| Feb 24, 2016 13:51:56 GMT 10 |
Post by vincent on Feb 24, 2016 13:51:56 GMT 10
CHARACTER INFORMATION SHEET
VINCENT A291
Name: Vincent [REDACTED] A291
Nickname: Vince
ID: Sierra A291
Faction: ANVIL Initiative, Spartan branch, formerly ONI Section III
Rank: Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Spartan (SR130)
Race: Human (Augmented, Spartan III)
AI: None
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Appearance: Outside of his armor, Vincent would be all but unremarkable except for three simple things, but things that set him apart from the vast majority of the human race - his height, build, and the sheer number of scars covering him. Standing at exactly 7' outside of his armor due to the augmentation process every Spartan candidate went through as a final test meant to make them into the UNSC's premier special forces, Vincent towers over virtually everyone else with only a few humans - notably other Spartans - and other species actually standing taller than him, and usually not by much. While his choice in clothing usuall tends to hide it as well, Vincent also appears to be in what many would consider peak physical condition for any normal human, another desired effect of the augmentation process as well as the brutal training he underwent during his early years during his time in Alpha Company. In terms of distinguishing markings, Vincent bears a small number of facial scars, usually no more than any other professional soldier or mercenary, although the rest of his body is covered by numerous scars - most of them small save for the remains of an old plasma burn to his left shoulder, healed years ago. Vincent has dark brown hair, worn about as long as military regulations would allow out of habit, and brown eyes with a light complexion.
Armor: While incredibly old and with many technically obsolete components, on paper Vincent's armor is a Mark VII GEN1 MJOLNIR variant, given firmware and software upgrades over more recent years to allow it to perform on par with current GEN2 model power armors. When seen in person, however, that is rarely what comes to mind - at first glance, Vincent's armor is ancient by current standards, seemingly recycled from older obsolete armor models to produce a frankenstein suit. And, to a point, anyone who thought as much wouldn't be too far off base.
Originally having begun its "life" back in 2536 with the activation of Spartan III's Alpha Company and all related personnel, redacted and otherwise, the armor was originally the basic MJOLNIR Mark IV model as was given to many of the Spartan IIIs pulled from their unit and reassigned elsewhere. As time went on, though, the armor would slowly become damaged and repaired from field operations until it would finally be "replaced" by the newer Mark V suits in early 2551 - not, however, without recovering the functional components from the older Mark IV suit and integrating them with the newer armor, which in turn maintained many of the original suit's functionality. The end result was effectively simply upgrading the original armor to Mark V standards, and it was a process that would be repeated again with the Mark VI armor in late 2552 and once more with the Mark VII model in 2556. The end result would be an armor that retained much of the armor plate and sheer durability of the GEN1 suits, but coupled with the increased shield strength of the GEN2 models - as the armor still maintains the undersuit of the Mark VII model armor rather than GEN2's standardized version used by most Spartan IVs, however, the suit fails to offer the same degree of strength enhancement as GEN2 models. This, however, is offset by the age at which Vincent received his augmentations, making him physically far stronger without the armor than an equivalent Spartan IV and thus able to still compete with the newer equipment at an even level.
Appearance wise, the armor itself seems to be an amalgamation of most of the GEN1 default armor variations. Jet black in coloration save for hints of metallic silver where the paint has been scuffed or faded, the body of the armor maintains the heavy chestpiece of the Mark V suits, with Mark VI armor plating used in the arms and legs. The helmet, meanwhile, is drawn from one of the most recognizable symbols of the Covenant war, notably the oldest generation of MJOLNIR to see "widespread" use, the default Mark IV with gold tinted visor.
