OPERATION: LOWRIDER

OPERATION: LOWRIDER was an operation conducted by the Office of Naval Intelligence and the Krythenan Imperial Intelligence on the 1st of August, 2560. It's goal was to retrieve intelligence that would give the Galactic Alliance a means of predicting future S'southi attacks.

Background
The Office of Naval Intelligence, by July of 2560, had recognised that defeat was a certainty if the S'southi were not handed a decisive victory early-on. Due to this, the Office of Naval Intelligence partnered with it's Krythenan counterpart to draw up plans to deliver a NOVA bomb to the S'southi Armada. However, this plan was scrapped in favour of an intelligence-gathering operation as the S'southi began their attacks on Krythenan space.

Instead of opting to directly destroy the S'southi fleet, it was considered to be more strategically beneficial if the S'southi could be predicted, and as such the first drafts of OPERATION: LOWRIDER were drawn up.

Numerous high-performing operatives were chosen for the operation, such as Rose-788 and Theo-783 of the SPARTAN-II Class II program, and a number of SPARTAN-IV agents alongside the reformed Fireteam India. These assets were to be delivered to a S'southi Command Vessel by usage of a captured S'southi reconnaissance vessel.

Engagement
Despite high security around the vessel, the team managed to infiltrate the Command Vessel and would move relatively unnoticed through it until they discovered the command bridge. The ensuing surprise attack dispatched several elite warriors in seconds and left the team in control of the bridge, from which they began the uploading of information stored aboard the ship's semi-biological datamind into a datachip. The bridge was besieged by S'southi underlings, who were, due to their cannon-fodder nature, easily held off by the super-soldiers aboard.

Once the transfer of data had been completed, the team would disable the vessel's life support systems, killing the tens of thousands of S'southi aboard and giving them a clear shot at escaping the vessel alive. However, they were ambushed by a number of elite warriors which managed to severely injure a SPARTAN-IV and killed two members of Fireteam India before being taken out. These casualties were brought back to the docked reconnaissance vessel which they used to escape the area.

Aftermath
In the day immediately following OPERATION: LOWRIDER, crucial information regarding the upcoming attack on Khaife and the Krythenan campaign was relayed to Supreme Admiral Cobadarama, who used the information to set up the ambush at Khaife, which wiped out the majority of the S'southi attack force and stunted their advance.

The operation proved that despite high security around important S'southi structures, they were especially susceptible to infiltration, which would prove especially true over the course of the war. It also proved that while the S'southi were especially brutal and efficient in boarding other vessels, they were often times unprepared for their own vessel to be boarded.