Tess-B312

"Yes, Noble Team will do. Yet only one of them can carry our last hope. Only one will hold our fate in their hands."

Tess-B312 was a of the , attached to. 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. She perished in battle with forces at Rally Point Omega near  after delivering the A.I.  to the. In, a eulogy was delivered by Dr. Catherine Halsey commemorating her heroic actions.

=Introduction=

Career Service Vitae
=Biography=

Childhood
Tess was born to a middle-class family on, in 's Warehouse District, during the summer of. Her father, John “Jack” Bradley, was a welder who was born in 's, the son of an SAS Sergeant and a photographer. Her mother, Angelica Vasquez-Bradley, was of Hispanic descent, with extended family living on. 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 As a small child, she was shy and seemed withdrawn from her playmates, but possessed a quick mind and a keen intellect.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, 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 named, whose  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 '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 began.

Now an orphan, Theresa spent two years in an orphanage on, unaware that the had added her name to '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, she and the other 417 Beta Company candidates were subjected to a perilous initiation test: jumping from a flying , at night, wearing a. Though terrified, she made a first impression by running toward the edge of the ramp and 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 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, stalk them for hours if needed, corner and neutralize them, then steal their 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, LCDR Kurt Ambrose and 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 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. In 2545, she learned that nearly all of Beta Company had been wiped out in ; 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. 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, the “Big Three” of the ONI-- , , and --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, 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 in most respects, the [B] variant was actually one of the earliest functioning prototypes of the, albeit without  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. While she wasn't eradicating rebel groups, she acted as a test pilot in the UNSC's top-secret, flying prototype and gaining a reputation as an ace pilot. 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, 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 in late  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, 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, then returned there in to quell a fresh uprising. Her skills as a Sabre pilot were used extensively during this engagement, though she sustained minor injuries during ground assault due to a. Her performance as a pilot and footsoldier was brought to the attention of UNSC Army Colonel, the of. Holland ordered her to be transferred to one of his SpecOps units,, as a replacement for fallen SPARTAN. Rear Admiral Shepard was loath to have his private grim reaper reassigned, but in July of 2552, B312 arrived on ready to meet her new unit.

Noble
Sunrise on July 24, 2552 found B312 en route to join NOBLE Team, driven by and escorted by two. Upon arriving at a small military encampment, she was introduced to her new teammates, who took her arrival in stride despite lingering sentiments over Thom's death. Any opposition to her arrival that might have existed had no chance to manifest, as NOBLE received new orders from Holland as soon as B312 came. As the Spartans prepared to deploy on their new mission, took the liberty of welcoming B312 to the team and criticizing her for her lone-wolf record, admonishing her to work as part of the group. She rode in a Falcon with the commander and as NOBLE headed for the territory of, where a  had gone silent, supposedly the doing of rebel saboteurs.

The team arrived at Visegrád mid-morning and immediately investigated evidence of foul play around the settlement, such as destroyed UNSC vehicles and damaged buildings. After the interrogation of a terrified farmer, who claimed that something in the fields had killed his son, heat signatures were detected in a nearby structure, where NOBLE discovered the dead bodies of UNSC who had been brutally tortured. Upon entering the adjacent barn, the Spartans sighted Covenant troops from one of the upper level windows, and proceeded to engage the hostiles in the barnyard and the fields beyond. After rescuing Army unit, NOBLE Team utilized a Falcon airlift to get to the Visegrád Relay, where they fought through a thick wave of Covenant ground troops to get into the compromised facility. While assessed the damage to the COM relay, B312 searched the body of an elderly male  who had been killed, discovering a strange data module in the process; Kat was quick to take possession of the module. When found a  hiding, she began to struggle and scream in, warning the Spartans that there were more aliens in the facility. Three came out of active camouflage and attacked NOBLE Team, and B312 was nearly impaled by an enemy swordsman, narrowly escaping thanks to her own tenacity and Carter's intervention. She and Jorge pursued the Zealots further into the facility's corridors, eliminating them and resetting a junction that would enable Kat to make rudimentary repairs to the COM relay.

While Kat tended to the damaged components in an effort to contact Colonel Holland, the rest of NOBLE Team waited. Carter ordered Jorge to question the civilian woman for information; B312 watched from a distance as the older Spartan attempted to do so. His friendliness to the girl, whose name was Sára Sorvad, and genuine sorrow over the fact that the slain scientist was the girl's father puzzled B312, as did his reaction to a taunt made by concerning the emotions shown. Immediately following this incident, Kat established contact with Holland, and Carter warned NOBLE's CO of the Covenant presence, declaring the.

