Salissa Fortia

Human

Soldier

31

Female

1.89m tall, with straight long chestnut hair. She has amber colored eyes and rather elegant and beautiful face not destroyed by everything she's lived through. From her neck down thing aren't as great though. Her whole arms have been replaced by bulky cybernetic limbs, with her skin already grown back and healed around them, leaving just vague scar outline. Down her torso could be seen a number of artificial hard skin like material that has been used to close up the huge missing chunks of her body. She also bears no tattoos in any form.

Salissa was born on a ship. A civilian trader freighter named Jackson's Hop. Not the brightest naming ever, but it did the job and was a rather catchy and easy to remember, making the freighter a nice attraction when it docked somewhere as the jokes were always present. She didn't know who was her father though, he changed ships soon after her mother got pregnant and she didn't seem to want to talk about it. Instead Salissa grew up, listening to stories of battles and soldiers and of the infinite possibilities out there.

She signed up for the military as soon as she was able to. Passed her training with flying colors and quickly got into regular duty. She served a few years without much special events taking place beside the occasional raid on pirate ships that were praying on the trader routes. She was later offered a side job proposition. A covert ops assignment that officially was never part of the alliance. They'd fly solo, prevent things that need to be prevented without much noise. It served wonders for a while, before her squad got led into an ambush. Their leader was a fan of the covert attacks even when such things weren't possible to pull out. The plan was simple, they'd fly a stealth shuttle in low orbit under the radars and jump directly into the base at the dead of night. Plan was good, but they were expected. The moment the shuttle's door opened, heavy turret fire opened, tearing up most of her squad. Her own limbs got severed as the huge caliber fire, basically tore them as the bullets passed through them. She suffered a few other serious injuries as chunks were missing on her torso. The shuttle doors closed and they flew away right away. After serious medical intervention she survived, but was deemed unfit for service.

After that event she used all her savings to get herself decked up with early bulky military versions of cybernetic limbs. Not the most beautiful sight, but the heavy armor was rather good boon in her line of work. She also get herself fitted with some replacement organs for those damaged or lost in her injuries, in addition to the artificial coverage of the wounds that also offered a degree of protection against blows.

The following years as a discharged with honors, she spend working as a gun for hire. Mostly protection duty or raids on other mercs and pirates. Making herself quite the name and even earning the nickname of ' The walking fortress' Mostly for the fact while she wields a heavy shield, facing her is like facing a castle, castle that can jump and smack you over the head with it's walls.

With the reaper war started, with the full galactic mobilization of every possible force out there, Salissa returned to serve her homeworld once more. Facing combat on the front lines as often as she can, tearing and shattering through enemy lines, offering protection to units in need of retreat or regroup.

When the dust settled down, the Reapers destroyed and the Earth 'saved', she finally took a moment to take a deep breath and look at what it all ended up as. The galaxy mostly in ruins, Earth brought to it's knees... So much was lost, but she was content, they had survived. Humanity was still here and we had no desire to give up. As such she returned to active duty officially, joining the military once more.

Salissa has been fascinated with stories of battle, of soldiers performing impossible feats, of incredible sights and places, ever since she was a child, sitting on her mother's knees. She loves to travel and before the Reapers showed up, she had made a promise to herself to travel everywhere she can. Her only regret is that she was not able to visit Asari space before the war started and witness it's full glory. Still she plans to eventually do that now, at least when she retires from military service once more.

Currently she works her best to provide as much security to the civilians as possible, fight gangs and also preach for racial understanding and stability on Earth. She dislikes the growing tension with all aliens that were still present on Earth. What she hates most are all bandits, robbers and general outlaws though. They faced complete destruction, but the nature of the people has not changed to her worst realization. Sometimes she wishes she had a strict code to follow like the Justicars in the Asari culture. A code that did not allow for gray areas.

Salissa has been on the front lines since the day she first stepped into a battlefield. She never liked secretive tasks that require stealth as she was pretty lacking at that ability. Instead she was a master of open combat. Dashing between cover, firing heavy weaponry, getting into melee range and then finish her kills from up close with gun, blade and fist. She's quite adept at handing pretty much every machinegun that hits the field and then some, additionally as of late she's taken to also using heavy omni-shields in both mobile and stationary variants, turning herself into literal movable fortress in combat. Also pretty much mastered the use of said shields for offense.

In short if you need to have the enemy line shattered and all the enemies broken to pieces, or someone to hold a narrow position as a literal wall, Salissa's your solider.

-Adrenaline rush
-Omni-shield
-Fortified defensive barrier generator
-Explosive ammo
-Cryo ammo
-Expert marksman
-Expert Hand to Hand combat

-M-76 Revenant
-M-6 Carnifex
-Monomolecular combat knife
-Heavy armored cybernetic limbs

“Captain, you sure this thing's solid?” Salissa asked while the squad was being rocked about in the low altitude flying shuttle. The task had red flags all over it from the moment she read the file on it. Her captain didn't seem to mind it much though, but then again he was NOT present in the mission. He opted to stay in the ship and wait for results this time. She wasn't sure this was good... he'd never miss a chance to boast and the fact he missed a mission let her to believe there was great chance for things to go wrong.

“Should be fine...” Was her leader's reply over the comms before they went silent to avoid detection from the base they were raiding. That was another thing she didn't like. There was a perfectly good path to storm the place from. Granted they had to fight through a few fortifications, but at least they would be risking the more likely than not automated anti air defenses on the cliff they were moving in through.

“He hasn't let us down... yet.” Her teammate stated, a nice blonde girl, barely out of training really. She's been with them for like 2 missions so she didn't really know all the close situations they ran in for a while now. All the times they could have used brute force and dealt with situation, their captain wanted to go the sideways and more often than not it tended to backfire.

“ETA 15 seconds.” The pilot of the shuttle stated over their comms and the squad quickly started to finish preparations. Put on their helmets, ready their weapons and the like.” 10 seconds.” Was the next message and they readied by the hatch, ready to leave the shuttle.” 5 sec.”

Then the hatch opened and all hell broke loose. The fire started the moment the hatch was opened. 5 heavy anti infantry turrets all started firing at the same time. The armor of the shuttle held, but with the hatch opened, all the soldier were free game. Her squadmates fell by the moment and Salissa herself didn't have the time to realize what was happening. She just felt a pinch of pain on her left arm... a shell tore her arm away from the shoulder clean, leaving bone and tissue. She felt another pinch of pain as the shots tore through her flesh and eventually her other arm. Last thing she remembered was the doors closing merely 3 seconds after they opened and the shuttle flew away, carrying the surviviors... barely surviviors. With her final moments of consciousness, she heard the pilot of the shuttle shouting for the medbay to be ready...

-She doesn't really have a defined sexual preference. Gender or race doesn't really matter for her. For her it's just a way to release pent up stress.
-Her most notable achievement came after she received her cybernetic augmentations. She stormed into a heavily fortified Cerberus base of operations of the classified variation and tore the place apart.
-She's also one of those few who can claim to have bested a krogan in test of strength. In front of witnesses, she managed to stop a charging krogan dead in his tracks after bashing him with her shield. Following a contest of strength, her adversary was slammed backwards, before taking another bash to the head.