Operation: RIVERBOAT

Opeation: RIVERBOAT was a covert operation carried out by the Special Warfare division to assassinate an AWOL, previously believed MIA, Special Forces commander, Major Jacob Owens, who had broken from the UEG and seemingly gone totally insane. Following prolonged stranding beyond the known human frontier, and potential exposure to an bioweapon, and the influence of an began to make a number of threats against humanity. The most dangerous of which being his intention to broadcast the location of every major human colony to Covenant forces as means of culling the human population in order to remove 'competiton' for Owens desired 'evolution' of the human species.
Two seperate task forces, each consisting of a singular , the 'dumb' AI required to operate the vessel, and a total of five operatives, four being the Chiroptera's Skelton crew and one, the task force commander, being a former member of Project ORION. Additionally, the latter ORION would be equipped with the only existing complete set of , which, while not on par with the , were otherwise the most advanced human armor systems in existence at the time. The first dispatched unit, Task Force Adams under Captain Jamsheed Khoroushi, would fail in their objective, and in fact join Owens in his fanatical cult, resulting in the dispatch of Task Force Walker under Lieutenant Rakesh Narang.
Narang's would be forced to venture various locales and into the company of a number of different elements both hostile and friendly over the course of the operation, and took a number of journal entries. These entries, along with other related materials would be compiled into an ONI archive and marked as highly classified, though they would ultimately be released unintentionally during the . Though, due to the general chaos of the time, and the conflicts that followed, it garnered little attention. 
Still, the happenings of the operation have sparked a number of conversations in the intelligence and xenoarcheology communities regarding the events of the mission, and the implications of the numerous controversial and eye-opening discoveries made by Task Force Walker.
==Operation Details==
===Background===
XF-979 is a distant world beyond even , whose discovery and cataloging by Domus-Diaspora era explorers left it little more than a footnote in the record of discovered stellar bodies, officially. In reality, XF-979 was the site of humanity’s most far-flung attempted colony, founded by the now-defunct Kurtz Corporation in 2414 in secret as a research colony. Whilst marked on record as a barren, empty world, XF-979 was a harsh planet, but one absolutely brimming with the technology of an ancient civilization lost to time, one that judging by the information still discernable on the world, had some kind of connection to humanity. 
However, even within the seized records of the Kurtz Corporation following its bankruptcy in 2527 after all its holdings were glassed, no record beyond the initial colonization effort, with all information intentionally erased afterward. Regardless, in early 2512 a secret insurrectionist employed by the Kurtz Corporation’s Sargasso branch discovered records of the harsh but habitable world, and chalked its status as a failed colony up to a failure of technology at the time, and directed the cell which she was a member of to the abandoned colony in order to utilize it as a remote base of operations beyond the long reach of .
For a time the cell had all but vanished after stealing the transports and equipment needed to establish their new holdout, and many believed them to either have died in transit or simply given up and been absorbed by another rebel cell. However, in 2524, several garbled transmissions hailing from the planet were intercepted in tandem with a series of attacks carried out on remote outer colonies at the hands of half-mad insurrectionists clad in tattered battle armor and bearing the crest of the vanished cells. What set these attacks apart, aside from the needless brutality of them, with several civilians being literally hacked apart, was that the rebels kidnapped a number of children before fleeing into space. 
The transmissions, when finally decrypted, were found to be from the same rebel who had worked for the Kurtz Corporation in the first place, claiming that she and her people would be ‘the only ones to survive the coming storm’ and that they were taking the children as offerings to their newfound god. With the idea of deranged terrorists kidnapping children for some kind of blood sacrifice being one that would cause a massive deal of panic, ONI quietly suppressed reports of the attack and coordinated with the CMA to deal with the rebels. Fortunately, at least at the time, the CMA felt they had just the man for the job.
Major Jacob Owens of the Eriene CMA was a seasoned leader in the CMA’s Special Forces community, with an immaculate reputation both for combat efficiency and his ability to work with a civilian populace. Despite the death of his eldest son, Private Callum Owens, and the severe injury of his second child, Peter Owens, the Major never succumbed to the desire for revenge and maintained his status as a consummate professional. Both feared by rebels for his efficiency, and revered for his embodiment of an honorable soldier, the CMA felt there was none better to take down the cell turned cult.
Owens, along with a hundred special forces operatives from the CMA’s Special Operations Group would be placed aboard the CMA Hanoi and subsequently set a course for the remote world. In 2525, in the wake of the Covenant’s first attacks, the Hanoi’s transmission confirming its arrival and the departure of Major Owens’ forces would go largely unnoticed as the alien menace called all attention to itself. Many vital pieces of information across the galaxy would simply be missed across the coming years. Including Major Owens’ desperate plea for rescue. 
