[hider=Pilot: Aron Krol] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/twdKYIB.png[/img] [h2][color=ffcd00]Aron Krol • 19 • Rank C[/color][/h2][/center] [b]Appearance:[/b] Stands at about 6’3”. Muscular, broad shoulders, wide frame. Appears with some stubble at times, but typically shaves it off before it grows in too much. While he is unfamiliar with formal settings and schooling, he does understand the importance of at least not looking like he doesn't belong, and therefore strives to have his clothing neat and tidy. [b]Personality:[/b] Stubborn as a mule and possessed of grit to match. Aron is relentless, focused, and determined, seeking to excel so as to create a better life for himself and his family back home. He understands that unlike his better-born peers, he has no other prospects to return to should he wash out. As a result, Aron is willing to do damn near anything it takes to get ahead, no matter how much it may go against his own comfort and morality. He has a mother and two younger siblings to support financially, and Chenkov Solutions is only going to keep putting them up so long as he’s putting out results. On a personal level, Aron is casual but cautious. He’ll treat any stranger with wary decency until they do something to skew his opinion of them one way or the other. However, it’s easy to get on his bad side and he’s quick to hold a grudge. Aron may not act on these impulses immediately, given that his position at the academy is tenuous at best, but he remembers. Surprisingly enough, Cadet Krol is a quick and avid learner despite his lack of quality formal education. Having taken some remedial classes before his entrance into the academy, the gaps in his schooling compared to his peers are still present, but closing at a decent pace. It’s evident that despite his lack of knowledge, he isn’t stupid or slow. Just underprivileged. [b]History:[/b] Born in the outer colony of Ceres Station to two miners, life was difficult for Aron from the outset. He found himself as the older sibling and sole caretaker to a younger brother and sister from an early age, as the family wouldn’t be able to support three children without both parents mining out in the asteroid belts. Things only grew harder for Aron as he grew up, with his father dying in a mining accident by the time he was fifteen, far from any available help. With one less source of income in the family now, Aron was forced to abandon life aboard the station taking care of his siblings to join a mining ship himself. Over the next three years, Aron embarked on the grueling life of an asteroid miner, working in dangerous conditions for little pay. Everything he made, he sent back to his family. More than that, Aron found himself with something of a side hustle to supplement his income. Entertainment was scarce both on the stations and on the mining ships, and one of the only sources of such for bored and rowdy miners was a series of below-decks fight pits. Desperately needing the money, Aron started taking part and found that he had a knack for violence. The payouts and bets he put on himself went a long way to making sure his family had enough to eat, especially after his mother was forced to retire from mining due to an injury. It was in one of the fight pits back on Ceres Station that Aron found himself being scouted by a Chenkov Solutions recruiter. After being declared the winner for the night, he was approached by the recruiter, who promptly offered him a better life if he could pull his weight as a test pilot. Aron didn’t even have to think about the offer. He just haggled the man up to include the rest of his family, and went off with him. Chenkov Solutions was quick and efficient. Aron met with the head of the test program, listed his demands, and signed more forms than he cared to ever see in his life. Within a day, his mother and siblings were shipped off to company housing in the company's Mars compound, with the kids enrolled in school. As for Aron, he found himself...thrust into intensive remedial schooling. Despite the project head and the recruiter's promises that the Knight was designed more for a street fighter than an actual pilot, Aron still needed at least a basic formal education so as to not embarass the company by being an uneducated Outer Colony rube, and the Academy's next opening was still months off. Fortunately for everyone involved, Aron relished the chance to finally take part in the education he'd never had the opportunity to have, and surprised everyone involved as well by thriving in his studies. Months later, with the Academy's start date finally in sight, Aron was at last shipped off to Doppler, eager to have the chance to prove himself and truly earn the better life he wanted. [b]Capability:[/b] [list] [*] Hand-to-hand combat [*] Zero-gravity operations [*] Tactical acumen [/list] [/hider] [hider=PROJECT: Maverick] [center][img]https://i.imgur.com/fOnxpZ7.jpg[/img] [h2][color=ffcd00]PROJECT: Maverick • System-Type • 9m[/color][/h2][/center] [b]Appearance:[/b] A medium-sized Knight with weight closer to a class below it. Primarily a short-range close-combat model, PROJECT: Maverick seeks to overwhelm the enemy with speed, agility, and integrated close-range weapons as the tip of the spear on the battlefield. The Knight's's foot thrusters allow it to glide along the