Mathias Croft

> "*Welcome aboard this midday service to 'god-only-knows-where', please keep your hands and feet inside the spacecraft at all times...*"
> - Mathias Croft, about pilot the *Guinevere* into a Lauralyn Conduit.
>
>

**Mathias Croft** is a Merician-born privateer and pilot of the independent corvette *Guinevere*.

## Biography

### Early life

Mathias Croft was born on Towershield Station in the Meric's Keep System. As an adult, Croft found work as a Freelancer, which included working in a prison kitchen, and working with Schiltron Contractors, a private security firm based out of Towershield Station. The formation of the Merician State Guard during the Frontier War upended the market for private security in Mericia, however, leaving Croft out of work.

Unable to find legitimate employment, Croft briefly attempted a life as a pirate, but was captured after approximately a week while attempting to steal a shipment of mustard. Given the value of condiments to the ration and protein materials consumed across the Cluster, Croft maintains that his abortive piratical career was a noble cause.

During the Frontier War, Croft and a friend successfully broke into Gustaf's resort on Rialtis IV by disguising themselves as waste collectors.

Later in life, he encountered Cassandra Farren and Tamara 'Meds' Melari, and signed on to their ship the *Guinevere* as a pilot and mechanic. Croft participated in the *Guinevere's* attempted rescue of the Frontier Union freighter *Canary*, making repairs to their engine and successfully defusing the situation when the ship's captain was angered to discover that Cassandra was a Centran.

### Avalon Exploratory Initiative

#### Contact with the Advari

As pilot of the *Guinevere*, Croft accompanied the Avalon Exploratory Initiative to the CDC-41-Gamma nebula in 0304 PCU. Croft's arm was injured in the transit to the nebula, but he was determined to remain at his station. He participated in the violent first contact with the nebula's native civilisation, and successfully piloted the *Guinevere* away from the hostile alien ship *Cloak of Mercy* after it destroyed the Unioner ship *Mariana*. Shortly afterwards, Croft became the first pilot to intentionally fly a ship through a Lauralyn Conduit, and participated in the recovery of a wounded survivor and essential Drift Gate components from the wreck of the gatehauler GH-0007-VG.

Several weeks after the Avalon Expedition arrived in CDC-41-Gamma, on 98th of Solstice, Croft was part of the *Guinevere's* expedition to a pulsar system, the first to be directly explored by Humans. While Cass and Elizabeth Ancelet conducted a seven-day expedition on the surface of pulsar planet, Croft and Meds completed scans of the pulsar. After several days of observing the pulsar, which they found to be unsettling, Croft and Meds realised that Cass and Elizabeth had missed their check-in time and returned to the planet to investigate. Discovering Cass and the severely-injured Elizabeth fallen down a crevasse, Croft and Meds successfully recovered them and returned them to the *Guinevere*.

#### *Triumph* hostage incident

Croft was present when the *Triumph*, a civilian orbital ferry that had illegally accompanied the Expedition through Edric's Gate, made contact with the *Avalon*. After Foreman Richard Sedgewick took hostages from the *Avalon*, believing the Expedition to be concealing the location of a "Verdant Paradise" in CDC-41-Gamma, Croft advised Jasper Ravi on how to respond in Elizabeth Ancelet's absence. Remembering a story told by Croft about his successful infiltration of Gustaf's, Ravi developed a plan to infiltrate the *Triumph* through its waste disposal system. Rather than deploy Centran Marines, Croft and Meds agreed to go in the hope of negotiating a peaceful end to the hostage situation. Boarding the *Triumph*, Croft and Meds successfully convinced its chief engineer, Bridget Volkova, that Sedgewick had misled them. Leading them to the *Triumph's* command centre, Volkova successfully convinced the rest of the crew to release the hostages, and Croft and Meds took Sedgewick into custody.

#### Redfield's coup attempt

When the CSV *Shabayev* led by Vice Admiral Winston Redfield re-established contact with the *Avalon*, Croft initially joined the celebrations, but clashed with the *Shabayev's* Marines when it became clear that they had looted wrecked Merician ships. When Admiral Redfield seized control of the *Avalon* and seized the *Guinevere*, Croft was arrested to be pressed into service.

Croft and Meds were posted to the *Shabayev*, where they had limited privileges. Ultimately, Redfield was unable to convince either of them to assist in piloting the requisitioned *Guinevere*, while poor morale and exhaustion among the *Shabayev's* crew provoked a brawl in the dining hall that Croft and Meds were caught up in. This was one factor that led Redfield to choose to stand down his coup attempt and return control to Elizabeth Ancelet, and Croft and Meds were able to return to the *Guinevere* with Cass.

