SPARTAN-X077

==Jake Hammer SPARTAN-X077==
==Childhood==
“Your parents are fighting for the wrong cause, and I’m going to make sure that you don’t end up doing that as well.”
-Jake’s Nanny. 
Born on the Rebel Asteroid Base Freedom, Jake’s parents were the leaders of the Base, and he rarely saw them, and was instead raised mostly by his nanny, who was secretly a UNSC agent. Raised to love the UNSC, Jake withdrew from his life; he would spend his classes daydreaming and using his keen mind to think of ways to get away from the Asteroid and into UNSC space, finding ways to sabotage the asteroid systems to make the leaders of the base lives miserable best of all, no one, despite how suspicious they got of him, ever messed with him; “Just one of the few privileges that comes from being the son of the base’s leaders!” he would often say to his nanny. So when his parents died on an attack at a UNSC base that was making Nuclear Warheads for the war against the covenant, he barely even flinched. 
==Spartanhood and Command==
“You, under order of ONI Section III, are hereby conscripted into the SPARTAN-X Program; effective immediately.”
-Unknown ONI Operative. 
Soon after his parent’s death, ONI raided the asteroid base, and unlike most other children who, cursed and screamed at the UNSC agents, he openly thanked them for a way off the asteroid. During training, he quickly surpassed the other trainees, somewhat due to the fact that he was already a black belt in karate, knew how to fire several standard UNSC firearms, and had already been trained in battlefield tactics by his Nanny. Quickly rising above his peers, Jake’s squad (who were among the first to come around to the UNSC) dominated competitions, winning every single time consistently for about the first four years of training. Around this time, rivals began to pop up for Fireteam Echo(Jake’s team), chief among these being Fireteam Cobra, one of the strongest squads out there. For three years Jake continually pushed Echo to be the best, and even the mighty Cobra was struck down by Echo’s might. Then after five years of long and hard training, the leaders of the entire company were decided. Jake was awarded full command of the entire company,SPARTAN-X197Andrew Johnson second command, and the leader of Fireteam Cobra, SPARTAN-X879 Daniel Anthems, third. 
==Augmentation and Operation Shadow==
“Today we will fight our toughest battle, we will fight a battle which we cannot influence, but we will try anyway; we will try, because we are Spartans, and Spartans never give up!
-A speech Jake made just before augmentation.
On September 21st, 2 days after the leaders were decided, the Spartans faced their toughest challenge yet: Augmentation. This process had claimed Spartan lives before, and it just as easily could now. For some, it was their greatest fear, for others, it was their greatest challenge. However, no matter what their mindset was towards it, they all confronted it head on, and when they emerged from the bed tables and tubes and wires, they were changed people. They were Spartans. Jake, being a member of the most elite of the Spartan IVs, received Cladihaldrin, a drug that enhanced the amount of the brain that could be used by 5%. However, there was another, much more combat apt bio-upgrade that he received. Two miniaturized M7057 Defoliant Projector Flamethrowers were integrated into his palms, appeareing as two small silver disks with two holes in them for spurting flames. He was also given extremely expensive drugs that increased the heat protection on his hands. This allowed him to carry such things as burning branches indefinetly, but would still melt away if hit with the intense heat associated with a plasma bolt. Later on, after hurt severly in the crash of a Cougar Escape ship, these older flamthrowers would be replaced by captured and converted mini fuel rod cannons, which though they had a slow rate of fire and were subject to overheating, did much more damage if used correctly. Both of these are powered by an experimental matrix generator, which could create and infinite amount of power, and recharged quickly. These were mounted inside his forearms, in an extremely painful procedure. For rest of the years they trained, and Jake managed to hide his special augmentation from his sqaud, as he was afraid that as soon as they found out he would be exhiled. But years passesd and he gradually came to accept them, even as training wore on. 
