Freyja Marten (FM)

Freyja Marten (who commonly goes by her flight call FM) is a character in the Skyward series and the main character in her own novella *Sunreach*. FM was one of the original member of the Skyward flight crew, and one of only two people to have officially finished flight training.

## Personality

FM chose her callsign since she was thrilled to find that the initials of her name was the name of a radio broadcasting that could share music with the entire world at all times. FM was raised to not buy into the DDF ideals, and takes up every opportunity she can to be rebellious against it. She has taken it upon herself to be known as a Disputer, or member of a movement against the DDF for becoming to much of a dictatorship, and praising people for the wrong things. She often complains about how her flight crew is too aggressive, and is quick to identify any hypocrisy. FM guiltily helps the DDF fight off the Krell and encouraging their aggressive militaristic ways.

FM wears her emotions on her sleeve, is rather perceptive, and good at reading others. She is highly confident and unafraid to speak her mind, nor is she opposed to skirting or breaking the rules. This confidence, along with her refined and poised manner, makes FM appear older than the rest of her flight. She can be a perfectionist and dislikes her own shortcomings, even when she is doing better than her classmates. FM is more conservative when presented with risky choices, choosing to take the safer option. She may do this as a statement against the strong risk taking attitude promoted by the DDF.

## Appearance

FM is tall and slender, measuring up to be 185 CM (6 FT, 1 IN) tall. As a result of her rich family she is known to wear nice clothing, managing to look fashionable in even a flight jumpsuit. When she is off flight duty she can be found wearing blouses and skirts. FM has blond hair she keeps short, being unable to grow it to her shoulders without it bothering her. She has Northern European Heritage hence she was named after the Norse goddess of love and beauty Freyja.

## Attributes and Abilities

FM is a talented pilot, and is very knowledgeable when it comes to starships. She is known to be highly skilled in Light-Lance related maneuvers. She often takes the Krell with an opposing force using destructors, although the weapons aren't well within her skill set. FM is very precise in the cockpit due to her over-cautiousness

## History

### Skyward

FM comes from one of the lower caves and a highly-merited family. After being accepted into flight school, FM was placed in Skyward Flight under the tutelage of Cobb. She was roomed with the other female members of her flight, with the exception of Spensa, who was denied accommodation.

Unlike many of the other members of Skyward Flight, FM successfully launched her Poco during the first lesson run by Cobb. When the lesson was interrupted by a Krell attack, FM, along with the rest of Skyward Flight, were ordered to take to the sky and line up close to the battle to deceive the Krell into thinking there were more pilots ready to join the conflict. When the Krell began to chase Jorgen, FM expressed her surprise that they wouldn't attack the weakest members of the team first.

FM played it safe during the ring game when Skyward Flight practiced their light-lancing. She stuck to the easiest rings in the first two rounds and avoided the rings entirely on the final round, regardless of their difficulty.

A few days later, Skyward Flight was once again sent into battle against the Krell, this time fighting alongside full pilots. FM survived the battle, however, lost two of her other flightmates: Bim and Morningtide.

FM approached Spensa the day after the battle to thank her for what she had said about Bim and Morningtide's death. As the two left the classroom for the day, FM introduced Spensa to the Disputer movement and explained how and why they opposed the Defiant leadership.

When the shipyard began falling, the first time Skyward Flight had flown since Morningtide and Bim's deaths, FM, Arturo, Hurl, and Jorgen, ended up cut off from the other members of the Flight after they were attacked by Krell. Eventually the members of the Flight were able to regroup and joined Riptide Flight as they returned back to base.

The next week, FM, along with Kimmalyn and Hurl, devised a plan to sneak Spensa into their dormitory for the evening. Following the day's lesson, FM and Kimmalyn retired to their bunks before dinner, claiming to be unwell. Kimmalyn lead Spensa to their room, meeting up with FM near the door and smuggled Spensa inside where she found blankets piled as a makeshift bed and food waiting for her. As the girls waited for Hurl to return, FM rambled about the militaristic Defiant culture, it's negative effects on their society, as well as the DDF's treatment of Spensa. She explained her motivations for why she had agreed to go to flight school when signed up by her parents and how she hoped it would give her a platform she could use to push for change.

After a later training session, Skyward Flight was called to action to help defend against a Krell attack. The flight took up position near one of Alta's AA guns away from the main fight to wait as backup. After the flight was given the green light to engage, FM tried to fall in behind Kimmalyn to try provide assistance when she was swarmed by Krell. Despite her best efforts, the Krell kept locking onto Kimmalyn even after they were driven away, leading to FM picking up a tail of her own, however, before long it disengaged to instead target Spensa.

After the death of Hurl, FM, along with the other remaining members of Skyward Flight, were given a weeks leave in order to recover. During their week of leave, FM attempted to find Spensa, even asking Cobb if he knew the location of her cave, likely in an attempt to get the other girl to hangout with the members of Skyward Flight. After meeting up with Nedd, Arturo, and Kimmalyn, FM returned to the barrack's at Kimmalyn's request to retrieve a necklace the other girl had accidentally left behind when she quit the DDF. On her way, FM ran into Spensa and convinced the other girl to come with her to the restaurant where their flightmates had decided to meet.

