The screaming caught her mid-reload. She didn’t need to look to know why the man was screaming. Considering that only one person was screaming, her mind evoked images of meatloaf instead of the intended lesser damage over all three targets. Violent injuries were nothing new to a four year veteran of salvage duty. Vaccum exposure, hot vapors and liquids, electric current, exploding pressure vessels, shrapnel large and small, people trapped in an inferno so hot the heat cracked the teeth... Just two months before she got out of the navy, she slipped on a patch of charred goo that used to be a crew member of a freighter that completely burned out. She’d seen and smelled it all, but always as a third party. An unfortunate observer. But here, she did that to the man. Knowing she caused it made her sick. ‘Better them than me.’ she thought, but it rang somewhat hollow. Snapping in a new magazine with a shaking hand, she popped out of cover again and immediately recoiled back. Meatloaf. Meatloaf in marinara sauce.
The sound of her name being called brought her back into the here and now. Sprinting up the ramp and not even stopping as she hit the button to close it, she went straight for the airlock, heading to the machine shop. Having connected to the shipwide PA, Vigdis whistled into the microphone, completely uncaring about how weird it probably sounded to everyone else on board. She listened for the sound of doors opening or something moving in nearby vents when movement in one of the shelves near the ceiling caught her eye. To her infinite relief, she was met with the sight of Fritjof, eyes at half mast from having just woken up. “You lazy slacker, how’d you sleep through that?!” She stepped closer to the shelf and tapped her shoulder, the cat taking the cue and leaping down onto her shoulders. “Sure wish I could’ve.” She ruffled the hair on his head before placing him in the carrier strapped to the floor for safety and made for the engineering section. As she was unregistered luggage on this trip, she might as well make herself useful.
Somewhere in the distance, something at last put an end to the muted screams of the man she’d crippled.
The speed of the total collapse of the loyalists came as a surprise to her, though on second thought it made sense. The CCAF weren’t particularly known for decentralized command structure, much less a garrison in the armpit of the universe. Some lucky ones may have made it out of the city and joined the FPA, assuming they could put their differences aside to face a more immediate and capable threat. Those that hadn’t were probably in for it. She wondered how many of them they would find in Tie Shan when they stormed it.
Before the briefing, Jon hadn’t been the most forthcoming conversation partner, but what they say about opposites attracting was true, because he and his boss were like Whiskey and Whisky. The Jeong family history lecture was a bit jarring amid a mission briefing, and was met with a puzzled expression. Cassandra was clearly the type of person who liked the sound of her voice, and now she had an audience. Regardless, the tunnels were like a gift from the gods themselves. She just saved their lives. Same with the new base, even if Cassandra was implying they might wake up one day and find their ‘Mechs on cinder blocks and even if Marit was skeptical of hiding their footsteps among IndustrialMechs. If you’re a Crimson Fist commander and annoying mercs are stomping around and breaking all your employer’s stuff, why would you not look somewhere ‘Mechs are stomping around just because they’ve been stomping there before? Especially since that place has facilities and materials the annoying mercs need to continue being a thorn in your side and the amount of stomping increases every time your employer’s stuff gets broken.
To keep the good news going, Marit could hardly be happier about the mission she was assigned to. Close to the new base, striking at loons spoiling to commit a massive war crime, with Jon on hand to share knowledge of the site and best of all, she wouldn’t have to get out of the ‘Mech. Only way it could be better would have been not having to defend something. Another thing that put a damper on the mood was the Crimson Fists presence. At the Depot raid, the CF lance that attacked them was reported further away than this one, yet they still managed to intercept them, likely due to their intel placing the Fists somewhere they weren’t. And a target this important - the dam, though no doubt they’d hear of their presence as well - was unlikely to go ignored. And they’d be coming from the North, meaning that if they arrived before the Knights got away, they’d have to go through them. ”Sir, do we know anything about forces stationed at the dam and the CF lance at Golf 12? Composition, how old that position report is…?” She supposed running into a different lance than last time was a safe bet, with the Fire Witch perhaps still being down a Raven, though the last one surprised them with a Longbow. What was this going to be? The Battlemaster? Some SLDF royal ‘Mechs they dug up from whatever forgotten bunker? A Steiner scout lance? ”And do we have any indication of what the Sword are bringing and from which direction?”
