Frederick King

This article, Frederick King, written by Brodie-001, was voted as the Best UNSC Personnel of 2014 in the Seventh Annual Halo Fanon Wikia Awards.

This fanfiction article, Frederick King, was written by Brodie-001. Please do not edit this fiction without the writer's permission.

The author of this article, Frederick King, urges anyone who reads it to provide feedback on the quality of the article. Thank you!

2499 2540 Frederick King Biographical information Homeworld Luna Date of birth May 8th, 2470 Physical description Rank Captain Gender Male Height 6'1 Hair color Blonde, later grey Eye color Grey Augmentations SPARTAN-I augmentations Cybernetics Command neural interface Chronological and political information Era(s) Insurrection Human-Covenant War First Galactic War Notable Facts First BRUTUS recruit and field commander. Father of Kane-099 Affiliation Trident Team Office of Naval Intelligence Project BRUTUS

[Source]

Frederick King, also known as Agent One and Codename: UNO was a member of the ORION Project's Trident Team in the late 25th Century and an influential figure within the Office of Naval Intelligence for most of his adult life. King was a long-serving ONI agent, in addition to being the first recruit and field commander of Project BRUTUS upon its creation. Throughout the Human-Covenant War he worked on a number of clandestine operations, including the recruitment of orphaned children to become soldiers for the SPARTAN-III Program and the destruction of several independent Human groups working outside of the UNSC's control. While King never held a particularly high official rank within ONI and did not go for a position of leadership when he had the chance, he remained as a key figure in the intelligence world and was considered an indispensable asset due to his experience and position as head of BRUTUS. In spite of his advanced age, King would continue to directly oversee operations well into the 2570s and beyond.

Biography

Early Life

"When I was a child, I used to look towards the Earth the same way people would look up at the Moon, hundreds of years ago. It was beautiful, and I knew even then that it was worth protecting."

―King, commenting on his childhood.

Frederick King was born in the city of Crisium on Earth's moon, Luna. Both of his parents taught at the Luna OCS Academy and had served with the UNSC Navy before his birth. Naturally, he was expected to continue the family line of service and was brought up to perform to the highest standards possible. At school Frederick excelled in a number of subjects, though he had very few friends and was seen as rather aloof by many of his peers. Nonetheless, he remained at the top of his class until the age of fifteen, whereupon he left Luna for the first time to be taught at the prestigious Corbulo Academy of Military Science on Circinius IV. While Frederick had excelled in the mental side of his studies, he was physically rather unfit when he arrived and had a great deal of trouble with he training exercises they ran most days at the Academy. After a few months of struggling, he began to perform better in the training simulations and proved to be one of the best shots in his class. By his third year in 2489 King was placed in command of a group of first-year cadets and pushed them hard to succeed in every possible level. While his training methods were seen as slightly harsh even by his teachers, King's group emerged as the best in their year by the time he left Corbulo for good. He was then transferred to the UNSC Navy, where he and many other graduates of the Academy were given an officer's commission.

UNSC Navy

King's first deployment after leaving Corbulo was as an Ensign aboard the UNSC Las Vegas in 2489. He proved to be a valuable part of the crew and worked hard during his time there. After the theft of the UNSC Callisto in 2490, the Las Vegas was joined by two other ships were sent to find it. While initially hopeful about quickly recovering the stolen vessel, months went by without any sign of the ship and the battlegroup was relegated to moving through the fringes of UNSC-controlled space on what was considered a lost cause. King and many others aboard the Destroyer became frustrated due to this, the young Ensign privately believing that his considerable talents were being wasted on such a task. Following a lengthy correspondence with his parents in December, his influential mother arranged for his transfer to Earth for the start of a new military program.

ORION Project

After arriving on Earth, King was among the original sixty-five test subjects for the UNSC's first supersoldier project, known as ORION. Each candidate was fairly young and fit, though they came from various branches in the UNSC. The training they went through was incredibly fierce, some exercises being much harder than those undertaken by the famed Orbital Drop Shock Troopers in the past. A number of applicants washed out in the early stages of ORION's life, though King and many others endured the harsh training for nearly a year until more candidates were recruited for the project. During this time, he and the others underwent a series of chemical augmentations that increased their strength, speed and stamina to near-superhuman levels. Though he technically outranked a number of his peers within ORION, King's rank was stripped from him alongside all the others to level the playing field and promote cohesiveness within the unit.

Following the first few stages of training, the ORION recruits underwent a series of training missions to prepare for counter-terrorism operations in the outer colonies. King soon found his place as an expert in infiltration and assassination, and was responsible for many successes during this period. In 2495 he and a group of fellow ORION's signed up once more for an Officer Candidate School under the jurisdiction of the UNSC Marine Corps. Though he had some doubts at first, he excelled there and befriended Richard Mack and Daniel Black during this period. King emerged as a Second Lieutenant and was assigned to the newly formed Trident Team in early 2496 under the command of First Lieutenant Anton LaMarche.

