Name: Second Lieutenant Alison Marais
Nickname: Allie
Age: 27
Gender: F
Appearance: Alison stands five feet and seven inches tall with the lithe, muscular build one would expect of a career military woman. She keeps shoulder length dirty blonde hair in a short ponytail for practicality's sake. She is always found wearing her standard military uniform; a short sleeved white compression shirt with a black tactical vest over it sporting her rank insignia and the Marine Corps logo, a pair of heavy duty dark grey combat pants and black heavy duty jungle boots. This uniform is further complimented by a pair of fingerless tactical gloves and a holster on her left thigh.
Background:
Alison joined the military as soon as she was old enough. She grew up with a difficult home life, including a neglectful socialite mother and a deadbeat father, and longed to put as much distance as she could between her and her hometown in Kansas. She operated as part of the Marine Corps and engaged in a variety of missions from international joint training operations to counter-terrorist activities to military policing. This still didn't give her the distance she needed, however, and as soon as the recruitment began she was among the first military personnel to apply for the recently established military space program. Accepted for her service history, as well as her keen situational perception, she began training to head in to space. As soon as she had completed her training, she was dispatched to Tyo Station to serve as one of the members of the station security detail, where she has been for several years.
Personality:
Alison is a career military woman, dedicated to the protection of Earth, her people, and their interests. She detests the idea of alien life and could be considered at best xenophobic. She is considerably less straight-laced than her rank would suggest, known by those that served with or under her for her relaxed attitude. She is feisty, and relishes any opportunity to put her skills to good use. She's not beyond some outbursts, though, especially when she feels that certain people or action are not in the best interests of her mission or threaten the survival of the people she's working with.
"What do you
mean 'Hold your fire'? I'm not gonna sit here and watch these people get killed!"
EXO suit:
Dawn CaliberDawn Caliber is, without a doubt, an EXO suit built for combat, standing an enormous nine and a half feet tall. The armor is a three-layer composite material consisting of an impact resistant polymer mesh, a layer of lagging resistant (but by no means impervious) to heat and corrosion, all surrounded in a titanium shell. The servomotors are reinforced for heavy lifting but still fall short of those used in industrial EXOs, capable of lifting a clean half-ton. The armaments are almost all standard military issue, consisting of a reinforced 30-inch trench knife stored in a sheathe on the the rear of the unit's hips and a ten millimeter semi automatic sidearm stored in a compartment in the left thigh. The primary armament of the unit is a large solid-round railgun, stored on the right side of the unit's back. The shoulder compartments contain a pair of small dumb-fire rocket pods, each containing two low-yield explosive rockets, a flash rocket and a phosphorous based smoke rocket.
Work skill:
Keen CommanderAlison has been in the military for a very long time, and has received training in many aspects of conventional combat. As well as this, she was trained in low-G and zero-G EXO suit combat as part of the military's astronaut training. She is as good a shot as her rank would imply, but is by no means an expert marksman or close combatant. She is not a prodigy, and does not possess any single exceptional skill; her ability is the result of hard training and experience. One thing she was noted for ever since her time at the academy, however, was her spatial awareness and situational perception. She can see a fleeting chance just before it comes and notice patterns and flaws in the behaviors of her potential enemies.
Personal Weapons:
She carries a standard steel combat knife, a medium caliber semi automatic pistol and a medium caliber submachinegun. Her SMG is fitted with a laser sight and flashlight, and has the number "276" etched into the side, presumably with her knife tip.
Survival Gear:
One three-day ration pack.
One water tank with around three days' water.
One weather-resistant tarpaulin (approximately ten by ten feet).
One coil of reinforced polymer rope (approximately thirty feet).
One high-yield demolition charge, military issue.
