Charles Orzel

Charles Orzel
Personal details
Species:	Human
Gender:	Male
Political and military information
Affiliation:	Spartan Operations SPARTAN-IV program
Rank:	Spartan

"Spartan Orzel will escort you and Admiral Hood to safety."

— Black-Box to Serin Osman as Earth comes under attack

Spartan Charles Orzel is a SPARTAN-IV supersoldier serving in the Spartan Operations division of the United Nations Space Command.

Biography

In October of 2558 Spartan Orzel was stationed at HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6 in Sydney, Australia on Earth. On the 28th of that month, Cortana and the Created moved to take over Earth and the entire Sol system. The artificial intelligence construct, Black-Box, received advanced warning of this attack and acted swiftly to ensure that at the very least, CINCONI Serin Osman and Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood would be able to get off-world. Acting under the shell personality of a "Commander Rossbach", Black-Box ordered Orzel to get to an ONI prowler waiting atop Bravo-6's HIGHCOM tower. He found an encrypted destination already keyed in and autopilot running. Per "Rossbach"'s orders, he proceeded to erase his Mjolnir armor and the prowler from all Unified Earth Government and UNSC networks. When Hood and Osman emerged from an elevator atop the tower, he hustled them inside the ship and it took off into slipstream space as a battle broke out in the skies above the city between its defenses and a Guardian Custode.

After a series of random slipspace jumps, the destination Black-Box had prepared was revealed to be a hidden world nicknamed "Rossbach's World", only discovered around two years ago by an unmanned probe, and sequestered away by the AI in case of an emergency. After departing from the ship and settling in, Spartan Orzel took to patrolling the kilometers around the cabin they were staying at every night and again every day at noon.

Ultimately, Orzel remained on Rossbach's World for over a year alongside Hood and Osman, with a preprepared cabin loaded with supplies provided for the group that allowed them to comfortably survive. This tentative peace was broken on November 4, 2559, with the arrival of both a Guardian and a UNSC exfiltration mission. Shortly after the Guardian's arrival, Orzel donned his MJOLNIR armor and was soon able to ascertain that the sound of an incoming vehicle was that of an M15 Razorback, carrying SPARTAN-II Gray Team, who had come to extract the three from the planet. In reality, extracting the VIPs was not Gray Team's true mission; they were there to secure a briefcase carried by Osman containing Black-Box and eight other AIs which had been safeguarded from the Created; extracting the admirals or Spartan was simply an acceptable bonus. However, the mission was successful and everyone was successfully extracted, with the Razorback driving to meet a U81 Condor, Zulu Seven Nine, for exfiltration. During the flight from Rossbach's World to rendezvous with UNSC Victory of Samothrace, the mission's commanding officer Captain Abigail Cole was unable to tell Orzel or either admiral any information about the mission or the wider galaxy, requiring that all three submit to security and identification checks once they were on the super-heavy cruiser.

Equipment

At the time of his stay on Rossbach's World, Orzel carried a battle rifle.

Personality and traits

Like every SPARTAN-IV, Orzel was already an excellent soldier prior to being selected for the program. Serin was not sure why he felt the need to conduct patrols on Rossbach's World other than to perhaps give him something to do. Though he was unable to remove his armor on the planet due to a lack of necessary tools and equipment, he assured Osman that he was happy to stay in it for months at a stretch. Throughout his year-long tenure on the planet he did eventually find a way to remove and re-equip the armor.

List of appearances

• Halo: Fractures
  • Rossbach's World (First appearance)
• Halo: Empty Throne