Frederick King

Frederick King, also known as Agent One and Codename: UNO was a member of the ORION Project's Trident Team in the late 25th Century and an influential figure within the Office of Naval Intelligence for most of his adult life. King was a long-serving ONI agent, in addition to being the first recruit and field commander of Project BRUTUS upon it's creation. Throughout the Human-Covenant War he worked on a number of clandestine operations, including the recruitment of orphaned children to become soldiers for the SPARTAN-III Program and the destruction of several independent Human groups working outside of the UNSC's control. While King never held a particularly high rank within ONI and did not go for a position of leadership when he had the chance, he remained as a key figure in the intelligence world and was considered an indispensable asset due to his experience and position as head of BRUTUS. In spite of his advanced age, King would continue to take part in missions well into the 2570s and beyond.

Early Life
"When I was a child, I used to look towards the Earth the same way people would look up at the Moon, hundreds of years ago. It was beautiful, and I knew even then that it was worth protecting."

- King, commenting on his childhood.

Frederick King was born in the city of on Earth's moon,. Both of his parents taught at the Luna OCS Academy and had served with the UNSC Navy before his birth. Naturally, he was expected to continue the family line of service and was brought up to perform to the highest standards possible. At school Frederick excelled in a number of subjects, though he had very few friends and was seen as rather aloof by many of his peers. Nonetheless, he remained at the top of his class until the age of fifteen, whereupon he left Luna for the first time to be taught at the prestigious on. While Frederick had excelled in the mental side of his studies, he was physically rather unfit when he arrived and had a great deal of trouble with he training exercises they ran most days at the Academy. After a few months of struggling, he began to perform better in the training simulations and proved to be one of the best shots in his class. By his third year in 2489 King was placed in command of a group of first-year cadets and pushed them hard to succeed in every possible level. While his training methods were seen as slightly harsh even by his teachers, King's group emerged as the best in their year by the time he left Corbulo for good. He was then transferred to the UNSC Navy, where he and many other graduates of the Academy were given an officer's commission.

UNSC Navy
King's first deployment after leaving Corbulo was as an aboard the  in 2489. He proved to be a valuable part of the crew and worked hard during his time there. After the theft of the in 2490, the Las Vegas was joined by two other ships were sent to find it. While initially hopeful about quickly recovering the stolen vessel, months went by without any sign of the ship and the battlegroup was relegated to moving through the fringes of UNSC-controlled space on what was considered a lost cause. King and many others aboard the Destroyer became frustrated due to this, the young Ensign privately believing that his considerable talents were being wasted on such a task. Following a lengthy correspondence with his parents in December, his influential mother arranged for his transfer to Earth for the start of a new military program.

ORION Project
After arriving on Earth, King was among the original sixty-five test subjects for the UNSC's first supersoldier project, known as. Each candidate was fairly young and fit, though they came from various branches in the UNSC. The training they went through was incredibly fierce, some exercises being much harder than those undertaken by the famed Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in the past. A number of applicants washed out in the early stages of ORION's life, though King and many others endured the harsh training for nearly a year until more candidates were recruited for the project. During this time, he and the others underwent a series of chemical augmentations that increased their strength, speed and stamina to near-superhuman levels. Though he technically outranked a number of his peers within ORION, King's rank was stripped from him alongside all the others to level the playing field and promote cohesiveness within the unit.

Following the first few stages of training, the ORION recruits underwent a series of training missions to prepare for counter-terrorism operations in the outer colonies. King soon found his place as an expert in infiltration and assassination, and was responsible for many successes during this period. In 2495 he and a group of fellow ORION's signed up once more for an Officer Candidate School under the jurisdiction of the. Though he had some doubts at first, he excelled there and befriended Richard Mack and during this period. King emerged as a and was assigned to the newly formed Trident Team in early 2496 under the command of First Lieutenant Anton LaMarche.

Fighting Insurrection
In 2496, ORION's first proper engagement took place on as part of. Trident was among the first teams on the ground as the mission began, with the entire ORION contingent being deployed shortly after. King served as the team's pointman during CHARLEMAGNE; their skills and chemical augmentations made them an incredibly lethal fighting force that neutralised dozens of hostile soldiers during the course of the operation. CHARLEMAGNE proved to be a massive success against the mounting rebellion and turned the ORION's from just another ONI project to the UNSC's foremost Special Forces operators. Following the mission, Trident and the various other teams were scattered throughout the colonies on numerous engagements against terrorists, rebels and dissenters.

