David Kahn

"Everyone dies."

- David Kahn

If you want to kill someone, hire a hit man. If you want to kill someone closely guarded, utterly secluded, or completely untouchable, hire David Kahn.

Indisputably the best mercenary and assassin-for-hire in the galaxy following the Great War, David Khan rose out of a brutal past to fight in the tail end of the Human-Covenant War and gained both prestige and infamy following the conflict when he began selling his considerable skills to the highest bidder. Responsible for countless successful mercenary operations and for the assassinations of innumerable politicians, dignitaries, criminals, and warlords, Kahn was a relentless hunter willing to take on any job, no matter how impossible the task might have seen. As cunning and meticulous as he was lethal, Kahn was as respected and feared by his employers as he was by those who sought his death or incarceration.

Aside from his highly successful career as a solo freelancer, Kahn was also the illegitimate parent of the Spartan Cassandra-G006 and instrumental in the training of the Humanity Liberation Front's operative Nimue, devoting over a decade to her instruction and upbringing.

Early Life
"It's a pattern, a damn fact of life. We all create the monsters. And it's the nature of the monsters to destroy their creators."

- David Kahn, reflecting on his childhood.

The boy who would become the most feared assassin in human history was born Hector Thornhill on the successful world of  in late 2468. His well-off parents, Michael and Jennifer Thornhill, were surprised and delighted to find that their infant son exhibited excellent physical and mental development over the first few years of his life; Hector was walking unsupported after only seven months and speaking coherently within a year and a half. But in spite of their child’s immense gifts, Michael and Jennifer’s domestic relationship was not a positive one. A retired  colonel, Michael was demanding and emotionally abusive towards Jennifer, who reacted to the strained relationship by developing an alcohol dependency in the months after Hector’s birth. When Hector was only two years old, Jennifer walked out of the marriage completely and left Michael to raise the young boy on his own.

In spite of the domestic troubles, Hector continued his impressive development. When he was old enough to begin his primary education he easily surpassed his classmates both academically and physically, displaying an aptitude in particular for reading and critical thinking. But the confidently intelligent front that the young Hector adopted disguised the strained relationship between the son and his domineering father. Jennifer’s departure had done nothing to temper Michael’s abrasive personality and he was unrelentingly oppressive towards Hector, pressuring him to excel and succeed at everything he did. While Michael never physically abused Hector, he constantly subjected him to brutal verbal attacks whenever the boy failed to live up to his Olympian expectations. Unable to win Michael’s love, Hector continued to push himself forward, participating in as many extracurricular activities as he could in order to stay away from his home—and his father. In order to bolster his own self-esteem in the face of Michael’s emotional abuse, Hector grew distant from his peers and looked down on them for not matching his own potential.

Hector’s success and arrogance made him plenty of enemies amongst his classmates. Groups of other boys sought to humble him by ambushing him on his way home and delivering group beatings on the street. Hector held his own during these fights, but the other boys’ superior numbers meant that he always wound up on the losing side. When Michael learned of the beatings, he paid for private lessons with dozens of martial arts instructions—the only time he ever spent money on his son’s education. As with everything else, Michael demanded excellence from his son in these lessons. Things came to a head when a sixteen year old Hector faced down twelve older boys by himself. In the ensuing fight, he hospitalized all twelve of his attackers. Michael approved of Hector’s “success,” which brought father and son closer than they had ever been. However, Hector soon faced suspension and criminal charges for injuring the other boys. An enraged Michael blamed Hector for “throwing [his] life away” and attempted to physically beat his son. But Hector easily overpowered his father, breaking Michael’s nose and forcing him out of the room. Shocked by the loss of control over his son, Michael spent the rest of the day sulking and drinking. That evening, he attacked Hector with a knife in a drunken fury, cutting him severely on his arms and chest. During the scuffle, Hector wrestled the knife away from his father and unflinchingly embedded it in Michael’s throat. Numbed by his father’s violence, Hector thanked Michael for making him strong before removing the knife and killing his father.

Enlistment
"I am sorry. Sorry I didn't kill him a year ago. The world's a better place without him."

- Hector speaking to a psychiatrist regarding the death of his father.

