Ginevra Towner

Private First Class Ginevra Towner was a member of the , serving in the mid-26th century during the latter years of the . During the , she was transferred to Gunnery Sergeant 's unit as a replacement and aided in the assault on . After fighting their way through Covenant occupation forces to disable anti-air emplacements, Towner was among the Marines to encounter the when an infected Covenant cruiser crash-landed in Voi. Surviving the desperate battle to follow, Towner volunteered for the expeditionary force sent to Installation 00, but fell ill and was passed over for the mission, much to her regret.
==Biography==
===Early Life and Enlistment===
Ginevra was born to Alexander and Maria Towner, plant workers on the original production line. At the time, the UEG had only just released their first statements on the new threat posed by the Covenant. With their attacks limited to the furthest Outer Colonies, the announcements only meant increased job security for the Towners as production orders for more Warthogs were signed. But as Ginevra grew up, Mars became host to an ever-increasing stream of refugees from Earth's colonies, a fact which increasingly displeased the native Martians. Despite the friction, the children of many refugees joined Ginevra in public education and became some of her closest friends.
By the time Ginevra turned 18 in 2544, the friends Ginevra chose had become a point of serious contention with her parents. Through her invitations to birthdays and extracirricular activities, they had been forced to interact more with refugee families. These same people spoke different languages, hadn't the money to equally exchange gifts at such occasions, and took work at the military plants when the increasing desperation of the UNSC caused them to overwork their longstanding employees. Their anger, however, distanced Ginevra from them. The day after her birthday, Ginevra dashed their hopes for sending her into higher education and enlisted with several friends in the UNSC Marines.
After basic training, Ginevra's section would be victim of an unfortunate accident when their experienced a catastrophic mechanical failure in the air. While its pilots managed to slow the craft enough to make an emergency landing, its hatches were jammed shut by the crash. While Ginevra would survive long enough to be rescued, many of the friends she'd enlisted with were asphyxiated by burning fuel, and Ginevra herself would require lung replacement sugery due to the superheated air she'd inhaled. As was not immediately available—all cloning facilities already in use treating wounded veterans of fighting the Covenant—Ginevra received artificial replacements and required months of intensive recovery, preventing her scheduled deployment. By the time she was certified to return to active duty, she'd been recruited by officers met in hospital to serve in the garrison orbiting Mars on .
===Battle of Earth===
For the next seven years, Ginevra served in security details for officers, command centers, and cargo transfers with little fanfare. While she began to develop a guilt complex about her safe assignment, especially after being one of few survivors of the Pelican crash, Ginevra did prove apt at interfacing with officers and ensuring thorough security checks. The praise she received in this capacity prevented her from submitting the transfer requests she often wrote up. After the and the Sol System's defenders mobilized in preparation for an attack, however, she felt she coul no longer delay. Desperate to serve in live combat, Ginevra requested transfer to an active unit and, thanks to the many commendations her work with so many officers had earned, quickly received approval.
On November 15th, 2552, Ginevra was transferred to a Marine company attached to Commander ' command. Keyes had just returned aboard a ship with the remains of the 's contingent, who required reinforcement. Assigned to Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Stacker's platoon, Ginevra was among the Marines brought to the 20th-century bunker codenamed and helped restore function to the complex over the next two days. In particular, Towner's extertise in security helped identify and establish choke points to barricade in case of attack.
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On the morning of November 17th, a platoon led by Sergeant Major left Crow's Nest on a mission into the jungles of Tanzania, and returned with the Master Chief Petty Officer . Their dropship, however, had been tracked by , leading to a -led assault on the base. Ginevra was, at the time, catching up on rest after an extended shift, and was present in the barracks when the alarm was sounded. Before she or most others present could properly arm themselves, the barracks were stormed by a Jiralhanae pack led by a .
Despite resistance from Gunnery Sergeant Stacker's men, who'd arrived in response to the attack, those inside were slaughtered and the survivors taken prisoner, both Stacker and Towner among them. As other packs struck deeper into the base, to Towner's shame exploiting a weakness she'd overlooked in the base's old pipelines for swarms, the Jiralhanae began to torture and kill their captives for entertainment. Ginevra was only spared this fate due to the arrival of the Master Chief and , whose counterattack caught the Brutes by surprise. Freeing themselves from their bonds with Stacker's boot knife, the few remaining Marines armed themselves as the attack distracted their captors and helped fight their way out of the barracks.
Proceeding to one of the Nest's recessed landing pads, the Marines assisted the Master Chief and 'Vadam fight off a pack of Jump Pack Brutes and secure the pad for Pelican . Joined by Johnson and his surviving Marines who'd been driven from the operations center, Ginevra was among the Marines evacuated aboard Kilo 023 while the Master Chief remained behind to deny the enemy their assets by setting off a bomb. With Commander Keyes on board, Kilo 023 led the effort to regroup with survivors who'd fled the base and put together forces for an assault on the captured city of Voi, on the edge of the Covenant's massive excavation effort in Kenya.
