Alexander Redford

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Alexander Redford, also known as Codename: CAESAR and Agent 19, was a long-serving agent and later leader of the 's Project BRUTUS. Working for years as a saboteur, infiltrator and assassin, he took part in numerous classified missions over the years and became was well-known within the organisation due to his impressive conduct and distinctive personality. Though he never held a particularly powerful position for most of his career, Redford commanded a surprising amount of authority and held the respect of both his peers and superiors. 
The son of member Harold Redford, Alexander was born as a Spartan 1.1 and would undergo minor augmentations as a child that made him superior to baseline humans. After becoming a surgeon in 2522, Redford practised for several years before being recruited for ONI's BRUTUS division following his father's death in battle. 
Redford would soon become well known within the organisation, and worked as both a deep-cover agent and assassin throughout the Human-Covenant War. An elusive figure within the intelligence community, Redford was both respected and feared, having killed several fellow agents during his long career of espionage. In the mid-2550's, he was partnered with Layla-B101, a SPARTAN-III who matched him in sheer skill and general unsympathetic disposition towards life. 
Redford would continue to work as a field agent until the Avalon Incident of 2556, where he was promoted to the head of BRUTUS after the incapacitation of former leader Frederick King. His leadership and insight would prove invaluable for the organisation, as the threat of the and the emerged in the following years.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Alexander Redford was born in Baltimore in the on February 22nd, 2500. His family was quite wealthy, and owned a large estate on the city's outskirts. His father, Harold, was a former member of the UNSC's ORION Project, and as a result Alexander received a number of injections in infancy to counteract any potential side effects of Harold's own chemical augmentations. Despite, or possibly because of this, Alexander proved to be a prodigy, showing signs of superior physical and mental attributes compared to his peers. He excelled in school, and attended several programs for gifted students. While cherished by his parents and fairly well-liked by those around him for his polite, helpful nature, Alexander had very few friends and kept others at a distance from an early age.
Gaining an interest in studying medicine in his early teens, Alexander finished his schooling by the age of sixteen and was permitted to attend university at a remarkably early age via a scholarship program. Unwilling to leave Earth, Alexander attended Oxford University for several years, busying himself with his studies and very little else. There he gained a reputation as a brilliant but reclusive scholar, and would graduate by the age of twenty-two with the intent of becoming a surgeon. Shortly after he would begin work at a London hospital, where he continued to excel. Despite the praise being heaped on him, Alexander remained a humble and was more than content with his career, stating that he was driven by the desire to save lives as his father had done.
Redford's happiness would not last, however. In 2524 he received a call notifying him of his mother's death, and later discovered that she had perished from an undetected brain condition. Devastated by this, he would take a brief leave of absence from work and returned home to comfort his grief-stricken father. Against Alexander's advice, Harold Redford decided shortly after the funeral that he would rejoin the UNSC Marine Corps, having served as a dedicated special forces operative for years. The two quarrelled for some time, though Alexander soon gave way and the pair departed on good terms before Harold travelled to Reach to reconnect with his old contacts in the military. Several months later, news arrived that war had broken out with an alien empire known as the , leading to a mass-mobilisation of all military assets as a lengthy battle began to retake the colony of .
Unaware of his father's deployment, Redford resumed his surgical career, though as spots of news from the distant war flooded in and more and more medical staff given lucrative transfer offers to mobile hospitals closer to the front he grew increasingly worried. In August of 2526, news finally reached Alexander that his Harold had been killed in action on Harvest. Struck by yet another tragedy, he found himself unable to focus on work and took another period of leave to attend a memorial service in the name of those killed in the far-off Harvest campaign. It was there that Redford first met with Commander Frederick King, a former teammate of his father's who worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence. King spent a long time conversing with Redford, speaking very highly of his father's exploits and hinting that the classified operations he had participated in with the ORION project had saved millions of lives. This shocked Redford, who knew only that his father had been a decorated soldier, and shortly after King presented him with an offer to join Project BRUTUS, a secretive group of spies and saboteurs who worked to weed out insurrectionist groups and save the colonies from disaster. Though hesitant at first, Redford reflected on his life and found that with no family or loved ones he was leaving an empty existence, and that BRUTUS would allow him to work proactively as his father had done, albeit from the shadows instead of the frontlines. Within a day, Redford accepted King's offer.
===Early Missions===
After quitting his career as a surgeon, Redford was taken to Helios Station, a military base over Mars, and underwent a gruelling series of mental and physical trials to test his aptitude as a BRUTUS agent. Here he continued to excel even as the tests became more dangerous and ethically unsound, though Redford found that his medical training allowed him to take a pragmatic, unfeeling mindset towards the things he was asked to do. To his surprise, he even passed several mock interrogation tests with flying colours, and realised for the first time that his unassuming, polite nature made him a very adept manipulator when required. After several months of training Redford officially 'graduated' from the program, becoming 'Agent Nineteen' of the BRUTUS division.
RThough the Human-Covenant War was in full swing at this point, there was still a large rebel presence within the Outer Colonies and beyond. Redford's first mission for ONI was to infiltrate a small Insurrectionist group in an Outer Colony world. The young agent easily gained access to the group within a week, his natural charisma allowing him to be trusted by members of the Insurrectionist cell. Over the course of a month he recovered enough data to expose the cell and several allied groups, and was told to await extraction. Rather than wait for Orbital Drop Shock Troopers to storm the safehouse, Redford chose to personally wipe out the entire cell, killing most of the group in their sleep before gunning down the rest. He emerged from the safehouse unscathed just as his extraction team arrived, having impressed King and his superiors greatly. Redford's efficiency and lethality marked him as a useful asset for ONI, one perfectly suited for deep cover infiltration and assassination missions.
Over the years, Redford's information helped the UNSC to successfully eliminate a large portion of the remaining Insurrection, one particularly successful mission gaining the location of a rebel base, which was later in 2531, leading to the death of a high-ranking URF member, General Howard Graves. Over the next few years Redford would operate alongside his fellow BRUTUS operatives in hunting down the rest of the URF, revealing the location of a number of bases and nearly tracking down the elusive General Adam Makosky before his disappearance. Nonetheless, his excellent track record and thoroughness made him one of BRUTUS' leading agents, often competing with the likes of the skilled Kyle White for a place within the unit as King's potential successor. Even though King had been good friends with Redford's father, he did not play favourites and ensured that he and all the agents operated at maximum efficiency.
===Operation: STARFALL===
In mid-2534, Redford was dispatched to the colony world of when news arrived that a well-armed Insurrectionist group was operating on the planet. Upon his arrival, he met up with fellow agent David Kahn, better known as 'Agent Twenty' within BRUTUS. Though he was vaguely aware of the older man's numerous exploits over the years, the pair had never worked together before on an operation. Kahn's sole reconnaissance had discovered a bomb-making facility deep within one of Sargasso's biggest cities, as well as a detailed network of spies across the colony world. Shortly before Redford's arrival, Kahn had taken one such spy captive, allowing the pair to interrogate him for some time until the names and locations of his compatriots were revealed. It turned out that due to their fear of a Covenant attack on the colony world, the rebel group intended to seize control of one of the colony's orbital elevators while sabotaging the rest and hijacking several ships filled with supplies before fleeing the system. 