The ensuing police investigation into Michael's death exonerated Hector of all wrongdoing--the evidence clearly showed that the killing had been done in self-defense. However, the now-orphaned teenager was flagged for suspected mental health issues and placed under psychological examination the moment he entered Eridanus's underage ward program. The doctors who tested him were surprised to find the young man in what appeared to be a perfectly sound state of mind, responding candidly and intelligently to all the questions put before him. Nevertheless, every psychologist also noticed a disturbing lack of remorse on Hector's part for the killing of his father. Hector had convinced himself that Michael had deserved to die and that he had done the rest of humanity a favor by killing him.

The media circus regarding the death of Michael Thornhill soon ground to a halt and Hector faced less and less scrutiny as the months went by. Still completely unrepentant, Hector was not surprised when no foster home could be found willing to take him in. He was quite content within Eridanus's well-funded orphanage system and without Michael's oppressive influence he was free to conduct himself the way he pleased. Still highly competitive, he remained isolated from most of his fellow orphans while instead cultivating a tentative interest in the arts and sciences. Despite these beginnings of refined sensibilities, Hector had no interest in pursuing a career in academics. The stigma surrounding his background would doubtless prevent him from entering all but the most mediocre of universities and condemn him to what he saw as a life full of mediocrity and easy victories. Instead, he had his sights set on a different challenge entirely: the 's burgeoning.

Hector's push for enlistment was a challenge in and of itself. The Navy's recruit screening program blocked his candidacy on three separate occasions due to his "questionable state of mind." With no one within the system to grant him waivers for his security checks, Hector pressed on, scoring exceptionally high on the Navy's stringent entrance examinations time and time again until one center's recruitment personnel finally relented and allowed the troubled youth to be inducted into the military. Hector treated the subsequent months of training in the same manner that he'd treated the rest of his life: as a personal challenge to excel and rise above everyone around him.

After completing Basic Training, Hector immediately pursued his dream of joining the UNSC's special forces as they struggled to counter in the. Impressing his superiors with a natural talent for firearms and CQC, Hector easily passed the grueling entrance requirements. His early years in the navy's special warfare division (NAVSPECWAR) formed the core of the skills he would hone to lethal perfection as his career progressed. By the age of twenty-one, Hector's single-minded determination to excel and succeed had cut through any reservations the Navy might have had about his role in Michael's death. By the age of twenty-one he had been fast-tracked through NAVSPECWAR's specialized officer candidate school and received his lieutenant's commission in 2489. However, he owed much of his rapid ascension to agents of the, who had watched his growth since entering the special forces with great interest.



In late 2489, the newly minted Lieutenant Thornhill was approached by agents from ONI's secretive Section-III division. Seeking volunteers for the relaunch of the top-secret ORION project, the agents offered Hector a place in the UNSC's first super-soldier program. Eager to advance his soaring career further, Hector agreed. Unbeknownst to him, ONI had been grooming Hector to become one of their own black operatives since his special forces career had begun. ORION was the culmination of their preparations. The program's initial testing in CQC and basic combat skills offered Hector a challenge unlike he had ever experienced. In the months of combat testing, he rose to the top of the heap and was rated as the first amongst over a hundred of the finest special forces solders the UNSC's military had to offer.

In the meantime, Hector found himself assigned to more special warfare missions targeting the Insurrectionist movement. Paired with another aspiring officer, Felix Martel, Hector was sent after several rebel officials and ringleaders. During this time he developed a friendship with Martel, taking the younger officer under his wing and alternating between instructing and competing with his capable new partner. Their partnership came to a head in late 2490, when they were assigned to head up a team targeting a rebel information broker named David Kahn. Searching for Kahn on the Outer Colony Taradia, Hector and his team operated discretely for several weeks before he was recalled by NAVSPECWAR. Project Orion was getting underway.

A False Identity
The ORION project's principle goal was to implant its volunteers with a series of performance-enhancing augmentations that would render them the UNSC's first "supersoldiers." Along with his fellow volunteers, Hector spent several months recovering from the procedure and growing accustomed to his improved strength and reflexes before being transferred back to rejoin Felix. However, his ONI superiors had sent him back with an updated briefing: although he would still work towards finding and killing David Kahn, he would do so in a way that would allow him to disappear, leaving enough evidence for his comrades to believe he had died. Then, with Kahn dead, he would assume the information broker's identity and use it to cripple the colonial rebel network from the inside.

