Erin Coney

"Parangosky always had her own little black ops agents running around aspiring to be more. She gives them power, and uses them for her own ends until they outgrow their usefulness, and then kills them off before they can become threats. But THORN was the first, and Parangosky didn’t recognize when she had grown beyond her control."

- Captain Aaron Gibson on Codename: THORN.

Erin Natalia Coney was an infamous agent of the Office of Naval Intelligence and former member of the disbanded, known by the codename THORN. Originally enlisting in the Marine Corps and volunteering for ORION as a variable amid veteran special forces operators, she was recruited in 2502 to ONI Section Zero by then-Captain to serve as her personal operative and enforcer. During this period, Erin spent close to three-fourths of her chronological life in suspended animation, making her life an almost constant succession of covert missions. Losing favor with Parangosky, she was transferred to Section III, ONI's special projects division where Erin had become an ORION in the first place, and eventually becoming an overseer for a small number of SPARTAN-III teams, succeeding in cutting most of her ONI ties to prevent their machinations from interfering in her life anymore.

Early Life
Though most records have been sealed by the Office of Naval Intelligence or mysteriously deleted [investigation pending], it is known that Erin was born in and had six older brothers. Unsurprisingly a tomboy, she became part of a street gang with most of her siblings. Though she was spotted at several ‘rumbles’, Erin was only caught once, warding off police officers with a baseball bat before being taken down with a taser.

Enlistment and ORION
"Always be mindful of what you do. Some claim war dehumanizes us, turns us into monsters. But it isn’t an excuse for what a person does. We are always accountable for our actions. Remember that, won't you?"

- Advice given to Erin by a Sergeant Gabriel.

After her primary education, Erin opted for the military as a career and was accepted into the UNSC Marine Corps. Scoring high in basic training, she was offered the chance to join an experimental program dubbed ORION, and quickly agreed. Receiving additional Special Forces training, she was sent to Reach to begin conditioning for the first augmentations. Easily the youngest ORION member at seventeen years old, Erin was more than conspicuous amongst the array of experienced Special Forces personnel. She was taken as something of a joke and soon washout by the other candidates, but as Erin proved her abilities, she became more and more accepted by the others.

One night early on, she had been standing watch for nearly an hour before wandering to an observation platform, meeting a soldier she hadn’t encountered who claimed to be permanently assigned to the station. They talked for a while, the Sergeant drawing her attention to the stars and gave her advice she would never forget. Before leaving, he identified himself as Sergeant Gabriel. When another DI questioned her who she’d been talking to, he informed her that no Sergeant Gabriel was stationed at the facility. Convinced no unauthorized person could have gotten in, she would speculate on the encounter for years.

Erin not only coped with the augmentations, but unlike many others she immediately displayed incredible results. Once ORION was green-lighted for active service, they were deployed in. Though successful, Erin was forced to make a choice that sacrificed thirty innocent civilian lives aboard the hijacked transit station to maintain the ORIONs' secrecy. Suffering the guilt later, she was unaware this would only be the first of many difficult decisions that lay ahead of her.

Her last operation carried out for ORION, and the program’s last operation, was in 2502. Project: ORION’s record had attracted the attention of, at the time, Captain Margaret Parangosky of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Parangosky had been quickly climbing ladders within the Office, and like many of its other officers, she was looking to siphon off assets for her personal objectives. Parangosky ensured that Coney would be the one doing the groundwork for the assassination of as a test of her ability to remain subtle. By eavesdropping, pickpocketing, and discreetly interrogating and murdering a United Rebel Front agent, she learned that Ander would be driving in an unmarked but unprotected truck on March 13th, and relayed the information back. Corporal would be dispatched to carry out the actual assassination, but Coney had proved herself more useful to ONI.

A meeting was arranged, in which Parangosky pointed out ORION was a sinking ship, and offered Coney a place in the Office of Naval Intelligence. Though reluctant to leave the program behind, she knew Parangosky was right, and agreed to join.

Early Service with the Office of Naval Intelligence
"If I knew then what I was getting into, I might have shot her then and there. It would have saved more people than just me a lot of trouble."

