Annalee-B220

Annalee-B220, formerly Annalee Tesarik, was a SPARTAN-III Commando who was active during the Human-Covenant War. Notably, Annalee was one of twelve other Spartan-III's pulled from Beta Company by brass, Rear Admiral Darren Cohen for his Diamond Initiative. Annalee is best known for her role while with Beta Company's Team Golf and, later, as DIAMOND Team's Commanding field officer.

An expert rifleman and hand-to-hand savant, Annalee had always been one of the more deftly oriented warriors in Beta Company. Focusing on maintaining a level of expertise across most field weaponry has made her one of the better versed in combined operations, procurement, and general tactics. Annalee's exploits which the leader of DIAMOND Team set her on track to be one of ONI's most efficient operators and an undeniable key asset in the Diamond Initiative's Xeno-Exploitation role.

Annalee's Spartan career is one that would constantly test her mental resiliency as well as her ability to adapt and lead. With her early life marred by an inability to control of her own destiny, a struggle to keep her head, and a tendency to fall in line with others were quick to use her for gain, her greatest asset became her propensity to overcome unforeseen adversity.

Early Life
Annalee Lyra Tesarik was born on Febrary 20th, 2177 in the Corrotoman Arcology Hospital located on Mars. She was her parent's—Antonia Doorman and Mikal Tesarik—first and only child.

Antonia Doorman, Annalee's mother, fled to Mars as a refugee seeking political asylum in 2170. Her work as a controversial Bio-Engineer encamped within rogue elements of the field had put her life at risk. Fearing retribution, she chose to leave Earth. With her career on Earth at a standstill, and her reputation already dragged through mud, she sought a less restrictive government on Mars. Doorman, shortly thereafter met Mikal Tesarik while looking for work in her field. Tesarik, a former Combat Medic turned Pharmaceutical Chemist, took a quick liking to the young Doorman. The two married quickly after finding that their work promised a potential mutual partnership.

Shortly after Annalee was born, radical changes in the United Earth Government started to affect Doorman's work on Mars as it had on Earth. The Tesarik's, feeling as though their work and ideologies were unwelcome, sought to join aboard a private colonization effort. Leaving their Martian home of Corrotoman, the family joined the small crew of the Ambrosia Infinata. The Infinata, a Pre-Slip Space Enzmann-type ship, came with suites of Cryostasis Modules with which the crew of twenty would remain until reaching their destination. The family, Including Annalee, were set in Cryo-Sleep on August 12, 2183 on a vector towards.

Due to the nature of the Ambrosia 's mission, it was not equipped with any sort of beacon and never reported it's vector or flight plan with the proper authorities. As such, it was never a target of Operation: SLOW BURN, an UNSC operation to recover Pre-Slip Space colonization ships that were caught in a sort of "technological limbo" as they traveled in interstellar space at sub-light speeds.

Thaw from Cryo-sleep
On July 15, 2534, the reported a faint and short distress beacon was activated roughly 2 Light-Years from the Sol system. The Signal Corps also had reason to believe that the activity recorded afterwards indicated a Covenant presence closer to Earth than had been known prior. As such, the newly christened Boudica was sent to investigate, along with a SPARTAN-II detachment: Green Team.

On July 23, The Boudica arrived in observation range of the distress call. Upon scanning a debris field, the crew determined that a Covenant cruiser had attacked a small contingent of Human Junker ships which were the origin of the distress call detected a week earlier. The ships were decimated by the Covenant cruiser, but not before one had presumably rammed the Cruiser, forcing it to withdraw and repair. What the crew didn't expect to find, though, was that some of the debris was from a Enzmann-type ship that had been cut in half by the Covenant Cruiser. With the rediscovery of the Ambrosia Infinata, the Boudica's mission changed to asset denial. With the area devoid of Covenant contact, Green Team deployed to ensure that the Ambrosia Infinata's computers did not contain any information that might lead back to Earth if the Covenant returned.

While on the Infinata, Green Team, led by CPO Kenneth-139 stumbled upon on of the Cryo-Suites. All but one of the Cryotubes had either long since malfunctioned, or had been powered down after the Infinata was cut from it's main power source after the Covenant attacked the ship. That was, except for one which remained on battery back-up. This was Annalee's. The Spartan team then moved to extract Annalee's pod and brought her aboard the Boudica, saving her from an almost sure death.

ONI's Ward
Now orphaned, Annalee would remain in custody of ONI as she recovered in a Naval hospital. For a month after her rescue she would remain under constant watch, as her body had suffered severe cryo-burns, and she caught pneumonia after a failed thaw. For the remainder of 2534 and early 2535, she was in a partial-diabetic state due to the primitive cryo-methods used when she was put in stasis. As she was in the hospital for an extended period, she was routinely placed in a genetic database as part of a planned "integration program" where she would be vetted for foster care.