==Operation Shadow==
“I remember seeing the rebel jump at Jake, a dagger held in the palm of his hand, and remember how shocked I was when I saw Jake lift his hands and flame-thrower the man in mid-air!”
-Excerpt fromt the journal of an unknown Spartan of Fireteam Echo. 
On July 4th, 2552, ONI gave the Spartan Xs their first mission: Operation Shadow. As the leader of the Spartans, Jake worked with Admiral Jerry B. Jacobs to work out a battle strategy, and they were confident it would work by the time they were done with it. Once the attack started, Jake took command of Fireteam Echo, and with the help of his fellow Spartan and friend Andrew Johnson, he managed to take home the record for the most kills; as well as securing the nukes and destroying a large rebel database of UNSC encryption keys, while also getting his first chance to test out his hand mounted flamethrowers. The mission was a stunning succes; 2,500 rebels were killed, and 5,000 were captured. The Spartan’s morale skyrocketed, and they soon began to think of themselves as invincible. However, that false sense of being untouchable would soon be shattered to pieces.
==Operation Anvil==
“Louis! No!”
-Jake, after seeing one of his squad mates jump on a plasma grenade to save Fireteam Charlie. 
On September 1st, 2552, the Spartans left their training base behind, and were loaded aboard the Prowlers Avenger and Defiance one last time. Their objective: New Paris. On September 19th, 2552, the 950 Spartans were launched into slipspace aboard Slipspace Capable Orbital Drop Pods, destined for the planet. That was when disaster struck. The landing zone was much more heavily defended than ONI had expected, as was the entire planet. What was supposed to be an easy drop soon turned into a nightmare. One of the members of Jake’s squad died before they hit the ground; shot down before impact by covenant anti-air guns. However, as soon as they landed the tide turned. Despite being grossly outnumbered, they defeated almost all of the covenant forces near the drop zone. However, Fireteam Charlie foolishly advanced, thinking it was clear, and surviving elite was able to let off a plasma grenade. This almost cost the entire squad their lives. It was only the actions of Louis, one of the members of Echo Team that saved them. Thinking fast, he charged in front of the grenade, and leapt clear of Charlie, keeping them outside of the blast radius. Thought he had died in the process, Louis had saved all of Fire Team Charlie. Jake lectured Charlie immediately on their mistake, and said that he should have shot them right there, and he would have too, if they had had more men. Nevertheless, they set out on foot towards the central city of the planet where the covenant were enacting a mining operation, and began to rally squads behind them. Their two squads soon turned to four, then to six, to ten, and then to dozens as they made their way through the wilderness and towards the covenant operations on the planet. It was then that Jake learned that they had lost almost 150 men on the initial landing. As the trek wore on, they began to take heavy casualties; in the time span after their landing and their arrival at the city, they lost almost 400 Spartans. This took a heavy toll on Jake; he was their leader, and he was letting them down. However, they continued to go on, and they eventually reached the city, with an even 370 Spartans still active.
==Infiltration of the City==
“We dropped down on those covenant bastards heads from the rooftops, but it barely fazed them; instead, they 
just stood there and cut us down. 
-Recount of the infiltration of the city by an unknown Spartan. 
