Name: Bernadette Angstrom
Age: 36 (Born 21/11/4994) (yes that doesn't add up, read the biography)
Race: Mainline Human, approx 55% Cybernetic
Home system/Planet/town: Born on LMX-17533-3, A formerly independent mining planet run by a Lustrian slaver family, until the Empire liberated the planet.
At the age of eight, was taken in to Imperial custody and moved to Juliet-86, a mid-size empire colony, where she spent the rest of her childhood before joining the Imperial Navy.
Chosen ship: The INS Ophelia
Rank: Captain
Personality:
Principled. Loyal to the Empire, to her loyal crew, and to her family. In that order.
Dispassionately Equitable. Understands that a tyrant can be feared, a parent can be loved, but a captain must be both. Even-handed with positive and negative reinforcement. Ensures her crew are well paid and their families taken care of. Ensures that any disloyalty is caught and punished without mercy. Has dossiers on all crew members uploaded to the valuable and limited space on her FLPU, available with a thought.
Justified. Understands the critical nature of her mission on a bone deep level. The empire
must find the Phoenix Nebula, at
any cost.
Decisive. Understands that inaction is just as much a choice as action.
Bio:
The orphan girl saw a falling star.
Bernadette was born in the mud of a drainage ditch, to two slaves squatting amongst the filth. Her mother died. Her father lived, for another six years.
It shined bright orange as it fell.
The Lustrian family, a hundred strong, had been expelled from their people's systems. They turned to slavery, found a half-habitable rock, and began turning misery into profit.
It was joined by another. Then another.
They knew of humans, their people having recently made contact. They mistakenly believed that humans cared only about themselves and their immediate family. Easy slave population.
Soon the whole sky was ablaze with falling stars, hurtling to the earth.
They had intercepted a few traders and colony ships and killed anyone who seemed to be headstrong enough to lead a revolt.
The slaver's ships, far off on the other side of the encampment, started trying to take off, one after the other.
They didn't count on the Empire.
The slaver's ships, one after the other, folded and crumpled with a flash of light, like god had slapped them back to the earth.
Bernadette's first memory was seeing the Imperial navy assaulting the slaver's habitat.
It was far off, but the girl could hear the slavers screaming about something. Amnesty? Immunity?
She still remembers it with a smile.
The gold people didn't get amnesty, or immunity. They got what they deserved.
The Empire had arrived.
At eight years old, Bernadette was recovered from the slaver settlement and transferred to Juliet-86, a mid-size Imperial colony. After an extended stay at a paediatric hospital for six months, being treated for two fractured scapula, pneumonia and severe malnutrition, Bernadette was released into Imperial custody. Classified as an orphan of war, she was put through the Imperial care system and ended up in an imperial boarding school.
Thus started eight years of study for what one teacher described as "The most dedicated student (she had) ever seen", with notes on her file lauding her inexhaustible devotion to the Empire, unprompted memorization of multiple Imperial classical texts, and a sharpness of mind and eagerness to learn that allowed her to catch up with the other children despite starting three years later than usual.
Throughout her childhood, after her predilections were discovered, her guardians began to take her to have "treatments" at a nearby hospital. She was told that the treatments were to help her recover from the circumstances of her early childhood and grow up big and strong; the treatments ranged from guided exercise, to injections, to various surgeries that left her bedridden for days afterward. Needless to say, the young Bernadette had caught the eye of the Imperial Navy. So young, so sharp, and already so devoted to the cause? With no family ties or paper trail? The young girl was the perfect candidate for all the gifts the Imperial navy had to offer.
What once was stunted and starved was steadily moulded into a weapon of war. Bones dense as an adult male marine's, reinforced with carefully placed carbon-filament superstructure. Musculature three times the density with a slower lactic acid build-up over time. Tendons and ligaments altered with cutting edge biomaterials. A microfactory implanted at the base of her skull working alongside her pituitary gland to favourably manage growth via hormones and direct stimulation. Organs upgraded with a host of cybernetic backups and efficiency improvements. The Navy scientists had lavished her with all the most cutting edge and questionably moral improvements they had the ability to give, and the most successful part of it all? Bernadette was on board. She had figured it out from the age of fourteen, shortly after her discovery of state-approved super-soldier comic books. She had confronted her guardian and... Asked how she could help.