Fighting Insurrection

In 2496, ORION's first proper engagement took place on Eridanus II as part of Operation: CHARLEMAGNE. Trident was among the first teams on the ground as the mission began, with the entire ORION contingent being deployed shortly after. King served as the team's pointman during CHARLEMAGNE; their skills and chemical augmentations made them an incredibly lethal fighting force that neutralised dozens of hostile soldiers during the course of the operation. CHARLEMAGNE proved to be a massive success against the mounting rebellion and turned the ORION's from just another ONI project to the UNSC's foremost Special Forces operators. Following the mission, Trident and the various other teams were scattered throughout the colonies on numerous engagements against terrorists, rebels and dissenters.

King served as Trident's third in command for several years following CHARLEMAGNE, and got on very well with his team. Like all the others, he looked up to their leader, Anton LaMarche, and followed his orders without question. King seemed to be the most emotionally detached member of the team, and rarely took part in the ethical debates that others like Ackton and Mack often brought up in regards to dealing with Human insurrection. After months of serving with Trident, he did open up somewhat and became much more friendly with the others, Gunnery Sergeant Marion Hollister in particular. This would eventually escalate into a romantic relationship, though the pair kept it secret due to his officer rank and her position as a Non-Commissioned Officer. This did not stop LaMarche from finding out, though he merely asked to make sure that it would not affect King's judgement on the battlefield in later missions.

Trident Team would participate in dozens of operations against Insurrectionist forces, most of which were officially classified by the UNSC. Operations such as BRIMSTONE, SWEEPER and HEART OF DARKNESS were never known outside the ranks of the ORION's themselves, largely due to their sensitive nature and the questionable morality involved while undertaking these operations. King himself was slightly disturbed by the excessive force allowed on these operations, something that teammate Steven Hawkins took advantage of as he tortured and killed a number of enemy prisoners while on operations.

Operation: SPARTACUS

In early 2499 Trident Team were dispatched alongside two other ORION groups to Troy, a notoriously crime-ridden colony world on the edge of colonised Human space. While there was little in the way of Insurrectionist activity to attract the UNSC's attention, the sheer wealth and power of the crime lords operating within the planet's sprawling cities had pushed the CMA-led government to the brink of collapse. Furthermore, reports of rampant Human trafficking, drug trading and weapon dealing had been found across Troy, prompting a swift response from the UNSC before news leaked to the Inner Colony media, who were already highly critical of their rather harsh methods and supposed neglect of the Outer Colonies. After they arrived, Trident Team split up; King, Hawkins and Mack were joined my Teresa Morrison and Daniel Black in an operation to break up what was assumed to be a major smuggling ring in one of Troy's more populous cities that had been dubbed 'SPARTACUS'.

The ORION team on Troy.

Under cover of night, the ORION's moved in on an inner city compound where over a hundred individuals were attending a 'pit fight' - a horrific bloodsport in which children were forced to fight to the death while bets were made. Sickened by this discovery, they eliminated the guards and made a full assault on the inner compound, gunning down those who resisted while the local police surrounded the local area. In their first night on Troy they were responsible for the arrest of over sixty people, with dozens of casualties and thousands of credits worth of illegal contraband being confiscated. Furthermore, a group of captive children, badly affected by their treatment, were freed from the fighting pit by King and the others. While at first they believed that the main source of crime on Troy had been taken out, evidence taken from a heavily-interrogated captive revealed that there was a massive black market operating out of an abandoned refinery in another city.

The following night, their team arrived at the location heavily armed and prepared to face a veritable army of criminals that had most likely been made aware of their presence on Troy by this point. However, in spite of their fears the ORION's were able to easily gain access to the refinery, killing nearly two dozen people. After confirming the presence of stolen weaponry, the team discovered the entrance to an underground complex beneath the main building. Against King's warnings Mack did not report it to command and led them into the tunnels while an ARGUS drone searched for explosive devices. Upon emerging in a vast underground chamber, the team came across a massive crowd of people watching another pit fight between two children. With barely a moment's hesitation they opened fire on the spectators, using grenade launchers and assault rifle fire to massacre all that stood in their way while dozens more attempted to flee the arena. Having seen first-hand the depravity of these people, King felt little remorse even as Hawkins butchered the wounded with his machete and others were blown to pieces as they tried to flee. However, when a group did surrender to the ORIONs, Mack simply gave the order to wipe them all out.

