Tess-B312

"We'll get it done, Colonel. Six out."

- Tess-B312 to Col. Urban Holland

Tess-B312 was a Spartan-III commando of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command, attached to Special Warfare Group 3. She fought as part of during the Fall of Reach, under the callsign "Noble Six." Despite her history as a lone-wolf assassin, she became an essential component of Noble during its last and possibly greatest missions on Reach.

=Introduction=

Career Service Vitae
=Biography=

Childhood
Tess was born to a middle-class family on Charybdis IX, in Scyllion's Warehouse District, during the summer of 2528. Her father, John “Jack” Bradley, was a welder who was born in Earth's United Kingdom, the son of an SAS Sergeant and a photographer. Her mother, Angelica Vasquez-Bradley, was of Hispanic descent, with extended family living on Madrigal. Young Theresa was nicknamed “Tess” by her father and “Teresita” by her mother, and learned to speak Spanish as a second language. As a small child, she was shy and seemed withdrawn from her playmates, but possessed a quick mind and a keen intellect. Her favorite toy was a large stuffed bear given to her on her fifth birthday. She was rarely seen without it, as she treated it like something between a best friend and a security blanket.

In 2535, the Bradley home was ransacked by an angry mob during the, and Theresa watched from the safety of a hidden cupboard as her parents, who were pro-UNSC, were savagely beaten to death. The home was set ablaze by the rioters, but an ODST named, whose HEV had crash-landed nearby, heard her cries for help and removed her from the conflagration before the fire could harm her. The ODST deposited her at a nearby hospital, as his orders required him to regroup with his comrades elsewhere. Theresa remained in a benumbed state for several days, displaying virtually no emotion when news of the dreaded Covenant's arrival reached the hospital, in stark contrast to other children around her age, who began screaming and crying in terror. She was herded onto an evac transport along with most of the hospital's patients and ferried offworld before the ritual glassing began.

Now an orphan, Theresa spent two years in an orphanage on Tribute, unaware that the ONI had added her name to Beta Company's roster. Because of the “sensitive” nature of the conditions that had led to her orphan status, she was routinely interviewed by psychiatrists. Their observations indicated that Theresa, who adamantly refused to answer to any name but “Tess” at this point, would likely grow up and develop avoidant or antisocial personality disorders. Her demeanor was generally independent and introverted, and her behavior toward the other orphans was often hostile, as she harbored resentment and anger that could not be vented at anything but those around her. She would bite and scratch the workers who tried to placate her, and seemed to grow more and more wild as her time at the orphanage went on. When covert operatives from the ONI came to conduct tests and sessions on the potential Beta recruit, they were pleased with her aggression and intelligence, but somewhat dismayed by her stubbornness, which could not be easily broken even by their psychological coercion techniques. Around her ninth birthday, she found a small kitten during one of her trips outdoors and smuggled it into the orphanage; an older boy played roughly with it, accidentally killing it, and a vengeful Tess struck back by pilfering a kitchen knife and stabbing him in the leg. The ONI sent retrievers to collect her shortly afterward, disguised as workers from the psychiatric ward the orphanage director had arranged for Tess to go to as a result of her violent behavior.

When Tess arrived on the planet Onyx, she and the other 417 Beta Company candidates were subjected to a perilous initiation test: jumping from a flying Pelican, at night, wearing a Falcon Wing aerial descent unit. Though terrified, she made a first impression by running toward the edge of the ramp and then jumping. She successfully deployed her wing and made it to the ground in one piece, sustaining minor injuries to her arms, legs and back from being dragged over rough terrain by the cumbersome, wind-driven canvas. Rather than waiting for pickup, she removed her harness and hiked all the way back to the airfield where Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose waited, evading the teams sent to collect her. Her solitary arrival and silent determination were noted by Ambrose, and he personally congratulated her, introducing her to her new identity: SPARTAN-III Trainee Tess-B312.

Spartan-III Beta Company
"We've been lucky with Beta so far- very lucky- to get 312 out directly after training. An opportunity like that is not liable to happen ever again."

