[hider=BAMBI]
[hr][h2][color=#0080ff]BAMBI[/color][/h2][hr]
[color=Gainsboro][h3]◤  [sub]“Look, I'm just here to fly the ship...”[/sub][/h3][/color]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/rAcYkXE.jpeg[/img]
[hr][color=ff3838][b]Full Name:[/b][/color] Sara Araya
[color=ff3838][b]Age:[/b][/color] 25
[color=ff3838][b]Homeworld:[/b][/color] Earth
[color=ff3838][b]Occupation:[/b][/color] Pilot (Spaceships)
[color=ff3838][b]Affiliation(s):[/b][/color] Sol Federation Navy (previously), Several Jovian PMCs (formerly)
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[color=ff3838][sub][b]History[/b][/sub][/color]
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Earth is a collection of stories. Memories that she summons when she needs them.

Her family. Her parents. Her siblings. Asmara. The rocky highlands. The searing humidity of the flooded salt pans. The Red Sea lapping at the base of the mountains. She wanted to fly. It was all that she had ever wanted. It was all that she had ever wanted since her uncle had taken her up in an ancient atmospheric fighter. Having been up there. Having touched the sky, there was nothing else she longed for.

Her life began at the Sol Federation Naval Academy. The azure skies of Palau dominate her dreams. The crystal waters mirror her thoughts. She remembers her fellow students. Those who quit. Those who washed out. Those who died. And those who made it, those who earned their wings. She remembers her instructors. Veterans of unmentioned wars. Survivors of a thousand battles scattered across Sol Federation controlled space. Stern men and women, dedicated to the preparation of their charges. She wakes up sometimes, skin aching from beatings years past. The lessons are a part of her. 

She keeps few pictures. Her graduation. Her first squadron. Kerensky, before she crashed. Campbell, his brow not yet creased with the lines of worry inevitably developed by a wing commander. Virtanen, always smiling, screaming her mad gibberish over the comms. More names. More faces. Old friends. And old enemies. She hunted pirates. She chased them across void. Years of cold. Years of darkness. Years of starving. Years of monotony and terror. Ships shattered. Hulls broken. Explosions that flashed silently in bursts of smoke and fire. Oxygen venting uncontrollably in great plumes of white. Ruined hulks left aimlessly drifting. Bodies. Faces frozen, skin black blue and turned to frost. Burned husks that had once been people. Pieces left floating, unrecognizable as anything living. One day she found that it no longer bothered her. She was good at it. 

Promotions came slowly, delayed by the time dilation of FTL travel. Medals were handed out in the safety of friendly spaceports. She compartmentalized what she did, what she saw, and what happened. Earth was a stopping point. A brief moment of respite, before she shipped out again. For a long time, it didn't bother her. The endless cycle. Combat ops, months of furious activity. R&R, weeks spent burying the fresh memories. By the time it did, they had new job for her. There were mercenaries fighting amongst the stars. There privateers even. Bearing licenses to conduct piracy. Someone needed to keep tabs on them. Someone needed to report back to SOLCOM. Those someones were people like her. 

Riding the redline of a real burnout, she didn't have much else going on for her. She was pilot. That was all. So she accepted. They drummed her out of the military at a breakneck pace. An Honorable Discharge, but a discharge no less. A Jovian PMC found her soon after. It was easy to trace the bribes they had paid to a desk jockey at the Department of the Navy. He'd been passing on contact details of some of those leaving the SFN. Those likely to have desirable talents and a desperate need for credits. It didn't matter, the leak was quickly co-opted by the SFN. It was the perfect cover for Sara, the fastest way to vanish into the stellar seas.

She knew what the Jovians wanted. She knew what they offered. The same thing they offered to every desperate ex-SFN mercenary. A way forward. Loyalty purchased with money. Renewed relevance paid for in more blood. She hopped form company to company. Moving on when she judged the risks too high. Changing employer when better offers appeared. She was a professional, not a fanatic, and she acted like one. Every new company was a new source of information. Every new job brought more intelligence. Data for her to funnel back to her superiors at SOLCOM.

