Buchaallaabamedileer, known professionally as Dr. Butcher, is an esteemed flight surgeon who has served with grace and valor in the Neptunian Skyguard and currently earns a handsome salary as the chief medical officer of Platinum Lion Salvage & Discovery. He is well-educated and highly disciplined, carrying himself through thick and thin with cool-headed aplomb. Dr. Butcher descends from a family with a long history of service to the Skyguard and the good people of Neptune, and while he no longer actively serves the Patriarch, he still likes to wear the colors of the Skyguard uniform in his civilian attire. He usually carries himself as a reasonable person, but his devotion to Skyguardian tradition leaves him susceptible to arguments about topics of political interest that do not cast the Skyguard in a positive light. To question the Patriarch is to question the very foundation of Neptune and its sphere of influence protecting not just the Outer Belt, but the whole of the Sol system- it is solely the realm of the ungrateful and the foolish to chip away at the stone beneath their own feet in such a manner. It is a tiresome quality; even soldiers he served with learned to avoid raising certain topics around Dr. Butcher, and his crewmates aboard the Mammoth have quickly learned to do the same. He maintains a range of other intellectually-stimulating interests, he just also carries this landmine around with him at all times, and there's nothing anyone can say to get him to put it down.
As a flight surgeon, it was Dr. Butcher's responsibility to deploy to active combat zones and ensure that his soldiers received medical care in highly-stressful and highly-unstable environments, including during rough transit between battle lines and the security of an established medical facility. He maintains a rigorous physical fitness regimen, and is able to perform his duties even amidst the pitched rolling of evasive maneuvers or the trembling of atmospheric escape. The majority of Dr. Butcher's time in the Skyguard was spent defending the Andromedan front, treating grevious wounds inflicted by the strange weapons the Andromedans seemed to carry in abundance. Andromedan bladecasters leave long, thin wounds rather than the deep round ones most Solar casters infliced, and flight surgeons like Dr. Butcher needed to be mindful of these injuries damaging multiple adjacent bodily regions and the ways they connect to each other. The Skyguard employs a fair amount of mercenaries from across the Sol system in their fight against the Andromedans, but as a well-studied and deeply-learned physician, Dr. Butcher is as familiar with otherworldly biology as he is with Neptunian physiology- he can quickly tend to severe and complex needs for all of his patients, and he is used to assessing unknown and alien technologies on the fly. It was this distinction that originally drew Captain Tybalt's attention, and his bank account.
The Skyguard maintains a strict practice of cycling phases of specialists into and out of its combat theaters, ensuring that a new phase can benefit from the field knowledge built up by older phases, so that when the oldest phase of specialists cycle out of the front they don't take all of their hard-earned wisdom with them. Dr. Butcher faced the Andromedan threat for many years, serving proudly and with distinction, before it was ultimately his turn to cycle out of the field and accept assignment to less stressful and dangerous posts. His combat days behind him, Dr. Butcher assumed a role as a starship medical officer aboard the Chruumalako-rennolith, a Skyguard capital ship deployed to support Quasar Galactic science vessels as they constructed a network of lenticular satellites designed to monitor warp currents. This appointment was not long-lived; the Chruumalako-rennolith was among the first of Neptune's fleet to encounter a new, unanticipated threat as it emerged from Jovian space. Dr. Butcher, one of the surviving officers present on the bridge of the flagship at the time of first contact, would later testify to the appearance of a large old battleship, a Star Navy ship "emerging from the ichor of space itself by no known means;" that it "fired upon private and military ship alike" and that "a motley assortment of cutthroats from every world of Sol spilled out from cannon fire received by the Chruumalako-rennolith." When asked to clarify, he affirmed that yes, the men swarmed from the munitions themselves that had punched into the Chruumalako-rennolith's hull. He attested to the presence and bravery of the ship's commander, that he fought "by yolk and shell" to preserve the lives of his crew, and that he did not abandon his post in his fated hour. Dr. Butcher posthumously verified the body of the commander in absence of beak or crest, "which had been removed along with the rest of the cranium" prior to the evacuation of the ship. For his gallant service across one front, and the grace with which he met the ignition of another, Dr. Butcher was discharged from the Neptunian Skyguard with valor and gratitude. He maintained discipline, self-control and conducted himself admirably through harrowing trials, and it was by the grace of the Patriarch that he enjoy the quiet civilian life that only the Skyguard can preserve. Dr. Butcher, weary from war and rattled by the explosive conclusion of what was meant to be the long, quiet tail of his career, accepted his release without contest.