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Personality: Vincent's personality is... complicated, to say the least. To say that he fit the stereotypical Spartan II/III archetype, though, wouldn't be that far off, although whether or not it's simply due to how he was "raised" or a result of another, deeper set of mental issues and instabilities is entirely up for debate. For the most part, however, how Vincent acts is largely dependent on who he's with. With the vast majority of people, namely those he simply doesn't know nor has any shared history to connect with, there isn't much to Vincent. Quiet, terse and professional, he doesn't talk more than he needs to. This does lend a certain weight to his words as they aren't ever spoken with reason in such situations, but this likewise creates a rather large divide between him and other UNSC personnel, to say nothing of civilians. To most of them, Vincent is an enigma, as alien in his acts and motivations as any of the Covenant's client races... a fact that is not at all helped by the unnerving ruthlessness and eerily focused aggression Vincent often exhibits in combat settings that few sane beings are capable of, a stark contrast to his otherwise stoic and subdued appearance outside of it.There is another side to Vincent, however, that only a select few see - namely, fellow Spartan IIIs from Alpha Company, or those who he's simply spent enough time around, enough to form an emotional connection in spite of the social barriers that he unintentionally erects. While the change is a subtle one, around those he trusts and feels comfortable with many of Vincent's more prominent traits before war and loss hardened him begin to show. A dry, sardonic sense of humor, with a heavy helping of black comedy courtesy of a military life. An appreciation for irony, in all of its twisted forms. And, most prominently, far more willingness to speak up and hold entire conversations. While far more distant and subdued than he had been before Alpha Company's graduation, Vincent never lost any of his emotions or blocked them out but rather had just distanced himself from them, a necessary act required to continue functioning in the hell that the Covenant War had become after the first ten years. Distant as he often is from them, Vincent shares a heavily empathizes with colonists and refugees in particular, and still takes deaths that could have been prevented hard - if anything, a bit harder than is healthy, with the Spartan having risked his own safety and wellbeing on more than one occasion during the war's later years to assist during evacuation efforts.
On the note of the Covenant, Vincent's views are rather.... ambivalent. While he has no love for the faction itself, over the years since the Great Schism the Spartan has slowly begun to come to terms with the fact that the client species, for the most part, share many of the same problems as humanity once did. No house is without division, no family without problems and dysfunction. Just as Earth had once been divided - and just as the UEG was even now, still quarreling with dissident factions - those that made up the Covenant hadn't necessarily all been of a single mind, either. That isn't to say that Vincent had forgiven them, nor any of the individuals that may have fought for the cause the original Covenant Empire had once championed, far from it. But Vincent does understand and has come to terms with the idea that pursuing revenge for its own sake and fighting merely to feed his hatred as most of the Spartan IIIs originally had is a dead end, and something that will only lead to renewed conflict in the future, and that even with the advances made in recent years, humanity cannot weather another war on the same scale as before. Thus, despite his misgivings years ago the Spartan has made a point to bury his hatred as best he can, settling for simple dislike tempered by a healthy respect for them and their abilities. Notably, however, this dislike has not found itself extended to the degree of being labelled as racism - since being assigned to the ANVIL initiative, younger Sangheili having only recently entered military service have been the exemption from the rule, with others that were active before 2552 having had to work to earn his trust and be seen as genuine allies.
Strengths:
Jack of all Trades: Aside from the physical and mental augmentations as well as their tactical and strategic training and schooling Spartans were also trained to be able to use any kind of equipment they might have come across, to view enemy troops and bases as mobile supply caches, a philosophy that was emphasized even further with the IIIs during their training due to the nature of their missions. As a result Vincent is able to wield most weapons as well as drive or pilot most vehicles with at least a certain degree of proficiency save for a few notable exceptions. While preferring mid to long range combat, he, like all Spartans, is brutally effective at any range, and is incredibly skilled with any firearm or melee weapon as well as hand to hand combat.
ONI Operative: As a solo operative in ONI's service for a number of years, Vincent has been forced to expand his skill set beyond mere combat prowess to compensate for the lack of squad mates. While he is still only average at best in terms of digital infiltration via manual means, Vincent has become a master of stealth and evasion, leaving the smallest tactical footprint possible during operations. He has also become quite adept with explosives and sabotage as well over the years - if something needs to be dismantled or blown up, he will find a way.
Weaknesses: Trained from childhood to work in a group among equals who he'd been raised with, Vincent tends to only work best in two kinds of environments - either on his own, or with fellow Spartan IIIs, preferably from Alpha Company who he already knows. Working with other groups tends to result in Vincent overthinking things, usually in an attempt to anticipate newer team mates and identify potential problems in advance. Ironically, this tends to detract from his overall focus, resulting in a noticeable drop in overall performance outside of combat. Another problem is that while ruthless and brutally efficient in combat, Vincent is not used to working with individuals who aren't Spartans, and while he will trust them with technical or logistical work, for the most part he will tend to view them as weak links in combat until proven otherwise. While not a true limitation on his part, it does mean that Vincent will be wary to leave them on their own in dangerous situations, and as such will be far more vulnerable in trying to protect them and far more easily manipulated than if he were left on his own.
