Freelance
TravellerThis character was created for the TML Characterization Contest.
Ex-Scout Farquhar McPhar AA7A6A Age 24 2 terms KCr0
JoT-1, Mechanical-3, Pilot-1,
SMG
Obviously a comfortable child of the country club set, Farquhar McPhar is a strange cookie, which may be why he had so little help from the rest of his family when his uncle took him down to the draft board. His name went into the system and the Imperial Interstellar Scout Service had to deal with him for at least the next four years.
Eight years later and Farq is coming home! But first lets take a moment to review the young Mr. McPhar's youth, visit his two (yep two!) terms in the IISS, and look in on Uncle Larsen McPhar's preparations for the lads return.
Oh what a wonder, a beauty, the pudgy little baby was. Such hope and dreams as two parents, well situated in the world, could only dream of. The baby and toddler Farq was above average in almost every way. Oh, he caught the usual childhood stuff, but he was strong and well coordinated, smart and capable.
Once he left the family tutors for the social activity of the boarding
school McPhar's had attended for generations, everything fell apart. Oh for
the trials of the sweet dear parents of young Farq. The beastly child did,
how shall we say this, ruin the chances of any McPhar to attend that
exclusive campus of educational achievement in perpetuity. That by itself
would be bad but the scar is laid open at the next two fine institutions of
preparatory education as well. If the military
school that followed was any indication then little could ever be done to
educate the child.
No record, that is available to us, states clearly what happened between the 18 year old Farq and an un-named Baron's 14 year-old daughter but at the same time the 'polite' began to notice something amiss in the Baron's household Farq was entering an IISS training center.
Scout McPhar's first term didn't end well. In fact he had been reported missing, presumed dead, by his shipmates during a routine backwater charting run. As he tells it he came back to port on time but the ship had already gone. He spent the next seven years living alone at the hut and beacon of a rarely used class E starport among a population whose language he didn't know, and never learned.
Farq did have the primary education equivalency crystal and crystal player his uncle had given him. So he had something to do. After seven years living nearly alone like that a Far Trader drifted into system and IISS Scout McPhar was able to repair their damaged systems. In gratitude they lifted him out and delivered him to the nearest Scout base three weeks later.
The IISS thanked him profusely for his service, told him certainly he can keep the rusted but functional SMG he'd found and fixed on the backwater and loaded him aboard the next liner home.
Farquhar McPhar has the clothes that he is wearing and a change of clothes in a pull-tight laundry bag along with his discharge chit. In a moment starship security will hand him back his rusted SMG and dear young Farq will step out of the receiving area to meet good Uncle Larsen.
Oh, and what does uncle have planned? I'm afraid that is the subject of another story.