#### Rescue of the Merician ships

After Redfield stood down, the Avalon Expedition Fleet moved to the pulsar system. After four months in the system, the *Avalon* intercepted a signal that Croft realised was using a Merician code to warn other ships of pirates. Croft deciphered the signal, which was revealed to be a distress call from the Treasure Ships *Friendly Expedience* and *Swift Conveyance*, and a gatehauler, which had been lost since the expedition's arrival in CDC-41-Gamma months earlier. With the assistance of Castian Vadric, an Advari prisoner, Croft led the *Guinevere* to the Diaconate Reaches.

Upon arriving in Diaconate Reaches, the *Guinevere* found the three ships taking shelter in a closer orbit around a large gas giant, hiding from a patrolling Advari lightship. After consulting with Captain Maxine Blake of the *Friendly Expedience*, Croft devised a plan to escape by flying in a very tight slingshot orbit of the gas giant that took them through the upper atmosphere. Using the *Guinevere* to shield the other three ships, Croft successfully piloted the ship past the gas giant and led them to escape through a Lauralyn Conduit back to the *Avalon*.

## Personality

> "*Any idea where we are?*"
> "*Looks like we're on the bridge...*"
> "*You're hilarious.*"
> - Tamara Melari and Mathias Croft, after becoming stranded in the middle of an ice belt in CDC-41-Gamma.
>
>

Like many Merician Freelancers, Croft is something of a nomad. He has a sarcastic but jovial personality, often bouncing off of the *Guinevere's* medic, Tamara "Meds" Melari. His easy-going personality means that he gets along well with crew members aboard the *Avalon*.

Croft is extremely attached to the *Guinevere*. An excellent pilot, he has mastered the *Guinevere's* unique and complex system of vectored fusion thrusters. As a Merician, he is occasionally called upon to act as a neutral mediator for the crew. Croft also acts as the *Guinevere's* mechanic, weapons technician, and chef, jokingly crediting his ability to make strawberry roulade as making Cass and Meds choose to keep him on as a permanent crewmember. Despite the Cluster-wide Great Famine, Croft puts special effort into preparing meals, making use of seasonings such as mustard, synthetic garlic, and Axian Flaky Sea Salt even for famine foods like Protein Bricks. Croft's concern over food preparation is such that he has disconnected the *Guinevere's* microwave oven, believing it to be unworthy on cooking food.

Croft takes two sugars in his hot drinks, but whether he prefers tea or coffee is unknown. Meds implies that Croft runs an illicit still in the *Guinevere's* machine shop.

## Relationships

### Cassandra Farren

Cassandra Farren's more straight-laced personality means that she and Croft occasionally have good-natured disagreements, with Cass jokingly expressing exasperation at Croft's antics. Croft is aware of Cass' lingering psychological issues from her Frontier War service, but has deliberately avoided asking questions about the subject. For her part, Cass expressed surprise at Croft's willingness to leave the crippled *Canary* when ordered to do so by its captain, and speculated that she still had things to learn about him.

### Tamara Melari

Tamara 'Meds' Melari's more serious personality means that she and Croft often trade sarcastic barbs. However this does not interfere with their working relationship, and Croft has shown a greater willingness to socialise with Meds than Cass has, despite the two women's history. However, Croft is not particularly sympathetic to Meds' extreme distrust of Unioners.

### Elizabeth Ancelet

Croft has a positive working and social relationship with Elizabeth Ancelet, who he regards as a good leader of the Avalon Exploratory Initiative and a good friend to the crew of the *Guinevere*.

## Appearances

* "Pilot"
* Anthology Shorts
	+ *The Canary (Episode)* (mentioned only)
	+ *Skeleton Crew*

* Volume 1
	+ *The Cold Divide*
	+ *Inclement Weather*
	+ *Yesterday's War*

* Volume 2
	+ *Dust and Shadow*
	+ *The Promised Land*
	+ *Theirs Not to Make Reply*

* Volume 3
	+ *Theirs Not to Reason Why*
	+ *Contact, Wait Out*

## References

1. ↑ Mercenaries in the Merician Freehold | Official Lore Short
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 The Merician Freehold | The Sojourn Lore
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 *Theirs Not to Reason Why*
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 *Inclement Weather*
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 *The Promised Land*
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 *The Canary*
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 *The Cold Divide*
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 *Dust and Shadow*
9. ↑ *Theirs Not to Make Reply*
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 *Contact, Wait Out*
11. ↑ The Sojourn: Huntress Class Ambush Corvette (Guinevere) - Ship Breakdown
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 *Skeleton Crew*
13. ↑ *Yesterday's War*