Annika Coetzee

## Dossier

Annika is a member of the RIFT fireteam stationed in the Jaeto Wing.

Annika is happy-go-lucky with a joy and deep intuition for all things that move fast. Annika is here for good times and fast times. She maintains the goal to go back, one day, and win the Omega Classic. She loves tinkering and the freedom of space. Her love for racing has brought her immense highs and crushing lows. An adrenaline junkie, she has the drive to dig deep within herself and muster endurance, but can also make reckless decisions.

Below her bouncy curls, Annika typically wears cropped racerback tank tops and sports tattoos. She tends not to remain still for long, living life at top-speed as a racer, once a top-tier seed in the Omega Classic. A convicted felon for street racing, Annika turned to the Alliance military, willing to expunge the record; however, by her nature, the woman would not have a normal military career. As such, after basic training and flight school, Annika took part in the Alliance Corsair program.

Annika lends her talents aboard the ship as a shuttle pilot and mechanic. Typically residing within the shuttle bay, Annika services the shuttle’s needs and ensures that all parts are in perfect working order, with replacements well-inventoried. She also utilizes her skills as a mechanic: welding, soldering, wiring, etc. for minor fixes around the larger vessel.

## History

Annika was born to two unknown pirate parents and raised in Soot Springs, an outpost of thieves and cutthroats on Daratar. She never learned her true parentage and, at first, was simply brought up communally by the ne'er-do-wells. Though, that was no kind of comfort for her. Soot Springs was a nest of snakes. Intimidation, robbery, and murder were omnipresent, and Annika hated it there. The girl wanted more out of life, far more than she could achieve with some small time pirate outfit of backstabbers and degenerates. The backwater ball of dust where she was born and raised was a prison for Annika. Many times, it was very nearly her grave. The girl was beaten, malnourished, burnt with cigarettes, stabbed with a fork, and more.

Scraping by on a mixture of begging, scavenging, and stealing, Annika pulled herself along. She learned whom to smile at, whom to avoid. The girl slept under tables, on benches. At five, while scrounging for food, Annika’s luck came up. Sneaking into a garage at the edge of the outpost, she found a moonshine still. In Soot Springs, moonshine was more valuable than platinum. But that wasn’t Annika’s good fortune. Instead, her arm was wrenched back and she found herself staring a wizened turian in his scarred face.

Martius Thraex was her good fortune, though the child would not exactly see it that way. Thraex was a washed-up old drunkard, and the whole of Soot Springs knew it. Toying with the girl, he mocked her, called her stupid and many other words far less savory. With a sharpening tongue of her own, Annika protested, giving it right back. Pityingly amused, Thraex released the girl but kept on laughing. He bet she couldn’t pick a spark plug from cylinder head. Immediately, Annika bet that she could. She had no idea, of course, but Thraex kept on laughing. Perhaps for no other reason than his own enjoyment, Thraex arranged the little quiz. He might have been hitting the bottle that morning, evening, he couldn’t quite remember. Whatever it was, he had the parts laying around. The turian taunted the child that if she failed, he would lop off her hand as a thief.

Annika would never learn if he meant his threat. Facing the two foreign objects, she pointed at the one on the right. Fortune favored her that day. After that, Annika would keep trickling back to the Martius’ repair shop. She would say it was because he was an easy mark for food. He would say he liked watching her stumble though the work he gave her. The truth lay somewhere in the middle. Annika needed a roof over her head, and Martius needed a helper. His business was barely afloat as it was.

Martius had talent in droves, but his demons held back any success. In his military days, Martius was climbing the ranks as a combat engineer, serving the hierarchy. His actions in the First Contact War, however, permanently scarred his outlook, not to mention his mind. Martius’ CO was particularly sadistic toward “upstart” humans. In the chaos of a combat zone, Martius’ power tools, batteries, couplings, were turned to a darker purpose: extracting information from prisoners of war. After smelling too much charred flesh, hearing too many bones crushed to powder, traumatized Martius just couldn’t take it any longer. As soon as his unit was rotated back to Council Space, he went AWOL. Ducking a court-martial for desertion, the turian fled to the Terminus systems and lost himself, drinking and gambling away his years. One day, he looked up and found himself betting on the races in Soot Springs. He lost everything, or what little he had left of everything. Still, the man was handy, and he found work making repairs, eventually moving into his shoddy shop.

With Annika in his life, Martius certainly remembered the pain he had inflicted on too many innocents of her kind. Maybe he saw giving her a cot, some food, some tricks under the hood and behind the wheel, teaching her what he could, as a small atonement. On Soot Springs, childhood bore no meaning. You learned what you could, as fast as you could, or you died. Martius taught her, but that isn’t to say he nurtured. No, Martius wasn’t a caretaker. He regularly mocked her work, used her to get his hungover hide up for appointments, and was a mean bastard to her when he drank. He drank a lot.

