Name: Werner Coetzee
Call Sign: Drake
Race: Human
Age: 30
Creed: Silently in, Victorious out
Official Personnel Description: 
Werner stands at a solid 6’1, with broad shoulders and a slim waist. Lean, sleek muscle can be found throughout his body, accented even further by an almost complete lack of fat. Werner’s left arm is entirely absent from the shoulder, replaced by a black prosthetic. The arm is very similar to that of a geth, complete with five fingers, and slowly weaves into his flesh. His human hand is callused and hard, his pinkie finger a rounded stump from the first knuckle up. The rest of Werner’s body is similarly abused, comprising of a writhing mass of scars, burns, and faded tattoos. The pirate’s face has fared slightly better, two scars digging into his left cheek and his right eye being another prosthetic.
Armor:Werner’s ArmorWeapons: M-96 Mattock equipped with: extended barrel, stability damper
M-3 Predator equipped with: high caliber barrel, extended magazine
Specialty: Soldier
Powers: Concussive Shot
Adrenaline Rush
Homeworld: Earth
History: Werner Coetzee was born to a long line of pirates. His father even traced their roots back as far as 1500, where he discovered Francis Drake, a famous English privateer, was one of their ancestors. Initially constrained to the high seas, Werner’s forefathers eventually made their way off Earth, where the pirates flourished. Werner’s father, Pieter Coetzee, was the sole member of his long lineage that did not raid ships. Instead, the man sought to return honor to his family name by becoming a high-ranking member of the Systems Alliance navy, even commanding his own ship. While on shore leave in Cape Town, South Africa, the young captain fell for a woman named Charlize, who happened to be an Alliance lieutenant. The two married and gave birth to one son, Werner.
Growing up, Werner wanted for little. His parents loved him deeply, providing for all of his needs, and gave him a proper education. He spent much of his youth reading historical novels on pirates from long ago, deeply fascinated by their seemingly carefree lifestyle. Pieter constantly discouraged these books, but Werner managed to smuggle them into his room anyway. When not engulfed in a novel, Werner spent his time with his childhood friend, Claire. The two were practically inseparable despite the differences in their personalities. Claire was always a realist, even in her youth, while Werner a dreamer. She scoffed at his fantasies about becoming a pirate, favoring the path of a politician instead. Werner couldn't stand the thought of being constrained to a desk all day, yearning for both the sea and space. Werner was always fond of the gorgeous ocean off the coast of South Africa, and could usually be found in the water either swimming, surfing or sailing.
Werner’s idealistic life came crashing to an end at the age of 14 when both of his parents were killed in a pirate attack on their small shuttle to the Cathedral, likely an act of revenge after his father hunted down several wanted captains. Wracked with grief and anger, Werner immediately sought revenge against those who murdered his parents. It was not difficult to track down those responsible, the culprits being the Devil’s Damned, a batarian pirate crew operating in the Armstrong Nebula. For two years, the teenager trained his mind and body to face the pirates, despite Claire telling him it wasn’t what his parents would want. Werner, in his youthful angst and foolishness, felt he was prepared to face the hardened pirates and headed to their planet using public shuttles, armed with his father’s assault rifle, an M-96 Mattock and his mother’s M-3 predator.
Upon his arrival on the pirate planet, the Damned were watching him, though Werner didn’t know. A young human on a batarian colony drew quite a bit of attention. He entered their base, under the guise of seeking employment, and soon stood before the pirate captain, a batarian named Kriost. Stripped of his arms and surrounded by pirates, Werner was quickly rethinking his brash strategy. He decided to go along with his guise and state he wished to join the batarian pirates. He was met with laughter at first, but after some consideration, Kriost felt that a young human might serve as an excellent infiltrator in their crew. A batarian rarely went through security checks without a thorough examination, but a teenage human could slip right through. Adopting the name Drake as a reference to his ancestor, Werner strangely fulfilled his childhood dreams of becoming a pirate, though not under the best terms.