===Owens' Dissappearance===
Whilst a complete record of what befell Task Force Lugo will never be available, thanks in no small part to efforts by Major Owens to erase any complete account, some understanding was able to be pieced together as the result of RIVERBOAT. The /Hanoi/ would arrive in early April 2525, and following several orbits of XF-979 would eventually locate the ruins of the Kurtz Corporation’s failed colony, where the ships used by the rebels to launch their attacks were found abandoned, and a faint signal leading into presumably alien ruins was traceable from that point. 
As a result, the CMA ground forces would land at the failed colony, and subsequently be engaged by a number of feral humans using primitive weaponry. Apparently, initial casualties were alarmingly high as a number of the seeming ferals were young children, whom the CMA operatives both presumed not to be a threat and felt morally opposed to harming. The savage children felt no such compunction and were in fact quite dangerous and abnormally strong.
A forward operating base would be established in the ruins after they were suitably cleared, and more equipment would be deployed to the surface to aid in the operation. Major Owens would assume direct command and lead the operation from the front going forward, replacing one Captain Eva Beridize, who had been Owens’ own protege and had died from her wounds inflicted by a feral child. Subsequently, a push would be made in pursuit of the strange signal leading into the ancient ruins that long predated the Kurtz Colony. Delving into the depth of the ruins, Owens forces would continually be engaged, taking a small number of casualties with each strike, however, at some point they would make direct contact with the insurrectionists turned cultists.
Armed with weapons advanced far beyond those able to be produced by contemporary humanity, heavy casualties were suffered, and Owens would order the Hanoi to deploy the small element of armored vehicles it had brought for the mission. The armor would seemingly enable Owens to successfully penetrate the cultist’s base of operations, however, any further details of what occurred are largely unknown.
In April of 2526, a full year after his arrival, Owens’ last seemingly coherent transmission would be sent, though it would be heavily distorted by the distance and the destruction of several communications outposts by the Covenant. The message, an apparent request for emergency evacuation, would not be received until 2527, and would not garner any kind of attention until 2529 due to the alien onslaught. By this time, it is believed Owens was long lost to the UEG and humanity as it is currently understood,
At some point, the CMA Hanoi would crash onto the surface, brought down by unknown means, though it is speculated that by that point the crew had already joined Owens’ cause or been slaughtered for dissent. The fate of Task Force Lugo was set to become one of the many mysteries of the early Human-Covenant War, however in December of 2529, mere weeks after his plea for help was finally understood, another message from Owens arrived, this one far clearer.
===Initial Termination Attempt===
In tandem with his message, largely directed to his surviving son, Peter Owens, Major Owens utilized one of the still functional insurrectionist craft and two of the CMA Hanoi’s nuclear devices to attempt to carry out a terrorist attack on the colony . Whilst the ship was successfully intercepted and shot down before an attack could be carried out, the jumps it had made to the colony did not follow Cole Protocol, and as such lead, a Covenant scout to the planet, and thus led to its eventual glassing. 
This, along with Owens’ message, was also buried by the Office of Naval Intelligence, who quickly changed the status of all members of Task Force Lugo from missing to killed in action on the public record. Swamped with the war against the Covenant, ONI felt it was unable to commit a full response force to deal with Owens, however, in the interest of preventing his leading to the destruction of any further colonies, felt compelled to resolve the issue with haste. Assembling a small team with haste, former Project ORION augmentee Captain Jamsheed Khoroushi would be selected to carry out the assassination of Major Owens. Assigned a Chiopetra Subprowler and its crew as his support, the small unit would be dubbed as Task Force Adams. Pulling Khoroushi from his assignment with SPECWAR/Group Two, his superiors were hesitant to allow the veteran to be pulled from the line, but in the end were coerced into agreeing.
Khoroushi, an accomplished sniper with nearly a dozen successful kills on high-value targets to his name, was tasked to simply locate Owens and subsequently eliminate him from long range, only deviating from that course of action unless absolutely necessary. Intelligence believed the only method Owens had for sending his messages would require him to be above XF-979’s surface, and were confident he would send more. 
Without much fanfare, the Task Force was dispatched on their mission in January of 2530. Making regular updates as they crossed human space, linking up with friendly forces where they could, and avoiding the Covenant where they could not, gradual progress reports would continue up until their arrival on XF-979.
Following the deployment of Captain Khoroushi planetside, the crew’s Prowler would report silence from the assassin for three full orbital revolutions, following which the Captain would signal for them to land as he reported mission success. All communications would cease following that moment until the Captain alongside Major Owens would send another message to UNSC space, this time declaring their intent to intentionally lead Covenant forces to any and all human worlds in order to spur the species evolution. Facing a complete and total breach of the Cole Protocol, ONI would elect to send one final small unit task force, designated Walker, in pursuit of Major Owen and the now rogue Captain Khoroushi. If they failed, there would be no choice but to devote a full fleet, and the still heavily classified SPARTANs to the annihilation of the mad Major.
