SPARTAN-091

Early Life
SPARTAN-091, Jared, was born on Earth 35 years before the Covenant invasion. He was recruited into the SPARTAN-II program at the age of six, and assigned to Team 16, Edward-077 and Randall-043. These three soon became close friends, and relied on each other throughout Basic. During his training, it became apparent to 091's instructors that he was a natural at long-range weapons. When he was tested, he scored above all other previous records for target-shooting in the United Nations Space Command. After his basic training was complete, Jared was quickly transferred to the Reach sniper school, and became proficent with every scoped weapon in the UNSC arsenal.

Teenage Years
At fourteen, Jared was given the standard SPARTAN-II biological upgrades. He survived the operations and mourned the loss of the others in his class who were not so fortunate. On November 27, 2525, Jared was given a suit of MJOLNIR Mark-V armor as his own, and was assigned to Black Team, a group of lone SPARTANs similar to Gray Team that included SPARTAN-014, Adrian, SPARTAN-054, Angel, and SPARTAN-027, Joey. On his inaugural mission, OPERATION HIGH NOON, Jared was sent to neutralize a rebel insurgent base that had been a thorn in ONI's side for a long time. He easily succeeded, wiping out all terrorist resistance there, and re-capturing a prototype-weapons cache that had been stolen from Reach by black-market gun-runners. As a reward, Section-III gave SPARTAN-091 the SRS-AM5 from the stolen cache. He treated this weapon with the utmost respect and care, modifying it to perfection.

Later, Jared worked with ONI "Iota" operatives to hunt down and neutralize an United Liberation Front leader by the name of Jonas Selkers. It was during this operation that Jared recieved the distinctive scar on his right cheek, given to him during a knife fight with Selkers' bodyguard, whom he killed soon afterward.

Adult Life
At twenty, Jared had his first encounter with the gathering of xenophobic alien races known as the Covenant. This encounter came on the Outer Colony world of Kearsarge, a planet ravaged by several bloody civil wars between the colonists. Thanks to SPARTAN-091, and several divisions of Marines, the UNSC was barely able to repel the aggressive aliens. Jared-091 assisted in the mop-up operation, and was awarded the UNSC Medal of Valor for his actions.

Contact was briefly lost with SPARTAN-091 during OPERATION WILLING STRENGTH, a covert ONI operation against a Covenant Special Ops unit on planet New Bremerhaven, a barren colony world on the Inner Rim. Jared was trapped on the planet when a UNSC dropship pilot panicked and left him and his squad of Iota Operatives behind. After a harrowing pursuit through the polluted scrap-lands of New Bremerhaven, Jared located an outdated civilian Slipspace transport.

With the help of the surviving Iotas, Jared was able to patch together the ship's reactor and escape from the planet. On June 23, 2534, he reestablished contact with his ONI handlers and was assigned to OPERATION WITCHHUNT, locating and destroying Covenant supply bases with the help of a Navy raider battlegroup. Successfully completing many missions, 091 was critically injured during action in the Zeta Doradus system, and evacuated to the ONI Medical Facility above Reach. There, he spent three months healing, and, at his request, was transferred back to OPERATION WITCHHUNT. The operation continued for several years until Captain Julius Norman, the commander of the Navy battlegroup, was killed in action above Azura IV.

Jared-091 was then moved to OPERATION KINGSNAKE in 2545. He narrowly completed this action against the ULF, eliminating many rebel leaders, and twice evading capture. The SPARTAN was promoted to Petty Officer, Second Class, and awarded several honors for his work.

Several years later, Jared, hardened from countless actions against Covenant and ULF forces, was contacted by the Office of Naval Intelligence. He was to report to Reach immediately for a special assignment. When he arrived on April 19, 2550, he was given the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer and asked by ONI Colonel James Ackerson to locate a Covenant forward base in the Polaris Arm. Supposedly, the enemy was researching a new and dangerous technology that would allow them to slip past orbital defense grids. Senior Chief 091 immediately accepted this mission, and left for the Polaris Arm in a UNSC Corvette called the Valiant Triumph.

