When humans colonized the planets in the Crystalis system, the war for the first initial planet, Aosos, left many humans either without parents or loved ones. A great number did not have the means to settle on world so they took to the floating remains of ships that had been destroyed in battle and squatted for years and years until, eventually, there were too many of them. Criminals, drug addicts and the mentally unstable or even just the lonely all convened together in the remains of dead ships. In order to compensate for their growing numbers the homeless of space settled in an asteroid belt close to a densely populated planet called Wyar - renowned for it’s gambling and illegal activity.

The only reason Cora managed to go a little straighter and more narrow than the majority of her friends is because of three different factors: her mother's on/off drug habits, racing and an old man.

Cora learned very quickly how to take care of herself and others, thanks to her mother's lack of paternal instinct she didn't learn it in the best possible way. Cora's mother was the only parent present for her childhood and adolescent years. Her father has never been heard or seen from since before her birth. As an only child of an absentee mother, Cora adopted the caregiver role while her mother wasted away with the dangerous drugs and dangerous men that filtered through the colony on the way out and in of Wyar. Rumor had it around the colony that her mother earned her money for the drugs through favors, Cora can support these rumors as she had never once given her a single bit of money - knowing it would be wasted on something unnecessary. Cora herself developed an instant revulsion to drugs, which has likely saved her life more than once. At the tender age of twelve Cora decided to vent her frustrations with friends.

There’s not a lot to actually do on an asteroid colony unless you happen to be a fan of recreational violence and/or racing. Cora, as it turned out, enjoyed racing more than watching fights. At first she just another spectator, learning what she could from the drivers and mechanics. Her addiction to the sport kept her out of plenty of trouble but that soon wasn't enough for her

The third and final factor fell to the credit of the Mysterious Old Man. When Cora was just twelve she learned something about herself thanks to him, that hadn't been considered by anyone else before: Cora had a way with machines. She enjoyed taking them apart and putting them back together just fine and fixing things was a hobby while she was at home since before she knew what the pieces were. A plus side to living in a floating junkyard was that you could literally reach to the wall next to you and rip a chunk of parts off. There wasn’t exactly a shortage of material.

There was a time before she knew how to build that Cora thought she was hard and tried to hang with some bad people. Enter Wise Old Mentor. It was a widely spread rumor that this old man, who went by Virgil and nothing else (it wasn't uncommon for colony citizens to have no last name), used to be one of the most deadly pirates that ever roamed the skies and that he came to seek refuge here to avoid the law after a debilitating wound caused him to retire permanently. His collection of scraps and parts through trade was bordering on legendary, of course stupid kids would want to try and rob him. The community was tightly knit, enough for rumors to spread like wildfire, but the appeal of crime was much stronger than a sense of togetherness and those that grew up in the colonies typically turned toward theft and murder or any number of crimes. Anything to make a living. Without registration upon birth, those born into that life didn't have many legal alternatives. It also didn't help much that the universal hub for criminals, pirates and wayward souls was just in sight from their windows.

At 12, Cora was eager to join her first gang; which would be more of a family than she'd ever had. But of course, initiations weren't going to be so easy simply because she was anxious. The hazing sounded simple enough: sneak into Old Man Virgil's tower and steal something from him without getting caught. Unfortunately, she did just that.

Abandoned by her would-be friends and bound for either the authorities or an early grave at Virgil's choice, Cora struck a deal with the crazy bugger. She would work for him, do whatever he wanted, in exchange for letting her go. He did her one better and told her she could be potentially paid for her troubles if she helped him expand his collection. It was nothing particularly shady, some under the table trading in for parts but other than that his 'business' of collecting scraps of ships and weapons was on the up and up. As the months dragged on for Cora and Virgil, he realized her talent for figuring out machines and their insides despite her lack of formal education.

After monitoring her hobby for several months, Virgil offered her something that was truly priceless to her and it’s never stopped paying off to this day. He offered to teach her how to make things work, how to put the things she disassembled and put back together to use. A mechanic is a valuable thing in a world made up of solely machines.

As the lessons progressed though, Virgil discovered her abilities went beyond simply putting things together right. She had a passion for creation. Of course, she thought she was limited by the already constructed things she brought back to life but teaching her how to put what ideas she had in her mind to metal was no more a challenge then teaching her about them. For the next year until she was fourteen, he assigned her a project to build her own motorcycle - do whatever she wanted with it. Of course, as it was the first automobile she built on her own it wasn't completely fantastic - but it was hers, and she was proud enough of herself to actually use it.

