Kylie Faiza Engstrom

From Beacon Space
"Kylie upsidedown supporting herself by her one arm catching her glasses in her mouth" .......Kye droned on:

"... And predictably, The dud asked for an extension."

Bills started to regret having asked, and began to steel his mind against this turn in the flavour of the conversation, trying to mask it and his frozen expression with a larger than normal gulp from his beer. Replying with a curt nod, and a barely audible

"Mhmm?"

Kye continued, noticing nothing as her eyes were fixed on her poor attempt at sewing shut the newest holes in her patch tapestry of a shirt. Such was hard with her missing arm, but Bills knew better than to offer a hand. Bills being a black belt in spartan conversational manners was nothing new, it was actually one of her favourite things about Bills. Well right after his almost magical ability to fix the cooling unit in her decrepit ships' cockpit, that no mechanic near or far, within reason, seemed able to do jack to fix.'

'"Yeah, If I could afford to give extensions, I'd have a better ship than this rustbucket.. Or a new arm.. Or a damn pillow."

Bills raised one brow.

"Pillow?"

Kye continued in a monotone voice

"It ripped."

Bills:

"Mhmm, so you told him no?"

He looked down at the work he had done on the cooling unit not many minutes before, and back at her. She shook her head with the sewing thread between her lips and mumbled.

"MmNah, Mmno - I smiled at him."

She bit off the string.

"You have to smile at idiots... And children. And those genemodded fluffball pets. He paid."

He shrugged, speaking through the hint of a sigh.

"You're always a smartass.."

She looked up at him, her piercing gaze looking over her glasses. Rare but sweet dimples heralded a cheeky grin..

"No, sometimes I sleep"

Captain Engstrom
Name Doctor Kylie Faiza Engstrom, "Kye"
Affiliation Unaffiliated Space Trucker, Previously of Amelhart Institute
Played By Narf(Or someone adopting her later: TBD)
Homeworld Ingirid
Birth Date 34
Death Date TBD
Species Human
Gender Female
Bleed Aptitude Non-Magical
Height 5.7f. 170cm
Weight 120lbs. 55kg
Hair Colour Black
Eye Colour Grey

Traits and Appearance

The first thing one would notice, would be the missing arm, then despite this, the eyes would draw attention, fast, a stark immovable gaze peering through clear glasses. She is of a slender build, showing muscles kept in shape by daily routines through many years. If not covered, scars can be seen on the face, neck and torso, mostly, with a spattering here and there in places on the rest of the body.

Biography

In her early years, she grew up in the inner parts of a manufacturing ring on Ingirid, The Olivine Belt, contrary to the general image of the Amelhart Institute, the nomadic idealists did have manual labour ghettoes with scarcity. These were not places with a view to the outside the station, here, the factories were priority one.

Her small family was shaken by two events. Her mother, a maintenance technician, whose job it was to oversee arms, gears and other robotics responsible for assembling mech or ship parts together. She was killed by a beam, thrown by a faulty assembly line, she had been called to repair. Her father, a driver, disappeared with his passengers in the water riots. The water recyclers having been sabotaged or simply broken down, on different rings, and pirates towing the nearby ice asteroids for ransom, let to a rare and ill-prepared for water shortage. Normally the big concern is the air, which could disappear from natural cascade failure in the green rings. This though, was a manmade catastrophe across Ingirid's infrastructure. Water was rationed, but last on the list of priorities during these times were the machine districts, even less so the ghettoes in their shadow. She came to live with friends of the family. Good people, but they already had kids and made even less than her parents had. The local community ended up well practised with having her stay with those that could best have her during a given month.

She came to have a view that all real opportunities, even on the pretty neighbour rings were always controlled by some greater unreachable, faceless, power. Be it corporations or rich ex-explorers or.. or crime, overt or covert. She got it in her head that she'd equip herself with the skills to fly out and make a place where things were fair, where there was room, fresh non-recycled air, where the fruit of the labour went to those having actually worked for it. A childs' dream, perhaps naive, unlikely or even impossible.

It remained in the back of her head as a guiding star, a fire to warm her weary mind by on the toughest days. She did not go corporate, or into politics or joined a gang to web a weave towards her goals. Her plan was simple, get a place, pick it well, get the right kind of people there to work it.. So everything hinged on the place... IT, it had to be the perfect place. As such she, and not someone hired had to know how to scout a place. She had to become a Prospector, and, as she was quickly corrected, the proper way to say it was Geo-scientist. The study of the composition, structure, and other physical aspects of places, use geological, physics, and mathematics knowledge in exploration for oil, gas, minerals, and very impotently, underground water. All this was required for some sort of place being... As her child self would put it: Good.

After basic education she continued on. Using any means, all the time needed to study, living at friends, beyond their patience to always, foremost have enough for the education fees. Even at times going a few days hungry. In the end, her monomanic pursuit won out. Bachalor and doctorate were finished in 6 years. She finished, with this she started to save up for a small cheap ship, just something for her to make more money with to quickly get something bigger, for the actual mission. She managed to acquire a rust-bucket, which she named House. For she would live there till the savings were in harbour.


Shed fly as a courier, transport the people not too picky to be taken places by little brown House, accept weird contracts to secretly acquire soil or rock samples, her small ship and anonymity plus education being perfect for some factions specific needs. She didn't care for who she transported things for or which faction had something against her working for x person. She's pretty sure she even worked for criminals at times. Suddenly she realised it had been years since she had seen the shining rings of her once home.. Oh well, work.

This species of blindness was what caught up to her, the ship broke down more and more often, then there was the stacking dock fees she had often tried to shirk in her hurry, a few times people wanted what she transported, and her and her ship got worse and worse for wear. For despite the light defensive weaponry House had. She'd often fall prey to bigger fish. Shes' really just a dirt digger scientist by education, and a bit of a scoundrel by how things panned out. She was mostly unable to stand up to most pirates or other of like types. Whod made a living of catching people; making a living on smallish transporters, like her. But mind-numbingly, every. single. time., be it her monomaniac passions having lodged itself as actual mania, or just regular pervicacious hatred for being showed around. Shed try to fight, every, time. She was alone on her ship, was an ok pilot by experience, but not helped by innate talent, or fancy dogfighter training. So over several such encounters, over the years, she and her ship got worse and worse for wear. She lost her arm, some friends, almost the ship along the cargo some times. And the guiding star that had gotten her all the way out here, while still lit, got dimmer and dimmer. It was the life shed settled into, and by width and breath, even this was at times a nigh unsustainable existence.

Notes on House: Some kind of light defensive weaponry would be within reason. Its old, and way past its supposed date for scraps.

Notes on character education plus skillset: Normal education till 16, followed by around 4 years for something equilivent to Bachelor's degree in geology, and around 4 years for a docterate on top for space-Geoscientist-Hydrologists-Geophysics-Seismologist-THING= Prospector. Saving up for the ship, 3 years. Cargo and Courier work= 7 years.