And along came Tybalt! Tybalt's putting the best crew together, and he wants the best doctor. He wants the best of every stripe of starfaring shiphand, but he's really adamant about having a top-of-the-line doctor on his bridge at all times- it's a notion that really stuck with him after his head briefly didn't. In researching his shortlist of candidates, Tybalt learned there was a Skyguard doctor working in some dinky little clinic he didn't own himself and was way, way overqualified to be serving in with the skillset he reportedly possessed. He found a recollection of this doctor's accomplishments and thought, they let this guy go? Are they nuts?! This was his man, this was Tybalt's guy right here, and he could scoop him up for a song before anyone else realizes what's up for grabs. It was perfect! He and Duo Jie hopped their ship and set a course for Neptune.
Dr. Butcher serves all his patients with equal respect and care, regardless of their rank or port of origin- it is part of his oath to preserve what lives he can through what maelstrom might descend upon them, unwavered by whatever bias might weigh his feathers down. He did, however, long for the kind of disciplined, regimented life he enjoyed in the Skyguard. He had many good years of service yet to give when he was so abruptly discharged, and while he enjoyed a quiet life in southern Neptune his thoughts still wandered, still imagined what could have been were it not for-- well. It's best not to dwell. It's not good for the mind. The arrival of a business-minded Martian with deep pockets and a laser-focused path into danger stirred the coals in Dr. Butcher's heart; here was an opportunity to enjoy that disciplined life aboard a professional starship, serving alongside fine starfarers and tending to their health and wellness through trouble and strife. Additionally, the notion of serving in a shipwreck discovery company piqued his academic curiosity- here was an opportunity to see rare glimpses of history, and if luck favored him, perhaps he'd encounter a truly ancient Martian craft, the sort that made first contact with so many worlds, from the centuries before their neighboring Terra eclipsed the starfaring community. Surely, this was a sign that his yearning heart was right, that the stars still had more to offer him; a few years of quiet service in a rural clinic helped quell his frayed nerves, he felt fit to fight again. Tybalt offered him an exclusive contract. Dr. Butcher signed on with eager anticipation for what awaited him. He would, in time, come to regret this eagerness.
Dr. Butcher did not care much for the crew he had enlisted in. The cannoneers, the twins, they were crass and unprofessional, bordering on outright hostile at times. The navigator, a pompous show-off, had to not-infrequently be vacated from leisurely use of the medbay's beds. He had hoped to find companionship with the pilot- he was ex-Star Navy, a fellow servicemember who demonstrated exemplary discipline- but he harbored an uncharitable opinion of the Skyguard's ability to secure the vastness of the Outer Belt from the breadth of threats that endangered it. Intolerable, simply intolerable. And worst of all, there was... him. It. He could not bring himself to name the Captain's "special surprise." On the one wing, he was honorbound to heal and preserve the lot of them, and he would not waver in the execution of his duties, for if he should turn his back in disgust he would ensure they are delivered into a mortal peril from which only his practiced hand could protect them. On the other wing, the medical facilities aboard the Mammoth were state-of-the-art; every piece of equipment was not only modern and clean, it was in full alignment with Neptunian medical standards. Someone had done their homework. Perhaps it was just a rough start; perhaps the First Mate could be appealed to, and with the Doctor's guidance they could be whipped into a proper crew of sailors. His thoughts wandered.
The salvage of the Quokka gave Dr. Butcher hope, it was in line with the sorts of historic vessels he'd looked forward to encountering on this deployment. It was only a 22nd century star galleon, but its hull was mostly intact and its interior was largely preserved by the vacuum of space. There were some parts of the ship that had been overtaken by colonies of Ceresian fungus, a wretched pink mushroom that seemed to endure even without air or soil, but for the most part the wreck was a fine academic specimen. The good doctor joined the boarding crew in a non-laboring capacity, taking careful inventory and identifying priceless artifacts hidden amidst the humdrum and mundane- simply being old does not mean something is truly valuable, and Tybalt soon found that Dr. Butcher had a keen eye for this distinction. The contents of the Quokka will fetch a fine price at the finance district's auction houses. It's a shame they could not find their way into public collections, but such was the nature of business.
