Cain Ashworth

"The third son of a minor shipping magnate, Cain Ashworth spent his childhood living on Persephone in the upper strata of social life. While he gave every appearance of intelligence, he seemed only to strive and achieve in the physical aspects of his education. While barely passing (and sometimes failing) classes in mathematics, literature, and history, he excelled at sports, and even won the regional sword fighting/dueling championship at age 15. His very high test scores belied his jockish nature, and hint at his boredom with academe.

At age 18 he was assigned as First Mate on the freighter "Macao" by his father (who owned the ship) to teach him the family business from a "hands on" perspective since it was determined that young Cain would not excel in University. After three years of successful (if often bored and shenanigan filled) service, he was given captaincy of the small freighter "Lucky 13". Allowed to fill out his own crew and determine much of his shipping itinerary, Cain began to shine as a ship Captain. He seemed to have a knack for both judging the human character of his crew, and for sniffing out bargains and money making opportunities.

It was during these ensuing few years that Cain met and clandestinely married Yiskah Ben David, the daughter of a vehicle manufacturer (Land Rover LLC) on the planet "Shadow". Although maintaining a profitable trading schedule throughout the 'verse, this port of call became "Lucky 13"'s home port. Unfortunately, less than a year later, and after Yiskah became pregnant with Cain's child, the Unification War began. While Cain's family privately supported the Alliance, and publicly maintained a neutral stance, the annihilation of the planet "Shadow" killed his wife and unborn child and drove him into the arms of the Browncoats.

Cain's grief deeply scarred him, but his outgoing personality, and his experiences as a youth in hiding his intellect to follow his own nature allowed him to continue functioning, and to present himself for duty to the rebels. He offered his crew the option of whom to follow before doing so, and they followed him to a man (woman). Due to his specific experience, he was given command of a Firefly gunship in the 12th Cavalry, and soon advanced to command of a squadron of these small, heavily armed ships. This success came with a price. His family, deeply sympathetic to the Alliance, disowned him when they moved their operations and headquarters to Bellerophon.

read:https://keepflying.com/2014/01 (scroll down to "meet the AFAS" for description of the 12th Cavalry)

After many successful missions early in the war, Cain was called back to give a report about the success of and possible expansion of the 12th Cavalry's area of operations. It was during this hiatus that the Alliance began it's counter assault using small attack ships. Cain's command was all but obliterated during a planned assault on the Alliance fleet when these attack ships were unveiled. Facing the loss of his space going "family" on top of the losses he had already faced, Cain became personally withdrawn and almost fatalistically aggressive. He took command of one of the remaining Firefly gunships and proceeded with several suicidal attacks on Alliance infrastructure (orbital bases etc.), He managed to succeed due to the almost insane nature of the attacks, attacking targets deep inside Alliance space where no sane planner could have predicted a strike. Unfortunately, these attacks were not nearly enough to change the course of the war.

When the surrender came down, Cain wanted to keep fighting. Only the sentiments of his crew averted him from this course of action. Recognizing that they had lost, he acceded to his crew's decision to give up the fight and attempt to seek anonymity and build new lives. Abandoning their ship in the outback of Lilac, Cain and his crew found work and eventually made their way off planet.

Although now a fugitive, Cain Ashworth still has a significant reputation with old "Independent" officials, and amongst planet-side bureaucrats with whom he once traded and defended. It is rumored that he has gained possession of a Kepler class ship and is still sailing out in the black."