Felix Geltz is an Alliance Watchman and former Alliance Combat Forces soldier, having earned citizenship through service after fleeing his home-world of High Atlantic. Geltz is widely considered to be one of The Nightwatch’s greatest operatives, particularly after overcoming widely publicised scandal during the Lawsonite Insurrection when he was framed for the murder of his mentor, Hawk Argill. A decorated veteran of the Sixth Kharak-Ghar War, he has since risen to the rank of Regional Watch Commander.
Abilities
Geltz is an elite field operative and a highly accomplished Watchman, able to draw upon an enormous wealth of experience. He is most known for his sheer grit and remarkable ability to win against the odds, rarely getting the job done clean but always getting it done.
He has remarkably few modifications for a figure of his status. While he does have a Neural Link and the standard Alliance Basic Enhancements package, even his replacement eye is more-or-less an exact organic replica. He argues that this makes him more able to conduct undercover work and helps keep him grounded, but many people are baffled, understandably so, by his reluctance to improve his biology.
Geltz is highly adept with powered armour and is also an exceptional user of the neural link, having mastered the multi-tasking that is crucial to modern combat. He regularly uses directly-controlled Seekers in the field.
His signature weapon is a Musara Arms Gavel-pattern HandCannon, which he has modified with a custom aftermarket muzzle shroud and a heavily-tweaked trigger group.
Biography
Early Life
Geltz was born in 3321 in Galveston, a gang slum in Neo-Atlantica. His father was killed in the Contract Riots of 3335. His mother, already distant from her children, took her own life shortly after, and he and his brother joined the Ghosts of Cain, marking the start of a lifelong friendship with the infamous JT, a highly accomplished Broker.
In 3337 his brother was killed in a gang shooting and he demanded a more active role in the Ghosts’ ongoing war with the Interplanetary Slashers. It was during this period that he took up the mantle of the Ghost of Cain itself, and by the time he was 19 Geltz was one of the most feared fighters in Galveston, known for his fearlessness and unstoppable grit.
Initial Alliance Service
When the gang war ended in 3341, Geltz had a significant bounty on his head and was unable to safely return to regular life. As a reward for his service, JT arranged to have him smuggled off-world, and Geltz escaped to the Reunification Alliance, where he joined the Alliance Citizenship Programme. Faced with a choice between a long stint in deep space and a tour of service with ACF, Geltz chose the latter, and was enrolled in ACF Basic Training on Currahee. During basic training, he was given the opportunity to change his face, and seized it, replacing a gaunt, pale, unassuming visage with the kind of strong features that he felt better suited a hardened killer.
He completed his basic courses in mid-3342 and was assigned to 2nd Battalion, 95th Air Mobile (Rifle) Infantry Regiment. He put in exemplary service with the unit throughout the Jeruvian Rebellion, reaching sergeant by the end of hostilities. This record earned him access to Advanced Training Courses and in 3347 he graduated from ATS Pensacola with a distinction in Reconnaissance.
He joined Long Range Reconnaissance (Recce) at the rank of specialist, and by 3351 he was a sergeant once again after a series of strong performances. In 3353 he transferred to the Special Reconnaissance Unit as a team leader and participated in the famous Long Red Night. Geltz was offered a place on a Nemesis Team in 3356, but was unwilling to undergo the necessary modifications, and instead enrolled in Officer Training School.
After graduation, with a specialism in reconnaissance, Geltz was approached by the Nightwatch for a special operation to which he was uniquely suited. A group of Jeruvian rebels were hiding out on High Atlantic, and it was felt that a suitably experienced local was needed to orchestrate the field component of a planned sting operation. It was in the course of this mission that he met his long-term lover and eventual wife Sierra Navarro.
Sixth Kharak-Ghar War - Early Stages
When war broke out in 3360, Geltz was recalled by ACF to take his first official field command. As he was only on temporary assignment with the Nightwatch they did not stand in the way of this, and Geltz was placed in command of the Pathfinder platoon, 1st Battalion, 506th Airborne Infantry Regiment. He was now perceived as a freshly-minted Lieutenant rather than a veteran field operative, and hence was given two weeks to gel with his new unit ahead of their first deployment.
