Thom-A293 (Earth-4001)

"I'm not gonna lie to you, Lieutenant. You're stepping into some shoes the rest of the squad would rather leave unfilled."

- Commander Carter-A259 to SPARTAN-B312 on replacing Thom on NOBLE Team

Thom-A293 was a SPARTAN-III commando who served as a member of the UNSC Navy during the Human-Covenant War. He was a member of NOBLE Team until his death on April 22, 2552.

History
The history of Thom-A293 is the same as his mainstream counterpart.

Equipment
Thom wore gray Mark V MJOLNIR armor and a Mark V helmet with an Up-Armor attachment, and FJ/PARA knee guards. During the Covenant attack on Fumirole, he was seen with a Series 8 jetpack on his back. He was also known to use an M392 Designated Marksman Rifle.

Trivia

 * His name and service tag are seemingly a reference to Tom-B292, another SPARTAN-III.
 * In the Deliver Hope trailer, Thom's armor is very similar to SPARTAN-B312's armor before Bungie decided to depict B312 with fully default armor in promotional materials. It is likely that Bungie gave this image to Thom to help associate the image with his successor S-B312.
 * Thom was originally intended to play a larger role in Halo: Reach as a living member of NOBLE Team, and was described to be "cowboy-like". However, like Rosenda-A344, he was ultimately cut from the game and only mentioned in the NOBLE Team performance reports as a now-deceased former member.
 * The manner of Thom's death, ensuring the detonation of a bomb within a Covenant ship, is remarkably similar to the deaths of Samuel-034 and Jorge-052. However, in Samuel and Jorge's cases, they chose to stay behind due to Samuel having to stay in the Covenant ship due to an armor breach and Jorge having to manually detonate improvised slipspace drive "bomb", while Thom could not get out of the battlecruiser in time.
 * A concept image of Thom's face bears a remarkable resemblance to Jason Jones, one of the co-founders of Bungie.
 * "Thom" is one of the name options for customized loadouts in Halo: Reach, along with the other members of NOBLE Team and several SPARTAN-IIs.
 * Thom's service tag may be a reference to the number seven (2+9+3=14=7*2).