Name: Katie Jackson
Race: Caucasian
Gender: Female
Occupation: Sergeant, The Vestige Federation Peacekeepers
Age: 24
Height: 5’ 8”
Weight: 160 Lbs.

S.P.E.C.I.A.L
Strength 07
Perception 08
Endurance 08
Charisma 03
Intelligence 05
Agility 05
Luck 04

Derived Attributes
Health 17
Carry 16/66 lbs.
Dodge 15

Character Skills
Fighting 07 Strength
Brawling 07 Strength
Intimidation 07 Strength
Notice 05 Perception
Shooting 07 Perception
Tracking 05 Perception
Attunement 05 Perception
Defiance 05 Endurance
Resistance 05 Endurance
Survival 07 Intelligence
Current Unused Points: 0

Inventory

Current MGA: 0

Gas Mask, 2 lbs.
One Filter, 1 lbs.
One MRE, 1 lbs.
Lighter, Neg.
Colt 1911, 4 lbs. (2d4+4)
Hunting Knife, 2 lbs. (2d5 dam.)
Knuckle Dusters, 2 lbs. (2d3 dam.)
Double Barreled Shotgun. 8 lbs. (3d4 1B, 3d5 2B)


Background: Born in 1949, Frank Jackson was born into a hard life that usually only had two exits; prison or a pine box. Opting for something else, he joined the Army in 1966 on his eighteenth birthday and was shipped off to Vietnam. It was while he was in this country that he saw an USO show featuring a little heard of singer named Molly O'Malley. It was love at first sight for the young man, and he spent as much time as he could with her; when it was time for her to move on, she instead withdrew from the stage and became Mrs. Frank Jackson in a mess tent on Sunday when it served as a chapel. The soldier himself completed two tours total in Nam, and was recommended for Special Forces training in 1973.

He had a chance to try out his new skills against the Communist insurgency in Thailand from 1974 to 1981 during which time he also became a father, then as part of the Multinational Force in Lebanon from 1982-1984. After eighteen years of dedicated service, Frank was made a drill sergeant and entrusted with the shaping of new soldiers. He turned fresh faced boys into fighting men until 1990, when he was once more sent into action during the Gulf War. After the completion of this conflict, he was sent into the Somali Civil War and dealt with that matter from 1992 until America withdrew its forces in 1995. While his father was dealing with this matter, Liam Jackson turned eighteen and likewise joined the Armed Forces. This was only to get a college education however, and once he had an Engineering Degree he left the Army as he no longer had need of them to pay his tuition. The elder Jackson disapproved of using the Military solely for personal gain, and thought his son should repay his debt by applying his knowledge to some branch of the Service for at least some time. Said son instead insisted the same Military his dad thought so highly of had robbed him of a normal life, and he was going to start collecting on what he lost. Needless to say, this caused a rift between Frank and Liam.

Now a Sergeant Major at the conclusion of the US’ involvement in the Somali Civil War, the highest non-commissioned rank possible, Frank was appointed to the position of a Special Forces Survivalist Instructor. He remained such until 2004, when he reached the mandatory retirement age of fifty-five and had to leave the Service.

Meanwhile Liam had accepted a job shortly out of college in 1997 with the city of Bradshaw, to work on and maintain their subway system. He was there for a year when he went to an Irish bar with friends, and met a singer named Susan O'Kirk. History repeated itself and a year later the two were married. In 2000 Liam himself became a father, and held his daughter Katie in his arms for the first time.

In 2004 Molly and Susan conspired to mend the gap between father and son, the first step of which was for Frank to use some of the healthy nest egg he’d built up over decades of letting the Service pay for his needs to buy a RV. His wife convinced him to pick up the rest of the family and take them to the mountains, than fabricated some reason why she would have to take a plane and catch up later. Liam’s other half got him to agree to the trip, and likewise came up with a last minute reason why she would have to be picked up from an airport as well. This would put the two men in the same vehicle for a long period of time, and to make sure they would mind themselves Katie was to go with them.