With only a few days to stop the attack and no time to contact their superiors, Redford and Kahn quickly set about ambushing the rebel agents across several cities, though the main group soon noticed their activities and began to evacuate their urban base as they transported supplies and manpower over to safehouses in the countryside. The pair then tipped off the local police force about possible terrorist activity, leading to a successful raid on the bomb-making facility and the death and capture of over a dozen Insurrectionists. However, the group's leaders managed to escape and within several days were ready to launch their assault. Though Sargasso's police force had stepped up security across several of the elevators, they did not know what one the rebels were going to strike and were taken by surprise when a hijacked bus rammed through a checkpoint and exploded, killing dozens and allowing the group to storm the facility. All attempts to halt that particular elevator were stopped when an unusually sophisticated computer virus knocked out the station's main AI and allowed them to quickly ascend to the platforms above. 
Kahn and Redford had split up, with the latter stationed atop the elevator the rebels had chosen to attack. With only a few security guards for backup, he set up a defensive perimeter and attempted to manually disconnect the freighters attached to the orbital station's skyhooks by himself. Though he was unsuccessful, Redford briefly considered destroying the facility himself to deny the rebels their prize, though he was unwilling to sacrifice his own life. When the rebels arrived the firefight that followed was bloody and brief; the security personnel could not stand up to the well-armed and armoured enemy forces and were quickly massacred, though they inflicted heavy losses that gave Redford time to set up anti-personnel mines in the hallways and manually seal several doors. As they gradually worked their way through the facility he was able to ambush and kill a number of foes, though Redford was forced to hide in a maintenance tunnel when they finally breached his defences and began to load stolen weapons and supplies aboard one of the freighters. It was around this time that a exited Slipspace near Sargasso, taking down two incoming Police Pelicans with a volley of missiles before docking with the orbital station. From his hidden position, Redford watched as an unusual man entered the station and began giving orders to the surviving Insurrectionists. As they finished loading supplies onto their freighter, a large group of heavily-armed SWAT officers arrived and engaged the rebels. 
The rebel leader fought alongside his comrades with uncommon skill and speed for a mere Insurrectionist, killing nine of the officers himself before the rest were finished off. By this point the UNSC had been notified of the terrorist attack and had deployed a Frigate to the system in hopes of destroying the rebel ships if they tried to escape; firing directly on the orbital station carried the risk of badly damaging the orbital elevator itself. A single Pelican was able to land atop the station and from the outside, David Kahn managed to blow open two of the airlocks and a window with timed explosives, catching the rebels off-guard and allowing him to slip in unnoticed. Redford was contacted by his partner, who had driven most of the rebels away from the freighter they intended to steal and towards the Condor. Exiting the maintenance tunnels, he ambushed several of the group and joined Kahn in fighting the rest as they retreated. The rebel leader was able to keep both of them at bay for some time; even their considerable combat skills left them unable to kill him after a prolonged firefight. With the arrival of UNSC troops in the area, the Condor managed to escape the orbital station and jumped into Slipspace before the Frigate could intercept it.
Though there was a great deal of damage and a number of casualties among the local law enforcement, Redford and Khan's actions had saved thousands of lives and prevented irreparable damage to Sargasso's orbital elevators. Furthermore, a number of rebels had been apprehended by police before they could bomb the other sites, leaving a number of suspects for ONI to interrogate later. The rebel leader's presence had prevented a total victory as a few had got away, but Operation: STARFALL was considered a successful mission by BRUTUS' standards. Though he had been initially unsure about Kahn due to having not worked with him prior to this mission, Redford departed on good terms with his fellow agent to take his report back to the organisation's HQ on .
===Covenant Raid===
Redford first saw action against Covenant forces in in 2538, when the ship he was on, the UNSC Apples and Pears was hit in a surprise attack and boarded by a Covenant strike force. While the crew were butchered, the ONI agent escaped into the ship's service ducts, evading Jackal patrols as he made his way towards the bridge. Once there, he found the bridge crew captured, the captain offering the location of Earth in exchange for his life. The ship's AI, which had been disconnected by Huragok from the core, was able to activate the bridge's emergency fire controls and douse the area with an extinguishing agent which acted as a smokescreen for Redford to quickly move in and assassinate the Sangheili Officer with his knife before reconnecting the AI. She promptly sealed the bridge and opened the airlocks, flushing the rest of the boarding party into space. Redford was able to quickly eliminate the Covenant forces on the bridge, his enhanced eyesight giving him the edge. After killing the last of the invaders, he executed the ship's captain with a captured plasma pistol for his cowardice. Redford led the few survivors to the escape pods, launching away from the ship as the FTL Drive was detonated, eliminating the Covenant ship in the process. The AI had remained behind to oversee the procedure. The ONI assassin was hailed as a hero by the survivors, who assumed that their captain had been killed by a stray plasma bolt. While Redford cared very little for the man he had killed, the willingness of the AI to sacrifice itself gave him a lifelong respect for the constructs.
===Inner Colony Work===
As the Outer Colonies fell, BRUTUS turned its attention towards keeping the remaining Inner Colonies in line as martial law fell over multiple worlds. Redford and numerous other agents spent a great deal of time suppressing dissident leaders and preventing large-scale uprisings among the rightfully disgruntled refugee population pouring into certain colonies. It was around this time that several members of the organisation abandoned BRUTUS for one reason or another, prompting a number of missions to eliminate or retrieve the AWOL agents. In 2540, he was sent to the world of Illios, where Agent Twenty - David Kahn - had cut ties with the group after a mission. Out of respect for his one-time partner, Redford opted to visit the man personally and discovered that he was attempting to live a 'normal' family life. While this would have usually made him contact a retrieval team for elimination, the agent discovered that Kahn had told his partner nothing of his past or even his real name. After some convincing, Agent Twenty decided to rejoin BRUTUS without incident, though Redford knew that this brief lapse in his duty had likely sullied his reputation with their superiors.
