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. Approaching the flagged seat in the subsurface facility’s domed chamber, he experienced an unexplained cognitive event — a directional impression of a second non-human vessel occupied by Argus personnel elsewhere in the Kuiper Belt — which the Directorate is treating as credible evidence of a direct neural interface mechanism. 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.
In January 2132, Tsiolkovsky followed the bearing from Novák’s vision to a non-human vessel in open Kuiper Belt space — larger than the Pluto wreckage, holding position, not derelict. Argus personnel had already fled; non-human autonomous units remained on the hull, non-hostile, continuing their task. Novák ordered a minimal-contact boarding posture: “I don’t want a second Pluto out here if we don’t need one.” The site was placed under long-term UN study.
Sources
- UN Weekly: Faramund Confirms Tsiolkovsky Retrofit, Solo Neptune Departure (2129)
- UN Weekly: UNS Canteloupe Completes Construction (2130)
- BBN: Tsiolkovsky Docks at Boreas — Novák Interview (2130)
- UN Weekly: Pluto Aftermath — Non-Human Structure Confirmed (2131)
- UNS Tsiolkovsky — Kuiper Belt Arrival Log (2132)