Time passed, and she continued her both facets of her work. She kept sending reports back to SOLCOM. But with each passing diurnal cycle she felt herself wavering. She felt a growing paranoia. Perhaps she had been detected by agents of the Jovian Commonwealth or the Magna Centuari. Maybe SOLCOM had decided she knew too much, that she was a liability, and some high ranking officer had signed a burn notice with her name on it. Worse than the fear, was the doubt that had begun to afflict her. At the edges of the galaxy, the Sol Federation was a distant place, and she wasn't sure the people there knew the answer to the problems that plagued the stars. It was easy enough to travel further. To report less often. To offer less clarity and less detail. When the Dullahan finally appeared in front of her, she felt a faint sliver of hope, a thin thread from the tapestry that had once been her dreams. She had a chance. She had a real chance, for once, to get away, small and fragile of a thing as it was.
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[color=ff3838][sub][b]Personality & Reputation[/b][/sub][/color]
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A product of the selective and notoriously difficult naval aviator program, Sara's personality is marked by several traits that scream [i]military[/i] pilot. Discipline is woven through every fiber  of her being. She is committed to the mission, to the objectives assigned to her. She communicates in the clear, almost alien, and painfully efficient way expected across military comm networks. She's stable, too stable, so stable that it's clear she compartmentalizes anything that might impact her performance as a pilot. She's had panic drilled out of her, beaten out of her, and displays a calm demeanor under pressure.

She is daring, but not reckless. She understands the risks involved in her profession. She accepts these dangers. But she doesn't take them lightly. And she doesn't take chances, not if she can help. She prepares. She studies the intelligence reports. She listens to the briefings. She asks questions. She analyzes the situation with an open mind. She plans, as much as she can, as much as she knows is reasonable. She wants to win. And winning...winning requires taking things seriously. She's a professional, not some scumbag mercenary.

Despite her time as a soldier for hire, her employment as an unaligned and wholly independent pilot, Sara struggles with a persistent attachment to the Sol Federation. Home is home. Even if it's a polluted shithole. A shithole run by corrupt bureaucrats and spineless politicians. She's not a patriot. Not what most people mean when they invoke the word. But she has family on Earth. She has friends. She has old colleagues. She has old affections that still pull at her heartstrings. A dangerous set of emotions for a glorified pirate to carry in her heart.

Sara lives to fly. It's all she's ever wanted to do. It's all she's ever needed. It's all she's ever done. And it's all she wants to keep doing.

Driven by dogmatic professionalism, Sara has high expectations of herself and others. They have no room for error. No time for mistakes. The black doesn't care, doesn't offer any mercy. Keeping things safe requires people willing to do things the right way. Checklists and SOPs exist for a reason. There's no place for daredevils or addicts. And personal problems are for some spaceport bar.

A drink. A small conversation. A shared joke. All these things help pass the time between stars. Sara has no problems with being social. She can be warm, friendly even, and she meshes well with most of the crew. However, Sara isn't close to anyone in particular. She doesn't talk much about her past beyond generalities. Sometimes it seems like she's just going through the motions. Passing time until it's time to fly again. As if everything else is just noise. Just a distraction.
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[color=ff3838][sub][b]Appearance[/b][/sub][/color]
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A wispy thing cut from purpose and determination. Sarah is remarkably average in height. She has a lean, toned frame, with muscles built through regular exercise. Her body is a well-oiled machine, prepared to withstand the demands of spaceflight. Her hair is a crown of black, bushy hair, that she keeps swept back in a loose ponytail. She sits and stands with a ramrod straight posture. Self-control and restraint, oozing through every pore of her body. Her hands are light, her fingers dexterous. And she moves with a natural grace, like some acrobat, soaring through the air. 

Her skin is a gentle brown, bleached by a lifetime spent beneath fluorescent lights. Clean, for all the time she spends fussing over spacecraft systems. Scarred by training and combat operations. The irregular tears, where shrapnel embedded in her left shoulder. A faded cut on the side of her head from when she walked into the leading edge of the wing of a fighter. She has a tattoo on the right side of her shoulder, a large anchor in blue, accompanied by the letters SFN below it. Hidden from view, she has a large tattoo on the front of her left thigh, unique in design and pattern.

Wears few things underway save flight suits and boots. Meticulously neat and tidy, her clothes are in good shape. Driven by old habits, she dresses with all the small, subtle touches developed from a military vocation. There is little creativity in her fashion. Pragmatism and comfort winning out above all other concerns. However, it is clear that she cares. That she thinks about her appearance. That she worries how others perceive her. And that she wants to be taken seriously.
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[color=ff3838][sub][b]Strengths[/b][/sub][/color]
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[color=a2d39c][b]"Sara, do some pilot shit!"[/b][/color] If it flies, Sara can fly it. Past the specs posted in some classified spec sheet. Beyond what the maintenance or pilot manuals suggest is safe. System operations is second nature to her. Weapon employment is like walking. Her instructors made sure that BFM was carved deep into her brain stem. And ACM pours out of her ears. She's got the training. She's got the skills. She's got everything it takes to make a successful spaceship pilot.