Although he had grave reservations about such a risky and difficult mission, Hector felt that he had come too far in ONI's service to turn his back on it now. Reunited with Felix in Taradia's Three Gates City, he joined his friend and their Marine support team as they assaulted rebel strongpoints. However, he quickly diverted them from their objective and had them join him in hunting for Kahn. His plan was to be captured by Kahn's forces, then gradually present himself as a potential defector to gain the broker's trust. Recklessly separating himself from Felix and the others, Hector allowed himself to be cornered and subdued by the rebel troops.

Hector's plan worked better than he could have hoped, as Kahn took it upon himself to personally "question" the captured special forces operative. Drugged and interrogated by Kahn, Hector had to rely on all of ONI's counter-interrogation training to avoid revealing his mission as he was forced to relive his harsh childhood. Painting himself as an ambitious power-seeker, he succeeded in convincing Kahn to prolong his incarceration long enough for the UNSC's assault on the rebel strong points to begin. Breaking free of his captors, he cornered and killed Kahn before escaping with copies of many of the broker's computer files. The first part of his orders fulfilled, Hector vanished amidst the chaos without making contact with the UNSC. For all intents and purposes, Hector Thornhill was dead; his life as David Kahn had just begun.

Double Agent
The secretive nature of the real David Kahn's operations allowed his replacement to quickly assume his role as the rebel underworld's information broker. Constantly moving from colony to colony, "David" capitalized on his predecessor's reputation to gather information on various rebel groups while feeding them tidbits of anti-government intelligence supplied by his ONI handlers. Blaming the sudden drop in the quality of his services on losses sustained during the Taradia battle, David quickly supplied ONI with the information it needed to eliminate several Insurrectionist ringleaders; several of these assassinations were carried out by David himself, who proved to be incredibly adept at navigating the colonies' criminal elements.

"Being able to set aside emotions and just pull the trigger is a skill most of us mercs take years to develop. But you, boss, you act like you've been able to do it since you were a kid."

- Natalie Perrin to David Kahn

As David continued heading up ONI's crackdown on insurrectionist activity his superiors began relying on him more and more to handle wet work. To offset the risk of embarking on so many solo missions, David hired on a freelance mercenary named Natalie Perrin to act as his assistant. Ignorant of her employer's true loyalties, Natalie believed that the rebels she was being paid to help kill had been blacklisted by their own organizations. Natalie was an accomplished operator in her own right and the hired gun soon impressed David with her the independent lifestyle.

Spending so much time caught up in the thick of the rebel cause began to cause David to question the government he worked for--as well as the reasons he was providing it with his prodigious killing talents. Fearing that raising his concerns with his superiors would get him removed from the field, David instead found solace in his growing relationship with Natalie. The mercenary provided him with a renewed experience of love, which had been completely absent from his life ever since his mother died. But in spite of his feelings for his partner, David never told her about his role as the UNSC's double agent within the rebel community.

A full two years after Hector Thornhill became David Kahn, he ran upon his biggest intelligence break yet: the location of a large anti-government community on the colony world of Mamore that was harboring large numbers of insurrectionist fighters. Granted the chance of sending the entire rebel movement into disarray, ONI hatched a plan to have "insurrectionists" hijack a civilian aircraft and use it to bomb the Mamore community with chemical weapons. Catching wind of the operation through their intelligence network, Natalie forced David into a crisis of conscience when she insisted they stop the bombing. His loyalty to the UNSC shattered by ONI's ruthless plan, David sent Natalie to board the vessel and reroute it. But the ONI agents had tampered with the craft's navigation systems and Natalie was unable to change its course. Operating from the ground, David used a long-ranged surface to air missile to destroy the craft and kill all aboard, including Natalie. Bereaved by the consequences of his service to ONI, David came to the conclusion that no single cause or ideology could ever claim to be superior to to another and that neither the UNSC or the rebels deserved his loyalty and skills. Fully assuming the identity of David Kahn, the man who had once been Hector Thornhill dropped off the grid and chose to walk his own path within the galactic underworld.