- Years after leaving ONI behind.

After officer training and honing her variety of tactical and combat talents, Erin was promoted to Lieutenant and outfitted with low-profile NEMEAN body armor, able to be worn inconspicuously under plainclothes and designed to protect against shrapnel and bullet impacts, fireproof, and virtually incapable of tearing, though bludgeoning force could still be lethal. Operating under the Codename: THORN, she became Parangosky’s hidden blade, killing and destroying where such actions were needed while remaining in cryo between tasks. Not all were for Parangosky’s personal gain, in one instance, Coney commandeered an Insurrectionist freighter bound for a colony that had been completely fortified by the Insurrection, taking over the world and blocking slipspace entry points. She landed it according to their flight plan, and left the docking bay it was in before detonating the explosives that lined the ship. She ran rampant for three days, destroying their supplies and killing their leaders as she saw fit before stealing a ride out. This left the Insurrectionist defense broken and easy for the UNSC to launch an invasion.

Only a few months before first contact at Harvest, Coney was assigned to assist TREBUCHET by finding and destroying the Insurrectionists’ supply of explosives. It was uncharacteristically detailed, but Coney was relieved not to be carrying out another assassination so soon. Before leaving, however, she glimpsed the codename REDSHIRT in an attached section of the briefing. Assuming this was an agent she would be meeting with and had to be kept off record here, she pushed it aside in favor of other aspects.

While transiting to Tribute’s surface, she was reunited with another ORION, Avery Johnson. Though Coney was nervous about being recognized, she told him she was working with civilian contractors and even enjoyed catching up, however briefly. Going their separate ways, over the next two days Erin would discover not only a stock of explosives, but a full lab able to produce it for other cells elsewhere, and data that implicated one of ONI’s Section One personnel. Destroying the lab and supply with some of their own explosives, Erin then returned to a safehouse to transmit the data. As soon as she had, a man ambushed her with a garrote and knife, but Coney reversed the attack and killed him, though wounded several times. His personal data pad was wiped clean, but the fact that he had been able to gain access to an ONI safehouse and his data pad was the same manufacture as Coney had led her to suspect this was REDSHIRT.

Human-Covenant War (2525-2553)
"I should have known you’d become a thorn in my own side."

- Margaret O. Parangosky, to Coney.

While unable to formally prove her attacker's identity as a member of ONI, with extensive research Erin managed to connect REDSHIRT to Parangosky, her distrust worsening an already treacherous rift between them. Apparently, REDSHIRT had been a possible agent for Parangosky’s use, and his final test was to eliminate Coney. When the threat of the alien Covenant emerged with their attack on, Erin was forced to fight on two fronts while being wary of her own side.

Battle of
After the defeat of a battlegroup against a single Covenant ship over Harvest, ONI mobilized at once to analyze the capabilities of this new enemy. Although most naval skirmishes ended swiftly without a chance to test Covenant offences or defences, an early opportunity for evaluation presented itself at the colony of Green Hills. While organizing a military response to defend the planet was impossible, the colony's distress call contained footage of Covenant glassing the surface taken by the city's infrastructure networks. Retrieval of this data was deemed of critical importance, and as the closest operative, Erin was given the task. ONI requisitioned three light, fast corvettes from a neighboring system to support the recovery.

Transitioning from slipspace on the edge of the star system, Erin piloted a to ground while the corvettes led several Covenant ships off on a chase. After making a landing in the devastated, hostile-controlled city, Erin found the Urban Infrastructure AI's data center overrun by Sangheili. Using an emergency channel to locate any surviving UNSC troops, Erin contacted Sergeant Pete Stacker and his squad, and ordered them to make an assault on the complex. It would spend the lives of most of Stacker's squad, only Otis Len and Stacker himself surviving, but Coney was successful in getting the data.

