Sparks

Lance Corporal Sparks is an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper in the UNSC Marine Corps. He is the designated marksman of Sunray 1-1, part of the 's Boomerang Company.

Biography
Sparks was present on the modified, Spirit of Fire, on February 4, 2531 when it arrived at the Outer Colony of Harvest to fight the Covenant's Fleet of Glorious Interdiction there. He then went on to witness the Battle for Arcadia and the fight between the UNSC crew and the Fleet of Glorious Interdiction within the Forerunner shield world known as Trove. After the ship's Shaw-Fujikawa translight engine was sacrificed to destroy the shield world, Sparks entered cryostasis along with the other survivors.

Over twenty-eight years later, Sparks and everyone else were awakened to find themselves drifting above the extragalactic Installation 00, also known as the Ark. There, the vessel's forces were forced to contend with the Banished, a heavily-armed faction of ex-Covenant that sought to control the Ark largely due to its capacity for producing Halo superweapons. After the departure of a newly-created Halo ring put it beyond the Banished's grasp on April 2, 2559, the Mgalekgolo pair known as Colony hatched a plot which James Cutter, captain of the Spirit of Fire, had no choice but to respond to. Sparks was attached to Sunray 1-1, which was tasked with stopping Colony's scheme as part of Operation: SPEARBREAKER. He was accompanied on this mission by Major Vaughan, Warrant Officer Quinn, Petty Officer Gruss, and Corporal Turpin.

Upon returning from their successful mission, Sunray wasted no time in moving on to meet additional challenges. Deployed into some of the most hostile, Banished-occupied areas of Installation 00, Sunray has encountered hostile resistance from Brute Warlords, errant Sentinels, and Forerunner armiger contingents alike.

Sunray's most recent missions involve the elimination of Banished commanders identified by Isabel as being critical to Atriox's attempts to harness the Ark's power. Shortly after SPEARBREAKER, Sunray accomplished a successful clandestine assassination of a Jiralhanae captain. Employing tactics gleaned from archived after-action reports from Operation: GREY VEIL on Heian, Sparks landed a killshot that has quickly become legend amongst other marksmen aboard the Spirit of Fire.

Personality and traits
Sparks is something of a wildcard even among the Spirit of Fire's impressively large cast of misfits and rogues. His long list of non-judicial punishments and reprimands would have landed him a full-time billet in the ship's brig were it not for two unique qualities: his unparalleled skill with an SRS99 anti-materiel rifle and his seemingly-supernatural ability to acquire the rarest (and tastiest) meal packs on the ship.

Equipment
Sparks is unparalleled in the use of the SRS99 series of sniper rifles, though as of the conflict on the Ark he favours the use of an M99A2S3 Stanchion manufactured aboard Spirit of Fire, fitted with an Ohana Prescient Systems ATLAS HISHOT PRO-X scope. Sparks has further-customised his weapon, adorning it with a Dazzle camo pattern, ODST and scorpion tokens, and the message "Harvest sends its regards!" written on the side. He also employs a SinoViet LCX-20V1 sensor module attached to his ODST helmet, alongside a Ghillie suit atop his ODST armour. Sparks keeps a combat knife mounted on the left side of his chestplate.

Overall, the information provided by Sparks' LCX-20V1 sensor module in combination with other information feeds from Boomerang Company's battle network (such as Turpin's personal MQ-96 Support Drone, Hank) allow Sparks access to a wide variety of long-range threat assessments and target-tracking data.

Halo Wars 2
In Halo Wars 2: Operation: SPEARBREAKER's campaign, Sparks is one of the ODSTs present in the Sunray 1-1 hero unit. For gameplay information on Sunray 1-1, see here.

List of appearances

 * Halo Wars 2
 * Halo Wars 2: Operation: SPEARBREAKER