Alysha Forrest
Alysha Forrest is a military officer in the Alliance Fleet. Best known for her captaincy of the UAV Stardancer.
Physical Description
One of the Karaka'A, Alysha is about 6 feet in height, pleasant alto voice, with rain-gray fur and black straight hair to her shoulder-blades, with full lips and ice-pale blue eyes.[1] Her fur is fine enough, and her grey skin beneath it light enough, that her blushes are visible when bright enough.[2] Post-graduation from the Fleet Academe she wears a pair of ice-gold hoop earrings.[3] She has prosthetic claws made of breathnache, a clathrate usually found in starship hulls.[4]
Wears her long hair in braids wound around her head when wearing a helmet.[5]
Scar on her lower back (fur is growing in a different direction.) And another on her shoulder blade.
Pre-Service History
Alysha was born on Selnor to Selina and Talen Forrest. After her father's death, her mother--previously a singer and musician--ceased her previous work, instead taking poorly-paying jobs at seedy bars and neglecting her daughter. While at finishing school, Alysha dedicated herself to translating the Exodus Lullabies that her father had sung to her from Meridan to Universal. They moved from neighborhood to poorer neighborhood and ultimately began to regularly run out of food, while Alysha's mother brought home anonymous liaisons.[6][4]
Alysha left to apply to the Academe at Terracentrus and paid her way through the first year of school via an illegal career at the Phantasies nightclub, where she danced under the name "Steel."[7] She arranged for the escape of two other women at the club: the pre-teen Rispa[4] and Liset Line Insendere[8], who danced under the name Angel. She also enraged the club owner, Tiell, both by disrupting his operation and by attacking customers in self-defense and defense of her fellow dancers; in retaliation he had her declawed, and she had her claws replaced with breathnache.[4]
It was while working at the club, and arranging for care for her peers, that she first met Nathan and Laelkii Lifeweave, who provided her and others with critical medical care. After Nathan's untimely death, Alysha encouraged Laelkii to sign on as a Fleet cadet.[9]
Alysha's Academe career was one of significant ups and downs: flashes of brilliance, as observed by Mark West, combined with periods of significant problem due to her exhaustion and emotional strain.[8] Ultimately Matthew Brighthaven discovered her work at Phantasies, and purchased her time every night to permit her to sleep unmolested. The strain of lack of sleep caught up with Brighthaven, however, and at Forrest's encouragement, he entrusted her to Harroway Sloan, his second. However, Sloan was a member of the Anti-Human League, and abused Forrest while setting up a frame to bring down Brighthaven. Laelkii and her friend Alastar Virgil uncovered his plot and enabled Brighthaven to rescue Alysha and bring Sloan to justice.[1]
No longer strained by her emotionally and physically taxing work at Phantasies, Alysha excelled in her studies, added electives in military history, strategy, history, and language, as well as pilot experience in the Academe orbital station. She graduated and was assigned to the UAV Diamondwing, in tactical.[3]
Service History
- Ensign, ages 21-23, UAV Diamondwing
- Lieutenant, ages 23-26, UAV Sunchaser
- Commander, ages 26-29, UAV Blackice
- First Commander, ages 29-31, UAV Scattersky
- Captain, age 31-?, UAV Stardancer [10]
Ensign
Alysha Forrest was immediately assigned to the battlecruiser UAV Diamondwing, in part due to recommendations from Fleet Academe staff. When she was three months into her tenure there, she was selected by her superior officer Vera to serve as part of the honor guard for an observance of the anniversary of the induction of the Phoenix to the Alliance. While so doing, she met Terrell Shirrelberry in logistics. While undertaking this duty, she assisted Vera with an unforeseen problem, and was provided with another perspective on the question of Terran Military humans in Fleet.[2]
Alysha later attended the ensign training retreat on Quickwater Reserve[11]; at that point, she had been an ensign for almost a year[12]. There, she met Taylitha Basil, who became a lifelong ally and friend, and first encountered Mike Beringwaite. During a disastrous canoe trip at the end of the retreat, she was thrown from a broken canoe into rocks and broke three ribs, but was rescued by the courage and quick thinking of Taylitha.[13].
Lieutenant
After three years on the UAV Diamondwing, Alysha was promoted to lieutenant and transferred to another Battlecruiser, the UAV Songlance, where she was assigned to the role of liaison to the alien crew.[14].
Alysha assumed this role and spent a great deal of time with the Naysha, especially Sar, and shepherding the Flitzbe. She ultimately spent more time in the Paradox Class Battlecruiser#Water Environment than her predecessor Shandreis.[14].