RP example: Alison rolled out of her bunk with a dissatisfied grunt, jolted awake by the savage howling of her alarm. She looked out of the reinforced window of her quarters and cursed into the empty blackness of space as she hastily threw on her uniform and put up her hair. Looking in the mirror, she noted that she looked like hell, and cursed again. It was the day of the big drop. People would probably want photographs or videos to show off to the ungrateful masses back on the snake-pit planet called Earth. She thought of that place, and cursed a final time. She had come out to the station to get way from that hideous place, but it seems the wretchedness has followed her even all the way out here. However, she decided it would be best to shake it off, and symbolically shook her head as if to complete some invisible transaction. She completed her morning ritual with a sharp salute into her mirror and turned to leave. It was time for morning patrol.
She briefed the security team in her usual sharp manner and dispersed them to their sectors. Tyo was a very valuable investment on humanity's part, and damned if she was going to have anything happen to it on her watch. She had been doing her route for so long it was clockwork. She left the briefing room last, made a hard left out of the door and headed along her path. As she passed the galley, she passed Miss Ellen, the station's cook and the only other person aboard who she could think of who'd been out here as long as she had. "Fair morning, Lieutenant Marais." she trilled in her upbeat, sing-song tone. "Though I dare say I tell you the same every morning you come by." Alison beamed widely at her, clapping a hand on her shoulder as they passed. "You can call me Allie, ma'am." She made a poor imitation of her accent. "Though I dare say I tell you the same every morning I come by." The pair chuckled and carried on their opposite ways down the hall. "Lunch at twelve twenty, Lieutenant." Ellen called after her. Alison waved a hand above her head. "I've never once missed taco Tuesday, Ellen, and I don't very well intend to start." She heard the cheerful gourmet laugh as she carried on her way.
She continued along her route checking all the cameras, sensors and security doors, marking each of them on her PDA as operating correctly. Her final stop was the armory, the only part she disliked. She swiped her ID and strode in to the small bay with her hands stuffed in her pockets. There was nobody at the desk, so she figured Master Sergeant Reynolds was somewhere in storage. She took one hand from her pocket and slammed it three times on the desk as hard as she could, shaking the metal cages surrounding it and sending a deep metallic booming noise into the bowels of the storage bay. After a few minutes, the Master Sergeant appeared, his apron covered in gun lubricant and still holding some calibration tools. He stared at her with his trademark simmering resentment, and she returned his gaze with a cold, disinterested expression. "Good morning, Reynolds." She practically spat the words at him. "Why, yes Lieutenant. It was." He replied with equal meter. "Now you're here, Lieutenant, and I find my cheer waning at such a pace that I fear I should certainly fall into a coma unless I were to help you as promptly as possible, to which end I would ask precisely why you have decided to interrupt my work." Alison blinked at him dispassionately. "Tuesday, Reynolds. Inventory report." He rolled his eyes and took out his PDA, flicking through a few options and then nodded. "It should be in your files. Can I help you with anything else, or are you going to bring great joy to my heart and tell me you'll simply leave?". She sighed wearily. "Have all necessary armaments loaded on to the Dawn Caliber by thirteen-hundred." He tensed visibly, but then relaxed. "Certainly, Lieutenant. Now as much as I enjoy our talks, I really must be getting back to the much more enjoyable task of-" She cut him off by punching the wall console for the door. It slid open noiselessly and she proceeded out without a word.
After the biggest round of Miss Ellen's tacos she had ever eaten, she proceeded to the security office. Grabbing a hold of the microphone for the station PA, she made her announcement. A tingle of mixed fear and excitement nearly stopped her from speaking, but she battled through it. "All EXO pilots and science teams, please report to docking bay seven. Again, all persons involved in today's surface mission to bay seven." The PA went silent and she shook her hands in front of her like she was drying nail polish.
Here we go she thought to herself. She let down her hair and shook it out before putting it back up again, and realized suddenly that she was procrastinating. Steeling herself, she headed to docking bay seven to board her EXO and head out. If everything was ready, thy could probably launch early. Something felt wrong, though... But she couldn't tell what. She had undergone hundreds of non-combat and combat drops in training, and nothing was going to be different this time than it had been before. It was just another drop, she told herself. Everything would be fine.
RP theme song:
Animals As Leaders - "Tempting Time"