While MJOLNIR is a powerful tool, it does not come without weaknesses as well. Despite the armor being nearly invulnerable to ballistic small arms fire bar armor piercing rounds, the armor's shield systems are much more susceptible to energy weapons than projectile ones and will quickly drain under prolonged or concentrated fire. In addition, there are a number of environmental hazards that the armor's systems can be made vulnerable to - prolonged exposure to salt water, for instance, may result in salt crusting over a number suit's internally stored sensors, and on at least one occasion has been recorded to disable the suit's motion sensors without the user realizing it.
Finally, for all of his enhanced speed, strength and durability, Vincent is still human - a wound that would be outright lethal to any other human would likely kill him as well. Additionally, as Vincent was not subject to a number of the newer augmentations that the Spartan IVs received on transfer to the Spartan branch he is still vulnerable to a number of toxins and environmental hazards while outside of his armor, including a great many things that the newer generation is able to resist for short periods of time.
History:
Sierra A291, like nearly every Spartan III, was born on a UNSC colony world, in his case as Vincent Iascoe on the agricultural world of Harvest on March 3rd of 2520 at the very edge of space as humanity knew it. The first five years of Vincent's life passed by in a fairly normal fashion as he was entered into the educational system at a fairly young age to begin preschool and later kindergarten, following an older brother and he himself followed by a younger sister at the age of two. Despite their parents' conflicting views on the UNSC at the time, all three children lived normal lives until Harvest came under attack at the hands of the Covenant in 2525, resulting in the complete annihilation of most of the world's defenses as well as the vast majority of the population, with the generally accepted statistic being that only one ship in six had managed to escape the planet. Vincent, Anna and their older brother Jeremy had all managed to make it to one of those ships, urged on ahead by their parents at the spaceport before Covenant infantry could overrun the perimeter defenses - before the ship could take off, however, the perimeter broke, allowing the Covenant access into the facility and resulting in the death of their father and mother who had been helping injured refugees aboard a separate transport.
From that point on Anna, Vincent and Jeremy would become wards of the state, ferried deeper and deeper into UNSC controlled space as more and more colonies fell to the hands of the Covenant's genocidal campaign, the three siblings escaping the onslaught on Biko in the same year as Harvest and yet again on Madrigal in 2528 and later Eridanus II in 2530 - despite the overwhelming odds they managed to escape the same tireless war machine thrice when billions did not, a fact that inevitably came to the attention of the UNSC's Office of Naval Intelligence once they began searching for possible recruits for the at the time theoretical Spartan III project. When said project was finally greenlit, a representative from ONI approached the three siblings with an offer, a chance to get back at the Covenant for taking away the lives that they'd had - needless to say, all three accepted and were quickly taken into Section III's custody and transported to Onyx, the site of the Spartan III program's training grounds, arriving on December 7th, 2531.
Over the next handful of years Vincent, Anna, Jeremy and the 400 other children that he came to refer to as being his siblings every bit as much as his own flesh and blood would begin training under Kurt Ambrose and Franklin Mendez with the intent of becoming exactly what the former was, the ultimate weapons with which to strike back at the Covenant, and over those years they would become far stronger than they could have imagined. Anna, the very first candidate to take the jump from the Pelicans during that first night, followed almost immediately Jeremy, who would become Alpha's ace in the hole over the next few years, the best tactician and strategist out of the entire Company, and then Vincent, who over time would distinguish himself as Alpha's fighter, their sword, their will. When graduation came in 2536 all three were among the final 300 to survive the augmentation process unscathed and to be granted what would become the signature equipment of the IIIs, the SPI Mark I armor, with Jeremy being given command of the company as a whole upon the class's activation as an official military unit. Vincent, however, had a different path ahead of him - having been taken note of due to his ability to act independently of the group without sacrificing any of his ability to obtain results in addition to showing the same increase in ability that the IIs and a handful of other IIIs had from their augmentations, ONI transferred Vincent out of Alpha Company immediately after graduation. Rather than being directly deployed against the Covenant as his brothers and sisters were, Vincent was instead sent elsewhere. With few remaining Outer Colonies still under UNSC control and an increasing number of the Inner Colonies plagued by rebellion despite the alien juggernaut's genocidal campaign, Vincent was given MJOLNIR Mark IV armor and assigned to that theatre with the intent of crushing the remaining Insurrectionists to avoid forcing the UNSC to fight a war on two separate fronts.
