Name:Reika Saigyo
Race: Human
Age: 28
Sex: Female
Appearance:
Soyona Mizuno
History:
Reika Saigyo's ancestors hail from Earth's Japan, and she was named as such. When she was a little girl, her parents and her many siblings worked on an indoor botany farm in a large Addison complex. The small corridors never changed, they never went anywhere, it was subsistence farming with nowhere to go. Reika had no idea how someone could live such an existence. Grow plants, wait, harvest plants, plant plants, wait, grow plants, wait...over and over and over. Year after year after year.
Three years might not seem like a lot, but for Reika it was a millennium of monotonous torture. It almost seemed like a blessing when someone from the Addison corporation showed up, and then a few weeks later they lost everything. Of course, it wasn’t. Young Reika wasn’t sure quite what happened then, as she was too young to understand, but her father often went on ranting tangents, blaming Addison for taking their family farm. Addison needed to expand, and room was limited and there were many other farmers available, so they forced the Saigyo family to move house. They became unemployed and fell into poverty. In reality, perhaps it was somewhat her parents fault for failing to provide for their children with the money the Addisons gave her parents (A ‘pathetic amount’ according to her father), but the Addisons were the catalyst regardless and Reika could not see the fault in her only family. Still, the poverty did little to allay her ceaseless boredom. One night, when she was around 16, she left home for good. To get away from her past, she scrounged up her meagre savings and boarded the nearest ferry ship off world. It took her to Saturn City. Only when she was there did she see the now sinister to her markings of the Addison corporation dotting the walls.
Crime found her, of course. What better job for a young girl looking for excitement and a little money? She became a thief and a gang member. In the downtrodden areas in the great Saturn City she joined a nameless gang of ne’er do wells. The leader, Zebediah, dreamed of moving on from this miserable hole and becoming a space pirate. It was his ambition. Reika agreed. For a long time she stole, she ran, she hid, she...hurt people, too. The little farm girl with a thirst for excitement was buried under a layer of detached cynicism and cruel black humor. Her thirst for adventure was being quenched. Eventually, it was time for the “big score”, as Zebediah called it. It worked. A ship was theirs, even though two of their number were caught. She was 19, experienced and hardened, so she thought. She worried they would snitch, but Zebediah said it didn’t matter because they’d be too far away. Way too far, far from anyone who can hurt them now. So they went very far, and ended up where the money was- the Asteroid Belt.
The Asteroid Belts were a goldmine, literally and figuratively. Precious resources, like gold and silver, and useful compounds like platinum came from the rocks floating in space like river from a spring. Pirates crawled the frontier, hoping to steal what they could not gather themselves. The Royal Gray fleet constantly battled against the endless supply of pirates, though it had come to a stalemate in recent years, with there being many zones of safety for miners, and several zones where it was dangerous to tread.
Zebediah was her captain, and she was chosen to be pilot after the last one almost got them crashed. Turns out, she had a natural talent for piloting a ship. Lucky her, lucky them. So they raided and stole on the outskirts, and they grew in number over time. She got better and better at piloting her ship, and eventually they got a little bit of a reputation.
Emboldened, Zebediah commanded them to take it up a notch, and go to the next level of raiding. Reika was eager to keep moving up in the world of pirating. Unfortunately for the fledgeling pirates, fate had other ideas.
She was 23 when she saw the enemy ship known as the Barnet. There it was, all alone, totally exposed, drones and mining lasers and all working away at a rock. They attacked. Zebediah gave commands and Reika followed them willingly. She was good, better than the pilot of the Barnet. She was faster, turned tighter, always putting herself right where Zebediah told her too while the Barnet was comparatively sluggish. All was going well until somehow, the battle turned. The Barnet was always where they needed to be to get the upper hand. It was almost as if Zebediah himself was feeding them information on what he intended to do. Eventually, the Barnet predicted their next move and preemptively fired rockets at an asteroid as Reika passed by it. Before she could avoid anything, the rockets struck the asteroid and it exploded outward with some kind of trapped gas. The fragments jettisoned outwards towards Zebediahs ship and punctured the hull. Stricken, Zebediah ordered a retreat, but the Barnet was too clever, and they were captured.