Though they carried out the order, even King felt that his superior had overstepped the line as their captives were executed by Hawkins and Morrison. Ignoring their protests, Mack then went into the arena himself and disarmed a young boy before ordering King and Black to free the others. They exited the refinery with a number of freed captives and nearly all of their ammunition spent. The massacre was immediately sealed off by ONI, who kept it a secret even from the local law enforcement. Following the mission, King watched as Lieutenant Black denounced Mack as a war criminal for his actions and began to question his own role in what had been a merciless slaughter; the blood was on his hands as much as it was on his comrades. While Mack and Morrison seemed to regret their actions, Black despising his superior for the order and Hawkins simply not caring about what they had done, King attempted to rationalise the killings as necessary in their line of work; the lives of over a hundred criminals meant nothing if it kept the UNSC could avoid more bad publicity. Operation: SPARTACUS affected Frederick King more than any other participant, even if he did not talk about it or reveal just how much it had left its mark on him.

Heimdall Incident

TO BE DECLASSIFIED

Project BRUTUS

Following the Heimdall Incident and the dawn of the 26th Century, Trident Team's more heroic exploits had been revealed to the media by ONI's Section II in an attempt to raise support for the UNSC's actions in the developing Outer Colonies. While Mack and Ackton continued their service in the Marine Corps under ORION's jurisdiction and both Hollister and Redford retired, King was offered a place within ONI by Admiral Konrad Volkov. He accepted, and was given the naval rank of Lieutenant Commander before being set to work under the recently-promoted Captain Margaret Parangosky. The two worked well together, and orchestrated a number of covert operations until 2504 when Parangosky integrated the almost defunct Department of Colonial Security into ONI and began to build up a significant powerbase within Naval Intelligence.

Seeing Parangosky's slow rise to power, King came to her in early 2505 with the initial proposals for Project BRUTUS. Due to the rising tide of Insurrection and dissent among the colonies due to various reasons, even ONI's field agents and spies were finding it hard to root out potential threats to colonial security in time. As such, BRUTUS would scatter agents across multiple colony worlds, recruiting potential applicants at a fairly young age rather than choosing from a pre-existing force of either Intelligence or Military assets. Once planted, BRUTUS agents would spy on the general populace and target those who wished to incite rebellion against the UEG before alerting their commanders and discreetly murdering figures of authority; cutting off the head of any potential uprising before it even began. Though she had her initial misgivings about BRUTUS, Parangosky trusted King enough to give his project the go-ahead, placing its agents under the DCS officially. King then recruited a dozen agents, numbering each of them according to seniority with himself as 'Agent One'.

File:Intartan Logo.png

BRUTUS became a feared organisation under King's command.

For the next few years, this small cadre of assassins and infiltrators eliminated dozens of potential threats within UEG space, mostly disguising their actions as simple accidents or leaving criminal scapegoats for the local authorities to blame. King himself rarely participated in such operations, and spent most of his time travelling between BRUTUS' headquarters on Luna and a mental hospital on the planet Harpa, where his old team mate and lover Marion Hollister had ended up after a severe mental breakdown as a side effect of her ORION augmentations years before. Though initially unstable and very violent, King's presence calmed Marion with regular visits to the facility and by 2509 she was given a clean bill of health and allowed to leave. With Parangosky's permission, King set up a BRUTUS command post on Harpa shortly before he got married. Though Marion had greatly recovered in the past few years, the psychological damage rendered her unfit to return to active duty and she settled down into civilian life while King continued to direct the slowly-growing BRUTUS group, which he wished to keep at a manageable fifteen members for the time being.

In 2511, Marion gave birth to their first son, Kane. Both were overjoyed at this, though King's constant work kept him away from his wife and child for lengthy periods. Marion did not seem to mind much as she busied herself with looking after the baby. Shortly after Kane's birth, ONI agents visited King and informed him that due to their status as ORION augmentees they would have to subject Kane to a series of injections to ensure that he had no growth defects or other issues passed down from his parents. This was done secretly and without Marion's knowledge, as King knew how much she mistrusted ONI and would not allow them near their child if she knew. By 2513, the issue of Insurrection had finally been matched in the Colonies by a massive wave of crime, spread by the arrival of a new designed drug called 'Rocket'. Initial analysis proved that it had been derived from the augmentation drugs some terrorist groups used to fight UNSC forces, giving it heavy links to the elusive United Rebel Front.

As his BRUTUS agents could not afford risking their cover to bust every Rocket manufacturer in the Outer Colonies, King was placed in charge of the newly-dubbed Operation: MASQUERADE, an attempt to strike at the main source of the drug. To do this, he recruited a special team made for infiltration and covert operations, consisting of his former comrade Harold Redford, Henry McNair, Abd-al-Qadir ibn Asad, Vivian Harris, Samantha Jones, Markus Jensun and Leo, an AI. King personally visited and ensured that each member of this team remained loyal to their mission, but otherwise allowed the group to go about their business in the Outer Colonies for some time until Redford activated a beacon that brought both King and a large special forces team in to clear out the remaining criminals and their contacts in the Insurrection. The mission was a resounding success, though the team did take losses and one member in particular had to spend over a month aboard the UNSC Hopeful to recover from his injuries. Following MASQUERADE, King discreetly oversaw the construction of Lion's Claw, a Private Military Company that would specialise in security operations throughout the colonies and was willing to carry out actions that the UNSC could not do. While he allowed the group to run under the command of Abd-al-Quadir ibn Asad, ONI kept a close eye on the mercenaries as they destroyed rebel stronghold after stronghold with brutal efficiency in the following years. Though MASQUERADE was a success, King's forceful manner of recruitment and implied threats more or less ended his friendship with Harold Redford; the two parted on bad terms after King implied he would try to recruit Harold's son into ONI within a few years, which prompted a violent outburst in Redford.