Her genetic map, quite unexpectedly, indicated a sort of gene-therapy having been done prior to her cryo-stasis. The augmentations performed were specifically done to affect her brain activity and were studied at length, and eventually determined to originate from a compound known as 009762-OO, (one which had been made illegal by the UNSC Medical Corps). Knowing the detriment this chemical could cause in the long term, they began working to find ways to counteract the inevitable deterioration. After her recovery, Annalee was brought to ONI's headquarters in where her augmentation was further studied.

During her time in Sydney, she gave testimony the Infinata. As part of her testimony, she wove a timeline of her encounter with her would-be "Body Snatchers". The junkers had woken her and two other survivors aboard the Infinata. One of these survivors, she would explain, had been her own father. She witnessed as the junkers vented the atmosphere in both his and the other man's tubes, killing them by asphyxiation. Her testimony allowed for the UEG to indict the junkers on Murder Charges, as well as the Intent to Traffic Humans for Sexual Exploitation and Organ Trade. The junkers, of whom Annalee never cared to learn their identity, were sentenced for the rest of their lives to an UNSC prison on Reach.

The years she lived in Sydney she spent in foster care with different ONI minders. She generally didn't care for them as she felt she was treated more like an experiment more than a person. This changed when she was six, and was made a potential candidate for the program. Already under ONI's microscope for years, she had shown great promise due to her heightened reflexes—alternatively the general interest ONI had in her performance under the use of compound 009762-OO made her a likely candidate. By this time, ONI had developed counter-compounds to prevent irreversible brain damage, They began to give Annalee small doses until her vitals normalized. Though not intended as such, this procedure would later become an off the books augmentation used in for Gamma Company Spartans.

Due to the sensitive nature of her origins, met Annalee personally when she was recovering from her counter-augmentation. She showed an intense interest when told about the prospect of fighting the Covenant. While she knew that junkers had killed her father, her mother's Cryo-Suite had been on a severed portion of the Infinata—ONI minders had made use of this fact for years when testing her reactions to anger, as well as forming and feeding her hatred of the Covenant. Ambrose arranged to keep Annalee's early life and family a secret, and she agreed to the charade.

With her history squared away, and her future as a Spartan secure, Annalee would finally leave the walls of the Sydney Headquarters in 2537 to go to a boarding school to catch up on her education before she became a Spartan. Marcella Todd, a Naval doctor who had cared for Annalee during her original recovery, fostered Annalee during her winter breaks so that she wouldn't be required to return to ONI. Though her husband James was unaware the plans that ONI had for Annalee, Marcella was made aware before fostering her. Annalee would excel in school, but she would struggle to socialize. Marcella, though she spent only a short amount of time with Annalee, got her to open up. Annalee became hesitant as her deadline to become a Spartan approached, as Marcella and James showed her care she hadn't felt since her parents. Ultimately, though, She would leave Sydney for Onyx in 2539.

Spartan Trainee
As a Trainee, Annalee was assigned to Beta Company’s Team Golf. Though several Spartans were cycled through Team Golf, but Golf would be initially focused to Nalini, Annalee, Wei, and Ahmed during their early days of training. Nalini was assigned as their team leader not long after the team became established, and the Team became quick friends.

Annalee also became close friends with several other Spartan trainee's throughout the company, but particularly took a liking to Team Leader Spencer-B337 (who answered as "Spike"), the Team Leader of Team Oscar. This friendship between the two often resulted in their working in tandem in training missions and early war games. Annalee's strong connection both Teams Golf and Oscar often made her a cherished "peacekeeper".

Spike's competitive nature, however, began to overshadowed Annalee's own talents. Spike, in general, was one of the more assertive Beta Company Team Leaders, and this eventually led to a rivalry with equally competitive November Team leader, Joel-B404. While the teams had at first enjoyed friendly competition, Spike became overtly aware of Joel's attempts to top him, and he came to resent him. This also led to Annalee being coerced to vocalize Spike's view on Joel as her own, creating a rift between Joel. The rivalry came to a boil when Joel, in the course of a training exercise, accidentally knocked out a member of Team Oscar with a training round. The ensuing brawl in ended when Spike and Joel were tossed in the brig.

While Joel was away, Nalini, both Annalee's team leader and one of her closest friends, made clear her feelings that Spike was using Annalee as a means to compete with Joel, more so than an equal partner. At first reluctant, with time, Annalee realized she wasn't able to reach her full potential with Spike holding their "bond" over her head. When he left the brig, she broke off their "alliance".

The Mata Hari Incident
In April of 2541, sections of Beta Company were moved to a remote UNSC outpost for an exercise off planet. By this time, most Beta teams had carried out similar missions before, and they would again try and prove their lethal precision. One of the evenings while in the field, however, Nalini shared her plot to break out of their barracks and into the nearby town to have drink with the rest of Team Golf, using fake identity cards that they had been given for the exercise. The entire team agreed, and followed Nalini out in the early morning while the rest of the company slept.

