Davra Andraste (born 417 IE) was a resistance fighter during the Laral family occupation of Amargosa and, later, a noted Naval officer. Her parents were both of Kenyan descent and natives of Metis.
Early Life
Davra Andraste was born on Laral Occupation in 417. Her father, Samuel Andraste, actually carried her through most of the pregnancy as Davra’s mother worked in dangerous conditions as a space engineer. Sometime around her fifth birthday, they moved to Bromdar, a completely urbanized planet. Samuel served in the Border Guard on Bromdar’s Hypergate network while his wife worked in orbital engineering, occasionally working on the surface when needed. At some point prior to Davra’s fourteenth birthday, her mother died. In some tellings, Davra gave a painful blood burn as the cause of death. Other times, she said her mother died in an industrial accident, falling to her death. As a result, Samuel left the service and accepted a position over Amargosa as its port master.
During the first few months, Davra visited Lowell Academy in Lansdorp, the capital of Amargosa. There, she met Youth Cadet Eric Yuwono for the first time. She also met Colonel Diana Jovann. Both would play a large part in her time in the resistance.
Gelt invasion of Amargosa
On the night the Gelt invaded Amargosa, Davra’s father put her in a lifepod, urging her to find authorities if they had to eject her. The pod did eject, and Davra watched as the orbital station exploded with her father aboard.
The pod splashed down in Lake Anaronda, west of the city of Lansdorp. Eric Yuwono recognized her when his activated unit came to investigate. His lieutenant assigned him to escort her to Gene Cernan Spaceport for evacuation. They survived a bombing attack on the way into the city and joined two other fleeing teenagers, Connor Duffy and Ellie Nardino. Nardino had been trying to get to a Projection Drive ship waiting with her father aboard. However, the transport exploded when a Gelt fighter bombed it. Before they could do anything, a fusion device exploded at the city center. Yuwono rushed them into the subway system beneath the spaceport. Davra, barefoot and clad only in pajamas, led them through the tunnel and out of the city. The next day, at a rail station, they survived an attack by insurgents loyal to Lucius Kray.
Rescued by Lieutenant Straker in one of two overland hovercraft, Davra, Duffy, Nardino, and Yuwono left to take the still-functional Transcontinental Maglev. Headed for the Misty Mountains, they picked up an abandoned Gelt battle wagon along the way. Upon their arrival at the Edoras Transit Center beneath the mining village of Edoras, they encountered more of Kray’s insurgents. Yuwono was shot while Marine Corps stationed in the village came down to retrieve them, killing the attackers.
Davra met Diana Jovann once more and became part of her resistance force. Jovann assigned her, Duffy, and Ellie Nardino to run the maglev as a unit led by Straker to retrieve stray resistance and refugees. The maglev came under attack first by insurgents, then Gelt. Davra managed to disable some of the insurgents, but Straker died by alien fire. However, Suicide and JT Austin arrived and killed off the Gelt attackers.
Suicide, aka “Cui Yun,” took command. However, the mission came to a halt when the maglev reached a destroyed bridge. Nearby villagers helped salvage local vehicles and formulate a plan to seize the Founders' Mine from Lucius Kray. Coordinating with Jovann in the Misty Mountains and Quan at Walden, they entered the mine from its eastern flank. Davra rode with Suicide and performed well under fire. She also took Rey Yuwono, Eric’s father, prisoner. The mine seized, Jovann informed her she would be the “resident brain” due to her intelligence.
In captivity by Laral Umish
Three months later, the resistance made contact with survivors aboard the fallen Ban Ki-moon. Disobeying orders to stay at the Mine, Davra joined JT Austin and Eric Yuwono in their attempt to join the mission anyway. After a scolding by Suicide, she and the three integrated into the unit, which included several Marines, defecting insurgents, and Colonial Guard, Duffy and Nardino, and five former Polygamy Wars criminals led by Tyler Wat. Along the way, they picked up a female Gelt prisoner whom Duffy dubbed Tishla. Davra spent time with her and scolded JT for his hostility toward her. She also searched in vain for Ellie Nardino, carried off by lycanths and assumed killed. When two of Wat’s men attempted to rape Trixie, Davra killed one named Cannon. Both Davra and the surviving Goshenite, Hauser, were tried before the unit for a Section 11 execution. Both were found guilty, but Davra did not receive a death sentence. Suicide immediately shot Hauser in the head.
Under wartime rules, Suicide had to exile Davra. She gave her a bat wagon and supplies and told her to head back to either Edoras or the Founders’ Mine. Instead, she made for Lansdorp, hoping to find a way around the city and possibly get back in with the unit. Instead, she was taken prisoner and carried up to the Gelt colony transport over the ruined city.
On board, Laral Umish made a domestic pet of her and gifted her to his wife, Laral Peteesh. Davra found the woman annoying and shrill. However, she also witnessed Umish sexually abusing Peteesh. The pair soon bonded.
Some of the human slaves on board had formed a resistance. One of them had fashioned a suicide vest and planned to detonate it when the Sovereign of the Realm arrived. Davra decided to use Peteesh to escape and promised her fair treatment among humans. They barely escaped and flew a livestock transport to Edoras.
The liberation of Amargosa
Upon her return to the Founders’ Mine, she was found guilty of desertion but given time served, defined as her captivity aboard the Gelt colony transport, as a sentence. Jovann then took her, Peteesh, and Rey Yuwono to Riverside to negotiate a truce with Lucius Kray. While passing through Arcanum, another destroyed city, they learned of the Northern Resistance, an independent resistance force comprised of humans, disaffected Gelt both civilian and Warrior, and apparently trained or sapient lycanths. Rumors also hinted of a teenaged girl as its leader. Major Hu, the human garrison commander, sent a unit north to link up with them.
