Jack of Harts

Jesse James was a good flight leader from the very beginning. The Peloran named him Fox, and it really fit him. He wasn’t as flashy as people like me were. He was perfectly happy to sneak around and hit people where they didn’t expect to be hit. Now Louis Mattioli was Jesse’s second wingman. Louis was a Martian lawyer. Jesse was a Kansas farmer. Wouldn’t normally expect them to work well together, but they did. All the way up to Epsilon Reticuli. We lost an entire fleet there. And Louis. I did not notice at the time just how hard that was on Jesse. He’d lost two wingmen by then, and he was truly starting to doubt himself. It was a good thing I left him to hold Serenity. It gave him a chance to slow down and recover his balance. He needed that time a lot more than I realized.