First Lieutenant Maxen Titus

{Early Life.}I was born on an outer colony planet named Intium Novum. It means “A New Beginning” in Latin, a dead language used to name a once dead planet. It seems poetic. My planet was a beautiful garden type world located fourth in the system of planets orbiting around the star affectionately named “Old Anima” or “Old Soul”. I could go into a great deal of scientific mumbo-jumbo about Old Anima if I thought hard enough. Suffice it to say that the important information is this: it is a K-type Main Sequence Star with a radius about 200 times greater than Earth’s sun, is orange-red in color, and is relatively cool for a big ball of plasma.


My mother was a colonial school administrator, she made sure I knew plenty of relatively useless information like that. I guess she was trying to help.


Anyway, my planet was glassed during the Human-Covenant War. At this point in time it had a different name, Nibiru, named after the celestial body associated with the Babylonian deity Marduk. The world was terraformed to an approximation of its former beauty during a new wave of colonial expansion that began roughly 50 years ago. I know planetary information may not be the most interesting subject, but I think history is important, especially history as interesting as this.

My father was one of the original colonists of our planet, he taught me a great deal about its history. I guess he is a decent enough source, seeing as how he made a great deal of history himself with his exploits. He came as an infant with his parents who were both UNSC colonial officials. Due to the number of well established colonies they had helped create, they had become extremely wealthy. At the end of their career, my grandparents decided they would settle one more colony and raise a family. As such, when he came of age, my father was well funded in his endeavor to open a mine. His theory was that since Old Anima was a K-type star, and this class of star was known for creating planets with large deposits of heavy metals, there was bound to be a massive amount of metals below our planet.


He was right, his mines ended up producing over half of the metals that were exported from our world.

The amount of metal Intium Novum produced apparently caught the attention of UNSC higher-ups because soon our planet had more military personnel than anyone in the colony could ever remember. None of them had ever seen this kind of military presence around an Outer Colony world before. We even acquired an Orbital Defense Platform for our troubles, along with several permanently stationed vessels in orbit. a Frigate named "Vengeance is Mine", a Cruiser named "Moment to Fight", and lastly and most impressively, a Carrier named simply "Victory." in addition to space forces, we saw a massive influx of soldiers setting up bases all over our planet and unlike many Outer Colonies, they were welcomed with open arms.

During this time of prosperity, 30 years after the planet was settled, I was born. It’s about time I got to talk about myself. I attended the UNSC schools but with my mother’s position in the upper echelons of the school hierarchy, I received extra tutoring alongside my regular education. For a boy who was only 8 years old I consider myself exceptionally bright and well-rounded in my learning. Corona seems to think that my head is filled with delusions instead of knowledge. But i quickly reminded him who the tape recorder was, he was quiet afterwards. Of course that section will be suspiciously omitted.

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Anyway, my life was being put on a very successful path thanks to my family money and my own intelligence. For several years my life was a breeze of learning and achievement. Around this time, my father came into even more money when his company unearthed what was undoubtedly a Forerunner relic down in one of his mines. I had gone down to see the thing, like some sort of field trip. I remember wondering how something could be so shiny when it was covered with so much dirt and rock.

UNSC scientists swarmed the place, shutting down operations in the mine and working around the clock to unearth the object fully. My father managed to find work for the miners displaced from their jobs at this mine in several other nearby mines, he was well aware that they all had families to support and that he was helping them do it. After the scientist got their hands on the relic, I never saw it again. Of course none of that mattered when Intium Novum was attacked.

{Escape From the Attack on Itium Novum.}On January 23, 2633, a forward party of ships from the rogue Storm Covenant exited slipspace near my planet. They came with 8 ships, several cruisers, destroyers and a super-carrier leading the charge. Their intentions were obvious; they wanted the artifact my father’s miners had discovered. Who knows how these bastards found the thing, maybe their poking and prodding it or perhaps the poking and prodding done by the UNSC scientists woke it up. I suppose it doesn’t matter how they found it, the important thing was that they had.

