Admiral Mark Sheppard

Admiral Sheppard has had quite an interesting history. He was born and spent the first sixteen
years of his life on a small, unaligned planet called Y'koad IV. When he was only twelve, he saw
his parents killed right before his eyes during the Y'koad Civil War.

For the next four years, he lived in constant fear for his life, since his parents had been highly placed
government officials, who had known too much. Both the government and the rebels wanted Sheppard dead:
the government since he had overheard secrets in his parent's houshold; the Rebels wanted him dead so
he couldn't grow to adulthood and exact terrible revenge on them for his parent's deaths.

Finally, on his sixteenth birthday, the ISD Revenger, under the command of the then-Captain Harkov, arrived.
In accordance with his orders from the Emperor, Harkov immediately began to pacify the system. Within days,
all resistance to the New Order had been swept aside.

Stormtroopers on a sweep for officials in hiding on the planet picked up Sheppard, and transported him to the
Revenger. In the same amphitheatre that the planet's leaders were being held, Sheppard heard the Emperor's call
for law and order.

He lied about his age, and immediately enlisted in the Imperial Navy as an enlisted man. There was nothing left
for him back on Y'Koad IV but painful memories. Thus began an incredible 36-year career in the Imperial Navy.

For the first two years, Sheppard did all the dirty work there was for him to do: he cleaned the garbage compactors
of the horrible lifeforms inhabiting them, and cleaning officer's uniforms.

At 18, he began to be trained in what he thought would be his career; the care, maintenance, and operation of
capital-ship turbolasers. He started out as an assistant gunner's mate.

Fifteen years later, at the age of 31, he received his commision in the Imperial Navy as an officer. It had taken him
15 years to work his way up from an enlisted man. He's one of the few "mustangs" in the Imperial Navy; officers
who started out as enlisted men, rather than going to the Academy.

His first assigment as a newly-minted Lieutenant was the command of a battery of Tam & Bak Heavy Turbolasers
on the ISD Glory.

A year later, his gunnery crew was awarded first place in gunnery skills at the annual fleet competition. A few months
later, the Glory was assigned to Lord Vader's fleet, amid rumors of a Rebel fleet massing at Sullust.

The day before the battle at Endor, Sheppard visited the ISD Vindicator to show her turbolaser crews proper procedures.
As his visit wound down, he dropped into a fierce discussion happening among the Vindicator's junior officers in the
wardroom. Lieutenant Charles Glasgow was leading the discussion.

After a few minutes of arguing with his fellow junior officers, Sheppard begins to leave. Glasgow catches up with him
and tries to convince him to transfer from the Glory to the Vindicator. Sheppard says no, since Captain Dorn wouldn't
like having the best turbolaser crew in the fleet stolen from him.

Their conversation is cut short because Sheppard has to catch his shuttle to return to the Glory. An hour later, the
Battle of Endor started. The two officers don't see each other for the next fifteen years.

During the battle, Admiral Ackbar's flagship, Home One, managed to punch through the Glory's shields. Most of the
Glory's port dorsal turbolasers are knocked out, with a few exceptions. Sheppard's battery was one of those lucky
few to survive relatively intact.

Throughout the battle, Sheppard kept his wits, and continued to fire his battery, even with thick black smoke filling
the room, and guts all over the floor. He was personally responsible for the destruction of the Rebel Corellian Corvette
Brigand, which had been blocking the emergency hyperspace point, opening up a path for the Revenger and Glory to
escape.

The Revenger managed to escape sucessfully into hyperspace.However, this was not to be the case for the Glory.
As she began to flee to the hyperspace jump point, a pair of Mon Calamari Cruisers both delivered broadsides onto
her, crippling her.

The command to abandon ship is given, and Sheppard leads the surviving members of his crew to the escape pods.
Out of 122 men under his command, only 35 survive to be picked up by the ISD Chimera. The survivors are incorporated
into the Chimera's crew to replace battle losses.

