Jack of Harts

Tarrant County made us peacekeepers. Charles made us businessmen. And Dawn DeMarco made us the centers of attention of every ball and party over hundreds of lightyears of space. They all made us an example to the people of what they could be. It took flexible minds to play all those roles, and I did not think we were gonna succeed at it. I’ll never forget that one day Dawn pulled me into a corner and gave me some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten. She said that we would fail and make mistakes. That there would be many we could never help, no matter how hard we tried. We simply couldn’t drag the people out of generations of chattel slavery. All we could do was lend them a hand, and those with the drive to succeed would hold on for dear life and drag themselves out of it. And they would pull others up with them. She was so right. We did not save the Hyades Cluster. We gave them the tools to save themselves, and oh my God, did they really go off and do that in the end.