ONI Operative
What Ackerson had not told the Spartan was that he was signing his life over to ONI Section III. In a cunning system of illusions and double-backs, Ackerson faked Jared's capture and subsequent death. In reality, upon arriving in the Theta Polaris system, the Spartan was drugged and taken to a nearby ONI prowler. There, he was informed of his transfer to ONI and that all of his orders would come from Section III from now on.

After being returned to ONI HQ, he was outfitted with the latest version of MJOLNIR and put through a rigorous skills inspection course, which he passed with flying colors. Ackerson ran the Spartan out on several controversial black ops that involved the termination of rebels and UNSC personnel. In October, ONI HQ recieved a distress call from Manheim, a major colony world in the Inner Colonies. When the threat was analyzed, Ackerson, with Vice Admiral Parangosky's permission, dispatched a team of Iotas along with Jared to the colony. The Iotas were detected by the Covenant blockade, and their prowler was immediately destroyed by plasma fire. Jared managed to escape a similar fate by hiding in a debris field in orbit above New Orion, Manheim's capital city. After several days, he made his descent to the surface, covered by a meteor shower. Upon landing, he made his way to a UNSC IFF transponder signal and linked up with the surviving crew of the UNSC Myrmidon, the only human ship to survive the orbital battle.

Manheim Campaign
Along with the Myrmidon's crew, Jared was able to initiate a successful guerilla war with the Covenant invaders, striking various weak points and retreating back into the rolling tundra of Manheim to regroup and resupply. The conflict continued in the fashion for quite some time, raging on until near the close of 2552. Then, the Covenant Civil War completely upset the balance of power. The Covenant armada that was stationed over Manheim was made up mostly of Sangheili military personnel, moved to that location by the Prophets, who wanted them out of the way. When news came down to the Elites of the Civil War, they attacked and destroyed all of the other races' ships, sufferin minimal losses. On Manheim's surface, an Elite visionary named Sesta 'Laramee initiated a cease-fire with the remaining Human guerillas. Officers who objected to this truce were quickly moved out of the way by the Fleetmaster of the Sangheili armada. Together, the Humans and Elites cleansed Manheim of Covenant Loyalists, running into mysterious and dangerous Forerunner technology along the way. The exact nature of this technology remains classified by ONI command. Jared and 'Laramee became good friends during this drawn-out search and destroy mission, and the two remain close to this day. After Manheim was cleared, a portion the Myrmidon's navy and marine personnel were put back on to their vessel with a Sangheili repair crew. The rest were loaded into the Sangheili ships, and with some persuasion from Jared and the UNSC commanding officer, Sylvie Grey, the armada headed for Earth.

The Second Battle of Earth
When the joint task force arrived at Earth, SPARTAN-117 and Miranda Keyes had already departed for the Ark, leaving Lord Hood to coordinate the remaining defenses. Since most of the Brutes had joined the Prophet Truth in his journey to the Ark, a lesser amount of Loyalist forces were present on Earth, easy pickings for the Sangheili battlegroup and the UNSC Myrmidon's crew. Lord Hood welcomed the reinforcements with open arms, and immediately deployed Jared to the Chicago Industrial Zone, where heavy fighting between Brutes and Humans had continued for several days. Along with the ODSTs from the 101st ODST Battalion, Jared succeeded in turning the tables on the Brutes, allowing the UNSC forces in the area to launch a major counterattack. With the North American situation stabilized, SPARTAN-091 was transported to Sydney, where he provided protection for High Command's remaining officers for the duration of the battle. When the survivors of the Ark battle emerged from the Slipspace portal, Jared expected to meet up with John and discuss old times. He was deeply saddened when the most courageous SPARTAN did not return, and fell into something of a depression when he realized that he was one of the last of his kind. After some extensive therapy, he later visited the Human-Covenant War Memorial to pay his respects to his fallen brothers and sisters. He is unofficially credited with scratching the service numbers of his fallen brothers and sisters into the memorial.