When Annika was twelve years old, one of the gang leaders in Soot Springs, Vryllk, fresh from a firefight, steered his battered tomkah through the fence of Martius’ shop. “Repairs. Now,” were the only words he had to give. There was no discussion of payment. People like him didn’t have to. As he left, Annika went to rouse Martius from his stupor. The two set to work like any other job, only this one could spell execution. But Martius hadn’t sobered up enough. While Annika was inside the tomkah, examining wiring, the turian started work on the fuel injectors. Still impaired, Martius inadvertently fired the tomkah’s aftermarket booster and sent the vehicle rolling forward. Crushing Martius’ foot in the process, the tomkah lurched out of the lot. On the outskirts of town, the shop backed up to the soot slopes. The tomkah only picked up speed, barrelling toward one of Daratar’s canyons. Martius, dragging himself toward a vehicle, blacked out from the pain before he could start it.

Crawling into the driver’s seat, Annika took the wheel. Whether by instinct, adrenaline, or her lessons from Martius, the girl was able to get control of the vehicle, steering it to safety. Well, safe isn’t correct. She threw a wild right, sheared a tire off on a boulder, but she stopped the tomkah. This was all witnessed by many of Vryllk’s gangsters. Amused, Vryllk ordered Martius to finish the repairs. Until they were complete, Annika would belong to him, as one of his racers. Racing heavily-modified tomkahs and skycars across the wide open expanses of Daratar was something of a past time for the residents of the Soot Springs outpost, besides drinking and gambling on the outcomes of the races of course. The way Vryllk saw it, Annika could do a lot more than most children. She was a novelty. If she survived the races, she might draw fans of her novelty. If she died, he saw it as another way to punish Martius’ foolishness. He won either way. So, the gang backed her in a race. Some members thought it would be a laugh to see her body splashed across the sand. To their surprise, in a cantankerous skycar, Annika placed fifth. That brought some to reconsider. Perhaps they had a true racer on their hands after all. Giving her a new skycar, they soon found that they did indeed.

If Vryllk thought he could crush Martius’ spirit, though, he was mistaken. If Annika thought the turian would come through for her, she was mistaken. The threat of harm coming to Annika in the races alone was not enough to sway him. Martius placed much more value on his own well being. He left the planet in a week, never to return.

Abandoned, Annika’s feelings didn’t compare to anything she had felt before. It wasn’t grief over the loss. It was hard, unbridled rage. Martius wasn’t her guardian, but he was her partner in crime. And damn it, he owed her. After all the work she’d put in at his shop, putting up with him, taking care of him just as much as he took care of her, she deserved better. The work they did was going to be her way off Daratar, and he’d pissed all over it. Betrayed, Annika resolved to pour her energy into the races. It was only her ticket out now. Every spare hour, the girl practiced. She watched her competition at every race, studied their banking, downforcing, redding.

Her training regimen was unhealthy, dangerous, repressive, but it paid off. Annika performed better than anyone could have expected. She wasn’t record-breaking, but she did go about racking up an impressive number of victories. Some thought it was luck. Some thought it was a child placing less weight in the skycar. Perhaps Vryllk and his gangsters just fixed the races. But for Annika, it was desperation. Her races were the only thing keeping her from being handed off to batarian slavers or worse. Beyond any luck, she kept studying the craft, learned from all the old racers and engineers she could find. The retired ones were the only people who would give up secrets. While it was a means of survival, as time went on, the girl found that she loved racing. The power that she commanded behind the wheel was unlike anything the she had ever experienced. Racing was its own form of freedom. Some days, she just liked the independence of the driver’s seat, away from the crowded outpost. And with her victories, the already sparky girl grew bolder.

People began betting on Annika, more and more with each race. Before long, it seemed half the outpost was betting on her. A year had passed and the end of the racing season was approaching. One race remained to determine who the Soot Springs gangs would send to Omega for the final. Everyone was lining up with hefty bets for Annika, the Wonder Kid. She couldn’t lose. People needed reasons to lay bets, especially so under changing circumstances.

Outside forces were beginning to squeeze on Soot Springs. That year, Hansan, a human colony on Daratar, finally beseeched the Alliance for aid after years of fighting off raids by Daratar’s gangs. The Alliance was hemmed in by legal obligations, but eventually sent a token force. A small unit, Alliance outreach mainly for show, arrived in Hansan. They probably wouldn’t stay long and didn’t know Soot Springs’ location, but Alliance presence on Daratar set tensions rising in Soot Springs. Once again, scores placed bets on Annika. The pirates would need credits if they had to haul jets away from the Alliance. Annika was a good bet.