[color=a2d39c][b]Situational Awareness.[/b][/color] Sara keeps her head on a swivel. She scans the black around her. She knows what is going on with her own ship. She knows where the enemy is. She knows what the enemy is up to. She uses each sensor of her ship. She processes overwhelming amounts of data. She knows what it all means. She has to, if she wants to know what to do, if she wants to keep her ship safe, and if she wants to bring her weapons to bear on her enemy.

[color=a2d39c][b]Mental Toughness.[/b][/color] Calm under pressure, Sara possesses the mental toughness required to handle the uncertainty, danger, and rapid nature of spaceship combat.

[color=a2d39c][b]Communication Skills.[/b][/color] By training and necessity, Sara is a clear, concise communicator. She has a knack for delivering essential information efficiently with as few words as possible, speaking with a measured cadence expected from a military pilot. Her language on the comms net is standardized, uncluttered by colloquial language and ambiguity. She is familiar with various modes of communication, having proficiency in the usage of civilian and military encryption.

[color=a2d39c][b]Teamwork.[/b][/color] Sara works well with others. She knows how to keep her ego in check. She doesn't struggle with negative feedback. She doesn't care if she likes someone. She just wants to get the job done. And done well.

[color=a2d39c][b]Physical Fitness.[/b][/color] A fitness nut, Sara likes to exercise. She lifts weights. She runs. She does yoga. Anything to keep moving. Anything to mitigate the muscle mass and strength loss inherent to space travel. Sara knows that outside of the Anti-Gravity Straining Maneuver (AGSM) taught at the academy, physical fitness remains one of the best ways to fight G-Forces.
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[color=ff3838][sub][b]Limitations[/b][/sub][/color]
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[color=f7976a][b]Fragmentation.[/b][/color] Connecting directly to a spaceship, to the machine that powers all the systems, sensors, and weapons, Sara is bombarded by untold amounts of data. For every millisecond, every second, every minute spent assimilating this torrent of information, she experiences exponential fragmentation of her consciousness. Untreated, fragmentation is known to cause a wide range of negative mental and physical effects, that range in severity based on exposure time.

[color=f7976a][b]Defragmentation.[/b][/color] Usage of the DNI system requires defragmentation to counter the adverse effects of the man-machine neural link. While there are a variety of ways defragmentation can be performed, depending on the pilot profile and the mode of piloting used, Sara relies chiefly on specialized programs running off of a secondary computer. Using an array of algorithms to create fragmentation tables, her DNI controller will produce real-time estimates of fragmentation status and generate recommended defragmentation profiles for her. In extreme cases, defragmentation may involve the administration of drugs and other medical treatment.

[color=f7976a][b]Duty, Honor, Planet.[/b][/color] Despite distance. Despite time. Despite every job she takes that says otherwise, Sara struggles with a sense of duty instilled in her at the Naval Academy. She swore an oath. She served. She bled. She killed. And sometimes she wonders if it was really the right call to turn her back on the Sol Federation.

[color=f7976a][b]Stay Out of My Stuff![/b][/color] Sara is extremely protective of her footlocker, and not only because there is no honor among thieves. It's almost as if she protects her personal effects not from 'disappearing' but from being discovered at all...