Post-War Life
Jared did not attend the memorial's commissioning on March 3, 2553, as he was given a brief leave by High Command. During this leave, Jared chose to visit his hometown, which was located near the Hartsfield-Atlanta Space Transportation Terminal, a large district in the southeast of the former United States. When he arrived there, he discovered that his parents, whom he barely remembered, had been killed during the Covenant attack, and his hometown had been partly glassed. Asking around, Jared learned that most people did not remember his parents ever raising a child. The few that did said that the boy had died around the age of eight from a heart failure. After wandering around the Terminal for a few days, the SPARTAN was contacted by Miles Jaeger, one of the ODSTs that had worked with him at the end of the war. The Lieutenant invited him to go to Washington with some other members of the 101st ODST Battalion, an offer that Jared readily accepted. During this trip, he met a civilian researcher named Lauryn Allen, who was fascinated by his life's story. The two became close friends and promised to contact each other regularly after leaving Washington. On May 21, 2553, SPARTAN-091 was returned to duty, needed to combat the Insurrectionist threat that had finally raised its ugly head again.

Axeblade
From May 21, 2553 to June 25, 2556, Jared fought a desperate campaign against the small number of Innie forces that still remained. The terrorists had infiltrated several levels of government and threatened to destroy or eliminate certain people and equipment neccessary to effect the UNSC's recovery. SPARTAN-091 completed several dangerous anti-terror operations, raiding a safehouse, taking down a secondary leader, locating and securing a suitcase nuclear bomb, and other such missions. But, in 2556, the Insurrectionists made good their threat, destroying one of the main terraforming plants near New Mombasa with a nuclear device. After a long series of negotiations, the Insurrectionists were allowed to leave UNSC control and settle a new planet, which they named Independance. Jared-091 was returned to Earth to have his AI, Juliet, removed and deactivated, as she had reached her maximum "healthy" operations length.

Rejuvenation
Unfortunately for ONI, Juliet refused to let herself be removed, instead grafting herself directly to Jared's neural network implant. This process, while harmless to the SPARTAN, prevents any other attempts to separate the two, as High Command did not wish to accidentally kill one of their last supersoldiers in a risky surgery. After the process was completed, and Jared was deemed in no significant danger, he was called to Sydney, where he recieved a commission as a Lieutenant, Senior Grade. He was assigned to OPERATION: Rejuvenation, where he was attached to a frigate called the UNSC Long And Dark December whose mission it was to scout out colonizable worlds and report them to High Command. Sestas 'Laramee, now a Shipmaster, accompanied the December on her journey in his ship, in hopes of finding Forerunner artifacts and promoting inter-species cooperation. Jared discovered that his friend Lauryn Allen was in charge of the frigate's research detatchment, and the two are reunited. New Forerunner technology was found on one of the survey worlds, but the UNSC/Sangheili forces that try to recover it come under attack by Forerunner forces led by a inactivity-crazed AI. Eventually, the technology was recovered, and with Juliet's help, the AI was subdued. For a period of six months, the journey around the edge of UNSC space continued, until finally, the December returned to Earth to make its report. Jared, when he returned, was given a surprise birthday party by his old friends, the first actual party he had had since he was six. After walking Lauryn home, Jared was struck by a drunk driver and severely injured. He was immediately rushed to the hospital, where he was placed in intensive care. The drunk driver disappears under suspicious circumstances, and was later found dead in an alley. The incident was blamed on gang connections.

Jared recovered after several months of treatment and returned himself to active duty. He was contacted by his old ONI officers and assigned to an assasination mission, the complete details of which are still classified.

Liberty
As it turned out, ONI was not finished with the Insurrectionists. After its recall of SPARTAN-091, the Section-III office authorized him to conduct assasination missions in and around Independant space. For the period of two months, Jared did just that, working with ONI operatives to terminate many former leaders of the Insurrectionist movement and carry out several insurgent strikes on the infrastructure of Independance. The people of the "free" colony, already suffering under the effects of a trade embargo by the UNSC, and now faced with the deaths of their leaders and collapse of their economy, grudgingly surrendered themselves to UNSC government. Brought back into the fold, the UNSC graciously granted the world a post on the Planetary Council, and placeed no restrictions on free trade.