Tom-B292

Tom-B292 is a SPARTAN-III supersoldier of Beta Company and one of the two sole survivors of Operation: TORPEDO along with Lucy-B091. Tom and Lucy served as Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose's senior NCOs and helped train Gamma Company up until the Battle of Onyx in late 2552. After the Human-Covenant War, they were folded into the new Spartan branch.

Childhood and training
"Deep Winter"

- Kurt Ambrose

Orphaned by the Covenant when his homeworld was glassed, Tom joined the SPARTAN-III program at age six around 2539 in order to get revenge. He was trained by Lieutenant Commander Kurt Ambrose and Senior Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez for six years. Tom became the leader of Team Foxtrot, one of the organized Beta Company combat teams comprised of Lucy-B091, Adam-B004 and Min-B174. On August 24, 2541, Tom and the rest of Team Foxtrot partook in one of a series of exercises designed to filter out extra candidates the program lacked funds to further train and augment. After most of Foxtrot were incapacitated, leaving only Tom and Lucy, he engineered a plan to appropriate the automated M202 XP machine guns pinning them down and complete the training mission. After they were successful in their designated objective, Tom, Lucy and the rest of the Spartans continued to ambush several waves of their instructors before being forced to stand down by Chief Mendez and Lieutenant Ambrose. However, Ambrose commended Tom and his team for their actions and they were accepted for further phases of training and eventually physical augmentation.

Operation: TORPEDO
When they were only 12 years old, the young Spartans were sent to destroy a Covenant refinery on Pegasi Delta in 2545. As the Spartans faced superior enemy forces, they were wiped out, but Fireteam Foxtrot managed to reach the inside of the refinery. Only Lucy-B091 and Tom-B292 survived the fight, as they jumped out of the facility into a nearby ocean just before its core went critical.

Despite Colonel Ackerson's wish to have Tom for his own private operations, Kurt managed to have him and Lucy assigned to help him train the SPARTAN-III Gamma Company on Onyx alongside himself and Chief Mendez. Tom and Lucy subsequently became Kurt's top adjutants and were instrumental in Gamma Company's training. By early 2551, both held the rank of Petty Officer Second Class. In February 2551 they accompanied Kurt aboard to oversee Gamma Company's augmentations. By this time they had spent significant time in microgravity which was apparent from their gaits.

Battle of Onyx
"With all due respect, sir, we're not leaving. You'll have to court-martial us."

- Tom announcing his and Lucy's intention to stay at Lieutenant Commander Ambrose's side

When the Battle of Onyx broke out in 2552 and the planet's Sentinels attacked the local UNSC forces, Tom and Lucy were stationed at Camp Currahee. They managed to destroy one of the Forerunner drones before Lieutenant Commander Ambrose and Chief Mendez arrived. After retrieving ordnance and equipment they moved on to El Morro Point and, following several days of guerrilla warfare against the Sentinels, met with Dr. Catherine Halsey and the SPARTAN-IIs of Blue Team. Tom and Lucy subsequently coordinated with Linda-058 to destroy a Sentinel monitoring the area, before the group pushed deeper into the restricted Zone 67, eventually arriving in a massive Forerunner city. Pursued by Covenant forces, they were redirected to destroy a Sentinel manufacturing facility by Zone 67's ONI AI Endless Summer. Operating as an advance team, Tom and Lucy completed a crucial part of the operation, coordinated by Dr. Halsey via the use of local translocation pads and they successfully destroyed the factory.

The Spartans eventually made a stand at the entrance to the shield world in the core room antechamber to prevent the incoming Covenant army from entering the shield world. When ordered by Lieutenant Commander Ambrose to enter the rift to the shield world, he and Lucy refused to leave Kurt's side, with Tom saying that he would be court-martialed before he would leave. Kurt then knocked him out with a blow to the underside of his helmet and ordered Lucy to take the unconscious Spartan with her into the shield world. He and Lucy were the last Spartans to leave the battle, surviving through Kurt's sacrifice.

Shield world and later career
After recovering from Kurt's blow, which left him with a bruise on his chin, Tom joined the rest of the survivors in reconnaissance of the shield world. He accompanied Kelly-087, Olivia-G291, Dr. Halsey and Chief Mendez in surveying the area close to the now-inert entrance portal. Later, while Mendez and Halsey were having a discussion about the Spartans, a small Forerunner drone suddenly swooped down on them. Tom was nearest to Halsey and tackled her to the ground to protect her. Before anyone could catch the drone, it flew off.

Shortly afterward, Lucy-B091 disappeared inside a Forerunner structure, and eventually returned with a group of Huragok, which helped the human survivors open communications with the ONI ships outside the shield world. The Huragok also brought the sphere into normal space from its compressed slipspace bubble. The few days the survivors had spent in the shield world amounted for over three months in normal space-time; though they entered the slipspace bubble in early November 2552, they would exit in February 2553. Tom and the other survivors were then taken aboard the by the ONI team Kilo-Five, and headed to Earth for a debriefing in HIGHCOM Facility Bravo-6.

He and the other remaining SPARTAN-IIIs were later offered the chance to integrate into the SPARTAN-IV program. Tom and Lucy were assigned to the Spartan branch in August 2553. Their location remained classified afterward.

Personality and traits
Tom has an unwavering and determined personality and he possesses a strong sense of duty and loyalty. He showed great tenacity and tactical aptitude during Beta Company's training, and he and Lucy-B091 were singled out by CPO Mendez for their toughness. As the leader of Team Foxtrot, Tom was greatly committed to his team and felt immensely fulfilled when they succeeded in their mission. During Operation: TORPEDO, he was determined to complete the objective despite the declaration of the universal "panic code", Omega three, and the unexpected appearance of Covenant reinforcements. While he was close friends with all of his teammates Tom was still able to accept Adam-B004's and Min-B174's deaths and go on without hesitation; conversely, he stubbornly refused to leave Lieutenant Commander Ambrose behind at the end of the Battle of Onyx years later, prompting Kurt to knock him out. Tom later reaffirmed that he would never have let Kurt to fend off the Covenant army on his own and even then he wanted to hold on to the hope that he may have survived.

Tom-B292 shares a bond with Lucy-B091 because of their experiences together. While Tom was affected by Beta Company's demise he was not as thoroughly traumatized as Lucy, who was rendered mute by the shock of her friends dying. Tom continued to reflect on Lucy's last words—"How are you sure we're alive?"—for years to come. Although Lucy remained silent for years, Tom had little difficulty communicating with her. Because of Lucy's inability to speak Tom would often be the one to carry out more complex conversations whenever the two interacted with others, such as making reports or communicating over COM when they were paired together in combat.

Tom has close-cropped black hair and dark eyes. During Gamma Company's training he and Lucy spent so much time in their SPI armor that Kurt recognized them better with the suits on.

List of appearances

 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Glasslands