Arthur Carmody

A surpassingly gifted fighter pilot in his youth, Arthur Carmody made a reputation for himself before he'd even left the pilot's academy, promoted to tutor before he'd even finished qualifying as a fighter pilot.

Designing modifications and creating new tactical strategies for use against the marauder fleet of Rastus Cressida, he arrived for his first day of combat, introduced to his new squadron by way of him lecturing them on the latest upgrades and combat techniques they would need to adopt immediately. His fellow pilots were unimpressed but were under orders to have their craft fitted with the upgrades and to use the techniques if and when the new tactical manual demanded them.

Carmody was given the fighter-craft of the squadron leader who had died that morning. His co-pilot/spotter "Dexterity" had received a serious leg-wound during the deadly confrontation, but was patched up and told to show Carmody the ropes. Dexterity immediately disliked Carmody and asked what his call sign was, if he was old enough to have one. Carmody informed him that by the end of the day Dexterity would know Carmody's callsign, handing him a sealed envelope containing a note with Carmody's academy callsign inside.

Dexterity had some derogatory early guesses, which Carmody ignored. During the day's combat Carmody racked up a huge number of "spikes" (confirmed kills), and the rest of the squadron reluctantly, but effectively utilised the new tactical strategies, resulting in no casualties, and barely any structural damage to their fighters.

Dexterity had been through a punishing day, protesting at the high-G manoeuvres Carmody had performed and the immense pain it had caused his shattered leg, gaining no sympathy whatever from Carmody during their operational flight time. Back in the hangar Carmody helped his spotter from the fighter and told him he wouldn't apologise for the high-aerobatics as being in pain was better than being dead. Dexterity told him he was a nasty little shit, but he was right.

Asked to tell Carmody what his callsign was, Dexterity guessed correctly, and on tearing open the envelope he read the message inside. "You didn't need this to know you got the right answer."

Carmody and Dexterity remained pilot and co-pilot throughout their careers on active combat duty, racking up the highest spike-count of any fighter team, and remained friends for the rest of their lives.

Carmody continued his work on analysing pirate tactics and weaknesses, writing the definitive guide to combatting pirates, seeming to have an instinctive understanding of how pirates think and act, even anticipating responses they might have to his tactics and creating solution to those too.

He became head of the armed fleet of Fallon Mining once he retired as a fighter pilot, creating a tight and effective fighting force, and also campaigning for the Mining Alliance to organise its forces into a defensive militia to make them stronger against pirate attacks. The huge respect he had earned made him a persuasive figure, but not having a mining company of his own, he couldn't muster enough leverage among the member companies to bring it about, especially as the hugely influential Martha Scott, CEO of Focus Metal & Gas and president of the Mining Alliance was utterly opposed to the idea.

In Year 175 he was hoping to cement his reputation by helping Gold-Star Lines with their side of the preparations for the Pandale ambush, the trap baited to entice a large pirate force to attack Gold-Star's newest luxury cruise liner, The Francesca Reala. His strategy was solid and fairly effective, although the savagery of some of the pirates in doing anything to prevent capture surprised even him. Nonetheless, his plan seemed to be working, until the PPB frigate Savatara, using the confusion of the massed ships engaged on conflict, used a secret weapon to attempt to destroy the Black Fleet training vessel Black Wreath.

Their weapon knocked out power to every vessel in the task force, allowing a large number of the surviving pirate junks to escape while the task force was recovering from the blast.

After the setback, Carmody was approached by Janice Kaur of Kaur Mining Corporation about a proposal which may help drive the Mining Alliance into unifying its forces, and make them both a lot richer in the process.

Show/Hide Spoilers Over the next few years a group calling themselves the February Consortium drew up plans to initiate an escalating series of "pirate" attacks on mining convoys, designed to frighten the Alliance into agreeing to the creation of a protective militia, with the ultimate aim of handing control of most of the armed vessels of the Mining Alliance to Arthur Carmody, which, once done, would allow the Consortium to realise their real ambition, allowing the world of Kaur to invade their neighbour, Tiovo, the third wealthiest company in the Alliance.

Although interplanetary invasions were illegal to the point of being on of the only crimes in the Protectorate to carry the death penalty, the consortium gambled on the fact that neither Kaur of Tiovo were registered as planets with a government, they were effectively, in the eyes of the law, merely neighbouring business premises.

Believing the military might of the Sovereign to be so diminished by the arms limitation treaty of Year 240 that the Sovereign would seek any excuse not to have to enter into a military conflict with the substantial military forces Carmody had accumulated, they figured the gamble was safe, and tried to call Sovereign Dofstez' bluff when he threatened to remove them from Tiovo by force.

That the Sovereign had only brought four dreadnoughts and his own Sentinel Class flagship they guessed he was ill equipped for a fight. This was a miscalculation. Carmody's entire fleet was annihilated in a matter of minutes, and the ground invasion fared little better, as the Police used the opportunity to unveil their new Prowler Class suppression craft, in development since the bloodbath on Steimz that resulted from the murder or Darian Corvalis.

What happened to Carmody and his fellow conspirators remains a mystery. Some conspiracists have suggested they conspired with Dofstez in order to provide a pretext for the scrapping of the Year 240 arms limitation treaty, and that they have new identities and are living in luxury somewhere in the Goffa Province. Others suggest they were killed on the planet's surface, and others still that they received the prescribed grotesque death sentence of being strung out alive in the open on the world of Paranas, having had the skin cut away from their stomachs so dog-hawks can eat their intestines. Their fate has yet to be revealed.