Ensign Lucasta "Duster" Jackson
Lulu1.jpg Jackson, Lucasta (Lulu) Olivia
Ensign Navy
Station BS-114 Orion
Position Viper Pilot
Age Sex
22 F
Hair Eyes
Red Grey
Aerilon
115-12-9090

Background

In the theatres of ancient Greece, masked actors in flowing robes used to follow protagonists around, traipsing all over the stage and all through the hero's story, saying things like, "to one who walketh warily his words commend themselves; swift counsels are not sure" and "wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man". Much like the heroes of the classical world, Lucasta too was surrounded by a chorus all her life. The difference is that instead of wearing robes and masks, they sported bad perms and thick accents and the only thing they ever seemed to say was, "Well, isn't she just the sweetest little thing!"

The truth is, they were right. She really is the sweetest little thing. She always was. Lucasta, more often known as just Lulu, was that girl. A good girl — a sweet, small-town country girl that loved her mama and her papa and the farm, who went to temple every Sunday, that always had just the nicest things to say about everybody she'd ever met. (After all, if you don't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all.)

She was smart and she worked hard, too. So her neighbors loved her. Her teachers loved her. The boys at school loved her. (The girls, too.) She was crowned her high school's Harvest Queen — twice. It would've been so easy for her to just stay home on Aerilon. She could've married a nice boy set to inherit his papa's farm. She could've had a nice little house, with picture window over the kitchen sink and lace curtains to boot. She could've had a whole mess of pudgy babies, just like her mama. She could've had nothing more to worry about than whether or not the rains would come and and her family was happy, if she'd wanted to. But she didn't want that. She wanted more. And that's the thing about Lulu. Most people don't notice it, because she's just so darned sweet. But she's stubborn, too, once she sets her mind to something. She goes after what she wants. And she gets it, too. Once Lulu's gotten an idea in her head, even Zeus himself had better stay the hell out of her way.

This time, she'd decided that was going to keep at her schooling. She liked it. It wasn't a burden; it was a joy. Especially when learning meant reading of far off places, and people from different times, and cultures of other worlds. She was going to see one. And she was going to college. She'd set her mind to it, and even Zeus himself wasn't going to stop her. Neither was the fact that her parents, hard-working people with half a dozen months to feed, didn't have the money to pay for it. Lulu was going to find a way.

And that's how she ended up at the Naval Academy on Caprica. Ohhh, sure, she was going to have to give the Fleet four years when she was finished. But that wouldn't be so bad, would it? First, she'd get four years to study history — on someone else's dime, too. And then she'd have four years of getting sent to those far-off places, full people practicing the cultures of other worlds. That's almost like winning an award for bringing home the nicest prize from the county fair, at least as far as she was concerned.

Lulu didn't get top marks in her classes, but she wasn't exactly a slouch, either. She was solidly "above average" all through her schooling and well-liked, too. It was the latter that landed her in flight school, after a couple of intrsuctors took a shine to her. She was exactly the sort of girl that everybody was all too happy to help. She was grateful, after all, and not the type to ever forget a friend. No, Lulu was the type to do her darnedest to make somebody proud and then pay them back, too.

It certainly helped that, having grown up on Aerilon, the girl already knew how to fly. Of course she did! Granted, it was a rickety old bucket of bolts that might as well have been held together by a ball of twine and some duct-tape, but it worked just fine for dusting crops. At least, that's what her brother had said after he'd saved up enough money to buy. It'd pay for itself in time, he'd insisted. Lulu was never too sure about that, but she was too kind to say it and risk hurting his feelings. Besides, it meant that'd he teach her how to fly. Her papa didn't like it, but one flash of those big, sad grey eyes was usually all it took to convince that man to agree to just about anything.

It was just API at CFAB Euterpe on Picon for her. She wasn't bad, either. She was young, she was fit, she was alert. Lulu did well in her classes, and even better in her field instruction, where things like swimming and survival were more like "fun reminders of the farm" and certainly less exhausting than, say, astronomical navigation. API was followed by PFT, where that single-mindedness of purpose served her well, too. She was all set for intermediate training to become a Viper pilot. Except….

Well, that's when War Day happened. Things like the nuclear annihilation of half a dozen Colonies is kind of hard to miss. Needless to say, exams were cancelled.

The Cylons hit Picon hard. The Cylons hit Picon without mercy. Fleet Headquarters was wiped out in the opening shots of the war and that strike didn't ripple all the way down the ranks — it spread like fire in dry brush, fire like that the Cylons rained down from the skies. The Viper MkVII's were dead in the water. It wasn't just squadrons being wiped it. It was whole Air Wings. It was whole battlestars. Sooner or later, it didn't matter that Lulu was only an ensign. It didn't matter that Lulu was only a half-cooked nugget, still a bit frozen in the middle. She knew how to fly. Sooner or latter, she found herself plunked down into the seat of a Viper and thrown right into the dog fights. And she was absolutely terrified.

It wasn't that Lulu was "just that good". It was that Lulu was just that lucky. With her training only have finished, she couldn't rely on the tried and true methods of every pilot that came before her. She had to rely on what worked at the time, whatever that was. Some of it was talent, sure. Some of it was pulling crazy crap to save her own skin, things that'd keep her alive, but maybe not leave others in her squadron so lucky. It worked, for the first few months of Picon's resistance. It was also enough to make her reckless. Sloppy. Dangerous to everyone else, even if she didn't mean it to work out that way. It was a lesson that her cobbled together unit learned the hard way. Yeah, sure, she shot down two Raiders. Not bad for a nugget, right? Except she also nailed one of their own with her fire. He didn't die, thank the gods. He'll be able to fly again, eventually. But how can they put her in a cockpit again? There's the Raiders to worry about, without adding some half-trained kid to the mix. And where in all the layers of Hades are they going to find a flight instructor now?

The Orion, that's where. By sheer dumb luck, they've got one aboard — and nice, empty, Cylon free space for her to fly in, too. Better to send her off to the ass-end of the galaxy than lose another pilot, whether that pilot is her or her wingman. She's ready and willing to do it. Eager, even. Zeus stayed the hell out of her way before. The Cylons are just going to have to learn the same lesson. Because she's still that sweet, stubborn girl from Aerilon, who has gotten an idea into her head…. isn't she? Yeah, she is. Sure, she is. If she just works hard enough, and pretends hard enough, and smiles hard enough, she can still be that girl. She's got the sort of smile that could make someone forget what happened on Picon. The sort of smile that could make someone forget the whole war.

…..Just as long as they don't look into her eyes.

Recent Events

Service Record & Medals

Recent Logs

Gallery

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License