[color=f7976a][b]I Shower Alone.[/b][/color] Sporting a collection of identifiable squadron tats, Sara utterly refuses to be seen naked or partially clothed, even in the safety of the women's showers.
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[color=ff3838][sub][b]Miscellaneous[/b][/sub][/color]
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[color=lightgray][b]Military Service.[/b][/color] Naval Aviator (Lieutenant) with the Sol Federation Navy. Awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross (DFC), the Air Medal, the Purple Heart, and a Navy Unit Commendation for her participation in Operation [Redacted].
[color=lightgray][b]Cybernetics.[/b][/color] Direct Neural Interface (DNI), electronic sensors, fiber-optic wires and contact points connected to her central nervous system, and Interface Plugs (back of neck & left wrist), 
[color=lightgray][b]Noteworthy belongings.[/b][/color] Sara keeps a standard issue Sol Federation sidearm, a solar powered analogue watch inherited from her uncle, and a battered silver harmonica on her person.
[color=lightgray][b]Fun facts.[/b][/color] Sara is a mean harmonica player.
[color=lightgray][b]BAMBI[/b][/color] Burned a Meal, Blew-up Infrastructure. Sara acquired this call sign during her first week posted to an active naval squadron. Attempting to cook a simple meal, she started a fire that lead to a large explosion, reducing the small squadron mess hall into a smouldering pile of rubble.
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[hider=BAMBI'S OPINIONS]
[b]PCs:[/b]
[hider=Anavansi, Desna]
“In a different life, Deedee would’ve been a fine old Chief on some SFN battlecruiser. But that’s not how things turned out. No, she’s here with us. Keeping this rust bucket afloat. Somehow. Despite the shoestring budget Everest provides her. A minor miracle as far as I am concerned.

Deedee’s grumpy. She swears. She smokes. She drinks. She drinks in the middle of doing repairs. Doesn’t matter though. She’s got that touch. She’s got a knack for fixing things. Grease monkeys are built different. They know what rules they can bend. What orders they need to ignore. She may be an ex-con with a record longer than my flight log and more time in cell than I’ve spent flying a saucer, but we get along just fine. We have an understanding. I don’t say anything about her drinking. I don’t ask her where she gets her prison hooch. And she doesn’t ask me any personal questions. 

There are no snitches in this cockpit.”
[/hider]
[hider=Collum, Keema]
“Sec Ops requires some steady hands. KC’s got those. She’s rough and tumble. She’s got that look. Like she spent the last couple of years making all the worst fucking choices. So, sure, she can start blasting when she needs to.She puts in the work. No questions. No hesitation. Doesn't matter what the job is. She’ll do it.. All you gotta do is point her in the right direction. And Gravel can do that just fine.

The problems start when she’s not busy. She’s loud. Louder than Ringworm when he does his best drill sergeant impression. It’s like she can’t sit still. Like a second without talking is unbearable. She’s always playing music. Always trying to get you to dance in the lounge when you just want to crash out after a full watch on duty.

I can live with that. She’s a lot, but so what? Plenty of weirdos on this boat. But she doesn’t think things through. She just acts. She just does something. She’s a liability when someone isn’t there to supervise her. How long before she says the wrong thing to the wrong person? Before she accidentally shoots some random bystander?”
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[hider=Emsberg, Rol]
“Chef is the only man on the Dullahan who can turn your day around in 15 minutes or less. Space travel is monotonous. One day after another. It all starts to feel the same. Looking up at the same metal bulkheads. Staring at the same faces. Having the same conversations. Watching the same movies. Playing the same games. Reading the same books. It gets old real fast. People start to get a bit stir crazy. Good food helps. Some variety helps you forget that you’re still stuck on board.

Emsberg may be a civilian through and through, but he’s a pro. He’s like me. He’s here to do his job. And he doesn’t cause problems.“
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[hider=MacLaine, Everest Danilo]
“The captain. The man in charge. The money. Calling him a bit of a dreamer would be an understatement. He’s got ideas. Big ideas. SO MANY ideas. I’m not always sure he knows what he’s gotten himself into. He’s a corpo, not a mercenary. And he doesn’t really seem like the sort to turn pirate. Much less put himself in actual danger. He’s got a way with people though. He knows how to make deals. He’s got his books. His spreadsheets. His numbers.

I could without the corpo banter. The “holding hands and singing kumbaya” as we talk about big business words like synergy. The endless obsession with generating more value for shareholders. But I’m going to be honest, it beats being told to fly at gunpoint.

More importantly, Everest knows how to listen. He doesn’t mind delegating. He doesn’t play at being a soldier. He doesn’t pretend he knows anything about engineering. He doesn’t try to tell me how to fly the ship. He stays in his lane. Which is more than I can say for more than one commanding officer in the SFN. Let’s just hope his plan isn’t as crazy as it sounds…”
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[hider=Montalban, Ramon]
“Ringworm might as well have INFANTRY stamped onto his forehead. He’s a machine all right. Seen plenty of those in the SFN. Marines chromed up to the gills and armed to the teeth. They were squared up all right. Too squared up if you ask me. Always itching for another fight. Always looking for a reason to put new assholes in foreheads. He runs a tight ship though, which is what counts. A hard man for a hard job, as they’d say back at the academy. With a crew like this, anything else would’ve caused problems.

