Player: Villain, aka HeavyVillain
Campaign: The Limmen•Stellar Contract (tabletop), currently playing the As-yet Unnamed Campaign (over at Augmentos)
Background
Early Years
Catost Harper was born in a heavily developed Crivinian colony, but his parents were Ascorvien, workers for a major corporation- granted a lucrative contract should they agree to assist in the colonisation of a planet on the borders. The middle brother of three, he’s about forty but claims not to keep track of his birthdays.
Catost was a sickly and callow youth, very tall but slightly built and prone to injury. Following a horrendous car accident his deceased father’s corporate insurance granted him a generous settlement which he used to purchase augmentation packages. Many years and many successful Vigil contracts later, Catost has gone from a civilian-level bion to a battle-grade cyborg.
His name is pronounced "Kate-ost", something he’s never lived down. "Creak" seemed a natural call sign to anyone who’s heard the cyborg’s noisome servos firsthand.
The Limmen•Stellar Contract
On his tenth year as a Vigilante, Creak was offered a position as part of a disparate team of talented operatives (is there any other?) who’d been asked to defend a convoy belonging to the Limmen•Stellar supercorporation.
The usual- fight off raiders, reach the destination on time, don’t open it up and steal anything. It sounded easy, and it was at first.
But it transpired that Catost’s eldest brother, Hadlest Harper, had been hired by a rival firm to take the team out and redirect the convoy. At some point Hadlest had heard of Catost’s augmentation, and had decided that he’d benefit from similar implants- dubbing himself "Blam", something which his brother found to be painfully derivative.
Hadlest, however, was far more ruthless than his younger brother- over the years he’d accepted illegal (and highly paid) contracts and had accumulated bionic implants of far greater potency. Every encounter with Hadlest ended in the team facing defeat or withdrawal, forcing them to constantly flee and take evasive action from Hadlest and his strike team- who were ultimately superfluous to requirements, considering their commander’s abilities.
Eventually, finally landing on the right planet and preparing to unload, Creak and his team were forced into a final showdown with Hadlest’s squad. His underlings were defeated in moments, but it took a great deal of luck- and the expenditure of ion and EM munitions that the team had been hoarding for just such an occasion- to finally bring Hadlest himself down. Creak refused to kill his vanquished sibling, and his leader respected his wishes.
Of course, that’s when it transpired that the automated convoy ship had been empty all along. It had been robbed before it had even left the station, and Hadlest had merely been there to distract attention away from the fact that, on inspection, the cargo drone would prove to be completely empty.
Fortunately, the group still got paid; their leader had a way with words, and quite rightly pointed out that their contract was still in a position to be honoured.
Still, Creak wasn’t happy… his brother had, in essence, won.