For the next five years, Sheppard served on the Chimera, under first Pellaeon and then Thrawn. During the battle of
Bilbringi, Sheppard was delivering the latest gunnery efficiency report to the Grand Admiral, when he saw him
assasinated right before his eyes by Rukh.

Shortly later, due to glowing reports from his superior officers, and his excellent scores on tests, Sheppard was
transferred from the Gunnery/Fire Control officer track to the Operations track.

Sheppard worked long and hard, and steadily rose through the ranks. Finally, at 42, he's appointed as the
XO (Executive Officer) of the VSD Hellbringer. A few weeks into his first cruise as XO, everything goes to pieces.

As the Hellbringer left hyperspace into her patrol sector, she was ambushed by a pair of Mon Calamari Cruisers.
At the time the ambush happened, Sheppard was asleep in his quarters, but he was awakened and summoned
to the bridge.

As he headed towards the bridge, the Mon Calamari Cruisers fired their broadsides as one, vaporizing half
the Hellbringer's bridge, and the Captain as well.

As the senior surviving officer, Sheppard took command of the Hellbringer from her auxilary bridge, located deep
in the innards of the ship. In the ensuing battle, Sheppard managed to destroy one of the enemy cruisers, and
cripple the other. (no small feat, considering two Mon Cals can kill a ISD.)

Unfortunately, during the battle, the Hellbringer sustained heavy damage. With half of her engines destroyed,
and forty percent of her crew dead, she could do little but limp away to the closest friendly system.

Unfortunately for them, the closest system was led by some petty Imperial warlord who attempted to impound the
Hellbringer and impress her surviving crew into his micro-navy.

Sheppard understandably, took a dim view of that. In the resulting battle, large portions of the warlord's
planet were irridated by fusion warheads delivered by the Hellbringer's remaining starfighters.

Taking advantage of the confusion in the warlord's forces, the Hellbringer managed to flee into hyperspace
and find a more...accomodating Imperial-held world.

The resulting review board praised Sheppard's actions as 'above and beyond the call of duty.' For his quick
thinking during the Hellbringer's cruise, Sheppard was promoted to Captain and assigned to the ISD Devastator.

For the next five years, he and the Devastator played an important part in ridding the Empire's remaining
sectors of piracy and fighting off one small Rebel incursion into Imperial space.

At the ripe old age of 47, for his 'long and loyal' service to the Empire, Sheppard was promoted to Vice-Admiral
and given a choice of flagships. He picked the ISD Revenger. As she lay in spacedock, being refitted, Sheppard
began a search for a third-in-command, as well as an Operations officer.

His search turned up none other than Captain Charles Glasgow. The last fifteen years hadn't been kind
to him. His pre-Endor record had him blacklisted, while his post-Endor record included several years
serving under the jerkoff Warlord Tillman. Not a good combination for success.

In fact, Glasgow had been told that the only way he'd ever get a job again was to accept a Lt. Commander's
slot. Sheppard of course immediately offered him the job of Flag Captain.

[For those of you who don't know what a Flag Captain is, it's the officer who commands an Admiral's flagship.
They are effectively third-in-command, right under the Admiral's Chief of Staff.]

For the next four years, Sheppard and Glasgow served together, during which Glasgow eventually became
Sheppard's Chief of Staff and trusted friend/confidant.

When Sheppard was promoted to Admiral, at 52, he immediately rammed the paperwork authorizing the
promotion of Captain Glasgow to Vice-Admiral through, over the strenous objections of an anymous person in the
Imperial bureaucracy.

(As a side note, the promotion also made Glasgow's position as Chief of Staff official. Before, it had
been unofficial.)

For the last year, Admiral Sheppard has held his present rank, as well as Vice-Admiral Glasgow.

END IMPERIAL HOLO-NET TRANSMISSION
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS THIS AUTHORIZED FOR
GENERAL RELEASE.

Click here to return to the "WHO'S WHO AND WHAT'S WHAT IN IMPERIAL PHOENIX" index.