Alice Boone

Alice Boone, Lambda-level Sanctioned Psyker of the Ragged Edges and Commissarial Aide to Conrad F Raege, is one of the earliest members of the Ragged Edges, and one of its most infamous members.

History
Alice Boone was born on the Paradise World of Reth, the only daughter of Planetary Governor Silas Boone. With a birth seen as miraculous and a status as the scion of a popular noble family, Boone quickly became the darling of both her family and the local populace. Even at a young age, she was spoiled rotten and afforded all sorts of comforts, including a pet dinosaur, and she served at one point as the mascot of a local brand of nutrislurry.

Boone quickly grew up, becoming an avid socialite, a student of arts and philosophies, and a complete brat. In her prime, she was mostly the guest of honor at various galas and parties, and enjoying all the luxuries a Paradise World had to offer. She enjoyed playing games with the other nobles - and gossip being what it was, it soon became apparent that Boone was oddly good at anything that involved guessing.

At the age of sixteen, the secret came out - Alice Boone was, in fact, a psyker. Her actual psychic potential was almost negligible, but just high enough to be a clear risk - and so, she found herself bound to the Black Ships. In any ordinary situation, a psyker of her potential would have been shipped off to the Golden Throne and fed to the Astronomican, but her father was able to pull enough strings and call in enough favors for his daughter to instead qualify to be Sanctioned, bankrupting the once-prosperous Boone family in the process.

Boone's sanctioning was short, brutal, and traumatic, resulting in her hair turning white permanently and leaving her with night terrors for the rest of her life. She spent the next several years in the care of Tobias Levy, under the guise of the Hooded Crow, being moved from ship to ship in the name of keeping her out of trouble. She spent this period attempting, without success, to hone her abilities or make herself useful, and suffered greatly from lack of any real life skills.

Eventually, Levy decided to involve her in his pet project, the Ragged Edges, handing the responsibility of managing Boone to the newly-reinstated Conrad Raege. Raege, possessing an uncommon dislike of psykers and a greater one for Levy's "surprises", expected the worst from her "gift", but found Boone to be a complete surprise. She attempted to reassure the confused young psyker, and in the process, gave Boone some of the first genuine reassurance she'd received in years. After Boone broke down crying within the hour, Raege chose to keep Boone out of trouble whenever possible.

Boone integrated with the rest of the crew over some time, both depression and repression holding her back. On one particularly miserable day, fellow psyker Cuddles opted to "cheer her up" by showing her memories of a psyker who had perished on the Golden Throne - against all odds, this reminder of just what she had escaped and how lucky she was to have done so managed to noticeably lighten Boone up.

Before long, Boone became strongly attached to her Commissar, with Raege's forceful personality and redoubtable attitude providing something to cling to, and Raege herself being all too willing to accommodate Boone where necessary. A turning point in their relationship was when Raege allowed Boone to have her monthly chocolate rations on a sanctioned love day, which quickly became a tradition for the two of them. Over time, her feelings developed from attachment and admiration to attraction, then to outright love.

Boone was involved in the Battle of Siren's Den, which saw the deaths of several veterans, some of whom were close friends. She helped to capture the traitor Yarn Blaske, an experience that left her badly traumatized once again. Unfortunately, her skills had yet to be properly tested.

Boone was not meant to be greatly involved in the Trydusian V Incident, but a crashed shuttle left her alone and unsupported inside the depths of the facilities there. Through deft use of her limited abilities, she managed to regroup most of her squad and organize a resistance group from locals and other troops present. As a Commissarial Aide, she was technically the highest ranking person present, and as a result, she commanded most of its operations and proved pivotal in most of its functions - but even after Conrad arrived on the scene, she remained an important cog in the wheel, in part because traitor leader Cruithne Sapp had developed a grudge against her.

Boone would form a rivalry with traitor psyker Waldrip Gestalt, who was deeply in love with Sapp, and they had multiple skirmishes over the incident. Despite Waldrip's absurdly greater power, he attempted to "test" himself against Boone, which ended in his death. She also rescued both Leokadia Chernabog and Nel Torokvei, both of whom proved important in manipulating the various heretek constructions in the area. Eventually, she would help besiege the main fortress with her team, and ended up having a rather close battle with the insane Sapp before killing her personally with the wounded Raege's pistol.

A decade afterward, the Battle of Paradise Lost would occur on Boone's homeworld of Reth, where an Imperial Guard defense led by Lord Commissar Raege clashed with a Tau invasion force. Boone's involvement in the battle, and her fate afterward, is uncertain.

Personality
Boone is one of the most personable and kindly members of the Edges, as a young noble and former socialite. She often suffers from the loss of her old creature comforts, and the life of the military has proven difficult for her to adjust to, even decades down the line. Though basically friendly and nonconfrontational, she has something of a temper and a fairly strong will. She is fairly self-conscious of her shortcomings as both a soldier and a psyker, and tends to fall into depressive funks. However, after a meeting with Cuddles, she realized her uncommon fortune, and became somewhat more optimistic about her lot in life. Nonetheless, she remains one of the more emotional members.

