erebus VII alongside several ONI, after contact was abruptly lost with research teams on the planet. Sapphire Team was quickly withdrawn from the Erebus system upon it being quarantined by ONI, although not before retrieving spectroscopic scan data from an abandoned research facility. While this data was not found to be of any use to ONI, it was later transmitted to the UNSC Infinity, where it was used to create for use by the Infinity's dedicated SPARTAN contingent.

Quillion III Incident
In late January of 2558, Sapphire Team was deployed on a simple operation on the backwater colony of Quillion III. Quillion III was a former Insurrectionist holdout, and though it had been spared from the wrath of the Covenant during the war, food and resource shortages caused by the destruction of nearby colonies had forced Quillion III to rejoin the UEG in 2554 to prevent the starvation of its people. In spite of the necessity of this decision, Quillion III's turmoil did not end there, with the more staunch rebel supporters taking up arms against the colony's supposedly "defeatist" government. These fighters began targeting freighters carrying much-needed relief supplies from the UNSC, capturing them and even outright destroying them, being determined to have the people of Quillion III either find a way to take care of themselves or die out in the effort.

Sapphire Team's mission was to escort an especially important delivery directly to officials of the Quillion III government, supposedly containing military-grade weaponry in addition to the usual food, clothing, and clean drinking water. However, due to a communications glitch, Bailey's relationship with the Delta-3 Division caused him to be accidentally sent a copy of a secret ONI message containing information that he and the rest of Sapphire Team were not meant to be privy to: that the supplies being transported by Sapphire Team were tainted with a lethal biological agent. ONI wished to kill off the loyalist Quillion population and frame the rebels, thereby wiping their hands of any responsibility to continue providing aid to the colony.

Acting alone, Bailey made anonymous contact with the largest rebel contingent on Quillion III, making them aware of the especially important supplies heading to the planet. Upon landing, the freighter was quickly overrun by rebel forces, and the supplies were destroyed. Sapphire Team was sent home, their mission apparently unsuccessful.

However, during debriefing, Bailey was placed under arrest by ONI personnel, and an incredulous Sapphire Team was shown their commander's correspondence with the rebel forces.

Personality & Traits
Bailey was a naturally quiet person. He rarely interacted with anyone by choice (outside of a small group of people whom he was actually fond of), and when he did, he was typically rude, pessimistic, condescending, and bitterly sarcastic. However, this cold, intimidating persona in fact only existed to hide Bailey's true self: a man weary from loneliness and loss, put off by the killing machine that he had become, and seeking a more noble, honest purpose for himself. He hid this side of himself from all but Addison, who, through patience, love, and support, gradually began to help make him a much happier person. Additionally, as the war with the Covenant dragged on and humanity's future began to look increasingly bleak, Bailey found new purpose as he began to see himself as a protector of humanity rather than a taker of lives, holding his species back from extinction at the hands of a ruthless alien juggernaut. But his increasing desire to defend humanity would soon begin to create tensions in his relationship with Addison, as she became more and more tired of chasing the Covenant as they advanced ever further into UNSC space, hopping from colony to colony and battle to battle.

However, after spending more than nine months on an ONI detention ship in 2558, Bailey's mental and emotional state took a turn for the worse thanks to the efforts of naval intelligence operatives to brainwash him as well as thanks to countless weeks spent in solitary confinement. He became somewhat unhinged; quicker to aggression and anger and markedly less reserved and calculating. Upon returning to meet Addison again after his imprisonment, the couple's relationship became somewhat strained thanks to Bailey's misplaced anger and lack of patience. He also began to suffer from insomnia and night terrors, leading to constant fatigue. In spite of this, his abilities as a soldier and a leader remained solid, and those who trusted him in the past continued to do so despite his newfound difficulties.

Involvement with the Delta-3 Division
Upon learning of the program's existence, ONI's Delta-3 Division insisted that it have unrestricted access to at least one SPARTAN-II candidate, offering to divert a portion of their own funding towards the project in return. , in need of additional funding for Project: MJOLNIR at the time, reluctantly agreed, and in 2522 the Delta-3 Division grafted Bailey into their ranks in order to grant themselves unlimited private access to him and his affairs.

The Delta-3 Division used Bailey to observe and research the combat capabilities and limitations of Halsey's supersoldiers, and also used him to test new technologies designed specifically for or that were best suited for a SPARTAN-II's unique skillset or superhuman physique.

Trivia

 * The odd yellow paint job on Bailey's Mark IV armor actually helped mask his heat signatures (though only marginally), and also reduced the suit's radar cross-section by absorbing radio waves. This was part of a series of tweaks that the Delta-3 Division paid the Damascus engineers to make to his original suit. The yellow color results from the composition of the paint and the application process, and cannot be painted over or altered with dyes as the former negates the radar-inhibiting effect and the latter severely reduces the heat-masking properties. Bailey would use a yellow paint job on his later-generation MJOLNIR suits, however, the paint on those lacked the specialized effects that his original suit's paint had, and was purely aesthetic in nature.
 * Bailey used the MA5B ICWS or MA37 ICWS in conjunction with the or  almost exclusively. He would use other weapons without hesitation if a situation demanded, but he would always revert to his MA5 and M6 as soon as he could.
 * He was issued the MA5B and M6D by the Navy in 2525 on Chi Ceti IV, and received his own factory-fresh MA37 and M6G from Brigadier General William Hughes as a "gift" in 2529 during the Battle of Roleath. He also began using the MA5D ICWS sometime after the conclusion of the Human-Covenant War, after having used an MA5D scavenged from the corpse of a UNSC Marine during the Battle of Earth and taking a liking to the weapon.
 * Impressed by the trooper's actions during the Fall of Reach, Bailey recommended Leon Sikowsky to ONI as a potential (consenting) candidate for the.
 * Bailey's tag is a 7 reference, as 1+(3×2)=7.

List of Appearances

 * Halo: Terra Ignis
 * Just Different
 * Halo: Upheaval
 * Halo: RED FLAG (non-canon)
 * Halo: Vae Victis (non-canon)
 * Survival of the Fittest (non-canon)
 * Season 4 (non-canon)
 * Season 5 (non-canon)
 * Season 6 (non-canon)