At sixteen she wasn't that bad. She even won some prize money on the side after three years of trying for title. None of it legal, sponsored racing, but thanks to her serious addiction to the sport Cora kept out of trouble mostly.

As she kept racing and earning money to keep away from her mother, she continued to work for Virgil and learn as much as she could from him in hopes that she'd one day be able to leave the rock of a home.

At nineteen the most dreaded, but often spoken of, event of her young life happened. Virgil passed away. It had been expected but still a great shock to Cora, Virgil had been the closest thing to a father figure she could ever hope for and he'd been so very nurturing to her. It was painful to discover he died, but he always said how full his life had been and that he was going to pass on as much knowledge as he could to Cora in hopes that she'd use it to save herself from a crap future. As much of an influence Virgil served as, he wasn’t a wholly good one. All of his lessons he gave Cora were steeped in one major theme: piracy. As a very successful pirate himself, however kind he was now, he encouraged her with wild stories about his life of crime. He kept her out of the small stuff her entire adolescence, only to plant the dream of becoming a pirate in her mind for later. Whether or not that was purposeful remains a mystery but Virgil did tell her everything; the good and the bad, but to a girl who grew up with nothing and worked her hands to the bone to try and earn a skill for years, a life of high-rise crime where you only had to take what you wanted and didn’t have to earn it sounded amazingly wonderful.

Instead of focusing on the grief she felt for Virgil’s death, Cora decided to use his absence as an opportunity to free herself. With her mother serving as a lost cause Cora could only ask for people to look after her and hope she wouldn’t start shooting up -- again. It was selfish, underhanded and a horrible thing for a daughter to do to a mother in need, but Cora was past caring. She felt as if she couldn’t keep trying to stop her mother from doing what she’d been doing since her earliest memory of her. It was hopeless.

Having abandoned what she called home for her entire life, Cora sought out a suitable crew on Wyar to take her in. Only problem was, nobody was willing to risk it with an inexperienced, nineteen year old hooligan. It didn’t matter how much she professed her abilities to be legitimate, no one would take her.

She decided it was just a simple matter of saying the right thing. Eventually she’d get it right. A few months past her twentieth birthday she had her opportunity. A crew had landed and were short a gunner, not looking a gift horse in the mouth she requested the spot and was offered it the very same day. There was, one condition, however. It seemed Cora was doomed to be subjugated to breaking and entering for testing grounds. However, the scenery was somewhat different this time.

Instead of sneaking into a mysterious tower of junk, she’d be sneaking aboard one of the more infamous ships in the system: the Confidante. With pirates, came the pirate-hunters - mercenaries who specialized in taking down those who dared to profit from others misfortune. The Confidante was especially well-known for the captain’s devil may care attitude for the rest of the universe. Apparently she didn’t have a problem with docking in the pirate capital of the system.

Cora was tasked with sneaking aboard without being noticed, and getting back out. It was an utterly pointless mission to assign her, but perhaps the pirate crew only wished to get rid of her. Nevertheless, Cora was determined. She would get in that ship if it was the last thing she did. It very well could have been.

While the pirate-hunters restocked their wares, she hid inside one of the containers of dehydrated food they loaded up and waited until she thought she had the all clear. As sheer dumb luck would have it, she had overstayed her welcome and the ship had left port while she was still inside the crate.

Cora was sure she’d be killed. Made an example of, strung up, the works. She panicked and in a fit of self-preservation crawled to the guts of the Confidante and made sure not to be seen. Now, she only saw it as a matter of time before they had to resupply. But she had no way to eat without being spotted, no way to do anything except crouch down in the wiring and the corded innards of the ship and wait. It was a miserable three days until she was found, stripping and eating the plastic coating of wires near the bridge. Someone thought they heard something scuffling around in the walls.

She was presented to the captain as a stow-away and when asked for an explanation Cora fumbled and told the woman she thought it was a pirate vessel going to a richer planet. She might be many things, but a great liar, Cora was not. Through some trickery and finagling Cora managed to convince the captain to not toss her out the airlock and wish her the best. She traded her labor for passage until they went to dock again. The captain would not allow the ship to hit port again so soon as they were chasing after a mark. A pirate vessel of fair note, it was a huge game of cat and mouse between them both and Cora was stuck along for the ride.

