Leslie Kennedy

Leslie Kennedy is a character from the epic space adventure Space Pirate Captain MacTaggart. She is the First Mate on board the Stellar Typhoon, and is the second-in-command to Captain Jaws MacTaggart.

Persona

Leslie Kennedy is the loyal First Mate to Captain Jaws MacTaggart. She is a red squirrel, and had also worked under Jaws in the Military Police. After Jaws was stripped of her command and discharged, Leslie deserted, and was recruited into a new position as the First Mate on the Stellar Typhoon.

Leslie is rather meek, cold and stoic on the outside. However, she is constantly haunted by memories of her past, and often wishes she could redeem herself. Her experience on the battlefield proves invaluable to Jaws and the crew of the Stellar Typhoon. However, it's also left her rather shaken, and the crew respect that enough to not challenge or question her about what happened back then.

Though she is well respected by her fellow crew mates, Leslie has few actual friends among them, the most notable of which is Kyoko Mori. However, it's also been hinted that she has a fondness for Alasdair Geddes.

Physical Description

Leslie stands at just over 3 feet in height, and has green eyes and brown hair. In comparison to some of her fellow female crew mates, Leslie is relatively flat-chested.

Like her superior, Leslie wears an eyepatch. Other notable physical traits include torn ears, and a series of ring like gashes around her tail, among other injuries. Some of these injuries date from her days on Eileandu, but others are from some of the Stellar Typhoon's more serious accidents. It's debatable if the eyepatch is the result of one such incident, or if it's just for show like Jaws'.

Something else of note is the ID tag that Leslie has on her left ear. It's suspected that this dates from Leslie's brief incarceration in the Glasmuir Prison of Last Resort, just before the execution of her mother. Exactly why she's never removed the tag since then is unclear.

Leslie wears a similar outfit to many of the Stellar Typhoon's other crew members, which includes a military jacket and a white armband with her name printed in green on it in Japanese. The jacket dates from her Eileandu days, and is a deep navy blue. This was the traditional outfit for members of Leslie's faction, who were nicknamed Blues Brothers.

With regards to night-wear, Leslie generally doesn't bother, having gotten used to sleeping in her normal clothes during her time on Eileandu. However, she has been known to sometimes sleep in either a silk nightie, or in just her underwear.

Background

Early Life

Leslie was born in November 2979, on the planet Eileandu, in the Sorados Cluster, in a small coastal town called Glasmuir. This is very much the extent of what is known about Leslie's early life, as even she can't remember much of it, save for the birth of her younger brother Oliver in 2981. Though she can hardly remember any of it, Leslie maintains that the first few years of her life were the most peaceful.

Then in May 2983, everything changed. The Third Galactic War had just broken out, but the Sorados Cluster was neutral in the conflict. This didn't stop people from arguing over whether to side with the Stellar Federation or the Independent Coalition. The arguments went on for another six years-ironically keeping Sorados out of the War altogether-until, in 2989, both sides decided enough was enough, and that the other side would have to go. Thus began the Sorados Civil War. Even when the main War had ended two years later, the civil war raged on.

Leslie didn't enter the war until 2993, just after her 14^thbirthday. Her mother, Argyll, was the commander of a rebel squad, on the side who'd wanted to join forces with the Coalition. Leslie was soon taught how to fight and fend for herself, and became a very skilled fighter and commander in her own right, with sniping being her specialty. She then spent the rest of her teenage years fighting against the rival factions on her home planet. But all that was to change.

The Fall of 78th Squadron

In early 2997, the Stellar Federation had grown sick of all the infighting in the Cluster, and decided to end the war themselves. They invaded the Cluster planet by planet, system by system, and when they eventually reached Eileandu, all hell broke loose.

After trying their usual suppression tactics, the Federation then sent troops to capture the rebels and kill them directly, regardless of whose side they'd been on. In November 2997, they found Argyll Kennedy's squad. The squad was marched at gunpoint out of the ruins of Glasmuir, and into a nearby forest. They were taken to a clearing by the sea, and prepared for execution by firing squad. Since the forest was filled with Federation soldiers, and most of the rebels couldn't swim, they were trapped.

All of the younger squad members-Leslie included-were picked out, and given guns. They were then instructed in no uncertain terms to fire on their allies. They did so, but many of them were killing their own parents, and Leslie was no exception. In the Federation's mind, it was a good, clean kill, but for Leslie, it was a bigger and messier bloodbath than many of the battles she'd fought in up to then.

This was the final straw for Leslie, and as soon as she was given a medal for her good shooting, she made a run for it, back to her squad's base camp. She packed as much as she could, and fled Glasmuir forever. Leslie was now truly alone, as her mother had died at her hands, and both Oliver and her father Winston had gone missing (one of them during a rescue mission to the nearby Glasmuir Prison of Last Resort). For four long years, Leslie travelled across the planet, having to live on her wits and survive innumerable encounters with people who wanted her dead or in prison.

In and Out of the Federation

Finally, in 3001, Leslie managed to escape the planet thanks to a Military Police vessel which had made a stop on the planet. The commanding officer who took pity on Leslie's plight was one Finbar MacTaggart, and through a lot of hard work, he was able to get Leslie signed into the Military Police and posted aboard his ship, the Ōshan Akuma.

Leslie slowly climbed her way through the ranks, eventually making it to Lieutenant. However, in late 3005, Finbar convinced her to desert with him, after the dishonourable discharge of his wife and fellow officer Keiko (or Jaws, as she was known).

It was then that Leslie discovered that Finbar was also a Captain in the Galactic Liberation Front, operating a battlecruiser, the Stellar Typhoon, under the guise of a pirate ship. Leslie agreed to join Finbar and Jaws aboard the cruiser, wishing to redeem herself for the execution of her mother.

Since then, Leslie's life has gone more or less back on track, her experience on the battlefield being of great use to Jaws MacTaggart and her crew. She's as capable a commander as her mother ever was, but she never forgets it was her who set her on this path. Leslie has had many adventures since then, and all of them are well documented alongside those of her crewmates and Captain...

Weaponry

Leslie is known to carry,

Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum revolver.
Glock 17 or Beretta 92 pistols

M1911 .45 pistol
AK-47

Remington 807 12 gauge Shotgun

H&K Sniper Rifle

(Among all of her weaponry she much prefers her revolver)

Trivia

Artist/illustrator Jake Elmer likes to compare Leslie to Inspector "Dirty Harry" Callahan (played by Clint Eastwood), because of her "tough guy" attitude, as well as the fact that they both carry Smith & Wesson revolvers as their signature sidearms.
- Elmer also claims that he was originally not satisfied with her limited weaponry and felt Leslie needed more fire power, thus leading her to carry a .44 Magnum.
- This also came from the fact that revolvers are a personal favorite type of firearm of Jake.
Producer Jordann Edwards wishes to have someone like Rose Leslie (of Game of Thrones fame) to play this character, as they are both linked to Aberdonian ancestry (In fact, Rose actually comes from a long line of prominent Aberdonian figures).