Samisha Taol

Samisha Taol was a former Covenant serviceman and crewmember of the Parhelia.

Biography
Taol enlisted into the Covenant around 2542 and was assigned into the 56th Dasim of Eayn Dragoons legion. She worked as a gunner for a Phantom dropship flown by Yis, and later met Tennbau Quatch here as well.

Taol's first battle was the Battle of Fairfax II, a vicious engagement where her dropship was shot down behind enemy lines and left her as the sole survivor. It was here that she earned her first kill, where she ripped out the throat of a UNSC soldier to take his rifle. The trauma that she went through on the colony left Taol with deep psychological scars and post-traumatic stress disorder relapses that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

After leaving the military, Taol followed Quatch and joined the crew of the medium freighter Libation, where she put her technical talents to use as part of its engineering team.

Fall of High Charity
On the morning of November 3, 2552, Taol and the majority of the Libation 's staff were captured by Marsangtus' Jiralhanae pack. Although he planned on conscripting them as cannon fodder, a surprise Sangheili raid on the platform distracted the brutes. Both Quatch and Taol attacked the brutes to give the surviving crew an opportunity to escape, and continued to scout the way for the rest of the crew to the harbormaster's office. While the others searched the documents stored there and planned their next move, Taol watched the stairs and searched the bodies of the nearby charnel house. It was while she was doing this that she watched P'thon 'Umtalla get escorted away by the brutes.

After Quatch struck a deal with Kuotasim 'Umtalla for one of the 'Umtalla freighters, the crew were divided up. While Quatch went to collect P'thon, Taol led a team to capture some repulsor sleds that the group would use. With no other option, she arrived at a waiting line of sleds in the evening period, where she disguised herself as a ration deliverer to assassinate three of the Unggoy drivers without raising an alarm. She led the sleds back to the office to collect the 'Umtalla bodies as per their agreement, and again to one of the warehouses, where they came under attack by Jiralhanae troops.

With both types of cargo acquired, Taol raced down Pier Three of the dockyards to link up with their rendezvous, the Wealth of Szedethe ‘Umtalla. Heavy fire from the brutes eventually forced her to crash before she reached it. Fortunately, she had been informed by Dwe that they decided to instead capture the Parhelia, a racing freighter loaded with refugees that rested within a nearby berth. She tried desperately to restart the sled's engine, which eventually succeeded and allowed her to make her way for the alternate dock instead. She disabled the main entrance to the hangar, and worked with the rest of the crew to quickly prepare the Parhelia for departure. Although the Flood managed to enter the hangar, a few volunteering refugees sacrificed themselves to allow the freighter to lift off and escape.

Personality and traits
"My crucible had been a world named Bath’tet, and I had emerged like... Like a clay pot, fired wrong in the kiln, cracked all the way through and held together only by friction and the memory of the shape it was supposed to be."

- Taol's own assessment of her mental state.

Under normal conditions, Taol came across as unlikable. She lacked gentleness, stated things bluntly, and told cruel, unfunny jokes that were difficult to pick out from her normal speech. Yet even when her normalcy mask was at its best, there was a sense that she was distant, cold, and mechanical, qualities which were seen in her gestures and movements. It was during stressful situations that this fell to expose her true self.

Taol suffered from an acute form of post-traumatic stress disorder, which continuously unearthed flashbacks of her experiences on Fairfax II. This constant stimulation to fear meant that she has since stopped reacting to the emotion altogether, something that was dangerous because it made her more willing to injure herself. This also meant that she could be resistant to authority, as she did not fear the repercussions. Although these were clearly problems, she actively discouraged emotion support as she felt it weakened her standing in the crew even more than it currently was.

List of appearances

 * Not All Who Wander