ONI: Sword Base
Two days after the confrontation at Visegrad, NOBLE was deployed on the Babd Catha Ice Shelf in the polar region of Eposz. Located on the ice shelf was an ONI research facility codenamed Sword Base, which had come under attack by a Covenant Corvette and waves of infantry; a strike from orbit could not be performed on the Corvette due to the facility's sensitive nature, so the Spartans were ordered to help eradicate the alien presence at Sword manually. They were transported to the base by Falcons and split up to perform separate facets of the mission; Kat and B312 were dropped in the courtyard, while the others moved on to different areas.

The two female Spartan-IIIs led surviving Army troopers in repelling the enemy invasion, clearing the courtyard and stocking up on ordnance before exiting the main gate. Upon leaving the confines of the base, they encountered a fresh wave of Covenant ground troops supported by two Wraith tanks. Rather than attempting a direct assault on the powerful vehicles, Kat directed B312 to destroy the Wraiths using a H-165 FOM target locater, calling in an artillery strike. After the tanks were neutralized, a Pelican deposited transport for the Spartans in the form of an M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle. With orders from Sword Control to activate a nearby comms array and an anti-air battery, they proceeded to engage more enemy infantry, eliminating hostiles as they went. B312 successfully activated the comms array and the AA gun, then both Spartans returned to Sword Base to clear out the Covenant forces that had moved in while they were busy. As they made for the main gate, a small number of Revenants harried them and were consequently destroyed.

Kat and B312 blitzed through the courtyard once again, then discovered a pair of Hunters inside the garage that contained the elevator they needed to get to Sword Base's upper levels. While Kat took care of the infantry guarding the elevator, B312 fought off the Hunters, killing them in a matter of minutes. They then took the elevator up to the security office, which would lead them to the Tower Atrium, where the rest of NOBLE Team waited for assistance. Upon reaching the Atrium, B312 was ordered by Carter to head to an upper level and assist Emile in taking out Banshees so the UNSC could dispatch Longswords to chase off the Corvette. She did so, neutralizing the SpecOps Elites sent to stop the Spartans and using a SPNKr missile launcher to demolish nearby Banshees and a Phantom dropship. The Covenant pulled out upon the arrival of the Longswords, and the Corvette was shot through by a Super MAC round while attempting to retreat.

B312 was congratulated by Jorge-052 for her successes, another expression of genuine emotion that was a far cry from the cold approval she was used to receiving for her actions. Immediately afterward, they were contacted by Carter, who ordered them to report to the science wing for a debriefing with Dr. Catherine Halsey. Halsey was gratified to see Jorge, one of “her” Spartans, but showed something akin to hostility to the others, who had never met her in their lives. She grilled them for details of the Visegrad incident and berated Carter for not pursuing the Elite Zealots, and went on to threaten Kat for attempting to access the contents of xeno-archaeologist's data module. The module was promptly returned to Halsey, and Carter defended Kat, stating that any attempt by Halsey to interfere with their deployment was severely punishable. They parted on frosty terms, as Halsey returned to her research and NOBLE was ordered by Holland to mop up scattered remnants of the invasion force around Sword Base. That night the Spartans made camp in the woods and B312 had time to talk with Jorge, whose friendliness had not gone unnoticed by the former lone wolf. Though her interest in the older Spartan initially manifested as curiosity, they became fast friends, his tendency to freely give opinions filling the void left by her lack of socialization skills. The next two weeks of minor deployments proved to be valuable bonding time, during which she managed to beat him at poker, one of his fortes. Now known as “Six,” she finally began to feel at ease among the Spartans of NOBLE Team, having regained the sense of camaraderie that had been lost when she was taken out of Beta Company.

Battle of Aszod
=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 due to the fact that it bears no resemblance to any elements of the author's own name. In all actuality, this particular Noble Six is named after a character from Brian Jacques' Redwall children's book series, Tess Churchmouse, though she acts nothing like her namesake.
 * Tess was one of the oldest Beta Company trainees, having graduated at age 16 while most of the others were around 12.
 * 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:Tess school picture.png|Photograph portrait of Theresa Bradley, age six 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 from November 2551 onward File:Welcome to NOBLE.png|A message from Col. Holland to B312 shortly before she joined NOBLE Team