When Frank got his son from work, then picked up his granddaughter he had never met until then, he gave no mind to the fact that the date on the calendar read July 24th, 2004. No one did, not until after anyway…

Katie’s memory of that day is full of noise; first her granddad yelling at her father, than him yelling back, then a whole bunch of loud sounds of crunching metal, screaming, horns honking, glass breaking, and other things too jumbled to pull apart no matter how hard she tried. She saw both men looked really scared, than Frank was shoving cans of food and boxes of ammo into backpacks and grabbing guns from a closet. Her father was trying to call someone on his phone, but got no answer. Then they were off, running in a crowd so big little Katie hadn’t thought there were that many people in the whole world. Liam could open doors like magic with a little card that had his picture on it, but it didn’t work on a service door he tried so he pulled out a manual key and tried that instead. He got the three of them inside a hallway, and took them to a service elevator. They got inside and started going down, then the lights flickered and the car stopped. Grandpa Frank managed to force the doors open, and they hopped down to a concrete platform. There were people down there too, not as many as above though and all of them looked like they had seen a really scary movie. Katie didn’t know what was going on nor had she ever seen her grandfather until that day, but she found herself squeezing both Frank and Liam’s hands.

That night Katie was given a can to eat out of, beans and chopped up hotdogs. Before she had much of it, some men came up to the little trio and asked what they had in their packs. Liam told the strangers they had nothing to give them, but the figures just laughed and said they’d just help themselves than. A grubby hand grabbed Katie’s can, and yanked it away from the hungry child. Liam and Frank both stood up, and demanded it be returned. The words ‘make me’ were used, and Liam charged at the guys against his father’s yelled warning. The little girl watched her father stagger back, holding his stomach while something red flowed from between his fingers. The men laughed, one of them held a knife. Than they looked at Frank, and asked if ‘you want some too, old man?’ That was the last thing the leader ever said, before he jerked and looked wide eyed at a hole that appeared in the center of his chest immediately following a roaring noise louder than anything Katie had ever heard. The stranger fell, and his friends ran away, while Frank stood there holding a gun with traces of smoke still drifting up from the barrel. He put the weapon away, picked up both his and Liam’s packs despite the rifles slung on his body, and told his granddaughter they had to leave before more bad people showed up. He jumped down onto the tracks without a single grunt from all the weight, and at the moment Katie thought this man was the strongest there ever was.

Frank lead them past several stations, finally choosing one to stop that he thought was far enough to keep the thug’s friends from coming after them. He saw the people were scared, disorganized, wasting supplies they needed to conserve. He spoke to them in the booming, commanding voice of a drill sergeant, and the desperate people seeking any way out listened to him. He found out what skills everyone had, put them to use as best he could, and got some capable people together he trained to fight knowing it was only a matter of time before others wanted what his station had. Sure enough raiders came one day, and got a nasty surprise when they were repelled. They tried multiple times, but though Old Vienna Station lost a few the enemy lost a lot more to traps and tricks.

One day some people from other stations came to talk to Frank, telling him that they wished to bring stability to the major stations throughout the Bradshaw Lines. There had been a rise in banditry, and Frank’s station had weathered the threat so well his knowledge and skills were wanted in the founding of this fledgling venture. The aging soldier agreed, and Old Vienna became one of the six charter members of The Vestige Federation. Frank contributed further to the cause by founding the Peacekeepers, a group of men and women who would combat any threat to the Federation be it from raiders, monsters, or anyone else who threatened its values. In short, an army.

Katie had no choice in joining her grandfather’s ranks, and at five years of age he had her hauling loads so heavy her back felt like it would break. Her bedtime stories consisted of pressure point descriptions, tactics, and the evil Frank had seen humans do to one another. By six her hands were marred by nicks and scars from sharpening blades, by seven she could take apart, clean, and reassemble any of Frank’s guns. By eight, she could do it in under a minute and blindfolded. By nine, she was beating twelve year old males in arm wrestling.