The Mercenary
His first recorded "job" occurred in late 2521 when he was noted during a Colonial Administration Authority investigation as having been one of several hired guns contracted by a colonial governor to assassinate political rivals. After this first appearance he took on numerous contracts throughout both the Inner and Outer colonies, mostly working for politicians or organized crime bosses to eliminate rivals or other unlucky individuals who had incurred his employers' wrath. Although most of his known hits are recorded as being successful, Kahn was really nothing more than a well-traveled hit man during this early stage in his career.

Realizing the low rung he inhabited on the ladder of mercenary professions, David also began taking government contracts in several Outer Colonies where he was not wanted for crimes he had committed during the fulfillment of his other jobs. His extensive knowledge of the galaxy's underworld and a slow but steady increase in his already formidable combat skills allowed him to collect higher fees as time went by. He also experienced his first tastes of "true" mercenary work when he was hired on as a soldier to fight on the front lines of several local brush wars that occurred from time to time in the Outer Colonies.

The onset of the Human-Covenant War in early 2525 proved to be a horrific shock for the human community at large but did very little initially to hurt the availability of jobs within the UEG's colonial underworld. However, as human losses began to pile up and the Outer Colonies began to fall, guns for hire like Kahn saw a sharp decrease in the amount of work provided in their formerly thriving field. Many joined the UNSC military in a growing show of solidarity as humans began to see that their only hope in survival lay in unity. Kahn himself was unable (as well as unwilling) to rejoin the military due to his now-extensive criminal record and instead began taking on the jobs left available by the shrinking amount of mercenaries in circulation. But even with the vacancies, it was still becoming increasingly difficult to make ends meet and David found himself taking on jobs that he would normally have considered too high-risk. One of these involved the assassination of a released criminal who was once again under suspicion and being questioned at a public hearing. Hired by the man's former associates to ensure that he did not divulge information about them, Kahn ran into more trouble than he was expecting when he tried to carry out the hit. His first attempt, at the mark's office, failed when he mistakenly shot a different man sitting at his target's desk. The second attempt, a drive by shooting, succeeded only in killing one of the man's police escorts. Almost out of options, David snuck into the hearing itself with a silenced pistol and finally eliminated his target. During his escape from the court building he was shot several times by police officers and only barely escaped with his life. Although most of his wounds were superficial, David had been given two direct hits to his leg, leaving him with a limp incurable by anything short of extensive surgery that he could not afford.

"So I'm 'classier than a prostitute.' How uplifting."

- David Kahn after receiving an unusual job offer from Jocasta Powell

Now handicapped and nearly broke, Kahn lapsed into a depression and was gambling away the last of his money in a bar in 2537 when he received a unique job offer from Jocasta Powell, the wife of Thomas Powell, head of the powerful Powell Syndicate. Jocasta was fuming from the discovery that her husband had conceived a son through his mistress. Although Thomas had thrown the mistress and her unborn son onto the streets after Jocasta had threatened to leave him, he had not fully realized the extent of the damage to his wife's pride and her almost irrational desire to get back at him through an act of symbolic revenge. Jocasta, who was impressed by Kahn's career and aware of his current state of poverty, offered to both pay him a handsome sum and cover his leg surgery if he would conceive a child with her. Although initially feeling degraded and insulted by the offer, Kahn was quickly forced to face the reality of his situation and agreed to take the so-called job. After spending a night with Jocasta without Thomas's consent, David stayed near the Powell estate and lived off a retainer from Jocasta until she learned that she was pregnant with a girl during the spring of 2538. With his leg surgery completed and a staggering amount of money now in his accounts, David left Jocasta, who now enjoyed a sense of triumph over her husband for having him raise a child that he thought was his own. Still flabbergasted by the nature of his salvation, Kahn was determined not to waste the strange second chance he had been given and once again vowed to become the absolute best in his lethal trade.