===Operation: RISING DRAGON===
In 2546, Redford was suddenly recalled from the field by Frederick King himself for a top-secret mission. After rendezvousing with a small contingent of other BRUTUS agents and a large security force on Luna, they were transferred to , a mostly unexplored and tactically unimportant colony world. Though he expected news of some massive rebel uprising there, Redford was surprised to discover that they were investigating news of an ancient alien ruin that had been occupied by a single terrorist cell one of their agents had infiltrated. Three days were spent excavating the site after evidence of a battle between the rebels and a number of unidentified machines were discovered, and Redford began to question why their presence was needed when ONI already possessed several dedicated xenoarchaeology divisions. King ignored his complaints, insisting that news of a powerful alien device that could change the outcome of the war had been reported to him. Dubbed 'RISING DRAGON', this operation would supposedly put unimaginably powerful technology in the hands of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
Disappointed to have been relegated to the role of King's bodyguard while their security forces scouted the subterranean structure, Redford was present when one of their men discovered that some of the alien technology responded to their touch, which would have been a momentous occasion were it not for King's call for reinforcements being met with news that the Covenant had launched an attack on Kroedis II. Worse still, several enemy ships were already en-route to their position, having judged the human presence in the ancient structure as an affront to their gods. King and Redford led a spirited defence alongside their security forces, funnelling Covenant troops into a killzone within the cramped tunnels, killing at least a dozen foes for each of their own. Even so, their numbers soon began to dwindle and Redford was forced to accept that he would go down fighting the Covenant alongside King. Before they were cornered, King was able to activate a piece of alien technology that unleashed dozens of that pushed back the Covenant long enough for them to stage a counter-attack. Redford, King and the surviving members of their expedition were able to fight their way towards the surface, encountering surprisingly little resistance the further up they went. They soon discovered the reason for this: a single SPARTAN-II supersoldier.
The Spartan, who had been sent by ONI's higher-ups to retrieve King's expedition, escorted them out of the structure and into a waiting ship, which they used to escape Kroedis II before Covenant reinforcements arrived. While he assumed at the Spartan was there solely to rescue them, Redford discovered upon their return to the Sol System that King had actually launched the operation without proper clearance, greatly angering his superiors. In the days that followed RISING DRAGON Redford was interviewed extensively by Section 0 agents on what he knew about the operation. Though he had little intention of selling King out despite his misgivings about the mission, he answered honestly and told his interrogators that all involved believed it to be an entirely legitimate operation that had the potential to change the outcome of the war. Shortly afterwards he received news that King would not be officially punished for his failures, though it became clear that his mentor would never see advancement either after that debacle. Redford met with King before his next assignment came in and thanked him for saving his life, though RISING DRAGON had opened his eyes to the full extent of the older agent's fanaticism when it came to achieving victory.
===Battle of Earth===
For the remainder of the Human-Covenant War, Redford continued to operate behind enemy lines, occasionally being assigned to eliminate Covenant targets, though these missions were few and far between. While he enjoyed his work, Redford became increasingly concerned with the wider war effort and privately wondered if BRUTUS would be more useful if deployed exclusively against the Covenant. He soon dismissed these notions, however, as Insurrectionist activity continued to flare up in the Inner Colonies, diverting the UNSC's dwindling resources away from the war effort. Following the Fall of Reach in August of 2552, Redford and most of his fellow BRUTUS agents were recalled to Earth by Frederick King himself, and stationed within ONI's PILLAR Base beneath Mount Everest to await further orders.
After King arrived, Redford and his comrades were informed of 'Operation: LIFEBOAT', a plan to evacuate thousands of important personnel from Earth to ensure humanity's survival if the planet were ever invaded and conquered. Though he saw LIFEBOAT as a necessary precaution, especially with the UNSC's last major military stronghold at Reach destroyed, Redford couldn't help but view the project as cowardly and elitist, especially when he discovered that those listed to board the colony ships were all ranking UEG members and military officers. Nonetheless, Redford assisted King in LIFEBOAT's preparations as a pair of aged colony ships were prepared for launch from a spaceport in South America. Before King could move plans for the operation forward, however, a Covenant fleet entered the Sol System, heralding the start of a protracted battle across Earth's surface after they broke through its orbital defences.
With most of the assigned evacuees cut off from the colony ships, Redford convinced King to allow refugees fleeing the Covenant invasion to board the colony ships, with local Army and Marine units diverted to protect the spaceport as the BRUTUS agents prepared for takeoff. Redford personally participated in the spaceport's defence, shepherding the civilians to safety as Covenant fighter craft bombarded the area. While escape was a priority, news soon arrived of a second Covenant fleet attacking the planet in force and overwhelming its already-beleaguered defence network. Ignoring Redford's protests, King ordered that both ships to hold their ground until the situation changed, fearing detection from the warships in high orbit.
Redford stood by King for several days, torn between wanting to abandon the civilians and escape and demanding that King take off. His superior eventually gave the order to launch when a CCS-class battlecruiser was detected heading for their position, hoping that the colony ship could outrun the enemy warship and escape the planet. While Redford's refugee-laden ship took off successfully, the spaceport was suddenly assaulted by multiple waves of Covenant bombers, which crippled the other vessels. Before their craft could make it very far it was struck by multiple plasma torpedoes, destroying its primary thrusters and sending the colony ship plummeting into the Pacific Ocean. Stuck beside King in a dire situation, with his fellow agents and civilian refugees scrambling for escape craft and airlocks, Redford realised for the second time that his superior had forced him into a nigh-inescapable situation once again.
Stuck in the middle of the ocean, Redford had all but accepted death at the hands of the incoming battlecruiser when the Covenant ship was suddenly blown apart from the inside, exploding into thousands of burning pieces above the Pacific. The survivors were then approached by a stolen dropship piloted by a trio of SPARTAN-III commandos, who had been on a mission to break through the Covenant's orbital blockade when the battlecruiser they boarded suddenly descended to Earth. While they signalled local UNSC forces for pickup. Redford left the area alongside King, the Spartans, and the remaining BRUTUS agents, travelling to HIGHCOM's Bravo-Six Facility in Australia. He would remain there for the remainder of the Human-Covenant War, assisting his fellow agents in coordinating intelligence operations across the besieged planet for the next few months.
===Deep Cover===
Following the war's end, Redford was assigned to Earth for several months as eighty new BRUTUS agents were selected and trained. Having been saved twice by Spartan intervention and having heard of the emerging SPARTAN-IV Program, he suggested that BRUTUS induct its own Spartan personnel to assist their infiltrators in the field, though this idea was shot down by King, who wished to keep the organisation the same as it had been for decades. After several more disagreements between the two, Redford decided to return to the field, weary of King's rigidity. Shortly before his departure, Redford took part in an experimental and highly unethical program alongside dozens of other agents to create 'Smart' AI programs from living donors. After flash-cloning Redford and the other subjects repeatedly, ONI's scientists extracted dozens of brains to undergo the complex neural mapping process that would transform their consciousness into an artificial intelligence. Though he cared little for the program, Redford would later discover that one of his cloned brains was cryogenically frozen and eventually developed into an AI named Armand.
With various rebel factions taking advantage of the war's end to re-establish themselves in the Inner Colonies, Redford was chosen to embark on a long-term assignment to infiltrate one of these groups. Unlike his previous missions, Redford was left with little support as a fake backstory was created and disseminated by ONI's Section Two, though unusually for an operation he chose to go by his real name. Inserting himself onto the troubled colony of Circumstance, which had undergone massive reconstruction and resettlement efforts after the Covenant's brutal attack in 2552, Redford found work as an illegal doctor for one of the planet's crime syndicates, though his time with the group was short-lived after they discovered his 'history' as a lone wolf terrorist suspected of a bombing on Mars and forced him out. By chance, Redford soon ran into a charismatic young Insurrectionist named Remi Marshall, who had been part of a rebel movement on Mamore until its destruction by the UNSC. The two got along well together, and it was long long before Marshall invited Redford into his own group of dissidents, operating out of a stolen freighter - the Dynasty. 
