Randall-037

Randall Aiken, formerly Randall-037, is a former SPARTAN-II commando of UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command. Little else is known of him, except that he was not as sociable as Kurt-051.

Biography
Some time around 2527 he caught a fellow Spartan, Soren-066, and an Insurrectionist named Partch breaking into a lab on Reach. Being suspicious of their activities, he escorted them outside to verify why they were there. Soren attacked Randall as they were leaving, and, after a brief struggle, Partch shot him with a tranquilizer dart, knocking him out and allowing them to escape. Afterward, Chief Petty Officer Franklin Mendez reported to Dr. Halsey that Randall was doing fine but was angered with himself for letting his guard down. Mendez said that he hadn't let it down much, that he had done what he could, and it was good for him to go through something like that because it would make him a better soldier in the long run.

Disappearance from the UNSC.
Randall-037 was thought lost during an orbital space engagement with the Covenant during the Battle of Vodin and deemed by ONI to be unrecoverable. In reality, Randall had fallen from the planet’s skyhooks into Vodin’s atmosphere and plunged to the surface, surviving impact by landing in one of the colony’s oceans. He was rescued days later by locals who had also survived the Covenant assault. Though severely damaged in the attack, the colony was still habitable and Randall integrated with the local survivors as he recovered from his injuries.With all outbound communication and transport equipment destroyed in the Covenant attack, Randall-037 lived with the survivors of Vodin for a full decade, even marrying one of the colonists, before they finally regained contact with the UNSC. By that time, however, his ties to the people of Vodin and his wife were too strong for him to return to service, and so Randall-037 – now going by the name Aiken – decided instead to keep a low profile and remain on Vodin. In 2545, Aiken and his wife had a daughter named Natalie. Tragically, Aiken’s wife died during childbirth. In 2546, ONI finally located him and made plans to reintegrate him into service, as they viewed him as a huge investment of the SPARTAN-II program. When Aiken refused, ONI deemed him compromised and no longer viable as a Spartan and so made plans to “decommission” him. Aiken forcefully (and successfully) refused this effort, but eventually negotiated a deal where ONI reversed many of his augmentations (in what would be an excruciating process) in return for his release from service to the UNSC.

After his dealings with ONI were complete, Aiken and his daughter left Vodin and headed to the remote colony of Sedra where he enrolled as part of the Colonial Guard. Thanks in large part to his extensive training and history, by 2556 he advanced to leader of the local wing of the Guard as a Colonel.

Mission to the Alpha Fragment
In February, 2556, a Sangheili Zealot activated a biological weapon on Sedra that caused only human fatalities. Randall is in the Sedran colonial guard hospital. He cares little for the ONI personnel but lets them have treatment. His daughters vital fades and passes away while he is holding her beads. During the operation to destroy the deposits on the fragment of installation 04. The Condor is attack by hunter worms and causes it to crash. Him along with Locke and his squad must go retrieve the havok Tactical nuke. He offers a fair way for the colonial gaurds and ONI to get off the halo fragment. The "life boat rules", he explains how the Royal Navy of Great Britain used it in the 18th century.

Randall breaks his daughter necklace to be used as "straws" for him, Locke and Macer to decide who will go and who will stay to activate the nuke. Randall tricks Locke and Macer to seem like it was fair, later he places the last bead in his hand which is a white bead on a rock. He later activates the nuke

Appearances

 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe
 * Pariah
 * Halo: Nightfall

Trivia

 * His name is seven letters long and so a potential 7 reference.