Taylor Miles

'Corporal Taylor Henry "Dutch" Miles[1][3] (service number 21175-12121-TM) is a former non-commissioned officer in the UNSC Marine Corps and an Orbital Drop Shock Trooper.[4] He served in Alpha-Nine, a squad led by Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck during the Battle of Earth and in the post-war era. He is married to Gretchen Ketola, a fellow ODST.

Early life and military career
Taylor H. Miles was born in 2519 in Losantiville, Seven Hills, Mars. Originally a road-train driver before becoming an ODST, (at some point driving the Flying Dutchman) his former occupation has prepared him for the arduous tasks of a heavy weapons specialist and driver in the ODSTs. He also went to university for some time, studying religion and philosophy, as he was interested in the subjects at the time.[5] During this time, he adopted a world view he would carry for the rest of his life.[6]

He was drafted while attending university[6] and properly enlisted on September 9th, 2540; he eventually became a corporal.[4] The last time he visited Earth prior to the Battle of Earth was at a weekend pass, the day before he applied to the ODSTs. During his time in the Marine Corps, he befriended Romeo and became romantically involved with another marine, Gretchen Ketola, who he later married. Gretchen's injury by an Insurrectionist mine changed Miles' personality and he became more serious than before.[7] He also served in operations on the Coral asteroid belt, and the Jericho Space Elevator.[5]

Assassination mission on Heian
Some time before 2551, Miles was stationed on the UNSC Kronstadt as a part of a squad led by Master Sergeant Cortez, along with a contingent of ODSTs from the 105th Shock Troops Division.[8][9] During his time on the vessel, he was deployed on a mission to assassinate a Prophet on the Covenant-controlled world Heian, where alien ruins had been uncovered. During the mission, he worked alongside Cal-141, a SPARTAN-II supersoldier, much to the chagrin of O'Brien, the squad's backup sniper. During the mission, Miles continuously teased O'Brien about the fact that the sniper owed Cal his life twice and that he should thank the Spartan.

When Cal attempted to shoot the Prophet, a Jiralhanae chieftain that Cal had fought earlier to save O'Brien assaulted the squad and fatally wounded Cal, who rushed to their defense. Miles responded as he, Cortez, and O'Brien tackled the chieftain just as it was about to strike Cal once more. Miles then shot the Brute in the face, killing him. Although they succeeded in assassinating the Prophet, the death of Cal and another squadmate, Checkman, hit Miles and his comrades very hard. Afterward, it became evident that Cal's voluntary sacrifice had affected the squad's impression of Spartans, as they scolded an Army specialist, Berger, who made light of the fact that the Spartan had passed away on the mission.

Battle of Ariel
During the Battle of Ariel in January 2552, Miles served in the same unit with Kojo "Romeo" Agu under the command of MSgt Frost. Before deployment, they were stationed aboard a UNSC frigate. Miles broke up a fight Romeo had started, and because of this, Sgt. Frost confined both of them to their quarters. While in his quarters, Miles viewed a video message from Gretchen, who was still healing from her injury.

After this, the ODSTs were deployed to the UNSC colony world of Ariel, where all the colonists seemed to have mysteriously disappeared.[7] After the ODSTs split into two-man teams, Miles and Romeo entered a structure, where they encountered a heavy Covenant presence. After a brief engagement with two Sangheili, the colony's generators went critical, forcing Miles and Romeo to grab the corpses and use them as personal shields against the blast. Miles then decided to tell Romeo his "last words": he was going to get a transfer.

When they were blown to the surface and woke up, Romeo punched Miles for telling of his transfer. They then found an injured Unggoy, who they interrogated, demanding to know what the Covenant were doing. The Unggoy could only say "knowing" but couldn't tell anymore. They let the Grunt go free, only for Romeo to shoot it, fearing that he may become a liability. They soon traced their squad's tracks, but noticed a legion of Sangheili headed towards them. As Romeo tried coming up with a plan, three Unggoy tried dropping a boulder on them. They barely managed to avoid the attack and then killed the Unggoy, and took their gear before setting up a few explosives to bring rocks upon the Sangheili. After using improvised explosives to bring a canyon's walls down on a large number of Covenant and then evading the survivors, they formulated a plan to steal a Covenant Phantom. First, they killed a Sangheili and an Unggoy, using the latter's body to fool the other Unggoy into thinking that Miles was being taken captive, before killing them all. They then took control of the Phantom, though what Miles believed to be lift-off thrusters were actually weapons, which killed a number of Covenant returning to the ship. As they took off, one Sangheili managed to damage the Phantom with his Fuel Rod Gun, causing the Phantom to crash to the ground. They abandon ship, as the Phantom crashed into a company of Sangheili. Miles crashed through a building's skylight, and found the missing colonists inside, held prisoner by several Unggoy.