The Human-Covenant War
Following his job with the Powells, David dropped almost completely off the galactic map for almost a decade. While such disappearances were extremely common in the chaos sparked by the Covenant's constant encroachment on UNSC territory, David's was unique in that he actually reappeared (he began officially taking on contracts again in 2548) rather than simply vanishing into the fog of war. While none can actually attest to what he was doing during this time period, there were many unofficial sightings of individuals resembling him taking part in several engagements against invading Covenant forces. One such sighting occurred during the evacuation of Acre City on Theseus IV in 2543 when a fellow mercenary believed he saw Kahn providing independent sniper support against advancing Covenant forces, while another was recounted by a hit man turned marine who claimed to have been aided by Kahn in an ambush during the jungle fighting on Xenophon in 2546. Although the various sightings differed in time, location, and feasibility, they all involved Kahn participating in actions against Covenant forces in some way, shape, or form. Although he had abandoned the UNSC, Kahn wished to do his part to aid humanity while honing his skills in preparation for the revitalization of his career.

David reemerged into the mercenary community in late 2548 when he and several other mercenaries took on a contract from a rich refugee to risk infiltrating a captured human city on Sobek III in order to retrieve several priceless heirlooms from the man's house. The mission was successful, although only Kahn and one other mercenary lived to collect their fees, and from that point on Kahn was once again accepting contracts from anyone who would pay well. Although the number of traditional contracts remained at an all-time low, there was plenty of money to be made accepting bodyguard jobs for opulent refugees and taking on scouting or escort jobs from beleaguered UNSC commanders. The final year of the war saw David active on the embattled face of Earth herself and he was reported as having fought in several engagements in the Central and Southern American regions before the war was officially ended.

Reconstruction Period
"When I take a contract, I see it through to the end. I don't care how well hidden the target is or how many goons, aliens, or genetic freaks are between me and him, because I'll do whatever it takes to get the job done. That is what makes me different from the others in my line of work: they have limits; I do not."

- David Kahn speaking to a dubious employer.

As humanity began to get back on its feet in the years following the end of the war, David wasted no time in setting up shop in the revitalized galactic underworld and refilling his old niche as an elite gun for hire. With most police forces overstretched from refugee influxes and reconstruction projects, many local governments were happy to hire the likes of Kahn to help keep wanted criminals in check. Likewise, the slow rebuilding of the UEG's colonial infrastructure opened a new door for humanity's various criminal syndicates to forge new underworld empires and David found himself accepting countless contracts to help one crime boss after another eliminate their rivals (Somewhat ironically, he received the most contracts from the Syndicate run by Thomas Powell, which would eventually claw its way to the top and become the most feared criminal organization in the galaxy). Another burgeoning market existed amidst the confusion of the Covenant's dissolution, as former client races such as the Kig-Yar or Unggoy beckoned in waves of human missionaries, con men, relief workers, criminals, and mercenaries. One job taken by Kahn in 2555 had him assassinate a Sangheili warlord who had set himself and his men up as rulers of a small colony of Unggoy. Clad in his already battered armor, Kahn infiltrated the warlord's compound and eliminated almost every warrior in sight with a sniper rifle before killing the rest in a furious firefight that gave Kahn a fierce reputation in the eyes of the Unggoy and Sangheili alike.

While Kahn made a killing in government and criminal contracts, his most lucrative clients were by far the various Insurrectionist factions who saw great value in hiring such a lethal operative. While he did make a point of turning down bombing jobs ("terrorist business," he called them), Kahn was so efficient when it came to eliminating individual CAA and UNSC officials that his work for the Insurrectionists actually killed his government contracts. Five months after his first Insurrection contract, Kahn was a UNSC-wide public enemy and forced to wear a variety of face-altering make ups whenever he wanted to go out in public. But the contracts that flooded in from Insurrectionist factions more than made up for what he saw as a mild inconvenience. One of his most frequent clients was an up and coming officer in the Humanity Liberation Front faction named Redmond Venter with whom Kahn developed a mild rapport as time wore on. Years later, Venter's experience with Kahn would lead him to offer the mercenary a job that would radically change the course of his life.

