Marcus Edison King is an interstellar bounty hunter and a former Star*Guardian. Having lived in space since he was seven years old, he feels more at home amongst the stars than on his own home planet, and knows more of the alien races he encountered during his twenty three years in space than he does about his own.

Often seen in his tan pants, black boots, gray shirt, and sporting a black tie and a brown overcoat. On his face almost always a pair of bright blue spectacles, and sometimes a brown hat over his brown hair. He doesn't stand out in a crowd usually, if not for his choice of attire, and he looks exactly what he is - Human.

Early Life

Marcus Edison King was born on February 22nd, 1985, in the city known once as Detroit, now Millennium City. His mother, Rose King, passed away from cancer before he could remember, leaving only him and his father - Edison King, an astrophysicist and hero speedster. King was a simple boy with simple aspirations. He had no interest in being a scientist like his father, and as many boys, he dreamed of driving fast vehicles.

The Battle of Detroit

On February 22nd, 1992, King became seven years old. He was in the first grade. He did good at sports. Not so good at math. And he picked up English pretty well. On July 22nd, 1992, Doctor Destroyer attacked Detroit. On that morning, his father woke him up as the battles started. Afraid for his family's life, Edison King entrusted his son's life with his close friend and colleague, the Star*Guardian Pete Langford. Langford took the young Marcus King out of the city, taking the boy into his ship, and together they flew out to Europa, Jupiter's moon, where the Star*Guard reside in a hidden base to observe Earth.

His father stayed behind, helping to evacuate as many civilians as he could using his speedster abilities, but when Destroyer unleashed his final weapon of mass destruction, Edison King died in the line of duty, along countless other heroes.

Space: The First of Many Frontiers

King had no choice but to grow up on Europa. Orphaned. His home town destroyed beyond recognition. The Star*Guard took care of him there, raising him to be one of their own. They taught him everything he needed to know about space. He learned about the various alien races. About the history of the Galaxy. About the Malvan - Elder Worm war, and how the Star*Guard helped save the galaxy multiple times. As time went by, the young King showed great interest in becoming a Star*Guardian himself. He began training as early as the age of twelve, learning how to pilot a ship, learning how to fight, and learning how to approach various races with respect. When he was sixteen, he became a full fledged StarScout.

Come Fly With M.E. King

Fully trained and reporting for duty, King was assigned to the StarScout division, a division dedicated to diplomatic envoys, reconnaissance, and (King's favorite part) high speed missions. Together with his team, they flew out to distant planets, shepparding new races beginning their development into outer space, ensuring their integration into the interstellar community. King excelled in his duties, and did them with swift efficiency. The more veteran StarScouts may have become jaded of such frequent travels, but not King. King loved every moment of it, and the moment he landed on his return from an assignment, he quickly asked for the next one. And so it went for six years, giving the young and excited pilot a taste of over half the galaxy. And a taste in over half the Galaxy's women.

A Lone Star, Shooting Through Space

Soon, however, the Star*Guard was running out of things to give King, and after six years in their service he respectfully asked to resign from duty. For his contribution and loyalty, proving to be an exemplary Star*Guard, the Star*Guard let him keep the StarJet, Staff and Blasters. King decided to become a bounty hunter, staying loyal to the Star*Guard ideals. He flew on his own from system to system, planet to planet. On the friendly ones he often stayed for a month or so, sometimes more, becoming a legal citizen of those planets. He kept to his ideals, and avoided missions that require termination of the target or their ships, always opting for the capture option. After never failing an assignment, King became rather known amongst the galactic pilots. After all, how many human freelancers, piloting a Star*Jet, do you think are out there?

Though such recognition can easily get to one's head, King kept his feet on the ground. When confronted by others that were interested in taking him out and stealing his fast ship, he'd often opt for outflying them, rather than outgunning them.

Heavy Metal King

Space is massive. And as such, there isn't really much to listen to in terms of radio. Most pilots bring their own music, from their own worlds. And so King received the callsign, after several pilots hailing him heard the wailing of the Rob Zombie music playing from his ship's radio. One such pilot, a Perseid refugee that left Dor'Vala as a teen due to her mutations, met him on a docking station on a trade route between Malva and Mandaar.

