The first appearance of the name 'Hartman' on Defence Records can be traced back to a Marine Corps recruitment application administered on October 12th, 661 A.S. Since then, the name emerges another handful of times, scattered throughout Marine Corps service records like grain across a field. The Hartmans have ever been a military family, with childhoods split between a half-dozen bases strewn across Liberty space and adult lives often just as variable - postings aboard warships leaping out amid records of planetary postings stretching from the arid wastes of Pittsburgh to the bustling spaceports of Los Angeles.

Jane Eliza Hartman, born to a New Richland City florist and workaholic office worker, was an exception. With her grandparents the closest serving relatives - both retired marines themselves - Hartman lived a relatively stationary childhood on the outskirts of the city, as often in the hands of her grandparents as not when work demanded the attention of her closer relatives. Both grandparents were never short of stories, tales of service life and adventures out in the black, old friends and aging warships. An irresistible combination for a young girl bored of the confines of the city - and never mind the strange, long silences that occasionally drifted into their tales.

At age twelve Hartman stepped through the faded green gates of Carolina Military School, to the delight of her grandparents and the simmering disappointment of her mother and father. Hartman took to the pseudo-military culture like a fish to water and, despite only middling academic results, graduated as a cadet sergeant at the end of her five years. The students had become family in all but name over the years, and tears were shed on the day they parted - though many, Jane among them, met again in a matter of months at the recruiting stations scattered across New Richland. From there, a simple stroke of a pen and her parent's reluctant approval secured her place as a marine recruit in Richland's 804 A.S intake.

Hartman took her place on the bright yellow boot prints outside Marine Corps Recruit Depot Hampton Hill alongside two hundred other hopefuls, with her eyes set on a Recon place. One in ten candidates was gone by the end of week one. Drills and the training became their lives. For the first month of training, drills were held at all hours of the night and, on one occasion, in the middle of breakfast. Rigorous firing drills were repeated, time and again, until operating a rifle became as natural a thing as breathing.

Three months later, amid the bustle of the School of Infantry, the cause of the unceasing drills was revealed. Fifty candidates, Hartman included, had been chosen to undergo Recon screening. Three days into the training, the number was down to forty two. By the end of week one, thirty six. In the early hours of day eight, a kilometre from the end of a timed thirty kilometre pack march, the number dropped to thirty five. A knee injury, acquired in the early stages of training, had finally pushed Hartman past her breaking point. Unable to walk, she bowed out of selection. A little over two weeks later, at the completion of a hellish half year, Private First Class Hartman was assigned to the 4th Marine Regiment as a Rifleman under Major Carne, and posted to shore facilities on Pittsburgh, ready and rearing for the adventures she had promised.

She found only dust and the roar of mining transports. Eighteen months of relative inactivity with the Pittsburgh garrison passed slowly after the ceaseless rush of boot camp. Though she was undoubtedly disappointed, the assignment left plenty of time for individual projects, and Jane took advantage of what spare time was available to catch up with the family she had neglected.

Reassignment aboard the Titania class assault carrier Philadelphia finally bought the excitement Hartman had been promised. Philadelphia and her four hundred strong Marine compliment was incorporated into Operation Hedgerow, a sector-scale operation working to eliminate key sources of influence for pirate leaders in central Liberty. The 4th was ordered to board and seize a small Rogue 'bolt hole' station, haphazardly conjoined to the remnants of the Texas incident, an action that lead to what the media and shocked public would later call the Black Rock Massacre. While the initial seizure of the station went without incident, a convoy of civilian transports containing liberated slaves was ordered by the Marines to evacuate the station, only to be fired on by undiscovered pirate weaponry hidden amid the rock, resulting in the death of thirty four non-combatants and twelve Marines. With their means of escape cut off, the remaining pirate forces fought like cornered animals, desperate to evict the 4th from their station. Of the fifty six Marines assigned to board Black Rock, just over half made it back uninjured. Hartman was one of the survivors, thanks largely to the actions of one Captain Christopher Tancher. With such a significant portion of Bravo Company out of action, the depleted unit was reassigned to a smaller Interdictorclass battlecruiser, Douglas.

Douglas saw significant combat; however, her missions were primarily conducted against hostile warships at ranges that left the marines of bravo company unable to do more then clutch their rifles, grit their teeth and twiddle their thumbs. After two months aboard, the unit was rotated through to Pittsburgh and granted a brief leave period prior to conducting a one month joint exercise with elements of the Army. Units were drilled in aerial insertion and fire co-ordination. The exercise was political manoeuvring at its finest; part training exercise and part a display of force intended to dissuade the rising pirate threat in Liberty's border worlds, it was a resounding success on the first count and an equally resounding failure on the second. Hartman was simply glad to be free of the smothering confines of a warship's corridors.

