January 7, 2016

007. LIBERTY STAR

Heather wasn’t the first woman to be accepted into the Navy SEALs training program, but she was the first to survive it and earn her stripes as a full-fledged member of the elite group of troops. She grew up in Texas, near the border of Platinum City, the massive metropolis that was built in the chasm caused by the Great Quake of 2016. She was raised to believe that the United States and all of the ideologies the Stars and Stripes stood for should be defended and protected at all costs. As a young girl she would get into fights with anyone that suggested the country was better off as two sovereign states, for though her family disagreed in principle with much of what the people on the other side of the Divide stood for, they still held out hope that one day the country would truly be reunited again.

Bio

Birth Name

Heather Dario (maiden)

Aliases

Liberty Star; Heather Kraeger (married)

Species

Human; female

Birth Details

San Antonio, TX, USA, Earth (Core Reality); Late 21st Century

Powers, Abilities, Weapons & Tools

Liberty Star, a former Navy SEAL, possesses above average speed and strength and expert fighting and tactical skills. She is in absolute impeccable shape. She is a weapons specialist, but prefers the bow and arrow. Her arrows are customized to produce particle trails that can be manipulated in a variety of ways through a special sonic-emitter she wears on her wrist.

The Story

She graduated from high school and spent about two years taking classes at a local community college while studying for the exams and training herself mentally, physically and psychologically for the tests she’d have to pass to gain entry into basic boot camp and then into the advanced workout program that would give her a chance to make the cut for the actual SEAL training regimen. She seized that chance and passed everything with flying colors and 5 years after first enlisting, she became part of the 1 percent of trainees to graduate and be assigned to an active duty SEAL team.

Heather was a boss! During her ten years as a SEAL she participated in over two dozen special ops excursions, incursions, hostage rescues, assassinations, counterterrorism missions and much more. Her diehard patriotic attitude and her respected leadership skills, along with her impeccable physical prowess, earned her the nickname “Liberty Star” and, more importantly, earned her the opportunity to actually command two major missions. The first was “Operation: Mary Sue,” in which her team successfully extracted the president’s mother (who had been a deep cover American intelligence operative for 20 years) from a rebel stronghold in the Middle East. The second was “Operation: Moonfire,” in which she led an elite team on a mission to neutralize a terrorist threat on an American space station orbiting the Earth.

After her service was up, she married a fellow former marine and moved to Platinum City. But she quickly realized that civilian life – compared to some of the extraordinary adventures she’d had as a SEAL – was just a little too boring. Furthermore, she felt crime and domestic terrorism were two of the major maladies crippling the country she loved so dearly. And so Heather recommitted herself to service for the Red, White and Blue, but this time as a superhero. The Liberty Star was back!

Though she was extremely proficient with firearms, she decided to use the bow and arrow as her primary weapon. But she had the tools enhanced by one of her neighbors, Eli Stock, who just happened to be employed by a particle acceleration lab. Each arrow she fired left a particle trail that could be manipulated in a variety of ways through a device on her wrist.

The full power of her arrows were put to the test during the massive Smash and Grab bank robbery in which every bank in Platinum CIty was robbed at the same time. Several superheroes jumped in to help the overwhelmed police force as hundreds of petty criminals filled the streets. The most notorious crew of criminals was the trio of supervillains known as “The Distrubed.” Hysteria, Kray Kray and Deleria smashed through droves of banks and police officers with their giant purple tank. Night Bird and Metro of the heroic Platinum City Knights eventually confronted them. But that confrontation resulted in the tank blasting through the ground level of a six-story building, causing it to collapse.

Fortunately, Liberty Star was on the scene! She swung in and fired off a barrage of arrows to different spots at the base of the building, then activated a particle force-field that linked all the arrows together and formed an energy web that held the collapsing structure in place for a few more moments, allowing the civilians inside to escape to safety.

But her day was far from over. Her earpiece began to chirp with reports of a hostage situation two miles west of her location. She turned toward the setting Sun and began sprinting. Nine and a half minutes later she arrived to find 20 Platinum City officers in a standoff with a militant group of thugs who had somehow gotten their hands on a particle bomb and subsequently taken control of a municipal court building. At least three dozen terrified civilians stood to lose their lives if anyone approached the criminals before their demands were met. Even with all of her skills and tricked-out arrows, Liberty Star wouldn’t be able to handle this one alone. She put out a call to some friends and a few minutes later, The City Watch superhero squad had assembled – Gavel, The Prosecutor, Colonel Justice and of course, Liberty Star’s husband, Brass Eagle.