King served as Trident's third in command for several years following CHARLEMAGNE, and got on very well with his team. Like all the others, he looked up to their leader, Anton LaMarche, and followed his orders without question. King seemed to be the most emotionally detached member of the team, and rarely took part in the ethical debates that others like Ackton and Mack often brought up in regards to dealing with Human insurrection. After months of serving with Trident, he did open up somewhat and became much more friendly with the others, Gunnery Sergeant Marion Hollister in particular. This would eventually escalate into a romantic relationship, though the pair kept it secret due to his officer rank and her position as a Non-Commissioned Officer. This did not stop LaMarche from finding out, though he merely asked to make sure that it would not affect King's judgement on the battlefield in later missions.

Trident Team would participate in dozens of operations against Insurrectionist forces, most of which were officially classified by the UNSC. Operations such as BRIMSTONE, SWEEPER and HEART OF DARKNESS were never known outside the ranks of the ORION's themselves, largely due to their sensitive nature and the questionable morality involved while undertaking these operations. King himself was slightly disturbed by the excessive force allowed on these operations, something that teammate Steven Hawkins took advantage of as he tortured and killed a number of enemy prisoners while on operations.

Operation: SPARTACUS
In early 2499 Trident Team were dispatched alongside two other ORION groups to, a notoriously crime-ridden colony world on the edge of colonised Human space. While there was little in the way of Insurrectionist activity to attract the UNSC's attention, the sheer wealth and power of the crime lords operating within the planet's sprawling cities had pushed the CMA-led government to the brink of collapse. Furthermore, reports of rampant Human trafficking, drug trading and weapon dealing had been found across Troy, prompting a swift response from the UNSC before news leaked to the Inner Colony media, who were already highly critical of their rather harsh methods and supposed neglect of the Outer Colonies. After they arrived, Trident Team split up; King, Hawkins and Mack were joined my Teresa Morrison and in an operation to break up what was assumed to be a major smuggling ring in one of Troy's more populous cities that had been dubbed 'SPARTACUS'.



Under cover of night, the ORION's moved in on an inner city compound where over a hundred individuals were attending a 'pit fight' - a horrific bloodsport in which children were forced to fight to the death while bets were made. Sickened by this discovery, they eliminated the guards and made a full assault on the inner compound, gunning down those who resisted while the local police surrounded the local area. In their first night on Troy they were responsible for the arrest of over sixty people, with dozens of casualties and thousands of credits worth of illegal contraband being confiscated. Furthermore, a group of captive children, badly affected by their treatment, were freed from the fighting pit by King and the others. While at first they believed that the main source of crime on Troy had been taken out, evidence taken from a heavily-interrogated captive revealed that there was a massive black market operating out of an abandoned refinery in another city.

The following night, their team arrived at the location heavily armed and prepared to face a veritable army of criminals that had most likely been made aware of their presence on Troy by this point. However, in spite of their fears the ORION's were able to easily gain access to the refinery, killing nearly two dozen people. After confirming the presence of stolen weaponry, the team discovered the entrance to an underground complex beneath the main building. Against King's warnings Mack did not report it to command and led them into the tunnels while an ARGUS drone searched for explosive devices. Upon emerging in a vast underground chamber, the team came across a massive crowd of people watching another pit fight between two children. With barely a moment's hesitation they opened fire on the spectators, using grenade launchers and assault rifle fire to massacre all that stood in their way while dozens more attempted to flee the arena. Having seen first-hand the depravity of these people, King felt little remorse even as Hawkins butchered the wounded with his machete and others were blown to pieces as they tried to flee. However, when a group did surrender to the ORIONs, Mack simply gave the order to wipe them all out.

Though they carried out the order, even King felt that his superior had overstepped the line as their captives were executed by Hawkins and Morrison. Ignoring their protests, Mack then went into the arena himself and disarmed a young boy before ordering King and Black to free the others. They exited the refinery with a number of freed captives and nearly all of their ammunition spent. The massacre was immediately sealed off by ONI, who kept it a secret even from the local law enforcement. Following the mission, King watched as Lieutenant Black denounced Mack as a war criminal for his actions and began to question his own role in what had been a merciless slaughter; the blood was on his hands as much as it was on his comrades. While Mack and Morrison seemed to regret their actions, Black despising his superior for the order and Hawkins simply not caring about what they had done, King attempted to rationalise the killings as necessary in their line of work; the lives of over a hundred criminals meant nothing if it kept the UNSC could avoid more bad publicity. Operation: SPARTACUS affected Frederick King more than any other participant, even if he did not talk about it or reveal just how much it had left its mark on him.

