Captain Domingo Fenq - XO


Meleager's XO is young and ambitious. Having found himself stuck with the Viper Training Squadron, he is looking for a way to promotion and advancement, at least a post with the Viper Weapons School or the War College. This mindset has resulted in rigid, often heavy expectations of discipline, sometimes carried even beyond that expected of the XO. Fenq seems to have taken the old saying to heart: If the crew isn't afraid of the XO, he's not doing his job. Fenq's largest problem is that he simply cannot understand that those lower-ranking than him are neither household servants nor the lower-deck 'scum' that he grew up hearing about from his father (who was simply prejudiced) his grandfather (who dealt with the worst dregs left in the Fleet during the War), and his great-grandmother (who was a founding member of the Admiralty; her husband was the last, great Scorpian general before full Colonial Unification). Unfortunately for the Meleager, Major Deering, and the crew, Fenq absorbed these attitudes deep into his bone throughout his youth, and has them reinforced everytime he visits the family estate on Scorpia for his leave.

Fenq's arrogance and pride also block him from admitting fault to his "inferiors" (on the Meleager, that is everyone except the CO and the CAG). Due to his family connections, they cannot just boot him out of Fleet, and because he is a very competent officer within his duty set, they will not get a justifiable reason any time soon. Fenq's father was killed two years ago in a tylium reactor explosion that he was told was caused by incompetence; what he is unaware of is the fact that his father was hungover, and made a rookie mistake, resulting in the Gladius-Class Escortstar Spatha needing to be completely refitted. While Fenq's Grandparents and Great-Grandparents are aware, they did no realize the assumption that Fenq's prejudices had led him to until it was too late. Ever since, Fenq has been an even greater stickler for the regulations, a tighter martinent, and even faster to rake enlisted crewmen and junior officers over the coals for even minor infractions. (If Fenq were to even find out the truth, there is a good change he would quite simply snap...and, like most of the officers on Meleager, Fenq is usually armed.)

Fenq's first posting after Graduating #3 in his Academy Class was as aide de camp to Admiral Stefan Odell, Commander of Fifth Fleet. They worked extremely well as a team, both because their views were so similiar and because Odell had come up under Fenq's grandfather. After a double-tour of four years (twice the normal period as an aide), Fenq was assigned to work as a Junior Plotting Officer, CIC, Battlestar Pegasus. That lasted only a year (and he spent six months of that performing scut work with the Deck Gang) because while Rear Admiral Cain is a hard woman who demands absolute loyalty and obedience, she also twists Fleet Regulations into a frakkin' collander if that is what it takes to achieve 'the mission'. He was reassigned to the 24th Training Squadron by the simple expedient of Admiral Cain having a Raptor deliver him with orders transferring him to Colone Beers signed by her. (Such things are normally only done in wartime, but that's Cain.) Beers has rotated him through Echidna Base, Fenris, and Eleos for six months each, before finally transferring him to Meleager and promising Fenq command of her when Major Deering moves to another ship. (Beers is going to let him take the Meleager to the breakers with a minimal crew...which isn't considered an honorable command most times.) That, however, is six months away...and Deering has--miraculously--kept his excesses in check and started filing off his 'rough edges'.

He is currently in Meleager's ICU after having been shot. He is not expected to regain consciousness for at least a week; minimum time until he can be safely moved from Meleager is two weeks to a month.