Yet, her gangster benefactors had other ideas. Sure, they had backed Annika; and sure, they had profited greatly from the winnings. Now, Vryllk wanted to pull the real heist. While Soot Springs was betting on Annika, his gang would quietly bet against her, for they told Annika that she was to take a dive. They knew the hot hand fallacy, and they knew the incredible returns they could reap, so her benefactors would throw the match.

Despite her growing independent streak, Annika had always listened to Vryllk. She knew he could kill her, and she wanted to hold on to the thrill of racing. The teen star had made little else from her wins. But this, throwing a race, was the final straw. Annika wasn’t a little girl anymore. So, she nodded and said she understood. And then, she went and won.

She wanted to bask in the glory--no victory before had ever tasted so sweet--but she had to run. Her benefactors, former benefactors, had been left in the red, and they were coming for Annika. Fleeing the scene, the damning realities of her choice dawned on the girl. She had nowhere to turn, no credits to buy a berth on a ship. The gang kept her profits, and anyone she knew that had a ship was a member. The people of Soot Springs might enjoy placing bets on her races, but when the races were done, she was nothing to them. As Vryllk’s gangsters closed in on her trail, Annika did what, to her pirate counterparts, was the unthinkable. Having no other options, Annika hid and contacted the Alliance force in Hansan.

Responding to the tip of the gang’s location, once verified, Alliance Marines breached the ramshackle outpost, catching the pirates completely unaware. Taking the perimeter of the settlement quickly, the marines gave the surrounded pirates one chance to surrender. Vryllk and his gangsters replied with bullets and buckshot. A firefight broke out around the dirty camp. The pirates fought wildly but were plainly outmatched. As more of Annika’s captors were cut down, many chose surrender over death. Seeing how real soldiers operated, with poise and power, unlike the slavers and pirates she was raised around, Annika thought she had made the right decision. She hoped. Vryllk had another idea. Trying to hide himself, he stumbled across Annika and flew into a rage.

Cornering the girl in a room, Vryllk readied his empty shotgun as a cudgel. But as he heaved back to swing, Vryllk’s brains were splattered against the wall by an Alliance marine. Barrel of her rifle smoking, Operations Chief Marieta Coetzee found Annika doused in the gangster’s blood. Annika was thankful to finally see a friendly face, thankful to be alive, but faced with the blood, the smoke, the trauma of her near-death encounter--it was sensory overload. The teen broke down bawling into the marine’s chestplate. As Vryllk was the last of the mopping up, Marieta just held her. She didn’t remember how long they stay like that, but eventually, Marieta took Annika out to the marines’ makeshift aid station. Annika was even personally commended by the leader of the raid, Commander Brendan Seong. He recognized her from the tipoff, but his words fell on deaf ears. Arrangements were made for the children of Soot Springs to be sent to foster care back on Earth. But soon, Annika was pulled from the program and adopted by Chief Coetzee, who was wrapping up her final tour of duty. She couldn’t get the girl, raised in that hellhole, out her mind. She thought that she could give the child a home. Annika took her adopted mother’s family name, becoming Annika Coetzee.

Annika moved into Marieta’s home on the outskirts of Windhoek, Namibia. It was certainly awkward at first. The learning curve, after growing up in a pirate hovel, was immense. The courtesies and etiquette that more fortunate individuals take for granted meant nothing to Annika and had to be taught. Annika clashed often with Marieta’s biological son and her new elder brother, Andries. He and his mother were close, and Annika was disruptive to say the least. Years would pass before the two of them ever resembled family. As her last tour had ended, Marieta was honorably discharged, but a marine is for life. She would not quit, laboring long and hard in an effort to forge the unit into a family. She alone knew the full scope of what Annika had survived and learned to give what Annika needed. Annika, torn by guilt at causing problems for her new mother, gratitude for being adopted, and annoyance at all the rules thrust upon her, did her best to open up.

Finally in a home with some structure and purpose, Annika could devote her talent and time to education. The girl would need to, for she was woefully behind other students. Annika applied herself in all subjects, but the going was rough. Unfortunately, many of Annika’s fellow students were not fond of her, making fun of the girl who, when she started school, was reading at a fourth grade level. When they learned of her upbringing, some students saw her as a batarian spy, or worse, a slaver. Memories of the Skyllian Blitz were still fresh. She got into fights and was tormented by the crueler students, but refused to seek outside help, wanting to prove her worth. Annika eventually held her own in school; yet, it was not without struggle. Psychiatrist visits, paid for by Annika’s adopted mother, showcased obsessive behavior in regard to “proving her worth.” Quite likely, the obsession was compounded by unresolved anger over abandonment and abuse as a child and later, student, which Annika had no way to stop.

