Mike Jeanne-Clisson Martinez, The Bearded Terror of the High Skies (1542-Present) [The Histories]

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====== Mike Jeanne-Clisson Martinez, The Bearded Terror of the High Skies (1542-Present) ======

Born to Miles Churmound, an English sailor, and Constança Martínez (née Martinez) on Navarre, a disgraced countess who was exiled to a now lost prison on an island with no official name. The island was unofficially known as Isla Escondida to English travelers in the late 1700s until its mysterious disappearance in 1776, after which records of its existence were wiped from the public record. It is unknown when Churmound and Martinez returned to England, but historians agree it would have been at least thirty years prior to the Anglo-Spanish War due to records of Mike Martinez's education and early expeditions on the merchant vessel Christine with his father.

Regardless, Martinez was raised primarily in Bognor Regis, where he was tutored in history and letters by Philippot Hotman, the cousin of François Hotman and a notable writer in his time. Through these lessons, he developed an insatiable interest in genealogies and began memorizing the family histories of noble families and scouring records in London whenever travel was possible. By age sixteen, he had not only accurately traced the lineages of the noble houses of England, Spain, and France but had also uncovered a familial link to Jeanne de Clisson, a notorious privateer from the 14th century who commanded the Black Fleet against the forces of King Philip VI. He kept this information from his family for fear that links to piracy would damage his father's reputation; secretly, he adopted Jeanne-Clisson as his middle name.

Shortly before the beginning of the Anglo-Spanish War, Martinez enlisted in the Royal Navy and secured himself a position in the clandestine Constance Phoenix Command through a combination of demonstrated aptitude and familial connections. Little is known about Martinez's early years in the Royal Navy, in part due to British efforts to suppress information about the CPC. However, it is generally agreed that the CPC presided over the first efforts by a major power to develop antigravity engines, which both could allow ships to escape Earth's gravity and bend space for stellar traversal. By the 1580s, the CPC's research had resulted in the Royal Navy retrofitting three galleons for travel beyond the Earth's atmosphere and, by 1590, the development of a vacuum-resistant resin to promote extended travel in outer space. 

Martinez first served on *Unrepentant Hound,* the third ship to be retrofitted for travel beyond Earth's gravity. Under the guidance of Captain Wally Musgrave, Martinez developed into an exceptional first officer. In 1592, Martinez was promoted and given command of *Greg*, a 100-gun Behemoth class galleon second only to Admiral Hartford Drake's *Pilfered Reason*. 

His activities on the *Greg* were not without their problems. While the Royal Navy's CPC sought supremacy in the vacuum against encroaching terrestrial forces, the harsh realities of outer space frequently created greater problems for the men serving on antigravity galleons. Martinez was no stranger to these issues. In 1596, Martinez lost his leg when he became entangled between two ships (*Greg* and *The Spunky Henry*) while traversing to Barnard 68. According to ship reports, Martinez was attempting to separate the two vessels but misjudged the distance and relative inertia; his leg was subsequently sucked into the portside antigravity engine of the *The Spunky Henry* and instantly vaporized six inches above the knee. This mishap caused the compression apparatus to stall, the engine to seize, and a fragment of the internal antimatter turbine to dislodge and relodge in the limb’s place. His body didn’t acknowledge the damage until four hours later when it was discovered that he was not walking on an actual leg, to which one crewmember is reported to have screamed, “Lt. Martinez, when did you get that shiny mechanical leg?” The crewmember was given no answer.

In 1602, a few days after the conclusion of the Anglo-Spanish Aerial War by a resounding English victory, Martinez decided to grow a beard. For the remainder of his career with the CPC, he served as a legal privateer, raiding antigravity ships and seizing cargo holds of Kestresium 129, a rare and, at the time, impossible to produce element required for antigravity drive production.

Little is known about Martinez's later life. Some suggest that he retired in 1622, possibly because of age. However, there are no records of Martinez after 1613, when he reportedly crashed a stolen Spanish galleon (*El Escupir Dragón*) into Pluto. The resulting explosion altered Pluto's orbit such that it would be discovered in 1930 by Clyde W. Tombaugh.