Run Like Hell Character Feature: Part Three

Part three of our feature on Interplay's upcoming survival-horror, Run Like Hell, focuses on Amanda Bethune, geologist and main squeeze of Captain Nick Conner. Currently living on the Forseti Station with Conner, she studies the asteroid belt that orbits the Centauri Sun. She lives a quiet life that's turned upside down when less-than-friendly aliens appear.

Name: Dr. Amanda Bethune
Job Description: Geologist
Race: Human
Age: 31
Height: 5' 3"
Weight: 115 pounds
Birthplace: Firebrand, Draconis System

Dr. Bethune was born in the main metropolis of the Draconis System, a planet called Firebrand. Her mother, Julia Bethune, died when Amanda was five, which left her father, notable geologist Frank Bethune, to raise her on his own. Growing up in a thriving colony was not difficult for young Amanda, who graduated in the top 5 percent of her high school class. She followed up that impressive achievement by gaining entrance into the prestigious University of Io, Jupiter.

It was in her third year at UI that she met her best friend, Dr. Samantha Reilly. They hit it off immediately and were nearly inseparable. During her college run, she decided to follow in her father's footsteps, and she received a PhD in geology.

After graduation, Samantha and Amanda went their separate ways. Amanda joined a small scientific group that dealt mostly in the Sol System of the Hegemony. For three years she helped study the rings of Saturn, but she began to grow restless. Her father had always been intent on just studying rocks and trying to come up with the history of the universe, but Amanda was different. She longed to explore the universe. She wanted to study the asteroid belts of Orion or the ice flows of the Cranius System.

At the age of 27, she got her chance. After graduating from university, Amanda kept in touch with Samantha, exchanging Gate messages back and forth with her over the years. One day Amanda received a message from her friend, giving her the opportunity of a lifetime: Dr. Reilly was part of a roving group of scientists--funded by the Hegemony government--who were investigating scientific anomalies in the border worlds between the Hegemony and Neh-Lok space and asked Amanda to join up.

The border worlds themselves were highly contested during the Human Neh-Lok War because of their high number of ancient ruins and strange geological and biological contents. The potential for amazing discoveries, offered the chance Amanda was waiting for.

Within a year, she used all of her savings to buy a long-range ticket to the small Border World of Heimdall's Tear. There she joined the small group of scientists, led by Dr. Reilly herself. The group traveled to different sites, studying everything from the nitrogen fields of Baras II to the ice flows of the Aegir Asteroid Belt.

Finally, the Hegemony government got wind of a recent discovery of uranium and merosteel in the asteroid belts outside of Centauri II. Dr. Reilly's group was to go there and make sure that anything else discovered would be fed through the Hegemony government channels first. When they arrived at the Forseti Station, they discovered that they would be there not only to study the asteroid belt; they also discovered a new life form on the planet below the station.

It was on Forseti, one year ago, that Dr. Reilly met Captain Nick Conner. After becoming fast friends, the two fell in love. Dr. Bethune is currently still on the Forseti Station, sharing quarters with Conner, deep in study in the asteroid belt that orbits the Centauri Sun.