Steam name: Lestrade
Age: 19
Character Name: Harlan Rhodes
Character Age: 27
Character Corps: ODST
Character Rank: PFC
Planet of Origin: Earth
Personality Description:
Harlan Rhodes, compared to most Australians, isn't a loud, rambunctious, obnoxious or rude fighter. He carries himself in a quiet and calm demeanor, typically trying to push logic or reason onto something before anything else. Years of service has cut away at the loud, brash, cheerful man he once was. The main thing keeping him forward is his motivation to end the war, rather than his want or need to fight. He questions why he continues to fight, but the answer is simple, because other people can't anymore. A drive to preserve what there is left of humanity is enough of a drive for him to push himself to succeed. To those both above and below him in any kind of way, he's kind and reasonable, listening to what they have to say unless it's something rude or irritating, in which he would most likely subject them to some verbal education. A grizzled veteran of his craft, so to speak.
Physical Description:
Harlan Rhodes resembles, quite frankly, a very average and non-descript man in most methods of description. He stands at approximately 5'10 and weighs roughly 180lbs. This weight goes with standard regulation, and is mostly muscle in order to allow him the best physical shape he can possibly attain, but he doesn't go out of his way to try and be ripped or jacked- Simply in above-average shape. He has short blonde hair and is clean shaven, having to raze away the stubble every now and then in the washroom so it doesn't interfere with any helmet or respirator seals. His eyes run an ice blue, the sclera being slightly bloodshot and visibly ripe with blood vessels. His face is in the same rough shape as his fatigued, tired eyes, having a burn scar across his left cheek that has long healed and been grafted over, as well as a gouge on his jawline on the right side of his face, seeming to be from a blade of some sort. As attire, the man wears the typical and basic protective armor issued by the UNSC with a little modifications of his own, having marked down some lines in memory of his fallen colleagues. Outside of combat, he can typically be seen wearing a longsleeve black sweater and a set of typical black cargo pants with a pair of boots.
Character Bio:
Rhodes was born on Earth to Eugene and Marie Rhodes, part of a wealthy family of academics and pacifists who strongly opposed warfare in all forms, during the Insurrection they were vocal opponents to the idea of forcing them to stay. Rhodes attended the best of schools, never really wanting for any sort of physical comfort, or academic stimulation always having the very best of all things that money could provide in one's life available to him. His family, far from the cliche of the unloving wealthy wardens who merely allow their child to continue living as they must have some sort of heir absolutely doted on the boy. Having many of the advantages that others lacked in his life Rhodes did well in school, having both a happy and safe home in addition to all the things a young child could care for.
After passing through high school with above average grades, Rhodes wasn't exactly certain what he wished to do with himself. He had tried to simply work under his father in the company he owned, but he soon found the work both tedious and tiresome and quickly grew to resent his father for his patronizing attitude. Desperate to find something that would be a true challenge to himself, Rhodes found the UNSC Defense Force joining out of equal parts desire for self improvement, challenge, and pure spite toward his parents. Within the year Rhodes had become a Marine, and he never once regretted the decision to enlist having found a sense of accomplishment and brotherhood that he had never experienced before.
Rhodes enjoyed being in the Marines, there was no debate about that. The physical and mental challenges presented in Basic felt like a breath of fresh air compared to the stagnant tasks in a dingy office room. When he was still new to the Marines, Rhodes felt a rush any time he ended up in combat. The adrenaline of being in a life or death situation was the greatest feeling in the world, outsmarting your opponents, and of course the kick of your rifle and the sense of satisfaction as an enemy crumples to the ground. Enjoy was too gentle a word, Rhodes reveled in the chaos of battle.
Rhodes's reckless joy of battle was only tempered by caution and discipline by a painful learning experience that left him with a severe second degree burn scar on his cheek. This experience left him both physically and mentally scarred, as mentioned prior in the physical sense. In the mental sense however, the once jovial marine grew more serious and sober as his new-found devotion to situational awareness caused him to grow ever more cautious. Over the course of the next three months, Rhodes came to realize that he no longer wished to be a rifleman simply because he felt like he was exposing himself to combat for too little gain. With this feeling of dissatisfaction close in his mind Rhodes sought additional training, specifically for the handling of high explosives.
Red wire, or blue wire? Which one is it? Does it even matter? Red? Blue? Contrasting colors, different meanings. Blue, a sign of peace and sadness- Red, a sign of war and violence. The red deserves to get cut, but the blue leads to red in due time. The clock counts down, but you have plenty of time, right? Of course you do, it’s training. Live explosives? Never. Can you risk it? Never. Why risk it? You’re putting in this effort all for naught if you let it go. Make the decision, now? Or now? Should’ve made it earlier, maybe later? -SNIP-
. . .
“I cut the wire.”
“Which one?”
“Blue.”
“Good, you’re not dead.”
Rhodes sighs in relief, laying back and staring up at the wooden ceiling. He’s not dead now, he wouldn’t have died anyway, but what if?
He could make that one wrong decision one day, he could cost an entire operation one day. With all this pressure, all this responsibility on his shoulders, it filled him with a rush of adrenaline every time he got tasked for it. This wasn’t good, right? Right. It was bad, but bad in a good way. Why? He was important to something now, he wasn’t now just a nameless cannon fodder “Go there and hold the line.” marine. He was important to the war effort, he was important to getting objectives and skirmishes completed. He was an Explosives Specialist.