SIGMA and SPARTAN-III

"Our son has more potential than either of us, Marion! He and the other children will grow up to save mankind from itself, something ORION could never have accomplished on its own. You have to understand that it's all for the greater good here; to think otherwise would be selfish, no better than those bastards we're fighting!"

―King attempting to justify his actions in 2517

Following the widespread vaccination program conducted across the Outer Colonies by the CAA in 2516, King was made aware of the existence of a secret project, codenamed SPARTAN-II. He found the idea of a successor project to ORION interesting in spite of the huge ethical issues, particularly regarding the abduction of children, dangerous augmentation procedures and use of flash cloning as proposed by Doctor Catherine Halsey, the project's creator. In early 2517 King came into possession of the list of 150 potential candidates for the program, which to his surprise contained his own young son, Kane. However, the fairly limited budget at the time for SPARTAN-II meant that only half the subjects could be recruited, including King's child. As he could not publicly put forward Kane into the program on Reach, he visited Doctor Calvin Roe, a famed scientist on Earth whose works in engineering and robotics had been repeatedly overshadowed by the younger Halsey's own work. While there, he revealed the plans for SPARTAN-II to Roe knowing full well of his dislike for Halsey, and then suggested that he speak to Parangosky in private regarding plans for an extension of SPARTAN-II, codenamed Project SIGMA.

Using their friendship with Parangosky and her adversarial nature towards Halsey, Roe and King were able to attain permission and funding from ONI to conduct Project SIGMA in secret, on Earth. Using data taken from the SPARTAN-II training on Earth, they could conduct their own experiments on a much smaller target group of twenty children, which included the young Kane, now known as SPARTAN-099. Furthermore, Parangosky was pleased to hear that their first choice for a trainer was none other than Richard Mack Senior, a close friend of hers. Shortly after the main SPARTAN-II candidates were abducted, King had his own BRUTUS agents orchestrate the kidnapping and replacement of the SIGMA children, replacing them with flash clones that would quickly die. King personally drugged and abducted his own son before placing him on a transport towards Earth, ensuring that he could stay with Marion on Harpa to deal with what came next. As Kane's flash clone began to grow weaker over the following weeks, Marion realised that something was incredibly wrong with her son and eventually confronted her husband, realising that he had done something to Kane. King tried to explain to Marion how their son would grow into the perfect soldier that neither of them ever were, truly believing that they would save mankind from civil war and destruction given enough time. He saw it as his duty to offer his only child into service, continuing to do his part for Earth and the UEG.

Marion's reaction to this news was to viciously attack King, breaking his arm and slashing him across the face with a knife in a brief but intense fight before fleeing as he pulled a gun on her. Disturbed by the noise, Kane's flash clone then entered the room and was pleased to see his 'father' After a brief conversation with the cloned child, King shot him dead with his handgun, seeing it as a kinder death than simply allowing the flash clone to deteriorate and die over the next few weeks before calling for an ONI cleanup crew to dispose of the corpse. Enraged at his wife's disappearance, King immediately gave the order for BRUTUS to find and kill her as he recovered. After nearly two months with no trace of Marion, he eventually cancelled the assassination order and returned to his work. Without a family to worry him, Frederick King soon made a great deal of progress personally overseeing his agent's work in the Outer Colonies for a number of years. He never once enquired about the state of Kane's training on Earth, feeling that it would be for the best if he was never even aware of his existence. By 2525, he felt that BRUTUS would possibly face shutdown in the face of SPARTAN-II's impending activation. Though it was an incredibly effective force in preventing Insurrectionist uprisings, its field agents numbered at less than twenty, with several dozen support agents working behind the scenes. However, the arrival of the Covenant and the Battle of Chi Ceti in late 2525 ensured that the freshly-trained SPARTAN-II's would be diverted to engage this new alien threat, prompting more funding for BRUTUS to deploy more agents as news of the war spread through the Outer Colonies and people began to panic.

