Akash Hatosh
Quote:
"What's ze best parfum a mademoiseille can wahr? Loneliness, of course."
Race: Feline Mekpurr
Sex: As much as he can get
Age: 42 years (Terran Standard)
Height: 190cm (6'3")
Weight: 110kg (242 lbs.)
Hair: Black with gray/silver on the face, hands and feet
Eyes: Gray
Known Aliases: None
Contents
Origins and Early Life
Akash Hatosh was born on Meshrigal, a Mekpurr lost colony far outside the Terran sector. His culture developed from its pursuit of science what could be considered a religion, a system of belief, focused around technology and research methodology. From his early days in the creche, his technical aptitudes were noted by the priests from the local temple, and he was drawn into the church at a young age. As a page, he learned technical schematics and basic scientific principles. When he was sixteen, he became an initiate. Normally, his studies would have intensified and he would have focused one of his areas of study (most likely power systems), but Akash had always been very sociable, almost unnervingly so for the tastes of the dour priests and techmonks. They solved this problem by sending young Akash into the nearby city as the temple's envoy. There, from the chapel at the spaceport, he would deal with off-worlders who wished to conduct business with the church. This generally involved merchants purchasing high tech goods, but also occasionally involved service work, and Akash was able to further his studies by aiding many a ship's tech with troublesome repairs. His helpful nature earned him much praise from outsiders and this boost in public relations garnered him some favor within the church. They were fine with him being a social butterfly, so long as he wasn't pestering the priests.
Conflicts of Ideology
Tossing Akash out of the confines of the temple before his initiate training was complete had some unforeseen consequences. Akash had not been completely indoctrinated in the ways of the church, and as such, was more open to the dangerous ideas that outsiders can bring. One day, a deep-space survey scout landed to offload a small cargo of highly sought-after fish and exotic liquors, which fetched them a fair price. Akash could tell, just by the sound of the vessel's drives, that the ship was long overdue for an overhaul. Knowing that they would have some extra funds after their trading was concluded, he decided to try and sell them on the idea of springing for some repairs while they were here.
Akash was directed to see the ship's chief science officer, Shala Hass, who was pulling double duty as their chief engineer. Upon stepping into the engine room, Akash was dumbfounded. Dressed in a grubby utility coverall with various grease stains marring her beige fur was the first female Mekpurr he had seen that was not born on Meshrigal. The uniformity of his own people, thanks to their in vitro cloning methods, caused Meshrigalians a tendency to ignore the looks of their own people. When confronted with a girl that looked nothing like any other girl he had ever seen...he was not prepared for how it made him feel.
Akash fumbled through his sales pitch until Shala stopped him out of sheer pity. She agreed that their ship could use the repairs, especially since they had lost their chief engineer to hostile wildlife during their last planetary survey, and she was doing a poor job filling in for him. Akash almost stumbled over his own tongue offering his assistance, which--he hoped--might involve more opportunity to be around this friendly young lady.
They spent a great deal of time working together. The overhaul would take some time, the crew had earned plenty of leave that they were contractually obligated to take, and the captain wanted to pore over local star charts and such, so the survey vessel's layover was extended, much to Akash's delight. He took this opportunity to teach as much as he could to Shala, as she would likely have to carry on as the chief engineer for a while until they found a replacement. Shala--being the curious sort--had all sorts of questions about Akash and his people, as well. She seemed troubled by the notion that the locals firmly believed in a program of cloning and saw reproduction outside of laboratory conditions as blasphemy. The young man hovering around her every day was a perfect, handsome and eager prospect who would easily satisfy her rapidly increasing desires, but because of his religion, he just didn't seem interested in her in that way. Toward the end of their layover, Shala purchased some of the exotic liquor they had imported here, and shared it with Akash in celebration of completing repairs on the ship. Akash had never imbibed before, but he found it difficult to say no to Shala, especially since she would be leaving soon. They soon became sort of confessional as the liquor loosened their inhibitions. Akash admitted that he had enjoyed working with her, and had pushed so hard for them to stay largely because of her. Shala was touched. It was the closest admission of a crush that she had been able to eke out of the boy. She told him that the priesthood's technological attempts at bolstering the low birth rate of his people could easily be bypassed with some good old-fashioned healthy sexual relations. "Pity that they have taught you all that it's a sin and repressed it out of you," she had said.
