Jack of Harts

Charles was part and parcel of the Peloran program to Uplift our industrial and fighting technologies. We all knew they couldn’t completely change our tech base in the time we had before the Shang could overwhelm us, but Charles had connections all over America and beyond. He used those connections to spread everything he learned throughout the industries that would help us stop that otherwise-inevitable result, and that helped America bootstrap ourselves through another major technological renaissance. Charles and his connections spread the new tech farther, wider, and faster than the government could on its own. They placed America in a position to launch forward into a new economic surge when The War ended, and that changed all of our worlds. Charles was integral to that effort.

Charles kept us Cowboys working after our commanders were blown out of the sky. He stepped up, took command, and managed to forge links with all the other units still defending Fort Wichita. The Shang had us on the ropes, but Charles took us out on a flanking maneuver that relieved the Peloran squadron. And that allowed the Peloran to pull out of the line and do what they did best. Hit and fade and hit again. And since we had hyperdrives, Charles got us brought into their datalinks so we could follow them. We about burned up our hyperdrives trying to keep up with them, but we helped them break the Shang’s flanks. That forced the Shang to reconsider their attack. They could still destroy Fort Wichita, but then we would cripple them. They chose to withdraw. That made us the victorious heroes and earned all of us some serious brownie points.

Charles came through at the Battle of Fort Wichita. The Shang had done a real good job shooting commanders all over the battle. It was chaos. The fleet-wide datalinks were down and the chain of command was totally compromised. Fort Wichita was coming apart. Most of the naval squadrons were smashed to one degree or another. And half our fighter squadrons were scattered as well. I didn’t realize how bad it was at the time because some really brilliant commanders were grabbing everything they could get a handle on and holding whatever lines they could establish. Those commanders ended up doing real good for us as The War went on. Charles included. I didn’t think he was up to it, but Betty made me give him a chance. Thank God she did. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to do his job.