Little did Cora suspect that the vessel she current was aboard required a mechanic. It wasn’t until the captain began reluctantly complaining about headaches, that Cora began to wonder if there wasn’t something more strange going on aboard the Confidante. It was explained to her that the captain sported one of the first ventures into creating cyborgs: a mechanical eye hardwired into her brain that allowed her mental control of the ship. Unfortunately with that control came a connection that resulted in severe pain whenever the ship was struck or something was wrong with its parts. She’d noticed some faulty parts in the bowels of the ship before when she had snuck aboard and after hearing about one of the captain’s latest migraine - she decided to take a look at it.

Turns out her suspicions were correct, somehow their last bout of repairs wasn’t done as well as they’d thought previously. After fixing the problem, the captain’s headache and then some, Cora was offered the opportunity to stay onboard - provided she earned her keep. She could have easily turned the offer down and simply walked away at the next stop but truth be told she was happy for the first time in a long time here. Staying aboard for a single month was more rewarding and enjoyable than all her years with Virgil and her mother. So she agreed.

Two years passed like this: something would break or get damaged in a fire-fight and Cora would display her usual ingenuity in ways to keep the ship up and running. She even provided a few upgrades to it and soon after her impromptu joining of the crew - called the engine her baby. There was even a budding romance developing between Cora and the second in command: a graduate from the same program their captain was in when she trained for the military. It seemed like everything was starting to pick up. The world was showing Cora that she didn’t have to let her background define her, she could become a different and better person - someone worth affection and love and time.

Of course, everything had to fall apart eventually. When your job puts you in mortal peril each and every day - casualties are a thing of reality and lives are lost. During a boarding of their ship from an enemy vessel, the Confidante lost their second that day and with him, Cora lost her willingness to open up to new people and growing zest for life. She retreated back into what was familiar, what she knew wouldn’t hurt as much as losing him did. Cora became hardened by his death, abrupt and quick as it was. She stayed aboard with the rest of the crew, but would vanish for days upon docking at port unless she was required to be present. Nobody knew what she did and as far as Cora was concerned, nobody cared. She liked it that way.

Racing became apart of her life again, a way to vent her frustrations and anger all over again. Wyar was a port that promised a race no matter when they docked. Of course, it promised a lot of cheaters too. Fixed races were nothing strange but fixed bikes were a completely different story. With the way technology was, Cora’s method of racing was antiquated. Computers did most of the work with the drivers only pressing buttons and hanging along for the ride, intuition wasn’t apart of the equation any longer. Depending on who you asked, this was either an advantage or a disadvantage - to Cora, depending on your own reaction time was the key so she rarely upgraded.

Which would explain why most of the bikes stalled out, died or just went crazy during one of her three to four day leaves from duty. She knew something was up: a hacker. Someone smart enough to figure out each bike’s individual mainframe even with the mods and downloads and crack it. For all that ingenuity, you wouldn’t think they’d actually have to be present for the race. Or be human. Humans weren’t at the top of the pyramid when it came to smarts any more, that honor fell to other races. But Lenore Drale was a different kind of smart - too bad she was easy to pick out of a half-empty stadium. Cora, operating on a hunch, confronted her and after some negotiations, got the hacker to agree to splitting some of the winnings with Cora in exchange for her secrecy. But being a coward and an opportunist inspired Lenore to do something else instead of pay. She ran.

Cora pursued, generally pissed that someone could rig a race like that and do it so well. However, she ended up losing the girl altogether - which only served to piss her off more. Later that same night, who should show up at the docks but Lenore looking terrified out of her mind and desperate. Cora didn’t hesitate in dragging her onto the Confidante and presenting her to the captain.

After explaining that slavers were looking for her, the crew didn’t waste time in allowing her aboard to escape.

So the Confidante gained another member. Len and Cora became quick friends, trading barbs more often than serious conversations and very slowly, a year after her boyfriend’s death, Cora began to open up again; but not to everyone. Len got the privilege of Cora’s happiness. After a while, Cora began to realize she liked Len as more than just a good friend. It was a moment of panic, coming to terms that she was attracted to Len - in it she decided to test her sudden affection towards the hacker. They’ve been inseparable since.

This history doesn’t detail her adventures on the Confidante, just her personal history and development as a character.