Gabriel Staton

Gabriel Staton was a reaper recruit who washed out during training.

Kejora described him as being "intelligent, focused, and emphatic."

Infiltrating the Icehouse
Staton's brother Denis was conscripted into the Reaper Corps due to theft and murder. Staton learnt of his death in the Icehouse and resolved to avenge him. Staton got himself sent to the Icehouse under the pseudonym of "Gabriel Feltz," picked up from a colonial outpost. The trip was nightmarish and he suffered a lack of sleep.

Early Training
Upon arriving at the Icehouse, Warden Kejora addressed the recruits before sending them to the dormitory. Inmates who had arrived prior were there to 'greet' them and Staton did his best to be inconspicuous. However, he didn't escape the attention of Samuel "the Lisk" Lords, who pushed him around. The treatment continued from the other inmates, as they repeatedly stole his food, his bunk, and made him wait for the latrine.

Training began, and the days melded together. He managed to endure the sim-cage, but saw the body of a recruit who had been hit hard by the cage's effects, lying on his bunk in the dorm. On a firing course, he hesitated when he was presented with a hologram of a child. One of the base's robots shot him in the arm with a rubber bullet as punishment, leaving a bruise behind. Eventually Lords called Staton out on his odd behavior&mdash;he was at the bottom of the inmates' pecking order, but wasn't as scared as he should have been. Staton covered his intentions, claiming that if he acted weak, he would be underestimated.

Eventually, Staton snapped when Polek (another recruit) snatched his food in the canteen. No longer willing to take it, he hit Polek over the back of his head. By this stage Staton's fighting skills had improved, but Polek was still the better brawler, and after three swift punches, pinned Staton. Polek kept punishing him until Kejora called the fight off. Staton was given medical treatment and confronted by Kejora. Usually, inmates had to earn such treatment, and by the precepts of the Icehouse, he should have let Polek continue to pummel him. He explained that he and the techs couldn't quite place him (his file contained no details of a criminal record, details, or even neural aptitude), and that for all of Staton's qualities, he wasn't Icehouse material. Ordering him to explain how he'd got here, Staton told him of how his brother had been press ganged for mine work by the Dominion. Eventually, he went missing, and he went to see the local magistrate. He wouldn't give him any answers, and a scuffle later, he found himself on a shuttle to the Icehouse.

Kejora didn't buy the story&mdash;recruitment into the Icehouse wasn't something that "colonial lackies" were able to do on a whim. But that said, he kept Staton on.

The Grim Reaper
Staton was able to rely on Lords to fend off further attackers. The two ate together, sparred together, and to most of the techs, came off as friends. After three months of training, he and the other recruits were introduced to the use of reaper suits, P-45 pistols, and D-8 charges. Eventually, "graduation day" arrived, the recruits having access to armor and weapons to be used to fight off predators and zerg-bots within the facility. He, Lords, and other recruits made it to one of the Icehouse's armories where their equipment awaited them. Staton found himself fitting into a leader role, and the recruits battled their way through their mechanical foes. Here, however, he played his trump card, as he shot out the sensors and killed his fellow recruits. He made his way to Kejora at the Hub, also shooting the techs around the warden. The two engaged in a game of cat and mouse, as Kejora tried to buy time for security to arrive. Staton (revealing himself as Staton, and not "Feltz") told the truth to Kejora, about the conscription and death of his brother, and how he had come to avenge him.

By this point, Staton had Kejora cornered, and his P-45's gave him far more firepower than Kejora's pistol. But before he could avenge his brother, Staton was shot by Lords. In his last moments, he turned towards Lords, a "wordless question" gurgling from his throat.

Legacy
Kejora told himself he would always remember Staton as "Gabriel Feltz." He considered Staton proof that the Icehouse worked with better recruits, that the Reaper Corps could do better than the dregs it usually had to work with.