UNSC response was swift. For an outer colony, Intium Novum was well defended. Our ODP fired its first shot. The massive blast of light was blinding. Make no mistake though; this was so much more destructive than mere light. These cannons fire a 3000-ton ferric-tungsten round at 11991698.32 meters per second. The projectile impacts with a force equal to almost 6,000 gigatons of TNT. It was incredible, you could see the star-point of the thing from the ground. My town housed one of its ground based generators. These generators allowed that cannon to fire every five to ten seconds. By the time the Storm Covenant ships got within optimal firing range for their weapons, the ODP had fired three times.

Two of these shots missed as the ships they were targeting had adjusted slightly for incoming fire. One shot hit dead on target. The massive Supercarrier was holed through its bow, exiting just below the right starboard midsection of the ship. It still moved under its own power, albeit with a severe list to one side. The rest of the ships continued on undaunted. Surrounding the ODP, named Manastas after our capital city, were the three UNSC ships assigned to permanently protect our planet, they advanced to engage the enemy. The Carrier, Victory launched its Longsword class interceptor-fighters, all of them at once according to the reports, knowing that even with the ODP to support them that against 8 Storm Covenant ships, her pilots could make more of a difference out in the field. The Carrier also launched its entire complement of ODST’s to defend the ground generators. Their pods looked like a meteor shower as they came down over our city.

This all happened over the span of 20 minutes, as the ODST’s and Interceptors launched in space and the engaging ships moved to fight, the UNSC response on the ground was just as swift. We were looking at an invasion. UNSC Marines from the local garrison came en force through the streets, driving evacuation vehicles for the local populace and setting up barricaded and choke points at strategic places throughout my city. A couple of marines in full gear showed up at our manor and we went out to meet them, my mother and father didn’t carry a bag, but I did. I noticed this and thought it was strange but didn’t question it. We went with the marines and all climbed into the back of their Warthog troop carrier, with the rows of bench seats in the back, and hooked the harnesses. We bounced down the road towards one of the pre-established civilian evacuation centers when the first wave of Storm Covenant troops descended upon our city.

Wave after wave of dropships appeared along with many Orbital Insertion Pods. One landed directly in front of us in the street. Our driver slammed on brakes but the explosive hatch on the pod slammed into the front of our warthog and flipped it over. We were thrown upside down, but still alive. I heard the horrible and terrifying roar of what I now know to be a Sangheili warrior of the Storm Covenant. It was the first time I had ever heard a noise like that. Our marine escorts moved to engage the massive alien and I saw it pick one of them up and toss him aside like garbage with ease as I crawled out of the flipped over vehicle.

The remaining marine fired, seemingly in vain at the monstrous figure and it simply advanced towards us. My father had somehow acquired the fallen marine’s sidearm and fired at the thing’s back. It flinched and turned, spewing blue light in the direction of my dad. I screamed as the bubbling plasma hit the wall behind him and scorched the tip of his right shoulder as he dove to the ground. The Sangheili fired again, marching his shots up the marine’s body armor and throwing the man to the ground. He struggled to get up as the Sangheili put his hooved foot on his neck, pinning him to the ground. I hugged my mother as we hid under the vehicle, turning my head away from the scene. I heard a loud blast and a different roar than before. I peeked and saw a figure in jet black armor engaging the alien warrior. He fired again, pumping the slide on his shotgun as he ran towards the Sangheili. The Marine scrambled up and leapt onto the monster’s back, jamming his knife up to its hilt in its neck. The alien roared again as the black armored man shot it a final time, killing it.

At this point I remember being as scared of the black armored figure as I had been the alien. Until he looked at us and removed his helmet, there was human face beneath, just like the marine. I realized that I had just witnessed, for my first time, an ODST in action. I wanted to be as unafraid as this man. I pulled on my mom’s sleeve and she got up, running with me to the man. I remember asking him to look at my dad who was now slumped down against a nearby wall. The ODST ran to him and pulled out a small canister and stabbed its end into the burn on my dad’s shoulder. I ran up to stop the man from hurting him but my dad’s face washed with relief and the ODST threw me the canister.

