About

Andromeda Mikael, Mika, has been a "problem child" for a long time. As a kid she was the one who would catch scorpions in matchboxes and try to keep them as pets, bring a pocketful of dirt and worms into the freshly cleaned house, and yell and slam the door when she was told she had to do her chores before going out with friends. When she hit 16, her parents decided to send her to bootcamp in a last ditch attempt to 'straighten out' a noisy, ill mannered daughter with no respect for authority. While bootcamp gave her a healthy respect for her CO and the military, it didn't seem to do much else. The Academy cycled her through the usual career line: bootcamp, a streamlined two year education course, and then graduation straight into a training position under a military officer. The war she'll be serving in she's only heard spoken of in whispered conversations when she was a child and in derogatory "motivation" yelled at her as she slogged through bootcamp, but she's ready to serve her nation alongside her bootcamp bunk buddy, Academy roommate, and partner in crime Sativus.

Nearing the end of her two year education course at age 19 and brimming with knowledge of her nation, military operations, and basic mathematical skills, she feels ready to take on everything. All graduates are assigned to a mentor based on where their skills would be best put to use, and Mika and Sati eagerly await their designations. To Mika's dismay, she's assigned to research and to work under Lamont, the head researcher and fort librarian of the library shared jointly by the Fort and Academy. For the past two years she's broken nearly every library rule and etiquette, leading to a record number of oustings and attempts at banning which didn't take. Lamont had said he would be glad to see her graduate and be shipped straight to the front lines with infantry, and spend the next 20 years muddying her uniform in a trench. This fate instead would be going to Sati, who was assigned to leave the next morning for one of the minor encampents. Losing her friend, she has to make do with the assignment she has and show she has what it takes to be a researcher worthy of Lamont's respect.

Change of Assignment

Nine years later with the war pressing on, researchers are called to move to the camps to assist active infantry. The war has changed from an unending backdrop to front and center of her life, and she and Lamont are shipped out. She's moved up the ranks as a researcher and ends up stationed at the same encampment as Sati, now a staff sergeant. The old friends reconnect and begin to develop a more complex relationship that hedges between romantic, sexual, and platonic - but before Mika has the chance to start to reexamine her feelings and interest in a romantic relationship (something she never thought she would want), Lamont disappears.

His sudden death is discovered soon after, and Mika can't help but be wary of the circumstances. Particularly since Lamont had been getting jumpier in the last few years of their working relationship, and how Lamont had pulled her aside a year or two ago to tell her to watch herself and be careful of what she does and who she speaks to. She finds that in the quick and uncaring investigation done of his death that his journals and all personal affects were destroyed. Later as she packs for the camp to move to a more strategic area she finds the inside of her duffel bag slightly torn, and after some fiddling, a sewn over pocket containing Lamont's personal research journals.

After realizing they're in code of Lamont's creation, she begins to dedicate her extra time towards decoding them in secret. Meanwhile she has to juggle her responsibilites as now one of the only researchers of the camp, and her burgeoning (and confusing) relationship with Sati. However as the arduous process of decoding continues, she's becoming more and more uneasy with the questions she's beginning to ask herself of what the war is about, and what she and her best friend turned lover swore their lives to.

Etc . . .

Through the full events of the planned story, Mika has to confront death and her own personal grief head-on, and she struggles with it immensely. She already had a history of overindulging in alcohol, and this ends up spiraling into a full-blown alcohol dependency. She also experiments with drugs and other substances, seeking a way out from the grief that begins to consume her.

Relationships

Sativus [ Friend ]

After sharing a bunk in bootcamp and being assigned to be roommates while they were in the academy, they became study partners and eventually close friends. After three years spent together thick as thieves, they graduated and were assigned to different divisions. They stuck together for a long time and had an on and off friends with benefits relationship and Mika would consider Sati to be the closest relationship she's ever had in her life.

Lamont [ Mentor ]

In charge of the library connected to the fort-connected satellite academy that Mika and Sati attended, they know each other well. Mika was a nuisance in the library, always bringing food and drinks and turning books in late and being too loud. When she becomes a trainee, he is assigned as her mentor. Over their training and work together, they developed a closer bond.