She liked his, how she called it - "Angry Music", and how it contrasted with his calm demeanor. Though she was a ruthless mercenary, and he a peace-keeping bounty hunter, the two quickly found themselves interested in one another. After flying together for a while, they decided to move in together, landing on Malva. They lived there together for a year. Mostly happily.

But their differences became their undoing. Though they both took only regional missions and often aided eachother for a share of the gain, they began seeing that their matching just will not work. And so they left eachother, and Malva, on good terms.

Maybe if you fly through the right system on the right time and open your communicators, you'll witness the unusual sight of a Perseid refugee listening to Earth heavy metal.

Home, Sweet Home?

After leaving Malva and his partner, King began feeling homesick, for the first time in his twenty three years away from Earth. So he took his ship and began his journey towards Earth.

He quickly reached GATEWAY's scanner range, who hailed the lone pilot heading towards Earth. King replied and agreed to dock on the station for registration and proccessing. He took his smaller pod down towards the surface, escorted by UNTIL fighter ships until they reached the US airspace, where the torch was passed on to PRIMUS, who escorted him to Millennium City.

He was overwhelmed to see how different his city of birth looked, and by how many humans he was surrounded with. After landing and checking into a hotel room where he set up his equipment, he found that he is just not used to it. Luckily for him, he found solace in Caprice, of all places. Often chatting up with people, exchanging stories with metahumans and aliens.

But the question still nags him inside - Will he stay on Earth, or will he leave again?

King is an experienced galactic pilot. Having spent more time off Earth than on it, he feels at home and at ease amongst non-human populations. His time with the Star*Guard has brought him up with high ideals, and as such he is calm and collected. Most of the time at least.

He would more often than not choose to resolve matters with diplomacy, but is always ready to get his hands dirty. A strong advocate of peaceful takedowns over killing, even when he does draw his weapon, it is rare that anyone ends up getting seriously hurt.

Due to his father being a Speedster metahuman, King inherited some of those abilities, giving him superior reflexes and reaction speed. Skills he later carefully honed under the Star*Guard's training. Those skills came in useful time and time again, whether when piloting the Star*Jet, when having to avoid incoming strikes, or when having to out-draw an opponent. King was trained to hit hard, and thanks to his natural abilities, he can almost always hit first, and so far, he has always been the one to hit last.

However, that last ability has more to do with his personality than with his skills.

Weapons

Having underwent training by the Star*Guard and having served six years as a StarScout, King kept his service weapons to aid him in his journies.

The Star*Guard StarFire Psionic Blaster.

A psionic blaster designed by and for Star*Guard, the blaster's advantage is that it requires no ammunition, and the discharged blast can be used at various settings, ranging from a simple pushback, to a stun, and to a small explosive charge. Unlike the StarStaff, it is limited to singular targets and is mildly less versatile than the Staff.

Star*Guard StarStaff Psionic Battle Staff

Star*Guard's perhaps most recognisable weapon - The StarStaff, a weapon whose telekinetic fields give a StarGuardian many options in a fight.

Vehicles

StarJet

Though the StarStaff is capable of granting the StarGuardian flight through space, sometimes it just isn't fast enough. And for that, there is the StarJet. A high-speed Star*Guard spacecraft, capable of speeds of up to 1LY/min. Originally designed to carry a team of five comfortably, and known to have been able to carry a team of ten in less optimal conditions, King's StarJet was originally equipped for his position as a StarScout, equipped with better long range sensors and communication devices, as well as better maneuverability engines and cloaking device. Upon King's Retirement, he further modified the ship with better weapon systems, and has made it more suitable for long durations of living onboard the ship for a single individual, rather than the shorter durations possible for the usual five-person capacity.

King's ship christened name is "Rose", after his mother, and the radio designation for the vessel itself is "Xi-826771-SGS4 Rose". Xi-826771 refering to the Galaxy sector the ship originated from (Malvan space), SGS4 refering to Star*Guard Scout (the ship's intended service) number 4 (4th Scout ship in the Xi-826771 Star*Base), and Rose refering to the ship's christened name.