Project Knight
Around 2560, David was once again contacted by Redmond Venter. Venter had by now become a highly placed and funded officer within the Humanity Liberation Front, and had recently spearheaded a new project that he hoped would both increase the HLF's effectiveness against the UNSC and give him enough clout to rise even further within his organization's leadership. This project was Project Knight, and its goal was to create rebel supersoldiers akin to the UNSC's Spartans. Using DNA samples retrieved from a Spartan traitor, Venter's scientists had managed to replicate some of the chemical augmentations undergone by the SPARTAN-IIIs. Although these drugs would not be as potent as those used by the UNSC, the HLF hoped that with the right training their "Knight" operatives could become superb operatives in their continuing resistance against UNSC control.

Augmenting close to a hundred test tube babies conceived through the DNA of several HLF operatives and mercenaries, Venter's scientists turned the "batch" over to Venter and his hand-picked cadre of HLF and mercenary trainers after three years of flash-learning and development. Though the HLF-brewed augmentations were far less effective than Venter had hoped, the one hundred Knight trainees were still in peak physical condition and he decided to go ahead with the project. However, he singled out one young girl--assigned the code-name "Nimue"--who was deemed to have the fastest reflexes and reaction times of all the trainees. Venter saw in the project an opportunity to quietly build a small army of skilled operatives that were more loyal to him than to the HLF as a whole, and wanted to ensure that at least one would not be affected by any parts of the training that were going to be influenced by his fellow HLF leaders. In order to create the "perfect assassin", Venter decided to contract the best assassin money could buy in order to train her.

David was initially skeptical of the deal, especially since it involved taking in and raising an three-year old child for an indefinite amount of time. However, with a ten million credit contract (in addition to an additional twenty million once he delivered the finished "product") riding on the job, he accepted and allowed himself to be taken to a remote colony world where the HLF had quietly assembled a small bunker complex for him to live for the duration of Nimue's training.

Training Nimue
David quickly dedicated himself to Nimue's training with the same level calculated dedication he had shown all of his previous contracts. The girl reacted poorly to her sudden confinement with the large, intimidating mercenary and spent their first few weeks alone together hiding in various spots of their new bunker home. David was impressed by the young child's ability to hide so effectively, but was extremely worried about how he would carry out the first years of her training. He knew that in order for his methods be effective he needed to submit his new charge to a harsh training regimen from the very beginning, but he also feared that putting too much pressure on the girl at such an early age would break her entirely and render her useless as the assassin he'd been hired to create.

In the end, David took a middle road. He began the training by drilling Nimue in various forms of martial arts, working to develop her unarmed fighting skills before he instructed her with weapons. He rewarded successful completion of their drills together with extra rations and praise, but any failures on Nimue's part would result in David beating her to a bloody pulp before denying her rations and forcing her to do more exercises in her weakened state. In regards to these punishments, David more than lived up to his merciless reputation. While internally conflicted by his actions, he never allowed his misgivings to affect the administration of his harsh discipline. However, he always allowed one thing to stay his hand from punishing Nimue's failures: if at any time during his savage beatings she managed to fight back and hit him, he would immediately cease attacking her and provide her with the rations he would otherwise have denied.

Personality and Traits
"There are only two things in the universe that I'll never hit. No kids, not under any circumstances; no civvies unless they're involved with the mobs or politics. They stop being civvies after that. Everything else is fair game."

- David Kahn discussing his modus operandi with Mordred

Overview
David was a brash, outspoken man when he entered the mercenary trade and was suited for working as little more than a common soldier and hitman. His experiences with injury, degradation, and above all the Human-Covenant War served to temper both his attitude towards his work and his outlook on the universe in general. The man who emerged into the post-war galaxy was no longer solely concerned with surviving and fulfilling his day to day desires and needs. The post-war Kahn had seen his own species brought to the brink of extinction and had faced death more than enough times to become keenly aware of his own mortality. With no family or friends to guide or direct him and mindful of how insignificant his life would most likely become on the grand scale of human history and the galaxy at large, Kahn set out to build a name for himself that would live on long after he himself had died. This desire would drive him to earn a reputation as the best mercenary, bounty hunter, and assassin in both human and Covenant space. Until he accepted the job to raise and train Nimue, all David cared to concern himself with was maintaining and expanding his fearsome reputation.

