Bailey-132

Senior Chief Petty Officer Bailey-132 (callsign Sapphire One), sometimes jokingly referred to by his squad as Honeybee or Banana due to his yellow armor, was a Class I SPARTAN-II supersoldier and the leader of Sapphire Team. He was also the older brother of SPARTAN-038.

Early life
Bailey was born on the colony of Roost 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 brother, Aidan (whom was born less than a year after Bailey), 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 and his brother soon drew the attention of ONI, after they learned that they possessed all of the genetic markers necessary for SPARTAN-II candidacy through a blood sample secretly obtained via the. The two boys were eventually kidnapped and conscripted into the SPARTAN-II Program in December 2517.

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

- Bailey upon seeing his brand new suit of.

Upon completing their training, Bailey and the rest of the SPARTAN-IIs were sent to to receive the MJOLNIR Mk. 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 were 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. 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, Jared's desertion, 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 Viktor Kidrov, were able to flank the Covenant forces attacking Sapphire Team and allow the SPARTANs to fight off the enemy, saving their lives.

Though 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, he himself refused to admit that anything was wrong. However, Rachel 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 8, 2529 along with the 4th, 17th, 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.



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 now served primarily as a solo operator for Section III the Office of Naval Intelligence, but had been sent to Harvest to bolster the ranks of Sapphire Team. ONI had recently discovered intelligence suggesting that the Covenant had deployed an individual of considerable significance, known as the "", to lead their troops on Harvest. Colin was to aid Sapphire Team in their new and especially dangerous task of hunting down this Arbiter, in hopes of destabilizing the Covenant's military efforts against humanity.

Post-War
Little is known of the activities of Bailey and the rest of Sapphire Team after 2552, save for an extremely short deployment on Erebus VII. 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.

As of 2558, it is rumored that Bailey may be in the custody of ONI for supposed treason, but this is wholly unverified at present.

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 the 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.

In spite of his troubles, Bailey was a strong, capable leader; resourceful and almost always confident in his ability to make the right decision. He was an even more capable fighter, known for his unique way of simultaneously combining the use of firearms (and, to a much lesser extent, explosives) with hand-to-hand combat in close quarters. He was also highly animalistic in combat, with his behavior and even his movement while on the battlefield commonly being described as "very much reminiscent of that of a tiger stalking its prey."

While Bailey did in fact place value in human life, it was in most cases purely tactical value. He saw human lives almost solely as resources, to be conserved or spent depending on what a certain situation required. Still, he saw lives as being significantly more valuable than other "resources", and would not willingly allow them to be spent if there were better options available.

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 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.

Trivia

 * The unusual 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 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 William Hughes as a "gift" in 2529 during the Battle of Roleath. He also began using the  sometime after the conclusion of the Human-Covenant War.
 * Impressed by the trooper's actions during the Fall of Reach, Bailey recommended Leon Sikowsky to ONI as a potential (consenting) candidate for the.
 * Oddly, despite his above average marksmanship skills (even for a SPARTAN-II), Bailey was a poor sniper, although he was able to fulfill the role adequately if a situation necessitated it.
 * Bailey's tag is a 7 reference, as 1+(3×2)=7.

List of Appearances

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