Jackie Roberts

Jacqueline "Jackie" Roberts is the owner/captain/pilot of the starship Sophie.

We first meet her (in The Chara Talisman flying a charter to the Epsilon Eridani system. From there she delivers a package to Sawyers World at Alpha Centauri (where she meets Quentin Ducayne), prior to having work done on the Sophie at the Kiahuna Shipyards orbiting Kakuloa (also in the Alpha Centauri system).

She knows Hannibal Carson from a prior expedition of his, where she was the Executive Officer of the ship he was on. There was some romantic involvement, alluded to in the above book, but the details have not appeared in print. It ended on something of a sour note, at least partially due to miscommunication.

Jackie Roberts appears on the cover of the first editions of The Chara Talisman and The Reticuli Deception. Described from Carson's point of view in the latter book, she "looked as good as ever, from her dark-green hair in its characteristic page-boy cut--short enough not to be troublesome in zero-gee--to her Chelsea-style ship boots, although her coveralls didn't compliment the figure Carson remembered."

She is named after the noted aviation pioneer, Jackie Cochran, quite probably the first woman pilot in the U.S. Air Force.