Quickly settling into the Dynasty's crew, Redford quickly became a prized member of Marshall's rebel cell, which primarily operated in the Inner Colonies and maintained links with a network of rebel groups across multiple worlds. Content to bide his time, Redford quietly encouraged Marshall to form tighter bonds with their allies to create an organised alliance, keeping to the sidelines as the cell leader slowly brought multiple groups together. By 2554 Redford's group had established a semi-permanent base on , and had established a promising arms deal with Rizhan Kama, a wealthy socialite with ties to a major shipping company. Seeing the imminent danger if his 'comrades' upgraded their arsenal, he leak intel on one of Kama's contacts, Johan Hennerman, to ONI. Shortly afterwards the SPARTAN-III Shrike Team were deployed to the planet, and in a series of raids totally dismantled Marshall's network there. Surprised at the team's speed and efficiency, Redford waited aboard the Dynasty while they attacked the cell's final safehouse, killing most of Marshall's allies while the leader escaped with a few trusted allies. Among these were Mike Goldberg, whom Redford saved with an emergency surgical procedure after he took a bullet to the spine, and Amanda Wade, a disillusioned ex-Marine and Marshall's newest recruit. With their operation in tatters, the group fled from Circumstance immediately, seeking out other cells to ally with.
Still considered one of Marshall's most trusted lieutenants, Redford accompanied him to a meeting on the Caucasus Station, a remote settlement hidden amidst an asteroid field. It was here that they first met with several major rebel leaders, including Mal Roberts, Jonathan Ulan, and John Verensky, who to Redford's surprise revealed himself as a double agent working within ONI. Verensky quickly took control of the group, strongarming the assembled rebels into following his lead with a pair of Sangheili mercenaries before the arrival of his own employer, the semi-mythic terrorist and saboteur known as Magnus. Redford remained calm even as the situation deteriorated during the meeting, which culminated in Magnus violently killing one of Ulan's men and forcing a surrender from the other leaders. Shaken by this turn of events, Redford intended to report his situation back to BRUTUS, though he found himself cut off from command so far from the colonies.
Seeing his time with Marshall's crew drawing to a close, Redford remained in a support role as the group launched several risky operations, including an all-out assault on Fenwell Prison, a penitentiary run by the UNSC. While he considered betraying the cell then and there, he chose to hold back as they freed Remi's sister, Isabelle, and Carlos Driscol, a former ODST who had defected to the URF during the Human-Covenant War. With their numbers bolstered and their morale at an all-time high, the Insurrectionist alliance was contacted again by Magnus and Verensky with orders for their most dangerous operation yet: a two-pronged attack on Earth itself. 
Desperate to contact command but still unable to get in contact with the UNSC through normal channels, Redford decided to strike during the rebel operation, which would involve simultaneous assaults on ONI's PILLAR Base in Nepal and the UNSC's headquarters in the URNA, which would be holding a conference between several high-ranking UEG officials and members of the Swords of Sanghelios. Assigned to the second mission, which would be dropping in to New York, Redford held back as they arrived on the scene disguised as UNSC Marines and charged into the building. The moment his allies were vulnerable he opened fire, slaughtering his squad in seconds before racing off to intercept the other strike teams. While a group of Spartans on the scene had intercepted most of the rebels, killing Jonathan Ulan, several soldiers belonging to the now-rogue HAYABUSA unit came close to killing off several dignitaries before the BRUTUS agent arrived. Acting quickly, Redford fought HAYABUSA leader Ruben Lykos in a brief but furious melee before the enhanced soldier overwhelmed and stabbed him through the gut with a pair of concealed blades. Badly-wounded, Redford was able to snatch up a pistol and shoot Lykos in the head before losing consciousness. 
Redford awoke in a private hospital the next day, where he discovered that the rebel attack on New York had been a total failure. Unfortunately, the insurrectionists had been successful in their assault on PILLAR Base due to Verensky's credentials, and had successfully made off with the single most destructive weapon in the UNSC's arsenal: a . Despite Redford's success, this was a tremendous embarrassment to the UNSC, whose Home Fleet was forced to stand down for fear of Verensky detonating the device in Earth's orbit. As soon as he was able to walk Redford met with Frederick King, who commended him for his efforts, and Captain Ryan Samson, commander of ONI's Shrike Team. Redford relayed everything he knew about Marshall, Verensky, Magnus, and every location they had ever used as a safehouse in the past few years. 
Unable to assist while he recuperated from his injuries, Redford remained on Earth as news of a series of high-profile terrorist attacks travelled back to Earth, culminating in a shocking gas attack against civilians on Circumstance. Wishing that he had eliminated Verensky when he had the chance, Redford requested that he join the task force being put together to track down and eliminate the groups responsible for the NOVA bomb's theft, which was quickly granted. Standing by as their fleet assaulted the Caucasus Station, Redford received news of Remi Marshall's demise, along with the deaths of almost all the other major rebel leaders. While he would have liked to kill Marshall himself, Redford was pleased with the outcome regardless, and soon learned the location of Verensky's base: a compound on the remote colony of New Albion.
While the UNSC intended to strike at Verensky and end his operation in a single blow, Redford took this chance to scout ahead and was deployed via to the planet mere hours ahead of the invasion, hoping to use his position within the Insurrectionist alliance to secure a meeting with Verensky. Things would not go to plan, however, as the UNSC attacked the compound early, prompting Redford to use the attack as a distraction while he scaled the compound walls and broke into Verensky's headquarters. Inside, he was surprised to run into Amanda Wade, one of the last living members of Remi Marshall's rebel cell, in the base's command room. Having regarded Wade as a politically clueless firebrand who blindly followed Marshall's commands, Redford severely underestimated Wade, who seemingly believed his story that he had escaped the attack on Earth and gone into hiding after. Letting his guard down for just in instant while he conversed with Wade, Redford was suddenly attacked by the rebel, who disarmed him and tied his hand to a holotable with an industrial cable tie. Instead of killing the exposed agent, Wade instead planted charges around the control room, set them on a timer, and left Redford there with nothing but a combat knife. 
Utterly humiliated and trapped in a dire situation, Redford let out a torrent of anger towards Wade, who left to hunt down Verensky. Unable to free himself after several minutes, he was forced at last to sever his left hand with the knife, which proved to be the most excruciatingly painful experience of his life. With barely a minute to spare following his horrific ordeal, the badly wounded Redford fled Verensky's base, his composure broken as he desperately sought out medical help. Escaping into the compound shortly before the building came crashing down in a fiery explosion, he was able to scavenge medical supplies from a nearby corpse and surrendered himself into the custody of a group of ODST's sweeping the area. After identifying himself as an ONI asset, Redford was swiftly taken offworld for proper medical attention. Stuck in the infirmary once again, Redford soon learned of the NOVA bomb's recovery and Verensky's death, though after a thorough search Amanda Wade's corpse was not identified among the dead. With the Dynasty sighted leaving the system shortly after, Redford realised that Wade had survived the battle, and swore that he would capture her to pay her back in kind for his forced mutilation.
