Covenant Ghost Program

"Ghosts have a very particular set of skills. We will find you, and we will nuke your base. And I'll also blow your brains out."

- Tukotin Atalata

The Covenant Ghost Program is the top-secret special forces branch of the Ankoran Covenant. Originally known as the Phantom Project, the program has remained under heavy secrecy since its conception, and little is known by the general populace of the galaxy regarding the specifics of the Covenant’s lethal Ghost operatives, their recruitment processes, or their training. What is known by the wider galaxy at large is that Ghost operatives are incredibly lethal individuals, armed with weapons and technology beyond the reach of other military service branches including stealth suits, advanced sensor technology, and psionic amplifiers.

Ghosts are typically deployed alone wherever feasible, having been trained to operate extensively behind enemy lines with no support. Despite this, Ghosts are known for operating in small, four-operative teams during certain operations, known colloquially as Kill-Squads.

During military conflicts, Ghosts will typically be redeployed to support front-line forces, often acting as specialist infiltrators and saboteurs. Outside of wartime, Ghosts typically act as counter-terrorists and assassins for the Covenant.

Origins
Originating under the moniker Project Phantom in 2020 as a study into the weaponisation of psionic powers and abilities for the Ankoran Covenant’s military. Comprising initially of 300 volunteer personnel with mild psionic sensitivity. Undergoing three dozen exercises, these early attempts at psi-soldiers proved cost-ineffective, and the project was ultimately declared a failure, although several officers behind the program continued to operate the project for some years after its official shutdown, their duties now merely to provide checkups for Project Phantom’s former agents. Interest in the idea of psi-soldiers soon re-peaked in 2035, after reports of a young ankoran child causing several deaths in a psionic meltdown reached the military.

As Dr Awkai Haelvi took over the renewed second Project Phantom, reorganising it as the Covenant Ghost Program, several radical alterations were made to the program, detailing radical overhauls to many aspects of the project. Of these changes, the most radical and controversial was the trainees themselves - the first Ghosts would be psionically hypersensitive children, such as the youth reported in the 2035 psionic meltdown, and others located across Covenant space. Many of these children were outright abducted by Dr Awkai’s agents, while others were coerced from their parents due to the consequences of their outbursts.

The specifics of the Ghost Program remained classified under the highest levels of secrecy, and a cover story was given to the parents of children selected for training.

Ghost Program
The Ghost Program was initially given funding for 200 Ghost candidates, although only 150 candidates were selected to become Ghosts. After being abducted and sedated, the 150 trainee agents underwent an extensive training regime, which set the status quo for future training drills from then on, teaching the Ghosts extensively on not only how to survive in the wilderness with no supplies, utilize every firearm used by the Covenant’s military, and operate all Covenant military vehicles, but in mathematics, science, physics, reading, writing, and military tactics.

Recruitment
"When I was conscripted into the program, I thought I’d be a hero. Maybe I ended up one… But the cost I can only describe as a cruel and unusual punishment."

- Kalia Suuk

The recruitment of new Ghost operatives is primarily driven by existing agents. When a psionically hypersensitive child is located within Covenant space, Ghost agents would arrive to conscript the individual on the grounds that their psionic capabilities were a danger to themselves and others. Typically, conscripted children would be found after an incident relating to the child’s abilities, such as psionic meltdowns. Many notable Ghost operatives were found this way, such as agents Kalia Suuk and Tukotin Atalata.

When a child was conscripted, they would be taken for assessment at one of the Ghost Programs regional training facilities, determining the exact psionic sensitivity of the new trainee, and their particular abilities. Often, the parents of individuals selected for conscription were informed beforehand, although the child was sometimes abducted by agents when the parents proved too troublesome to acquire the new trainee through legal processes.

Training
Ghosts operatives will spend ten years in training before beginning their work as an agent. The strict schedules and lack of privacy are the first hurdles that trainees must contend with during these ten years, under constant surveillance with only ten minutes per 20-hour cycle to themselves. This fact results in most trainees spending time scheduled for eating and showering to entertain themselves, and often leaves trainees frustrated and tired after each day.

