Major James Darson - Marine Detachment Commanding Officer

Race: Human
Gender: Male
Eye Colour: Brown
Hair Colour: Black
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 175 lbs.
Age: 36
Date of Birth: June 7th, 2350
Place of Birth: San Francisco

Family:
Father: Colonel Marcus Darson (SFMC) *Deceased*
Mother: Gabriel Darson

Languages Spoken:
Federation Standard, Vulcan, Klingon, Romulan, Ferenghi, Cardassian

Hobbies:
Sleight of Hand: Performs various tricks with small objects when bored or thinking, most of the time various coins or trinkets.
Education and Career: Classified

Appearance:
James Darson is in peak physical condition, due to his long term career as an active Marine, specifically with Special Forces. He maintains this with a strict and intense regimen in the gym, as well as with holographic simulations.

Tattoos:
SFMC Insignia on his right bicep.
"Semper Fidelis" On his right biceb, below SFMC Insignia.
SpecOps 'Crossed Knives' Insignia on left bicep.
'Silencers' Squad Insignia on his left bicep, below SpecOps Insignia.

Medical Information:
Slightly addicted to muscle relaxants, used liberally over the years to steady his super-long range sniper shots.

Scars:
One long deep scar, laser straight, across his throat. Caused by an enemy sniper on a mission gone wrong.
Many superficial battle scars, inflicted over the years.

History:
James Darson was born on June 7th, 2350, to a pair of loving parents living in San Francisco. His mother was a civilian working in an administrative job, and his father was a Major in the SFMC. Growing up, he was a happy child, living a happy active lifestyle, although he never performed brilliantly in his academics. He had a large circle of friends, and was generally liked by most everyone.

However, when he was 15 years old, his father, then a colonel, was assassinated by an Insurrectionist Sniper while he was on a routine peace keeping mission. Devastated by the loss, he began to wallow in his grief, drawing back into a shell, and losing most of his friends. His grades plummeted, despite attending counseling sessions.

After barely graduating basic school, he told his mother that he wanted to enter the SFMC. Although she was understandably upset, she could understand his desire, and so gave her blessing. However, the SFMC was doubtful about recruiting somebody with as poor grades as him. In the end though, they let him in as an enlisted recruit.

Finally, with something to live for to make his father proud, he threw himself into his studies, constantly scoring among the highest percentile of the enlisted. His innate physical ability served him well as he was already in moderately good physical shape.

After graduating in the 90th percentile of the class from basic training at Camp Terra Nova, he moved around, trying to find an operational specialty. He completed Basic and Advanced Combat Courses, as well as the Hostile Conditions Course in the next two and a half years. In the end, he discovered that he had a calling for being a sniper.

He applied for the sniper training courses and was accepted. After another half year, he graduated first in his class, and was approached by a SpecOps commander, Captain Don Howard, who invited him to join his Force Recon squad. Darson immediately accepted, and he was shipped off to BASS (Basic SpecOps School).

Darson soon found out that getting into SpecOps would not be as easy as he thought it would be. For the first 16 weeks of his training, he shipped out to New Valley Forge, where he underwent extreme physical conditioning for the first seven weeks. Running, swimming, climbing, obstacle courses, marches with heavy packs. Before two months were up, Darson was more physically fit then most of the SFMC.

Then came week 8. Know to the public as "Motivation Week". Know to all recruits as "Hell Week". Starting at midnight, simulated artillery boomed out. Instructors 'motivate' them using loud speakers and water hoses. Over the next seven days, Darson got less than seven hours of sleep. Countless drills, intense psychological and physical stress, all took their toll on him, but he survived it.

Out of the 60 students originally inducted into the program, less the 20 remained. During the next 8 weeks, he began to learn the SpecOps trade craft, infiltration, exfiltration, and survival.

The three months after that consisted mainly of field training on a variety of different ranges and worlds. He learned diving, alpine skills, SpecOps orbital infiltration, aerospace assaults, and escape and evasion, (which included a week in an extremely realistic POW camp simulation).

Of course, there was shooting. Darson's specialty. He racked up the highest scores in all aspects of the weapons program, and also scored very high in the CQC aspect of the program as well.

The last month is known as "Grand Luxe". It consisted of two separate, but related, live-fire simulations, where the students separate into teams and attempt to complete a 'mission' behind enemy lines. It is said to be the most grueling final exam in the Federation.

After Darson completed BASS, he moved on to Team-specific training for Force Recon. After completing another 16 weeks of training, he was assigned to a peacekeeping task force near the neutral zone. Vaguely disappointed that Captain Howards wasn't with him, he committed to every task he was given, serving with distinction. After two more years of being shifted around, and not seeing very much action, he received a very surprising invitation.

It was Don Howards, A major now. He was inviting Darson to join him and his Omega squad.

Enticed by the offer, Darson accepted without a second thought. With that, he was brought into the intense and secretive world of Black Operations for the first, but certainly not the last time.

Already suitably impressed, Major Howard welcomed Darson with open arms, and gave him the position of Squad Sniper. After that, he explained the exact nature of the squad he had just joined. It was a special assassination and suppression squad, codenamed, “The Silencers”. It was their jobs to silence dissidents and terrorists both inside and outside of the Federation.

For almost three years, Darson did his duty, quelling insurrections by killing off their leaders. Unfortunately, things wouldn’t continue to go so smoothly.

It started out as a relatively normal mission, to assassinate a drug trafficker on the jungle planet Omicron Rho 4. However, his squad was caught in an ambush, and decimated. It was there that he received a defining scar across his throat, from the near miss of an enemy soldier’s disruptor.

Him and two of his team barely made it out alive, and returned to base in secret. He spent the next several weeks recuperating, and mourning the loss of his squad, especially Major Howard, who had been like a father to him.

It finally got back to him that the ambush had been precipitated by a leak from a Starfleet officer, who had gotten drunk one night, and said something to the wrong person. Infuriated, Darson stalked the man for two months, and then killed him with a perfectly placed shot, from an exceedingly long distance away.

A short time later, he was contacted by a Colonel Chester Mannheim. He told Darson that although the leak was true, it was in reality an initiation test for him. The Colonel invited him to join his special squad, even more elite and clandestine then “The Silencers”. The squad’s name was, “Black Cell”.

Black Cell operated both inside and independently of the Starfleet Marines, as a Clandestine Services Unit. They received orders from a committee of extremely high ranking officers in the Federation, and were tasking with eliminating any and all threats to the Federation…both domestic and external.

Over the next five years, Darson operated in all corners of the Alpha Quadrant. Although his position demanded secrecy, He sometimes assumed Command of various Marine forces, to accomplish a higher goal.

The ruthless and cold leadership that he displayed during those times, as well as the way he manipulated others and his choice of clothes (Which almost always was a set of SpecOps armor covered by a cloak) led to him being branded as “The Cloaked Schemer”, derogatively by Starfleet Personnel, and enthusiastically by Marines, because he was able to hold his own against a primarily Starfleet Military.

As time wore on, he rose through the ranks, and although he continued to carry out clandestine operations in secret, he more often was sent undercover in various commands. Most recently, he was brought onto the U.S.S. Excalibur to resolve a biological attack on Omega II, which he did successfully, and a hostage rescue operation when several senior officers were kidnapped by a vengeful traitor.

Although the hostages were rescued successfully, the traitor escaped. Darson then left the Excalibur, and went underground to find him and finished the job. He had just disposed of him when he received his new mission orders, to report to DS5 as its new MCO.

Unit of Merit - Gold (July '08)

Unit of Merit - Silver (July '08)

Meritous Newcomer