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Name: Noel Bäker
Affiliation: None
Status: Engineer, focus on Energy Core, Trainee
Hair: brunette, medium length, thick, straight
Eyes: dominantly blue, partially gray
Date of birth: June 13th, 802 A.S.
Place of birth: Neu Altona, Planet Hamburg

Noel is an extremely young looking and relatively young behaving man, or boy. For a man of his age, he is physically underdeveloped, which apparently originates from chronical undernourishment in his childhood and puberty. We've picked him up on June 13th 825 A.S. from Livadia after him having handed his application to Commander Aguilar. The application itself was, well, minimalistic and without any references, but at the point of time, he didn't even own the PDA he quickly typed up the application for us. Months later I found out it was his 23th birthday, too.

Admittedly, I was less interested in him as a crew member, simply for the lack of relevant skills, but hearing and reading about his story, I felt like he was the perfect person to join the Apahanta: No family, no home, no future. I found out the PDA he gave Sherry with the application was stolen from a guy, or multiple guys, on Livadia, who were about to beat him up for the theft. I rescued him and knocked the bandits out, brought him to our medbay, where Dr. Carr saved his life as he was about to die from injuries. Thankful for everything, he became a part of the crew. I gave him a room, fed him and trained him to counter underdevelopment of his muscles and organs. He never complained. We quickly became friends, to say the least. If I'm honest, I don't know what kind of relationship we're having. I guess a mix of best friends, little and big brother, son and dad and protege and mentor?

He quickly adapted to my quirks and irks, to the point where we didn't feel any shame infront of each other anymore. That was unplanned, to be perfectly honest, but a result of me telling him that I've seen him naked when Dr. Carr and I treated him at the medbay and that I cleaned his body, and that there is nothing he needs to be ashamed of. And, well, my own body is out there on the neural net in a few clips anyway. The point I'm making is that the lack of shame infront of each other probably contributed massively to our close relationship.

Noel told me more about his past. He lived on Hamburg until he finished school, then his parents bought a freighter and left the planet with him to live in space for the next five years. Then they made the mistake of moving into the Omicrons as profits were luring them their, profits necessary to survive. Their freighter was shot down by Nomads and only Noel made it to the escape pods. His escape pod was brought to Livadia, many days later.

On June 30th he slept for the first time in my bed, together with me and Sombra. It was his first pyjama party, and apparently something special to him. On July 5th, Noel dated Lorena Hawkins, former crew member in his age with much more, uh, maturity. I did my best to prepare him well for the date, both physically and mentally, and it paid out. They entered a sexual relationship.

In the night of July 25th to 26th, something horrible happened that we didn't notice or understand until much later. A Nomad Incubus left Noel's body and entered Lorena's body while she was asleep. The incubus took over Lorena's body fully, something it was apparently unable to do with Noel's weak body. His body got even weaker because of this and he remained in the medical bay for a longer time, while Lorena, under the possession of Vagrant Aphrodite, took over the ship. We skip this entire story in this report, though. Important to know is that we somehow managed to beat Aphrodite, that Lorena and Aphrodite got killed by Nick Stenn and in their final seconds they killed Nick's daughter Samantha, that we're aware of the difference between the K'Hara and the Vagrants now and that Noel survived all this.

Shortly after these events, Noel moved into my room and since then slept in my bed, often cuddling with me as he apparently can't sleep well without physical comfort or at least proximity.

Apart from that, Noel seemed and still seems healthy, both physical and mental. Although the latter is an overstatement. I leave it to Abigail to analyze him in detail. Noel suffers from frequent nightmares and I've noticed his likeliness to daydream has increased in the past few months, up to the point where he seemed fully absent during social interactions like breakfast or when watching movies. One of his most obvious hobbies is drawing, specifically anime-ish styled pictures of both fictive characters, himself and other crew members. According to Sombra, he did many drawings of me, which he never showed me. He appears to heavily dislike it when other people watch him draw, comment on his drawings or even look at them. He is very secretive about them, especially lately. That being said, I believe it is a talent that deserves some encouragement and training.