In Riverside, Davra reunited with Eric Yuwono, horrified he had joined Kray’s insurgents. Kray injected her with the Gelt suicide toxin in a demonstration. She also protested Kray’s taking Peteesh prisoner and using the toxin to weaponize her against Laral Farad, the new Gelt governor of Amargosa.
Kray captured her and injected her with incendiary nanites. She escaped, linked up with Eric Yuwono, and stumbled onto the Goshenite Riley, who had discovered a fusion device and planned to detonate it. The pair ran off, eventually finding Wat and fled less than an hour before the city was destroyed by the blast, which killed Laral Farad.
However, between mechs from the Northern Resistance and Kray’s insurgents, she ran for a Navy shuttle that had landed. Aboard was Trixie, who revealed herself to be Tishla, First Citizen of Hanar, escorted by Fleet Admiral Tran Vu. She briefed them on the resistance while they explained the liberation. With insurgents approaching, Davra ran off as a decoy and was taken prisoner.
Kray used her as a hostage in his standoff with the Northern Resistance, led, to Davra’s surprise, by Ellie Nardino, aka “Chapaan.” As JT, Duffy, and Mitsuko Yamato, part of the liberation force, infiltrated from the rear and freeing Eric Yuwono, Davra squirmed free, then attacked Kray. His weapon discharged, wounding him. Ellie ordered the sapient lycanths with her to eat Kray alive.
Because of her proximity to the fusion blast and the incendiary nanites fused into her cells, she had to undergo Thulian rejuvenation treatment at a new clinic under construction on Amargosa. She went with Eric Yuwono, also suffering the effects of radiation poisoning.
Naval career
After her recovery from permanent rejuvenation, Davra attended Officer Training School on Tian, graduating with a commission as full lieutenant. She first served aboard the CNV Challenger with Connor Duffy. She transferred to the CNV Anna Khirovsky, where she found herself under the de facto command of Jez Salamacis, Acting President Leitman’s then-chief of staff. As she saw Salamacis’s usurpation of command as illegal, she assisted Suicide in neutralizing and arresting her, sneaking Suicide aboard and shooting Salamacis when she killed the Khirovsky‘s captain, Aiken Hiller.
A glowing report of her performance by now-Captain Chen earned her a transfer back to the Challenger to train with Linda Havak, now captain of the warp ship. This led to promotion to lieutenant commander and a posting on the CNV Valles Marineris as a special assistant to Admiral Eileen Burke, regional commander for Tian. While there, she served in the operation to rescue Suicide and neutralize Gerard Kurz, the radical Cubist leader on Aphrodite in 434. A year later, she rescued her partner, Eric Yuwono, on Hosh, where he had disrupted a Juno operation to steal and illegally resell resurrection and rejuvention technology.
Personal Life
Father and mother: Davra had always been close to her father, partly because he had more time to give her and partly from giving birth to her. While she spoke fondly of her mother, she showed more emotion toward her father.
Though born on Metis, where she learned to talk, she spent most of her childhood on Bromdar and developed a flat, almost nasally accent from that world. At Amargosa, she reverted to her Metisian accent, described as lilting, almost Celtic in sound. When angry or excited, however, her Bromdarian accent came through.
Her father’s sacrifice to save her life haunted Davra. She bonded with the other Children of Amargosa over becoming virtual orphans. Off all the group, she missed her father the most.
Eric Yuwono: Davra first met Eric Yuwono on a planetside visit to Lowell Academy in Lansdorp. He admittedly had a crush on her at first sight. Upon her return during the invasion, he made it his mission to protect her, only to find her taking the lead in the maglev tunnel, on the maglev, and after he was wounded.
He admitted his true feelings during their escape from Riverside. He had been a mole for Colonel Jovann and blew his cover to prevent Laral Farad from killing her. After the liberation, they went together to the temporary clinic built for Thulian rejuvenation. Because of the exaggerated appetites the treatment caused, they began a discreet intimate relationship that developed into a full relationship.
Eventually, Yuwono asked her to marry her and repeated offers to carry their eventual child. Davra balked first because of her job, then because his job might require him to stray to maintain cover. After Yuwono nearly died on a mission to Hosh, she gave him an ultimatum: Leave the field as a Cybercommand agent or leave her. He went into Analysis for Cybercommand.
Connor Duffy: Davra met Connor Duffy at Gene Cernan Spaceport moments before Lansdorp’s destruction. She found him to be smart but goofy. After the war, the pair was assigned together aboard the CNV Challenger, the first warp-capable warship. Occasionally, they would work together on subsequent missions, such as the expedition to arrest or kill Gerard Kurz on Aphrodite in 434.
Admiral Burke: Admiral Eileen Burke made Davra a protégé after Amargosa’s liberation. She sponsored Davra’s enrollment in Officer Training School, considering her time in the resistance as basic training. She also assigned her to the Challenger in an effort to train the first generation of officers to work with warp technology.
Eventually, she named Davra “Special Assistant to the Regional Commander” and promoted her to lieutenant commander. Half-jokingly, the admiral told Davra she would be a captain of a starship by 25.
Bio Capsule:
Species: Human
Birth Year: 417 IE
Birth Place: Metis
Homeworld: Tian (after 430)
Service: Compact Navy, commissioned full lieutenant after Officer Training School, lieutenant commander as of 434 IE.
Notable Postings:
CNV Challenger
CNV Anna Khirovsky
CNV Valles Marineris
Family:
Mother: Maiden name Andraste, died prior to 428 IE on Bromdar
Father: Samuel Andraste, died 429 IE in invasion of Amargosa
Partner: Eric Yuwono
Appearances:
The Children of Amargosa, Second Wave, Second Wave, Second Wave, Suicide Run, Checkmate, Royal Orders, Another Way to Die