At the age of ten, Frank sent Katie on her own down a tunnel to retrieve something. That was the first time she ran into a howler, just her and it surrounded by concrete. She yelled for help but none came, then she spied a pipe on the ground. She managed to get it while avoiding the beast, then struck the creature in the head and killed it. She had taken some scratches herself, but the end result was she was alive and it most assuredly wasn’t.

By twelve she was assigned to guard detail, and the first time a raider saw her he laughed himself sick at her expense. He left with one finger less than he started with, and a newfound respect for females. Katie simply cleaned off her knife, and finished out her shift. At sixteen a drunken comrade tried to force himself on her, and got his arm broken in three places for his trouble. He was demoted, and assigned to grunt work for a year. At eighteen she was given the official rank of Private as this was the age required usually to join the Peacekeepers.

The Federation had been experimenting with a telegraph system, and when Katie was twenty a message was received from Leuchte Station that they were in trouble. Nothing else was received, and nothing sent was responded to. Frank was seventy-five at the time, but this didn’t stop him from picking himself to lead a squad there to see what the problem might be. Katie didn’t care much for a man who never asked what she wanted, who shoved her into danger without a care, who pushed her harder then anyone else for no reward; still, he was her only family. Because of this she tried to get him to choose someone else, though he refused. Than she offered to go herself, but he flatly informed her he had more experience. She watched him leave one morning, and waited late into the night for some word then never came.

When she finally went to bed, she pulled back the covers to discover Frank’s personal sidearm resting there, the same one that had seen him safely through countless battles and conflicts over his long life and had served justice to her father’s killer. Next to it was a note that read simply; ‘You don’t need me anymore, Sergeant.’ It was than she thought back to the howler, the raider, the drunk who tried to have his way with her, and realized there had always been a shadow in the corner of her eye. She had thought herself alone, but never had truly been; her own personal guardian angel had been watching over her, and by the giving of this gift he was telling her she no longer needed him. All the training, pain, anguish, now it was so clear to her it had all been to give her the ability to survive in this world she had stumbled into at four years of age. He trusted her with a new rank and his sidearm, but she also knew by leaving it for her he suspected he might not come back home to her.

Everyone grinned and addressed her as Sergeant the next day, obvious proof her Grandfather had informed the other Peacekeepers of her new status. She smiled back and thanked them as they congratulated her, but found herself staring down the tunnel Frank had left by with his squad. He didn’t come back that day, or the next, or the next, or the next…

Eventually word was received; Leuchte Station was in a loop, and all stations on either side of it had gone dark. Attempts to reestablish contact had failed, and cost enough lives that the Federation suspended any such future actions indefinitely. The fate of Frank and his squad was never determined, and they were officially recorded as Missing In Action.

Four years have passed since Katie last saw her grandfather, who would be just one year shy of eighty now. Still she thinks he might be alive, if for no other reason than she doesn’t believe there’s a force in the Universe itself strong enough to kill that old tough bastard...

Appearance: Katie has a large-boned frame mostly filled in by muscle, which tends to give her an imposing look that she uses to her advantage when deemed necessary. She is somewhat plain of face from the start, but time and experience has added scars, a missing tooth or two and other characteristic enhancements to her visage. While in the Metro she is not a raving beauty, neither is she considered a hag. Pickings are somewhat slimmer these days. Her hair is the exact color of carrots and would have earned her the nickname of 'Carrot Top' from her peers had any of them possessed such a death wish. Her eyes are startling however. The auburn lashes are thick and add a lovely frame to large eyes with a haunting grey-green color. Her posture is nearly perfect thanks to the military training.

Personality: Katie has her wild oats still to sow, but she also has a strong self discipline that may not keep her out of all bar brawls, but she is usually helping break them up or defending friends rather than starting them. She has a wicked sense of humor as is, apt to laugh at nearly anything. Irreverent actually describes much of her personality -- except when it comes to her superiors in the military. She reserves the majority of her loyalty for the Peace Keepers, though this extends to lesser amounts to allied forces. She also has a military mouth, the definition of this term becoming crystal clear to anyone who spends even a few minutes in earshot of her.