Eric Corda

Lieutenant Commander Éric Corda in 2024 - NATO - Special Fleet

Éric Corda is a lieutenant commander in NATO's Special Fleet, assigned as pilot of the USS Mercator. A former fighter pilot, he becomes one of the bridge's technical anchors when evacuation and support missions tip into extreme situations.

Calm, precise, and sometimes slightly mocking, Éric does not always take center stage, but he often holds the starship steady when everything else wavers. His place in the story is that of a reliable pilot, capable of carrying out impossible orders while keeping enough perspective to point out when the machine exceeds its limits.

Identity Card

Full Name: Éric Corda
Species: Human
Gender: Male
Nationality: Luxembourgish
Known Date of Birth: May 29, 1999
Known Rank: Lieutenant Commander in the Special Fleet
Known Affiliation: NATO / Special Fleet
Specialty: Piloting, navigation, and combat maneuvers
Associated Starship: USS Mercator NCC-815
Known Personal Link: Engaged to Émilie Flores
Superior Officer: Angie Chen
First Appearance: Book I - Episode 9, Captain on the Bridge

Profile

Éric is first defined by his calm at the helm. He says little about the political stakes surrounding the Mercator, but he quickly understands what Agnes's orders imply for the starship, its passengers, and the bridge crew.

His discreet humor appears from his first scene, when Agnes catches him snickering during the crew briefing. That lightness does not make him any less serious: it places him within the Mercator's human core, alongside Émilie Flores and Charlène Savea.

His relationship with Émilie also gives the character an intimate continuity. Éric is not only an officer behind a console: he belongs to a crew life made of fatigue, trust, contained fear, and loyalty to others.

Reputation and Perception

Éric is perceived as a solid pilot, confident enough to keep a touch of humor even on a tense bridge. For Agnes, that assurance is not a flaw as long as it remains in service of the starship.

He therefore occupies a discreet but essential place: that of the officer one barely notices as long as everything works, but whose value becomes obvious as soon as the Mercator's trajectory, inertia, or stability becomes critical.

Life Path

Flight training. Éric trains at the École de l'Air in France, where he earns a fighter pilot diploma and receives training in special air operations.

Royal Air Force. Before his assignment to the Special Fleet, he serves as a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force. There he gains operational experience, then visibility as a flight demonstrator during international air events.

NATO Special Fleet. In 2024, Éric is a lieutenant commander in the Special Fleet. He is assigned to pilot the Mercator, under the authority of Agnes Rodriguez and Angie Chen.

Mercator pilot. His path aboard begins as that of an already established bridge officer, integrated into the starship's daily operation before the crisis brutally reveals the importance of his post.

Training and Skills

His skills cover advanced aircraft piloting, aerobatic maneuvers, high-speed flight, navigation, and emergency procedures. His training in special air operations gives him a culture of complex missions and demanding environments.

His known distinctions extend that profile: an aerial bravery medal for managing an in-flight emergency and a special mention for his performance during aerial demonstrations.

Outside service, Éric remains passionate about aviation, its history, and its techniques. This passion explains why his commitment is not merely professional: flying is part of the way he inhabits the world.

After Episode 9 - Mercator Bridge

Read after Episode 9.

Éric is already present on the Mercator bridge at the beginning of a duty day. He is seated at the helm, as an officer integrated into the starship's daily operation, alongside Émilie Flores at communications and Charlène Savea at operations.

His first intervention is light: Agnes catches him snickering during the crew briefing and immediately calls him to order. This detail establishes a competent officer, but one familiar enough with the bridge atmosphere to let a smile slip at the wrong moment.

After Episode 20 - Nuclear Impact on Brussels

Read after Episode 20.

During the evacuation of Brussels, Éric is at the controls of the Mercator when the situation shifts from military crisis to nuclear catastrophe. He must first move the starship away from the impact zone without drawing the attention of the unknown ship destroying Earth's defenses.

When the Russian missile strikes Brussels, the Mercator takes the shockwave and is pulled toward the heart of the mushroom cloud. The instruments become unreliable, the engines saturate, and the rear of the starship lifts. Éric understands that the Mercator may stall, but keeps providing Agnes with the speed, altitude, and attitude data she needs to maintain a viable trajectory.

The survival maneuver plays out across two helm stations: Agnes takes the second console, Éric activates simulation mode and follows her corrections to the millimeter. Thanks to that coordination, the starship dives, regains speed, levels out a few hundred meters above the ground, skirts a second radioactive mushroom cloud, and manages to reach low orbit in critical condition.

This moment gives his later decoration its full meaning. The Medal of Courage does not reward only his presence in the crew: it refers to an almost impossible maneuver, executed under nuclear pressure with more than ten thousand refugees aboard.

After Episode 22 - Course for the Moon

Read after Episode 22.