The three of them escaped aboard the Pelican and reached their rendezvous point, picked up by the remaining corvette, and jumped away to coordinates in empty space to transmit the information to ONI, including video footage, spectral analysis, and atmosphere readings of firing Covenant energy weapons. It had come at the total cost of two corvettes, a Marine battalion, and an entire colony along with its population. Despite, or perhaps because of, the bleak outlook of the war, Coney entered a brief romantic relationship with the young Marine while they both remained on the vessel.

Operating in the
When shipments of much-needed infantry weapons began to routinely go missing in 2535, Erin determined that they were being stolen by a rebel faction hiding out in the Indra asteroid cluster. Parangosky approved her use of a small prowler, the UNSC Nightshade, to infiltrate the complexes and find the stolen war materiel. With a number of aliases and disguises, Erin learned who was behind the thefts, but was unfortunately discovered as a UNSC agent and forced to flee the habitats. While no longer able to safely set foot in the pirate settlements, she came into contact with a young vigilante named Caleb Aagard who had come to kill the rebel leader compromising humanity's chances against the Covenant.

Striking a bargain, they came up with a plan to quickly kill the rebel and recover the supplies. Caleb would infiltrate the target asteroid with help from Coney to get through their security systems, then assassinate his quarry and through him, find where the weapons were kept and how to get them aboard the Nightshade. However, during its execution an Insurrectionist woman named Francesca Jacques had become involved whom Caleb insisted upon saving, slowing them down. Caleb still managed to kill their target, but before he could locate the weapons a Covenant ship entered the system, prompting Erin to extract Caleb and Francesca and abandon the operation, leaving the system as the Covenant ship began destroying asteroids with point-defense lasers.

When the Covenant attacked the planet in 2539, Erin had already been in the system advising two SPARTAN-IIs, Vinh-030 and Isaac-039, from in orbit aboard the Nightshade. While forced to retreat as the Covenant began to glass the planet, Coney had reason to believe they had survived in the capital city's underground. Contacting a Navy vessel preparing to jump out of the system, the UNSC Themistocles, Erin requested a platoon of ODSTs to help mount a rescue. Using a squadron of experimental stealth Pelicans, Erin and Captain B. A. Felton's contingent of the 11/6 Shock Troops landed with a squad of Scorpion MBTs. Finding the Covenant digging at the SPARTANs' last known location, they took Field Master Vract 'Aeramee's Wraith tanks by surprise, routing them and recovering Vinh and Isaac. Leaving at once, they reached the Prowler and jumped out of the system.

Several weeks later, she found out that Vinh was pregnant with Isaac’s child. Sworn to secrecy by Vinh along with the medic who examined her, Otis Len, Erin had Vinh discreetly transferred to Reach after she refused to abort the child. The son, later SPARTAN-III Dyne, was placed in an orphanage where Erin would keep tabs on the child and later suggest him for the SPARTAN program.

The rescue, however, was a serious breach in protocols related to Prowler operations. Parangosky called a meeting, during which Erin expected an assassination attempt. She was quite surprised when instead, Parangosky had her transferred her out of Section Zero, something she had wanted for a long time. Already, Parangosky had been grooming a new 'apprentice' in.

Transferred to Section Three, Erin would be stationed on Onyx to help Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose recruit and train SPARTAN-III Gamma Company. Here, she was reunited with now-Staff Sergeant Pete Stacker. In their time apart he had surpassed her in age, and after a time they rekindled their relationship while dealing with the antics of the candidates, namely Sam-G019, Marcus-G228, Sepia-G330, and especially Dyne-G217 and Kodiak-G114, all from Team Machete. During their augmentations, Sam and Marcus were listed killed to become part of the Headhunter program, under the moniker Archer Team, while Kodiak, Dyne, and Sepia became Ion Team. Erin would be the overseer for both teams, neither knowing of the others’ existence until a few years after the war ended.

Battle of Earth
"Zealots don’t quit, Spartan, they just come back twice as mean and four times as crazy."

- Erin cautions Ion Team.

