Winston Chang is a fighter pilot with a "dark" past he wishes to leave behind and a wanderer’s spirit, reflected by his callsign "Vagabond".
Personal Biography[]
Winston Chang was born in 2631, his home system located somewhere in the Enigma sector. His first career was in several secret government project, like the demolitions experiments he worked on with Dr. Philip Severin (who would later develop the Temblor Bomb). During such researches on the planet of Pax VII a failed experiment caused the death of numerous civilians: the disaster was covered up and labeled as an accident. Feeling guilty for this event Chang decided to enter the military and help the war effort in a manner where he could directly see and fight his enemy rather than accidentally cause massive civilian losses. He became a fighter pilot and took the callsign of Vagabond to reflect his nature of "man without any roots". His past is mostly classified by the government.
By 2669 Winston Chang was a Lieutenant flying off the Terran Confederation carrier TCS Victory: during this cruise he lost many of his fellow pilots including Mitchell "Vaquero" Lopez a young pilot Vagabond frequently flew with. The loss of so many friends was the reason why Chang decided to join Christopher Blair's "Temblor Bomb Raid" in spite of his disgust for the use of weapons that would cause civilians losses.
Vagabond accompanied the other pilots from the Victory to the Kilrathi homeworld until his fighter was intercepted by an enemy patrol and shot down in the ensuing dogfight. However before his ship blew up he was able to eject and was later recovered.
Vagabond's death.
In 2673, still a Lieutenant, Winston Chang was assigned to the TCS Lexington during the building of tensions between the Confederation and the Union of Border Worlds. Suspecting someone in the Confederation may be behind the acts of terrorism and piracy he witnessed, Vagabond decided to defect to the Border Worlds with the Lexington Captain William Eisenin order to be able to shed some lights on what was happening along the frontier.
Shortly before Vagabond leaves for his fatal mission, he loses in a card game against Todd Marshall. He had in his hand the dead man's hand of aces and eights.
Attempting to recover information that would help the Border Worlds prove the existence of a conspiracy, Winston Chang made use of his espionage notions and infiltrated a Confederation Comm station with Lieutenant Velina Sosa. During this operation he was forced to cover Sosa from an unexpected attack by the station's security forces and was killed in action.
Vagabond was laid to rest in space with full military honors by his friend Colonel Blair.
Character[]
In spite of his irreverent manners and dislike for military protocol Vagabond soon adapted to life aboard a space ship and became an experienced and reliable pilot. Chang's own vision of himself was of "a cool professional on duty and the Rec Room clown off duty". Vagabond's favorite hobby when off duty was to play cards and he never failed to show up with a deck of cards in his hands: usually it didn't take much time for the rest of the crew to find out he was an extremely skilled and lucky card player.