Even then 1st/506th would play only a limited role in the early stages of the war, seeing occasional light fighting as it undertook a series of second-line duties. Alliance command had not wanted to send an elite light infantry unit into the last ditch defensive actions that characterised the First Invasion Wave. However, this would very much be the calm before the storm for Geltz and his men.
They made their first combat drop of the war in 3362, when they were assigned to 1st Airborne Brigade and sent into the Arven Campaign with the rest of 101st Assault Division, forward deployed in Operation Wainscot. This would be a gruelling baptism of fire.
Early Command and Operation Snakebite
In 3363 Geltz was placed in temporary command of Alpha Company when the previous commander was killed by a sniper while walking the frontline. He did well to shepherd a disgruntled unit, eager to drop again, through the rest of the campaign, and after a replacement commander proved unsuccessful he was promoted to captain and given the company on a full-time basis in 3365, leading them through several short drops in the initial phases of the Alliance counteroffensive.
They were pulled from the line in mid-3366 for re-assignment to Operation Snakebite with the 23rd Special Assault Army Group. After participating in the initial assault on Mahlkon, 101st Assault was one of several elite formations pulled out to reinforce the foundering invasion of Ghar. This saw Geltz and his company thrown into what would be both their darkest and finest days, when they were dropped into the forests of Bulpan to relieve the beleaguered light infantry encircled somewhere therein.
Geltz would play a prominent role in the subsequent siege, with Alpha Company trapped in the heart of the forest alongside the badly scattered Charlie Company and what remained of 3rd Battalion, 85th Air Mobile Infantry Regiment. As the senior officer present, Geltz found himself in command of what amounted to four companies of light infantry, surrounded without resupply and under attack by Republican Guard armoured units. He would go on to mastermind a desperate defence, admittedly replicated by several other officers in only slightly less precarious situations across Bulpan. The units found themselves tightly stretched, but initial relief arrived in mid-3367 in the form of 2nd/95th Rifles, which infiltrated a gap in the lines.
A month after that, the tanks of 7th Armoured Division finally punched through the encirclement to fully relieve the trapped defenders in Bulpan. Geltz and his remaining troops rode with the armour in the following tank drive, before being pulled out for replenishment and drop-prep ahead of Operation Viper.
Viper and Tightband
Days before the start of the armoured drive, Geltz was promoted to major and became the senior company commander in 1st/506th. The battalion had only a limited role to play in these early stages and spent the first week of the attack back aboard ship in strategic reserve. They were finally deployed to seize forward positions ahead of the final push towards the capital. The attempt to use purely airborne forces in this role led to the infamous Assault on Hill 42, which saw Alliance infantry asked to advance across open ground towards a heavily defended position with almost nothing in the way of heavy equipment to back them up.
It was hoped that airpower would make up the difference, but the attack was an unmitigated disaster. That it ultimately succeeded was a testament only to the courage of the participating troops. Geltz was badly injured in the course of the action, taking a round through the respirator that shattered his jaw, lacerated the inside of his throat, and gouged out his right eye. He only lived by virtue of the valiant efforts of his 2nd Platoon, which bore heavy fire in the open for nearly twenty minutes to extract him and several other injured men back to a covered position from which medevac could be received.
His wounds would have seen him miss the rest of the war, but Hawk Argill pushed for Geltz to receive priority treatment. His eye was replaced and his internals repaired, but there was not time to fix his ruined jaw. He would later refuse further treatment, leaving the right side of his mouth immobile for much of the rest of his life.
Geltz’s priority treatment was not a favour; Argill wanted him to command the supporting infantry for Operation Tightband, the plan to storm the Kharak-Ghar archives and make a broadcast of sensitive information that would destroy support for Iridel Gauthen’s militant regime. In addition to Alpha Company, Geltz was permitted to handpick a further reinforced platoon from the rest of the 101st.
Tightband comprised a rapid sequence of brutal close-range firefights, and Geltz was injured again, this time in hand-to-hand combat with a War Chaplain. Nonetheless, the operation succeeded, and he was commended for his role. The new wound saw Geltz miss much of the winding-down fighting in the five months before the final peace, though he did drop twice more in the closing stages of the war. With the unit heavily used, and thus badly depleted, 1st/506th was one of the first battalions pulled out back to Alliance space by Operation Salvation.
Initial Watch Service
After the war, Geltz was formally invited to join the Nightwatch. He accepted, and after a successful sequence of operations as a semi-independent agent under Argill’s command he became a full-fledged Watchman in 3370.
