Thom-A293

"I'm not gonna lie to you, Lieutenant. You're stepping into some shoes the rest of the squad would rather leave unfilled."

- Commander Carter-A259 to SPARTAN-B312 about Thom's death. Thom-293 was a SPARTAN-III commando who served as a member of the UNSC Navy during the Human-Covenant war. He was a member of Noble Team until his death in spring 2552.

Death
During the Battle of Fumirole on April 22, 2552, Thom participated in an operation put together by LCDR Catherine-B320 to destroy a maintaining position above a city. However, the Lieutenant Commander, who carried the tactical nuclear weapon intended to destroy the Covenant ship, was incapacitated while on her way to the objective by an enemy Banshee.

Thom was the first to arrive where Kat was wounded, and immediately picked up the nuke and used his jetpack to fly into the battlecruiser because he did not have time to wait for additional help (in this case his teammates). Once inside the ship's loading dock, he threw the nuke into a staging area. The nuke detonated before Thom could safely make it out, destroying the ship but killing Thom in the process.

Replacement
Both Commander Carter-A259 and Lieutenant Commander Catherine-B320 took responsibility for Thom's death, unable to admit that his death was his own fault. The team's commanding officer, Colonel Urban Holland, asserted that Thom died because he chose to attack Covenant forces without waiting for backup. Thom was replaced on Noble Team by SPARTAN-B312 a few months later, several weeks prior to the Fall of Reach.

Trivia

 * His name and service tag may be a reference to Tom-B292, another SPARTAN-III.
 * In the "Deliver Hope" trailer, Thom is seen wearing a gray Mark V MJOLNIR armor with jetpack and a Mark V[B] helmet with the HUL and the CNM attachments, and FJ/PARA knee guards. It is possible that Bungie's image of Noble Six is based on Thom or vice versa.
 * Thom was originally intended to play a larger role in Halo: Reach as a member of Noble Team, and was described to be "cowboy-like", but, like Rosenda-344, was ultimately cut from the game and only mentioned in the Noble Team performance reports as a now-deceased former member.
 * The manner of Thom's death, ensuring the detonation of a bomb within a Covenant ship, is remarkably similar to the deaths of Samuel-034 and Jorge-052. However, in Samuel and Jorge's cases, they were forced to stay behind due to Samuel suffering an armor breach in the Covenant ship, rendering him incapable of surviving a vacuum, and Jorge having to manually fire a Slipspace drive, while Thom simply failed to get out of the battlecruiser in time.
 * The nuke Thom carried would have destroyed the cruiser wherever it was placed inside however, so technically Thom could have simply thrown the weapon into the gravity lift and ran, instead of risking his life.
 * An early concept image of Thom's face bears a remarkable resemblance to Jason Jones, one of the co-founders of Bungie.
 * "Thom" is one of the name options for customized Loadouts in Halo: Reach, along with the members of Noble Team and several SPARTAN-II's. ''
 * "THOM" is a possible service tag of a marine or ODST that is part of your squad during the Reach campaign.
 * His service tag is likely a reference to 7, because 2+9+3 = 14 = 7x2.
 * It is unknown what role Thom played in Noble. In the "Deliver Hope" trailer, he is shown with a DMR, so it is likely that he was a Rifleman or Sniper, like Jun.
 * If a player were to recreate Thom-293's concept art armor, they would need Mark V(B)helmet with UA attachment, Default left shoulder, Default right shoulder, Default chest piece, UA/Buckler wrist armor, FJ/PARA knee guards, Silver or Blue visor, and Salmon as primary color and Sage as secondary color.
 * The alternate concept armor would be; Mark V (B) helmet with UA attachment, Default left shoulder, Recon right shoulder, Tactical/LRP chest, UA/Buckler wrist armor, FJ/PARA knee guards, Default visor and Sage as primary color and Sage as secondary colour.
 * Thom's jetpack is oddly powerful, as it is capable of flying him well over a hundred feet in the air (as shown when he boards the Covenant Cruiser), and doesn't run out of energy as the regular jetpack.

List of appearances

 * Deliver Hope
 * Halo: Reach