Dramatis Personæ

Ferdinand 'Fig' Newton.  Fig is the Skylark's astrogator and gunner. He also helps Leon in engineering as needed.  Fig went to space to explore the unknown, to boldly go where no one had gone before.  As soon as he was eligible, he joined the Imperial Scout Service where he served for several years.

In 1090 he was found alone in his ship, unconscious with no memory of the previous 72 hours.  No trace was found of the other five crew members.

 After being denied reenlistment in the Scout Service, he worked on the crew of several large freighters hauling cargo along the Spinward Main.  It is not common knowledge that Fig's left arm is prosthetic.  He lost his arm when he discovered a bomb in a cargo module last year and was not able to get clear before it went off.

Kipenzi Momoh. Kipenzi is the Skylark's first shift pilot and is the crew's expert on signals and communications.  It was her tuning the ships scanners that let them find the wreck of the Haunting Thunder. She also enjoys hot-rodding around in the ship's air/raft.  She comes across as being 'cute' most of the time, on the other hand she knows a disturbing amount of gun trivia.

 

Medicus. The ship's doctor and second pilot.  Tall and thin, he looks almost like a Zhodani because his mother was a Zhodani.  She was killed by raiders while he was still a child.  Medicus spent his teen years on the Imperial Prison world Keanu and was there during the two year revolt in 1084, working as a medic for one of the gangs.  After Keanu was retaken, Medicus worked on the crew of a smuggling ship and was able to learn the name of his mother's killer, the Pirate Balin Starovich.  Escaping when the smuggler he was working for was captured, he joined the crew of the Skylark.

Leon Cruz. Leon is the ship's engineer.  Leon is very good at what he does and could probably earn ten times what he does on the Skylark working for a megacorp.  Why doesn't he?  No one on the crew knows.   Leon is very closed mouthed about his past.  They know he once served in the Imperial Navy and ever so often he lets something slip that says he once had high social status, maybe he was the son of a duke who fell out of favor... or maybe not.

Samuel Penney. It is said that Sam can smell a deal at 12 parsecs.  The crew just knows that he keeps the cargo hold full and profitable. He works with Fig at astrogation, where they check each other's numbers.  So far they have always come out of hyperspace in the system they were aiming at, if not always over the right planet.  He also seems to have some skill at forging documents and more importantly, spotting a forgery. Like Leon, he is not particularly forthcoming about his past.