Full Name - Marivea Sannis Designation - Outcast Species - Turian Age - 62 (b. 2121) Origin - Digeris, Apien Crest Classification - Infiltrator Unique Specialization - Saboteur, Designated Marksman -
P S Y C H E
De-escalator "The unit is your best weapon, stronger than the sum of its components." And Marivea understands that like any machine made of multiple parts, the unit doesn't work if there is friction or incompatibility between its components and tries to ensure smooth operation.
Pictures or it didn't happen Since the debacle at Shanxi, Marivea has been slow to trust second-hand information, going out of her way to verify everything in person or at least from multiple sources to the point of obsession.
Deeds, not words Like most turians, Marivea is a merciless meritocrat. She will walk on water if she has to for people who have proven themselves deserving, but has little patience for those who have not earned their position and will not hesitate to voice her concerns.
E Q U I P M E N T
M-97 Viper Rapid-fire military sniper rifle. Incredibly accurate and deadly at long range, these weapons are popular amongst infiltrators and assassins. Very effective against armor; somewhat effective against shields and biotic barriers. Rosenkov Materials developed this deadly weapon in response to the rising prevalence of kinetic barriers. While kinetic barriers still offer some protection from this weapon, its sheer power and rapid rate of fire make it capable of quickly killing almost any target, regardless of its defenses.
Phaeston Named after a turian spirit of creation, the Phaeston was engineered to provide the best possible balance between accuracy and firepower in a machine gun. Each shot is tempered by kickback dampeners inside the shoulder stock, which lets the Phaeston pack more punch than other weapons its size without sacrificing precision. Its fully automatic fire and relatively light weight has turned the Phaeston into the turian infantry's primary go-to weapon.
Logic Arrest Omni-Tool An Omni-Tool manufactured by Ariake Technologies offering unmatched shield support.
Silver A five-year-old varren trained for detection, tracking, intimidation and apprehension, purchased by Marivea as a pup in 2179.
R E C O R D
Retaking of the ATS Taselas An asari transport ship captured by krogan extremists intending to ram it into a turian research outpost a few systems over in 2161, the hijackers failed to take the Zenith personnel on board into account. After making their way to the cargo bay to retreive their equipment, they damaged the ship's propulsion and set a trap in the engineering section, venting half of the hijackers into space before mopping up the rest. Helmet camera footage from this raid released to the extranet opened Zenith Security's door to bigger contracts as it made employers outside of the immediate vicinity of Ilium aware of them.
Anhur Rebellions In her final years with Zenith Security, Marivea stood on the abolitionists' side throughout the three-year duration of the Anhur Rebellions, serving as skirmishers deployed to harass flanks and strike at Na'hesit back lines.
Retaking a nickel mine at Gilead In 2181, the stony dwarf planet hosting several nickel mines became the target of a Batarian raid, taking over one of the mines and the miners present. Marivea was among the four-man team hired by the Tenkarra Mining Consortium to free them, the squad having succeeded in a matter of hours of their arrival using a combination of electronic warfare and violence of action.
C O N N E C T I O N S
Valyxe T'Keli An Ilium-based lawyer knowledgable of numerous movers and shakers throughout the Attican Traverse and mother of one of her Zenith ex-colleagues. Although she blames the Zenith personnel for her daughter's abandonment of studies in favor of mercenary work, both are smart enough to keep personal relationships out of business transactions.
Venari Quilin A turian vanguard, ex cabal member, fellow Relay 314 incident veteran and and Marivea's close friend since 2160, Venari is the current commander of Zenith Security and owner of the Amethyst Avenger, a decomissioned asari light frigate used by the company.
Colonel Arter Habsis (ret.) A turian special forces officer, Marivea's training officer and one of the few who remains convinced of her innocence. Though now retired and spending most of his time writing his memoirs, he remains in good standing among the turian special forces community and promised everyone in Marivea's platoon that they could count on his help if they needed it.
Kharos Ren'dobar The batarian mastermind behind the failed Gilead mine takeover. The operation itself was a desparate hail mary to salvage his social standing, and the loss of the majority of his task force and the expected profits from the mine caused his status to come crashing down completely. Although reduced to nobody back home, Kharos still has some friends outside of the hegemony and a bone to pick with the four people who sealed his downfall.
