Clara Tuiz, sometimes nicknamed Little Admiral, was a soldier and officer in Cuprien's Northern Fleet.

Biography

Clara was born to Metena Tuiz, then commodore in the Northern Fleet, and Herrtag Tuiz, a shipyard manager.

Military Education

Clara entered the naval boarding school at Port Astra in 315 OW. She was one of a dozen girls on the career officer path; female soldiers in the wider Cuprien military were still very rare, but the Fleet had a class of senior career officers in which a solid third were women; Clara was born to one such mother. Being quite a steadfast girl, a military career was quite promising for her.

A freshly graduated junior lieutenant, Clara incorporated the patrol flotilla in the Forgotten Islands in 323 OW. She moved on to service on a cruiser, and then became an adjutant commander as lieutenant in D marine infantry company, 8th Marine Infantry Regiment, based in the south of the Fleet's Baovuldian territory.

Clara was a very remarkable leader, taking prime position even ahead of more senior officers and leading boldly, but ultimately still being a careful and far from reckless commander. She did not see any active combat in the 30 Years War (which ended in 324) while still a junior officer, though she was once deployed in rear-line garrison forces. She especially liked serving in her regiment's Diver Commando, even asking to be transferred to one of the three Special Diver Operations Companies, though she was refused.

In 327, with a captain's command reserved for her, Lieutenant-Chief Tuiz participated in a month-long Coalition (Two Isles, Cuprien, and local tribes) exercise around the mountains and oil fields of Two Isles and orcish Okken. She enjoyed leading a company of marines (essentially taking a special diver operator's mission) on a mock infiltration to prepare an opposed landing.

Northern Fleet

Clara was promoted to captain in late 327 and given command of a double-destroyer team, initially stationed in western Cuprien on the Greenford. It was soon redeployed to the Maltan Channel, in support of the Second Coalition's anti-Anarchist Phoenix operations further south.

Anarchist Phoenix Operations

Clara was in her element: her destroyers' primary missions were escort and patrol in the channel, mostly north of the combat zone, as well as foray expeditions where her ships bombarded the coast in support of marine infantry operations. These were absolutely her expertise, and her personality was well suited to warship command.

In this period, her personal fame began to spread. She already had been a notable individual during her training, not only for her capabilities but also for the fact that she was the daughter of Admiral Tuiz, the commander-in-chief of the Northern Fleet since 322. However, her fame began to spread mostly for her personality, and her youth and competent command style. This fame was strongly encouraged by the sudden popularity of her during the Okken exercise one year earlier as a sailors' pin-up postcard; undoubtedly the surprising attractiveness of an ice-cold warship commander as a fiery marine diver played a role.

Korpeonic Campaign

In 329, when Korpeon took power in the Phoenix and the Coalition assumed peace, Clara sailed her ships to Port Astra for refurbishment over winter and to see her mother again. Her next order of mission was deployment to the Fleet City of Fort Machilazar, to the south, in anticipation of protective operations in the south against the Commonwealth; however, in a surprise offensive in spring 330, Korpeon advanced on land and took the city mere days before Clara was to set sail.

The Fleet was taken aback, but the coalition was disbanded and Cuprien sued for peace; the ships were told to stay in place, but be ready for war.

Clara sailed her two destroyers to meet a Commonwealth incursion west of Okken in the Thonn Battlehammer Issue in mid-spring 330.

Korpeon pushed north in a surprise assault in late spring. The land defenses were wholly unprepared and much of western Bao-Mou fell quasi-instantly. The Northern Fleet was not ready to respond, and information was very unclear; the imperial government in Royal was intending to stand in the city and make a resistance. Clara was among the small fleet that assembled a the Channel's entry, awaiting the admiral's direction to move in. But she waited for orders from above, and for the proper mobilization of marine infantry regiments.

Korpeon put across to northern Bao-Mou and his army moved in, capturing most of the government. Admiral Tuiz, having remained in Port Astra, was the most senior Cuprien official not to be taken. In the brief time that followed, virtually all of Bao-Mou had to surrender to the invader, though some fortified Northern Fleet holdouts stayed available a while longer before the Phoenix soldiers reached them.

Both Tuiz relocated to Netache, where Clara's mother set up a provisional government and tried to rally Cuprien. Clara Tuiz, commanding a flotilla of five warships, was responsible for the security of shipping to the east, with the critical set up of the Third Coalition with Two Isles.

By remaining in the east in the Northern Ocean, Clara was at first away from the active combat front around Litchy; though she wanted to advance through the Greenford to cut off the expeditionary enemy forces, this was judged too risky because of Phoenix warships and submarines on Bao-Mou.

Vivi Campaign

In 332, Captain Tuiz was part of a large reinforcement effort bringing troops and materials to the Vivien region. She actually went to land, participating in the maneuver efforts there. Coalition forces were handily outmaneuvered by Korpeon, who used speed and rapid, overwhelming assaults on several fronts to overwhelm the Cuprien army. She barely managed to escape a pincer maneuver, and fell back to her ships.