She was an active participant in the lieutenants' skullbash, getting to know crew such as Jae'en, Valery, and Serra FindaWrench.[15]. She also developed close relationships with the Platies and Naysha, especially Sar.[14]
Beringwaite assigned his human "bad eggs"/"Old and Proud" to the engineering problem in the water environment, to the dismay and disgust of Wyn. When Beringwaite and Alysha finally spoke frankly about it, Beringwaite revealed why he was protecting them: Fayid needed the job to support his kid sister and grandmother, but suffered panic attacks in space; Solomon had used the military to escape poverty and prison, but would backslide if thrown out; and though Friedman was a genuine incompetent, he was enmeshed with the others. Alysha tried again to convince him to attend the skullbash, without success.[16]
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden ambush attack on the ship. Recognizing that one of the pirates' goals would be to cripple the ship in order to prevent it from fleeing, they moved to the aquatic navigation section to bait the pirates into the machine room. Forrest then flooded the machine room, opened the airlock between the machine room and the currentlock area and set a timer for the currentlock to open before strapping herself in. The enormous pressure of the currentlock sucked the pirates through, crushing them and shredding them through the filtration system, which Beringwaite and Forrest were protected from by the safety harnesses. One pirate managed to slash at Forrest with a knife, missing her but cutting her safety harness; Beringwaite grabbed her and held her until the currentlock closed, saving her life. After that experience, they were able to have an honest conversation that brought them to an accord.[16]
Beringwaite eventually was willing to join the skullbash, despite it being painfully awkward. He also answered a summons from Hood along with Forrest. Sar expressed Hood's thanks for their work, and the Naysha and Platies gave him his 'aquatic name:' Strong Friend, for his strength and determination in holding fast to Forrest and keeping her from dying.[17]
Her interactions with Mike Beringwaite on this assignment caused her to seriously consider why many humans were bitter about the Pelted.[16]
First Commander
When Alysha was serving on the UAV Scattersky, the ship received a distress signal from the UAV Alabama, a freighter, that had suffered a navigational failure and gotten caught in the gravity well of a gas giant. As the ship was too large to tow, it had to be evacuated, and she led the evacuation. When doing so, she learned from the ship's headmaster, Dan Hawkins, that there was another previously-unknown set of people on the ship: refugees from the Chatcaava, hidden in cryogenic suspension in the ship's cargo areas. Against the orders of Captain Maurbery, Alysha refused to stop searching for them, and with the assistance of the special senses of the ship's Platy crew, successfully rescued twelve hundred refugees.[5]
Trivia
- Has a very high Stanley-Kerrileu Xenophilia Average (SKXA) score.[14]
- Doesn't wear dresses (at least not as a cadet).[3]
- Reads several different publications
- The Eagle's Flight, an unofficial Fleet news-zine; though it is one of many, she considers it the best. Has been known to especially keep an eye out for mentions of Matthew Brighthaven.[2][17]
- The Journal of War History, which was recommended to her by an instructor at Fleet Academe[18]
- Anthropology journals[17]
- Military journals; she noticed that in a particular batch of journals "with only three exceptions, [the authors] were all human"[18]
- In between the events of Alysha's Fall and Sword of the Alliance, when they were spread across different ship assignments, Alysha stayed in contact with Laelkii, Taylitha, and Alastar.[2] Alysha was amused to observe that she was tailoring her communication with all of them: not giving Laelkii an excuse to worry about her health, not giving Taylitha bait to talk about Mike Beringwaite, and telling Alastar things bluntly (but without expecting a quick response due to Alastar's long-range assignment).[17]
- has a small esper Sensitivity, rarely wakes and when it does, she uses it only to confirm what training and long years closely observing the behavior of those around her told her (This is the Bayer scale of Sensitivity) [19]
Related Fiction
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Alysha's Fall, "Steel"
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "Leadership Lessons"
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Alysha's Fall, "The Piece that Makes the Difference"
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Alysha's Fall, "A Cold and Gentle Dark"
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "In the Line of Duty"
- ↑ Alysha's Fall, "Impetus"
- ↑ Alysha's Fall, "Two Uniforms"
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Alysha's Fall, "Blood Money"
- ↑ Alysha's Fall, "Inescapable Dawn"
- ↑ Either Side of the Strand
- ↑ Second, chapter 1
- ↑ Second, chapter 3
- ↑ Second, chapter 9
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Who is Willing, chapter 1
- ↑ Who is Willing, chapter 2
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Who is Willing, chapter 7
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 Who is Willing, chapter 8
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Who is Willing, chapter 3
- ↑ Either Side of the Strand, Chapter 14