Despite his lacklustre performance during the NOVA incident, Redford was privately hailed as one of those most responsible for bringing down Verensky's rebel network alongside Shrike Team, who had lost most of their members during the operation. He received a robotic prosthetic replacement for his missing hand and was granted an extended period of leave, though he declined this and immediately returned to the field, intent on restoring what he saw as his damaged reputation. Before long Redford had already infiltrated and destroyed a small rebel faction on Mars in just a few months, after which he was given a proposition for a new kind of operation; one with a Spartan partner.
===Partners===
Redford was soon assigned to Helios Station, a UNSC facility over Mars. It was there that he first met with Layla-B101, a SPARTAN-III commando who to his surprise had recently been temporarily reassigned from Fireteam Thor to assist him on missions. While he greatly respected Spartans for their unparalleled skill in battle and for having saved his life in the past, Redford was disappointed by Layla's flippant attitude and lack of respect towards him, and even considered requesting another partner. He would quickly reconsider this after being given his first operation: a search and destroy mission on . Unlike most of his missions, which involved acting as a double agent, ONI had tasked Redford with infiltrating and destroying the headquarters of a weapon-smuggling operation, with Layla acting as his backup. Unwilling to admit his misgivings about the mission for fear of ruining his reputation, Redford accepted and was quietly deployed to the planet from a Prowler.
Outfitted with several weapons and infiltration gear, Redford intended to quietly approach the compound and evaluate the smugglers' numbers before exploiting the first weakness in their defences and moving in from there. While a sound plan, Layla disagreed with Redford's strategy, which involved keeping her in reserve unless needed, and wanted to launch a frontal assault while the BRUTUS agent stayed out of her way. This argument carried on for some time until Redford came to a compromise, with Layla striking the smugglers from a vantage point at the first opportunity while he slipped into their compound. Eager to show up Layla, Redford quickly slipped past the meagre security measures their foes had put in place and cut through a damaged wire fence before making his way into a nearby warehouse. Inside he found dozens of crates of Covenant weaponry and ordinance, all of which he intended to destroy. Redford quickly went to work, killing several guards as he cleared out most of the building. By sheer bad luck, however, a fourth guard spotted him as he was setting up a C-12 charge. The alarm was quickly raised, and Redford was forced on the defensive as the smugglers sent a platoon's worth of men to kill him.
It was here that Layla intervened, smashing through the roof just as the smugglers were moving in to overwhelm Redford. The Spartan put her considerable skills to work, slaughtering the surprised men while Redford retreated to a more advantageous position. Watching from a distance, Redford found himself impressed by Layla but quickly realised that her recklessness was jeopardising the mission as she tore the warehouse apart, even using some of the smuggled Covenant weaponry against the smugglers. Redford soon rejoined the action, killing several retreating smugglers as they fled towards a nearby shuttle. Those who did escape did not make it far, as Layla used a stolen Fuel Rod gun to blow the ship out of the sky as it rose into the air. With the warehouses around them now ablaze, Redford and Layla quickly fled the area before the energy coils and fuel in one of the warehouses exploded, consuming most of the compound in a fiery explosion.
The pair made it to their extraction ship safely, only to bicker about the mission's success as Redford blamed Layla for destroying any potential intelligence while Layla criticised him for being spotted in the first place. Eventually the two calmed down, agreeing that despite everything they had successfully completed their mission. In spite of his initial disdain for Layla and insistence that she was 'excessively destructive' in his after-mission report, Redford was soon paired with the Spartan on a long-term basis, and eventually began to warm up to her in spite of her impulsive outbursts. With no living family, Redford began to see Layla as a daughter figure, something that the troubled supersoldier reciprocated, though neither would ever publicly admit it. 
In March of 2556, Redford and Layla were deployed to , a colony with a long history of civil unrest. With rumours spreading of a large-scale arms deal being carried out between insurrectionist groups and other underworld power players, the duo worked alongside numerous other ONI agents to gather information in the capital city of . After two weeks of quiet surveillance ONI's forces were ready to launch their raid, only for Redford's surveillance vehicle to be ambushed by a number of rebel gunmen. Losing several agents in the ensuing firefight, Redford fought back and was saved by Layla, who made short work of their attackers. The city was soon engulfed in a chaotic series of high-profile attacks, including brutal attacks on several police stations. Stuck in Noctus until reinforcements could arrive, Redford and Layla worked to hunt down those responsible, and found two key perpetrators: Adam Makosky, an elderly United Rebel Front leader, and Carlos Driscol, a former ODST-turned vicious crime lord of a group known as the Minutemen. While Redford initially feared that the pair would move against him and Layla, he soon discovered that Driscol and Makosky's forces were actually fighting each other, with several other underworld groups on their payroll.
In their search for the rebel leaders Redford managed to piece together CCTV footage from the destroyed police stations, whose computer systems had been partly wiped by a virus moments before they were attacked. From the evidence he could piece together and ONI's own advanced recognition technology, Redford identified the sole perpetrator of these attacks as one Ash Mitchell, another ex-ODST who had risen to infamy in the public eye as the 'Butcher of Kuiper' following a bloody massacre on Circumstance earlier that year. Discovering that Mitchell - an old comrade of Driscol's - had made contact with the crime syndicate, Redford and Layla moved fast to eliminate the dangerous group. By this time reinforcements had arrived on Andesia, with an entire special forces platoon and a number of ONI agents backing the pair up as they moved in to take down the dangerous crime syndicate. While he requested that Layla move in first, the Spartan was uncharacteristically reluctant to engage and insisted that others initiate the assault, with the Spartan on standby to cut off any escapees. With little time to waste the assault went forward, and though the Minutemen were swiftly captured or killed in the ensuing firefight both Driscol and Mitchell escaped, with the former destroying his own warehouse bases to throw off any pursuers. 
With their operation on Andesia coming to a close Redford and Layla were transported offworld to a waiting prowler, where Redford met with fellow BRUTUS agent and longtime rival Kyle White. While they had been shutting down the Minutemen, White had personally infiltrated the disguised cargo ship utilised by Makosky's branch of the United Rebel Front and personally killed the rebel leader, leading to the capture of his remaining men. Ignoring White's bragging despite being privately impressed at the man's abilities, Redford immediately began to look into Layla's history, having been granted permission to look over most of her classified mission files. To his shock he discovered that she had been a prisoner of war - a very rare thing during the Human-Covenant War - for several years before escaping back to human space, where she was rescued by a group of ODST's led by then-Gunnery Sergeant Ash Mitchell, who had filed a report on Layla's discovery. Realising that Layla likely felt indebted to Mitchell despite his vile actions, Redford chose not to continue his pursuit of Mitchell, worried that his Spartan partner would not work to kill the man who saved her life. Leaving Mitchell's pursuit to White, Redford returned to Earth to await his next operation.