A year later, Werner was barely a notch above a slave, reduced to cleaning and cooking as he slowly gained the pirate’s trust. Constantly, he was searching for a way to kill Kriost to avenge his father, but could never get close enough to the guarded pirate king. After this initial, painful year, Werner was allowed to accompany a pirate crew on a routine raiding mission, the target being an Alliance supply frigate. The group boarded the ship after destroying its thrusters and slaughtered the crew, Werner taking part in the bloodbath. Guilt and shame consumed him for weeks, often having nightmares of those he killed. Werner justified their deaths, telling himself that they did not die in vain, for he would kill Kriost and stop anyone else from being murdered. This excuse became a common theme for Werner as he committed the same acts over and over with the pirate crew, slowly crawling his way up the ranks. At the age of 25, Werner was within Kriost’s inner circle, now commanding full raiding parties. He no longer justified his means behind killing, now solely focused on eliminating Kriost.
His opportunity arose when Kriost invited him and a few other men for a rendevous with krogan warlords to deal Alliance arms to them. They met on Tuchanka, a grievous mistake for the pirates. Here, they found themselves surrounded by armed krogans, demanding cheaper prices and more weapons. When Kriost refused, the warlords attacked, figuring they could take the weapons for free, though they would not be repeat customers. Werner saw one charging Kriost, but met the krogan before he made contact with the batarian. He refused to let anyone take his kill, but this action came at a price. In the brutal fight with the krogan, Werner lost both an eye and arm, but this came at an advantage as well. Kriost saw this act as one of extreme loyalty, while it was just the opposite. The pirates left the planet and Kriost made sure Werner received proper medical care, giving him the best prosthetics available. The batarian made Werner his right-hand man as well, and he proved just how loyal he was by killing Kriost in his sleep. Werner had long forgotten his initial motives for murdering the pirate, now motivated only by the thought of power.
Werner became the leader of the Dammed, and radical changes were made. No longer was it about simply pirating, but also slave trafficking, arms dealing, kidnapping, and vast amounts of mercenary work. The fleet size was increased tenfold, as well as the profits. Werner led the crew for four more years, terrorizing the galaxy more than Kriost ever dreamed of. Soon, a raid so bold and with such a massive payout came along that would allow the pirates to retire permanently. The plan was to hijack a ship docked in the Cathedral packed with diplomats and ransom them back to their respective planets for a ludicrously high price, possibly executing one to show they weren't bluffing. Werner was a key part of the plan, for he was to infiltrate the ship, disguised as a politician, and deactivate the security system. He passed through security with ease with a fake identification, his face unknown to authorities as he always wore a helmet. Once aboard, he came face to face with an old friend, Claire, now a budding politician. She saw right through his guise, almost certain he had become the pirate leader known as Drake. Sensing his plans, Claire reasoned with Werner, stating his parents wouldn’t want him to live like this, and that he should give up this life for a new one. He caved to the politician’s persuasive words, and the two left the ship. Later, the pirates attempted to assault the ship, but were almost entirely slaughtered by the security system.
Werner and Claire, now adults, quickly fell in love. They sought refuge from Werner’s past on the planet Rannoch, hiring Jack Ubek, an information broker, to cover their tracks. The couple married and had a child named Pieter, after Werner’s father, and lived far from the rest of civilization. Jack, however, was easily swayed by the exuberant price paid by the remnants of the Damned to find their captain’s location. Werner returned home one evening to find his home burning to the ground with several pirates around it. He quickly killed the men and dashed into his home, only to find his family’s corpses. Knowing who was responsible, Werner first sought out Ubek for betraying him, later planning on slaughtering the entire crew of the damned. However, he realized that if he sought revenge again, he would once more slip into a life of crime. Werner instead spared Jack and the pirates, opting to turn himself in to the Alliance military. Here, he was given a choice. Considering his skills, Werner could carry out a mission seeking to stop the new Legion threat, or be executed. Werner saw the mission as an opportunity to redeem his dark past and quickly chose to join this elite squad.
