Ferrash

Ferrash is a free agent working for The Protectorate. He was born to an empyrric bloodline, but did not inherit a connection.

Biography

Birth

Ferrash was born via the Protectorate's breeding programme to Ayt Mannae, a Keeper, and Ellit Progaeryon, a member of Munab's mechanised division.
Click to show spoilers for The Empyrean

Upon meeting his father for the first time, Ferrash examined his genetic identifier and realised he was not, as he claimed to be, a Prog. He was unsanctioned, with no trace of an empyrric bloodline, but had doctored his identification to show otherwise. Not only did this lower the chances that he would have been selected for the breeding programme, but his being unsanctioned meant he would have likely been indentured to and used up by The Keepers before he ever reached the age he did.

Growing up in the Munabi Wilds

Ferrash never inherited his mother's connection to The Empyrean (hence his surname being Progmannae – Progeny of the Mannae – rather than Mannae), but his mother clung to the belief that a connection could be forced. Forced connections had also always been a priority of the Keepers – if they could create empyrrics rather than rely on chance and the slim possibility of breeding them, they would have an insurmountable edge over The Hegemony for as long as the secret remained theirs.
So Ferrash's childhood was spent as an experiment deep underground with none but his mother and the wildlife for company. He had a pain mesh installed as soon as possible so that empyrric energy could be passed through him during experiments.
His mother didn't just experiment on him, however. She treated each test as a lesson that would teach Ferrash skills essential to being a keeper. Most of these focussed around suppressing emotions, and while the administration of these lessons was nothing but reprehensible, those skills did serve him well when he eventually travelled to populated areas of the Protectorate.
Click to show spoilers for The Final Lesson

Escaping the Wilds

By the time Ferrash was fifteen years old, he had become familiar with the landscape of the Wilds and was well aware of the water treatment plant, which regularly brought new workers down via shuttle through a hole in the cavern ceiling. At first, he was most fascinated by the existence of other people. Over time, and thinking his mother didn't know of his visits, he struck up a relationship with a worker called Juuni.
Upon Juuni revealing that she was pregnant, Ferrash decided they would escape together. He arranged to get himself out of the Wilds and meet Juuni aboard Munab's orbital station, where they would find a way out of the Protectorate together (although he hadn't planned especially far ahead).
When the time came to escape, Ferrash was successful. He snuck aboard a shuttle departing the water treatment plant and made it to the orbital platform. Juuni, however, was nowhere to be found. Ferrash hacked into the station's systems to try to find her, but his mother confronted him there and told him that Juuni was dead. Ferrash's fate would have been left in her hands if not for the intervention of a free agent called Gella, who requisitioned him to help her in her job.

Meeting Bek

Following Gella's death, the Protectorate kept assigning other free agents to work alongside Ferrash. It's Protectorate policy that no free agent works alone – there must always be someone else who can witness and report treacherous behaviour. The agents assigned to work with Ferrash lasted varying lengths of time before meeting with unfortunate accidents or being discovered and killed on missions. Bek was just another agent assigned to work with him, but he lasted long enough for his loyalty to shift from the Protectorate to Ferrash, and they have been working together ever since.

Infiltrating the flagship

In 24,018 SRB, the Protectorate gave Ferrash and Bek a mission to conduct reconnaissance on the Hegemony flagship, in particular the Magister and his habits. They were also supposed to ascertain as much as they could about any new capabilities the flagship had received in its recent refit at the Carabalite forge ring. When they felt like they had enough information and once Ferrash had planted bugs in the ship's systems, they left in the Everatus system.
Click to show spoilers for The Empyrean

As they made their escape, skirting around Everatus IV, the planet was destroyed by Empyrean fire. They pulled away from the planet on the tail of an out-of-control shuttle that they had seen leaving an orbital platform before it was destroyed. Ferrash didn't want to go after it, but Bek insisted, and they rescued a woman, Palia, from the damaged shuttle.

Reporting to the subcommittee

They brought Palia back to Protectorate space with them and reported their findings to one of the committees on Hesperex. It had been Ferrash's intention to keep Palia with him and Bek until they could release her somewhere safe, but the committee wanted to hold her on Hesperex. It was only by agreeing to enter the Keepers' breeding programme (a duty he had successfully evaded in all the years prior) that he secured her release.

Return to Munab

With the knowledge that the Hegemony flagship was responsible for the destruction of Everatus IV, Ferrash followed a trail of logistics and nexite shipments to Munab. He had been there previously – for fifteen years growing up and once, some time later, as part of a mission to infiltrate the Technocracy. It was during this mission that he had technology embedded beneath his skin, linked into his pain mesh to facilitate the use of an experimental rifle and some other functionality.
It so happened that this time, his father (Ellit Progaeryon) was also on Munab, and was guarding access to Technocracy areas when Ferrash and the others arrived. The two recognised each other via genetic identifiers but, never having met before, things were tense between them. Progaeryon joined the group as the investigated Kept activity in the Munabi Wilds, where they spent the night at the hut Ferrash had grown up in with his mother. When Ferrash and the others left Munab in the face of a Protectorate assault, Progaeryon stayed behind to lead the mechanised division.

Inhibitor dependance
While Ferrash had been trained from a young age to suppress his emotions without the help of drugs, he had become increasingly reliant on them since Gella's death. He increased his use of them significantly after the destruction of Everatus IV, but noticed they no longer had the effect on him they once did. The Protectorate attacking Munab and conducting a purge of suspected traitors was a particularly strong blow to his ability to shrug emotions off.

Kidnapped

The group travelled to a party on Sirat to recruit help in a plan devised by Fabien and Palia. While there, Ferrash became uncomfortable and returned to the ship alone. After a brief fight with some Hegemony agents including an empyrric, he was captured and flown to a prison station in the Exodus system. There, he met with a holographic projection of the Magister. The Magister attempted to persuade Ferrash that his intentions were for the greater good, but did not succeed, and set the flagship on a course for the prison station so he could interrogate Ferrash.
As Ferrash made plans to escape, he set off an emergency beacon in his implants that signalled his ship, the Protectorate and the Reiart. Three Reiart agents helped break him out of his cell, but by this point Palia had already arrived with the arsaeria in tow and they had to make themselves scarce. Ferrash returned to the ship with Austela while Palia created a distraction that briefly made him believe she had died.

Confronting the Magister

The group made it onto the Hegemony flagship to confront the Magister, but what began as something of a stealth mission turned into a battle through its corridors. Ferrash, Palia and Austela were the only three to make it to the Eye of the flagship, where the Magister was preparing some kind of attack in the Hesperex system. Palia eventually defeated the Magister, but in the process she stripped all her memories of Ferrash as well as all of Ferrash's emotions.

The vanishing act

Upon waking up, Ferrash quickly realised that Palia had no idea who he was. He saw no point staying, so left to pursue a mission of his own on Hesperex.

Appearances

• The Final Lesson
• One Hungry Fish
• The Empyrean

Full name
Ferrash Progmannae

Year of Birth

23987 SRB

Circumstances of Birth

Breeding programme

Birthplace

Hesperex

Gender

Male

Eyes

Amber/light hazel

Hair

Shoulder-length, brown-black

Height

5'11"