On September 22nd 2552, the Spartan Xs gathered outside of the city, and began their assault. The Spartans split into their fire teams, and used the familiar terrain to their advantage, using hit and run tactics and ambushes to take down much larger covenant groups. Even so, the Covenant still outnumbered them, and the Spartans began to take heavy losses. However, during the initial skirmishes, Jake and his squad, Fireteam Echo, found a hidden mineshaft. The eight Spartans quickly dispatched the covenant guards, taking no casualties themselves, and were happily surprised to see Fireteam Charlie come running, having been close by and heard the gunfire. Quickly informing Charlie about what had happened, Jake ordered Fireteam Charlie to follow them into the shaft. Proceeding downwards, they found a doorway blocked by rubble, which the Covenant had apparently ignored for fear of damaging the Forerunner technology that might be inside it. However, the Spartans were not so inclined; the placed Charges and blew the rubble away from the doorway. Proceeding inside, they found themselves in a huge cavern, and were surprised to see it snowing inside. However, they ignored their obvious discomfort, and proceeded on. Emerging onto a central platform, Jake and his fellows found several alien data cores on the platform, which Jake’s missions AI, Deliah, confirmed were not of Covenant origin. Even though they were unknown and possibly dangerous, Jake took the risk and told Deliah to download the data from the cores, which she subsequently did. Too their surprise, Deliah told them that the data inside was extremely vast, but downloaded very quickly, and was pre-compressed. Even so, she said, her life span, which was already nearly up, had just been drastically reduced; she now had only a matter of days before her self-destruction protocols activated. Then, just as she finished downloading the file, disaster struck. A column of Elites, who had heard the blast of the charges and had come to investigate, suddenly ambushed the two squads of Spartans, and in the subsequent chaos, the entirety of Fireteam Charlie fell, along with most of Echo. Jake ordered a hasty retreat, and as he and the two other remaining survivors, SPARTAN-X197 Andrew Johnson and SPARTAN-X493 Susan Henry ran, they open fired with their BR55X Battle Rifles, and destroyed the data cores, denying the covenant the forerunner data. The Covenant gave chase, and a carbine shot to her leg wounded Susan, limiting her mobility. Not wanting to slow them down, Susan offered to stay behind and slow the elites down. She did so, and held off the advancing elites long enough for Andrew and Jake to escape. Just as they broke free of the tunnels, bombs that Fireteam Cobra had placed exploded in a different tunnels, and all the tunnels caved in. All around them, Spartan bodies littered the area; apparently dead from energy sword slashes. Moving towards the exit of the city, they found what had killed so many of their comrades, an Avenger Elite. It quickly attacked, and Andrew jumped in front of Jake and took a slash from it, allowing Jake to kill it, albeit at the cost of his own life. Andrew then told Jake to get off of the planet, which Jake grudgingly agreed to do. Reaching the Cougar Class Slipspace Escape Ship, Jake lifted off and left New Paris far behind, heading for the nearest system, New Sydney. 
==Crash Landing and Evasion==
“Jake, I know you can’t hear me, but I’m hoping maybe some of this will stick…”
-Jake’s AI Deliah talking to him while he was unconscious. 
On October 5th, shortly after emerging from Slipspace in the New Sydney, the Cougar, which had been damaged during entry into New Paris, began to break down, its G-force buffers malfunctioning. With days of non-stop fighting already having worn him, down, the Gs gave the finishing blow, and Jake lapsed into unconsciousness. Deliah, already nearing the end of her life, encrypted the forerunner data into a data crystal, along with an AI reincarnation program. Then, with only seconds to spare, she hastily plotted a landing vector, but reflected just before her death that because she had no knowledge of what was going on in terms of weather on the planet, Jake’s chances of survival were dangerously low. Moments after completing this thought, her self-destruction software kicked in, and she “died.” Shortly thereafter, the Cougar entered the atmosphere, and crashed. A scouting team from a listening outpost on the planet saw Jake’s crashing craft, and approached to investigate. Finding the wreckage of the craft strewn about, they entered the burning hulk, and found Jake. Realizing he was still alive, they quickly hauled him inside their Warthogs and returned to their base, Outpost Gamma-12, and medics and technicians rushed out to greet and help the critically wounded Spartan. Quickly bringing him to the medical wing, he was put into intensive care and surgery for the next 12 hours. It was a tough procedure; many of the pieces