Angel Yasunaka

"This is a dropship! It doesn’t shake, it drops!"

- LTJG Yasunaka to Eirikur Quinn during the fighting on Hades

Going by the callsign Angel during her years in the UNSC Navy’s Dropship Corps, Angela Yasunaka was born on the Inner Colony world originally named Gliese 581 g and enlisted for patriotic reasons. Though a skilled pilot, she did not have the ability to adjust or think up plans on the wing, and for this was first relegated to a copilot position aboard Pelican Dropship Bravo 029.

She later received command of the vessel, and would support ground forces during the Human-Covenant War at Arcadia, Reach, and Hope flying from capital ships UNSC Spirit of Fire and UNSC Pillar of Autumn.

Early Life and Enlistment
Born to a well-off family, Angel was a privileged child and through many hours of media was exposed to pro-government propaganda frequently. Becoming a very patriotic idealist, after graduating valedictorian of her class she was accepted to the Academy at Mare Nubium, an officer candidate school, on Luna in 2516. During the twelve weeks she spent there, she befriended Jacob Keyes after running a shuttle simulation as his co-pilot.

Angel came very close to death, saved by an off chance. Trams running between the OCS and the Asimov Center, where she and most other students lived, broke down causing her to be an hour late. During that time, a training accident killed fourteen other people and left Keyes the only survivor. Angel was haunted by guilt, feeling she could have done something had she been there, and barely left Keyes’ side during his recovery from burn wounds.

Despite graduating with honors, Angel was disappointed when she was passed over for a position aboard a capital ship. Though a good navigator, her teacher felt she lacked the creativity necessary for the improvisation Navy crews had to make when dealing with Insurrectionist sabotage. Instead, she was assigned to fly co-pilot for a Pelican Dropship attached to the corvette UNSC Bum Rush.

Insurrection
After first coming aboard, Angel was introduced to her pilot, Lieutenant Emmanuel Galvan, and the ship that she would spend a measurable part of her life inside, Bravo 029. For four years, Bravo 029 and its crew would ferry special operations teams to and from the Bum Rush through Operation: TREBUCHET. While she considered it a waste of her skills to be a taxi driver, she picked up some inventive maneuvers from Galvan’s teaching.

After his twelve years of service on the corvette, Lieutenant Galvan retired from the Navy, leaving Yasunaka to jump two grades and be promoted to Lieutenant in his stead. Command saw fit to transfer Bravo 29 and its crew to the UNSC Spirit of Fire, which was just being rebuilt for military service.

Human-Covenant War
Following four more years ferrying troops and supplies, the emergence of the Covenant threat changed Yasunaka’s routine flights into dangerous insertions behind enemy lines. Twice, Bravo 29 was forced to abort missions and return to the Spirit of Fire after taking damage from Banshee fighters.

Short on qualified tech experts, Bravo 29’s new copilot Ensign Mikail Gossard would have to double as crew chief and radio operator. It caused no end of trouble, but Gossard was talented with electronics and always managed somehow. In 2525 Moses Wheatley joined them as crew chief, making the bird that much more efficient.

Liberation of Harvest (February, 2531)
When the Spirit of Fire responded to a call for help from the UNSC Prophecy, Bravo 29 acted in the first wave of relief transports to make for the ship. Angel’s ship functioned as a decoy, drawing off Jackal-piloted Banshee Interceptors to make an opening for Fire Team Lima to evacuate the surviving crew.

For the ground campaign of the Spirit's forces, Angel flew escort for a pair of Albatrosses to set down pieces of a prefabricated firebase which was designated Alpha Base. Dropping extra reinforcements to a landing pad outside their perimeter, she stayed on station long enough to evacuate Sergeant [w:c:halo:John Forge] and Professor [w:c:halo:Ellen Anders] to the Spirit.

First Battle of Arcadia (February, 2531)
Immediately following a revision of Anders’ findings, the Spirit of Fire made a slipspace jump to the Procyon system to find Arcadia under siege. Captain Cutter skimmed the planet’s atmosphere and allowed Bravo 29 and a number of Hornets to insert reinforcements to Pirth City to aid evacuation. But their job lay in assisting the three damaged ships (UNSC Texas, UNSC Belfast, UNSC Armstrong) to get their crews safely aboard the fourth and least damaged UNSC Pillar of Autumn. Tragedy nearly struck when a compartment of the Belfast suffered explosive decompression, leaving three marines and a Navy technician in danger of asphyxiation. Ramming them backwards against the Belfast's hull, she enabled Ensign Gossard and Wheatley to seal Bravo 029’s troop bay door around the gap with welding torches. They would later be recognized for heroism and awarded the.

Once seperated from Belfast 's hull, Angel received a request from the AI Serina to ferry several expirimental Rhino tanks from the Pillar of Autumn to the surface. With their firepower, a shield dome was taken down and allowed UNSC Marines to take the Covenant controlled zone. However, as Bravo 29 returned for yet another Rhino, the Spirit of Fire broke orbit and gave chase to a Covenant Destroyer.

For months after, Yasunaka wondered what had prompted the Spirit to leave without giving them or the rest of the fleet a heads-up, and what became of them. In the aftermath of the battle, Bravo 29 and her crew were transferred to the Pillar of Autumn and flew as wingman for Carol ‘Foehammer’ Rawley’s Echo 419.

Battle of Reach
Though many millions of civilians were still trapped on Reach's surface, UNSC High Command finally gave the order to abandon Winter Contingency to prevent military losses. However, many military units disobeyed orders, including Bravo 029 and her crew, which led to them being seperated from the Autumn and missing an assured death at the Battle of Installation 04. After a Spartan cleared the top of a skyscraper, Yasunaka was one of the dropships to evacuate an ODST unit known as the Bullfrogs to the cruiser UNSC Eternal Peacekeeper, which gave chase to a Covenant fleet en route to Hope (planet).