The Star*Guard StarJet

StarFlier

Though not an official Star*Guard ship, this smaller, one-man light-fighter resting within Rose's cargo bay from Malva bears a fitting name. It is capable of a speed of Mach 8, which pales in comparison to the StarJet, and is only armed with two small frontal photon blasters, a plasma blaster on one side of the main body, and a pulse blaster on the other side. It is only designed for short-range flights, such as flights within a planet's atmosphere or within a planet's orbit, due to the lack of any advanced systems to make the pod into a livable place.

The pod's christened name is "Connie", after Conrad "Connie" Kalitta, a Michigan-born Drag-racing driver once known as "The Bounty Hunter" and one of King's childhood heroes. The pod's radio designation is "Xi-826771-MCLF-Connie", designating that it is a Malvan ship, designed as a Malvan Civilian-class Light Fighter, christened "Connie."

Radio Designations

Space pilots get around in ships, much like the ships of the Earth's seas. And much like the Earth's seas and airfields, control towers will often ask a ship to identify itself in order to clear it for landing. Such information tells the control tower the ship's class, the pilot's affiliation, and grants access to the appropriate information.

King's pilot designation, formatted in the form of [Affiliation] [Ship Licensing Class] - [Occupational Code] [Pilot Radio Name], gives planets and space docks the required information to see who King works for and as what, and what kind of ship is he capable of piloting. King's pilot designation is "Freelancer 5-7 Heavy Metal King".

[Affiliation] "Freelancer" - Unaffiliated to any company. Works alone.
[Ship Licensing Class] "5" - Trained and capable of piloting Light Fighters, Heavy Fighters, Very Heavy Fighters, Light Freighters.
[Occupational Code] "7" - Bounty Hunter.
[Pilot Radio Name] "Heavy Metal King" - The radio moniker King is known by.

Ship carry a separate Radio Designation, seeing as pilots sometimes have to change ships for either temporary or permanent reasons. As such, the ship radio designation format is different, and as follows - [Sector of Origin (as per Star*Guard's Milky Way Sector System)] - [Ship Classification] - [Ship Christened Name].
The [Sector of Origin] gives information as to where the ship originates from. This allows the station to hail authorities from the sector to ensure the ship was not stolen.
The [Ship Classification] comes in the format of letters with or without numbers, following a known list of possible codes, allowing the Station to know what kind of ship is approaching.
The [Ship Christened Name], much like the [Pilot Radio Name] in the Pilot Radio Designation, is a mere personal attribute in order to decrease the likelihood of two ships bearing the same designation, which will impede theft prevention and enforcement.

King pilots two ships. His StarJet, and his StarFlier. Their Designations are as follows:
StarJet: "Xi-826771-SGS4 Rose"
[Sector of Origin] - Xi-826771 - Malvan Space.
[Ship Classification] - SGS4 - Star*Guard Scout (the 4 at the end is just an indicationt to tell differeng Star*Guard Scout ships apart, if from the same sector, and is more for internal Star*Guard records)
[Ship Christened Name] - Rose - The name the Ship is known by.

StarFlier: "Xi-826771-MCLF-Connie"
[Sector of Origin] - Xi-826771 - Malvan Space.
[Ship Classification] - MCLF - Malvan Civilian Light Fighter.
[Ship Christened Name] - Connie - The name the Ship is known by.

When hailing a station / planet / other ship picked by either ship's scanners, the pilot will identify himself as follows:
"This is [Pilot Designation] of the [Ship Designation] to [Station/Planet/Other Ship], come in [station/planet/other ship]."
e.g:
"This is Freelancer 5-7 Heavy Metal King, of the Xi-826771 SGS4 Rose to GATEWAY Station, come in GATEWAY Station." for hailing GATEWAY from the StarJet.
"This is Freelancer 5-7 Heavy Metal King, of the Xi-826771 MCLF Connie to GATEWAY Station, come in GATEWAY Station." for hailing GATEWAY from the StarFlier.