Not long after plans for BRUTUS' expansion arrived, King received the news that his old friend Harold Redford had been killed after re-enlisting in the military to fight on Harvest. Shortly after, he attended a memorial service for the man on Earth, where he met his son Alexander, a doctor. Deciding to make good use of Harold's child, King approached Alexander and spoke to him at length about his history with his father, before eventually offering him the chance to become a BRUTUS agent. Still grieving and eager to take action in his father's name, Alexander Redford signed up and became 'Agent Nineteen'. Over the next few years King oversaw the training of many new BRUTUS agents, expanding to forty active members by 2529. It was this year that King's imprisoned squadmate Tobias Crowley was finally released from prison after a thirty-year sentence and began a solitary life on Reach. Not willing to forget how Crowley had tortured him and Marion during the Heimdall Incident, he dispatched Agents 32 and 38 to eliminate Crowley. To King, this was not a punishment, but a kindness; putting down an old, broken man who should have died decades ago. Though their target was killed, 38 perished in the attack, giving King some modicum of respect for his former friend for going out fighting.

In 2531, King's BRUTUS agents were recalled by ONI on the direct orders of Admiral Parangosky, who revealed to him that Colonel James Ackerson had proposed a new supersoldier initiative, named SPARTAN-III. Though he had barely interacted with Ackerson, King knew of his shady reputation and shared his pragmatism when it came to fighting the war. The prospect of entire companies of augmented child soldiers for suicide missions was to King a much harder moral problem when compared to the dangerous but long-lasting SPARTAN-II Program, but he conceded that such actions had to be taken if Humanity and the UNSC were to survive the war. For over a month, King personally travelled round with a cadre of BRUTUS agents under the guise of a Major in the Marine Corps to orphanages across what remained of the Outer Colonies and recruited children who truly wanted revenge on the Covenant for the deaths of their parents and countless others in their genocidal campaigns. To him, it was their choice to join SPARTAN-III that made them worthy of the program, though he would often encourage the children with assurances that they would become heroes, fighting the 'monsters' and saving mankind. Following the recruitment process, he had them sent off to Onyx to be trained for several years.

Further Operations

"Captain King, were it not for your own remarkable service history and the excellent results your organisation produces, the Admiralty Board would likely have you shot for your actions. Your utter disregard for the safety of our operatives and selfish priorities very nearly endangered both the Inner Colonies and Earth itself in spite of the mission's success. None of our hands are clean in ONI, Captain, but you seem to be under the delusion that you are something you're not: a hero."

―Rear Admiral Ned Rich, speaking during King's hearing following RISING DRAGON.

As the Human-Covenant War wore on, BRUTUS proved itself time and time again as King's agents put down uprisings and quelled riots as millions of refugees flooded into the Inner Colonies away from the Covenant's relentless advance. King spent a great deal of his time on the move aboard his Prowler, the Heavens Asunder. From there he and his command staff oversaw BRUTUS' operations across multiple systems and were able to keep track of . It was during this period that he first began to consider a successor among his finest agents. By this point, three stood out: Agent 19, Agent 20 and Agent 32. As his most accomplished field agents, King kept a close eye on them and often give the three the hardest assignments to fulfil. However, he had little time to meet any of his agents personally as many were constantly away, and time spent grooming one candidate to become the head of BRUTUS would take them out of action for far too long for his liking. As such, King simply elected to wait until the end of the war before making his decision.

While many of his agents underwent regular psychological evaluations between missions, King began to notice signs of clear fatigue in several deployed in the field. Due to the stress of maintaining a low profile and adopting a completely different persona between missions, four agents went AWOL within the space of a year. Due to the need to keep BRUTUS a complete secret from the general public, he dispatched over a dozen operatives to track down the missing agents and bring them back to the fold. One had committed suicide, while two others refused to return and had to be killed by his agents. The fourth, Agent 20, had managed to elude BRUTUS for over a year until he was spotted on the colony world of Illios. Annoyed that one of his best agents had apparently left the organisation to start a family, King dispatched Agent 19 to bring him in - alive or dead. While some part of him wanted 20 to resist and die for betraying BRUTUS, he was pleasantly surprised when Redford's mission was a complete success and welcomed his old comrade back into the fold, though he no longer considered 20 to be fit for any type of command role within BRUTUS in the future.

File:Fred King Power.jpg

King became a powerful figure within ONI through his control of BRUTUS.

With Admiral Parangosky's permission, BRUTUS underwent a series of expansions by 2541 that gave the organisation a massive boost in funding and forty-five new field agents to deploy across the remaining colonies. With reports of the Insurrection attempting to stir up trouble and raid supply bases in the previously near-untouchable Inner Colonies, the men and women under King's command continued their operations in secret. To King and several others within ONI, BRUTUS' harsh actions truly helped to keep the UEG in control of their remaining colony worlds while the UNSC continued to fight a losing battle against the Covenant. King was personally impressed with reports of the SPARTAN-II's and III's in the field, as in spite of the latter's usage for suicide missions the supersoldiers had proven to be the UNSC's most effective weapon in the field and had struck fear into the hearts of Covenant troops across multiple battlefields. King did briefly attempt to secure the chemical augmentations used in Project CHRYSANTHEMUM for use on his own BRUTUS operatives, but was unsuccessful in his endeavour.