At sixteen, with the Empire's expansion now in full swing, Bernadette agreed to sign up for the Imperial Navy special-case basic training. Under the cover of a "cadet" course, a selection of similarly augmented sixteen-year-olds began running courses, completing training and taking classes meant for adult male marines. It was brutal. Even with the physical augments, many of the supersoldier candidates simply could not take the mental strain, or lost the will to go on once they realized the full scope of what had been done to them, or what was expected of them. Of the eight that were selected for the project, three seventeen-year-olds graduated. Bernadette, Top of the class, was earmarked for field command.
The three young soldiers were given a further year of specialist command and espionage training, and sent out as a black-ops asset.
However, days before Bernadette celebrated her 18th birthday, new orders came in. A new threat had reared it's head, threatening not only the Empire, but all sapient life in the galaxy.
The Khivux.
For eight hard years, Bernadette and her two peers were separated, each attached to a different specialist team stationed in rapid response black-ops light cruisers. It was the last time Bernadette saw either of the other two graduates. They were told to sally-forth and defend the empire not from slavers, nor power brokers, nor criminals, but Navy marines. The Graduates led fire teams, sent to burn other elite squads that had been overtaken by the Khivux. Over and over again, Bernadette saw first hand the kind of damage a well-trained individual puppeteered by the Khivux could do. The Graduates were given cyanide capsules, fitted in place of a molar, to be taken in case of capture.
The war raged. Three graduates became two, as one of Bernadette's few remaining peers gave his life for the empire.
In late 5020, just after Bernadette celebrated her 26th birthday, The two remaining black ops ships, The Ophelia and the Troubadour, were given new commands. The Empire was losing the war, even after signing a truce with every scumbag, criminal and resistance member in the galaxy, they were losing. The Black ops ships were sent out to the far reaches of space, in two different directions, to track down advanced civilizations and desperately beg, borrow or steal any weapon that would be effective against the Khivux.
The Troubadour's story is known throughout the galaxy. They succeeded, at the cost of their lives.
The Ophelia's story, not so.
For five months, the crew of the Ophelia searched the dark reaches of the Ordaeus galaxy. Turning over every rock. Following up on leads centuries cold. Growing steadily more desperate as the messages from the Empire became more and more urgent.
But on in their sixth month of searching, in early 5021, they found something. Something
old.
Millennia old yet still perfectly preserved. A great meteorite, with a temple hewn into its very rock, lazily orbiting a black hole. Due to time dilation, Every two minutes investigating the temple was a month for the rest of the galaxy. The crew of the Ophelia had to be quick. The Captain led Bernadette and the rest of the crew in a frantic search of the temple. They found an archaeologist's shuttle amongst the ancient stone, along with ideograms tall as a person, on a maze of walls tall enough that even with a flashlight it was impossible to see the roof. But in their haste, the crew of the Ophelia had become sloppy.
They didn't realize that the Khivux had arrived here first.
The Archaeologist's shuttle had defrosted its occupant upon spotting movement. One by one the crew, devoted to searching what they thought was an abandoned rock, were picked off in the maze of ideograms.
The last things Bernadette remembered was feeling a tiny prick as the captain injected her with something, unconsciousness coming so quickly she couldn't bite down on the capsule her tongue pushed from her teeth.
The Ophelia returned to Empire space, it's crew now slaves to the Khivux. But when they arrived, two and a half years had passed.
The war was a lot different to the desperate situation the Ophelia had left. The Troubadour had been successful. The Mindfire toxin was being used to cleanse ships and worlds of Khivux. The crew felt the Khivux in their brains seethe with fury.
For two years, the Ophelia was a vengeful spirit, performing tactical strikes on facilities producing the toxin. They began to work their way through empire space, burning and sabotaging as they went. The ship got far, but... Eventually, even with the knowledge of the black ops crew, the Khivux were caught out by new protocols put in place by the empire for situations such as this one.
The Ophelia was assaulted by no less than three heavy cruisers. after a fierce but short battle, her reactor was damaged and forced to shut down. a full platoon of marines boarded and started hosing down the Khivux controlled agents with Mindfire. Bernadette, for the first time in months, felt hope. The Khivux controlling her squashed it like a bug, forcing her to wear a gas mask to avoid the mindfire toxin. she watched as the Khivux used her skills and body to begin cutting her way through boarding marines, but their power armor had been upgraded, and Angstrom was a puppet, trying with all her might to slow down her captor any way she could.
