OOC?

PRAISE THE SUN!


Name: Declan "Deck" Farraden

Rank: Corporal (OR-4)

Description: Declan is tall (5' 11") and thin (154 lbs), lanky might be the most accurate description. While no could call him "ripped", he certainly isn't out of shape. His face is boyish, making him appear a few years younger than he actually is. He has a head of disheveled, dark brown hair. His eyes are a pale, muddy green.

When not in combat situations, Declan tends to dress in a fairly predictable manner. White button up shirt, dark slacks, long overcoat. In combat, he wears the standard IFP [url=http://i.imgur.com/Bjo8T.png] Medic Armor [/url]. 

Augmentations: Declan's left arm is entirely mechanical to the shoulder. It's made from a ballistic "Dura-steel." It looks fairly similar to a normal human arm, but for its obvious metallic construction and gunmetal coloration. There isn't anything particularly interesting about the arm, save a dagger-length blade that comes out of the back of the hand. The blade self-sterilizes and cleans itself when sheathed and though it is designed as a medical tool, it can quite easily be used as a weapon.

Personality: Declan is, by nature, a nervous person. A greater pessimist ne'er there was, in the eyes of his friends at any rate. If a plan came, Declan found flaws. If there was hope, Declan made sure to never trust it. If things went well for too long, Declan expected something to go horribly wrong. Put simply, Declan didn't like to be disappointed. By expecting the worst of every situation, he was either always right or pleasantly surprised. 

Granted, all this doom and gloom didn't affect his sense of humor. Sarcasm, puns, gallows humor, all weapons in Declan's arsenal of humor. He's never quite taken himself, or anyone else, seriously.

Declan is, at heart, a coward. He'd like nothing better than to flee at the first sight of battle or to shy away from the grim realities of war. He's never done either of those things, because (though he'd never admit it) he cares deeply for any and all of his comrades. Declan would never leave if there are lives yet to save, people yet to protect. 

Bio: Declan lived a fairly uninteresting normal life. He had a few friends, parents who (to the best of his knowledge) loved him, and a bright future. He breezed through school, keeping a fairly steady 3.8 GPA until he graduated high-school. With full-ride scholarships to the most prestigious Universities on his home planet of Manifest, he was expected to become a successful doctor. Declan, however, had no such plans. He joined the military with his childhood friend, Erik Weissman. 

Declan passed basic training with decent marks, being selected for special Combat Medic training. After he had been taught to competently stitch someone up, he was thrown into a squad with Weissman, Allison Wooding (a friend he had made in basic) and other two other acquaintances from Manifest. Erik rose to the rank of Sergeant while Declan and Wooding were promoted to Corporals. They fought about as well as could be expected, a few skirmishes with pirates, riot patrol, and dealing with insurrectionists.

One such insurrection was the annexation of a nameless farming moon by the (now defunct) Alpha Centauri Liberation Front. The ACLF had never quite been considered a threat and wanted to change that. Seven squads were sent to quell the uprising, and to the surprise of the IPF, they were defeated quickly. Declan's squad was one of those seven. He was the only survivor. Reinforcements came and crushed the ACLF. Declan was shuffled around between several squads, never quite fitting in any of them. That's where he's been to this day, drifting about, waiting for some sense of belonging. 

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Declan had long since gotten used to the feel of blood. His profession kind of demanded it, he often had his hands pressed to wounds, attempting to stem the flow. What he hadn’t gotten used to was the smell.

It was sickly, which he supposed was only fitting. He had taken to wearing a half-mask, just enough to cover the lower half of his face. It blocked out some of the smell, but not enough. There was many situations in which he would have like nothing more than to flee in terror. Now was one of those times.

There were screams, coming from all around. He had been in a squad of five, though they were now down to three. There was Private Card, the soldier whose boyish, aryan face was, at present, marred by an ugly gash on his forehead as he fired blindly into the woods. The other, Corporal Wooding, though Declan had always called her by her first name, Allison, was dying on the dirt floor of the dilapidated cottage the three soldiers were occupying. 

“Hey, Ally, come on.” Declan was trying hard to keep the fear out of his voice as he pressed both hands to the gunshot wound in her abdomen. “You gotta stay awake.”

She coughed. It sounded like there was some blood in that cough, but in the darkness of the cottage, Declan couldn’t tell. His only light source was a flashlight he held between his cheek and his shoulder, dimly casting blue light on the wound. She mumbled. Declan only caught the word “tired” and “hurt.” A bullet from one of the insurrectionists rifles flew past Card and landed in the dirt next to Declan.

“Keep ‘em off me, Card!” He cried desperately. 

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Do it better!” He turned his attention back on Allison. The commotion seemed to have roused her a bit. Her face was pale and her eyes had a feverish sheen.

“D-deck.” She said weekly. Declan dug furiously through the hard case attached to his pants, searching for a coagulant. 

“Tha-.” His voice broke. “That’s me.”

She laughed, but it quickly turned into a coughing fit. “I’m scared.”

His heart broke. Six years he had served with Allison Wooding. They had trained together, and been on more missions than he cared to remember. This outing to some backwater moon was hardly the most dangerous thing they’d attempted. Not once had she ever been scared.

“Hey now,” He tried to keep the tears out of my voice. “I’m scared too, okay? No pint in both of us being scared, just leave the worrying to me.” He found the coagulant, spraying it onto the wound. The bleeding slowed. Too little, too late. The realization came suddenly.

He couldn’t save Allison Wooding.

No truth had ever been so harsh. His ears were ringing. The insurrectionists outside were whooping and hollering, and Card’s gunshots echoed loudly throughout the stone shack. Everything sounded muted except his own ragged breaths. His stomach churned. The smell of gunpowder blended with the stench of blood and the decay from their body of their squad leader, lying in the corner. 

She gripped his hand, he half-notice he couldn’t feel her skin through the blood.

“Deck, I-” She coughed again, a thick burst of blood coming from her mouth. “I don’t want to die.”

Declan let out the sob he had been choking back. Drowned out by an explosion. One of the insurrectionists had loosed a rocket and blown apart the wall of the cottage. A large piece of stone had brained Card, he lay spasming. His ears rang at a deafening volume. He screamed, but he couldn’t hear it. He laid on the ground. He had been blown a few feet away from Allison, who was now buried by rubble. He could only see her hand, which twitched once before falling into stillness. He saw the insurrectionists march into the remnants of the cottage. There were twelve of them. They were garbed in farmer’s clothes, and were holding civilian weapons.

They scattered about, one of them shooting Card in the head, he must’ve still been breathing. That same rebel stood over him, and level a revolver at his head. His breath caught. Declan closed his eyes. The bullet never came. When he forced his eyes open, it was not a rebel who stood over him, but a federation soldier. His hearing was beginning to return, and he heard the soldier shout to unseen comrades.

“This one’s still alive!” As they picked him up and put him on a stretcher, Declan was only mildly surprised by the fact that his left arm was no longer attached to his torso. There was another, more pressing realization.

He couldn’t smell the blood. 
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