Pénélope Beaumont

Admiral Pénélope Victoire Jeanne Beaumont, 1st Baronet DCMT GSIC GF SE (born 11 September 2611) is a Franco-Terran spacer career officer of the Space Forces, having served since the 2630s. She is a renowned admiral of the fleet, having participated in important space battles during the Great War and having later served with distinction in defensive military roles in low-intensity conflicts in the Outer Colonies and Banat regions. She was appointed Military Governor of the Banat in 2685.
She is also known as the mother of war hero Field Marshal Céleste Beaumont, Chief of the Defense Staff since 2676; as well as mother of the lesser-known but highly-decorated war hero Aurora Beaumont.
== Early life and education ==
Born Pénélope Mirabeau to Marie Mirabeau (b. 2580) and Paul Salonniere (b. 2581) at the Naval hospital in Eiden Colony in the Genossen System, she was the second of six children. Her parents had been settled for generations in the Cassiopeian frontier and were descended from French settlers of the Terran inner colonies. Both parents had been 'military brats' from Naval families and had served brief tours of duty in the Terran Imperial Space Navy between 2601 and 2606. They had both grown up together in Eiden Colony and, after their periods of service, married and had children. Pénélope was the second eldest of the children, after Yves-Paul, and was followed by Philippe, Jules , Éponine, and Madeleine. Her youngest sister died very young from a severe fever, and her three brothers joined the Imperial Navy Marine Corps. Yves-Paul and Jules would both die in combat in the Cruxite War, and Philippe would be granted honorable discharge in 2633.
Pénélope was raised in what she described as "strict, traditional Catholic French home" and attended mass regularly twice a week. Both parents enforced military-level discipline on the children, in part because of limited means during their youth. Pénélope attended the all-girls St. Joan of Arc Academy from 2616 and 2626. After matriculating, she attended the Naval Military School at Eiden, a prestigious local secondary education institution and boarding school with a focus on military discipline and training students for future military careers, and entered in the Eiden JROTC program. She attended NMSE until May of 2630, when she enlisted in the Imperial Space Navy.
== Military service ==
=== Early career ===
Pénélope enlisted in the Space Navy on 11 May 2630, and began basic training at the Thebes military depot in June. She underwent training until August, and then began studies at the Thebes Naval Academy. She excelled at her courses and was recommended for transfer by her professors to the prestigious Space Academy at Cape Canaveral, Earth. She completed her studies in 2634 at Cape Canaveral and graduated number one in her class, and recommended for spacecraft command. She was commissioned a Lieutenant Junior Grade upon matriculation but was promoted next-day to full Lieutenant.
From 2634 to 2635, she served as an operations officer under Captain Edith Wilkes aboard the cruiser HMSV Zauberei, and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and made executive officer in 2635. After two years, she was further promoted to Commander and appointed to command her own vessel, the HMSV Balto, a missile frigate of the 13th Scout Flotilla. She commanded the Balto for four years, engaging in skirmishes with cassiopeian privateers. She married the Balto's chief medical officer, Lt Cdr Daniel J. Beaumont, on 7 July 2639 and took his surname. She gave birth to her first child, Josephine Madeleine Céleste, the following year in April 2640. She was promoted to the rank of Captain, and assigned as executive officer for Goshen Station, orbiting the planet Gesem IV in the Cassiopeian Frontier, in December 2640 after returning from maternal leave. After two miscarriages, in February 2645 she gave birth to her second child, Aurora-Marie Anne. In 2651, she was placed in command of Goshen Station. In January 2654, she was promoted to Counter Admiral and appointed to command the Task Force 70, a combat scout task force within the 13th Scout Flotilla; she gave birth to her third and final child, Artemus Jefferson, in 2658. In 2660, she was promoted to Rear Admiral and appointed to command the 13th Scout Flotilla, leading from aboard the battlecruiser HMSV Molossian.
=== Middle career and Great War service ===
From 2660 to 2667, Admiral Beaumont served as the commander of the 13th Scout Flotilla. She was tasked with patrolling a portion of the Cassiopeian Frontier region, and combating the increasing threat of alien privateers and pirates with ties to the Republic of Cassiopeia. Initially, the Great War was focused between the ISTO and the Soviet Republic, but this degenerated into a three-way war as negotiations broke down between the Soviet Republic and the FIG, and the ISTO member states began a campaign to defend its frontier colonies. The Terran Empire launched an incursion of the Republic of Cassiopeia in January 2666, and the 13th Scout Flotilla was mobilized as a forward line unit to gather intelligence on Cassiopeian positions and patrol ahead of the main fleet. Rear Admiral Beaumont commanded the flotilla during the incursion, and was decorated for several victories during the first year of the war.
By February 2667, her victories had earned her fame and renown among the Naval fleet commanders and she was recommended for a personal honor. She and her spacecraft were selected by Emperor Francis Charles VII to serve as the Imperial Flagship for the Emperor's personal command of the Imperial Strike Fleet. She would be promoted to the rank of Vice Admiral and given deputy command of the fleet as the Emperor's naval adjutant. This was a great personal honor to the royalist and conservative Admiral Beaumont. The Molossian was redeployed to the Soviet front and participated in over a hundred space combat engagements between March 2667 and May 2668. Throughout her time aboard the Molossian, her husband served as Chief Medical Officer.
In early June of 2668, the Molossian became engaged in what would be its final battle. Several thousand Soviet spacecraft were gathered at an important jump hub, and the Imperial Strike Fleet mobilized as soon as intelligence indicated this, in order to catch the Soviets off-guard and destroy their fleet in a decapitation strike. However, it turned into an ambush as nearly twice as many Soviet spacecraft as expected were present, overwhelming and outnumbering the Imperial fleet. Admiral Beaumont's capable command of the Imperial flank forces are noted a major reason the fleet survived long enough to retreat. However, in the course of battle, the Molossian was severely damaged: missiles disabled its thrusters, the observation spire was destroyed with the Emperor inside by a laser hit, and the ship's reactor was going critical and missile damage had disabled its ejection safety protocols. Most of the crew, including Admiral Beaumont, were able to evacuate. However, Daniel died along with several engineering crew as they worked in vain to halt a runaway criticality event. The ship was obliterated by a reactor explosion.
Admiral Beaumont led the rag-tag remnants of the Imperial Strike Fleet to a withdrawal jump. After being informed of the events, Prince Maximilian ascended the throne.
== Personal life ==
Her refusal of certain aspects of modern medical technology was criticized by those close to her. It has been reported by her contemporaries that it may have led to the lack of detection of her eldest daughter's osteogenesis imperfecta and temporal lobe epilepsy until well into the pregnancy, as well as her numerous miscarriages. After her third child, in 2658, she ceased trying to have additional children. Her hostility to pre-natal gene therapy is claimed by her critics to stem from her allegedly stern conservatism and religious devotion to the notion of a divine plan for her life. The Admiral has never commented publicly on the matter.
Category:Living people
Category:Military personnel
Category:Military personnel of the Colonial Wars
Category:Military personnel of the Great War
Category:Space admirals
Category:Space Forces personnel
Category:Terran Catholics
Category:Terran Spacers