Akash was smitten by Shala, and was both repulsed and aroused by her blasphemous ideas. Seeing that he didn't know how to respond, she took him in her arms and said, "Here, let me show you..." What followed was heresy unfit for print on Meshrigal. Akash felt full of a satisfaction he had never known existed, and also full of shame, not just for the commission of the act but because he had enjoyed it so much. He knew he would be forever stained by his experience. He was profanity incarnate. He knew he would not be able to stay on Meshrigal with this sacrilegious knowledge in his head. He asked Shala if he could stay with her and her crew, possibly filling in for the chief engineer role.
While she had enjoyed sharing a bunk with the young man, she didn't want to promote a relationship, which was where she thought this was going. Shala regrettably informed him that, while it was permissible for survey teams to carry small cargoes, the regs did not allow them to take on passengers, and anyone filling a crew slot had to be a member of the Explorers Corps. With no other options to remain with her, Akash was forced to watch her depart the next day, but she had left something behind...her poisonous thoughts and the desire within him that grew from them.
Doubt, Perversion and Heresy
After Shala left, Akash tried to put her out of his mind, to try to center his thoughts once more. He had much work to catch up on that he had neglected while he had been cloying to Shala. Shala and her silky fur. Shala and her playful nature. Shala and her wicked thoughts. Shala, Shala, Shala! He couldn't escape the memory of her in anything he did. He finally had to resort to attacking his memory of her. He began by calling into question her assertion that his people were going about reproduction all wrong. How dare she question the ways of his people? The trap was sprung in his own mind as soon as he posed the question. Looking back, he would admit that it was the fault of the scientific method, really. How could he discount her assertion with nothing to compare to the control? Maybe there was a better way. Over the next year, he made his plans, talked to people in the city under the guise of church duties, and then put his plan into action.
Over the course of the next year, the capitol city of Meshrigal faced a new epidemic. Weak-willed and lonely strumpets were showing up in droves to medical clinics only to find that they had contracted an acute case of pregnancy. Hundreds of females were afflicted. Since medical technology on Meshrigal did not have to deal with obstetrics, they had no safe, reliable method to abort these abomination from coming to term, and after digging through dustier parts of their moral code, discovered that such an act was in violation of their ethics, anyway. To complicate matters, because the father was most likely a clone with hundreds of genetically identical brothers, they would not be able to rapidly narrow down who the culprit was.
Akash saw the success of his experiment, and knew he was in over his head. He had never imagined Shala could have been so right! He also knew that he could not stop. After being repressed for so long and tasting the release that only intercourse can bring, he knew he could never embrace celibacy again. And, if he didn't leave Meshrigal, it would only be a matter of time before he was caught and punished for his crimes which could topple the beliefs of his entire culture. Plus, the deceptions that he regularly had to employ to find a willing partner were uncomfortably creepy; his methods would even flirt with the borderline of acceptance in wildly libertine cultures, but he was conducting an experiment, dammit!
The priesthood set up a sting, and eventually identified Akash as the source of the "Demon Seed." He had to beat a hasty retreat off-world, which involved drugging one of his genetically identical creche-brothers and setting him up on an outgoing vessel as a decoy while he stowed away unseen on another. Once off Meshrigal, he was safe.
Or So He Thought
Over the next twenty years, Akash made his way toward the Terran sector, spreading his genetic gifts around as liberally and as often as he could manage. Even by Mekpurr standards outside of Meshrigal, he was considered handsome, and his demeanor was quite different from most Mekpurr males, which turned out to be rather appealing to many Mekpurr women (and even some Avatars he had encountered). Over time--in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, of course--he even broadened his horizons, finding a few willing human partners, and even a randy canine bitch from time to time.
While spending time in the Mercantile League starsector on Carthage V, Akash was the target of an assassination attempt. Not being fond of violence (and knowing that there were plenty of people on the world he may have angered because of his...experiments), Akash hired a team of licensed League bodyguards. The next attempt nearly incapacitated his security detail, but not before they managed to neutralize and capture the assassin, a dark-furred Mekpurr who looked disturbingly like their primary! From interrogating the assassin, Akash learned that he was none other than one of his hundreds of bastard children from Meshrigal. He and all his brothers and and sisters had been taken in by the priesthood and they formed a new chapter. Their entire purpose was to hunt down their father and return him to Meshrigal. There, he would face justice in the heart of the Kiln as penance for the sin of their birth. Only through this act of contrition would the line of freeborn be able to show proper loyalty and be accepted among their people.
