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No home, no-one’s shelter, no calm,
Nothing can keep me from the storm
And you can’t hold me down,
Because I belong to the hurricane

Group Captain Katherine Douglas will be telling you very firmly to call her Kaidy, thanks ever so much – and besides, she goes by her mother’s maiden name these days, so expect her to introduce herself as Kaidy Hawkins. The Group Captain part, however, is very much non-negotiable.

She’s a posh bird (technically a lady, although she likes to ignore that bit unless it’s convenient), she’s tough as nails, she smokes like a whole factory of chimneys and she has a destructive streak a mile wide (and a mile deep – one does not become a Group Captain at thirty-three by being ridiculous). She’s deceptively laid-back and laughter-prone, too, but push her too far and you’ll get a taste of steel.

She likes her humour dry and her whisky on the rocks, and she doesn’t like to waste either of them.

Looks-wise, she’s short and fairly stocky, with short blonde hair, grey eyes and a right hook like the hand of God.

Oh, and she has a great hat.


I've never been afraid of the highest heights,
Not afraid of flying,
I've never been afraid of the wildest fights,
Not afraid of dying

She flies a Graceful-class de Havilland F-42 Hawkingbird, the plane she had just about finished testing when the Great Purge of 2029 evicted all women from the Armed Forces. Somewhat unhappy about this, Kaidy proceeded to steal the carrier plane the Hawkingbird was loaded on along with several other craft, and she and her jet have been inseparable ever since.

The Hawkingbird - Kaidy's Valkyrie - is a sleek obsidian war-machine which her mistress likes to describe as having been "carved out of a raindrop". She's single-seater and dual-gunned, with a snarling golden lioness carefully (and anachronistically) painted on the pilot's door. She has been to the edge of space, and to the very brink of the speed of light.

Kaidy calls her 'Val'.