Name: Hazel Tamirnyev
Nickname: Tusk(?)
Age: 34
Sex/Gender: Female
Species: Human (Full-body Prosthetic)
Height: 5’6/167 cm
Appearance:
Industrial and without frills, Hazel's chassis stands at 5'6, and is painted a utilitarian orange-yellow.

Her usual outfits consist of a neutral-toned jumpsuit, heavy gloves, and a jacket, with a Pramanik Orbital patch on one shoulder, and a rebellion patch on the other. A third patch, depicting the elephant-headed Ganesha, stretches from one shoulder to the other across the jacket’s back. Hazel is rarely seen without her engagement ring strung on a chain around her neck, although usually tucked into her jumpsuit to avoid snags.


Personal Qualities:
Spacers, particularly those raised on the frontier or in deep space, often come off as strange to the average planet-born person, and Hazel is no exception. Energetic, and rather impish, she gained a new lease on life that she plans to make the most of. She often emotes with her hands, or signs along in pidgin while speaking, and is prone to taking risks due to her time in simulators, as well as a deep-seated desire to prove herself.

Despite being physically accustomed to it, she feels self-conscious in her robotic body, and is prone to lashing out at those who mistake her for a common model workerbot. In the cockpit of her ship, all of her insecurity and anxiety melts away. She is solely focused on the task at hand, and her ship becomes an extension of herself. She is knowledgeable about the weak points of common ships due to her time as a shipbreaker. Moving in zero-g and EVA is second nature to her, and—like many a spacer—she feels strong (and a bit outlandish) affection towards her craft.

Biography:
Born on Pramanik Orbital to an FTL drive engineer and a linguist, the first few years of Hazel’s life were uneventful. The majority of her adolescence was spent wandering the station’s industrial tunnels and shipyards with her peers, stirring trouble wherever they went. Upon finishing her primary education, she went to work as a shipbreaker on the station. There she worked for several years, meeting her fiancee in the process. It wasn't until she was in her early-twenties when disaster struck; after several years of fatigue and strange symptoms, she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that was slowly destroying her nervous system, and would ultimately leave her paralyzed. There was no cure, only prolonging the indefinite.

Devastated, Hazel decided to keep working until it was no longer possible, in hopes some sort of treatment would emerge before she was fully paralyzed. The cure never came, and she was forced to quit her job a few years later once she was no longer able to move swiftly enough to continue. Spiraling into a depression, and relying on her fiancee now, she began shutting herself in more and more often, retreating into older flight sims, and strategy games that she used to enjoy as a teenager. Tensions were growing between the pair, and when Hazel was offered an experimental treatment as a last ditch effort to save her brain, she accepted it.

The treatment, offered by medical corporation Biolink Dynamics, was unusual; her brain was to be transplanted into a robotic chassis, reliant on an integrated life support system and electricity. It was successful, and Hazel found herself in a new body. A new chance of life.

Becoming acquainted with the new body was a long process, she had to relearn simple tasks, as well as navigate a life where those whom she interacted with assumed she was a synthetic lifeform. Her relationship with her fiance became even further strained as well. She ultimately decided to pursue pilotry as a new career, inspired by the flight simulators and strategy games she played while ill, and coming to a mutual agreement with her fiancee to spend some time apart while they both adjusted to the new body. Initially, she served hauling cargo, but her eye was always set on grander goals. As the resistance movement became more desperate, she was able to join a ragtag crew of fighter pilots, and quickly gained experience, rising through the ranks. She was offered a position on the Onyx Squadron after several years, a position she eagerly accepted. Hazel eagerly fights for her own rights, as well as for the freedom of Pramanik Orbital.


Fighter: AS-91 Thunderbolt
Fighter Customisations:
Hazel’s Thunderbolt—affectionately nicknamed ‘Grozit’ <грозить>—is a venerable elder, even among its own kind. Used in some of Free System Alliance's first skirmishes, the ship has been passed from hand to hand countless times, and has been retrofitted as a true heavy hitter along the way:

• Retrofitted Reactor: Grozit has been retrofitted with a more modern reactor in order to sustain energy needed to fire her railgun. The higher power comes at the cost of a larger heat signature on radar, but who was missing her anyway?
• Retrofitted Railgun: Grozit’s high-intensity laser cannon has been replaced with a formidable, heavy 40mm railgun, similar to that of the more modern Excalibur.
• Reduced Life Support: To reduce the powerload, Grozit usually runs with her life support systems reduced to absolute minimum. Hazel uses an external oxygen tank to sustain herself while flying, and the lack of atmosphere within the ship reduces the likelihood of injury in the case of explosive decompression.
• Livery: Grozit is painted in her original, grey-blue low-vis camouflage, with an older version of the Free System Alliance’s emblem on its back fins. A newer addition, the Wandering Star’s distinctive emblem, is painted under the cockpit, alongside Hazel’s callsign.

Misc:
Theme Music - Hardspace Shipbreaker