He’s not bad, for a vat born weapon. If I didn’t know any better, I’d almost think he cared. About the crew that is.”
[/hider]
[hider=Nguyễn, Nở Vĩnh]
“Vĩnh is in the wrong place. She’s not meant for this. She looks like the office type. Acts like it too. She’s not a thug like Gravel. She’s not a soldier like some of us. I don’t know what she did. I don't know who she managed to piss off. But if she’s slumming it with us, on a ship like this, she must have really fucked up.

Not that it is any of my business. She’s nice enough. Talks a lot without saying anything. Asks more questions. Besides, it's nice to have someone else here who cares about keeping the ship clean. A clean ship is a fighting ship, that’s what my instructors used to say. I didn’t really believe them back then. But when you’ve spent days or weeks breathing recycled air, you start to realize that it’s the small things, like not smelling your bunkmates BO, that make all the difference.

Sooner or later though, she’s gonna realize that there are stains you can’t remove, no matter how hard you scrub. She’s going to have to get dirty. Just like the rest of us.”

[/hider]
[hider=Veynar, Jax ]
“Back home, we used to have a saying about people like Jax, “Only a fool tests the depths of a river with his feet.

The black is not a river, it’s an ocean, a bottomless ocean that will pull him down, drowning him long before it grinds his bones into specks of dust. He thinks he understands it. He thinks he can play with it. He thinks all of this is a fucking game. Some grand adventure. Maybe he even thinks he’s the hero?

He’s fucking wrong. All of this, all of it is written in blood. Every boring checklist. Every standardized procedure. In lives lost to stupid mistakes. In the small things people forgot. He’s gonna get himself killed at this rate. He’s burning through all his luck and all his lives as if it was a race. And he won’t listen. He just keeps babbling to himself. Spamming up the comms as if it’s his own private radio station.”
[/hider]
[hider=Voith, Garran]
“Gravel puts the capital C’s in Career Criminal. He walks like an old soldier. Talks almost like one too. But there’s a jagged edge to him. He’s not military, not by a long shot. You can see it in his eyes, don’t laugh, you know it’s true. You can hear it in the words he uses. Everything about him is meant as a warning. And the message is simple: [i]Danger, stay away[/i].

He’s one of those old timers. One of those angry, mad bastards you’d bump into in some dingy bar next to your base. Alive despite their own best efforts. Angry about it. As if they resented that others hadn’t finished them off already. Men and women with tired eyes. Worn down bodies, full of old junk, and marked with scars. 

Always looking. For old friends. For old enemies, maybe. For a last fight. They’d tell you stories. Stories about the old days. Stories about battles you’d never heard of. Stories of places you’d never seen. And you’d let them talk. It was the least you could do, knowing they’d buy you a drink. They still had some fight left in them. And he does too.

Gravel is a scumbag. There’s no mistaking it. But he’s reliable. There’s nothing clean about him. Not even a faint glimmer. That’s why Everest needs him. That’s why we need him. He knows how things work. He knows all the wrong people. He knows everything that you shouldn’t.”
[/hider]

[b]NPCs:[/b]
[hider=Temirkhan, Brenko ]
“Brenko is a killer. But in this line of work, you need plenty of killers. He’s honest. He doesn’t pretend. He doesn’t act like her cares. He’d kill any one of us in a heartbeat if it meant his life or a fistfull of helios. I can work with that. We don’t need to be friends…I’d rather not be and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”

[/hider]
[hider=Tochukwu, Mohammed Kwasi ]
“Big Mo is solid. As solid as they can get. I don’t know why he chose to pal around with someone like Gravel. But I don’t need to, he’s a good dude. He served. Sol Federation Navy, so he knows the score. We’ve sat through the same trainings. We’ve been to the same bases. We’ve watched the same old holovids. We’ve eaten the same cardboard tasting food. Trauma bonding, I think they call it. ”
[/hider]
[hider=Treschow, Dr. Erling ]
“Treschow is strange, very strange. Every ship needs a doctor though, so I’m not complaining. Not much seems to rattle him. He seems to know his stuff, especially when it comes to wielding a scalpel. Probably best not to ask how or why. Not many reputable medical practitioners decide to enlist in companies like this. Not for the salaries that Everest was offering anyways.”
[/hider]
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