During the first three years, trainees are drilled in hand-to-hand combat, shooting, and engineering skills in training scenarios that placed a time limit on the task. Training scenarios were finely tuned that no task could be completed during the first attempt, and would often take several attempts before being completed, the trainee getting slightly stronger, accurate, or faster with each try.

This brutal training regime was complemented with high-level education, which included mathematics, science, physics, reading, writing, and military tactics. These studies were the only time when the trainees would not be under physical strain, although these education sessions would remain under constant surveillance. Failure to pass examinations on subjects would often result in reduced shower times, and worse-tasting - though equally nutritious to standard - rations.

Hostile Environment Stealth Suit
The Hostile Environment Stealth Suit, known by Ghosts simply as a HES Suit, is the primary item of armour used by the Covenant Ghost Program. The scale-tight psionically-sensitive nano-fibre suit comprised of light-refracting metamaterials. The suit bends infrared, visible-spectrum, and ultraviolet light around the wearer when active, effectively rendering the Ghost invisible while in use. The suit’s eyepiece is fitting with specialised material, allowing for one-way passage of radar-spectrum and x-ray spectrum light into the suit, which specialised software then interprets and displays to the wearer at ankoran-visible light spectrums.

The HES Suit is then typically worn beneath a layer of over-armour, with similar light-refracting properties while also offering greater physical protection to the Ghost. This armour is, however, bulkier and louder and is intended to protect a Ghost in the unlikely situation they are detected. Due to the nature of the HES suit, specialised detection equipment is required to locate a Ghost, operating in the x-ray spectrum or radar-spectrum. The psionic-sensitive nanofibre is capable of augmenting the natural speed, strength, and endurance of the wearer, dispensing the need for loud, bulky power armour.

HES Suits are also equipped with psionic amplifiers and psionic dampeners, allowing the Ghost greater control of their natural psionic abilities.

Ghost-Class Corvette
"Stealth in space is a bit like playing hide and seek in the nude in the Ussian jungles. It can be done, but it relies largely on nobody thinking you’re actually crazy enough to do it."

- Kaeti Niala

The Ghost-Class Corvette is the standard operating craft for Ghost operatives. Captained by Ghost agents, these stealth-capable spacecraft feature highly complex and advanced hyperspatial heatsinks which directly vent the heat generated from standard ship operations into hyperspace. This allows the vessel to hide its heat-signatures against the near absolute-zero of the vacuum of space. To complement this IR-stealth system, Ghost-class Corvettes are encased in a shell of light-refracting metamaterial, allowing the ship to optically cloak, similarly to a HES Suit.

Despite these advances in accomplishing the near-impossible task of stealth in space, Ghost-Class Corvettes still cannot use their stealth systems when firing their engines, or engaging in ship-to-ship combat, due to the direct explosion of heat in these processes. This effectively renders the ship’s stealth drives inoperable during combat scenarios, and keen-eyed vessels may notice the occasional sensor ping of a Ghost-Class Corvette during course-correction.

Duties
The duties of Ghost agents varies from officer to officer, and planet to planet. Most of the time, Ghosts are deployed as counter-terrorists and assassins, acting to neutralize terrorists, their organizations, and their networks covertly without large military operations. Ghosts are additionally trained for counter-insurgency operations, though no Ghosts have been deployed on such missions since 1891.

During armed conflicts, such as the Covenant-Dominion War, the Ghost Program shifts its focus from counter-terrorism (although agents will likely still engage in such actions during wartime) to infiltration, reconnaissance, and sabotage. Ghosts will typically be assigned to military platoons as specialists during wartime and may be assigned solo operations to extract prisoners of war, plant explosives, steal data caches, and assassinate or capture enemy VIPs, such as generals, commanders, and strategists.

During certain peacetime events, such as diplomatic visits and major celebrations in which church and government figureheads will be present, Ghosts may be assigned as bodyguards, protecting the Covenant’s spiritual and secular leadership silently from the shadows.

Triva

 * The Covenant Ghost Program is a based on the Ghost Program in the Starcraft franchise. It's name is a reference to this fact.
 * Many aspects of the Covenant Ghost Program are also inspired by the Spectres from the Mass Effect series.