The Orion was old her crew knew how to take care of her. Her original captain was Ian Marcam, who used her for ore transport. Two plasma cannons and two torpedo tubes were retrofitted when Col. Patrick Marcam pressed her into service to support the invasion of Dona Salo. These modifications were retained as Dimrak’s business soon shifted from mining to supporting Independents. Ian left the Orion to manage the family’s office and Sean Marcam, himself a veteran of minor skirmishes throughout the galaxy, took over.
Alma Armstrong (nee Möthè) had been Sean’s second-in-command for many of those skirmishes and followed her friend to his new command. She acclimated herself to the status panel very easily.
Maxwell Armstrong joined the crew purely by chance. Short a pilot, Sean had been at the helm and responded to the distress signal of a short-range hauler stuck in a decaying orbit. Orion docked with Icarus and rescued her pilot & cargo. Max was smitten with Alma almost immediately but it took a while for her to realize she felt the same about him.
Shad Polazzi’s loyalty tended to be toward whoever paid the most but there’s a lot to be said for friendship. A mercenary’s mercenary, he’s never far from his modified Blaster rifle. He wasn’t always like this, though. Shad had once been a security officer on an Alliance world, until his unorthodox methods became too much of a liability.
By far the oldest of the crew, Tormus Praetormus was an enigma. Tor was Human by all accounts but bore tattoos not unlike what a Xavvian warrior priest would have worn in times past. He seemed to come from a world that was just starting to send populated vessels away from their solar system and took to the gunner’s chair like a fish to water.
Xikartaskoor, a Renallian of Thosti heritage, was the sole obviously non-Human member of the crew. Xi’s station was the other gunner’s chair but also helped out in Engineering from time to time. Her great strength being very useful for holding heavy objects while the mechanic repaired them.
The main person responsible for keeping the old girl in one piece was Kaitlin Rowe, also the most recent addition to the crew. Kate signed on when she fixed a problem that the previous mechanic couldn’t or wouldn’t; Sean put the incumbent off then and there. One night some time after signing up, she woke to an odd, faint noise that she took to be an engine problem. Only the noise didn’t originate there; she went through the engine room and tracked the noise to the other end of the ship, where she walked in on Xi pleasuring herself with her tail! Kate stammered some apologies and backed out, leaving Xi more amused than offended. Kate’s curiosity was piqued, though, so after everyone turned in the next night she made her way back to Xi’s quarters and inquired what else the Thosti could do with her tail.
“Anything, anywhere. No questions asked.” That’s the motto of the Orion. Sometimes Sean’s subordinates wished he would ask questions once in a while; this turned out to be one of those times.
Not long after Sean reunited with his father, the Orion was hired for a very lucrative cargo originating in the deepest recesses of the Far Arm, where hi-tech and lo-tech intermingled. Where it was not unusual to see security personnel keeping peace with an old Kazan pistol while astride an ethanol-burning motorcycle.
This “lucrative cargo” didn’t exist, it was a ruse designed to lead the Orion into a trap. Someone, somewhere, wanted one of the crew to have an “accident”. To that end, a rogue android with female features presently laid in wait for the Orion to make planetfall.