SampleI am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.Werner first heard the words as a child, balanced carefully on his father’s knee. The memory, long forgotten, rushed through his mind now with such vividity that he felt as if he were six once more, gazing up at his father’s kind and all-knowing face as he softly read a poem to his only child. The moment was a precious one, shared between father and son, growing even more cherishable now that the reader died long ago. Werner found himself wondering why he had forgotten the memory. Perhaps his mind stored it away to prevent it from wearing with abuse, like a child stashing baseball cards in a box. The time of the recollection baffled Werner even further.
Coetzee’s armored fist twisted itself wrist-deep into the gaping maw of a male human named Jack, his teeth, once sitting in a perfect row like tightly-packed tombstones, now scattered about the grated floor beneath them, bloodied and broken. Crimson, bubbling rivers flowed out of Jack’s shattered mouth, though most of it slipped down his throat, evident from the sicking gurgle escaping from his fist-filled trap. Even through his thick ceramic armor, Werner could feel the man’s raw gums struggle against the hand that was slowly killing him. Jack’s arms beat helplessly against his chest, slowly growing weaker with each smack as he was deprived from precious oxygen.
Werner knew of all places where to find the man. Criminals always relished the company of other scum, and the largest cesspool of vermin he knew of was Omega, the massive, defunct mining colony chiseled into an asteroid. Despite his absence from the galaxy for almost two years, Werner’s ties to the underworld remained intact. Aria T’Loak, the asari who oversees every minor detail on the rock, still owed the ex-pirate one last favor. The matriarch, an old flame of the young man, was quick to give him Jack’s location, a rundown apartment deep within the asteroid. Despite all his abilities in information brokering, he could never hide from a man with nothing left to lose.
Jack had betrayed Werner, earning him this brutal reward. He was not sure of the traitor’s motives, but knew what it costed his own life, both a wife and child. The image of their charred corpses, practically grafted to one another in their dying embrace, was still burned in his eyes, the stench of burnt flesh caught in his nostrils, and their cries ringing eternally in his ears. Jack bit the hand that fed him, so it was only fitting, in Werner’s grief-twisted mind, that he choke on that very hand to his death. But then, the memory came to him. He knew, now, the significance of those ending lines. His father knew both he and his son sought to escape their fate from a life of crime, the very fate that haunted their family for generations. It seemed inescapable, constantly meeting them at every corner in life. Pieter managed to avoid this rendezvous until his death, where fate, seemingly disappointed in him, had the captain killed by the demons he fought within. Werner, too, almost avoided the lifestyle of his ancestors, but fell into darkness as he sought retribution. He was plucked from this fate, though, by a childhood friend, the one he planned on avenging now. Now, on the verge of slipping into darkness once more, his father’s words returned to him.
I am the captain of my soul.Fate did not exist, only the illusion of the mythical force. Today marked the day that he would finally break free from this illusion and walk his own path, not that worn down by his forefathers. The motion, set in place by Pieter, would be carried out fully by his son, and nothing would stop him, not even the murderer of his wife and child that struggled before him. Werner’s love had saved him once, and he refused to tarnish her memory by making that effort in vain. With a grunt, he wrenched his gauntlet from Jack’s throat, who instantly curled over and gasped for precious, recycled air. It took all of Werner’s will not to jam it further into his trachea. He stood to his full height, towering over the vermin huddled on the ground before him.
Wordlessly, Werner turned away from the coughing pile of filth, his heavy boots crushing a few teeth to dust as he left the apartment. The man shouted something behind him, but the door sealed shut with a hiss midway through his sentence. It was time for the pirate to confess to his sins and face the punishment that awaited him. Even now, two years after his disappearance, the Alliance was still actively searching for him to bring the criminal to justice. It would not be hard to be found. Death, he knew, was inevitable, but he had little else to live for anymore. This, he reasoned, was the only way to redeem himself, as grim as it may be. But now, he was the master of his fate, not the legacy of his long-dead ancestors.