===Voyage of Task Force Walker===
====Formation and the Battle of Eridanus II====
Ultimately Rakesh Narang, another former ORION operating under the codename MARLOW, was settled on as the next trigger man for the mission. Pulled from his unit within two days before a deployment, Narang would be briefed on the situation in full and reluctantly accept the assignment (see transcript). Given command of the newly dubbed Task Force Walker, the unit’s composition and equipment were largely identical to that of their predecessor bar the inclusion of two and the gear given to Narang himself. 
Outfitted with a suit of , now fully realized thanks to developments from , the exoframe would allow Rakesh to operate with much greater effectiveness, increasing his speed, strength, and the amount and kinds of weaponry that the seasoned operative could field alone.
Setting out from Reach, the crew’s first jump would take them to the colony of as the followed Task Force Adam’s tracks, hoping to retrieve what information they could on the first unit in addition to taking on additional fuel and supplies for their journey. However, the colony itself had come under attack by a trio of Covenant ships no sooner than they had arrived and had seized the naval base where the previous task force had landed. 
In a twist of fate, the seizure of the base had taken place so quickly that its databanks had not been wiped in accordance with Cole Protocol, thus the information Narang required was still intact but so too was the possibility of a staggering loss of human life. Landing on the surface, Narang convened with one Colonel Richter Holzer, the commander of the 110th Mechanized Cavalry, and the man tasked with denying the Covenant their foothold.
Wild and bloodthirsty, Holzer agreed to aid Narang in his mission on the condition that he aid in the assault, and that one of the two nuclear warheads given to them be used to level the base after they had seized the needed information. Initially combative to the idea, Narang in the end relented and joined with Holzer in his assault. The 110th, being largely comprised of , would mobilize in the early hours of the day following Narang’s arrival. Narang himself would even pilot one such exoskeleton alongside the rest of the assault force, having qualified as a pilot for the Mark III Cyclops a few years prior.
With most of the planet’s groundside defenses focused on the protection of civilian centers, and most naval assets preoccupied with not being atomized by the enemy fleet half their size, the operation would be without meaningful support of any kind. As a result Holzer hinged his entire attack on the element of surprise, hoping to overrun the Covenant before they could counter in any meaningful way.
In a stroke of luck, the Colonel got exactly what he was hoping for. Though casualties were taken, the rapid assault had not been anticipated by the Covenant forces, who had believed the humans to be too cowardly and too low of cunning to even think to strike at them. By the time the aliens had fully realized the scale of the attack, the human troops had already breached their perimeter and were gutting their forces from within. 
Narang, together with Holzer's personal squadron, pushed for the datacenter, but were met with fearsome resistance that included the first recorded incident of contact with a . When his own Cyclops was damaged beyond repair, Narang ejected and attempted to continue on foot, even managing to dispatch a Hunter pair alone thanks to the abilities of his new armor, but ultimately it was not enough.
Covenant reinforcements began arrive en masse from their forces in orbit, and with no other choice Narang and the 110th were forced to plant the nuclear device and then retreat to a safe distance. The resulting detonation would all but erase the former naval base from the planet’s surface, along with dealing a massive blow to the Covenant’s planetside ground forces, though at the cost of the information Narang needed in order to continue. 
However, after a heated exchange born of Colonel Holzer's morbid attempts at humor, the army officer revealed to Narang that he himself had information that could benefit him. The use of Task Force Walker’s nuke had saved the lives of potentially all of Holzer's troops by sparing them from the timely data sanitization process, thus the Colonel felt indebted to them in spite of his barbs. Informing Narang that he had personally met with Khoroushi during his time on Eridanus, he knew that the first task force had meant to rendezvous with Admiral Cole’s own fleet before proceeding on with their mission. Pulling what strings he could, Holzer additionally secured the current location of Cole’s fleet for Narang before sending him on his way.
Though Holzer and the whole of the 110th would eventually die in the glassing of Eridanus II, their actions in the days after Narang’s departure would save the lives of hundreds of thousands, and those they had taken with him saved millions. Though frustrated with the detour, Narang nevertheless pushed on and set a course to rally with Task Force X-Ray.
====Rendezvous with Battle Group X-Ray====
====Carnage at the Helios Orbital Colonies====
====Remote Research Station Yager====
====Arrival at XF-979====
====Final Conflict====
==ONI Archive==
===Log 1===
==Reference Images==
==Trivia==
*Its just Halopocalyspe The Line: Heart of Darkness