Redford would continue to work with Layla until September of 2556, and conducted his final operation with her on to wipe out a remote insurrectionist base. As the pair departed he was contacted by Frederick King, who he had not spoken to in several years. King requested his presence, and the pair were taken to the , one of ONI's most classified vessels. There Redford encountered Kyle White, who joined them in a private meeting with King in the infamous conference room. There they were briefed on a sighting of Anatoly Kustentov, better known as Agent Forty-Two before his desertion seven years prior. Hunting down traitors had always been the job of other BRUTUS agents, and while Redford initially suspected that he and Layla would be sent after Kustentov, King informed him that he would be teaming up with White for this operation. While he disliked White, he did not protest as both men had a history with Kustentov and their skills would be needed to track him down.
===Hunting Traitors===
Before the meeting ended, King then showed Redford several images, including a recent one of his old ship, the Dynasty, and satellite footage from Emerald Cove, depicting a growing independent settlement on the abandoned colony's surface. It was then revealed that Redford's nemesis Amanda Wade had set up her own colony, which was quickly attracting the attention of various independent trading outfits, smugglers, and eventually, ONI. Though he all but begged for a chance to infiltrate the colony, Redford's request was denied by King, citing his familiarity with Wade and several of its prominent leaders. However, he was informed that a plan was being put into motion to take action against Wade's settlement, though it would have to wait until Kustentov was captured. Before he left the Point of No Return Redford encountered Layla once more, and found that she was being kept aboard for a new assignment. The two parted on good terms, aware that it could very well be the last time they saw each other given their line of work. 
Moving quickly using the intelligence sent from King, Redford and White travelled to the city of on , an Outer Colony. Having gone to ground there as an information broker, Kustentov's BRUTUS training had made him a paranoid man, but White had spent months on Cascade earlier that year in search of a terrorist cell and the pair were quickly able to pinpoint his location in a fortified tower block in one of the city's most impoverished areas. As they drew close, however, the agents realised that the building was under attack by a group of armed assailants. Fearing that a local gang or even rebel operatives were after Kustentov as well, Redford and White moved in quickly and soon deduced the location of the man's safe room. Using a shaped demolition charge the pair blew through a wall and were able to sneak up on Kustentov, who was fleeing his other assailants and was too busy taunting them from behind an energy barrier to notice the pair of BRUTUS agents until it was too late. Redford and White quickly incapacitated Kustentov with a stun baton and affixed a around his neck, completely immobilising their quarry. Before they departed, Redford got a good look at Kustentov's other pursuers and found himself face-to-face with none other than Amanda Wade. Suppressing his desire to murder Wade, Redford instead mocked her from behind the energy shield before leaving, taking solace in the fact that Frederick King had plans for the destruction of her settlement in an operation dubbed 'GLASS HOUSE'.
Kustentov was soon transported offworld by Redford and White, who returned him to Earth for interrogation. The two BRUTUS agents stood guard while King interrogated the renegade agent personally, and after leaving discussed the possibility of who would become King's successor for the first time. While he had never cared much for ranks or titles, Redford did have to take King's advanced age into account and privately disliked the notion of someone like White one day leading BRUTUS. The pair were soon ordered to take Kustentov away to be debriefed, and were told shortly afterwards that Kustentov had revealed the location of a rebel base in the polar regions of , which was currently being used as a base by the elusive figure known as Magnus. A sizeable strike force was quickly assembled to assault the base, with Redford and White attached to act as overseers and confirm the kill on Magnus and any other targets if possible. Having seen the brutality of Magnus - who he was certain was a rogue Spartan after working with Layla - firsthand, Redford was not eager to engage the mysterious terrorist personally, but gladly helped lead the operation. 
Redford's strike force arrived on Sargasso shortly after, using Kustentov as bait to draw Magnus out for a meeting atop the remote base's landing pads. Landing in a disguised freighter with a group of ONI operatives, Redford and White were preparing to launch their assault and eliminate Magnus when another ship swooped in overhead: the Dynasty. Finally realising that Wade had been after Kustentov for his connections to Magnus, Redford launched his attack, requesting support from the battlegroup standing by in orbit. All hell broke loose on the landing pad as the Dynasty deployed two stolen mechs alongside a platoon's worth of fighters and a Jiralhanae mercenary, quickly turning the fight on the landing pads into a bloodbath. Using the confusion of the battle between Wade's forces, NCA soldiers and his own operatives to his advantage, Redford quietly slipped into the base alongside White, following the signs of battle before accessing a security room that gave them access to the base's security cameras. There he spotted Wade moving alone into the base's lower levels, and despite their orders to bring down Magnus he chose to pursue her instead, descending via an elevator shaft to avoid the firefights raging all around them.
Despite their best efforts to avoid combat, Redford, White and several other operatives were ambushed shortly after emerging from the elevator shaft. In the ensuing gunfight most of Redford's men were killed and White horribly wounded by a shotgun blast. Joining the fray, Redford killed several of their attackers before facing off against a familiar man in battered ODST gear: Ash Mitchell. While his foe was better-armed and armoured than him Redford was able to fend off the feared mercenary with a pair of grenades before moving in for the kill on the injured man. Protected by his armour, Mitchell nearly killed Redford after playing dead and the two engaged in close-quarters combat for a time. Fighting with knives and fists, the two inflicted several injuries on each other, though the fight was ultimately inconclusive as the ceiling above collapsed from an explosion, nearly burying them under the rubble. Hurt but still alive, Redford managed to escape the room and encountered a dying White. The two conversed briefly, with a delirious White rambling about his past missions and plans for the future of BRUTUS before Redford finished him off with a gunshot to the head. Having rid himself of his greatest rival within BRUTUS, Redford left the half-collapsed base and extracted an incapacitated Kustentov as their reinforcements moved in to secure the area. Amanda Wade and the Dynasty had escaped him again, though Redford knew that by the time they reached Emerald Cove they would have no home to return to.
Leaving ONI cleanup crews to deal with corpse retrieval and exploration of the NCA bunker on Sargasso, Redford had Kustentov sent back to Earth, where he would be discreetly disposed of and blamed for the recent assassination of Iris Touré, a rising political agitator. Redford arrived in the less than a day later, where a BRUTUS-led strike force had launched a devastating attack on Avalon, an independent refuge for former criminals and terrorists founded by Amanda Wade. While the attack, overseen by Frederick King himself, had been successful, Redford was annoyed to discover that Wade had somehow escaped yet again aboard the Dynasty. However, several key figures in the colony had been taken prisoner by King's strike force, including the notorious rogue Jiralhanae Chieftain Saernus, Mike Goldberg, whose life Redford had saved while undercover, and curiously, an elderly ex-Marine named Marion Hollister. 
After compiling dossiers on the prisoners taken in the raid, Redford personally delivered them to King aboard the UNSC Iberia in Emerald Cove's orbit. To his surprise, King then immediately departed to the surface in his personal shuttlecraft, landing just outside the makeshift prison camp constructed outside Avalon's ruins. Left as the ranking ONI officer aboard the ship, Redford received a message to return to Earth from the head of ONI, though King did not respond to his initial hails. Left wondering what his superior was doing, Redford received no news until an emergency hail from King's shuttlecraft reached the ship. Moments later, the shuttle broke apart in a fiery explosion and crashed into one of the planet's oceans. Utterly shocked, Redford ordered that a retrieval team be dispatched immediately, and had rescue crews at the crash site within twenty minutes of the disaster. Miraculously, several people on board survived, though they were all in terrible condition. Among those was Frederick King, who sustained severe injuries and lost his right leg in the crash. Medical teams aboard the Iberia worked around the clock at Redford's behest, reviving King twice on the operating table before he fell into a coma.
Not long after King's condition was deemed stable, the ship was contacted directly by Admiral Serin Osman, Commander in Chief of the Office of Naval Intelligence. Having somehow heard about the destruction of King's shuttlecraft already, Osman had Redford provide a full report of the situation and his commanding officer's status before turning the conversation towards his own position within ONI. With Frederick King comatose for the foreseeable future, Osman promoted Redford to the rank of Captain and declared him the new head of BRUTUS, citing his years of service and status as one of King's most likely successors. Redford accepted this promotion gracefully, and after having King transferred to a secure medical facility on requested status reports from all active BRUTUS agents, making it clear that there had been a change in leadership.
===Leadership===
Redford settled into his new role quickly, thanks in part to the procedures King had already set in place for a potential successor. As a gift of sorts for his promotion, Redford was assigned the Smart AI Armand as his personal assistant. While initially wary of working with an AI that had been made from his own cloned brain, Redford got on very well with Armand, though neither ever spoke of their personal connection. With full access to the current roster of active BRUTUS agents, Redford would conduct an extensive review of each operative, seeking to weed out any he felt were not performing their duties adequately. After finding few issues with his subordinates, Redford then went over his predecessor's personal files, uncovering numerous documents outlining proposed operations and a great deal of blackmail material on high-ranking UNSC and UEG officials. Taking King's old files for his own, Redford also gained access to a private storage facility on Earth operated by BRUTUS, where non-digital copies of said materials were stored, along with several objects that King had clearly valued. Among them, to Redford's surprise, were a series of hand-written journals kept by his father, Harold Redford, which according to data logs had been seized shortly after the man's death in 2526.
While he correctly surmised that his father's journals contained details on classified military operations, Redford soon discovered a number of entries dating as far back as 2507 detailing Harold's encounters with Frederick King after the dissolution of the ORION Project. King had attempted to recruit Harold into BRUTUS more than once and even recruited him for an undercover operation in 2513, but once it became clear that Harold had no intention of working for ONI again King's efforts had shifted to a young Alexander. Harold's entries detailed the deterioration of his relationship with King in the 2510s following his attempt to push his son into military service, culminating in him cutting off all contact with King in 2517. Realising at last that his meeting with King after his father's death was no coincidence and that the older agent had been attempting to groom him for a role within ONI for years, Redford was overcome with a sense of deep betrayal from his former mentor. Having been manipulated for decades by King, Redford briefly considered having the man killed, but decided against such a risky operation and chose to leave King sleeping. Redford soon came to terms with these new revelations, having had few regrets about his life as a government-sanctioned assassin beforehand. Unsure of how secure his position would be if King ever woke up, Redford went to work building up his powerbase for what he saw as an inevitable confrontation. 
In early 2557, three major opportunities arose for Redford. First was the discovery of a hidden city on the glassed colony world of known as 'Ciudad de Huesos'. Led by notorious insurrectionist Carlos Driscol, it presented a target of great opportunity for BRUTUS, whose inner circle had recently been infiltrated by agent Gordon Mills. Seeking to have the settlement of pirates, smugglers and rebels purged, Redford sent word of an imminent threat from the planet to his superiors, who soon made plans to conduct a military operation on the planet. This gave Redford cover to enact a second operation - a discreet mission into Madrigal's glasslands. Having discovered the location of a hidden CMA-era bunker from his father's journals detailing Operation: MASQUERADE in 2513, Redford had reason to believe that a stockpile of nuclear weapons had been hidden there, and recruited the ex-mercenary and MASQUERADE participant Abd-al-Qadir ibn Asad to lead the mission. While he initially intended to partner Asad with a BRUTUS agent, a bloody pirate attack in early March left Redford with another recruit: Bess Rivers, a . Rivers' crew had been killed by Amanda Wade and Ash Mitchell in a raid on an allied crew whose leader held the coordinates of Ciudad de Huesos, giving Redford a notion on where the notorious outlaws were heading next and a vengeful Bess to join the operation. While Ciudad de Huesos and the nuclear weapons were both targets of opportunity, Redford considered the capture or death of Amanda Wade to be his primary objective for this operation.
As preparations for the mission to Madrigal were made, Redford had conferred with Admiral Serin Osman, who agreed to have the Navy dispatch one warship, the UNSC Agrippa, to investigate signs of rebel activity on the glassed planet. While Osman approved of the operation and agreed with his assessment that a rebel city under the likes of Driscol had to be pacified, Redford then quietly made contact with Winston Zhou, a young but brutally effective mercenary who had carried out jobs for BRUTUS before. After transferring a sizeable amount of money to Zhou, he had the man transferred aboard the Agrippa at the last moment under a false name and ordered him to sabotage the destroyer by any means necessary, framing it as a rebel attack and forcing the UNSC to launch a more direct assault while Asad's mission went ahead. With all his pieces in play, Redford contacted Admiral Lin Zhi of the patrolling Sixth Fleet and requested that her ships move to the 23 Librae System, citing potential rebel and Covenant activity to appeal to the hawkish officer's desire for action. Zhi agreed without question, and gave Redford quarters aboard her flagship, the Caspian, in preparation for the mission. As an 'insurance policy' were Asad's operation to fail, Redford finally had the Spartans of Fireteam Thor transferred to the Caspian, enjoying a brief reunion with his old partner Layla-B101 prior to the mission.
By the time the Caspian arrived with Redford aboard, the Agrippa had been destroyed by a mixture of internal sabotage by Zhou and ground fire from a network of anti-ship cannons dotted around Ciudad de Huesos. Based on an encoded message from Gordon Mills, only a handful of Orbital Drop Shock Troopers had survived the warship's destruction and upon reaching the city had incited many of its citizens into open rebellion against Driscol's dictatorial rule. With reports of Driscol's forces closing in on the cache of nuclear weapons and battling with Wade's crew and the surviving troopers, Redford had Asad and Rivers pull back while the Spartans were deployed to the battlefield. In the ensuing chaos, Redford received word that the Dynasty had been shot down by Driscol's forces and that Driscol himself had been shot dead. Fireteam Thor recovered the remaining nuclear devices from the CMA bunker, though before the Sixth Fleet could properly blockade the planet Driscol's personal ship, Quisling, managed to slip past them and jump into slipspace with Amanda Wade and Ash Mitchell aboard. Despite claims by Layla that she had mortally wounded Wade, the lack of a body did little to give Redford closure on that matter.
In the aftermath of the incident, Redford met with many of his operatives, freeing a captive Winston Zhou from Gordon Mills and officially recommending a surviving ODST, Anna Volkov, for the SPARTAN-IV Program. Bess Rivers and another ODST, Bill Cross, were then recruited by Redford as support agents and assigned to Project SAFEGUARD, a deep space facility that Redford had began construction of upon his ascension to head of BRUTUS. While the mission to Madrigal had not gone quite as well as Redford had planned, Ciudad de Huesos was soon occupied by Marine Corps personnel and most of Driscol's surviving lieutenants captured or killed in subsequent skirmishes. As his deliberate sabotage of the Agrippa was never discovered, Redford was praised for his involvement in what was considered a large-scale counter-terrorism operation by his superiors. Shortly after the mission's end, Redford was informed that one of the nuclear weapons from the bunker was still unaccounted for, and after some investigation concluded that Wade and Mitchell had fled Madrigal with the device. Fireteam Thor was immediately dispatched to pursue leads on the missing nuke, though once again Redford found himself haunted by Wade's survival.
Later that year, Redford received news that Gordon Mills had been misappropriating funds and underperforming during a mission on Jastolo. Seeing the steep decline in BRUTUS Agent 160's performance and mental health, Redford chose to retire Mills by bringing in Winston Zhou to eliminate him. Zhou, who despised Mills and had been living under organisation's protection following his fall from grace in the criminal underworld, quickly tracked down and killed the agent. Having been watching the assassin's progress, Redford met with Zhou immediately after the job was complete and informed him that he would be taking on Mills' identity and position within BRUTUS, reporting only to him. Having secured Zhou's loyalty - something his predecessor had failed to do on several occasions - Redford continued to build his powerbase within ONI, securing assets and personnel for Project SAFEGUARD all the while. In early 2558, Redford personally oversaw the arrest and imprisonment of , a journalist contracted with Section Two who intended to reveal classified military secrets live on air. Intent on punishing Giraud harshly, he ensured that he was sent to , ONI's most secure detention facility.
In May of 2558, BRUTUS and Redford would come under intense scrutiny when one of his most promising agents, Jill Urbach, and her Spartan partner Violet-B039 were implicated in a massacre on a UNSC Marine Corps outpost on Erdenet. Shortly after, news came in that two ONI retrieval units had been killed in a seemingly unsanctioned mission to capture the pair. Attending a top-secret meeting with Admiral , Captain , Commander Abbas Cuaron and Commander Elena-071, Redford discovered that the retrieval teams had received fake orders that had led to the firefight, each believing the other to be hostile insurrectionists. It soon became clear that someone, either within or outside of ONI, had attained high-level access and was using it to send fake orders and manipulate various agents. Believing that Urbach and Violet had been framed to discredit BRUTUS, Redford began committing resources to track down the true perpetrators, working with Elena while she dispatched Sigma Team to investigate.
Following a week of investigation, Redford was pleased to discover that his agents were not only innocent, but instrumental in dismantling a conspiracy by the rogue Red Cell unit to stage a coup within the Office of Naval Intelligence. In the aftermath of the incident, he met with Urbach and Violet, and after congratulating them on a successful mission chose to send the pair directly after two of his most hated foes: Ash Mitchell and Amanda Wade. Ordering Urbach to bring them in alive, Redford eagerly awaited the day where he could have his revenge against the terrorists who had bested him in the past.
==Skills and Abilities==
As Redford's job usually entailed infiltration and surprise attack, he was often forced to rely on little to no equipment in the field, making the best of whatever he could find. As such, he became extremely proficient in close combat, his hand-to-hand skills backed up by the inventive use of everyday objects in a fight making him a formidable opponent. Redford's textbook knowledge of the human anatomy, garnered from his years as a surgeon, gave him knowledge of what parts to strike at and how to disable a person as quickly as possible. This would also come in handy during extended interrogation sessions against captured agents, though he preferred to extract information verbally rather than physically and saw torture as a weapon of last resort.
Redford received extensive training in most forms of weaponry from ONI, and was a skilled marksman. His time on the frontier among rebel groups gave him the opportunity to use many outdated and unorthodox weapons, including a wide array of Covenant ordinance stolen or scavenged from battlefields. Despite this, Redford disliked using guns unless necessary and preferred either staging accidents or using knives to take care of targets when disposing of former rebel allies.
As a Spartan 1.1, Redford had been subject to numerous augmentations at infancy. Though they were not as advanced as the ones his father had received, it gave him something of an edge against others from a young age, being both highly intelligent and having enhanced speed and reflexes. While these skills played a small part in his pre-ONI career, he would make full use of his abilities as an agent, being able to take the advantage against foes. Redford's seemingly weak and unassuming appearance led to him being underestimated on many occasions, which would be the last mistake that many made.
==Personality==
Taught from a young age to be respectful and courteous at all times, Redford was an unfailingly polite individual whose façade of kindness endeared him to many others, especially his targets. He worked hard to maintain an image of professionalism at all times, never behaving in an informal manner even to the rare few he was close to. This would prove invaluable to Redford as a BRUTUS infiltrator, allowing him to gain the trust of even hardened and cautious rebel fighters by displaying genuine enthusiasm for their cause and the willingness to do whatever it took to succeed, leading to his success in repeatedly joining rebel cells over several decades of work. During this time he was never once tempted by Insurectionist propaganda, regarding those who fought against the UNSC as violent upstarts with illegitimate causes. Redford's loyalty towards BRUTUS and the UNSC was so unshakeable that he was even called upon to hunt down deserters and traitors within the organisation on more than one occasion, and was a deciding factor in his eventual rise to leadership within the organisation.
Behind his polite and refined exterior, Alexander Redford was a cold and calculating killer who genuinely enjoyed his work as an assassin for BRUTUS. He held his foes and even many of his peers in very low regard, and would often goad and annoy his allies behind a veil of niceties for his own amusement. Redford also took great offense to any anything that could damage his public reputation or ego, and possessed a vindictive streak that ensured he had few living enemies. When truly outmatched and cornered his calm and collected appearance would dissolve, revealing an aggressive and brutal side of the ONI agent that he rarely displayed. Following the loss of his hand on New Albion after being tricked by Amanda Wade, Redford developed a personal vendetta against the young rebel, and would eventually devote a sizeable amount of the agency's time and resources to bringing her in alive.
==List of Appearances==
*Halo: In the Dark (2517)
*The Visit (2540)
*Halo: Shrike (2554-55)
*Cleaning (2555)
*Awakening Demons (2556)
*Halo: Sanctuary (2556)
*Reunion (2556)
*Halo: Salvation (2557)
*The Death of Winston Zhou (2557)
*Schadenfreude (2558)
*Halo: Oversight (2558)
*Halo: SIGMA (2558)
Category:Sigmaverse Characters
Category:Sigmaverse
Category:Spartan 1.1
Category:Sigmaverse HCW
Category:Sigmaverse PW