“It’s called Bio-foam. It will make him feel better.” I nodded and held on tightly to the can, I hoped it would make me feel better too. He turned to the dead marine and shook his head, taking a knee next to the man’s body and removing a small necklace from around the marine’s neck. He put it in a pocket on his armor.

“I need to get you people out of here, come on Marine, lets move.” With those words the ODST and his marine companion navigated us through several blocks of city and past several intense engagements, guarding us until we got to the evacuation point. My time on Intium Novum was over. As we got to the evacuation point, my parents scooped me up and hugged me, they told me that they loved me. I told them the same thing, thinking it was weird that they would tell me this now, at this time. We were all going to leave why not just wait until we were on the ship?

I saw my neighbor’s daughter and ran over to where she was standing on the transport. I started telling her all that happened until I noticed my parents had not come with me. I turned around and looked for them. The ODST handed my father a pistol and nodded at him. I finally understood what all the strange things I’d seen my parents doing meant. No bags, telling me they loved me before we got to the ship, the ODST handing my dad a gun. I didn’t want to accept it, but my parents weren’t coming, they were going to stay and try to defend the evacuation. I tried to push through the people on the transport towards them but a female marine grabbed me and held me back as the door closed. I screamed and kicked at her. But she sat me down and looked me in the eyes. Her eyes were the most piercing blue I’d ever seen, even while they were puffy and rimmed with red from crying. She spoke in a calm but stern voice, one that spoke of barely contained emotions all fighting for dominance.

“They didn’t save you for you to fight me. They saved you so you could fight them.”

{Orphanage and Basic Training.} After escaping from my planet, UNSC forces managed to thwart the attempt at taking Intium Novum by the Storm Covenant, I later got word that my parents had died helping the UNSC forces ensure that the ODP generator never fell, they were hero’s, but they’d left behind a young orphan. I was enrolled in a new UNSC school, but I never saw any of the other kids from my city again. I was raised in an orphanage, along with other kids who were in a similar position to mine. All the talk you hear of how terrible orphanages are never came true for me. Mine was a clean, well regulated, disciplined and somewhat boring orphanage with well regulated, disciplined and somewhat boring staff to go with it. I lived here and attended classes here on the bottom floor classrooms along with the other 300 kids there. I never really made any friends, a few here and there, sure but none I’d have for the rest of my life. That didn’t happen until I joined the UNSC Marine Corps. I had decided the instant that I saw that ODST on my home planet that I was not going to be a scared little colony kid ever again. I was going to be big, strong, brave, skilled and fearsome. At 17 I enlisted and was whisked away to Jovian Moons.

Of the 69 natural satellites around Jupiter, I only ever visited two, Callisto and Ganymede. Callisto was the location of the main UNSC Marine Corps training facility. It was where every “boot drop” started for every prospective recruit. We got the old training barracks alongside Rifle Range H. Our UNSC Marine Corps Recruit Training was divided into three four-week phases. Here is how our Phases of Training went.

{SOI, ODST Indoc, Becoming an Officer.}SOI, ODST Training, Becoming and Officer
After basic training I attended the illustrious and extremely difficult SOI, School of Infantry, on Ganymede. I’ll spare you every detail of the ordeal but suffice it to say it was tortourous and informative at the same time. Here I learned my true calling as an infantry rifleman and I learned how to implement this calling in battle to support my fellow soldiers. When I had completed this, I received my Military Occupational Specialty number. Mine was 0311. Infantry MOS’s are always 03 prefix, with the second set of numbers designating your assignment.