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Hours later, the Master Chief cleared out a Brute checkpoint on the Tunnel east of the city of Voi, allowing Kilo 023 to drop in the reinforcements Commander Keyes had gathered. Under Stacker's command once more, Ginevra and the other Marines used a trio of Warthogs to pass through the Tsavo Highway Tunnel and safely reach , situated on what had been a waterfront until the Covenant's excavation drained the nearby lake. Using one of the Warthog's guns to push through the Factory Complexes, Stacker's squad supported the Master Chief in eliminating several and even a sent to counter their attack.
With a hole punched in the Covenant's anti-air defenses, Commander Keyes was able to drop off several squads of reinforcements. Regrouping in part of the Factory Complex secured for use as a first aid station, Ginevra was among the Marines allowed a reprieve after the non-stop fighting. While Stacker's squad caught their breath, the Master Chief would press on to destroy a AA gun, opening a gap for UNSC Navy vessels commanded by Lord to strike at the Prophet of Truth's Forerunner keyship sitting in the excavation's center. The strike failed, however, as the keyship activated a Forerunner portal and allowed the Covenant to escape.
As the Covenant departed, a lone CCS-class battlecruiser slipped into Voi's airspace and crashed down on the excavation's rim, causing a small earthquake with its impact. While Ginevra's first concern was to find if anyone had been hurt by the shaking, Gunnery Sergeant Stacker recognized the threat of what the cruiser had brought to ground. Ordering the outpost evacuated, Stacker led his squad to regroup with the Arbiter and the Master Chief. Before they'd made it out of Factory Complex 09, the squad were set upon by combat forms. Divided and cornered, the Marines fought for their lives, with Ginevra using an M7 SMG to quickly deal with swarms of .
Saved only by the return of the Master Chief and Arbiter 'Vadam, Stacker and his squad supported their attempt to reach and overload the crashed vessel's engine core, their only chance of eliminating the Flood before they spread to all of Earth. Fighting through the infected and repurposed forms of aliens and humans alike, the Marines were eventually aided by the arrival of Sangheili from the Separatist carrier , led by and . Reaching the downed ship, the Sangheili and Marines held their entry point as the Master Chief continued inside alone to complete their mission. With the Separatist ships establishing a quarantine ring by glassing the surrounding area, Ginevra and the other survivors were evacuated aboard the Shadow of Intent.
Following their extraction, all personnel were required by the Intent’s commander, , to undergo screening for Flood cellular infection. While Ginevra herself was cleared, several of her comrades were found to have ingested airborne , necessitating their euthanization. Despite Ginevra's protests, the only available member of the UNSC's High Command, Lord Hood, agreed with the necessity. Gunnery Sergeant Stacker, however, did manage to petition for a stay of execution. With the begrudging consent of the Sangheili, those with a latent Flood infection were given time to write goodbyes for loved ones and make last requests.
'Vadum's warnings would ultimately prove true. Within hours, each of the spore carriers began to develop mutated masses in their lungs similar to tumors. The Flood biomass growths continued to expand and assimilate more tissues, causing their hosts grievous pain. Each patient would be euthanized within hours, a process which traumatized Towner. When Commander Keyes requested volunteers to follow the Covenant through the portal, Ginevra declined, blaming the Sangheili for the necessity. During transfer to Earth, however, Ginevra developed a cough severe enough to require a medical examination. The attending doctors would not explain the cause of their concern, however, and Towner was put under sedation.
The doctors had discovered what the initial scans by the Sangheili had missed: Towner's artificial lungs had slowed the growth of Flood spores she'd inhaled during the fighting in Voi. The organism had begun to overtake her, however, which was reported through their chain of command and intercepted by an officer with ties to the criminal organization Familia Interastra. On this officer's authority, Towner, who by now had passed away due to the Flood's corruption, was frozen in instead of incinerated to ensure its destruction.
===Legacy===
Following her demise, Ginevra's body would be illicitly transferred and lost due to bureacratic tampering. In secret, the officer transferred her cryo-chamber to the Familia Interastra, who used the disorganization in the Battle of Earth's aftermath to smuggle her offworld. The release of public information concerning the Flood after its appearance at Earth created an interest from those without firsthand knowledge. While the Familia Interastra had no practical use for the body, the safely preserved Flood biomass had the potential to be a rare and valuable commodity; one which the Familia wasted no time capitalizing on.
Making contact with private buyers for several less-than-reputable medical and genetics companies, Familia Interastra organized a secret auction for Ginevra's body. ONI learned of this auction, and quickly reached an agreement with the rival Iskandar Syndicate to obtain information on their whereabouts. With the Syndicate's help, Familia Interastra was systematically dismantled by ONI's intelligence operations. The power vacuums these operations left behind were quickly filled by the Syndicate with ONI's tacit approval, as their presence helped stabilize the underground ONI uprooted. Familia Interastra was soon eradicated, but too late to stop their sale of Ginevra's Flood-tainted body. While recovered financial documents made clear the sale was made for an exorbitant sum, the final buyer was never discovered, leaving the threat of Flood biomass in the hands of human private entities an ongoing question for ONI.
Category:UNSC Marine Corps Personnel