By early 806A.S, the ceaseless pirate attacks and accompanying contraband could no longer be ignored. Bravo Company; along with significant elements from the remainder of the 4th Regiment, were assigned to the 214th Rapid Response Flotilla, a gunboat-centered light interception force focused on scouting missions and the enforcement of harsh anti-smuggling laws. The 214th had a great deal of success in its assignment, on one occasion single-handedly holding back a rare pirate heavy cruiser in California until reinforcements arrived by boarding the ship and disabling its drive systems. The success did not come without cost, and Bravo Company's return to the flotilla left many empty bunks.

Two months into the assignment, Hartman's squad was dispatched to support a routine cargo-interception run. Designated as the unit negotiator, Hartman had removed her helmet and suffered extensive shrapnel wounds when a proximity explosive shredded the internal walls of the transport they had boarded. Bleeding and screaming, she was dragged back to the shuttle and rushed to Mississippi's med-bay. Thirty six hours later, she was transferred to Beaumont Medical Center, Manhattan. Hartman spent a month undergoing reconstructive surgery to repair the physical damage, though the mental scars were far slower to heal. After her injury Hartman struggled to face the idea of returning to active duty and, in light of her record, was offered a medical discharge, which she accepted.

Hartman failed to return to Beaumont for follow-up treatment; a decision whose consequences remained etched in scar tissue on her features. Save a ticket on a public shuttle returning her to Houston and a smattering of accommodation and food bills, no record exists of Hartman's actions between departing Beaumont Medical Center and reappearing outside Manhattan's Navy Recruitment Center two years later.

Hesitant to take command, Hartman was hardly West Point's most shining example of an officer candidate; however, she struggled through the course with the same determination that had carried her through multiple combat tours. Hartman kept her distance from the teenagers that made up most of West Point's population, and it wasn't until she was assigned her first naval posting that she began to feel the old military camaraderie creeping back in.

A competent and committed officer, almost to the point of fanaticism, Hartman has served in a variety of postings alongside strike wings, capital divisions and resupply squadrons. When Commander Clark stepped down as Fleet Logistics Officer, Hartman; then a freshly-promoted Lieutenant Commander and experienced logistics officer, was granted temporary command of the logistics corps. She retained the position when then Vice Admiral Teerin assumed control of the corps, albeit as an assistant and full commander.

Hartman served briefly as the commanding officer of the doomed, defecting Normandie, though was not aboard when the former Gallic flagship declared its independence from the First Fleet, vanishing in to the dark, distant corners of explored space - a lapse she views as an unforgivable failing. Nonetheless, in the wake of the disaster Hartman found herself promoted to Captain and, with Teerin rising to Admiral, the commander of the Logistics Corps, under the direction of Admiral Alan Polstari. Personnel shortages lead to her promotion to full Admiral in late 821 A.S.

Distant as a commander, and ever-aware of the discipline and traditions that tie the navy together, Admiral Jane Hartman is a very different woman from the eager girl that signed up for the marines in the summer of 804 A.S. Intolerant of any lapse in personal bearing or standards among the officers under her command, Hartman is undoubtedly a harsh superior to serve under. However; she does so with the best of intentions - nothing less than the survival of the navy and the republic it serves.

Hartman was the force behind significant reforms in the Logistics Corps, the most noticeable being the establishment of the volunteer crew system and the reorganisation of the disparate support fleet elements comprising the First Fleet's logistic divisions into the 21st Combat Support Group. After a brief stint as commander of a reserve training group, she resumed duties with the First Fleet in 821A.S.

Hartman served briefly as Admiral of the 10th Fleet, a supporting element, during the doomed Leeds incursion known as Royal Flush. When her flagship was shot out from under her, Hartman and a handful of her crew were fortunate to survive the descent to Leeds. There, injured, they weathered the toxic atmosphere and Gallic patrols long enough to be retrieved by elements of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, under the command of then-Captain Reginald Lewis. Nonetheless, the combination of physical injury and the political backlash saw Hartman relegated first to Herbert Beeler Naval Hospital on LA for recovery, and then to a training position with Delaware OCS on Houston. Devoid of a command appointment, she reverted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, and remains in the position to the present day.