Heimdall Incident
TO BE DECLASSIFIED

Project BRUTUS
Following the Heimdall Incident and the dawn of the 26th Century, Trident Team's more heroic exploits had been revealed to the media by ONI's Section II in an attempt to raise support for the UNSC's actions in the developing Outer Colonies. While Mack and Ackton continued their service in the Marine Corps under ORION's jurisdiction and both Hollister and Redford retired, King was offered a place within ONI by Admiral. He accepted, and was given the naval rank of before being set to work under the recently-promoted Captain. The two worked well together, and orchestrated a number of covert operations until 2504 when Parangosky integrated the almost defunct into ONI and began to build up a significant powerbase within Naval Intelligence.

Seeing Parangosky's slow rise to power, King came to her in early 2505 with the initial proposals for Project BRUTUS. Due to the rising tide of Insurrection and dissent among the colonies due to various reasons, even ONI's field agents and spies were finding it hard to root out potential threats to colonial security in time. As such, BRUTUS would scatter agents across multiple colony worlds, recruiting potential applicants at a fairly young age rather than choosing from a pre-existing force of either Intelligence or Military assets. Once planted, BRUTUS agents would spy on the general populace and target those who wished to incite rebellion against the UEG before alerting their commanders and discreetly murdering figures of authority; cutting off the head of any potential uprising before it even began. Though she had her initial misgivings about BRUTUS, Parangosky trusted King enough to give his project the go-ahead, placing its agents under the DCS officially. King then recruited a dozen agents, numbering each of them according to seniority with himself as 'Agent One'.

For the next few years, this small cadre of assassins and infiltrators eliminated dozens of potential threats within UEG space, mostly disguising their actions as simple accidents or leaving criminal scapegoats for the local authorities to blame. King himself rarely participated in such operations, and spent most of his time travelling between BRUTUS' headquarters on Luna and a mental hospital on the planet Harpa, where his old team mate and lover Marion Hollister had ended up after a severe mental breakdown as a side effect of her ORION augmentations years before. Though initially unstable and very violent, King's presence calmed Marion with regular visits to the facility and by 2509 she was given a clean bill of health and allowed to leave. With Parangosky's permission, King set up a BRUTUS command post on Harpa shortly before he got married. Though Marion had greatly recovered in the past few years, the psychological damage rendered her unfit to return to active duty and she settled down into civilian life while King continued to direct the slowly-growing BRUTUS group, which he wished to keep at a manageable fifteen members for the time being.

In 2511, Marion gave birth to their first son, Kane. Both were overjoyed at this, though King's constant work kept him away from his wife and child for lengthy periods. Marion did not seem to mind much as she busied herself with looking after the baby. Shortly after Kane's birth, ONI agents visited King and informed him that due to their status as ORION augmentees they would have to subject Kane to a series of injections to ensure that he had no growth defects or other issues passed down from his parents. This was done secretly and without Marion's knowledge, as King knew how much she mistrusted ONI and would not allow them near their child if she knew. By 2513, the issue of Insurrection had finally been matched in the Colonies by a massive wave of crime, spread by the arrival of a new designed drug called 'Rocket'. Initial analysis proved that it had been derived from the augmentation drugs some terrorist groups used to fight UNSC forces, giving it heavy links to the elusive United Rebel Front.

As his BRUTUS agents could not afford risking their cover to bust every Rocket manufacturer in the Outer Colonies, King was placed in charge of the newly-dubbed Operation: MASQUERADE, an attempt to strike at the main source of the drug. To do this, he recruited a special team made for infiltration and covert operations, consisting of his former comrade Harold Redford, Henry McNair, Abd-al-Qadir ibn Asad, Vivian Harris, Samantha Jones, Markus Jensun and Leo, an AI. King personally visited and ensured that each member of this team remained loyal to their mission, but otherwise allowed the group to go about their business in the Outer Colonies for some time until Redford activated a beacon that brought both King and a large special forces team in to clear out the remaining criminals and their contacts in the Insurrection. The mission was a resounding success, though the team did take losses and one member in particular had to spend over a month aboard the to recover from his injuries. Following MASQUERADE, King discreetly oversaw the construction of Lion's Claw, a Private Military Company that would specialise in security operations throughout the colonies and was willing to carry out actions that the UNSC could not do. While he allowed the group to run under the command of Abd-al-Quadir ibn Asad, ONI kept a close eye on the mercenaries as they destroyed rebel stronghold after stronghold with brutal efficiency in the following years.