There was a crunch and a blinding pain. she looked down to see her right arm and a chunk of her abdomen missing. the Khivux forced her to keep moving toward the marines. Another blinding flash of pain as both of her legs were torn from her. they roughly pulled the gas mask from her face and sprayed her down. As the mindfire took hold, merciful darkness took her.
When she came to, Bernadette was in a laboratory. At first, she wondered if it had all been a dream, if they were running her through combat scenarios and she was still fifteen years old. Then she opened her... eye. One of her eyes was gone. She looked around, trying to move. And it all came flooding back as she realised only one of her four limbs remained. The months of forced traitorship, The awful feeling of being a passenger in her own body. The terrifying dread of no longer being able to walk for herself.
For a time she lay there, controlling her emotions, gritting her teeth. The pain was secondary to her crippling. The one thing that stopped her from breaking down altogether was the titanium-clad knowledge that the Empire had her back, and she was in a laboratory. There was a chance, however slim, that the Emperor still had use of her.
She was informed that she had been in a coma for over a year. Her right eye and brain had been damaged, and parts of her grey matter had been replaced by cutting edge cybernetics. It was called a Frontal Lobe Processing Unit, or FLPU. It was difficult, but she found a way to accept this. She could no longer remember the names and faces of her friends from boarding school, or her fellow graduates. Again, she accepted this.
She was told that the Empire scientists now had access to her inner-most thoughts, to observe the remaining effects of the Khivux, if any were present. She... paused, but after a moment she put aside her sense of privacy and accepted it. For the good of the Empire.
After several months of being studied, they began to rebuild her body.
First, the legs. initially they supplied her with basic prosthesis to move around the habitation area. Once it was clear that her loyalty was strong as it had ever been, they added new prosthesis. built out of non-metallic alloy, hardened against EMPs. Top of the line bionics. They looked no different to Bernadette's clean pale legs had, but the power within them, oh! The strength. Once she grew comfortable, she would be able to run at the speed of a civilian-class vehicle, and her kicks would dent plate steel.
Next, her arm. Utilizing a foam of bonded metamaterial micromachines, the arm as was sturdy as steel when solid, but able to shift and change shape, flowing like quicksilver. They began work on her eye next. They inserted a ball, rheumy and white, into the socket, and a cable extended from it, metabolising her old damaged optic nerve and replacing it with a glass fibre connection to the recently installed FLPU. Her sight returned, and all wavelengths on the EM spectrum,from micro-waves to X-Rays, were available to her.
More tests. More rehabilitation, until the day finally came. A visit from War-Admiral Maddox Abbadon himself, mere weeks before the diplomatic summit he knew would end his career. It was all Bernadette could do not to throw herself at his feet.
Abaddon spoke of the sacrifices she had endured. Spoke of the admiralty's approval of her loyalty. Said her memories had exonerated her of any wrongdoing. Bernadette, standing at parade rest, swallowed as she fought back tears. It was more than she ever dared hope for.
Whats more, Abaddon proceeded to explain, she was being given command of the
INS Ophelia. Her eyes widened slightly with surprise- And, as her first assignment, she was to stamp out the last vestiges of the Khivux, freeing their hosts from the torment she knew too well.
Her emotions almost got the better of her, but instead she stood, stock still, and without a waver to her voice, she nodded and curtly stated "Yes sir."
Years have passed. The Ophelia and her crew have changed, but the captain has stayed the same. Having gained a reputation for her fearsome appearance and loyalty to the Empire and her crew, Captain Bernadette Angstrom has secured a host of advanced upgrades and refits to her once woefully outdated Light Cruiser. Now, in the fulminant times of 5032, Captain Angstrom has recieved the Ophelia's latest orders.
"proceed to investigate the source of the Mindfire toxin, thought to be the location known in local folklore as The Phoenix nebula. Secrecy is critical in this operation. News that the Empire is searching for the Phoenix Nebula may cause the mutual defence treaty of the free planets of Ordaeus coming into effect, which would mean the start of another long and bloody war."
And so under the command of Bernadette Angstrom, the INS Ophelia began to move.
Appearance:
Puppet master: Pigiron