of his armor had been fused to his body by the intense heat of the descent and had to be surgically removed. His wounds were extensive; his left lung had collapsed, he had a punctured spleen, he was bleeding internally, he had 18 cracked ribs, and a puncture wound to his skull. However, despite his extreme wounds, the medics said that it could have been far worse. Following surgery, he was put into cryogenic sleep to heal. On October 13th, 2552, Jake awoke, and the medics were dismayed to find that, be it the intense traumatic loss of his entire platoon (who were assumed dead because they had not shown up) or the violent G forces and crash, he had suffered short term memory loss. As a result, he had no recollection of the mission or even the preliminary briefing. However, this was overshadowed by the bigger crisis at hand, a force of 25 covenant capital ships in orbit, which had finally followed Jake and to New Sydney. Quickly being escorted to the base commander, Michael Jones, he was briefed on the situation. There he learned that Deliah had been reincarnated as a new AI, known as Alvia. Jones also informed him that much of his Mark V7 MJOLNIR armor had been destroyed in the crash, that only the shielding systems, inner HUD computer, and personal AI crystal matrix watch had survived. However, Jones had prepared for these sorts of eventualities when he was told that Spartans would be seeking refuge at his outpost, and he had stocked up on the lightweight armor that the Spartan Xs had used before they had received their armor. This armor, dubbed the LWAJ or Light Weight Armor Jumpsuit, had been specifically designed to be lightweight and able to take damage from ballistic and plasma weapons alike, and included a HUD reminiscent of Marine armor. Additionally, it had a mounting area for his shield generator, which would give him added protection against the Covenant. After informing him of the LWAJ that he had in waiting, Jones assigned Jake a new mission. He was ordered to keep Alvia safe at all costs, in addition to the normal dangers of the covenant capturing an AI, there were some added twists. Alvia had a large amount of forerunner data stored in her code, which the covenant were dying to get there hands on. Additionally, the possibility of reincarnating an AI would extremely help the war effort. Alvia was vital to the UNSC. Informing him that a mongoose ATV was housed in their garage, and that there was a Cougar Class Slipspace Escape Ship on the other side of the planet in a hidden outpost, Jones told him that he had to get to it and escape. Then, Jones assigned one of the base techs to help escort Jake to the armory, which doubled as an underground bunker, and which had also been stocked specifically for the Spartan IVs. However, with little time available, and Covenant infantry closing fast, Jake decided that he couldn’t weight himself down with extra weaponry. He grabbed only two M6A “Resolver” pistols, a S1-AM Sniper Rifle, a BR55X Battle Rifle, and ammunition for all three. He stored all of the other weapons, (which included an MA5D Assault Rifle, a M6B Magnum, a jackal energy shield, a Corsair 25 carbine, and even a modified plasma pistol that Alvia had begun to work on, and make better). Making his way to the garage, he boarded the mongoose and set off. Moments later, the covenant stormed the base and destroyed it. Over the course of 6 days he traveled across the planet, and the covenant quickly started hunting him. Despite ghost recons, Banshee patrols, and jackal scouting parties, Jake managed to get himself to the cougar, even after he lost the mongoose in a heated skirmish. However, much to his dismay, when Jake arrived at the outlying base on October 19th, he found the cougar too badly damaged for use. However, a stealth sky hawk jump-jet was available for use, and he quickly put it to good use. After reconnoitering the covenant base camp, he found that they had set up a small barracks in the ruins of Gamma-12, complete with a device capable of installing active camouflage units in just about anything. On October 21th, after landing and taking down the guards in the base, and installing active camo into his armor, Jake opened up the armory and grabbed the remaining weapons, as well as explosives. Then he proceeded towards the covenant base, and using the camo, laid explosives on every wall, door, and building he could find. Then sneaking towards the hangar, he detonated the explosives, and snuck in and stole a Slipspace capable dropship in the confusion. Blasting out of the hangar, he turned around and showered it with fire from the dropship’s cannons, preventing pursuit from the covenant air forces. Then he accelerated out of the planets gravity well and jumped into Slipspace. However, just as he jumped, Delta Halo deactivated, and a ripple was sent through Slipspace. This ripple caused the ship to stray off course, and two weeks later, he emerged from Slipspace, but nowhere near where he needed to be.