Over the next ten years following the deployment and subsequent destruction of Alpha Company during Operation: PROMETHEUS, a fate that Vincent and a small number of other Spartan IIIs were spared from due to their early transfers, the UNSC would continue to lose territory as the Covenant pressed their advance, and by 2545 nearly every Outer Colony had been lost, and the Inner Colonies beginning to come under siege. While the UNSC could win nearly every ground engagement through superior training and tactics, winning ground wars meant nothing in the face of the Covenant Navy's technological superiority, and only the Cole Protocol kept humanity in the war as world after world was burned, their populations scattered and exterminated. With the last major conflict between the UNSC and the Insurrectionist movement taking place on Mamore in 2537 as well as being the first and last conflict Vincent would serve in against human threats, Sierra 291 would steadily begin to be deployed with increasing frequency against Covenant forces on a regular basis, often in a recon/saboteur role. With more and more pressure being placed on the UNSC to hold their colonies with every battle, however, even that role would steadily shift to one of combat. After another few years of war had passed, and by 2545 Vincent was being put to use much more proactively, with standing orders to eliminate Covenant holding command ranks whenever possible to further disrupt their field deployments.
Having garnered an impressive field record and attained several promotions by 2551, nearly twenty years after having entered active duty, Vincent would be called back to Reach by ONI along with the remaining surviving Spartan IIIs to be outfitted with the Mark V variant of the armor in December of that year, replacing the battle worn Mark IV suit he had used since graduating from Alpha Company. Despite seeing brief action on Harmony during an operation to track down one of the few remaining Insurrectionist cells left in existence, 2552 was a fairly quiet year for Vincent during the first seven months, largely seeing him relegated to garrison duty within ONI operated facilities and vessels. It wouldn't be until August of that year that Vincent would again see deployment in one of the largest conflicts of the war and one of the UNSC's most crushing defeats following the disaster at the Battle of Viery on Reach - with the ground forces annihilated by a Covenant Supercarrier in low orbit, the Spartan was placed on board one of the battlegroups sent to respond from other deployments within UNSC space. By the time his vessel had arrived to Reach on August 15th, the vast majority of the Covenant Navy had already arrived and was engaging the rest of the UNSC vessels present in a losing battle, the line only held by Reach's orbital defense grid of Super MACs - unable to safely deploy its Pelican compliment due to the Covenant fighter presence, the ship's captain instead ordered Vincent, the ODST compliment and volunteers from the normal Marine detachment to hard drop to the surface in SOEIVs.
Following landfall and the rendezvous with the other soldiers that had made the drop down with him, the next several days would be spent fighting a losing battle as the Covenant forces quickly laid waste to the UNSC Navy in orbit. By August 20th the UNSC High Command began ordering a full retreat, redirecting the remaining Spartan deployments to cover civilian evacuations and military rescue and recovery operations. Within the next week the human forces would absorb heavy losses as civilian transports were destroyed fleeing the planet, and UNSC ground forces would begin to be worn down through a sheer war of attrition as increasing numbers of Covenant landing parties and smaller capital ships slipped through the planet's orbital defenses. By August 30th the Covenant began directly attacking the generator complexes providing power to the MAC platforms, and as they systematically began to be wiped out the Covenant would begin glassing the planet - ordered to a Prowler exfiltration craft with a number of other remaining ONI operatives still planetside, Vincent was evacuated from Reach on August 31st, the vessel making the randomized slipspace jump as per Cole Protocol before changing course to Earth. Arriving at the human homeworld in mid September of that year, Vincent was ordered on leave while the damage to his armor from the Battle of Reach was repaired and upgraded in the UNSC's Songnamn R&D facility to meet the standards of the newly released Mark VI suits.