- Kurt Ambrose to SCPO Franklin Mendez

Over the next few years, Tess's skills developed and honed through series after series of rigorous training exercises. She fought alongside other Beta Company trainees as part of Fireteam Tango, but would often take on dangerous or difficult mission roles by herself, earning the nickname “lone wolf” and incurring the wrath of her own team on many occasions, as they expected her to work as part of the group. Her actions during a training exercise were predictable up to a certain point: she would single out a drill instructor, stalk them for hours if needed, corner and neutralize them, then steal their Mark II Semi-Powered Infiltration armor and vanish, usually remaining undetected until the exercise officially ended. Often she would sabotage the efforts of the drill instructors or an opposing team, using stealth to remain hidden until the opportune moment when she would overwhelm her targets. This modus operandi made her many enemies within Beta Company, and it was not uncommon for her to get into vicious fights with other trainees. Meanwhile, LTCMDR Kurt Ambrose and Chief Petty Officer Mendez kept careful notes on B312, believing her to be one of the few they would remove from Beta Company before any “suicide missions” could be executed. While Mendez was skeptical of the young Spartan's ability to fully coordinate with a unit, Ambrose was confidant in her abilities, and one of the first to compare her performance to that of John-117.

In 2544, Tess and the 299 other Spartan-IIIs to make the final cut underwent a series of bio-augmentations to increase their effectiveness in combat. Because many of them were still prepubescent, they underwent procedures to medically induce puberty a few months before augmentation. The following chemicals were used to enhance certain attributes of each Spartan-III's physique:

87556-UD61: A colloidal neural disunification solution; decreases reaction time.

88947-OP24: A retina-inversion stabilizer; boosts color and nighttime vision.

88005-MX77: A fibrofoid muscular protein complex; boosts muscle density and triples strength.

8942-LQ99: A drug which acts as a catalyst for carbide ceramic ossification; results in virtually unbreakable bones.

Aside from these four main drugs, other cocktails were administered: shock reducers, analgesics, anti-inflammatories, anticoagulants, and pH buffers. Tess remained partially sedated for seven days while a chemo-therapeutic infuser pumped these drugs into her system via intravenous and osmotic patches. The sedatives kept her in an incapacitated state, but did not block the excruciating pain that came with her body's forced alteration. Despite the unpleasantness, there were no complications, and she woke up in a remade body a day after the process was complete. For several months afterward, she and the other Spartans adjusted to their new strength and reflexes, adapting and applying their now-superhuman skills in special training exercises. At the end of this recovery period, Tess expected to be deployed along with the rest of Beta Company, but received orders from Ambrose to report to an obscure reserve post far from enemy lines. She obeyed without delay despite her desire to fight, serving as security in a facility run by ONI's Beta-5 division. In 2545, she learned that nearly all of Beta Company had been wiped out in Operation: TORPEDO; the feelings of separation and “survivor's guilt” that followed were so troublesome to the young Spartan that she made a vow to never again let herself become close to anyone for the rest of her life. To this end, she became virtually devoid of emotion, instead focusing on the only thing she had left: her purpose as a trained killer.

Lone Wolf
From 2546 to mid-2552, Tess-B312's career became a mass of blood and black ink. High-ranking personnel within the ONI were quick to take notice of her initial missions, all of which were against the Insurrection. What began as “simple” missions to neutralize Innie cells and break up organized operations evolved into high-priority assassination missions against valuable rebel targets such as generals, scientists, and smuggling rings. Her efficiency in the field was remarkable in that she could do alone what normally a four or five-man team was sent in to accomplish. When analysts began comparing her performance to the legendary Blue Team, the “Big Three” of the ONI-- Rear Admiral Rich, Captain Gibson, and Vice Admiral Parangosky--determined that Tess was just the Spartan they needed to fulfill certain goals that could not be met through conventional means. With the Spartan-IIs out of reach and the Spartan-IIIs divvied up between suicide missions, the Headhunter program, and various distant ops, there was need for an agent who could suit their purposes. The three of them privately interviewed her, and soon afterward she was placed directly under their control and commissioned as a. Her Mark II SPI armor was discarded in favor of a modified PAA variant called MJOLNIR Mk. IV[B], a dark gray-green colored suit that appeared to be black and possessed the same photo-reactive panels as the most recent and cutting-edge SPI prototypes. While aesthetically similar to the original Mk. IV in most respects, the [B] variant was actually one of the earliest functioning prototypes of the Mark V upgrade, albeit without shields or AI-housing capability. The force-multiplying circuits of MJOLNIR gave her an edge she had never experienced while wearing SPI, and true to the Big Three's predictions, her combat effectiveness went up considerably after receiving the armor.

