Character
Ma'Thur us Da'elrok
Colonel in the intergalactic army, ace of interstellar combat and commander of the instructors at the fighter school of Araze.
Colonel Ma’Thur us Da’elrok is a senior officer of the intergalactic army and commands the instructors of the fighter school of Araze. Aged 3 trilliard and 664 years, he has spent most of that time in a cockpit: first as an interstellar combat pilot, now as the man who decides which Arazians are allowed to occupy one.
He belongs to none of the great houses. In an empire where lineage opens every door, he has only ever had his flight hours — and that has been enough.
The pilot
Ma’Thur was born in Azet 909, the city of Araze built around its great air base. He grew up beneath the departures, presented himself to the recruiters as soon as he was of age, and never really left: the plateau north of the city is his ground today.
His record is one of the heaviest in the intergalactic army: 1,209 confirmed victories in interstellar combat, across eleven campaigns, most of them against the Cyberian craft of Karn-Tor IX. He has flown escort for Destructeurs, cover for convoys out to the edges of the Norya Belt, and lone interception far beyond.
Shot down three times, recovered three times. He only ever tells the story of the second time, and only to the students who are afraid.
His fighter
His personal machine bears the Arazian word for arrow — Zifelno. It is a single-seat interstellar superiority fighter, assembled to the standards of the Norya Shipyard: Flèche d’Oravaya hull, Vael’Oran canopy, Lame d’Oravaya wings, double Vael thruster and twin cannons.
It does not wear the Imperial Gold livery of the parade units, but that of his Arrow wing: deep blue and ivory, the winged star of the intergalactic army on the tail fin, a red and white chequer on the nose, and along the flank a row of victory marks the colonel refuses to have painted over.
Commander of the instructors
For four centuries Ma’Thur has led the instructors of the fighter school of Araze. Every Arazian combat pilot passes through him: he signs the certificates, and he pronounces the eliminations.
The school flies the S78-É, the two-seat training version of the S78 — a plain, light craft with no heavy armament, built entirely so that the student sits in front and the instructor behind. Arazians who do not survive it administratively return to the transport fleets; those who do leave with the most solid reputation in the Empire.
His rule is known to every intake:
We do not train pilots so that they win. We train them so that they come back.
What the archives do not say
The Codex holds no record of whether Augustar Vael’Oran ever passed through the fighter school of Araze before his exile to Earth. The promotion registers for that period are sealed, and Colonel Ma’Thur, when asked, has never answered with anything but the regulation silence owed to student files.
Archivist’s note
His full name is Ma’Thur us Da’elrok: the borne name, then the particle us and the house he comes from — a house with neither lands nor throne, connected to none of the great lines of Araze. On the ground, nobody says anything but “Colonel Ma’Thur”.
Ranks are further transcribed into Terran equivalents — “colonel” — as the Codex does for anything that must remain legible from Earth. The original Arazian titles do not appear in the available archives.