With the UNSC consolidating its remaining forces and pulling back from what few colonies were left, Vincent would not see deployment again until October 20th, 2552, the day the Covenant found Earth. While the initial fleet was small and easily dealt with by Earth's newly operational orbital defense grid and the Home Defense Fleet under the command of Lord Hood and Admiral Harper, one assault carrier managed to breach the perimeter to make landfall in New Mombassa, South Africa. Due to the seriousness of the incursion, the UNSC spared no effort in attempting to bring it under control, assigning every free asset available to the containment and resolution of the situation. Halfway across the planet and his own suit barely out of testing, it would be two hours before 291 was made ready for deployment - during which time the situation in New Mombassa rapidly changed and deteriorated with the escape of the vessel in question. With the large majority of the forces present suddenly cut off from High Command and enemy troops left behind and still on the ground, the human military was still scrambling to resolve the issue - fighting skirmishes with Covenant ground forces and sending recon units into the ruins of New Mombassa - and ill prepared when the bulk of the Covenant's remaining fleet, led by a Forerunner dreadnought, appeared in the Sol System on November 8th, marking the start of the Second Battle of Earth.
As with Reach, the ensuing conflict saw nearly the entirety of the UNSC's orbital and naval assets destroyed within the first few hours, cut through with relative ease thanks to the Forerunner vessel and the remainder of the Covenant fleet, and with the clear strategic and tactical advantage UNSC forces were forced to evacuate many of their facilities in light of the alien forces moving to occupy the planet. With the majority of the invading forces focusing on major population centers, the staff and garrison of the Songnam facility were able to evacuate with relative ease, scattering to other UNSC strongholds hidden across the Asiatic and oceanic theatres of conflict where combat was relatively light and facilities well hidden due to their isolated natures. During the next several weeks the UNSC would be forced into a guerrilla war against the overwhelming advantage that the Covenant's naval superiority afforded them, holding back what few ships they had to avoid losing them. Over the course of November of that year the human forces would steadily fall into a pattern of hitting the Covenant when possible, retreating to hidden bases and evacuating those at the first sign of detection to scatter to additional strongholds hidden across the planet's surface - a strategy that would force the Covenant's ground troops to pay a heavy toll, but still very much a losing battle as attrition began to wear down the human forces just as it had on Reach. Employing the rather unique advantages that his armor provided him at the time, Vincent spent most of that month being deployed in his old roles of reconnaissance and advance saboteur, relaying information back to his superiors and prepping targets for precision strikes rather than being employed as a front line vanguard as he had through much of the late 2540s. With the Battle of Voi and the arrival of the Fleet of Retribution on November 17th, however, the conflict on Earth essentially came to a close as the Covenant Loyalist forces fell back to New Mombassa, retreating through a newly opened Slipspace portal above the remains of the city. Held in reserve on Earth along with the vast majority of the UNSC's remaining forces at the order of Lord Hood, Vincent saw the end of the the Human-Covenant War from humanity's home world on December 31st of 2552.
Despite the unlikely victory of the UNSC-Sangheili alliance over the Loyalist forces of the Covenant, the fact remained that the vast majority of the human race no longer existed, with human death toll from the entire war estimated at a high 40 billion at the least - with less than a eighth of that remaining and only a small handful of Inner Colonies left, the UNSC would be forced to turn their attention to rebuilding what they had lost. Engineering details were assigned to civic duties, and military assets given logistical roles to provide the remaining human population with the basic necessities of survival, managing refugees as best as possible. Those forces that weren't assigned those roles were instead given exploratory ones, sent out on the few remaining ships available to survey the UNSC colonies lost during the war, often in the wake of the Sangheili race's continuing feud with the Jiralhanae, the former continuing to hunt them and their former masters for their attempted genocide during the Great Schism. As the first year after the war began to come to a close, it began to become quickly evident that the majority of the UNSC worlds attacked by the Covenant had been completely lost, and would require complete terraforming to be made habitable again - those that didn't were often occupied by Kig-Yar or Jiralhanae that had remained behind, making any attempt at resettling a risky proposition. With a new accord signed by both the UNSC and the Sangheili in February of that year formalizing a cease fire between the two factions, however, it became abundantly clear that humanity would be forced to deal with their own problems as many Elites began seeking asylum on Earth to escape the the civil conflict on Sanghelios after it reached a climax, demonstrating that the Sangheili government was in no position to lend aid until their own world was politically stable.