Physical Details ◢
Standing at 194 cm (6'4") and weighing 83 kg (183 lb), Marivea is thinner and more spindly than your average turian thanks to growing up in Digeris' weaker surface gravity. She uses a set of customized Ariake Technologies medium Mercenary Armor. Outside of armor, her attire leans heavily on the baggy, practical side with human influences and turian military surplus.
Personal History ◢
Marivea was born in Apparitus on Digeris. She studied computer science before beginning her national service at 15, serving the Apparitus police force for eleven years, first as a patrol officer and later attaining SWAT marksman and varren handler certifications. In 2147, she transitioned to military service for the remainder of her national service.
With the national service behind her and a decent range of qualifications, Marivea decided to stay in the military, applied for and made the cut to turian special forces, attaining the post of platoon sergeant in 2155. Which is where the Relay 314 incident caught her, with her platoon joining the first wave to land on the surface of Shanxi. In its early stages, mere days after the turians had gained a foothold on the planet, Marivea's unit was tasked with neutralizing a staging ground for a human counterattack. As the target was located in a dammed valley, the decision to blow the dam and flood the encampment was made, being easier, cheaper and less environmentally destructive than deorbiting a piece of debris and dropping it on the target. But the intelligence analysis department made a severe misstep, as what they marked a staging ground had in truth been an improvised medical complex. After the armistice, the intelligence Major who signed off on the strike managed to cover his back and everyone involved in that incident was thrown out of the military without as much as a "Thank you for your service".
One day in late 2159 while working as a short-order cook on Ilium, Marivea ran into a collection of malcontents who were in the process of forming a mercenary band. The crowd sat right with her, so she packed what she had and kissed Ilium goodbye. Though made up of a platoon's worth of questionable individuals, the group - Zenith Security - were good enough to survive their jobs and smart enough to keep their activities mostly legal and not to piss on the chips of any of the major Terminus mercenary organizations or the Systems Alliance once they established a presence across the Traverse, growing in size to a company over two decades of operation.
A rift eventually formed between two groups within Zenith as members aged and left, one preferring a controlled approach, the other opting for a more aggressive stance. Marivea tried to mend the rift before it tore the company apart, but the minds of turians and salarians did not seem compatible with batarians and krogan, not to mention the humans who seemed incompatible with each other more often than not. Seeing no solution, Marivea bode her comrades a sour farewell in late 2179 and left the band on good terms before the company split into two separate entities a year later, the moderates retaining the Zenith Security brand while the splinter faction formed their own company, Supernova.
Having left Zenith behind, she turned to freelancing, moving from the Traverse and into Alliance space proper, where driving back and in some cases hunting down batarian raiding parties proved to be a constant source of employment until she got the offer from ExoGeni, presumably on the back of her work against the Hegemony slavers.
Combat Analysis ◢
"If the enemy doesn't know you were there until the next day or until you start shooting, you did well." Marivea holds these words - spoken by her training officer, then-Lieutenant colonel Habsis - sacrosant. A combat pragmatist to an extreme degree, if it must come to shooting, she prefers to keep her distance and hinder the enemy with tech to make picking them off from afar easier.
Reason for Vacating Previous Situation ◢
Not vacating a previous position as much as completing one contract and moving onto the next, Marivea saw the ExoGeni offer as a breath of fresh air, potentially adding more "smart" work on top of providing security and working with a regular team again.
Vigdis studied the captain for a second or two, deliberating on whether to tell her the truth or what she wanted to hear. “Vaguely.” She chose to be truthful, tightening the last strap on the current crate into the system and sprinting toward the weapon, noting the red stripe on the magazine indicating a load of armor-piercing darts. At that point, it had become clear that the attackers’ rules of engagement made no distinction between combatants and unarmed bystanders. Donning the sling around her shoulders as she exited the Jotunheim's shuttle bay into the main hangar, she used it to push the Jackal into her shoulder and took cover behind the ramp, dialed up the power, took aim at the center of the shield…
…and missed.