After leaving the mushroom cloud, Éric remains at his post while the bridge tries to restore the Mercator. He recalibrates navigation, handles surveillance probes, and contributes to the diagnosis of a starship designed for Earth evacuation, not for a lunar crossing in that condition.

When Agnes nevertheless decides to reach the starbase, Éric plots the trajectory toward the Moon. This passage extends the impact scene: he is not only the one who survived the maneuver, but the one who must keep the wreck moving afterward.

After Episode 35 - Enterprise

Read after Episode 35.

After Earth's collapse and the loss of the Mercator, Éric is among the officers transferred to the Enterprise. His pilot's post then becomes central: the crew no longer merely needs to launch a starship, but to survive with it in a space that has become hostile.

He receives the NATO Fleet Medal of Courage with Émilie and Charlène for the actions carried out during the evacuation and the nuclear crisis, notably the Mercator's survival after the impact on Brussels. This distinction confirms his place in the core of survivors Agnes wants to keep close to her.

After Episode 40 - First Space Battle

Read after Episode 40.

During the Enterprise's first orbital confrontation, Éric must adapt his pilot experience to a heavy, still poorly tuned starship facing a more maneuverable opponent. He dodges, crosses the debris of the USS Washington, and repositions the starship to allow the torpedo salvos.

This battle reveals his practical value. Éric does not decide the strategy, but without his trajectories, Agnes's orders, Angie's fire, the readings from Charlène, and Eros's DXS systems cannot form the maneuver later recorded as Rodriguez Maneuver-001.

After Episode 87 - Warp Escape

Read after Episode 87.

In lunar orbit, near the NATO starbase, Éric finds himself at the controls while the Enterprise faces a situation beyond its technical limits. He tries to keep the starship alive in the middle of the Tholian swarm, despite pressure from Angie and the progressive collapse of the systems.

When Agnes emerges from her coma and orders the escape, the Enterprise leaps to warp at an impossible speed. Éric then measures the gap between what the starship should be able to do and what it is actually doing. His reading of the instruments becomes essential to understanding that the escape is not a simple maneuver, but an abnormal phenomenon.

After Episode 108 - Zorek and the Orion Privateers

Read after Episode 108.

When the Enterprise is boarded at Zorek, Éric is among the officers held on the bridge by Blunderbust Braggart and the Orion pirates. Once the bridge is retaken, he immediately returns to his role as pilot.

Agnes orders him to maneuver while the Orion privateers tow the starship. Éric keeps the Enterprise moving until Gornok confirms that the warp engine is operational, then triggers the escape toward Proxima Centauri. His action turns an absurd hostage situation into a way out of the crisis.

After Episode 111 - Return to 1954

Read after Episode 111.

During the return to 1954, Éric pilots the Enterprise in a mission where navigation is no longer limited to space. He follows the instructions from T'Met and Tarsi, accompanies the passage through the vortex, and must then stabilize the starship in an era that is not his own.

This threshold confirms his function as a technical point of support. Even when temporal mechanics lies outside his field of training, Éric remains the one who must make the starship respond to the bridge's immediate orders.

After Episode 120 - Temporal Survivor

Read after Episode 120.

After the evacuation and the arrival in the 26th century, Éric is among the survivors of the Enterprise welcomed by the Federation, then settled at Vista Ridge. Like the others, he has to understand a world that has lost almost all of its familiar landmarks.

His relationship with Émilie remains one of the human bonds that crosses this uprooting. Éric is no longer only the pilot of a vanished starship: he becomes a temporal refugee who must decide how to keep serving in a future that should never have been his.

Overall Portrait

Read after the end of Book I.

Éric Corda is the pilot who gives concrete form to Agnes's impossible decisions. His path begins before the stars, in military aviation and aerial demonstrations, but Book I very quickly places him before a scale of danger his training could not truly have anticipated.

The evacuation of Brussels is his founding moment in the story. Éric does not save the Mercator alone, but he holds the station that allows Agnes to attempt the maneuver. Inside the mushroom cloud, he becomes the relay between the order, the simulation, the failing instruments, and the mass of a starship loaded with refugees. His value therefore lies not only in his skill: it lies in his ability to remain useful when the normal framework of piloting has disappeared.

On the Enterprise, that function continues. Éric accompanies the first orbital battle, the trajectories of Rodriguez Maneuver-001, the warp escape, the Orion boarding, and the return to 1954. He does not direct the strategy, but he makes its execution possible. Agnes's plans, Angie's fire, Charlène's calculations, and Eros's DXS systems need his piloting to become something more than intentions.

This trajectory also keeps a human dimension. Éric remains Émilie's fiancé, a member of the bridge trio with Charlène, an officer capable of discreet humor, and a survivor who crosses the loss of his era with the others. The future does not immediately turn him into a legend: it first forces him to continue, as pilot, companion, and temporal refugee.

Administrative File