Harlan Rhodes was then re-assigned seeing as how his previous unit had an explosives specialist already, rendering him about as effective as a typical rifleman. Not to mention he relocated for training anyway. Time went on in his new unit quite slow, until one fateful skirmish. Covenant outpost set up on a small colony planet. Intelligence came through, local reports at that. Scans show the Covenant are digging, digging real deep, into the planet. Patterns show a distinct trend in Covenant digging for artifacts, whether they be real ones or a false-positive. The UNSC couldn’t take a chance, and the Covenant were already moving too fast. The location was too close to the colonists to risk orbital bombardment, so in the ground forces went.
The plan was easy, try and take the base from the Covenant. That became an issue very quick, the base was simply too well defended. Brainstorming became popular amongst the ground troops, and finally Rhodes spoke up, “If they’re digging, they have to have something above them, and supports to keep it from falling.” The plan got even easier, make their own fortifications collapse on top of them. The UNSC began their own digging, moving to intercept the Covenant in which they did. Rhodes wasn’t on the front line, firing like a madman and dashing for cover, he was in the middle, being protected, not actively contributing to the immediate firefight but still being useful with support fire and ideas.
They went deeper and deeper until they finally reached it, a structural flaw in the digging pattern, a central support holding a majority of the pieces for this jigsaw puzzle. Rhodes got to work, planting his explosives. The training was put to good use, connect this input to that output, set the electronic dial and time it, or remote detonation was always an option. Radio underground isn’t always reliable, so electronic dial it was. The time was set, and the race back to the surface began. Everyone got out safe, and in time as well, such a relief for Rhodes. -BOOM-
. . .
Rhodes was proud.
Time went on with Rhodes in his unit as an explosive specialist, months and even years passed awfully quick. He came to feel somewhat disquiet, as if he wasn’t performing to the absolute best of his abilities, that sense of irrelevance began to fester in his thoughts once again. He decided what he would do after a fateful encounter with a squad of Helljumpers whose explosives expert had suffered an incapacitating injury. Rhodes volunteered to assist them with their mission and after receiving permission from his CO aided them in destroying several Covenant supply depots. It was in the wake of that operation that Rhodes decided he would become a member of the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers.
Rhodes was trained at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School after volunteering for ODST training. He was only given the chance to try and join the ODST based on his service record, and a strong recommendation from his previous commander, Major Bjorn Jansson. Months of brutal training unlike anything that Rhodes had ever been subjected to ensued, crushing him down shattering all notion of what it really meant to be a soldier and rebuilding him as a living machine dedicated to the absolute destruction of enemies of mankind.
"Alright boys and girls, settle down settle down there's nothing to panic about. The SOEIV or Single Occupant Exoatmospheric Insertion Vehicle might look like an insane idea that's meant to completely destroy the skeleton of anyone utilizing it but that's just not the case. So long as you follow standard procedures and ONLY utilize the manual override when you have confirmed it to be necessary you will be absolutely fine." The Instructor made it sound so simple, so safe, so mundane the idea of hurtling toward a planet's surface from space itself as if it was something that was no more mundane than a man walking his dog through the park. Rhodes was scared, anyone who wasn't scared of their first drop was considered to be out of their mind but every ODST member had been in Rhodes's position at one point. He took a small comfort in that as he walked toward his own SOEIV.
Rhodes climbs into the SOEIV, trying to calm himself down and focus on the instructor's voice. He began to think back to his old breathing exercises for when he needed to keep calm or quiet during a recon op back with his old unit. In and out, in and out, softly and slowly count to three breathe in, count to three breathe out. Getting himself comfortable on the SOEIV isn't as hard as he thought it would be, it's surprising how the space doesn't feel so crushingly constrictive in fact, he could see himself comfortably falling asleep in here. Rhodes finally began to relax and feel almost safe within the SOEIV...then the drop began.
That illusion of safety was gone immediately. Rhodes had never felt more terrified of anything in his life than the sensation he was experiencing now as the SOEIV began to plummet toward the planet at hundreds of miles an hour, the tugging sensation dragging on every single fiber of his being as his pod hurtled toward the planet from the relative safety of the ship. For a few brief moments of clarity among his panic he wondered idly if he would pass out as a result of the Gee forces he was currently experiencing. The instructor's voice rang out to him, was it over his comms package was it just inside his own mind, repeating the words in that slow mundane fashion describing every facet of the SOEIV and how it protects the passenger as it descends to the solid earth below.
The shift from space to atmosphere wasn't as sudden as he had expected it to be, but it was definitely noticeable as friction began to make its mark upon the SOEIV. He began to calm down as the craft decelerates and makes its way toward the LZ, knowing that he'd feel a hell of a lot better once he arrived on the ground itself. His breathing rate began to slow down, a sense of calm gradually working its way over his body it was just like the instructor said, everything was going to be absolutely fine. The instructor was shown to be both a wise man and a correct man as the SOEIV finally touched down on the planet after what felt centuries of falling to Rhodes.
When it finally touched down, Rhodes was a little surprised at how gentle of a stop it was. He had expected a hard jarring slam that would leave his teeth rattled and his bones shaking. Gathering his equipment from within the pod, he started to focus on his breathing once more, prepared to leave the pod as soon as it opened up. Within two minutes the sunlight, the beautiful radiant sunlight of the fresh day kissed Rhodes's visor and he took his first step out of the pod. Rhodes smiled to himself beneath his helmet, he had completed his first drop, maybe he really had what it took to be an ODST.
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