Species: Human
Age: 27
Posting: Captain of the Excelsior Advance, on long-term assignment to frontier territories, Orion sector Command.
Lena Vargas is the daughter of a legend, and she chafes under the weight of her famous name.
Marshal Theodore Vargas. Everyone in the galaxy has heard the name, the story of how he came to a wild frontier world names Yuma, rife with corruption, the depredation of the poor by the powerful. How Marshal Vargas, with a force of just ten men, brought law and order to that evil place. How when Ranger command said his task was impossible and recalled him, he refused. How he rallied the people of that frontier world, and thew the criminals and the thugs out. How he died reclaiming the world of Yuma for the good guys...
What no one ever heard was that the legend had a wife and child. No one talks about how they got left behind on a world far from the Frontier.
Lena grew up with the stories, and all she ever wanted to do was follow in her father’s mighty footsteps. Raised by her mother on the tranquil world of Zolist, Lena dreamed of flying among the starts, putting right what was wrong, and pushing back against the chaos. She studied, she prepared, Lena did everything she could to be ready for the day she could ride out on a trail of stars.
It was on her fifteenth birthday, just before she was to enroll in the Academy, that her godfather, Clifford Malory — who’d ridden with her father at the outset of his time on Yuma — told her the sad truth behind the stories. Her father had indeed gone to Yuma, but he hadn’t been a shining beacon of law and order. He’d been a grasping, evil man who seized control of Yuma for himself and his lieutenants. When Cliff had threatened to go to Command with what Theodore and the other did, they shot him and left him for dead. Ranger command decided not to reveal the truth, as no amount of light they could shine would burn brighter than the legend they themselves had helped to create.
Lena was heartbroken, but after a great deal of soul searching, she swore that even if her father was a fraud, she would redeem her name. She would make the legend come true or die trying.
She didn’t enter the Academy so much as assault it. By the end of her first year, Lena’s entire course-load comprised advanced level command track classes. Being the only first-year to achieve that wasn’t enough, though. She became top of her classes, and when her instructors told her she was spreading herself too thin, she studied independently. Galactic cultures, Imperial and Post-Imperial law, languages, political theory, criminology, economics, mechaneering, fleet and ship-to-ship tactics… she consumed all of it.
It was at the Academy that Lena met and fell in love with Skrish, herself a rising star among the new recruits. The pair became inseparable over their first year, and during the brief leave between graduation and first assignments, when most Ranger cadets are spending time with their families, Lena and Skrish got married.
All this she did with her ‘Uncle Cliff’ — now an admiral at Ranger Command — watching safely over her. By the time she graduated, he was in charge of personnel assignments, and he offered his goddaughter her choice of them. He’d assumed she would take a position where she could do the most good on a galactic scale, an officer on one of the fleet battlewagons, or a staff position here at command itself.
Instead, she wanted command of a small ship, and to be sent out to the frontier. Not only that, but she’d scoured the personnel records of her graduating class and most of the active duty Rangers at large, and already had a short list of crew, four of which were her favorites. She’d selected people like her, who had the potential to be truly great, if only given a chance to put their pasts behind them.
Godfather and goddaughter discussed the matter through the night, but in the end, Uncle Cliff just laughed and approved it all. He knew better than to argue with Lena when she knew she was right. Besides, he’d admit privately, she’d convinced him.
Now Marshal-Captain of the Ranger vessel Excelsior Advance, Lena Vargas was dispatched with her chosen team to patrol the frontier worlds on the Orion sector. There is nothing Lena would not do for her crew. They’re not her subordinates, they’re her family. They look to her for leadership, and she’d rather die than let them down.
Decisive, driven to support of her people and her ideals, and always ready to help those in need, Lena Vargas’s reality just may one day outshine her father’s false legend.