Noel is very creative and added multiple projects to the to-do-list of the engineering. He learns quickly and crafted quite a bunch of items already, mostly for our security robots. He even built a personal shield generator for me, with enough power to protect a person from up to three kinetical or energy-based bullets. Before I visited Elgin, he gave it to me as a lucky charm, in passive mode. Luckily it never needed to be used. Still, awesome to have it.

Noel is friends with Sombra and his engineering mentor, Leon Isley, and has a very good standing with absolutely everyone on the ship, even with Commander Aguilar. People like him, he is laughing often. He sometimes slips into his rheinlandian tongue when nervous or talking to himself. Other than that he avoids talking rheinlandian, even when he is alone with our other rheinlandian crew members.

When Simone joined the Apahanta, she quickly showed interest in him and I arranged a not too suspicious meeting between him and her and it worked out perfectly. They are now in some sort of relationship, although I get the impression neither of them knows what kind of relationship that is, apart from the sexual aspect. He took her virginity and since then sleeps every third or fourth night with her in her room.

Sombra seems to be sexually interested in him as well, especially lately in a more blunt way. So far he seems to have rejected her avances, claiming he is already in a relationship with Simone, although I can't really tell whether their relationship is serious or whether Simone even understands the concept of a relationship and monogamy.

Sombra smuggled some synth mary jane pills on the Apahanta, apparently on his request. I know he sometimes hides in the maintenance shafts at a specific connection point close to the engine room. He is small and tender enough to just move through there and stay in there. He definitely doesn't suffer from claustrophobia. Security sensor readings showed me he was consuming the drug down there, all alone, listens to music in headphones and starts drawing for hours. His drug consumption is very controlled and he did it only a handful of times since he joined the ship, so nothing to worry about. He never mentioned it infront of me, though, since he knows I don't like drugs. Expect wine, and that only controlled.

Current goals are to maintain the gained stability, both physical and mentally, and fix possibly problematic issues. Physically, he is doing better and he partakes in the routine training and workouts, although mostly only because I do them. My guess is that if I wasn't around, he would be less motivated to participate. His mental issues, such as the nightmares he is visibly suffering from, and the heavy traumata he experienced in the past, especially the fact that he had an alien inside him, are to be handled with the guidance of our Counselor, Abigail Ryan. While I personally don't mind it at all to have him sleeping in my bed and often have him cuddle with me, I guess that kind of behavior makes him more dependent on me. Although I feel like this is something that will change when time has passed. The idea is that I don't want him to still do that years in the future.

And here I wonder what our future will be.

When Noel joined the crew, he was suffering from both acute and chronical undernourishment. Whatever kind of living he had, people surely didn't take much care of him. That luckily changed when he joined the crew.

When Captain Vertiga brought Noel to us, I performed a Type-2 scan of his body. Internal bleeding in the torsal area caused by a heavy object hitting him. Bones only slightly damaged. I injected a Nanobot Quickfix B to take care of the internal injuries. External injuries were healed with a Dermalregenerator. His body was then cleaned Captain Vertiga.

Because of his critical condition, we didn't have the time to perform a Type-1 scan of his body, which could have revealed the incubus that was hiding inside him. We simply didn't think of it back then and forgot to act according to the protocol. Sadly, this mistake was the possible key element to the death of crew member Lorena Hawkins during the Aphrodite scenario.


When the incubus left Noel's body through his mouth to enter Lorena's body, it caused multiple internal injuries in his body. Internal bleeding, damaged nerves around the spinal area, multiple perforations in his esophagus and the entire mouth and throat area was inflamed. The security recordings explain this, as the incubus, while only half the size of the scanned size of the incubus "Valery", pushed itself through said body parts without much care for the former host. The damaged nerves caused a paralysis on Noel, most likely to prevent him from doing anything in self-defense or to protect Lorena. It probably was also to prevent him from panicking as the incubus was blocking his trachea. If the transition would have taken more time than it did, Noel would have taken damage from asphyxiation. Possibly even death.