After putting together a crew and receiving his first Watch-ship, Winter of Discontent, Felix put in eight years of exemplary service and was considered one of the favourites for progression once the current upper echelons, Argill among them, started to retire. That he was the personal favourite of the old centauran only helped his case further.
The Lawsonite Rebellion - Geltz Framed
In 3378, Cerbin Lawson, another pre-eminent Watchman, made his bid for power. His agents killed Hawk Argill, and framed Geltz for the murder, forcing him to go on the run. Geltz managed to escape the initial search and went to ground on High Atlantic, intending to lay low and live out his life as best he could. Lawson gave up the search rather quickly, reasoning that Geltz would be a fool to return.
Geltz seemed to agree. He opened a kind of second-hand curiosity shop in Neo-Atlantica and rejected all approaches by JT to help him clear his name. However, in 3379 his street was targetted by a 3rd Street Mafia protection racket, under the direct control of a mid-level Uncle, Javier Chiarodia. When Geltz refused to pay up, they burned out his shop and badly beat his only regular client, Kellin Tudor.
Seeing revenge, Geltz raided one of the Mafia’s grow-houses. Before burning the place to the ground, he accessed their database and obtained Chiarodia’s address. Later that night, he turned up at Chiarodia’s family home. Not wanting to involve his children, the boss was keen to negotiate rather than fight. Geltz murdered him at his desk with a single shot to the head, leaving the body to be found by his family as they hurried down the stairs to investigate.
Following this, 3rd Street put a significant bounty on Geltz’s head, heralding the ‘return of the Ghost’. He continued to refuse JT’s offers of help and prepared to die on the streets of Neo-Atlantica, intending to take as many mercenaries as possible with him. A number of prominent freelancers and 3rd Street enforcers died attempted to catch him over the following days, before he was finally bested by Sierra Navarro. However, she had been hired by Dr Patrick Hargreaves, not 3rd Street, and after some deliberation chose to honour her original contract.
Hargreaves was a retired Watchman running the organisation’s intelligence network on High Atlantic. However, he was a close personal friend of Argill and aware of the realities of the situation. He had acquired a ship, Acquiesce, with which Geltz and a crew could get off world and stop Lawson, who was intending to destroy the planet Yundar in a mission of personal vengeance.
The Hunt for the Harbingers and the Battle of Yundar
Later in 3378 Geltz and his new crew stormed Acquiesce and began hunting down Lawson’s lieutenants in an effort to gather evidence that could be used to prove his guilt. This was done just in time, as in 3380 Lawson led an Alliance battlegroup to Yundar. Most of the Yundari fleet had been lured away on joint exercises, opening the door for a fast victory.
Geltz’s allies arrived with a small force of dissenting Alliance troops to reinforce the remaining Yundari units, and the combined battlegroup sallied to meet Lawson’s force with a surprise attack on his staging point in Delta Stemman. The majority of the fighting units, under the command of Captain Skye Myers, engaged Lawson’s forces in a diversionary action, allowing the watch-ship Winter of Discontent and several light transports to break-through to his flagship, Babylon.
The main boarding action was just another diversion, however - Geltz was already undercover aboard Babylon as a maintenance tech, and using the cover of the raid in the hangar decks, he gained access to the bridge. Lawson was killed in the ensuing stand-off, before Geltz replicated the actions of his mentor in Operation Tightband to broadcast evidence of Lawson’s betrayal. To smooth the transition, he framed the entire two-year incident as a Nightwatch sting directed by Argill and himself.
The attack on Yundar was called off and apologies sent. Two weeks later, Geltz was restored as a Watchman.
Subsequent Career
Following reinstatement, Geltz continued his distinguished Watch career. He soon rose to the rank of Watch-Captain, and began managing a small Watch-fleet of his close associates. In 3386 he was closely involved in defusing the Celestian Crisis, while in 3402 he was one of the leading figures in orchestrating High Atlantic’s return to the Alliance, as the Tourist Board was overthrown by popular rebellion. With this, he fulfilled a life-long promise to JT.
In 3426 Geltz was promoted to Regional Watch Commander and took a step back from frontline work, though he was still more than willing to step in to field operations when required. As of writing this, he is still living and remains highly active in the upper echelons of the Nightwatch.