In 2546, King received a desperate transmission from one of his field agents operating on the fairly isolated colony world of Kroedis II. While the agent had been undercover investigating a terrorist cell that had been dealing in stolen Covenant weaponry, the group had apparently discovered a number of artefacts neither Human nor Covenant in origin. While King had been aware that ruins of a long-extinct alien civilisation had been discovered and heavily classified by ONI in the past, this message seemed to infer that his agent had discovered a true game-changer; something with the potential to end the Human-Covenant War once and for all. As such, he immediately initiated Operation: RISING DRAGON and mobilised all the forces under his command to secure the artefact before it fell into Insurrectionist - or worse, Covenant hands. Though most high-level BRUTUS agents could not be redeployed in time, he managed to secure a small group of his finest men and women to act as his direct subordinates for this operation.

The withdrawal of a number of undercover agents and quick redeployment of over a hundred members of ONI Security to Kroedis II did not go unnoticed by others within the organisation, though King had already left Earth in the Heavens Asunder by the time any of his superiors tried to contact him. Though the colony world was home to over fifteen million people, a great deal of it was still unexplored, allowing a number of illegal organisations to set up small outposts on the frontier. Tracking down their missing agent's emergency beacon, King's men discovered one such base high in a mountainous region, apparently unguarded. They were able to quickly land troops and move in, only to find the entire base empty. After a 24-hour search of the facility was carried out, King himself landed to supervise the operation himself. His troops had discovered the entrance to what appeared to be a facility of unknown origin built into the mountain, though initial samples suggested that it had been buried over the millennia and only recently re-discovered. Furthermore, security logs from those living at the base showed signs of battle against what appeared to be machines of an unknown origin before every single person was forcibly taken into the now-closed structure.

After spending three days in an encampment attempting various methods of entry that would not risk collapsing the caverns around them, one of King's men was able to unlock the sealed door simply by pressing his bare hand against it. Wary of how these ancient aliens seemed to react to Human DNA, he dispatched a platoon of soldiers to search the area while he attempted to make contact with one of the colony world's cities for support. When there was no response, he attempted to contact an orbiting Destroyer to no avail. It was shortly after this that news arrived that a sizeable Covenant fleet had arrived in-system and were attacking Kroedis II, and much to King's dismay a number of enemy dropships were picked up heading towards the mountains where the alien construct lay. Attempting to remain hidden, King's forces withdrew into the mountains and descended deeper into the structure, where his forces had uncovered a vast facility built for an unknown purpose. As they proceeded, King's forces discovered the still-living remnants of the Insurrectionist outpost, kept comatose within tubes that lined the facility's walls. The machines which had taken them seemed dormant, however, and did not bother them.

Soon after, a large Covenant force arrived and ran into a number of traps set on King's orders. After hours of throwing cannon fodder at their defences they finally breached the main structure, enraged to find Humans on what they saw as holy ground. Though heavily outnumbered, the ONI forces used their superior positions and the Covenant's unwillingness to damage the structure to their advantage, making them fight for every inch of ground and using demolition charges to bring down parts of the roof on their foe. As time wore on, however, the group began to take heavy casualties and had to secure alien weaponry as ammunition ran dry. King himself joined the fray and was responsible for fending off a large wave of Sangheili attackers that attempted to flank their main group. Eventually, he and the survivors had been forced into a large chamber with only a single entrance and no means of escape. Alongside Alexander Redford, King attempted to lead one final push against their enemy. Though they were partially successful, they ran into a number of Hunters and were pushed into the room housing the alien machines. In desperation, King attempted to access a control panel. Surprisingly, it responded to his touch and the machines activated, immediately attacking Human and Covenant troops alike.

In the confusion that followed, King led the surviving members of his expedition forward as the Covenant turned their attention to the machines. Escaping into the main chamber and avoiding open conflict, they managed to flee into the outer tunnels through a side passage. There, they discovered dozens of dead Covenant soldiers and a single, black-armoured soldier: a SPARTAN-II. Though the survivors were overjoyed to see the supersoldier, King knew that the presence of a Spartan meant that ONI cared enough to ensure that he made it out alive - for better or for worse. They followed the Spartan out through the tunnels and back into the camp, where a number of Pelican dropships had launched a surprise attack on the Covenant landing site and taken out their transports. King boarded the Heavens Asunder with the others and took off, heading for orbit where a UNSC Destroyer awaited them. During the trip, the Spartan identified herself as Elena-071 and informed King that she was under strict orders to take him before an ONI council back on Earth. Realising that he was almost certainly in trouble for his rash actions, King accepted what was to come and once the other survivors had been dropped off, travelled alone with Elena for his trial.