After neutralizing the guards, Miles and Romeo then learned from the colonists that the Covenant were forcing them to dig down below, setting off a number of booby traps in the entrance to an alien complex. Thus the two ODSTs went down below to free the other enslaved colonists. They first scared two Unggoy with inactive bombs, causing them run right into a laser trap, before Miles tackled the Sangheili into them as well. He and Romeo then made their way past the lasers, before finding what the Covenant was looking for on Ariel: an alien construct called the Knowing. Though Miles believed that the AI would be beneficial to the UNSC, per ONI standing orders, Romeo preferred that they destroy it to prevent the Covenant from getting their hands on the data. Romeo asked Knowing to activate its self-destruct and direct them out of the complex. As they made their way out, Romeo tripped over a Unggoy's body and broke his ankle. Miles carried him and managed to escape the blast. When they got back to the surface, they were reunited with their squad, who had seen the Covenant fleeing the planet because of Knowing's destruction.

Later, Miles visited Romeo in the infirmary. Romeo stated that he filed for a transfer to be with Miles, who revealed that he had withdrawn his transfer request. They both played Rock, Paper, Scissors to decide who would go.

After the Battle of Ariel, Miles volunteered in time to participate Battle of Tribute, where he witnessed the destruction of the majority of UNSC naval forces present. This gave him a deep respect for Naval personnel.[10] He also participated in the Battle of Reach.[6]

Battle of Earth
During the Battle of Earth in October 20, 2552, Miles was stationed aboard the UNSC Say My Name and was interviewed for ONI by Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck.[5] He subsequently became part of Buck's squad, Alpha-Nine, which was part of a larger detachment of the 105th Shock Troops Division that was to be dropped from orbit right onto the Solemn Penance stationed over the city of New Mombasa.[11] Coincidentally, the squad was chosen by the ONI operative Veronica Dare to partake on a classified mission, which was not revealed to the squad members until in mid-drop, when Dare ordered the squad to adjust their drop pods' trajectories away from the Covenant carrier. However, Miles could barely hear her new orders, and did not adjust his pod soon enough.[12]

Before the ODSTs hit the ground, the assault carrier initiated Slipspace transition over the city, generating a massive EMP wave, disabling the pods' electronic systems. The squad's pods were scattered around the city, with no clear idea of their mission or their squadmates' whereabouts. Miles' pod landed on the outskirts of the Uplift Nature Reserve. 30 minutes after the drop, he moved out and made his way up to a clearing where a battle was taking place, between Covenant infantry and armor, against a platoon of Marines with three Warthogs, one of them turned over, and under fire from Covenant infantry. With his help, they secured the Warthog and defeated the Covenant forces in the area and started a Warthog charge against the enemy. After the area was cleared, Miles and the other Marines made contact with the Colonel in charge, who ordered them to Second Platoon's location, which was taking heavy fire and needed assistance.

Miles and his allies made his way to the second platoon's location, fighting through more Covenant armor. On the way, he learned that the mission objectives were to seize Regret's Carrier's former LZ, and secure a Tier One asset. When he finally arrived at second platoon's location, they were under heavy fire from additional Covenant armor. Once the Covenant were defeated, they moved across a bridge to find the Colonel near the Covenant LZ, only to watch as the space elevator collapsed. The Colonel, mortally wounded, ordered the rest of the Marines to move out before more debris came down. Miles and the Marines on the bridge decided to make their way up the hill and out of the park. On their way up they faced off against much more heavy Covenant resistance. Eventually they made it to the Assault Carrier's former LZ, where a group of Marines were pinned down by more Covenant armor. After making it to the top of the hill and defeating the last of the Covenant armor, and a Jiralhanae war chieftain, Miles found a hole in the wall made by debris, driving his vehicle off the edge and back into the city.

Later that day, he defended an entrance to the Marine rally point with a pair of Gauss turrets, fighting off Covenant armor. He ordered one of the Marines to hold his fire, and than focus his fire on the Wraith that just arrived, but was angered when the Marine panicked, and opened fire randomly on Covenant troops. At this point he made contact with Mickey, who was making his way to the rally point in a tank. After the armor was defeated, he and Mickey made their way to the rally point to defend it from Covenant troops. After defeating waves of Covenant troops, he asked if Mickey had made contact with the rest of the squad, which Mickey was unable to. Mickey suggested they stay at the rally point and wait for back up. At this point, an NMPD officer showed up and asked them for assistance in defending ONI Alpha Site, to which Miles overruled Mickey and ordered him to go and assist the situation.