Akash was faced with a dilemma. His continued existence served to hold the normal, happy lives of hundreds of young men and women hostage. In a utilitarian sense, it would behoove him to turn himself in so that they, his children, could be accepted and move on with their lives. However, he was not too keen on that idea because it was the pigheaded edicts of the church itself that forced these young ones into this mindset. He had changed. So could they. Akash left Carthage as soon as he could, with instructions to his bodyguards to do what they would with the assassin. Even though it would have been within Akash's rights to execute the assassin, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
On the Prowl
Akash made haste to the Terran sector, where it would be easier for him to blend in and get lost. His pursuers were persistent, though, and their efforts necessitated he keep on the move and not set down roots. This made it difficult for him to find steady work, and his own proclivities made it difficult for him to stay aboard a large ship for too long, as he inevitably caused some friction between the women and men on board.
After finding himself in hot water one more time, and languishing in the lock-up of a backwater world that he couldn't remember the name of, he was approached by a canine and his lovely human handler, a woman of dark hair and eyes almost hidden under the shadow of a breezy hijab. They made him an offer of employment on a ship. The offer was difficult to refuse. He didn't want to refuse it at all, not if this woman, Irkalla Serras, would be on the Bedeviled Coterie, as well, as she had hinted. In exchange for signing on with the crew, they would get him sprung from jail, and he would have a second chance. At the very least, he would have a mobile home of sorts to stay one step ahead of the troubles that followed him. He gladly accepted, and it was only after he finished signing with a flourish that Irkalla informed him, matter-of-factly, that she had no interest in cross-species relations, and that he should only talk to her if it involved legitimate ship-board issues. Furthermore, if he chose to defy her wishes, she would introduce him to her stunner as often as she needed to get the point across.
Akash agreed, but secretly believes that he can change her mind, and sees her as sort of a challenge.
Appearance and Personality
Akash is slightly above average height for a Mekpurr, standing 190cm tall. While by no means a mountain of muscle, he is lean and fit, as any good lover should be, and weighs in at about 110kg. His fur is short, dense and soft. It is black all over his body, but he has a blend of silver and grey on his face, hands and feet that appears much lighter in color when illuminated properly. When not forced to wear utility clothing for work duties, he favors tastefully flamboyant attire such as silk dress shirts, baggy shalwar trousers, sarongs and even yukata (without juban, of course). His preferred method of dress is just a pair of black underwear, if he can get away with it, which is something of an irony; he tends to spend an inordinate amount of his available money on clothes. And impressing the ladies, of course.
Akash doesn't get possessive in regards to the women he is with. They can come and go as they please; who is he to stop them? Likewise, he seems to have little regard for the relationship status of others, and will not be deterred by knowing that a female is in a committed relationship or that another male has his heart set on pursuing a particular female. This has caused him plenty of problems in the past, and one would think Akash might learn from his mistakes, but it is difficult for sex offenders to change their ways. Fortunately for Akash, his brand of "sex offense" is--for the most part--socially acceptable, though he is not above taking advantage of the inebriated (but coherent), the emotionally vulnerable or the easily impressed and naive.
Akash learned Terran Common English largely by watching recorded episodes of a long-running serial entertainment program. This program contained a character that was a stereotypical "Casanova" type that he took a liking to. As such, Akash has a tendency to model his speech style after the character. This means that he talks in a blend of old terran Latin American and French accents, with a rough (and often innacurate) patois of French, Italian and Spanish words thrown in for flavor. He sounds like a cross between Nestor Carbonell as "Bat Manuel" from The Tick and Lambert Wilson as "The Merovingian" from The Matrix series.
Chasing girls isn't the only thing Akash is passionate about. He does genuinely enjoy tinkering on machines and with electronics, and is abhorred when mechanical systems are neglected and in disrepair. He enjoys talking about science and research just as much as chatting up a girl, and if he can talk about science and research with a girl, so much the better! He prefers to think of life as a game and tries to find what enjoyment he can from it, only becoming sullen when things get too serious.
Akash tends to avoid violence ("I am a lover, not a fighter!" he often exclaims), but over the years has learned to defend himself a bit, often from jealous husbands and boyfriends. He has cultivated a knowledge of unarmed hand-to-hand fighting that is more graceful than simple brawling, but is relatively useless with any melee weapon more exotic than a knife. He has little use for guns or energy weapons, though he does know how to use a stunner; he allows this concession as it is non-lethal by itself, and the sheer gadgetry involved in its operation fascinates him.