The trauma of her sanctioning and the period thereafter left Boone with no small amount of angst, manifesting in both persistent nightmares and cowardice. Her time with Conrad, however, instilled in her a great desire to grow better. She has been training her skills heavily, and makes an effort to be useful whenever possible. Early on in her career, she was extremely tentative about fighting, but by her later years she could be downright aggressive when threatened.

Boone is an avid lover of music, media, and good food, and among the few members of the Edges able to pass in high society. She is a decent shot, though she favors holdout weapons that rarely inflict much damage. In her early days with the Edges, Boone's psyker skills bordered on incidental, limited to guessing that her boss wanted coffee before she was asked for it. As time went on, and with the aid of training from Cuddles and her psy-hood, she began to learn to heal, read surface thoughts, create flashes of light, and lift small objects. Nonetheless, she is still prone to minor psychic phenomena and perils, which has included uncomfortable instances where she swapped bodies with her Commissar. Since the Trydusian Incident, she has developed the ability to see warp ghosts. A blessing from a dying Sister of Battle also provided Boone with a "miracle", of rather uncertain nature.

Conrad Raege
Alice Boone is often defined, not inaccurately, by her close bond with Commissar Conrad Raege, one that began as soon as the two met. Raege is the first and only person Boone has ever truly loved, considering her both a beautiful woman and a redoubtably wonderful example of humanity, and her relationship with her is perhaps the closest of any in her life. However, she has never properly confessed her feelings as such, due to her own shyness and Raege's emotionally-stunted nature, and is often stymied by the fact that Raege does not seem to feel the same way about her. Nonetheless, she makes an effort to express or hint at her interest in Raege frequently, from giving her gifts to trying to fit her into nice outfits.

Raege, on the other hand, is harder to place. She deeply cares for Boone, but does not consider her feelings to be "love" - owing largely to the fact that she is barely even capable of doing so. She considers Boone to be almost the embodiment of the peacetime person, the thing that soldiers protect, innocent and kind. This manifests in Raege's treatment of Boone, going out of her way to make sure Boone is safe and spared from the worst circumstances of war. This first manifested in her giving Boone her officer rations, which included chocolate. Despite her confusion over her feelings, Raege considers Boone closer to her than likely anyone else still living, and by the time of Paradise Lost, Raege seemed to have made up her mind on the matter.

Cuddles
Boone's meeting with fellow psyker Jonquil Lancaster was a traumatic one, involving the two sharing their life stories psychically and Boone going into shock. Afterward, the two became fairly close companions in spite of themselves. Boone deeply admires Cuddles for her significantly greater power and control, and considers her a mentor. Cuddles, on the other hand, finds Boone fun to mess with, and a potential person to mold.

Zune Lockwood
Zune and Boone became thick as thieves in fairly short order, between their common conversation and their shared charm. They serve as some of the lives of the party among the Edges, being experienced carousers and well-liked overall. They often work together to tease Raege, their less good-humored coworker.

Tobias Levy
Levy is an old friend of Boone's father Silas, and served as her guardian after her sanctioning before placing her under Raege's wing. In spite of their long relationship - or rather, because of it - Boone has about the same level of distrust for Levy that most others do, though she does not outright disdain him. He seems to encourage her relationship with Raege, which has led to him granting her odd favors.

Daneel Calliban
Boone and Calliban, both being fairly amiable and high-society types, are on good terms. They worked together closely in the Trydusian Incident, where Boone rescued him several times. His politeness gels well with Boone's own shy attitudes.

Nel Torokvei
A tech-adept whom Boone encountered in the Trydusian Incident, Nel was initially seriously depressed, owing to a condition that would kill her and transform her into a monster. Boone, however, proved to be a light in the darkness, rescuing Nel and healing her. Nel went on to be one of Boone's closer contacts in the incident.

Mik Branz
The Mordian lieutenant was one of the first people to approach Boone when she joined the crew, defying the natural anti-psyker prejudices common to the unit. Because of this, the two were fairly close friends, up until Branz's death. In the Trydusian Incident, Boone even saw his ghost.

Lara Minhelm
The other Mordian in the Edges interacts with Boone with some frequency, but given Lara's more standoffish persona, it is rarely in notably friendly fashion. Nonetheless, Minhelm enjoys Boone's company, and has noted that she looks out for her.

Kaz Grin
Kaz's personas often show interest in Boone, and just as often do not. Boone appears to appreciate the private's antics, and even sees fit to help him out whenever he assumes the role of a soft-souled romantic. However, she found his psyker persona highly offensive.

C-16
The brain-damaged cavalier has a soft spot for very few people, but Boone, referred to as "little mouse", appears to be one of them. C-16 tends to tolerate Boone's presence more than she does most others, though she still growls whenever Boone tries anything physically affectionate.

Nada
Though Nada approaches Boone with the same odd intimacy as everyone else, Boone fears Nada on an existential level. For much of her time with the Edges, she never even saw Nada in person, and when she did, she fainted in fright.