Yukari Morita (Rocket Girls)

NAME:
Yukari Morita

ALIAS:
N/A

UNIVERSE:
Rocket Girls

AGE:
17

GENDER:
Female

ETHNICITY:
Japanese

APPEARANCE:



Height: 154cm
Weight: 37kg
Build: Very light
Hair Color and Style: Brown, shoulder length
Eye Color: Green
Skin (or other) Tone: Light
Common Clothing and Accessories: Casual clothes or SSA Spacesuit

FACTION:
Solomon Space Association

POSITION:
Astronaut

The "Real You"
PERSONALITY:
One of Yukari’s defining personality traits is the fact that she is rather quick tempered. In fact, the SSA’s flight surgeon once remarked that she is at her best when she is “flaming mad.” She can also be rather stubborn (it once took three base security guards to forcibly remove her from an area when she caused a ruckus) though for some reason she usually ends up going along with her employer’s crazy ideas in spite of this fact.

LIKES:
• Chinese Food
• Shopping
• Her job (this one is arguably a bit of a love/hate one)


DISLIKES:
• Not knowing what happened to her dad
• Being pitied because of her dad
• Her mother’s lack of concern about things most parents would be concerned about
• Her heavily restricted diet
• Satsuki’s medical examinations
• Seeing people using chopsticks to eat pringles


SKILLS:
• Spacecraft piloting
• Good grasp of mathematics
• Pistol shooting

FEARS:
• Satsuki’s experiments
• Motoko’s chemistry
• Jungle Survival Training


Where'd you come from?
RELATIVES
Hiroko Morita (Mother): Alive
Hiroshi Morita (Father): Alive
Matsuri Morita (Half-sister): Alive

HISTORY

Yukari’s parents were Hiroko Morita, an architect, and Hiroshi Morita, a computer sales engineer. Her father disappeared during her parent’s honeymoon on Guadalcanal. Her mother was very successful and had little trouble providing for Yukari on her own, but Yukari found not knowing what happened to her father very difficult and often wondered what had happened to him. After hearing about a Japanese enclave located on a small island in the Solomons she managed to convince her mother to let her take a trip there to look for her missing father. The Japanese enclave turned out to be a rocket base used by the Solomon Space Association, a Japanese company attempting to corner a market in low cost manned spaceflight. However they were having trouble with their new rockets exploding during testing and –in an effort to achieve a success before their funding was cut off –were attempting to lighten their payload enough to get a person into orbit using a weaker but well proven rocket design. This plan required their astronaut –a relatively large man named Yasukawa- to lose a large portion of his body weight, a fact that he wasn’t keen on. Already at his limit due to the sadistic tendencies of the company’s flight surgeon, Yasukawa stole a vehicle and fled the base, nearly running down the newly arrived Yukari in the process. The series of events that followed led to the Yukari coming into contact with the SSA’s director, who quickly noticed how small she was and realised that the solution to the payload weight problem was not to try to get Yasukawa to lose weight, but to get a smaller, lighter astronaut who could fit in a smaller, lighter capsule. He immediately offered Yukari help in finding her father in exchange for doing a job “so easy even a monkey could do it.” And so Yukari –after some protest upon hearing what the job actually entailed- began an intensive crash course in astronaut training. She nearly quit after a survival exercise in the jungle brought her into contact with her missing dad (who had apparently joined one of the local tribes) and her only slightly younger half-sister Matsuri. However her dad managed to fast talk her into agreeing to go into space at least once. Matsuri helped Yukari find her way back to the base and was promptly recruited as Yukari’s backup due to sharing her elder sister’s small stature.

After several months of training the SSA managed to successfully launch Yukari into orbit. However her capsule ended up off course and had its heat shield struck by a piece of debris, requiring the SSA to go to great lengths to bring her back alive. Despite this she flew several more missions before an unplanned re-entry brought her splashing down in the pond of the elite private school she had once attended. This got her into trouble with the school authorities although it also allowed her to set into motion the recruitment of Akane Miura, a brilliant but physically weak girl who would become the SSA’s mission specialist. Yukari and Akane would play a key role in helping NASA save a malfunctioning probe named Orpheus, though they two of them barely survived the mission. At present Yukari seems to have decided to stick with her job at the SSA in spite of how frequently her missions go bad in dangerous ways. The frequency of odd occurrences and close calls during her missions appears to be causing her to give some credence to some Taliho superstitutions that Matsuri introduced her to.

SAMPLE

I can’t believe this is happening to me again, Yukari thought to herself as the capsule she and Akane were in plummeted towards an unplanned landing somewhere in the South Pacific. This was the third time she’d ended up making a re-entry that was way off course. She was starting to think she should have taken Matsuri’s advice and eaten durians to keep the evil spirits away. She’s thought just having her younger half-sister perform an exorcism of the capsule prior to launch would be enough.

