The Unstoppable Higgs

Airman Third Class Axel Higgs, better known as The Unstoppable Higgs, is a most improbable legend in his own time. Formerly an undistinguished crewman on one of the Wulfenbach airships, he has achieved a certain degree of fame for his single-minded devotion to duty in the face of circumstances that can reasonably be called "daunting." If there was a Medal of Honor in the Foglio-verse, he'd probably deserve it.

Higgs is snoozing peacefully in his hammock aboard a Wulfenbach medical airship when he's awakened by alarm bells going off. This is NOT a test, as they say; the airship has come under bombardment at the tail end of the little dust-up at Sturmhalten, its bridge crew is dead, it's been invaded by weird slime monsters, and it's on fire in the bargain. Higgs manages to stabilize the situation and escape with the splattered Baron (reasonable enough, since it's his job) as well as the delirious Bangladesh DuPree (what ever was he thinking??), breaking Bang's jaw in the process but incurring a few owies of his own. He and his charges escape the burning airship in a launch while taking further damage from (and administering further damage to) DuPree. He manages to get the launch on the ground more or less safely, but on arrival, takes friendly fire and is assaulted by a nesting goose(!), both of which do yet more damage. The doughty fellow nevertheless manages to recount his tale of derring-do to troops on the ground before collapsing and being filled with rum, not necessarily in that order.

We don't know for sure that The Unstoppable Higgs has survived all of these trials, but one can certainly hope so. Guys like this don't come along every day.