Jakub Novák is a UN officer who served as a lieutenant and pilot during 2125’s Operation Crowbar under Commander Lukas Richter. In 2129, he was selected by CAI — rather than through conventional UN appointment — to command the retrofitted Pathfinder Tsiolkovsky on its solo mission to Neptune, the first Pathfinder-class vessel to carry an onboard CAI installation and the first armed for reasons other than testing.
In a 2130 interview at Boreas Station, Novák disclosed the crew composition: 48 personnel, two-thirds of them security and military (former mercenary, active UNSF, UN Marine), one-third the original science team. He confirmed standing rules of engagement authorizing engagement of any hostile beyond Titan — “not ‘report and wait for instruction.’ Engage.”
At Pluto in December 2131, Tsiolkovsky encountered and neutralized three Argus Extraction Defense frigates — the first operational combat use of Dome 1 energy weapons. Novák then led a six-person landing party to the surface, eliminating twenty-one non-human autonomous combatants and recovering the remains of a non-human individual from a subsurface facility. The engagement confirmed the anomaly CAI had been tracking since the early 2120s: a non-human structure in Charon orbit, wrecked alien vessels comprising the moons Styx and Kerberos, and a surface archaeological site predating human arrival in the system.