After recovering from their augmentation procedures, Gamma Company was deployed just in time to see the last battle of the Human-Covenant War, and Erin went with them as a mission controller. Teams were divided and allocated to operations across the globe to replace special forces lost in the Fall of Reach and other recent conflicts, and Ion was among those displaced, operating under 's. To oversee them, Erin was stationed at Ryu Base in Tokyo, Japan during Operation: ETERNAL SPIRIT, reporting to Colonel. Officially the first operation she had seen in years, Erin would provide tactical and logistical support for Ion and other teams defending supply depots that distributed crucial war materiel to other theatres.

"Command believes the Elites want to gain glory by wiping us out on the ground. You killed a Field Master, that’s going to make them seek revenge and for now they want to do it in person. But we make them think we’re winning, they’ll pull back and dust this place without a second thought. They need to think that until we really can defend ourselves."

- Erin explains the Covenant's tactics to Kodiak and Dyne.

Initially, Ion Team's deployment orders had them relegated to security at Ryu Base. Surprised by the gross misallocation of a SPARTAN team, Erin instead had them transferred to a secondary objective defending mass driver cannons on Izu Oshima while she found out who had given the order. With a bit of investigation, Erin learned it had come from an officer within ONI,. He had personally inspected Gamma Company years before, and because of an incident with then-members of Machete Team, had arguably reasonable doubts of Ion Team's capabilities. While Erin attempted to circumvent his authority, the Covenant launched an assault on Izu Oshima, forcing Ion Team to retreat to the mainland behind enemy lines. Instead of regrouping, Kodiak recklessly led his poorly-equipped team to assassinate an Elite Field Master. Though Ion successfully eliminated the Field Master and his personal guard, Sepia was critically injured, and the team required an emergency extraction undertaken by Lt. Mikiya Ryougi's 24th Attack VTOL Squadron.

Once safely transported to Ryu Base, Sepia was placed in a to recover while Kodiak and Dyne received a sharp reprimand from Erin. Covering for their blunders made her efforts to reassign them even more difficult, and for the time being sent them to recover an M313 Elephant Troop Transport they'd lost contact with. After their return, Erin and the rest of Ryu Base may have been saved by Sepia, who had heard the vibrations caused by a Covenant dig team amplified in the gel tank. Seizing an opportunity, Erin made a deal with the base commander to use the event as a pretext to allow Ion Team access to the surplus storage facilities within Ryu Base, especially reserved for Group Three personnel. Equipped with their own armor, the SPARTANs successfully recovered a.

Tiring of needless questing for honor in a ground campaign, the Covenant fleet dispatched a CSO-class supercarrier to glass the city. Erin called together a small force of dropships to make a desperate strike carrying the recovered FENRIS mine, led by LTJG Angel Yasunaka and the crew of Bravo 029. Dyne and Sepia would fly as their wingman, while another Pelican carried Kodiak and the bomb. Erin would remain at Ryu Base to direct the operation, accepting that she would be killed if it failed. In the assault, Kodiak’s Pelican was shot down over the carrier, and briefly Erin believed it had failed. However, Sepia’s remote camera spotted Kodiak on the ship with the weapon intact. Kodiak got under the shield and detonated the device on a timer, surviving by jumping into Tokyo Bay below.

Interspecies Union Conflicts (2553-2575)
After the war was relatively uneventful for Erin, as she and Ion Team were assigned to military exploration aboard the UNSC Themistocles. Surveying the remains of glassed planets and finding new worlds to colonize led them to spend more time aboard the confines of the ship than anywhere else. Ion and other SPARTANs usually volunteered as part of the skeleton crew awake during long slipspace jumps, but Erin was content with spending the time in cryo. Though rarely, being one of few ships on the far edges of reclaimed UNSC space they were called to assist in combat operations from time to time.

TGL-49 Expedition
Though Erin had evaded ONI’s influence before, she was unable to avoid being assigned a black op in 2574 to eliminate a number of loose ends from Covenant/UNSC interactions. She would have to be listed as MIA for the duration, and so an accident would be staged during a Pelican transit. But before this could take place, a Flood outbreak occurred and the planet was evacuated. In the rush to get personnel and equipment off-planet, Erin, Kodiak, and Dyne were left behind.