If she’d had the chance, she would have asked Matsuri if there was anything she could do to help with the current situation, but the red-hot plasma of re-entry was preventing her from being able to get in contact with MissionControl in the Solomons. She’d just have to trust that her younger half sister was doing everything in her power to help her.
Beside her, Akane had already passed out from the G-Forces of re-entry, but Yukari herself was made of sterner stuff. She held on until the gravity let up then –when she had reached the appropriate altitude- deployed the capsule’s parachute and checked a periscope to get an idea of where they would be landing.

Below them was a vast expanse of blue sea and in the distance an island. That pleased Yukari –they were way off their planned splashdown site, so it might take a while for a recovery unit to arrive. Waiting on an island would be infinitely preferable to floating at sea for an extended period of time.

Akane stirred in her seat and opened her eyes.

“Where are we?” she asked groggily. Yukari shrugged.

“I’m not that sure. We’re way off our splashdown point. But there’s an island in the distance.”
“Can I see?” Akane asked. Yukari let her take a look.

“Wow, it’s really pretty… hey… what’s that?” Akane’s eyes widened. “Are they shooting?”

Yukari’s face paled.

“Let me see that.”

She looked through the periscope again. They were now much closer to the island, and she could make out men....
No, not men. Arm Slaves. Yukari new very little about them and couldn’t identify the models, but she could see them manoeuvering on the ground below. Maneuvering and shooting. She felt her stomach drop out of her.

Are we dropping into the middle of a war zone? she wondered. It appeared they were. Not only that, but they were heading for the dead centre of the combat area.

Oh no, she thought. Technically the astronaut’s passports she and Akane carried were supposed to protect their human rights no matter where in the world they landed, but she wasn’t sure if that applied to secret warzones that no one knew existed.

Yukari’s mind was racing.

“Akane,” she told her companion. “As soon as we land, we grab our survival gear, get out of the capsule, and run. I don’t want to make contact with anyone until we have a chance to figure out who they are.”

Akane nodded.

“Right.”

By now the capsule was getting very close to the ground. Yukari braced herself, and immediately after feeling the impact of landing she undid her safety straps, grabbed her survival kit, and opened the capsule’s hatch.

Outside several of the Arm Slaves had ceased firing and were moving towards them. Fortunately there was a stretch of jungle nearby. Yukari grabbed Akane’s hand.

“C’mon!” she ordered as she took off at a run. For once she was very glad for the SSA’s skintight spacesuits. They might be embarrassing to wear, but they protected their wearers with far less mass and bulk than conventional suits which needed to be pressurised. They weren’t the most comfortable thing ever, but at least you could move naturally in one. Which meant you could run.

Loud words began to issue from the speakers on the group of Arm Slaves as they closed in on the pair of fleeing astronauts. They sounded like they were in English, but Yukari couldn’t’ decipher them when her concentration was entirely dedicated to running. They might not be hostile, but Yukari didn’t want to stop to find out.

A yelp from behind her caused Yukari to spin around. Akane seemed to have tripped and fallen. She began to run back towards her mission specialist, but the other girl waved her off.

“I think I twisted my ankle!” she yelled. “Get out of here!”

Yukari hesitated for a moment, then, realising there was nothing she could do, she yelled “I’ll be back for you!” and took off for the edge of the jungle. She reached it in a matter of seconds and literally threw herself into the bushes. That proved to be something of a mistake as she crashed through them and tumbled down a hill, various rocks and plants tearing at her ridiculously expensive spacesuit as she rolled. When she came to rest, she was at the bottom of a steep embankment. She listened for a few moments, but there was little sign of pursuit.

What the hell am I supposed to do now? she wondered. She barely had anything to work with, just the contents of her survival kit.

Her survival kit…
 
Unzipping the small bag, Yukari caught a glimpse of the Colt M1911A1 pistol Kuroso had given her during her first survival training session back on Maltide. Taking out the large calibre weapon and chambering a round, an idea began to form in Yukari’s mind.

I’ll have to find a way to rescue Akane, she decided. Then, once I’ve done that I’ll have to find a way off this island.

She didn’t know how she would do it. She didn’t know if she could expect help. But she wasn’t going to let a bunch of trigger happy idiots get the better of her. After all, she’d trained under the biggest trigger happy idiot of them all –Security Chief Kuroso. And she’s also taken survival lessons from Matsuri. The jungle held no fears for her –well, relatively few fears compared to the average person at least. That had to count for something.

I’m smarter than they are, she reasoned, then grinned as she began to contemplate her insane plan.

“I’m going to be your worst nightmare,” she declared, paraphrasing a line from an old action movie she’d seen. Whoever these guys were, they were going to find out just how much trouble one little girl could cause!