With Earth's own ecosystem already being strained just to support the current population after centuries of abuse and the majority of its major cities in ruin, by 2554 the UNSC would begin devoting its resources to reclaiming the few still viable colonies occupied by only token Covenant garrisons and reconnecting with the few still existing colonies. Over the next year and a half Vincent would be sent on a number of missions aimed at clearing out Kig-Yar pirate bases and Jiralhanae encampments where possible, and by 2555 the UNSC had begun reestablishing the infrastructure on the regained Inner Colonies and deploying its forces to begin rebuilding the old Outer Colonies in the same fashion. As the end of 2555 began to come to a close, however, Vincent would be approached by his superiors in ONI as most of the other surviving Spartans had in the recent years, and offered a chance to transfer into the Spartan IV initiative. Without any reason to refuse he accepted the offer, and after a final tour of duty in the Outer Colonies in 2556 he would be assigned the the UNSC Infinity following the vessel's official commissioning in early 2557.
During the subsequent months aboard the UNSC dreadnought Vincent would play an important role alongside the other remaining Spartans from the program's earlier incarnations, assisting in the continuing War Games training with the newer IVs aboard the ship prior to the discovery of Requiem in July of that year. Assigned to Fireteam Talon, the squad would participate in the First Battle of Requiem as an reconnaissance unit and advance strike team while the UNSC ship lay temporarily disabled on the Shield World's surface, and again during the subsequent efforts to disable the installation's gravity well generator and the defense batteries protecting it. Due to the hastily planned nature of the operation, however, their Pelican would be shot down by Covenant forces during the approach to their target in an effort to provide telemetry to the ground based Mammoth strike teams, and would be forced to hand their task off to another UNSC unit before returning to the Infinity and departing from Requiem following the mission's success.
After the New Phoenix Incident immediately following the First Battle of Requiem, Fireteam Talon would be deployed a second time to the front lines during the UNSC Infinity's second series of missions to Requiem, this time taking the offensive alongside several other Fireteams. Vincent, however, would be detached from the unit on departure from the Sol system and transferred to Fireteam Crimson as the squad's sniper, saboteur and infiltration specialist. Incredibly competent by Spartan IV standards, the group dynamic was close enough to allow Vincent to settle into the unit far quicker than most. Even in spite of the squad only being made up of four Spartans compared to the usual five or six assigned to most teams, however, Crimson quickly became the premier frontline unit chosen for delicate or difficult tasks during the Requiem campaign, playing key roles in installation defense as well as the acquisition of several pieces of critical intelligence. By the time that the Requiem Campaign came to a close every member had received numerous commendations, with three of the four offered the opportunities to form and lead their own Fireteams that would draw from the eventual third class of Spartan IVs. Two of the squad would accept the offer, although Vincent and the remaining squadmate would turn down the offers and remain as part of the original unit, which in the following months would be absorbed and integrated into the ANVIL initiative, with deployment to Sanghelios shortly after.
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Weapons:
M99 Special Application Scoped Rifle, SRS 99-S5 Anti-Matériel, W/AV M6 G/GNR ("Endgame" configuration), BR55 Service Rifle (suppressor optional), MA5D ICWS (suppressor optional), M395B DMR (suppressor optional, often with Recon configuration)
M6C/SOCOM, M20PDW (modified to utilize caseless ammunition, machined for suppressor)
4 M9 HE-DP grenades
Spartan issue combat knife
Other weapons acquired in the field
Armor Ability: Having originally trained with the older SPI armors before being pulled from Alpha Company and transferred elsewhere within Section III for several years, it should come as little surprise to most that Vincent fell back on what he knew and did best when offered the opportunity to modify his armor and incorporate new technology into it. Based off of reverse engineered Covenant technology acquired towards the end of the war, Vincent's MJOLNIR armor is equipped with an active camouflage device. Upgraded by UNSC technicians for far more efficient operation much as with MJOLNIR's shields, the new technology effectively erases all visual presence, bending light so seamlessly that even newer VISR systems are unable to detect it short of running or firing fully automatic weapons. Combined with the Mark VII's built in stealth package, this likewise effectively erases Vincent's presence from motion tracking systems, only failing to do so if the Spartan using it breaks into a full sprint. As with the older Covenant technology, however, the system is visible to specialized thermal detection hardware, at least until newer upgrades such as the WETWORK tactical package become available to replace the older GEN1 stealth systems.
Anything else?:
