Shadow Company

Chapter 1: Selling A Deal

The Year is 2540. The vastly superior Covenant Fleet is ravishing the UNSC's Fleets and destroying planet after planet. Now, with no end in sight and no hope for a naval victory, the UNSC Naval Division Secretly Funds a Spartan Program, less then nine years after the Spartan III Alpha Company was created and three after Beta Company. Their goal? Destroy the Covenant one ship at a time.

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN HALO

"Gentlemen" H.T. Ward said as he stood before the men, and woman, of the UNSC Naval Board. "We have a problem" he stated. "Every battle we fight with the covenant, we suffer huge, no...massive casualties in space. Three to one, four to one, and for heaven's sake, ten to one?" he sighed. "We need to turn these odds around and win both battles. The ground and space" he said.

"And how" Full Admiral William Beck said crossing his hands together in front of him. "Do you propose we do this?" he asked.

Ward smiled. "Have you heard of Spartans?" he asked.

William, and most of the others in the room, sighed, shook their heads, cursed, or some other thing, and maybe did a combination of those things, at that. "You want to have us fund a Spartan program?" he asked, shocked. It was true that they didn't know everything about the Spartan program, but he, at least, knew that their funding would be huge. "Why not just ask ONI?" he said, spitting the name.

Ward looked as if he had been slapped. "Sir" he said. "I, though you may or may not look down upon me for this, do not care whether or not our ground side counter parts live or die, only that we win the war. If I went to ONI with this, they would just either reject it, or take it over as their own..." he said matter of factly. "No, I want to see our space combat won, and I propose we do that, with this..." he hit a button and the slide before them changed to that of a mug shot of a boy looking to be about seventeen, maybe a bit less.

"What...is this?" Rear Admiral Jackson Long asked.

"This, is the new face of warfare" Ward said. The display then changed to show the teen in a full body, rotating, picture with text next to it. " His name is Blake Lee, a descendant of the famous American General Robert E. Lee, he has a five year stay at Rock Edge Maximum Security Prison for Murder, Assaulting numerous officers of the law, collateral damage and smuggling." Ward said.

Admiral Beck eyed Ward as if he had gone crazy. "And what in the world does that have to do with Spartans?" he asked.

"Sir. Spartans are, I am sure by the armor they are seen wearing, very costly. And from what I have learned, they come from a rather exclusive gene pool. I propose that we take Earth's Bane and make it into a weapon. We take the largest, most available and easily acquired group of the smartest and hardest to kill people ever known to man kind" he said.

"And Who would that be?" Admiral Samantha Iris asked.

"Criminals ma'am. Criminals..."