The Apahanta's crew medical tracker informed me just in time about his critical condition, calling emergency alert. Back then I had no idea I was in the same room with an infectee, as Lorena Hawkins, under the possession of the incubus, Vagrant Aphrodite, played her role just well enough to not make me think about the situation at hand. We moved him to the medical bay, where I instantly began to treat him. I would like to add that this was only successful because of the medical equipment of APM and IRG we still possess. The Nanobot Quickfix A stabilized him and repaired the damaged nerves and stopped the internal bleeding while I took care of the perforations of his esophagus.

Noel has rejuvenated well from this incident and didn't get injured since then. Interestingly, the Type-1 scan we did afterwards found traces of cardamine in his body, although his DNA does not appear to have been altered. A final Quickfix C filtered all remaining traces.

The latest medical check showed him as physically healthy. He is still rather skinny and on a healthy level bordering underweight. His muscle tonus has increased from the frequent workout. All in all, physically, he is in a good condition. Samples of his bodily fluids are all fine. His reproductive organs are producing a slightly above average amount of seminal fluid, judging by the samples he hands in for the monthly physical check. Since he engaged in a sexual relationship with Simone, I advised him to use condoms regardless of what kind of birthcontrol she is using, just to be safe.

Since we lack experts regarding the power core, Ezrael and I decided it would be best to train Noel with a focus on that topic. His learning process is quite average, although he seems to avoid any tasks regarding the nomadic parts of the energy core. I'm not sure whether it was a good idea to have the boy who was infected once dealing with nomad-related technology. That being said, we can use any hand down here. Maybe his hesitation will cease after a while.

He is spending much time in the workshop, though, where he tinkers on various things. Since Ezrael gave him the permission, he has been working on upgrading our heavy security robots with a more, well, attractive armor. Not really necessary, but it keeps him busy, and we have the materials and tools for such projects anyway. He's also been toying around with some items we kept from APM after the desertion as well as other stuff we bought or looted from all over Sirius. His biggest success so far was the deconstruction of a personal shield generator, the reverse engineering of it and the full documentation of how to build them. It took him several months, but these things are working perfectly fine and can protect the carrier from one or two hits of the average energy blaster or kinetic pistol. In case we can't buy them anymore from our contacts, we can produce these things ourselves now.

I'm talking with Noel frequently, mostly on a therapeutic basis. The Aphrodite Scenario happened before my time on the Apahanta, and Captain Vertiga didn't grant me the permission to watch the recordings of it, so my knowledge about that is based on what Noel and a few other crew members told me.

Noel told me about his past before the Apahanta, about his life on Hamburg and his parents. HIs mother was choleric, his father alcoholic. He described the relationship of them to him as oppressive and imperative, and said there was no point in rebelling against them as that resulted in physical abusive retaliation. He never spoke directly negatively of them, but according to Ezrael, he said that everything he had to endure, including him getting beaten up on Livadia and the loss of his parents, was worth living this new life on the Apahanta. He said he doesn't mind phsyical labor here at all, as he is used to do everything himself as his parents mostly demanded him to do anything.

Noel also said that he only started to have opposing thoughts against them in the year before he joined us, and in one of the latest counseling sessions, he told me about a certain anger he can only express in his dreams. Captain Vertiga and MIss Hookier said Noel frequently suffers from nightmares and they guess it is because of that that Noel seeks physical proximity and comfort by sleeping in their bed.

I've talked to Noel about this, as it is a rather uncommon behavior of a now 24 years old boy to hug a 34 years old man in sleep. Out of personal curiousity, I've asked him whether there was ever any sexual aspect involved, which he denied. I've then asked him, since Miss Hookier sleeps in the Captain's bed as well, how that works out. He then explained that they frequently have "all kinds of sex" with each other, refering to Vertiga and Hookier without including himself. He said he simply tries to sleep, pretends to sleep, however admitted to have watched it every now and then while pretending to sleep. I then asked whether he does anything while they are at it, which he denied.

