Masaru Yoshida

[Thexare]

(Related to the idea from here. Expect the rest to materialize within a week.)

From the Lunar Eclipse personnel files:

Name: Masaru Yoshida
Lunar Eclipse Rank: Founder, Director
Birthdate: June 10, 775 AS
Birthplace: New Tokyo
Family: Yumiko & Akio Yoshida
Year of Employment: 806 AS
Ships Commanded: IMG Gunboat Kusanagi, Supply Ship Masamune, IMG Gunboat Silvereye (shared with the Commanders of the Lunar Eclipse)
Ships Piloted: Virage, Tiger Shark, Havoc MkII

Masaru's father was a soldier, like his father before him, and his father before him, and so on. Masaru was raised to continue with the family tradition, pushed toward the Kusari Naval Forces by his mother and father. He originally did as his parents wanted, but on a visit to Roppongi Station on June 11, 793 AS, he met a mercenary. The two talked for a while, and Masaru's interest in the freedom of mercenary life grew rapidly, and since he was already a well-trained pilot with a fully-armed ship he was ready to get started on that path.

Then there was the matter of his parents. They didn't train him to be a pilot, they trained him to be a Kusari pilot. He and his father discussed the decision for a week before Masaru finally made the one vital concession: that when the KNF needed his aid, he would help them free of charge.

His first contract saw his Scrambler-armed Hawk escorting a series of Independent Miners Guild freighters from Holman Outpost to Planet Harris. Multiple Gaian pilots were shot down by Masaru and the miners, but one was lost on a return trip when seven Starblazers assaulted the returning Dromedaries; Masaru barely escaped from their assault, saved by an IMG Gunboat blowing the attackers away. Like any young pilot, his first reaction was to ask where he can get a gunboat. The response stuck in his mind for years.

"Work for us long enough, kid, and you might be able to earn one."

The IMG captain didn't realize at the time what would come from his remark. The Independent Miners Guild became Masaru's primary employer, his earnings funding multiple ship upgrades and purchases, and he was repeatedly offered positions within the Guild. He valued his freedom too highly to take up those offers, however. Approximately ten years and fourty seperate escort contracts later, the IMG offered him one of their gunboats. It was in need of repairs, and came without any weapons, but Masaru took it, calling it Kusanagi.

With the Kusanagi under his command and his skill in a fighter well-known in the Taus, Masaru decided to organize a band of mercenaries, which he called the Lunar Eclipse. They chose the Virage, Tiger Shark, and Havoc as their primary ships for their distinctive appearance, so their targets would know and eventually fear just the sight of a Lunar Eclipse ship.

Though they originally preferred avoiding bounty hunting, feeling that the police should do their own job instead of hiring someone else to do it, ten years after their organization began a Gateway captain changed that perspective. Bleeding and burned from a mercenary's attack on her ship, she told Masaru the tale and offered to pay him for killing the hired thug. He agreed, helping her to Freeport 4's medical ward and taking off in the newly-built Silvereye. He had been raised to act honorably; while much of that had gone out the window over the last two bloody decades, he still held to a few core beliefs, chief among them being that you should never attack a civilian vessel. The Lunar Eclipse always acted according to those beliefs, and Masaru assumed that most mercenaries acted the same way. Hearing about this one, however, made him quickly realize where mercenaries got their reputation.

His target was dead within two hours, the thug's Marauder shaken by numerous blaster impacts. Though the ship wasn't destroyed, the pilot's safety harness snapped, his helmet was shaken loose, and his head slammed into the console. A gunner of the Silvereye boarded the damaged Marauder and brought it back to the Freeport for repairs and examination. After this incident, the Lunar Eclipse shifted its focus entirely to bounty hunting, still taking mercenary jobs if offered but usually working to improve the reputation of mercenaries by pruning the immoral ones and killing dangerous criminals the police can't handle.