SIGMA and SPARTAN-III
"Our son has more potential than either of us, Marion! He and the other children will grow up to save mankind from itself, something ORION could never have accomplished on its own. You have to understand that it's all for the greater good here; to think otherwise would be selfish, no better than those goddamn terrorists!"

- King attempting to justify his actions in 2517

Following the widespread conducted across the Outer Colonies by the CAA in 2516, King was made aware of the existence of a secret project, codenamed. He found the idea of a successor project to ORION interesting in spite of the huge ethical issues, particularly regarding the abduction of children, dangerous augmentation procedures and use of flash cloning as proposed by Doctor Catherine Halsey, the project's creator. In early 2517 King came into possession of the list of 150 potential candidates for the program, which to his surprise contained his own young son, Kane. However, the fairly limited budget at the time for SPARTAN-II meant that only half the subjects could be recruited, including King's child. As he could not publicly put forward Kane into the program on Reach, he visited Doctor Calvin Roe, a famed scientist on Earth whose works in engineering and robotics had been repeatedly overshadowed by the younger Halsey's own work. While there, he revealed the plans for SPARTAN-II to Roe knowing full well of his dislike for Halsey, and then suggested that he speak to Parangosky in private regarding plans for an extension of SPARTAN-II, codenamed Project SIGMA.

Using their friendship with Parangosky and her adversarial nature towards Halsey, Roe and King were able to attain permission and funding from ONI to conduct Project SIGMA in secret, on Earth. Using data taken from the SPARTAN-II training on Earth, they could conduct their own experiments on a much smaller target group of twenty children, which included the young Kane, now known as SPARTAN-099. Furthermore, Parangosky was pleased to hear that their first choice for a trainer was none other than Richard Mack Senior, a close friend of hers. Shortly after the main SPARTAN-II candidates were abducted, King had his own BRUTUS agents orchestrate the kidnapping and replacement of the SIGMA children, replacing them with flash clones that would quickly die. King personally drugged and abducted his own son before placing him on a transport towards Earth, ensuring that he could stay with Marion on Harpa to deal with what came next. As Kane's flash clone began to grow weaker over the following weeks, Marion realised that something was incredibly wrong with her son and eventually confronted her husband, realising that he had done something to Kane. King tried to explain to Marion how their son would grow into the perfect soldier that neither of them ever were, truly believing that they would save mankind from civil war and destruction given enough time. He saw it as his duty to offer his only child into service, continuing to do his part for Earth and the UEG.

Marion's reaction to this news was to viciously attack King, breaking his arm and slashing him across the face with a knife in a brief but intense fight before fleeing as he pulled a gun on her. Disturbed by the noise, Kane's flash clone then entered the room and was pleased to see his 'father' After a brief conversation with the cloned child, King shot him dead with his handgun, seeing it as a kinder death than simply allowing the flash clone to deteriorate and die over the next few weeks before calling for an ONI cleanup crew to dispose of the corpse. Enraged at his wife's disappearance, King immediately gave the order for BRUTUS to find and kill her as he recovered. After nearly two months with no trace of Marion, he eventually cancelled the assassination order and returned to his work. Without a family to worry him, Frederick King soon made a great deal of progress personally overseeing his agent's work in the Outer Colonies for a number of years. He never once enquired about the state of Kane's training on Earth, feeling that it would be for the best if he was never even aware of his existence. By 2525, he felt that BRUTUS would possibly face shutdown in the face of SPARTAN-II's impending activation. Though it was an incredibly effective force in preventing Insurrectionist uprisings, its field agents numbered at less than twenty, with several dozen support agents working behind the scenes. However, the arrival of the Covenant and the in late 2525 ensured that the freshly-trained SPARTAN-II's would be diverted to engage this new alien threat, prompting more funding for BRUTUS to deploy more agents as news of the war spread through the Outer Colonies and people began to panic.

Not long after plans for BRUTUS; expansion arrived, King received the news that his old friend Harold Redford had been killed after re-enlisting in the military to fight on Harvest. Shortly after, he attended a memorial service for the man on Earth, where he met his son Alexander, a doctor. Deciding to make good use of Harold's child, King approached Alexander and spoke to him at length about his history with his father, before eventually offering him the chance to become a BRUTUS agent. Still grieving and eager to take action in his father's name, Alexander Redford signed up and became 'Agent Nineteen'. Over the next few years King oversaw the training of many new BRUTUS agents, expanding to forty active members by 2529. It was this year that King's imprisoned squadmate Tobias Crowley was finally released from prison after a thirty-year sentence and began a solitary life on Reach. Not willing to forget how Crowley had tortured him and Marion during the Heimdall Incident, he dispatched Agents 32 and 38 to eliminate Crowley. To King, this was not a punishment, but a kindness; putting down an old, broken man who should have died decades ago. Though their target was killed, 38 perished in the attack, giving King some modicum of respect for his former friend for going out fighting.

