Sergeant Ripley of SHIELD, aka Silk, looks to be either in her late teens, or early twenties: ludicrously young for such a rank. Part of that is because she joined the UK Army when age 16. At the time she thought it was because her mutant powers allowed her to pull that deception off, but more recently she has discovered that Director Fury is just good at getting what he wants. Her 'official' status is as a member of the 'Special Reconaisance Service' the only UK special forces that allow women, but most of her time is seconded to SHIELD.

Her exploits taking down super villains are legendary. She tracked down Carnage. Wrestled Constrictor into a quivering heap on the floor, and stomped all over Typhoid Mary. She brings most of them in alive, although she did kill her first target 'Blaize' to stop him blowing up a petroleum refinery.

A person that can read army badges would see that she has the 'marksmen badge' meaning she can shoot the left eyeball of whichever fly you want, and the 'close quarters badge' which means tackling her is like fighting a chain saw. Her known medals include the Distinguish Service Cross, implying combat at sea as well as the Military Cross for land operations

After a rather successful joint operation between SHIELD and the XMen, Cassandra is now the official SHIELD liason officer