The decade he spent tutoring Nimue forced David to reevaluate his priorities. For the first time in his career he had someone other than himself to look out for and (eventually) to care about. Realizing that he could establish more than just a reputation as his legacy, David sought to make Nimue the greatest assassin the galaxy had ever seen, surpassing even himself and those trained by the UNSC and thereby creating something concrete that would live on after he himself died. This ego-born ambition would often come into conflict with the conscience that David was slowly developing in response to his paternal feelings toward the young girl. His emotions also conflicted with the harsh methods he employed to train Nimue, but he assuaged his guilt through the justification that he was preparing her for the "survival of the fittest" nature of the galaxy they lived in. Although saddened by the separation brought on by Nimue's resistance to the HLF's designs for her, David was satisfied that he had done all he could to prepare his charge and was made proud by the independence made plain by her choice to resist the Insurrectionists sent to retrieve her. The years with Nimue softened David enough to make him rethink his previous dislike of having companions during his jobs and inspired to pursue a brief partnership with the up-and-coming mercenary Mordred and his A.I. accomplice Diana shortly after Nimue left him. The combination of Nimue's influence and the short-lived partnership made David a much more personable man when dealing with his few close associates, although he did his best to maintain the cold demeanor he'd once possessed at all other times.

With David only able to maintain sporadic communication with Nimue and his partnership with Mordred dissolved, he has mostly returned to his old ways of operating as a lone agent but occasionally agrees to work with other mercenaries if he feels a contract warrants it. He maintains an air of cold detachment when performing jobs and is willing to use any means necessary in order to fulfill his contracts so long as they adhere to his loose code of honor. Attempts to buy him off always fail, as he is both too proud to accept and too wary of the damage it might cause to his ever-precious reputation.

Mental and Physical Abilities


Although many deride men of David's profession as uneducated thugs and criminals, David himself is possessed of a sharp mind and uses it just as much as he uses weapons to both plan and execute his contracts. While lacking much knowledge of classical subjects aside from what he has picked up during his spare time, he is well-versed in the use of almost any weapon system imaginable and maintains a working technical knowledge by maintaining much of his gear and even performing some upgrades to his ship personally. His time as a partner to Mordred and Diana improved his computer skills greatly, as the A.I. Diana was always causing trouble in David's ship and he often attempted to lock her out of the system (he rarely succeeded). Aside from his first language of basic English, David can communicate coherently in several other Earth-based tongues as well as a few Kig-Yar and Sangheili languages.

David keeps himself in peak physical condition at all times and will always take time away from more leisurely activities to exercise or practice different forms of combat. Both strong and agile, he is said to be one the deadliest humans in the galaxy outside the UNSC's elite Spartans and is rumored to have even engaged SPARTAN-IIs and IIIs in combat at different points in his career. He is trained in a variety of martial arts and knows how to wield knives with speed and efficiency. His skill with weapons is equally proficient and he is willing to engage at close, medium, or long ranges depending on the situation. His encyclopedic knowledge of both human and alien body structures allows him to both perform competent field surgery and deliver devastating attacks to organic structural weak points. He is somewhat knowledgeable of various poisons, but rarely uses them as he considers them to be less efficient methods of killing than bullets. He has made a point of building up immunities to as many poisonous substances as possible without causing permanent harm to his body. Although comfortable with using explosive as traps and weapons in combat zones, he despises using them for assassinations as they are far too random and clumsy for him to consider them serious tools for that sort of job.

Hobbies and Pastimes
Although the majority of David's time was spent either fulfilling contract missions or in transit to new ones, he would occasionally take time to himself in order to relax and enjoy the exorbitant amounts of money he charged for his services. While he kept the majority of it tucked away in small pockets across UNSC space in the care of various underworld money launderers, making a point to never spend more than a modest some on his own entertainment, David would keep small sums on his person to occasionally indulge in pastimes and hobbies. His most common method of relaxation was spending long hours in seedy bars. During the early days of his mercenary career David cared little about how much he drank and would more often than not be amongst the drunken participants in the brawls that would invariably spring up in these low-brow establishments. However, as his reputation grew David began to feel that it was both dangerous and undignified to drink himself into a stupor so he began to carefully limit the amount of drinks he had in each sitting.