In 2531, King's BRUTUS agents were recalled by ONI on the direct orders of Admiral Parangosky, who revealed to him that Colonel had proposed a new supersoldier initiative, named SPARTAN-III. Though he had barely interacted with Ackerson, King knew of his shady reputation and shared his pragmatism when it came to fighting the war. The prospect of entire companies of augmented child soldiers for suicide missions was to King a much harder moral problem when compared to the dangerous but long-lasting SPARTAN-II Program, but he conceded that such actions had to be taken if Humanity and the UNSC were to survive the war. For over a month, King personally travelled round with a cadre of BRUTUS agents under the guise of a Major in the Marine Corps to orphanages across what remained of the Outer Colonies and recruited children who truly wanted revenge on the Covenant for the deaths of their parents and countless others in their genocidal campaigns. To him, it was their choice to join SPARTAN-III that made them worthy of the program, though he would often encourage the children with assurances that they would become heroes, fighting the 'monsters' and saving mankind. Following the recruitment process, he had them sent off to to be trained for several years.

Skills and Abilities
"The best battle is the one that's over before your enemy realises that it's begun."

- King commenting on one of his infiltration missions.

As a member of the ORION Project, King was a talented soldier who excelled in most roles on the battlefield. He was a particularly skilled infiltrator and worked as a professional assassin for the Office of Naval Intelligence for many years, favouring long-distance kills with high-powered sniper rifles over open engagements. His combat skills allowed him to survive many engagements, both against Human Insurrectionists and Covenant forces over the years. Even at an advanced age he remained incredibly fit and healthy, and could take on opponents much younger than him at close quarters. His aged appearance in later life would cause many to make the mistake of underestimating King's strength and speed, which was helped in part due to his ORION augmentations.

In addition to his physical abilities, King was noted for being highly intelligent, even among his peers in ORION. He possessed great knowledge of computing and possessed a theoretical interest in the coding and creation of 'dumb' artificial intelligences, though this was rarely put to use. Furthermore, King was known for his powers of persuasion and manipulation, which made him a prime candidate to help in the recruitment of BRUTUS agents and children for the SPARTAN-III Program. Though he often stretched the truth or outright lied to those he spoke to, King's charisma was a major factor in convincing others to side with him on multiple occasions.

Personality
"That man is pure evil."

- Marion Hollister

Seen by many as ruthlessly pragmatic and incredibly intelligent, King's very professional nature towards his work in ONI was matched only by the dedication to defending Humanity. Due to his position as head of BRUTUS, he was greatly feared even by his peers and would often make his opinions heard in spite of his rank. King always considered himself something of a patriot, believing that the UEG, defended by both ONI and the UNSC, was the only way to ensure the survival of mankind in an increasingly hostile galaxy; views that were taken more seriously with the discovery of the Covenant. As such, he held nothing but disdain for Insurrectionists and sought to eliminate them with maximum efficiency where possible. Unlike some with pro-UEG beliefs, King did greatly value the Outer Colonies and was an advocate of sending manpower to assist in their continued stability and protection. King was directly responsible for the evacuation of several colonies via orders to his BRUTUS agents when word of possible Covenant invasion arrived, saving many lives wherever he could.

However, a major fault in King's personality was his unshakeable belief in the United Earth Government's rule over the outer Colonies and the role of both the UNSC and ONI in defending it. As such, he saw compromise with dissidents and rebels as weakness and would only engage in diplomacy with the intent of later crushing his foes. Also, King truly believed that he was keeping Humanity together through his actions, and saw no problem in sacrificing a few to save the many. This mentality led to him giving his own child to Project SIGMA with the belief that it was his duty to safeguard mankind without thinking about the massive emotional trauma it would inflict on his wife, Marion. Though he genuinely loved her, King initially saw her as selfish for leaving him behind, and it was only a twinge of regret that made him call off the BRUTUS assassins that were chasing her down. Without his family, he became much colder and more ruthless in his actions, cutting himself off almost completely from any vices and dedicating his life entirely to running BRUTUS and keeping the colonies safe.

List of Appearances

 * Vigil (2531)
 * Halo: Sanctuary (2576)