Platinum Lion had introduced themselves ferociously to the Outer Belt salvage community, and placed a tremendous amount of pressure on Red Raven and Timberwolf to muscle them out of the picture. Dr. Butcher had familiarized himself with the makeup of both crews, having reviewed the Captain's studious research- he was surprised to find that Timberwolf proved the more tenacious of the two. He's seen ships repaired from damage in the Andromedan front and return to service in short order; Red Raven was no military outfit, in time they might cobble their ship back together and return to the stars, but while they were trapped in drydock Timberwolf did not relent in their attempts to evade the Lion's watchful eye. Dr. Butcher admired their gumption. He hoped the ugly business of taming the salvage rivals would conclude expediently so Platinum Lion could focus on the real purpose of their operation, on the discovery of beautiful old ships. They were squabbling rabble. They were nobody. One or two more of these sorties would likely do the job.
That opportunity came sooner than the good doctor anticipated. Duo Jie sent out an all-hands notification, all Platinum Lion crew were to report to the Mammoth and be prepared for immediate take-off. Banger and Mash had found their way back to the Ox & Carriage, a popular pub in their old stomping grounds, the A-District. There, they received a hot salvage tip from a local kid who called herself Min-Jeong; she didn't have a lead for the twins, but she overheard someone else tip Captain Bryce off to the location of an early Europan Hydrosphere, one of their own pioneering starship designs. She said she'd overheard Bryce yelling into his commphone and saw him race out of the place where they both were. Banger, or Mash, one of them paid Min-Jeong for her tip and reported the news to Tybalt, who referenced the flight charts and confirmed the claim. That was mere moments before Duo Jie put out the call. Dr. Butcher reported to the bridge of the Mammoth and stood by for departure. A Hydrosphere... by Terran measure this was 19th century technology, fired up into space, propelled by volcanic pressure through kilometers-long bores of sheet ice like antique flintlocks. He could only imagine what relics awaited him aboard such a find.
A long flight carried the Mammoth along the Ermine's footsteps, leading into the winds, into the dark sector behind Jovian orbit. The warp currents did not chart any such pocket of tidal movement like the one that collected the Quokka, and sensors did not detect the presence of any other satellite, much less a ship, for kilometers in any direction. It was just the Ermine, meandering along in its curious route until it finally came to a stop, far away from anything. It just stopped, and waited. Tybalt leaned forward in his captain's chair, squinting out the bridge's front window. He checked the computers himself: there was nothing here. He instructed Skydog407 to bring them in closer, he put Banger and Mash on the cannons, he demanded Dylan tell him there was some secret to the warp here. Nothing, nothing, nothing. The crew began to grow restless. Dr. Butcher could feel his feathers begin to stand on end, he didn't like this, but he couldn't figure out why. Tybalt commanded the local communications channel be opened, hooking a gold-plated wireless microphone over his ear. "What is this, Bryce? You get lost? Where's the shipwreck?" A light blipped on the Mammoth's comms board as a third party connected to the local channel. Through the crackle of static, a voice spoke in reply- it wasn't Bryce, it was a woman. An angry one.
"Closer than you think."
A spark flashed behind Dylan's ear, the ship's navigator collapsing as something overloaded his optical sensor. A heartbeat later, Dr. Butcher watched as the Jackrabbit II emerged from the ichor of space itself, by means of Lydia's top-secret Pocket Drive, stitching through a curl in the fabric of dimensional space. The red ship stood upside-down, hull-to-hull and eye-to-eye with the Mammoth- Dr. Butcher had seen just one ship appear from nowhere like that, a different ship... a bigger one. Fragments of memory scatter across the tabletop of his mind, his thoughts filled him with unease. The interior of the Jackrabbit II was visible through the Mammoth's front windshield; the whole Red Raven crew manned their stations behind their captain, the Mercurian woman standing at the frontmost point of the bridge, right at the glass. Her eyes, glowing like embers, scanned the bridge of the Mammoth before they fixed forward on Tybalt, singularly on Tybalt. Dr. Butcher's heart began to race- he'd seen those eyes, he'd seen those very eyes but once before, his mind scrambling to fit a hundred pieces together, to build a picture of what was happening. Who was this woman?