A new life, a new family, a new home under the warm sun of sub-saharan Africa, were not enough to make Annika forget her old ways. Her hands remembered the grips of the steering wheel. Perhaps it was inevitable. She saw it as borrowing the car, not stealing it. She saw the laws on driving as guidelines for those who did not know how to drive. There was no lying to her mother, because she made sure that Marieta and Andries never found out. At first, it was her mother’s skycar, then Andries’, and finally, her own. At first, it was joyriding under the moon, then it was racing Andries, until she sought new competition.

As graduation approached, Annika had cobbled together a modestly impressive GPA. The girl had dreams of attending the C-Sec Academy or the like, in order to strike back at the gangs and mercs that had ruled her childhood. Try as she might, though, Annika’s grades and extracurriculars were not nearly sufficient. Her mother, having left the marines as an operations chief, had neither the political connections nor enough income to make the dream a reality.

Though somewhat less prestigious than her former goal, Annika was accepted to a public university in Namibia, paid for by a Naval ROTC scholarship. She studied Criminal Justice with the understanding that upon graduation, she would attend Officer Candidate School and serve in the fleet. Annika never got there. In her freshman year, an unreported misdemeanor for unlawful racing surfaced and brought everything crashing down. Annika was expelled from the university and suspended from the public university system. The Naval scholarship evaporated along with any chance of officer candidate school. The Navy had no interest in her, racing full time would bring her back under the thumb of gangs, and even though her mother remained supportive, Annika could not return to living at home for her shame.

Still, in her own way, Annika’s mother represented an avenue: the Alliance Marines. Unlike the Navy, the marines would still accept her. Officer candidate school was out of the question on account of the racing charge, but she could still enlist. With few choices, Annika returned home for a heartfelt goodbye to her mother, even an omni-call to Andries, before she shipped out to Camp Pendleton for training.

Of course, the Alliance Marines is no place for fairy tale resolutions. If Annika thought that life at home was full of rules, boot camp was a hundred times more so. More than a few times, Annika wondered if she had made a huge mistake in joining up. She was not the only one wondering that, though. Annika and her fellow trainees banded together and held their course, surviving boot camp to stand ready as marines. Annika might have gone on to serve in mechanized infantry or in a vehicle crew, if not for the intervention of one General Brendan Seong, commandant of Camp Pendleton.

During that raid on Soot Springs all those years ago, Seong, who Annika had all but forgotten, had remembered her tipoff. It had helped his career. He had kept it to himself, impressed with the teen  and believing she deserved peace, but when his old comrade, Marieta Coetzee, had called him up with the news of Annika’s enlistment, he remembered. Seong had quietly monitored Annika’s training, read through the details of her misdemeanor in Windhoek, and pulled the old files of the gang she had raced for in Soot Springs.

It was Seong who had Annika assigned to the Alliance Corsairs. He thought of his decision as partly a favor to Marieta, keeping her daughter off the frontlines, but that wasn’t the full truth. Annika’s surviving amongst hardened mercenaries and gangsters, growing up in the Terminus Systems, and having the wherewithal to arrange an escape, not to mention her piloting skills, all convinced the general that Annika would serve best in Terminus outreach. And she would need to keep her wits. It was by no means a combat-free posting.

Luckily for Annika, the general’s hunch proved true. After boot camp and flight school, Annika took her place among the Corsairs. It was the perfect assignment for her, meeting the lawless Terminus Systems as an equal, not a child. Annika had found her place, interacting with colonists, the friendly and the violent, visiting far flung settlements, some of which smacked of Soot Springs. Piloting was its own reward. Combat gave a thrill she likened to racing. And she did find time to race every once in awhile. Occasionally, Annika’s skill helped ingratiate her with less inhibited settlements and criminals. Annika was happy and planned to make the marines her career.

Drastically changing galactic geopolitics disrupted that plan. As the Alliance balanced new allegiances and factions, the Corsair program was drawn down. Having served her initial four-year enlistment term, Annika was honorably discharged. She arrived back home in Windhoek with little more idea of where she was going in life than she had four years prior. The reunion with her mother and Andries was a good one. Her brother was travelling around the galaxy as an event manager. She had not seen either of them much during her time abroad, but sitting at home, she was wasting away. She had to take long drives over the savanna just to clear her head and wonder where her life was going. The news on ANN did not exactly comfort her. Annika thought she had enlisted to make the galaxy a safer place.

As her brother watched Annika try not to mope for a week, he decided to give her some advice. He didn’t know how their mother would react to his idea, so he had bided his time. Seeing Annika the way she was, though, he had to tell her. Andries’ firm had dealt with RIFT, and he knew what his sister could do.