Nick Reyes

"Lieutenant Nick Reyes is CO of the Naval Special Operations Task Force: SCAR (Special Combat Air Recon) Team 1. This naval commando is the consummate warrior. His leadership of SCAR Team 1 has been exemplary and Admiral Raines has repeatedly recommended him for promotion. Following a field promotion, he now serves as acting Captain of the UNSA Retribution."

- Captain's Log

Commander Nick Reyes is the main protagonist of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. He was initially a Lieutenant before he was promoted to be the captain of the Retribution after its previous captain, John Alder, was killed in action following the ramming of the SDF Olympus Mons during the Geneva Attack.

Reyes previously appeared as an Easter egg in the Call of Duty: Black Ops III map Nuk3town to represent a teaser for Infinite Warfare.

Geneva
After meeting with Admiral Fredrick Raines to discuss the SDF's most recent attack on Europa, Reyes meets with Nora Salter and Raines' secret project, the E3N robot, to commence the Fleet Week celebration. Their celebration is cut short as the city's AATIS guns open fire on the fleet. Reyes, Salter, Raines and Ethan fight their way across a chaotic Geneva in order to reach the AATIS Tower, where they find SDF Commander Akeel Min Riah attempting to destroy the guns. Riah is subdued, while Reyes, Salter and Ethan fly into orbit in their Jackals to assist the UNSA's warships against the SDF fleet. While initially successful, the fleet is then caught off guard by the appearance of the Olympus Mons, led by SDF Rear Admiral Salen Kotch. In an attempt to drive off the enemy force, Retribution's then-Captain John Alder commands the ship to ram the Mons, despite Reyes' and Salter's protests.

Becoming Captain of the Retribution
Reyes and Salter return to the ship, intending to meet up with Captain Alder to demand an explanation, only to find him along with the ship's executive officer dead as a result of the collision. As the highest-ranking officer on board, Reyes is immediately given control of the entire ship. As Captain Maureen Ferran of the Tigris arrives on board, Reyes, Ferran and all personnel on the bridge are briefed on the situation with the SDF by Admiral Raines. Raines then promotes Reyes to Commander and makes him the Captain of the Retribution. Raines's first order is for Retribution and Tigris to retake the Lunar Gateway Port from the SDF.

Because the Retribution has limited combat-ready personnel, Reyes orders that he, Salter and Ethan join the Marines being led by Staff Sergeant Usef Omar, who objects that the ship captain's proper place is on the bridge, but accedes to Reyes's order.

Operation Port Armor
On his first mission as Commander, Reyes leads Salter, Ethan, Omar, along with several Marine troops including Sean Brooks and Todd Kashima to retake the Lunar port from the SDF. After initially rescuing the workers on the port, Reyes encounters a near-death situation: as an SDF Skelter fighter opened fire from outside, the windows break and expose the port’s interior to vacuum. Reyes is sucked outside and a glancing impact with a crate cracks his helmet's faceplate. The survivors are forced to run to a nearby airlock, barely making it inside before Reyes suffocates.

After sweeping through the base and cleaning out the remaining SDF ground forces, Reyes takes the battle to outer space, assisting Captain Ferran and Tigris in battling the Ares Vallis, an SDF destroyer commanded by Captain Bradley Fillion. After ejecting from his Jackal, Reyes breaches the viewport of the Ares's bridge, causing Fillion and all inside to die of suffocation. Reyes retrieves Fillion's key card, allowing access to the ship. After deactivating the destroyer's weapons systems, Reyes and his group make their escape, allowing Tigris to blow the Ares to oblivion. As Reyes and the crew return to the Retribution, Admiral Raines relays an intercepted signal: Kotch rallying his troops for the upcoming attack on Geneva, his words making clear that the SDF's goal is the total conquest of Earth, and the UNSA is fighting for its very survival.

Hunt for SDF's Most Wanted
Thanks to the access granted by Fillion's card, Ethan is able to download the locations of all SDF ships throughout the solar system, allowing Reyes to plan out missions ranging from ship assaults to Jackal strikes, taking out several high-ranking officers of the SDF, thinning out their ranks.

Operation Burn Water
The Retribution's next primary mission from STRATCOM is to destroy the SDF's primary fuel refinery on Titan, putting a severe crimp in their ability to build and maintain their fleet. Again, Reyes deploys with Sergeant Omar's Marines, though Salter stays behind to lead the second wave. Reyes and Omar lead the advance team to mark a position for follow-up reinforcements. The SATO force's advance is checked by the arrival of the Olympus Mons, which begins bombarding the area and forces Retribution to withdraw to a safe distance. Without heavy ordnance available, Reyes and Ethan fight their way to the refinery's control room and close a turbine, creating a volatile build-up that allows Reyes to detonate the refinery tower from his Jackal.

While returning to the Retribution, Reyes is intercepted by the Olympus Mons, which severely damages his Jackal and forces him and Ethan to eject. Seeing the Olympus Mons hammering the Retribution with its guns, Reyes orders the ship to retreat and leave him and Ethan behind. After it is gone, leaving Reyes and Ethan drifting in orbit over Titan, Ethan notices that Reyes's suit has been ruptured and is leaking air, meaning Reyes will likely suffocate within minutes. Reyes accepts his fate, exchanging words of camraderie with Ethan before blacking out.

Rescued
Reyes awakes on a shuttle from Tigris, on a course to reunite with Retribution. Captain Ferran informs him that Admiral Raines had refused Salter's pleas to dispatch a rescue party to Titan, but Ferran took the risk and, with more than a little luck, her search party found him and Ethan just in time. The two ships then part ways again.

