Val Yeager

*Combat veteran and test pilot.*

###### Description:

Valentine Yeager is a 40-ish veteran pilot. Stranded on Prote after a malfunction with an experimental spike drive tossed him into the planet.

Valentine is an adventure-seeking thrill jockey. He’ll happily put his life on the line for a better chance of success. He has a record of disregarding his own safety to save his allies, once using his ejection system to push his disabled frigate into the path of a boarding ship (and launching his crew to safety) and scuttling his vessel, but getting himself captured in the process.

His stint on Prote has been hard on him, he’s taken up some self-destructive habits, and his formerly cheerful demeanour has been roughened.

###### Bio:

Commander Valentine VorYeager. Colony Multistellar, formerly Saru Imperial Navy. Retired.

Looks like I’ve got all the time in the world to write something down. Maybe this’ll help keep me from going completely insane on this forsaken ball of shit they call a planet.

Where I came from, there was never any question what I would be when I came of age. Most folk have plenty of choices. They can invent. They can grow food. Build machines. The Vor have a more rigid path. A bloodied path.

We are warriors. Bred in the high mountains, irradiated plains, earthquake-shattered wastes that once stretched over the vast face of Saru. Powerful empires broke themselves on our slopes, many of our cities were obliterated by their atomics. But with their corpses they left a steady stream of technology. Every enemy who came to us had enemies of their own, and they left us the gift of many allies of convenience.

Saru is now a peaceful place, technology has made the Vor obsolete. We still hold political power, vast wealth, and special positions in the military, but soon the people will realize that they no longer need our protection. The sooner they learn this the better we will be, Emperor Maiko tells us, and I could not agree more with His Imperial Majesty. The Vor have become greedy, narrow-minded fools. We should be guardians, not aristocrats.

My generation’s blood is what finally finished the endless wars. I joined the Imperial Navy at 18. Graduated from the Naval Academy two years later and thrown onto the front lines. Fifteen years of dogfights, skirmishes, raids and pitched battles above countless worlds, facing a rotating lineup of goons from half the universe away.

I got my first medal on my first real flight. I suppose they need to reward you for taking shrapnel, makes you look forward to getting blown up later. I’ve lost count of how many I’m supposed to have now. [note to self: count medals when possible] A steady stream of colourful bits of pot metal found their way to my chest, promotions handed out every few years.

[note to self: should write some of my combat reports in here. need to figure out if any of it is classified first. pretty sure I’m not allowed to write some stuff about the times I got captured. I’ll write to Miles when I’m out of here, he’ll clear it up.]

My combat experience, and to no small extent my experience in surviving ships disintegrating around me, made me a perfect candidate for Colony Multistellar once the wars ended. They set up shop on Saru a few years before I retired, and started snapping up decorated pilots as fast as they could. My honourable discharge came in the same envelope as the job offer. The Lord Admiral Kosigan had recommended me himself. I still owe that brilliant son of a bitch my life a few times over, though I suppose he owes me his as well. I hope the old goat is still alive when I get out of here.

Experimental flight testing was a good gig. Kept my blood roaring. In some ways it was more dangerous than combat. The computers would scream when a missile was coming to say hello, but an experimental engine will ruin your day without warning. Which brings me to Prote. Somewhat literally. [not to self: Check with CM brass to see if they mind me writing down what happened. They might not like me to spread what actually happened, maybe they’ll want to make it my fault somehow. Hopefully not. I liked that job.]

Entering the atmosphere wasn’t much fun. The Quark was little more than an ejection pod strapped to a spike drive, and the incident [see above note] had damaged a few of the reaction thrusters, and shielding was damaged. Took everything I had to keep the egg cooking on the tiny bit of physical shielding that remained. It wasn’t designed to enter without the powered shielding, the physical shield was little more than a measure to meet requirements.I lost the landing engines, and I didn’t want to trust the shoots which had still worse protection from re-entry. At this point, for only the second time in my career, I had to eject from my ejection pod, and experience I would not recommend.

The landing was as rough as the first time I tried it, and I lost my long-distance comms gear with the bod. I staggered my way to the nearest cesspit, something like the old broken slums back home, called Tin Town by the locals. I sold a scrap shop a trip out to show them the wreckage of the quark and pod. The locals don’t generally take to me at all. It’s strange. I’ve always thought myself to be a likeable man. As best I can tell, they seem to assume that I’m one of the rich, high-tech overlords that live off these peoples’ backs.

[note to self: Need to figure out what the inter planetary treaties are like regarding events on Prote whose legality may have been questionable. I’ll write more about my adventures once I figure that out.]

This place is like a window into what would have happened to Saru over the last century, if the Vor hadn’t held out. If we hadn’t left the incursions broken on the landscape, and chased the survivors off with their own weapons.

I don’t like it here. I need a ship.