Duo Jie tended to the fallen Dylan as the doctor was lost in his own head. Tybalt let out a disbelieving utterance at Red Raven's defiant posture. In that moment, her eyes locked with Tybalt's, Captain Amy of the Jackrabbit II flashed in a corona of heat, her hair billowing as the Mercurian began to Firewalk. Her horns appeared, her tail lashed out, her eyes glowed like Sol itself; but it was that blue, that chromatic shade of blue she took on, that broke the doctor's graceful poise. He'd seen that blue, he'd seen those eyes, he'd seen them emerging from the ichor of Jovian space. The hundred pieces of panicked thoughts assembled themselves into a clear picture in his mind, and Dr. Butcher's panicked unease broke into full-on Dread. He'd made a connection, he felt like he knew who this woman was, or who she was connected to. Descended from? It couldn't be her... it can't be... it has to be...
Amy gestured a hand over her shoulder; Haley nodded, pushing forward on her control yoke. The Jackrabbit II drifted up and out of Platinum Lion's viewport, moving directly above them, its hull casting a shadow over the Mammoth's bridge. Banger and Mash radioed in from their gunnery positions- one of them reported the Tusks were malfunctioning, the munitions feeder's lift chain jumped a tooth on one of its gears, and a shell was jammed against the rear chamber's laser emitters; they wouldn't fire. The other called in, the twin-photon turret was suffering a seized clamp on its rotator, it couldn't swing around to acquire a target. Watching his ship succumb to mechanical maladies, Captain Tybalt barked into his headset microphone, shouting orders to fire all missile tubes directly up, they were right above them, just fire! His orders were interrupted by a deep, loud jolt that rocked the whole of the Mammoth's interior- outside the front viewport, the Jackrabbit's two main tow cable lines could be seen drifting in the ship's wake. Beneath the Mammoth, amidst the moment of panic, the Ermine had extended both of its telescoping robotic arms upwards, affixing the Jackrabbit's two enormous tow hooks to each of the Mammoth's delicate wings, right in the front center of each. Banger, or Mash, one of them reported in: the missile tube hatches wouldn't retract. Something's jammed. Dr. Butcher's back slid down the wall of the bridge, his hands gripping his head as he came to terms with just who his captain had picked a fight with. Not her... not again... not again...
Bryce's voice crackled across the local comms channel. " You're good, Ames. Scrap 'em." The Jackrabbit's enormous engines spun up, a plume of blue vapor glowing behind them just moments before the ship blasted forward, taking off in the opposite direction from where the Mammoth was facing. The sudden acceleration tore its tow hooks through the thin metal of the Mammoth's wings, shearing them both off at the elbow- the brief, horrid sound of tearing steel filled every deck of the arrogant blue ship. Every alarm was flashing on the bridge. Tybalt was apoplectic, screaming for his million-credit crew to do something, anything! The Ermine retracted its arms, its engines lit up, and in a blue streak of its own it took off after the Jackrabbit, leaving the Mammoth adrift in the cold silence of space, a long way from home, alone with naught but its own tattered wings. A shipwreck for Platinum Lion to claim.
---
The Jackrabbit and the Ermine shared a gentle route back home to Saturn, maintaining an easy pace, traveling side-by-side. Local comms were open, and the two crews shared in the levity of the moment, commisserating in their struggles and enjoying the feeling of a plan coming together. The rival crews hadn't been this cordial since the Grand Elk job, it felt good to be on the same side for once. Bryce suggested the gang should meet up at the tavern, drinks were on him. The comms channel filled with agreeable chatter, until Haley interrupted, her finger pressed firmly on a mute button: she'd just received a call from Carol, Titan's radio dispatcher. A ship called in, it's disabled in Jovian space, it suffered damage to its wings and requested a tow. Laughter filled the crackling static of the local channel, quieting down a moment later for Haley to take her finger off mute.
"Sorry, Carol, we got our hands full tonight. Better let someone else take this one!"