Jack of Harts

Kathleen Reynolds started flying back when the Blackhawk was still a frontline starfighter, and gained promotion after promotion over time until the brass gave her the Spittin’ Kittens. They were a Hellcat squadron often sent out to protect high-value colonies, and she found her niche. The brass left her in command of that squadron for decades, shuffling them from planet to planet as the needs of the service commanded. That wasn’t the career death sentence it was before Contact by the way. The increased lifespans filtering through the military and other parts of society back then meant that commanders weren’t aging out and retiring anymore. The only way to get a command was to build something new, or inherit the spot of a dead man or someone who fraked up badly enough to get themselves cashiered. That made command positions rather more stable than they had been, and Katy proved that she could do stable if she meant to.

Kathleen Reynolds came home from her five-decade party celebrating the life the Peloran gave her and volunteered to serve in the United States Space Force. Many people think the USSF has more in common with the Space Guard than other “real” military services like the Navy or the Marines, but they miss how many deployments the Space Force actually goes on. They are actually one of the first defenses usually deployed to protect a new colony, since their fighters take far fewer resources to support than expensive starships. Katy found herself on a new tour of the outer worlds, and she racked up some impressive experience protecting people from the kind of things she saw on her previous tour. Most of it is still classified, to the point I can’t even write it in my own diary without breaking the law, but she did good out there. A lot of real good that helped real people and changed worlds for the better.