Once the pair had arrived, FM left Spensa with the group while she went to order the other girl food and a drink, knowing that Spensa had eaten not much more than rat for the last few months. Although the meal was paid for by Arturo, FM studiously continued to bring Spensa food, in order to treat her friend who had not been able to access real meals since before flight school began. After returning the necklace she retrieved to Kimmalyn, FM and her friends spoke of Hurl, remembering their friend and reminiscing about their time in flight school. When Arturo's girlfriend, Bryn, went to the bathroom, the members of Skyward Flight talked briefly about the strangeness of Krell tactics and the DDF's hesitancy to talk about these things.

Before the end of their temporary break, FM and Arturo went to see a League game when they were given tickets by Nedd. Shortly after the end of Skyward Flight's medical leave, FM gained Spensa as a roommate, as the other woman had been given permission to live and take meals at Alta Base.

Several days later, FM and Spensa joined the other two cadet flights, Inkwell and Firestorm, in the dining hall and discussed the possibility of the three cadet teams being joined into one. FM dismissed the idea of joining the scouts when it was suggested, as she believed it to be too much of the obvious choice.

The week before graduation, the remaining members of Skyward Flight -- FM, Spensa, and Jorgen -- joined with Nightmare Flight during a routine debris tagging exercise. Thoroughly unimpressed by the dismissive attitude of some of Nightmare Flight's pilots, FM and Spensa gave a demonstration of their light-lancing skills after Bog and Tunestone attempted to condescendingly belittle the cadet's skills. During the mission, FM spotted the second half of the shipyard as it began descending from orbit. The group was set upon by Krell, who had been scouting the shipyard, and took up a defensive position, providing aid to Nightmare Flight members when they were swarmed by enemy ships. During the battle, FM was able to destroy at least one Krell ship by brute force, without needing to engage her IMP.

The next week, FM and Jorgen graduated from flight school, along with six other cadets. As the ceremony ended, the newly promoted pilots joined the rest of the Defiant fleet to go and defend the falling shipyard. FM joined the scouts for this mission, who were tasked with driving the Krell bomber away from the ship, even if it meant sacrificing Alta Base. When the lifebuster increased its speed, FM and the scouts were ordered to engage the Krell ship. They successfully destroyed the bomber, but at a great cost, with only three scouts, including FM, surviving the encounter. FM and the other two remaining scouts, joined with Riptide Flight and departed for Alta Base. Once reaching the battle near Alta, FM and Jorgen were ordered by Spensa to take down the bomber's shield, allowing Kimmalyn to detach the lifebuster from the enemy ship.

Following the battle, FM took up a specialized piloting role in the reformed Skyward Flight. She accompanied Spensa, Kimmalyn, and Sadie into battle against the Krell shortly before the arrival of the Superiority battleships.

### Sunreach

FM fought in a battle in which she Skyward was joined with Nightmare crew. In the dangerous battle, her friends Lizard had died. Four days after the battle, FM demanded an explanation from Jorgen and Nedd as for where they went. They explained with Cobb that Jorgen was a Cytonic and they were hunting the slugs that were key to the war being living hyperdrives. FM decided to help Rig and Jorgen to observe the Slugs and build a platform defense.

When FM was able to talk to the humanoid alien Alanik, who warns FM not to trust anyone in the Superiority who would only give them a false peace. Commander Joshua, Jorgen's mother, came and interrogated the alien leading her to not trust the DDF and used her Cytonic abilities to teleport away after telepathically giving Jorgen a message.

After the encounter, FM angrily goes to talk to Rig giving him information on their experiment where the slugs moved the box they were in with them when they teleported. FM asks Rig why he was so weird around her and he replies that he had been crushing on her. FM told him she didn't want to commit to a relationship but she didn't want their encounters to be awkward anymore.

Later, the trio continued to work with the slugs and decided that Jorgen should try to use his cytonic abilities to teleport by putting the slug I to FM's starfighter. Jorgen was able to teleport to the debris field, which in turn alerted the Superiority of what they were doing. FM and Jorgen got a call from Cobb that the Superiority was sending their biggest starship, which had had planet-killing weapons, to Detritus.

Cobb informed them that he wanted to put Rig in the cockpit with FM so he could use his knowledge on the field. FM showed Rig the music she could play on her transmitter.

When it looked like they were losing the world, Skyward flight fixed the debris that made a shield surrounding the planet and to their surprise, held up. Jorgen told FM that he saw the reflection of Spensa in his dashboard, and that she told him that she was in the nowhere, the place she goes when she uses her Cytonic abilities, and that it was supposed to be impossible to leave.

After finishing the battle, FM talked to Rig about the current situation and things that they are afraid of. The two of them start an experiment trying to see if they could get the slugs to teleport willingly.

Admiral Cobb was able to reach Cuna and Jorgen, after receiving the coordinates, tried teleporting to the admiral's location, taking FM and a few other members of Skyward flight with him.

Then they found themselves in front of a large rock in space inhabited by a giant beast with tentacles that decided to kill Jorgen, being able to tell he was Cytonic. Cuna had described this location as Sunreach, an abandoned research facility. While Jorgen was being attacked by the creature, his ship was ripped apart, and Jorgen was assumed to be dead.

FM was teleported to the Sunreach facility by Gill the slug.She found Jorgen there safe standing next to Cuna. The two of them informed Skyward of what had happened.

Jorgen explained that the only way to save Cuna was to sacrifice himself. FM, not liking that idea, tried something else. She had Jorgen send the slugs off to teleport the rest of Skyward close to them. FM then ordered the slugs to bring them home. They returned safely and Cobb scolded them for leaving behind their starships. FM decided that she didn't want to live for survival but just live in the moment.