One of David's more guilty pleasures was his enjoyment of musicals, especially those of the ancient "Broadway" variety. Claiming that they both "invigorated and calmed" him at the same time, David especially enjoyed the musicals Les Miserables and The Producers. He was very secretive about this particular hobby and would only indulge in it if he knew he could get away with it unnoticed. Download logs for his helmet's mini-computer showed that he also uploaded a variety of classical music from Earth's ancient history for private listening, and copies of many historical books could be found throughout his personal vessel.

Weapons
David Kahn's lifetime of combat experience has made him proficient with almost every small small-arms weapon manufactured by humans, and he is known to be extremely adaptable in the field when it comes to retrieving weapons from fallen enemies in order to match the ever-shifting conditions of battle. He is an excellent shot with all manner of weapons, though his preferred firearms are rifles designed for long range engagements and high-caliber pistols for closer-ranged fighting. He has been reported as using conventional military weapons such as assault rifles and submachine guns while operating in a more standard combat capacity. In spite of his distaste for using explosives for assassinations, he is more than willing to set up booby traps using grenades and other explosive charges during the heat of battle.

While by no means preferring fists and knives over firearms for combat, Kahn is still masterful with both when necessary and is rumored to have killed groups of better-armed opponents with his bare hands on several occasions. Were one to analyze Kahn's unique styles of fighting, they would observe a comprehensive and fundamental mind constantly taking note of the surroundings and opponents and adapting its technique and strategies in order to maintain the upper hand.

Armor
During most assassination jobs requiring little to no contact with hostile troops, Kahn either utilizes plainclothes or wears a modified "body sheath" similar to the kind worn underneath most suits of full-body armor. It has been rewoven with countless hardened nanofibers that maintain wearer flexibility but can also protect against light small arms fire and absorb kinetic impacts. For more conventional mercenary work that usually occurs during skirmishes and full scale battles, Kahn makes use of a stolen suit of Orbital Drop Shock Trooper armor that he is believed to have salvaged and refurbished during the Great War. Like all ODST suits, the armor can stand up to projectile and plasma impacts while allowing the user maximum protection without hampering body movement. By wearing his modified body sheath along with the armor, Kahn manages to maximize his protection without sacrificing too much movement and flexibility.

Trivia

 * While it remains a fact that most modern mercenaries from the 21st century and on to the 26th have generally organized themselves into large-scale Private Military Companies, security forces, or even fringe armies in order to secure larger profits and to remain desirable hirelings for larger--and better paying--entities or organizations, the large-scale reconstruction visited upon the galaxy following the end of the Great War opened the doors to a wave of "freelance" mercenaries as well. Many humans, Sangheili, and Jiralhanae, particularly ex-special forces from all sides of the war, either formed smaller mercenary groups or even operated entirely on their own. These veterans of the war were often highly capable fighters who could potentially develop a large enough reputation that mercenary groups or potential customers might actively seek to procure their services for large amounts of money. Furthermore, the rise of organized crime--particularly around the massive Syndicate criminal empire--allowed for better organization within the mercenary "community". Several databases of the many freelance soldiers were compiled and made available to criminal brokers and go-betweens, who could then contact the individuals in question in order to set up a contract. While David Kahn had enjoyed a healthy career already as a freelance assassin--a profession more suitable for solo operatives--this paradigm shift allowed the fiercely independent operative to take on more jobs with private armies, criminal and rebel groups, and even some local governments.
 * Many believe that the high prices Kahn charges for his services have granted him a huge fortune that is hidden away in some private bank or bunker. The truth, however, is that much of his contract money is spent on covering the high costs of equipment, bribes, and ammunition that are made necessary by his freelance status.
 * In the earliest days of his career, Kahn used the alias of "Hector Thornfield" on several occasions. Whether this name holds any meaning to him outside of a false identity is unknown.

Behind the Scenes

 * David's original last name was "Wellesley" before the author changed it to the simpler-sounding surname of "Kahn."
 * Although initially drawn from Boba Fett, David Kahn's current iteration is heavily inspired by the assassin David Cain from DC comics and almost all of the pictures in this article are derived from images of that character. His training of Nimue is also inspired by Cain's training of Cassandra Cain, though the results and aftermath of the training have been completely altered.