ground, increasing land speed to high degrees. Built-in booster units enable short-range flight along with high-speed dashes to further close the gap from deployment to enemy. The frame carries supplemental micro-missile racks mounted on the shoulders for limited mid-range interdiction, although reloads are limited so as to minimize weight. As all of the unit's primary weaponry is integrated, it is free to carry mission-critical equipment without issue. [b]Manufacturer:[/b] Chenkov Solutions Chenkov Solutions is a vertically-integrated corporate group aimed at producing more experimental Knight frames than the bigger names in the business. The bulk of its product line up to this point has focused largely on light-frame Knights intended for scouting and recon, with a focus on speed and agility. Its vertically-integrated supply chain allows CKS to produce at low costs thanks to the numerous mining interests it owns in the Outer Colonies. [b]Design:[/b] Maverick is Chenkov Solutions’ first attempt at a top-of-the-line close-in combat Knight. Building off of the company’s previous experience with light scout units, PROJECT: Maverick aims to provide some of the fastest land speeds available to the UFAF, combined with agile handling and aggressive close armor penetration capabilities for heavy duty combat. Unfortunately, the project’s specifications for agility were unable to be met without conversion into a System-Type, but this has resulted in a greater focus on melee combat, aiming to take advantage of a human pilot’s experience and reflexes. As such, the ideal pilot for this unit was one more experienced with real-life hand-to-hand rather than a more technically skilled operator. A pilot training on Shell-Types for all their life will be less able to handle this Knight than some pit fighter brought in off the street. [b]Armaments:[/b] While PROJECT: Maverick is capable of using most UFAF weaponry, it was designed with specific weapons systems in mind. Integrated: [hider=High-Frequency Claws] Claw blades mounted on top of the mobile suit’s hands. The blades are reinforced by a powerful alternating, resonating at extremely high vibration frequencies in order to weaken the molecular bonds of anything they strike, increasing their anti-armor capabilities. The claws can be balled up to augment the hands for blunt fist strikes with no loss of vibration frequency, able to smash and puncture equally as well as they can cut. This configuration allows Maverick to hold other armament in its hands while still being able to attack in melee with no change in weaponry. [/hider] [hider=SPAMRAAM Multi-Lock Micro Missile Racks] Fire-and-forget micro missiles mounted into Maverick’s shoulder units, intended to overwhelm CIWS systems through sheer weight of fire. Designed for medium-range all-terrain interdiction, the SPAMRAAMs have sophisticated targeting systems and moderate payloads, intending on dealing damage through numerous impacts than heavy explosive force. Reloads are limited in order to cut down on unit weight, despite the already light weight of micro-missiles. [/hider] [hider=Wire Spears] Reinforced alloy spike tips connected to ferromagnetic carbon nanotube wire, propelled by microjet motors. Essentially, grappling hook launchers capable of reeling the frame in when electric current is run through the connecting cable. Maverick has four of these spear launchers mounted onto the frame: one on each side of the hips and one on each upper arm. The spear tips are armor-piercing and can be used for offensive applications, but their main purpose is for all-terrain movement and combat repositioning. [/hider] Auxiliary: [hider=Beam Magnum] General-purpose high-output hand cannon. Better than average range and penetration for a laser pistol, owing to its higher power consumption. [/hider] [hider=CIWS] A pair of standard 20mm vulcan cannons mounted to the sides of the head. Mostly used for anti-missile point defense. [/hider] [b]Specification:[/b] [hider=CKS Full Synchro Neural Link] The basis behind Maverick’s classification as a System-Type, the Full Synchro link connects the pilot to not only the Knight’s nervous system, but also to the entire unit’s targeting and weapons systems. All integrated targeting and weapons systems on the Knight can be activated with a thought, allowing for instant deployment of other systems, as well as target locks. [/hider] [hider=CKS Hyper Dash Emergency Acceleration System] A pair of back-mounted thrust boosters for emergency combat maneuvers. The unit’s speed is massively increased for brief bursts of rapid repositioning. Thanks to Maverick’s light weight, it can booster dash multiple times in succession until its emergency limiter kicks in. When combined with the Knight’s foot thrusters, brief short-range flight can be achieved during a long burn of the boosters. [/hider] [hider=Rosenkov Hard Light Projector] Knight-sized photon emitter. When activated, fuses light particles into a dissipative barrier for a protective shield. More suited to briefly parrying and deflecting blows and projectiles than sustained defense, as the process is energy-intensive. While the shielding is more fragile than other barrier projector types, its advantage lies in light weight and speed of deployment. Two emitters are mounted onto the Maverick, one on each wrist. [/hider] [/hider]