Jack of Harts

Jesse James was rather unique in the time leading up to the Hyades Cluster campaign. His cybernetic intelligence had taken on a physical avatar in direct contravention of all United States military regulations. He encouraged her because of the nature of many of their missions, and Dawn DeMarco’s cyber followed her example. The number of weapons they could carry into a questionable situation was impressive. We Cowboys “did not notice” what they were doing at the time, and that quartet was so successful at completing their missions that the military brass “forgot to inform themselves” of the matter when the information absolutely did not come to their attention. The Fox and his minions truly did stand a great many policies and regulations on their heads. And many of the things we later did in the Hyades Cluster were a direct result of their actions before it.

When Jesse James left Serenity to prosecute The War against the Chinese and their Shang allies, Dawn DeMarco remained on his wing. He was a farmer from Kansas. She was a highborn noble of Camelot, in the Avalon system. And once again, those two totally different people worked well together. Jesse’s pragmatism and the natural sneakiness of a farmer when it comes to getting rid of pests made him most capable of coming up with interesting and effective plans to kill Chinese warships. And he was an excellent teacher as well. He and Dawn became trendsetters in the art of sucking unwary victims into their traps, and twenty-four Avengers make a powerful trap when they pounce. Jesse regained his confidence in his ability to lead a flight during that campaign, and for that Dawn has my everlasting thanks and respect.

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.