Jack of Harts

I learned that Dawn DeMarco was amazing at Alpha Centauri, but she really had the chance to show off in the months and years that followed. Not that most people realized what she was doing. She was real good at keeping things under the covers, but I had the pleasure of reporting all her very best deeds to Charles. She grew up hosting all the best parties on her home planet, and so she was a natural at the kind of highclass parties that disguised the very best war profiteering schemes. She slowly collected a gang of misfits that loved that kind of party as much as she did. Or at least enjoyed catching the war profiteers in flagrante, with no way to maintain their innocence. They sent many rich and nobleborn people to prison, and helped save more money than I can count for The War effort.

Dawn DeMarco came directly from the Outer Colonies to help reinforce Alpha Centauri, and that brought an entirely different experience than we had seen. She grew up with a lot more conflict than those of us who grew up on Earth or Mars ever dreamed of. She may have been a noble on a distant world with all the comforts of modern technology, but she knew how tenuous civilization was. She had fought to defend it for years before The War came upon us all. We needed that experience in the Cowboys, so I was actually very happy when she flew rings around me during my evaluation of her fighting ability. It gave me an excuse no one could question when I stamped my approval on her paperwork. It also allowed me to surprise Charles. He knew how much I disliked the nobility, so he took my recommendation seriously.

I first met Dawn DeMarco on Alpha Centauri when we were recruiting new members to replace our battle losses. The first thing I thought when I saw her is that she was a knock out. I’m serious. She is drop dead gorgeous from head to toe, and she knows it. She grew up in a noble family on a rich colony world that had access to all the best body sculpting. But more than that, she was raised to act important, and to broadcast a feeling of worth. She was royalty on Camelot, trained to radiate her importance, her value, from every fiber of her being. That was the second thing I realized when I met her. I recognized her act, because I had seen it in hundreds of wellborn vacationers to Northern Minnesota. I expected to be as annoyed by her as I was by them. I was wrong. So very, very wrong.