Snide

Snide is one of the Medical Officers aboard the **Rasalas**. He and his colleague **Karliyel** are responsible for the health and wellbeing of the ship's crew. Snide served two tours within the military and the experiences left him a changed man with several setbacks following an honourable discharge. On his journey of readjustment to civilian life, it was **Demias** who saw his potential and offered him a permanent role aboard the ship.

## History

Mitch Massell regards himself as half self-educated, primarily because education is not a priority of the Empire on worlds like Castor and for barely citizens.  Both of Mitch's parents died relatively young within 4 months of each other of ‘Castor Flux’, which is characterised by brain aneurysms due to extended years of working in low oxygen/nitrogen environments.

Four months after his father’s death Invictus Week came to Castor and he enlisted in a wave of propaganda, patriotism and as an escape.  Military service being the only institution in the Empire that could void his parents’ commercial contracts that he was labouring under.

### Battle of Vega II

Snide was attached to the Vega Borderfleet and arrived back on Aremis from Selene approximately 20 hours before the attack. Twenty hours later he was ‘lucky’, being one of four survivors of his squad that were blown out of their bunks, through the barracks vaporizing walls and into the street.

Over the next two days, he watched them all fall in broken fighting with cobbled together units.  Over three days, he lost track of the aid stations, recon sweeps and SAR’s. After four days, finally ex-filling to the 2nd fleet in a shuttle stuffed with a chaotic mix of Marines, Army, Navy and civilians, his uniform almost black and unrecognizable from those four days. He finally passed out over the body of a young teenage **civilian** he was treating on the shuttle floor when the pilot was forced into high-G evasive manoeuvres.

### Aftermath

In the months following Vega II his emotional swings became more and more extreme, good and bad.  When focused, he focuses to the exclusion of the outside world and his work is quality.  However at the other extreme, when his own moral code is violated there is no quarter, there is only victory or death, preferably both and quickly.  His only loyalty are to those around him, and that loyalty is earned.  He can be the life of a party or he may end up not saying a word, even when one on one he sometimes is caught just staring vacantly through a person to the point of making others uncomfortable and not realize he is even doing it.

The two years following The Battle of Vega II was a series of disciplinary actions.  Several physical altercations that led to the brig and/or the trauma unit for him, and sometimes both.  Through the last two tumultuous years of enlistment, one thing kept him from immediate discharge or finishing his enlistment in Imperial prison, he never had a physical altercation with any of his squad in fact quite the opposite.  Every incident involved other military personnel or civilians.  The military shrinks diagnosed him with everything from PTSD, depression, anxiety and bi-polar over those two years.  Finally settling on PTSD, a diagnosable medical issue, his therapist and a line from his last incident report by his commanding officer, “…can still be an asset to the Navy” saved him from dishonour.  His actions and commendation during Vega II allowed the Navy discharge him at the rank of Chief Petty Officer which, at that rank, allowed him to continue with Navy supported treatment after his enlistment.

It was only while awaiting discharge, that a wave came in from an unknown address.  Updating him on the teenager he had induced into a coma and pulled onto that last shuttle, he didn’t even know the young mans name until the day of that wave.  Unknown to him, when passed out in the floor of the shuttle, the ’Gun Ho’ officer tapped his Mobi and exchanged wave addresses.  His name was Demias.  The memories, and the shakes, returned and a tenuous loyalty awakened.

Tentative contact was maintained with Demias for some time until he received a wave from him to assist in the final stages of refitting a derelict **Carrack** came through that Demias was now calling the Rasalas. Primarily, his assistance was needed to help with the Medbay on the ship which was cluttered with dated equipment that was over 50 years old, Snide's expertise with the right equipment and where to source it saved the Rasalas crew a lot of time. After the refit proved successful, Snide almost refused an offer from Demias to take a full position on the crew, hesitant not to repeat the past on his road to recovery but a brief yet powerful conversation with the teenager he had saved back on Vega II convinced him to stay when he realised what an inspiration he had been for him.

Presently, Snide has been serving aboard the Rasalas as a Medical Officer since 2949 and continues to prove himself a vital component of the crew.