Elena-071, the Spartan who saved King's life.

In spite of his actions, the Spartan got along well with King. They both shared a pragmatic attitude and an intense loyalty towards the UNSC; King noticed that she seemed more like an ONI agent herself than just a regular Spartan. They spoke for a time regarding Project SIGMA; in spite of Elena's insistence on it being classified information, King revealed that he knew almost everything about the project and its progenitors. Upon their arrival at HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-Six in Sydney, Australia, King left his personal Prowler in Elena's hands for future missions, stating that there was a good chance he wouldn't need it after his meeting with the council. As expected, he was handcuffed and brought into a meeting room to explain his actions. Though those judging him were deliberately kept in the shadows, he soon identified them as Admiral Margaret Parangosky, Admiral Ned Rich, Colonel James Ackerson, Rear Admiral Aaron Gibson, and to his great surprise, Brigadier General Richard Mack Senior. With the exception of Mack, all involved were high-ranking members of ONI, wielding enough power and influence to destroy both his career and end his life if necessary. After a short introduction, King was asked to retell the events of Operation: RISING DRAGON from his perspective.

Once he had made his account, the council relayed a list of charges brought against him. This included insubordination, theft of military resources and unauthorised personnel deployment, among other things. King denied these allegations, stating that although he had acted rashly, any delay on his part would have meant the loss of alien artefacts with the potential to tip the balance of power in a war that Humanity was clearly losing. However, he could not verify his claims as no such item could be found before the Covenant arrived. He was then told that as more enemy forces attacked the site, it was completely obliterated with a HAVOK tactical nuke to deny further access as Kroedis II had swiftly fallen under alien assault. By the time of King's trial, the colony world had already been glassed. As neither the Covenant or UNSC could claim the facility, RISING DRAGON was considered a failure. Furthermore, King's blatant disregard for proper protocol during the mission could have endangered other colonies or Earth itself had Elena-071 not arrived when she had, and in spite of King's repeated proclamations that he initiated the operation for the greater good, Admiral Rich dismissed him as little more than an aged glory hound looking to become a hero. Many personnel had been lost on the fruitless expedition; their deaths all King's fault. Though he remained mostly silent during the barrage of insults and accusations, King believed that the losses were merely collateral damage and that had he not initiated RISING DRAGON, the potential risk from the Covenant holding whatever secrets lay within the site was too great to ignore.

After a number of hours, those gathered on the council eventually decided on King's fate. Both Parangosky and Mack cited his excellent service record and dedication as outweighing his mistakes, while Ackerson agreed with King's assessment that leaving the site in Covenant hands would not be an acceptable outcome. Gibson, well aware of how indispensable King had made himself as the head of BRUTUS, suggested a minor punishment; any lesser agent would have certainly faced imprisonment for a failure like this. Rich was the hardest to convince, and after some deliberation with others on the council agreed that King would never rise above his current rank of Captain, nor would he hold any office within ONI outside of BRUTUS. With that, he was free to go. RISING DRAGON was in King's eyes, his biggest failure, though the comments from Rich and the council bothered him the most. While his mistakes had been punished, he felt personally offended by the way his loyalty had been brought into question when he had personally risked his own life on a mission. Out of spite, he had several of his agents spy on Admiral Rich for some time following the incident, hoping to catch his primary accuser for some misdemeanour.

A few months after his trial, the Battle of New Llanelli occurred. Though he rarely paid great attention to news of the UNSC's defeats, King discovered that his old friend John Ackton had perished while fighting the Covenant, leaving only he and Richard Mack Senior as the only active members of Trident Team; Marion had not been seen in decades, even by ONI, and was assumed dead. It was at Ackton's funeral several weeks after the battle that he first encountered Richard Mack Junior, the son of his former commanding officer. Mack Junior, then a Gunnery Sergeant within the ODST unit Whiskey-04, was a lot more sociable than his father and conversed with King for some time and appeared to have similar ideals to the venerable ONI agent. The discovery that Mack Junior had fought side by side with King's own son, made him feel proud despite having not seen Kane since he personally handed him over to SIGMA. The two spoke for some time on matters of colonial self-rule and the UNSC's place in the galaxy before departing. Feeling as though he had found a kindred spirit of sorts, King had Whiskey-04 marked for tracking by BRUTUS and wished to ensure that his old comrade's son survived the war, seemingly hopeless though it was.