Tess went on to participate in a large number of crucial but top-secret operations, against both human and Covenant foes. Among these were DRIVE-BY, JAYHAWK, CLOUDBURST, DAKOTA, and the infamous BLUE MOON. Apart from these high-priority ops, she also participated in hundreds of covert and black ops, working directly under Rich and Gibson's direction and allowed access to resources that only served to add to her lethality. The very practices that had earned her the scorn of her teammates in boot now made her a star; she could single-handedly tear down an entire Insurrectionist stronghold and make all of its personnel disappear, leaving nothing but the ashes of wood and human bones in her wake. This destructive tendency gave birth to a legend among the Insurrection and URF of a “shadow of death” and led her ONI superiors to liken her to a “grim reaper” in her records. In 2549, she made an odd request of the Big Three: to remove her birth name from her dossier, leaving only a serial number. Her request was carried out, as Parangosky had full access to Tess's psych records and knew of the Spartan's private admissions of unease over the events of BLUE MOON. From then on, Tess was known simply as B312, staying encased fully in her MJOLNIR most of the time and having little to no interaction with anyone but her superiors.

In 2550, B312 came under the direct jurisdiction of Rear Admiral Vincent Shepard. Shepard, whose ambition and drive for success nearly surpassed that of Col. James Ackerson, was a favorite of Rich's, and a fellow field officer in Gibson's black ops division. He delighted in using her for his own private means, as long as they were well within the confines of what the ONI deemed “acceptable use” of a Spartan. Under Shepard's orders, B312 went back to performing assassination missions, most of them against UNSC defectors who posed a significant risk. As the Human-Covenant War began to run less and less in humanity's favor, she found herself being deployed against alien forces more frequently, and the fact that virtually none of those battles could be counted as victories irked the hyper-lethal vector, who was so used to winning her fights.

The unveiling of the MJOLNIR Mark V[B] PAA variant in late 2551 marked a turning point in her career, as she was now able to utilize shield technology and customize various aspects of the armor to suit her needs. True to her role as an assassin, she outfitted the default scheme with Recon shoulder plates, a basic Recon helmet, Tactical/Recon chest accessories, a Tactical/Hard Case thigh accessory, and selected a Silver/Steel coloration that would aid her with skulking in the shadows, as she would no longer use active camouflage. She spent the winter months of 2551 fighting Insurrectionists on Mamore, then returned there in April of 2552 to quell a fresh uprising. The Innies had anticipated a Spartan's presence, however, and managed to lure her into a trap. While evading a modified Hornet VTOL loaded for bear, she came into close contact with a LOTUS antitank mine. She was not close enough to sustain severe damage, but the detonation was more than enough to short out her shields and send superheated armor-piercing shrapnel through portions of her MJOLNIR. She managed to set off the charges she had planted throughout the rebels' territory, however, destroying most of their critical structures and causing their one functional Scorpion tank to explode. B312 was retrieved by an ONI Prowler and immediately given medical treatment for the wounds she had sustained. Her recovery lasted for several weeks, as she had received internal damage from the blast. Cosmetic surgery was offered to eliminate the scars that now covered her forearms and face, but she refused, eager to get back into the fight as soon as possible. After repairs were finished on her armor, she reported for duty, expecting a new solo assignment, but instead was met with an entirely different directive: a transfer from Shepard's command to that of UNSC Army Colonel Urban Holland. Shepard was loath to let his personal Spartan go, but despite his efforts to change the order, the transfer could not be postponed or called off. B312 was sent to Reach to meet her new outfit, NOBLE Team, of which she was now the sixth member, a replacement for fallen Spartan Thom-A293.

The Fall of Reach
=Personality=

"I've done things I can't talk about...Things I won't ever be able to talk about. Some... bad things. They took my name away so I'd be able to do those things without question. A weapon doesn't have a name. It only has a number."

- Tess-B312

Throughout her career, B312 maintained a stable and relatively healthy mental state compared to most other Spartan-IIIs, attending mandatory psych evaluations and therapy sessions ordered by the ONI. Like all Spartans, she was trained to put the mission first and her feelings last, and often stayed true to the Spartan stereotype of acting more like a machine than a human being. She rarely spoke much outside of therapy sessions, having possessed an introverted and self-reliant persona since childhood. Because her job often required her to kill without question, she was able to rationalize and accept her own actions, but a few of her more gruesome victories stayed with her. No mental disorders occurred as a result of this.