Spike, still resentful of Annalee's betrayal, learned of Nalini's plan and reported the Team as. With Spike's tip, the Beta Company trainers went out to drag the Spartans back to their barracks. Nalini, however, had had other motives from the start: she had planned to convince Annalee to run away from the Spartan program with her. Nalini, though young, knew she was gay. She had let only Annalee know, as her closest confidant and friend. Annalee had been very supportive as Nalini had been for her. However, Annalee would be blindsided by Nalini when she professed her young, naive love for her. Convinced Annalee would follow her to the ends of the Earth, Nalini had morphed her vision of Annalee's friendship as more than camaraderie. Annalee could not answer Nalini, and though understanding, was unsure what to make of such a thing. During this ordeal their trainers eventually caught up to them, and barged into the bar they had been in. Annalee folded immediately and gave herself up to her trainers. Nalini, heartbroken and angry that her plan had failed, refused to return and fought off three separate trainers, killing one. When she realized what she had done, she gave up promptly. Annalee was mostly shocked by Nalini's rash outburst in emotion, but when culminated in a trainer being killed, she felt a change. This would signal the first time that Annalee felt her augmented brain blind her into battle rage. Had she not had control of herself, she felt as though she was stronger than she had ever been and could have done ever worse harm than Nalini.

When Golf Team returned, they were immediatly thrown into the brig for a day without food. When their time was up, they were marched into CPO Mendez's field office to face their fate. As an act of discipline, Nalini would immediatly be removed from Beta Company and face a. Mendez, recognizing that Golf, November, and Oscar teams had been terribly petty and undisciplined during this and other episodes, reordered their teams. As Annalee was disallowed from becoming Team Leader, Joel became the new leader of Golf, bringing with him Drew and Mary. Spike, begrudgingly, would take over as November's team leader and take Wei and Ahmed from Golf. Annalee's team, as she knew it, was destroyed and her best friend would be, likely, be sent away for good—if not worse.

Mendez would then order Golf back to Onyx, early, where Nalini would face her court martial. While en route to Onyx, a hostage situation developed aboard ONI's Bravo 9 Relay Station located in. By chance, the Spartans of Golf were aboard the closest UNSC vessel. Joel, given the choice by the captain of the ship, gave the green light for the team to respond.

The incident had been carried out by the crew of the notorious Junker Pirate vessel Mata Hari. The crew of of the Mata Hari raided the remote Bravo 9 Relay Station for supplies, but quickly found themselves in the middle of a hostage crisis gaining the ire of the UNSC.

[This wiki will be updated when that story is complete, as to avoid spoilers.]

Operation: RAUCOUS SOLITUDE and the Diamond Initiative
"She had been foolish to think being human would make her any less of a Spartan."

- Centroid, Chapter 4

In early 2545, Teams Golf, November, and Oscar were officially separated from the rest of Beta Company as initiated by Rear Admiral Darren Cohen of ONI. Cohen had pulled aside these Teams as part of his “Diamond Initiative” project which would see SPARTAN-III’s integrated into the ranks of ONI as intelligence operatives and special, integrated strike teams.

The first mission under the umbrella of the Diamond Initiative was Operation: RAUCOUS SOLITUDE. The operation was both a prior obligation to Colonel Ackerson's promise to give Cohen Spartans for his project, as well as an agreed upon mutual target of Xenotechnological significance. The mission was a high-risk Spartan-only operation, and it tragically resulted with 29 of the 32 selected Spartans KIA. Annalee and Andrew-B191 were the only know survivors of the operation. As had already concluded months earlier, and there remained no Spartan-III’s to replenish the Diamond Initiative's personnel goal. The nature of the program would change inherently, prompting both Spartans to receive promotions and thrown into leadership positions.

Annalee would briefly be enrolled in the after returning from Operation: RAUCOUS SOLITUDE, in preparation for her role in the Diamond Initiative and it's impending mission on Mendel IV. She would take an accelerated semester, and would only be there for two months.

On the day of her graduation, she received a brief meeting with the Superintendent of the Academy, and was surprised to find that one of the two witnesses to her graduation was none other than Kenneth-139, the Spartan who led the team that saved her years prior. Kenneth recognized her, and she him. Their short reunion was one which Kenneth struggled with the idea he had likely condemned her to life as an ONI tool, and she made clear she believed she was in control of her own destiny. The two parted on good terms.

Operation: SWEEP and The Battle for Mendel
[FORTHCOMING]

Major Assignments

 * Team Golf, SPARTAN-III Beta Company — 2534 to October, 2545
 * Reach Naval Officers Academy — November, 2545 to January 9th, 2546
 * DIAMOND Team, Office of Naval Intelligence — January 9th, 2546

Appearances

 * Centroid
 * Index Alpha

Trivia

 * Lyra, Annalee's middle name, is the name of recognized by the International Astronomical Union. It is Latin for, a smaller harp-like instrument.