Vasquith de Havilland
General
Vasquith de Havilland, or 'Dev' to his friends, considers himself to be a Drifter. Six feet tall, Total blue eyes and fiery orange hair, he nevertheless blends into a crowd, unknown and incognito. He was born and raised on Earth, and has a correspondingly tall and well built body. He currently travels the galaxy aboard his starship, Vagabond, an Asp Explorer
History
A regular childhood with regular middle class parents, Vasquith's was a regular youth: sports, then computers, girls then mischief. He showed a talent for mechanics and engineering, constantly tweaking his 3152 Cadillac Sprinter ground car. This, combined with an interest of leaving his home planet of Earth, allowed Vasquith to enrol as a field engineer in the Federal Army Corps. A talent with both a welder and a weapon, he quickly found himself within the almost mythical 301st Marines Company. Ten years of service, too many scars and too many hard decisions turned Vasquith from a happy go lucky youth into a hardened, almost cynical adult. Gone were the wisecracks and laughter: The new objective was to get through, one day at a time.
When his time was up, Vasquith jumped ship immediately and returned to Earth to complete his Bachelor of Engineering, started before he had left for the army. His engineering field experience became invaluable and he finished with first class honours. The Alliance of Independent States, now military secure, were looking for bright minds to lead them into the technological edge, beyond what the beaucracy of the Federation, or the slaves of the Empire, could produce. Vasquith got the job immediately and climbed the ladder until he was a project manager, working on exciting, state of the art jobs at the AAAI shipyards.
The Cold Sea beckons
In the end though, the call of the galaxy whispered to Vasquith. He became continually unsettled, until he could no longer contain his wanderlust: He wanted to see the rest of the galaxy, and not as a soldier, before he was too old to fully appreciate it. He resigned immediately, during a critical phase of the Nano Plasma Accelerator research, and using every last dollar he had, brought a rusted out Adder.
His engineering abilities allowed him to fix up and maintain the ship himself, and even improve the engines and weapons significantly. Although Mary Jane was never a pretty ship, she was functional and always got the job done, ironically, the opposite of her name sake.
Several months into his career as a pilot, de Havilland was attacked by a group of pirates. He escaped into hyperspace, but the Mary Jane exceeded her stress limits and buckled many of her hull plates. de Havilland found a junked Adder on a frontier colony and was in the process of fixing the Mary Jane when the coloney was attacked by a pirate clan and the Mary Jane was stolen. de Havilland, initially against helping the colonists - he had risked his neck for others all his army life and just wanted to look after himself in stellar sojourn - but realised he needed their help to get the Mary Jane back. Calling on his old skills as a Marine, de Havilland was able to fight through the pirate base and free his ship.
Vasquith tried his hand at many careers in space, although he took care to never tread close to line of the law. He had done many things during his time at the army that haunted him at night, and he knew he had to redeem himself by being as good a person as he could. He earnt enough trading to buy a more respectable ship, an Asp Explorer, and kit it out with an Iron-Ass. Now all he wanted to do was explore the ragged fringe of humanities expansion into space.
Two to Tango
He had rigged the Vagabond to work with only himself as crew, but the system had deficiencies, most notably in combat. He finally decided to take on a co-pilot.
He found Michael Veruz in some two-bit dump that claimed to be an Imperial Colony on the southern frontier. The young man had spunk and attitude, something Vasquith once had himself. Michael's youthful exuberance was infectious, and so he was hired. The two made a good team, but protective as he was, Vasquith rarely allowed Michael to pilot, focusing him on weapons and ancilliary controls.
They kept a low profile as they explored the wilderness of space, clocking up numerous kills. As a two pilot ship, the Galactic Federation of Pilots split the kills between them. Vasquith was up to this third 'Right on Commander' message, while Veruz was on one, both of them a ranking of Competent, when a routine trip through an empty system turned out to be something completely different...
The Return of the Azure Sunset
They stumbled upon a derelict Long Range Cruiser. but it was not any LRC. It was the Azure Sunset. What followed was a series of events which left the Vagabond damaged and abandoned, and the two men tagging along with the most infamous criminal in history: Norman Mosser. Together with Mossers sidekick, Sam, they reboarded the Azure Sunset to find it occupied by the leader of the Spartacus Brotherhood. A power struggle ensued with Norman the victor. The Federation and Imperial Navies were notified of where the Azure Sunset was laying low for repairs and together they surrounded and attacked the wounded ship.
