User:Distant Tide/Sandbox 3

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"The Spartans gave me a purpose in life, I was nobody before they recruited me. Nobody. Just another war orphan after my dad offed himself. They gave me a new start. They gave me a family. They gave me everything I have."

- Andra-D054 to Cassandra-G006.

Andra-D054, also known as Andra Kearsarge by personal preference, is a SPARTAN-III Delta Company graduate. She was the protege to Joshua-G024 and significant other to Merlin-D032. First assigned to Ferret Team Boson, she served as the unit's designated marksman and bomb technician before joining the Spartan Headhunter Detachment as a fully-trained.

Born too late to participate in the, Andra instead graduated initial Spartan training and became a after the conflict. During post-Covenant War clean-up operations on Earth, she distinguished herself and her team in combat against radicalized Covenant asylum seekers and human insurgents.

Following several desertions, Team Boson was disbanded and Andra was transferred to a Headhunter unit, VIOLET-III, for retraining and her first frontline deployments. Not long after, the began with her fighting on behalf of the fractured.

While she achieved much very early in her Spartan career, Andra's reputation as a frustrating student and subordinate has followed her since childhood, earning her several demeaning monikers. Her continued struggle with post-traumatic stress and depression has hardened her outwardly character except towards Merlin-D032, who holds her ultimate loyalty, even more so than her unwavering trust in the UNSC.

Military Daughter
"My dad was in Signals Intelligence. My mom served in the Army as a combat medic. I think our family went back several generations on 'Octanus-Four' but I don't know much beyond that."

- Andra-D054 reflecting on her past, using colonial slang to refer to her birthplace.

On November 6, 2545, Andra Bradford was born to her parents, Viktoria Kearsarge-Bradford and Neville Bradford. A combat medic with the, Andra's mother was incapable of staying beyond the duration of her maternal leave as the continued in its ferocity. After guaranteeing her daughter's stable health, she rejoined with her Army garrison, leaving her husband to raise their only child on his own.

Andra spent her formative years in the care of her doting father who could work close to home due to his employment with Signals Intelligence as a civilian analyst. While he often traveled to and, Neville managed to be a constant presence in his daughter's life, only leaving home for a few days at a time. During those business trips, Andra's favorite nanny took care of her.

Because Sigma Octanus IV was a, Andra was able to live a fairly regular childhood in her home city of , far from the invading and genocidal Covenant Empire. Through her father, she learned how to swim from an early age, developed an early appreciation for guns, participated in her preschool choir, and paid visits to the amusement park and several of Sigma Octanus IV's widely-famous museums.

She started school early in mid-2550 as part of an accelerated colonial education program and was appreciated by teachers for her love for mathematics and history but was described as aggressively-tomboyish due to her father's childrearing. Andra had a competitive streak that outstripped many other classmates leading to disciplinary issues regarding roughhousing and the occasional injury from trying to participate in aggressive schoolyard games like King of the Hill.

The good times could not last however as the Covenant War finally hit home for Andra on December 11, 2550. Andra's mother made occasional visits home every couple of years, however, on that December evening, two Army officers arrived on the Bradford family's doorstep to deliver grave news to her father. His wife was dead, killed alongside the rest of her unit during the defense of Minab.

Seeing her father collapse in shock, Andra punched one of the men in her confusion but turned to cry into the man's shirt after learning of her mother's death. Andra was left at home over while her father attended the brief funeral service. He did not return until the next afternoon, drunk and leaning on one of his fellow officers. From that day onward, Andra avoided discussing her mother with her father at the recommendation of her babysitter.