The Kusari Exiles (Ronin) Recruitment

[Kiith]

Name: Kaori Yamamoto

Place of Origin: Ketagawa, Planet Kyushu

Status During the Bretonian War: Pilot of the Kusari Naval Forces, stationed with the 35th „Meiji“ reconaissance squadron

Any Kusari Affiliations: Large farmer family living on Kyushu, applicant has had no contact with them recently

Biographical Information:

Kaori has been born as the first child of two farmers living near a smaller city on Planet Kyushu. Soon the young girl was introduced to the profession of their parents, as harvesting rice and some few other crops was the major income of the family. So she spent a larger part of her childhood out on the fields, and soon brothers and sisters who were born into this world joined her.
And so Kaori's early years passed by, telling a not so exciting story that could belong to many other farmer offsprings. But as time went by, the family grew and Kaori got older, she felt the need to leave farm and family behind, as, out there, a world infinitely greater than the rural areas of Kyushu waited. Also, the political developments of the time were not unnoticed – tensions building up between Bretonia and Kusari, and it seemed as if the leaders had set course for war already. With Kyushu being a world close to the soon-to-be war zone, there was a realistic probability that the fight could come to her, if she would not come to the fight. Those and other reasons did their part in convincing Kaori to leave her family, and her homeworld. As she was the oldest child, and a woman too, there of course was some discussion: Her parents' plan for her was rather to take over the farm when they would not be able to take care of it anymore, but not to head out into the world to become a warrior of the emperor. During the discourses, both parties discussed trough several nights, and one or two vases have been destroyed. But in the end, none of this mattered, as Kaori took the initiative, used her authority as oldest offspring to have her siblings back her, and left with nothing but a short goodbye. For the parents, there was nothing but to accept that her daughter would soon be part of the storm that was coming.

Soon after enlisting for the Naval Forces and finishing the basic training, the war with Bretonia finally broke out, and the freshly trained Kaori was assigned to serve on the Nagasaki, together with a mix of young as well as experienced pilots who were to form the new 35th reconaissance squadron. During her time at the frontline she gathered friends as well as experience as the pilots headed out for field reconaissance duties, special missions or just as the occasional counter attack of the Bretonian forces mad an alert launch necessary. It was certainly often a dangerous and hard time, but Kaori mostly experienced it as a good one, alongside her comrades, even sometimes after a mission there was one less spot occupied at the ship's bar.
And then, the real hell broke loose.

When the new Gallic threat turned up and the majority of the Imperial forces were withdrawn from the battlefield and the Emperor himself as well as the few assets remaining in Bretonia and the Taus were essentially cut off there was a time when those rests of the fleet were like a chicken without a head. Fighters had been shot down because they just did not receive clear orders from flight control, ships stranded in no man's land because of the lack of fuel supply. And Kaori? Well, she and three others were simply lost after they retourned from trying to scout a path for the fleet trough the Taus, just to find that the Nagasaki had left its position without anybody notifying the pilots. In the chaos, it was hard for the pilots to even create a plan so they knew what to do. For some time, they roamed the systems, taking supplies from the wreckages of former comrades. Two of Kaori's wingmen were shot down in the void of Tau-31, as a Gallic patrol surprised them as they pumped H-fuel from a badly damaged Chimaera into their tanks. Kaori and the other survivor then took up the fight against the enemy patrol though being outnumbered, just because they did not know what else to do – they were low on fuel as well as oxygen, and they hadn't had something to eat in three days. The fight went on for a while, leading the participants through the ice clouds of the system, until a poorly executed evasive maneuver made Kaori's fighter hit one of the spiky ice blocks. For a moment, Kaori lost all control over the vessel, which started to drift around as if it already was shot down. That was what might have saved her life at the expense of another, as the Gallic pilots – presumably low on nerves and willing to finish the battle – set their focus for the other Chimaera, quickly flying away from her ship. While she managed to restart the flight computer, a quick system check showed most functions, including the weapons, were not operational. And she certainly could keep pace with the little fur ball of ships around his comrade, and so she limped away. Without a plan, without company and without the resources to get any of both.

Somehow, with a lot of luck and scavenging, Kaori actually managed to get to the Freeport in Tau 37, deciding to hide there for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. As the call to arms from the Emperor himself, over three or four corners of course, reached her one evening in the station's bar, it was clear that she would use the chance to get back to the Imperial fleet, as it was clear that hiding under the veil of the Zoners could not be what she wanted to do for the rest of her life, and as there were certainly some issues of the past to solve.

Skills and Training: The applicant graduated from the Imperial Flight school prior to the Breto-Kusarian war, and gathered flight and combat experience during the conflict. During her time of service she gained expertise in using sensor systems of all kind as well as practise in the use of electronic warfare.

S.K.Y.P.E. Protocols Identification: delta_403

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Squished bigly ~Champ - Thanks, you're a champ.
"What's the word for when it feels inside your heart that everything in the world is all right?"