Operation Dark Quarry
The Retribution's next mission from STRATCOM is to investigate a mining colony on an asteroid orbiting Mercury. When the landing parties initial flyover show no life signs, Lt. Salter advocates returning to the ship and reporting back to Admiral Raines, but Reyes insists on landing and searching for survivors. They succeed in locating these survivors, besieged by a force of C6 robots, which have been hijacked and reprogrammed by the SDF. The landing party's Raven successfully evacuates most of the civilians, but Staff Sergeant Omar insists on going back for one straggler, even as an asteroid rolls into the path of a solar flare, igniting a firestorm on the landing pad. Omar shouts for Reyes to leave him behind. Reyes refuses, but Salter overrules his orders and closes the landing ramp, lifting off the ship.

Reyes is badly shaken by the loss of Omar, and by Salter's questioning of his ability to make necessary decisions - such as abandoning one man for the sake of many others.

Operation Black Flag
Returning to Retribution, Reyes is informed of a distress call from Tigris; following it, he is devastated to find that she had been lured into a trap and destroyed by the Olympus Mons, with Ferran and all hands lost. Reyes orders a search and rescue twice, but finally stops his attempt as he is informed it was a total loss. He and the Ret's crew then watch a Signal Buoy from Olympus Mons.

Reyes devises a plan to lure the SDF fleet back to Earth, where they will use the AATIS guns to destroy the fleet. By utilizing Riah's transponder, it will give the SDF fleet the all clear to invade Earth. Unfortunately for them, Riah manages to escape custody and destroys the AATIS guns and his transponder before committing suicide, giving the all clear signal for the SDF Fleet (including the Olympus Mons). Admiral Raines is then killed by the Olympus Mons after its F-SPAR laser weapon fires on the UNSA HQ.

With the mission now having gone haywire and with no other options, Nick decides to change the primary objective to securing the Olympus Mons and eliminating Admiral Kotch. Nick orders the Retribution to drop near the Mons and use the shockwave to disable the supercarrier. However, he is also caught in the shockwave, but ultimately manages to jump aboard the Mons. With Salter, Ethan, and a force of Marines under Brooks, they fight their way to the bridge. As they reach the ship's command bridge, Nick hacks into one of the bots standing behind the door between them, commandeering it to Admiral Salen Kotch through the room, and attacks the admiral.

However, the bot fails to kill Kotch, but leaves him fatally wounded. Ethan secures the Olympus bots as they walk up to the dying Kotch, and Nick points his knife at the Admiral's throat. At the player's decision, Nick listens to Kotch's last words or ends the admiral's life by stabbing him in the throat. Nick then gains control of the Olympus Mons

Assaulting the SetDef's Orbital Shipyard and Death
Under Reyes's command, the Olympus Mons commences an attack run on the SDF's orbital shipyard over Mars. Though the ship destroys many of the destroyers acting as a picket line, enemy boarding parties manage to sabotage the carrier's weaponry, whereupon Reyes orders the Retribution to jump into the system to assist them, while ordering the Mons on a collision course with the shipyard. But when Retribution takes heavy damage and drifts into the path of the Olympus Mons, Reyes has two choices: either plough through the Retribution and complete the collision with the shipyard, or divert course. He chooses the latter, and both ships crash onto the surface of Mars. Chief Engineer Audrey "Mac" MaCallum later criticizes his decision, saying that every member of the Retribution's crew is prepared to lay down their lives for him, and the Captain must, ultimately, be prepared to sacrifice the lives of his subordinates to achieve victory - being unable to make that decision was the reason she had been demoted from the post of captain.

After realizing that they have been stranded on Mars, Reyes quickly rallies the remaining survivors to launch a desperate, final assault to infiltrate the SDF's Orbital Shipyard. During their attempt to breakthrough, most of the survivors are killed, including McCallum, Victor "Gator" Diallo, Ebele Yetide, Lee Boggs and Maynard Griffin. Reyes details Salter and the few remaining survivors to commandeer a SetDef destroyer moored at the shipyard, while he and Ethan fight their way into the control center to release the destroyer's docking clamps and enable its weaponry. Once this is done, he orders Salter to open fire on the control center. At first she refuses, but he orders her to complete their mission.

The destroyer's first volley shatters the control center's viewports and Reyes is sucked out into space. At first he clings to the hull of a nearby warship, but shrapnel from the various explosions shatters his helmet's face plate, venting his suit and suffocating him to death.

Reyes's name is etched onto the Wall of Remembrance inside UNSA headquarters in Geneva, where Salter, in full dress uniform, salutes, intoning, "Peace to the fallen."

Quotes
"Listen up. The Front is unaware we control the Olympus. We're going to Mars. Ethan, set a drop course for SetDef's Orbital Shipyard. We'll use their own ship against them and launch a full assault from the Olympus bridge. The Front destroyed our fleet. Let's do the same to them."

- Nick, as he explain about their plan to assault on SetDef's Orbital Shipyard on Mars.

"We do not fight here to win, we fight here so those we fight for do not lose. There are many people out there who don't know what we are doing, but they will know what we've done."

- Nick Reyes before Operation Blood Storm.

"Nora, finish the mission! That's an order!"

- Nick's last words

Trivia

 * In multiplayer, Reyes appears as a skin for the Merc Rig that can be obtained in loot boxes.
 * Holding the O-5 rank of Commander in the navy (& the billet of captain of the Retribution), Reyes is the highest-ranking playable character in the Call of Duty series.

Nick Reyes Ник Рейес 尼克·雷耶斯