In the stressful situation, she pulled the trigger too hard, the weapon jerked as she fired and the dart merely skimmed the side of the shield and skipped off to who-knew-where. With an annoyed grunt, she withdrew behind the ramp - just in time to avoid a burst of return fire, the bullets screaming past with the telltale cracks of supersonic rounds and out into the fjord. For a few seconds, she just stared at the bit of space the bullets had crossed, the same bit of space the right side of her chest had been occupying just moments before. After a shout brought her back into the present, she rifled through the pouch where she kept a few spare magazines: Red, red - goddamnit - finally, blue! Vigdis swapped the dart magazine for one with anti-personnel flechettes and peeked out of cover as soon as the return fire subsided. What she was about to try would’ve worked better with steel buckshot, but you work with what you have, not what you’d like to have. Aiming at the floor under the droid’s shield, she emptied the entire magazine before retreating back into cover again, each of the eight trigger pulls sending a volley of almost 50 2x35 mm flechettes, intending for the flechettes to ricochet upward and hit the three attackers legs, bypassing the shield and droid. Due to the wide horizontal spread and nature of what she was doing, she didn’t even have to bother with proper trigger squeeze. She didn’t even need to seriously harm them, all she needed was for them to stop paying attention to other people in the hangar who had guns.
With the intern and the mech suit pilot handling the cargo loading, Vigdis ran back into the ship and strapped back into the service rigging - it looked similar to a parachute harness, allowing the wearer to both work suspended as well as carry a large number of tools, the rigging spreading their weight out over the entire body - and started feeding the crates’ weight into the computer so the maneuver calculations wouldn’t be off. Being in the ship somehow felt safer, perhaps because it wouldn’t be leaving without her, or maybe because she was shielded from the cold wind. “Hey, I want to get out of here as much as anyone else, but launching without clearance can be dangerous. If the airspace isn’t clear, we could end up crashing in a ball of fire and tangled metal.” Vigdis cautioned. She vividly remembered her father showing her ship disaster documentaries as a kid and explaining the causes, lessons learned and why such a thing couldn’t happen to him and she needn’t worry. Ignoring the ATC was something no software patch or design feature could prevent.
“The fighting’s not here yet, but it sure feels like it’s right around the corner.” Vigdis replied unhelpfully to the captain’s inquiry, “If we seal up the ship, we might hold out for a few minutes. Could’ve been longer, but someone decided the spaceship needed windows of all things. So whatever we’re doing, let’s do it fast.” She added as she retrieved a bundle of tie downs and ratchets and started fastening down the boxes wherever the intern and the mech pilot put them. They could be moved to the cargo bay later, when they weren’t in an active combat zone.
Love how all but two characters submitted so far have at least one instance of beating the tar out of batarians somewhere in their backstory. Nothing like shared hobbies to truly bind the group together.
‘Like hell I’m going out there to get shot.’ Was the first thing that came to Vigdis’ mind before the part of her brain that never left the military got behind the controls. The hangar doors weren’t open yet, which meant the ship was not going anywhere without her if she kept track of that and if whoever the attackers were made it to the hangar now, she’d be screwed anyway regardless of if she was on board or in the hangar. “On it.” She gave up trying to find a plate carrier in the armory - someone was going to be complaining about ‘misuse’ of service access codes when this all blows over - and headed back out, leaving the Jackal and her service rigging by the loading gate. If the attackers got to them, she’d stand little chance in a fight anyway. At least if she was unarmed she wouldn’t get shot right out of the gate if the unknown attackers’ goal wasn’t killing everything that had something to do with the ship. At least she assumed the Jotunheim was the reason they were there.
The cold was something she never got used to. Having spent most of her life in Venus’ underground habitats or hopping between wrecks aboard the Aurora, both of which being self-contained environments, bad weather was never an issue. “Captain, do we have any clue how many or how far away from here they are or if we’re getting any help this week?” She asked as she reached the door leading to the office that handled loading and unloading. At least Norway had a standing army, unlike her family’s native Iceland, so there was cause for some hope, she thought as she started banging on the door. ”Hey? Hey guy! Open up!” Of course he couldn’t hear her, it was a blast door meant to protect the office’s occupants if something went wrong with the ship in the hangar. Running back to her things to get a pipe wrench and back to the office made her feel like Pheidippides, if Pheidippides wore grease-stained coveralls, and by the time she made it back to the office, the cold air was burning her trachea like she was breathing ground glass. Two years out of the service did a number on her fitness, she was getting a gym membership first thing in the morning, she promised herself as she was let into the office before explaining the problem to the poor intern she found inside. “Found a guy who can operate the loaders, on our way back to the ship.” She managed to report back to captain Kadıoğlu as she tried to catch up on the oxygen debt.
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