Knowing the UNSC couldn’t risk a pick-up, Coney decided to make for the site where ONI had placed a stealthed freighter for her use, the UNSC Nightshade. Using a Cougar AFV to get to a firebase known as Checkpoint Two, they found the personnel slaughtered and most dropships still in their berths. As Kodiak and Dyne began the preflight for a Pelican, Coney used a rope to rappel down into the underground hangar shaft and pilot it. As more Flood forms appeared, the two Gammas retreated, but Coney took off without them. After she’d protected them so long from ONI’s dealings, she knew it would be more merciful to let them die than draw them in. However, the flight was short lived, as Dyne had never had the chance to fill the Pelican’s fuel tanks. Though they resented her betrayal, Ion rescued her because she was the only one able to fly the ship.

As they approached the freighter’s hiding place, a heavy mist of Flood spores permeated the air, and having lost her helmet with its breathing filter, Erin was almost incapacitated by coughing as the infection tried to take root. Kodiak had to carry her inside the Nightshade, but was able to begin take-off without help. Ion Team was forced to fight off the arms of an early-stage Gravemind holding the freighter down with a pair of rocket launchers, before lifting off and leaving behind a Shiva warhead to incinerate everything within range. Fortunately the Nightshade was stocked with a wide assortment of ONI tech, including a rebreather which could eliminate low-stage Flood infection like the spores she had inhaled.

Demon Hunting
While the two Gammas had saved her life, and spared it after she'd left them to die, Erin refused to explain her actions and informed them she was on a mission for ONI. Instead of arguing, they stubbornly elected to go with her, and while this was exactly what Erin had hoped to keep them from, she had no choice but to put the two extra SPARTANs to use. Following her orders, Erin brought the Nightshade to an uncharted world and touched down several kilometers from a ruined Covenant. Infiltrating the structure despite still-active automated defenses, they found the workers left behind here had somehow survived and formed a hive. After deterring the warrior Drones, they reached the Citadel's labs and Erin began reactivating their databases, not difficult thanks to the Drones' continual maintenance. As it came online, Erin explained that this mission included finding a number of unaccounted for members of supersoldier programs. Finding a captured 'dumb' Artificial Intelligence program within the system, Erin recovered it and allowed Dyne to carry it in his armor.

Retribution
"Once, always. A SPARTAN."

- Kodiak, to Erin.

Personality and Traits
An eager soldier, Erin earned her reputation in ORION as courageous and levelheaded, but lacking experience. Parangosky took a chance transferring her to ONI, curious to see if she could adhere to morally questionable orders. Decisions, some of which Erin had to make herself, like this after essentially growing up in a unit that left no man behind proved painful, but Coney passed these trials satisfactorily.

Growing resentful after learning Parangosky had specifically placed her in some of these situations, Erin gradually abandoned trying to save everyone and instead focused on protecting those closest to her. These were the Spartans under her command including Royal, Ion, and Bayonet Teams, and friends like Pete Stacker and Jeff Gossard. Erin was fiercely aggressive when dealing with perceived threats against those she cared about, not above blackmail or murder to defend them. Parangosky had taught her something useful in the end.

Otherwise, Erin was generally amiable towards other service men and women, and an excellent strategist. Despite repeated displays of her abilities, she rejected promotion several times in order to continue to look after ‘her’ Spartans.

Family
Erin claims the members of the SPARTAN programs as her family, and considers herself something of a mother or at least babysitter for Ion Team, and looks after them as well as if she were. Her only blood relative is a daughter named, who became a corpsman in the UNSC Navy and was involved in the , later embedded in the 11/6 Shock Troops. The father remains unknown.

Hobbies
"You want some advice, Kodiak? Don’t ever play cards with Lieutenant Erin Coney."

- Pete Stacker

After Stacker introduced her to poker, Erin’s long service trading bluffs with other Intelligence personnel made the game almost easy against Onyx’s DIs, and after a few times even Ambrose avoided being roped into a game. Only Sam-G019 could hold his own in a game against her, and sometimes with help from Dyne reporting her cards. Erin also had a partiality to fine wines.