He later told me that Sombra knew he was watching them a few times as she had confronted him about it in an attempt to seduce him. And that since then she started to look more often at him during the act. I later asked Miss Hookier why she does that, and she asked me whether it wasn't obvious.

I've also talked with the Captain about it. He merely reminded me that probably half of Sirius has seen him naked already on the neural net. He said that it doesn't bother him, and as long as he feels comfortable to be around when Sombra and him are at it, he doesn't mind it either. Miss Hookier certainly doesn't either, too.

I'd like to note that you are fucking weird.

Noel and the Captain have an interesting relationship. Noel obviously only speaks in the highest tones about him, idolizing him as a hero, best friend and probably even father figure. In his wording, Ezrael is a perfect replacement for his parents. Ezrael seems to have adopted Noel as friend and protege. They seem to harmonize very well with each other.

His relationship with Miss Hookier appears to be healthy enough, although Noel said her avances have become very obvious the moment he entered a sexual relationship with Simone, which apparently caused Miss Hookier to challenge his faithfulness. I confronted her about it. According to her, she has been heavily attracted by him since he joined the crew, and he simply didn't take her teasing seriously, given she is fanatically in love with the Captain. So I asked her whether she has feelings for both of them. She nodded.

Noel has a good standing with most crew members and doesn't seem to be in conflict with anyone on the ship. He obviously has reservations against me because of the nature of conversations I have with him, which is however fine.

I've talked to him about the entire Aphrodite scenario, which he is very uncomfortable to talk about. He has no memories on how he got infected, and claims there never was any kind of interaction between him and the incubus, and that he was always in full control of his actions and thoughts. According to him, the only time something was different was in the night when the incubus, in his wording, became active, taking control of his actions in order to cuff Lorena to the bed, then himself, in order to have Aphrodite leave his body and take hers instead.

He said he still has nightmares and flashbacks about it. He said he feels deep regret and pain and still mourns for the loss of Lorena, which was the first girlfriend he had. Noel still blames himself for her death as he brought the incubus onto the Apahanta, despite him not being aware of it. He also said that he has an uncomfortable feeling about his relationship with Simone because of that. Since she simply brought it upon him, without him really realizing what was going on, he never got to reject her. According to him, he doesn't think he should be with another woman already, and that he probably would reject Sombra more because of that, if he wasn't with Simone at this point, than anything else.

Out of curiousity I asked him about the way his relationship with Simone even works, given she doesn't talk. He said "it just does" and that it is mostly physical. And that he can only spend so much time with her before not knowing what to do with her. I asked him whether he thought about ending the relationship. He shook his head, saying he doesn't really give her a reason to do so, and doesn't want to be the first guy in her life to reject her.


Conclusion

He seems fine enough, at this point, although there is much boiling in his head and heart. His parents didn't really allow him to have a childhood, so I am not surprised he is enjoying the way he lives now, a protected environment with more opportunities and possibilities than he ever had in his previous life. That being said, he shows signs of PTSD. It doesn't seem to affect his quality of life in a worrisome way, however, it can. Noel is in the typical age for mental issues to become noticable. I will need to keep my eyes on him as chances are he can quickly develop more symptoms, which possibly reduce his quality of life.

The best thing we can do is motivate him to seek social interaction with the people around him. Because of this, and despite the weird stuff going on in the Captain's quarters, I would advise to let him stay there until he wants to return to having his own room and a more stable relationship with Simone, or whoever else it might become in future. I would also like to put emphasis on him not becoming fully depending on other people. In an optimal world, he maintains a balance between acting and reacting. Right now he is in an environment where he is protected by everyone around him. If possible, he should be encouraged to leave the ship whenever it is possible, to see what else is out there.

I've read everything people had to say about him and can agree with it. He seems fine with how things are, but that's also something he used to be when he was with his parents. I will try to encourage him to tell me if he wants anything. Since Curacao is about to get reopened again, I'll take him there with me. Just me and him for a few days, maybe some camping or something.

As weird as this report makes it sound, I do believe he is having a decent living here. I'll make sure he will have so in future as well.