Travellers - Alex Borders - Personal Logs? - Free & Clear
Calen Cooper (Cal)
Race: Human
Gender: Male
Description: Slender, medium short, light muddy-brown hair. Very sharp dresser.
Age: 46 (Birthdate 70/1058)
Homeworld: Wildeman (Trojan Reach 2819) A fantastic place to be as far away from as possible
Short summary: Put bluntly, Cal is a thief. Highly amoral. Smart enough not to steal from teammates, but if he decides to move on, he's not above nicking a few things on his way out the door. He talks a lot about his past, but I would advise you to take it with a grain of salt; about 30-40% of it is probably true. Still, he's an entertaining rogue.
History
Childhood - 1058 to 1076: Wildeman is not really an awesome place to grow up. There’s NOTHING to do there. Cal started hanging out at the local garage, until the owner put him to work, trying to keep him out of trouble. He learned out to fix things, and also learned he could take the flyers for an extended “test drive”, so long as he had it back to the shop by 8am. And he plotted how he could get off world as soon as possible, and never look back.
Term 1 - 1076 to 1080: As soon as he turned 18, he stopped working under the counter for the shop, and started freelancing. He developed a reputation as an efficient repoman. This lasted until he scored a job repossessing a Ship’s Boat. Due to a recent shakeup at the shipyard, he realized he could alter the paperwork a bit, and the boat would disappear off the inventory, none the wiser. He promptly invested his savings in a Gauss Rifle, re-named the boat ‘Golden Ticket’, and skipped town before anyone realized what he’d done.
Term 2 - 1080 to 1084: He hired himself and the boat out for offworld transportation, and discovered he’d thrown his lot in with a pirate crew. A bit of creative license with his background, skill levels, age, and trustworthiness, and he signed on as an engineer’s mate. He also kept his eye out for any possible side hustles, and soon found himself in possession of a shipment of illegal pharmaceuticals (don’t ask how). Selling them proved to be extremely lucrative, and he promptly invested some of the profits into improving his kit with a quality Vacc Suit, and put the rest into ship shares. “Make the money work for you, not the other way around.”
Term 3 - 1084-1088: After a few years, he got itchy feet. Time to move on. He settled briefly on Arunsisiir, and found himself in position to again get creative with his background. He started working with the local criminal networks, and developed a reputation for skilled work with drones. Unfortunately, criminals are not the most trustworthy types, and he was forced to defend himself from his (temporary) allies, who, now that the job was done, figured to simplify the split of the take by reducing the number of crew to share it with. Well, the number of crew was still reduced, but it wasn’t Cal that ended up in the hospital, or the morgue, without his rightful share. And he continued to invest his take in local shipping concerns. One reliable contact he made was a fence named Amada Cerabu? who passed through the system regularly. Unfortunately, he disappeared; Cal figured it was time to move on.
Term 4 - 1088 to 1092: Figuring his luck would eventually run out, he started looking for a more permanent situation, and signed up with <LARGE PIRATE CREW/NETWORK> and discovered a talent as the inside man, always managing to be ‘just what the job needed’. He also discovered the wonders of cards - the beginning of a lifelong love affair. As his crew processed the ships they captured, he almost never took cash - instead, he would take a small ownership share in the ship. It was also during this time that he struck up a friendship with <ALLY>.
Term 5 - 1092 to 1096: Unfortunately, all good things come to an end (although it would be hard to characterize <LARGE PIRATE CREW/NETWORK> as a good thing). Thrown back on his own resources, he decided to bum around, and see what life offered. He pulled the occasional odd job, just to keep up expenses, but mostly just explored the sector, seeing what it offered. He did manage one really sweet score, a contract job stealing a load of implants. He traded his work for a custom implant, a heavily stealthed neural commlink. It’s always good to know what’s happening just a few moments before everyone else. While doing so, he met Eventually, he joined a new ship, this time as junior pilot.
While travelling back and forth in the Torpol and Wildeman clusters, Cal regularly encountered Commander Dawn, whom he had actually met briefly a few years previously as a Lieutenant. The Commander had recently taken an interest in games of chance, and Cal taught him that poker is a game of skill, and that skill is not reading the cards, but reading the players. In one memorable game, Cal bluffed 5 other players out of a thousand-credit pot with a pair of fours, having convinced the rest he was sitting on a straight flush.
Term 6 - 1096 to 1100: Unfortunately, his new ship was plagued with constant setbacks; it should have been named The Black Cat. One late shift, playing cards with the other crew, he spotted the dealer palming cards. When Cal called him on it, the kid pulled a knife! Cal quickly knocked him down, but his cry of, “Whatcha gonna do about it, grandpa?” stung, especially as Cal had been noticing that he had been slowing down lately. He’d also seen the looks the other crew flashed each other, and wisely figured that the kid had more allies than he did; it was time to move on again.
Term 7 - 1100 to 1104: Figuring that eventually his luck would run out, Cal decided the time had come to go straight; live on the right side of the law. He signed up with a small (legitimate) trading company, piloting a Free Trader. He then discovered a plan to steal the ship. Cal had no issues with piracy and theft, but it was such a stupid plan. He figured it was only his duty to teach them the error of their ways by stealing the ship himself, and leaving them framed for the job.
Skills:
Expert (3+): Pilot, Deception
Skilled (2+): Engineer (J-Drive), Persuade, Gun combat (slug), Melee (blade) Very combat averse, however; "Risk my neck? For what? That's a sucker's game. You don't make it to my age by playing those odds."
Trained: Electronics (remote ops), Mechanic, Flyer, Gambler, Streetwise, Recon, Stealth, Vacc Suit