Later, Miles and Mickey defended the ONI Alpha Site. Miles personally armed three of the charges to destroy the only bridge into the site. After the Superintendent finally gave them access, Miles detonated the charges and temporarily halted the Covenant advance. Mickey than noticed the Covenant were landing beyond the wall, and they moved to defend the building from more Covenant troops. After defending the courtyard for a while, they were overwhelmed and forced to retreat inside. Here they found a group of police officers planting charges to destroy the building, which Miles questioned as of why they were doing so. The officer in charge said he had orders to prevent the Covenant from accessing ONI's and the Superintendent's data, which meant blowing up the building if necessary. Eventually they were overwhelmed again and forced to retreat up an elevator, where they were attacked by Yanme'e, and had to fight them off as well. Finally they made it up to the roof, after fighting off another group of Covenant they evacuated on NMPD Police Pelican, and finally made contact with Buck who was with Romeo at NMPD Headquarters. Once at a safe distance Mickey detonated the charges destroying the building. Later, the Pelican dropship, prepared to pick up Romeo and Buck from a landing pad on the NMPD Headquarters building. However, two Banshees appeared and shot the Pelican down, leaving Miles and Mickey to crash land onto an adjacent building. Miles, Mickey and another NMPD officer survived the crash and defended the area, waiting for Buck and Romeo to arrive. After the other two arrived at the crash site, they defended the site from multiple waves of Covenant infantry and Banshees. Eventually a Chieftain was dropped into the middle of the squad, attacking Romeo. Miles helped Mickey and Buck take down the Chieftain with a well placed melee before it could finish off Romeo, who was badly injured.

They made their way to Kikowani Station intending to take the train out of the city, only to find the tunnels flooded. Buck decided to steal a Phantom; he had Miles wait with Romeo as he and Mickey attempted to secure it. Once Mickey took control, he picked up Miles and Romeo, with Miles manning one of the Phantom's plasma turrets. During their fight through the station, they encountered a Scarab, which they managed to destroy. The squad finally makes it out of the station, but Buck realizes where Capt. Dare might be. He had the squad go back into the city, where Miles, along with Mickey and Romeo waited with the Phantom at a safe location, to pick up Buck at a later time.

Buck eventually managed to find Dare, the Rookie, and a Huragok, and radioed the rest of the squad for evac. When Miles and the squad arrived at Buck's location, it was under fire from two Wraiths on the highway, which Miles, Mickey and Romeo took out with the Phantom. Miles along with the rest of the squad finally evacuated the city as the Covenant fleet began to glass it. Miles was last seen a month later on an ONI orbital facility, with the rest of the squad guarding the Huragok, which held the data of the Vergil subroutine of New Mombasa's Superintendent. He then watched as Sgt. Johnson interrogated the Huragok, about what the Covenant had uncovered in New Mombasa.[13]

Post-war
After the Covenant War, Miles and his squad took part in several engagements against Insurrectionist forces. In 2554, his squad participated in a UNSC assault against the United Rebel Front on Draco III, where the rebels had fortified themselves in the planet's capitol building in New Albany. During the mission, the Rookie was taken hostage and ultimately killed by the rebels' leader, Captain Ingridson, before they were defeated; Miles killed Ingridson with his shotgun instantly after she executed the Rookie.[14] The loss of his comrade profoundly affected Miles and, during the Rookie's funeral the following week, he announced his decision to retire from military service to be with Gretchen and possibly return to his former career as a road train driver.[15] The two continued to contact their old squadmates and friends after their retirement.[16]

Personality and traits
The second oldest member of Buck's squad at the time of the Battle of Earth, Dutch is good friends with the squad's marksman, Kojo Agu.[7] He has extensive experience in close-quarters combat.[5] Miles' last known place of residence is Paris Island on Mars, where he is also a citizen. His civilian occupation is listed as road train driver.[4]

Though Miles takes his occupation and duty very seriously, he is characterized by boisterous remarks and quips during combat. Miles is religious, a world view he adopted during his studies in university,[6] though he does not appear to take his faith with particular seriousness; he is known to occasionally "paraphrase" the Bible in a lighthearted manner.[17]

Equipment
In accordance with his specialty, Dutch's BDU is optimized for close-quarters combat. He wears a specialized ODST-HS Combat Helmet, which is equipped with extra metallic reinforcement to protect from head trauma.[2] Miles has the upper half of a jaw bone painted onto his helmet right below his visor, and a Jolly Roger on his chest plate, making him the only member of the squad with an emblem on his chest plate. He carries an M/LBE Hard Case backpack.[2]