Battle of Great Bear (Earth-5875)

"Seventeen of our ships against three of theirs. Eleven destroyers lost. Two enemy vessels killed. One crash landed."

- - Admiral Preston Cole

The Battle of Great Bear was a battle fought between the United Nations Space Command's Third Fleet and the Covenant during the First Contact War, on December 24th, 2530. The battle saw one of the rare UNSC naval victories under the leadership of Admiral Preston Cole, as well as the capture of a sangheili prisoner, which expanded the UNSC's knowledge over the Covenant, beliefs, its species, and society.

Battle
"I seem to remember us destroying your ships yesterday. Did you think we were going to let you just waltz right in? Yesterday? Three ships, human? You boast about [unintelligible] three of our vessels when you had five times that many, and lost almost all?"

- - Admiral Preston Cole and Subject 386

Aftermath
"You have been judged unclean! A scourge that must be burned away! Every one of your worlds will be reduced to glass."

- - Subject 386