Then, she met the captain of the Barnet- Annabelle Evans. She noticed the skill of the pilot and wanted to know who it was. Reika revealed herself and they got to know each other over the next two months. Annabelle seemed to relate to Reika. Annabelle reminded Reika of who she used to be. She peeled away Reika’s hardened layers and accessed emotions Reika had hidden from herself. However, since they were all prisoners onboard the ship, Zebediah knew it was only a matter of time until they returned to an outpost and were bountied off to the Grays. Clever as he was, he came up with a plan to escape using the enemies very own pods. The plan worked, and Reika was about to come along when she hesitated. Zebediah looked back at her for only a moment and saw the look on her face before closing the doors to the pod and jettisoning himself and the rest of his crew out into space, and she hasn’t seen him since. Reika to this day wondered what the last look her gave her meant. Disgust? Pity? Understanding? Perhaps she’ll never know. But she felt drawn to this ship. The life of crime had lost its luster in the couple months she spent as prisoner and she had finally grown attached to someone outside of necessity and warband-esque loyalty.
Captains Evans seemed to understand this. She took Reika under her wing after that, and let her watch the pilot and co-pilot work. When they had time off and her crew were resting on some minor settlement Reika showed off her skills, and Captain Evans gave her pointers for she was an experienced pilot herself. She said that a good captain needed a good pilot, for without one the other could not succeed. She said the only reason the Barnet succeeded against Zebediah was because “I was a better captain than you were a good pilot.” Their relationship grew, and eventually she announced to the crew that the captured pirate was to be their new co-pilot. Eventually, the pilot seemed to noticed that she was better than he was, and wasn’t surprised when Captain Evans consulted him about seeking other employment, for he was a temporary pilot and it was his job to be replaced at some point. Reika piloted the Barnet for a long while. 5 years she took place in the adventure of mining for precious resources. The dangerous space-walks the crew partook in, her positioning the ship just right. Fending off raids from pirates...she often wondered if any of the ships she fended off were captained by Zebediah. Either way, her renown as a trustworthy and skilled pilot grew over the years.
Indeed, it grew so much so that she was offered a job by the Grays seeking the treasure for the late Emily Gray. Her grandest adventure yet. It also brought up a name she hadn’t thought of in a long, long time- the Addisons. Getting this treasure before they did would be a way of getting back at them for what they did to her family all those years ago. It also brought back memories of her family. Where were they? She found that she missed them, after all these years. Abandoning them with nothing but a note. Perhaps, if she found this treasure, she could go back to them with her cut. She had a real job now, and rebuilding her relationship with them was a good thought for Reika. Captain Evans, displeased that she was losing her best pilot, but please for Reika personally, allowed Reika to partake in this endeavor. A real treasure hunt? She wouldn’t miss it for the world.
Personality:
Reika’s cynical, nihilistic humor has long since evolved into a more general wittiness, preferring friendly banter as opposed to cruel jokes at others expense. A reformed pirate, she tries to be optimistic for finding the goodness in other people because someone else found it in her. After all her time being a criminal though she has experienced betrayal and seen the cruelty capable in others and in herself first hand, so there is a struggle between her belief in reform and the paranoia baked into her past. She is greatly distrustful of big corporations, but for the Addisons she holds a special, reserved hatred for what she believes they did to her. Reika is eager to trust a charismatic leader and latches onto a strong authority figure that shares in her ambition and cause.
Allegiance: Gray.
Occupation: Pilot of an asteroid mining ship.
Personal Effects: A cellular device, Citizen of Mars Identification, Scavenging Liscense, Pilot's Liscense, Driving Liscense. A debit card with a small amount of money on it, and a credit card.
For weapons, she has a 10 round magazined ballistic handgun on a holster on her belt, along with two extra magazines. Tucked away in her right boot is a knife, a left over habit from her days in the urban jungle.
Other: She often wears loose, cropped clothing on board ships, as uniforms were never really a thing for her and it’s not like she’ll be going on an EVAC anytime soon, so she might as well be comfortable. Usually a t-shirt, tank-top, or crop top. For bottoms she usually wears pilot leggings and boots of the brown and black variety.
Member
RPM,
Antlers,
Theyra,
Lugubrious,
DracoLunaris,
ImagineTheStars,
Candy Cane Elf,
Not a Sayan,
SkyeOfStars,
mickilennial
