Pelican

The Pelican arrives in Blood Gulch in Episode 77 by way of a hard landing - directly on top of Donut. The Reds begin hearing a tapping sound coming from inside the ship, believing it's Morse code coming from Donut. Church, backed up by Sheila, arrives, and calls "dibs" on the ship, starting an argument between Church and the Reds. Sarge returns from the base and berates Grif and Simmons for allowing a Blue to claim the ship, citing the "International Dibs Protocol" and the "No Take-Backs Accords". However, Sheila suddenly departs, leaving Church outnumbered and out-gunned. Church retreats, leaving the ship back in the hands of the Reds. Sarge attempts to anger Donut by telling him things he would get upset at, like fashion, beauty care, and celebrity break-ups, so as to give him enough adrenaline to lift the ship off himself.

Grif gets progressively more annoyed with the tapping, and Sarge admits the failure of his plan. As Sarge is talking, the ship door opening is heard off-screen revealing Sister, Grif's sibling. Sister tells them she joined the war because she was bored without her brother. As the Reds realize that the tapping came from Sister, they wonder where Donut went. It is then revealed that Donut fell underground, into the Caves. The ship remains idle for some time in the canyon until the Blues realize that Sheila's tank is damaged, and Tex states that Sheila can be transferred to the ship. The Blues then set up a hardlink line between the ship and the tank while Caboose is inside making sure the transfer completes properly. When the transfer completes, and Sheila runs a diagnostic. Caboose and Sheila then chat about her new surroundings. Later on, Sheila traps Gary behind a firewall inside the ship. Tex steals Tucker's sword and ushers Junior and the Green Alien inside the ship. Then, O'Malley jumps inside Tex, who then picks up one of the Wyoming helmets and runs inside the ship. As the ship lifts off, Sarge tells Andy, who was already placed onboard the ship as a contingency plan, to detonate since O'Malley was on-board. Andy counts down from 10, then detonates. There is no explosion, so Grif boos. Several seconds later, however, there is a huge explosion, which Grif missed.



The fate of the ship, and all onboard, was left unexplained until Reconstruction, when the ship crashes in Valhalla. The crash led to mysterious events, like the Blue Team killing each other and, soon after, an "infection" that makes most of the Red Team go insane. Washington, Church, and Caboose access ship's computer to discover that Sheila is still active, despite the ship's systems being badly damaged. Washington and Caboose manage to activate the log of the previous flight, and observe Tex's struggle to land the ship before it crashed. In the sponsor cut, Andy talks in the background of the flight recording. It is suggested by Caboose that the ship took a year to crash because Wyoming's helmet which held his temporal distortion enhancement was on the ship. It is possible that Gamma tried to use Wyoming's enhancement to save itself.

In Relocated, Grif finds that pieces of a ship are blocking the communication spire. These pieces could be from the Pelican. In Recreation, Caboose reveals that he is taking parts from the crashed ship for his "project".

In Revelation, Chapter 19, Simmons led the group to a hangar where a Pelican was found, and they flew this ship to Sidewinder to help Tex and Church in the following chapter. They crash the ship into Sidewinder, as Grif doesn't know how to land it, saying, "that just means 'stop flying', right?". This is a parallel to his own sister crashing the first Pelican at Blood Gulch - apparently the inability to land a ship runs in the family. Sarge then kicks the ship offhandedly and it drops off into the water.

The UNSC soldier who debriefs the Reds and Blues expresses grumpiness at this, stating that "The budget only allows for one crashed Pelican per mission." However, the first Pelican crashed before Reconstruction, which took place roughly 3 months prior to Revelation. Since these two events aren't the same mission, it's unclear how the UNSC soldier's concerns are relevant.

Trivia

 * The Pelican's designation is Victor 398.
 * In Red vs. Blue Season 9 the Pelican "Four Seven Niner" used to extract Agents Carolina and North and South Dakota was equiped with a flare/chaff despenser. This is possibly a Freelancer add on as the Pelicans in the canon Halo universe never seem to use flares.