TLDR Version: started at age 15 as a deckrat and greasemonkey who ran away from his backwater colony because he wanted more to life than working in his father's bar or fixing toasters.  Kyle is now a a 17-year-old.

He is short for his age, no matter how many times he washes or showers, (16) fifteen-year-old Kyle Mitchell seems to be perpetually covered in dirt and grease. Especially when he's had to do a major repair or go crawling through maintenance ducts. Kyle keeps his hair short, periodically hacking at it with a knife, so as not to get in his eyes when working. There's a small scar above his left eye from when he used to work at his father's bar and was accidentally hit by a thrown beer bottle during a bar brawl.

He's often seen wearing baggy and hardwaring clothes, patched cargo pants and work boots. Over a (formely white) T-Shirt. he wears a "swat-style" vest with dozens of pockets which contain tools, parts, memory chips and candy bars and he's always seen with a pair of oversized headphones.

Strong willed, independently minded, in some ways Kyle is a typical teenager in that he doesn't like being told to do something, especially if he doesn't want to do it, and he isn't shy of letting people know. However, earn his respect, and you'll get a hardworker. Earning his trust is easy; don't treat him like a kid. Don't assume that just because he is young, he is stupid, especially when it comes to machines. Despite this, there are times when he just wants to goof off and be a kid for a bit.

Kyle was born on the outer rim moon of Progeon 2. The colony was founded in order to mine the deposits of mineral nodules from the floor of moon's shallow seas. Most of the settlements were built on the few landmasses that dotted the surface; often little more than low-lying islands surrounded by miles of coastal marshes and tidal flats. For many years, the small colony grew until the mineral deposits dried up. Overnight, traffic to Progeon started to dry up as trade routes shifted and the colony’s economy crashed. Progeon had no natural resources to speak of and its environment was marginal at best.

Today Progeon is a shadow of its former self; large parts of the main settlement have been abandoned and the only people left are those that either can’t or won’t leave; even the Unification War passed the moon by, holding no interest or value for either the Independence or the Alliance It is, in Kyle’s own words, a “dead end mudball of a planet.”

Kyle’s father owns the bar at the local spaceport and Kyle grew up working there after school; collecting glasses, cleaning tables and ducking around bar fights. Like most kids who grew up in the outer rim moons, Kyle learnt to be resourceful and independent from an early age. However, he wanted more out of life than just wasting it working behind a bar. Kyle had a knack for taking apart and repairing machines, a real talent for it. He also had a deep love of spaceships, seeing them as both a way to put his skill to some real use and as a way off Progeon. Whenever a ship would land, he would pester the crew with endless questions. Some spacers found it annoying; others found the “hero worship” cute. Regardless, when he asked about joining the crew and going into space, the answer was always the same. No one wanted to employ a colony brat. Even if they did, it was unlikely that his father would let him go; he had made himself very clear that he didn’t want his only son getting himself killed up in space. There was always call for someone who was good with machines, especially on a world like Progeon where spare parts were few and far between. Kyle’s father planned to open a repair shop attached to the bar, and it wouldn’t do for his budding little mechanic to run off. Unfortunately, that’s just what happened.

Seven months ago, another merchant vessel landed at Progeon. This time, Kyle decided to take the initiative, sneaking on board just before takeoff and hiding in the cargo bay. It didn’t take long for the crew to realise they had a stowaway, there are only so many places you can hide aboard a ship. But by the time they did, they had already broken orbit and had committed to inter-orbit transfer burn that would send them hurtling through the black to their next destination. It was too late to turn back and the incensed captain threatened to throw him out the airlock if Kyle didn’t give a damn good reason not to. Through a combination of pleading for his life and demonstrating his skills, he managed to convince the captain to let him stay on board. At least until they got to the next port. Kyle wasn’t sure if the captain was serious about the whole airlock thing, but he wasn’t going to pass up a chance. Over the next week, Kyle worked his butt off to prove that he could be useful and by the time they made it to their destination, the captain grudgingly accepted that Kyle knew his stuff. The captain offered the boy a job; it was hard work for very little money, little better than unpaid labour.

That was how Kyle became a deckrat; part cabin boy, part manual labourer. He got all the jobs that no one else on the crew wanted; cleaning up spills and the vomit from space sick passengers, changing fuses, loading and unloading cargo, crawling through the ducts to check on wiring, cleaning dishes in the galley. It was a crap job, but it got him off Progeon and into space.

Kyle hasn’t spoken to his father since he ran away without even leaving a note. He’s been too busy with his duties to send a message home; at least that’s what he’s been telling himself.