As the war dragged on and colony after colony slowly fell to the Covenant, King found his operatives in more danger from the Covenant than from the Human rebel groups they were sent to infiltrate. A number of agents died in surprise alien attacks alongside millions of civilians, and it soon became clear that with their foe's unrelenting advance, BRUTUS' usefulness was waning. As such, he withdrew as many agents as he could towards the Inner Colonies and the Sol System itself while privately planning ways to survive should Covenant attack on Earth take place. For King, the preservation of the UEG and UNSC was paramount, and so worked with several others within ONI on Operation: LIFEBOAT, a secretive plan to escape Earth aboard several Phoenix-class colony ships with as many important documents and personnel as possible to ensure mankind's continued survival should its homeworld be lost. LIFEBOAT was kept a secret from much of the top brass and even the UNSC Security Council, and was run through several private contractors over the course of three years. Colonel James Ackerson was also made aware of the project, though King was unsure of the man's trustworthiness as news of his vocal outbursts against the SPARTAN-II Program reached him.

Battle of Earth

Post War

New Rebellion

The Legion

Fall of Avalon

"You think you can just run away and start over, after all you've done?
Actions have consequences, and this is your retribution."

―King's transmission to the fledgling colony

Skills and Abilities

"The best kind of battle is the one that's over before your enemy realises that it's even begun."

―King commenting on one of his infiltration missions.

As a member of the ORION Project, King was a talented soldier who excelled in most roles on the battlefield. He was a particularly skilled infiltrator and worked as a professional assassin for the Office of Naval Intelligence for many years, favouring long-distance kills with high-powered sniper rifles over open engagements. His combat skills allowed him to survive many engagements, both against Human Insurrectionists and Covenant forces over the years. Even at an advanced age he remained incredibly fit and healthy, and could take on opponents much younger than him at close quarters. His aged appearance in later life would cause many to make the mistake of underestimating King's strength and speed, which was helped in part due to his ORION augmentations. It was not until his mid-eighties that his age finally forced him to withdraw from the field almost entirely.

In addition to his physical abilities, King was noted for being highly intelligent, even among his peers in ORION. He possessed great knowledge of computing and possessed a theoretical interest in the coding and creation of 'dumb' artificial intelligences, though this was rarely put to use. Furthermore, King was known for his powers of persuasion and manipulation, which made him a prime candidate to help in the recruitment of BRUTUS agents and children for the SPARTAN-III Program. Though he often stretched the truth or outright lied to those he spoke to, King's charisma was a major factor in convincing others to side with him on multiple occasions. This also proved useful in allowing him to maintain his position for so many decades, pacifying or impressing his superiors if and when they questioned his work.

Personality

"That man is pure evil."

―Marion Hollister

Seen by many as ruthlessly pragmatic and incredibly intelligent, King's very professional nature towards his work in ONI was matched only by the dedication to defending Humanity. Due to his position as head of BRUTUS, he was greatly feared even by his peers and would often make his opinions heard in spite of his rank. King always considered himself something of a patriot, believing that the UEG, defended by both ONI and the UNSC, was the only way to ensure the survival of mankind in an increasingly hostile galaxy; views that were taken more seriously with the discovery of the Covenant. As such, he held nothing but disdain for Insurrectionists and sought to eliminate them with maximum efficiency where possible. Unlike some with pro-UEG beliefs, King did greatly value the Outer Colonies and was an advocate of sending manpower to assist in their continued stability and protection. King was directly responsible for the evacuation of several colonies via orders to his BRUTUS agents when word of possible Covenant invasion arrived, saving many lives wherever he could.

However, a major fault in King's personality was his unshakeable belief in the United Earth Government's rule over the outer Colonies and the role of both the UNSC and ONI in defending it. His loyalty to such a system bordered on fanaticism as he dedicated his life to preserving such a system and would undertake morally questionable actions without a second thought. As such, he saw compromise with dissidents and rebels as weakness and would only engage in diplomacy with the intent of later crushing his foes. Also, King truly believed that he was keeping Humanity together through his actions, and saw no problem in sacrificing a few to save the many. This mentality led to him giving his own child to Project SIGMA with the belief that it was his duty to safeguard mankind without thinking about the massive emotional trauma it would inflict on his wife, Marion. Though he genuinely loved her, King initially saw her as selfish for leaving him behind, and it was only a twinge of regret that made him call off the BRUTUS assassins that were chasing her down. Without his family, he became much colder and more ruthless in his actions, cutting himself off almost completely from any vices and dedicating his life entirely to running BRUTUS and keeping the colonies safe.

Much of King's lifelong belief in holding the colonies together came not from his upbringing or education but from his experiences as part of Trident Team under the ORION Project. Though his sense of professionalism made him appear stoic and unfazed by the world around him, his participation in a number of illegal actions that some would consider atrocities forced him to mentally rationalise his actions as being for the greater good. This warped view led to his willingness to encourage acts of violence and oppression in later life; killing a few people to save a thousand was well worth the cost so long as it helped to better the UEG's position and strengthen mankind as a whole, at least from his point of view.

List of Appearances

• Halo: In the Dark (2498-99)
• Vigil (2531)
• Halo: Sanctuary (2576)