I served for two years in a rifle squad, mostly onboard the UNSC Agamemnon, a light cruiser that traveled a relatively quiet patch of space between two outer colony planets I’ve since forgotten the names of. Aside from the few skirmishes with Kig-Yar pirates, it was a boring post. After a year of that I was reassigned to another ship, the UNSC Dallas, a Destroyer that patrolled an area with a heavy Insurrectionist presence. We engaged in a massive campaign against their forces in this area, fighting them and capturing as many as we could until we found their base of operations in a hollowed out asteroid. Under a rock is always the best place for worms to hide. We launched an assault on this baser and took it by extreme force. It was a long and bloody battle, but one that earned my first medal and my second promotion.

Under fire, I rather stupidly clambered up a cargo crane holding a fuel cell and manned the controls. I slammed the cell into a nearby cluster of containers that the insurrectionist forces were using for cover and threw every grenade I had at it. The explosion was rather satisfying, but even more so was the immediate surrender of their forces. We captured the base and more information than anyone had ever dreamed of about their operations in the area. From this we began hunting down insurrectionist cells and systematically purging them from this sector, taking in a year, a hotspot and making it just as boring as my old post.

Now that I was an NCO, I could apply for ODST training, which I did as soon as our purge of the sector was complete. For exemplary service during this campaign, I was granted a swift admission into the program. This training was the hardest I had ever undergone. It was like doing the Crucible every day for two months. Even the actual battles I had been in paled in comparison to the grueling and seemingly insurmountable tasks put before us. I realized what it meant to be one of the men who had saved me as a child. You become superhuman but without any augmentation, you are no longer a soldier but rather a weapon. Where we go, death will follow.

Our training SOEIV’s were launched into water, we had to figure out how to navigate through the systems and checks while inside and then outside a purposely submerged pod. But it was an easy feat compared to me first real freefall. Feet first into hell, at that moment, I knew what terror was. To plunge towards the ground in a metal coffin and rely on it to save you was a tall order. But I managed it. I survived and even went on a second drop where I performed even better, knowing that I could truly trust my equipment. But that’s exactly what my pod was. Equipment. Same with my armor, weapons, and everything else. The most important part of the ODST, we learned, was us. We were dropped in a remote jungle filled with all manner of hostile and extremely dangerous things for two weeks with nothing but the items we carried on our persons. We swore that these animals in this place had been DESIGNED to be as aggressive and malevolent as possible. It was the hardest thing I had ever done. But I did it. And I became a Special Forces warrior. I was now the man in black armor. I had become an ODST.

For two years I served aboard a brand new, just commissioned straight off the assembly line ship, the UNSC Babylon. This carrier was, at the time I served aboard her, the most recently built carrier in the fleet. We helped to establish bases and outposts for the Concordant forces in the area and fought several brutal engagements and policing actions during this cruise. At the end of it, I was selected to attend Officers Candidate School and I was accepted.

I went through the courses and schools, learning the art of leading not just regular troops, but helljumpers, The UNSC’s finest field unit. It was rigorous and brutal, but this time it was mental instead of physical. My mind had always been my most lethal weapon, allowing me to hone and apply my other more physical weapons with even greater ability. The courses and classes I took to become an officer established me as even a cut above the regular ODST’s. They gave me the knowledge and tools to be worthy of commanding such esteemed and skilled troops. Men and women sent out to complete the most impossible tasks and not only do they do it. But they do it in style. I could never ask for more than this and yet I was given it.

I was given my first commission to Second Lieutenant as the platoon commander of Third Platoon, of the Second Myriad Shock Troop Battalion. Aboard the finest ship to ever sail the depths of space. The UNSC Myriad. The name still gives me goosbumps and a smile.

{My Current Assignment.} I have served aboard the Myriad for the past eight years, in different capacities and in many different battles. My current assignment has me leading the best of the best, I am the acting Platoon Commander for First Platoon, of the First Myriad Shock Troop Battalion. That is my story so far. Though I'm sure there is much more to follow, I am tired of speaking for one night. Corona, End recording. Lieutenant Maxen Titus, out.

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