She was part of the fleet guarding Netache from the west then.

Operation Blue Lancer

Plans were devised to make a surprise advance through the Greenford into the Greentree Islands to sabotage the oil fields there. The force would consist of four fast warships and 2'000 marine infantry. Clara was given command.

Unfortunately, there was a large Korpeonic fleet in the way to anticipate the operation. Clara had to beat back, her ships constantly shadowed by recon planes above, and feared being cut off on the return journey; however, due to misinformation, she believed the eastern Baovuldian Sound was currently open and held by the Northern Fleet, and accordingly sailed into the Maltan Channel rather than towards Netache, hoping to do some raids in passing.

Korpeon had these waters fully under control, however, and the passage was blocked in the narrows before Royal. Surrounded, she decided to surrender her ships rather than scuttle them.

Captivity

Though a war prisoner, Tuiz - thanks to her high birth more than her actual rank and ability - enjoyed some freedoms. She was also occasionally questioned by military officers, notably once by Korpeon himself, who wondered why she had surrendered so freely. She explained she was mostly ambiguous on which human state ruled, and that the Imperial Phoenix's ideas seemed quite decent. As a military woman, she also thought a proper militaristic government like the Phoenix's would be better suited to her profession than the Cupriens with which she had mostly become annoyed.

Admiral Tuiz surrendered the remainder of the Northern Fleet in 335, ending Cuprien's incorporation into the Phoenix. At this point, Clara was already essentially free and serving as an advisor on Korpeon's eastern Grand Army naval command.

Grand Empire

Clara Tuiz was a captain in the general staff of the eastern Phoenix navy; when the assault on Dwarven Turlu began in 336, she was a senior adjutant in charge of the protective littoral operations. This was mostly a desk job, but one coordinating tactics she was intimately familiar with. In this time, she often served right inside Korpeon's own general staff, participating in his war councils and advising overall strategy.

In 338, Clara was part of the naval command staff with Korpeon on his capital ship leading the invasion of Colupan. The two developed a personal friendship. The following year, she led a combined sea-land operation.

A new front opened on Giant Isle in 339, and Korpeon decided to send Clara - whom he trusted, and had presently promoted to commodore - in the Grand Army he sent in response. Clara was deployed on Giant Isle for three years, until late 341, commanding naval operations after her senior died. She spent most of her time on land in the Grand Army headquarters, also coordinating with the Storm military.

The campaign over, Clara chose to return to Bao-Mou, to Port Astra in what was now the Eighth Baovuldian Prefecture, to be with her aging mother. Metena Tuiz died in 343, and Clara took over the military-political leadership of territory that had once been the Northern Fleet's core.

Clara was especially opposed to the resistance against Phoenix rule; she saw the rise of nationalism under Darina Tsempre to be gravely misguided, and a threat to humanity's existential fight against the Dwarves. She acted ruthlessly against any sign of opposition in her province, and even tried to organise a commando raid to arrest Darina, but was not allowed to do so.

Korpeon invited her to join him on his Balebian campaign in 345, but Clara refused, feeling too settled to go on another offensive campaign and believing domestic unrest to be a greater threat.

Then Korpeon lost, and the Grand Empire collapsed.

Though she initially tried to refound the Northern Fleet, Clara was unable to rally the support of other territories' prefects, most of whom had not been Fleet people, or even get a hold of anything more than a flotilla; warships had been the Fleet's primary asset. Fearing isolation, and being naturally willing to work towards global stability and respecting hierarchies, Clara grudgingly joined her prefecture to the Union of Cuprien under Darina Tsempre in 347.

Giant Isle

Darina was no friend of Clara's. Before she could be sanctioned or even put on trial - something which, she heard, Darina was planning - Clara chose to leave Cuprien. She sailed to Giant Isle, a place which she knew quite well, and where foreign military folks were always needed to constitute the largely non-giant army (the fleet especially was no place for giants).

Clara received an officer's commission and from 349 - 359 served as Rear Admiral of the Royal Storm Navy, the de facto commander in chief who answered directly to giant high command.

Personal Life

Clara was known for her warm, outgoing personality as well as her quite steadfast, no-nonsense attitude. She knew what she wanted and, though she was always friendly, she remained focused on her goals.

In boarding school, Clara was very outgoing and judged "socially competent" by her teachers, but she formed no lasting friendships there, and she did not yet take up the prominent space she would throughout most of her life. She was also one of the rare teenagers who chose to focus on her studies and not to enter romantic relationships in that age.

During her early years as a junior officer, Clara did explore relationships a bit. But after two brief interactions with men, she decided she had enough of them, and decided she preferred women. But she did not really enter any relationships with anyone.

Among her closest friends, Clara was able to count Korpeon of Tillent. She admired his military genious, his easy manner and his overbearing confidence; he saw cool competence in her. They kept to a very professional relationship, however, probably the way both of them imagined friendships to work: mutual appreciation yes, but function first of all.