When engaged in conversation, B312 was often concise and frank, inserting wit and sarcasm into her statements to make up for her lack of socialization skills. She would often remain silent and observe those around her, taking in details and learning as she watched and listened. Due to her skills and reputation, she had a somewhat cocky demeanor, and demonstrated a stubborn, defiant attitude when engaging with stronger opponents, a “fight to the end” streak that would serve her well in Reach's final days. As a young child she had a short temper, though Spartan training put an end to that trait. As an adult, she was able to neutralize her emotions when necessary, though she sometimes “experimented” with letting them manifest. All told, her knowledge of emotions such as love and happiness was on par with a child's, due to those feelings being suppressed for much of her Spartan career. When experiencing such emotions, B312 could be a bit curious and naïve, a puzzling opposite to her customary aloofness.

=Characteristics= Tess-B312 was one of the more “average” Spartan-IIIs, standing at roughly six and a half feet tall and weighing a little under two hundred pounds. She came from Caucasian and Hispanic stock, as her father's side of the family hailed from Earth's United Kingdom and her mother's from Madrigal. As a child and preteen, she possessed an olive skin tone that gradually became pallid as she spent most of her time encased in SPI and eventually MJOLNIR armor. Her hair was a medium shade of brown that took on red tones in sunlight; she wore it shaved like all S-IIIs during training, and continued to keep it buzz-cut afterward for the sake of convenience. She had a runner's build, lacking the “bulky” musculature of most Spartans, though she was still far more muscular than a baseline human. Her feminine attributes were few, as any spare fat on her body was converted to energy due to her rigorous and physically demanding career. Her highest bench press without the aid of MJOLNIR's force-multiplying technology was 226 kilos, or 500 pounds, fairly common for a Spartan-III of her height and weight.

Her face was rarely seen by non-Spartan personnel, but those lucky enough to get a glimpse afterward described her as “plain.” She had a straight nose and a small mouth, with eyes neither wide nor narrow. A pointed chin and semi-prominent cheekbones complete the image, topped by a centimeter-long growth of hair on her scalp. After the events of Mamore in the spring of 2552, she had a long scar that went diagonally from her right cheek to the left side of her forehead, as well as numerous other small scars on her arms and torso.

=Relationships=

In spite of her long-kept policy of forming no attachments to anyone, she became close to the Spartans of Noble Team, a bond perhaps born of desperation during Reach's last days. She was particularly close to Jorge-052, whose tendency to freely give opinions and encouragement helped establish a friendship between them. She became unusually chatty in his company, a departure from her usual demeanor, which indicated a rare sense of trust on her part. After his death, she showed no signs of significant emotional trauma, but the level of brutality that occurred when she fought against Covenant combatants attested to her true feelings. It is speculated that she blamed herself for his demise, though no solid evidence of this exists. All that is known is that she kept his dog tags and went back to being strictly laconic, speaking only when necessary.

=Quotes= "I don't fight because I'm still mad about my planet being burned. My parents were dead before the Covenant ever showed up. I'm not angry at the aliens, not really. I just want to kill them because I can."

- A young Tess explaining her motivation to an Camp Currahee psychiatrist

"So what if I do things by myself? I win. You guys slow me down."

- Tess-B312 to the rest of Fireteam Tango

"Heheh..."

- The last thing most of Tess's victims heard before going unconscious or dying

"I remember having a name. I could tell you if I wanted. But I'm not that person anymore. I'm something... else."

- Tess explaining to Jorge her reluctance to tell him her name

"I've never liked anything the way I like flying. Risky... but worth it. There's just something about the speed, and the freedom, and..."

- Tess discussing her role as a pilot

=Trivia=


 * The meaning of the name Theresa is uncertain; it could be drawn from Greek theros (summer) or therizo (harvest), or perhaps the island Therasia (Santorini). The author selected it as her Noble Six's name after conducting a completely random search via Google, and it has no connection to any elements of the author's own name.
 * Tess-B312's non-armored adult appearance is portrayed by pictures of Sinead O'Connor, one of the author's favorite music artists, whose shorn hair and somewhat delicate features match the author's mental image of the Spartan.

=Gallery= File:SPI enhanced recolor.png|The Semi-Powered Infiltration armor utilized by Tess-B312 during her early years as an assassin File:Tess helmet.png|The basic RECON helmet variant worn by B312