Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [185]
Because of immense pressure from Admiral Stanforth and from Cole’s admiring public, he was released (no charges filed), but given strict orders that the entire affair was classified.
So, the greatest hero of the age was sent back to Earth—to sit at a desk.
Cole would have stayed there for the rest of his life if the burgeoning civil war between Earth and her colonies had not been rendered irrelevant by the appearance of the Covenant.
SECTION SIX: THE COVENANT WAR: THE COLE
CAMPAIGNS (2525–2532 CE)
* * *
Cole was promoted to rear admiral. He agitated for a reassignment that got him back to space (all requests were denied). He proposed new policies to make the UNSC fighting forces more effective against the insurgency (all ignored). After eight months at his desk job, he was quietly offered early retirement with an honorary skip promotion to vice admiral (which he accepted).
In the years that followed, Cole’s star dimmed in the public eye, resurfacing for his highly publicized marriages to much younger women (each of which ended in even more spectacularly publicized divorces).
Cole’s liver failed from cirrhosis on May 11, 2525, and was subsequently replaced—as were his damaged heart and worn endocrine system—by flash-cloned transplants.
Shortly thereafter the Covenant encountered the human colony world Harvest. Only a handful of farmers managed to escape to warn the authorities. The Colonial Military Administration (CMA) sent a battle group to respond to the alien threat. They survived less than fourteen seconds before two of the three destroyers in the group were obliterated, and the remaining destroyer, the Heracles, was forced to retreat.
The Heracles sensor logs showed an enemy with an overwhelming technological superiority. The CMA was placed under NavCOM for the duration of the conflict and effectively absorbed into the UNSC. Central Command scrambled a fleet of more than forty ships of the line to respond . . . but they needed someone to lead that force.
Why did they pick Cole?
In hindsight, this was a masterful choice. Preston Cole was a hero and a tactical genius and would be the only person to ever consistently win against Covenant during the long war that followed.
Many claim that without Cole, the Covenant would have carved a path through the Outer Colonies and conquered Earth within three years, and humanity would be a memory today. Others say thatany person with the same military assets at their disposal had could have done the job, and perhaps done it better.
Cole was one thing our collection of “brilliant” admirals were not, however—a fallen hero who womanized and drank too much. If CENTCOM’s plan to repel the aliens failed, he would have made an easy scapegoat.
I believe this last point is too convenient an explanation, however.
We had to win at Harvest. We were not going to pick someone solely for the sake of convenient explanations later.
No, there was something dark about Cole that appealed to our leaders. He had a proven stomach for carnage. Suicidal? Nothing so dramatic—but he did have a willingness to stare into the face of death, to sacrifice himself and any number of men and women and ships—and do so without flinching.
And that was precisely what we needed.
{Excerpt} Field Report ZZ-DE-009-856-841 Office of Naval
Intelligence
Reporting Agent: Lieutenant Commander Jack Hopper
(UNSC Service Number: 01283-94321-KQ) \ November 2,
2525 (Military Calendar)
As ordered, Lieutenant Demos and I went to offer Vice Admiral Cole reinstatement to active duty and the job command of the fleet to retake Harvest.
The admiral’s general state when we arrived on his doorstep was one of indifference. He answered the doorbell in his bathrobe and did not bother to return our salutes. He looked much older than I thought he would. His hair was silver and gray as was his complexion. Gone was the spark in his eyes that I had seen in videos of this legendary man when