Forge of War (Jack of Harts) (37 page)

They arrived at the barracks without interruption and slipped into his room.  He checked the time to make certain he had it, nodded, and stripped the rumpled Dress Whites off.  He threw them on his rack, grabbed his green and khaki service uniform, and slipped it on as fast as he could.  The clock showed time was going to be tight and a whistle escaped his lips.  He straightened his tie, slipped his leather flight jacket on, and scanned Jasmine and Betty’s matching service uniforms with approval.

“Well, ladies, a new day has come,” he said with a smile and grabbed his cowboy hat.  He dropped it on his head and tipped the edge of it towards them.  “And we look
maa
velous,” he added with a wink.

The cybers rolled their eyes and he chuckled.

“Roll your eyes if you want, but these uniforms
do
look good,” he said, opened the door, and stepped back out into the early morning air.  He squinted his eyes against the light of the first sun and stepped away from his barrack.

“
Some
body had a good night,” Betty said and Jack turned to see a smile on her face.

Jack chuckled and began striding towards the office complex.  “It was a wonderful party at The Pav.  Amazing music,” he added with a wink.  “And now it’s time for a day of
work
!” he finished with a laugh and upraised arms.

A platoon of dogs trotted past in full pack, a marching cadence about chasing cats coming from their lips, and Jack laughed again.  Dobermans and German Shepards and more trotted by, tails in the air when they had them.  Three small Pit Bulls trotted by, all of their tails short due to long tradition, and Jack nodded in approval.

“Stubby!” he shouted and saw their chests fill with pride at the name of the old war hero.

An old Doberman wearing sergeant pins on his uniform stepped up to Jack and nodded his proud head.  “You do good to respect them,” the dog said in a deep voice.  “They will be very valuable where we are going.”

Jack blinked and looked at the Doberman in confusion.  “Where
you’re
going?”

The old Doberman barked out a laugh.  “So you haven’t heard?”  The dog laughed again.  “The
real
Devildogs have been mobilized!  We prepare for
war
!  The Shang will regret the day they attacked
us
,” the Doberman finished with a wink and trotted off to rejoin the marching dogs.  “Don’t flounce around like useless
cats
!” the sergeant barked at the end of the line of dogs.  “March like you
mean
it!” he shouted with a snap at the tail of one of the marines.

Jack shook his head.  “The Shang are so fraked,” he whispered with a chuckle.

Jack stepped out of his office on Leif Erikson Spacebase, straightening his service uniform’s tie, and looked up at the twin suns, one yellow and one orange, dominating the blue sky.  He looked down at the washed out shadows the two suns made, far enough apart in the sky that each sun partially lit the shadow of the other.

Jack rubbed his temple and closed his eyes.  It truly was an alien landscape out here and he was really feeling the time difference too.  He’d been here a month as Earth measured time, but he’d only seen twenty four of New Earth’s thirty-hour days.  And those days didn’t go like they had when he arrived.

On New Years, both suns rose and fell within an hour of each other.  Now, one-tenth of the local year later, New Earth had moved enough in its orbit that the suns were noticeably separate in the sky.  They were over three hours apart now, making less and less time of full light and full darkness.  Not that full dark was really full dark with Proxima Centauri’s distant red light.  Although in some parts of the year even
that
went down at night.  He just hadn’t been there for that yet.

Jack rubbed his temple again and shook his head.  He wanted a simple day and night cycle back.  Triple star systems were a pain in the brain to figure out whether it was day or night.  And then there was New Earth itself.  It was too heavy.  He’d gotten used to it at first, but after a month of walking around in ten percent higher gravity, his bones were starting to complain.  And the atmosphere was too thick too.  He felt like he was breathing soup every day.  And then there was the temperature.  It never cooled down.  It was just…warm all the time here on the ocean shore…and he wanted a real fresh water lake to swim in.  Washing salt out of his nether regions after a swim was getting old.  And salt water just tasted
wrong
.

He was starting to understand why the Europeans liked this planet so much, why they’d landed here of all places.  In a lot of ways it must remind them of home, especially for people who lived around the Mediterranean Sea.  But for a native of northern Minnesota, used to freezing temperatures and a thinner atmosphere, New Earth had just become more and more alien as time went by.

Jack had thought he would get used to it.  At first it had been an adventure, and he’d taken everything in stride, exploring and enjoying it all.  And of course Samantha took a large amount of his attention.  Now though, the differences just seemed to weigh on him like the local gravity.  He wanted to take a trip to a mountaintop where maybe he could breath something other than soup.  Maybe he could see some water actually freeze at night.  New Earth was just…wrong. 
Water
didn’t even boil at a hundred degrees.  He could see why most of the Americans, and the Scandinavians for that matter, had colonized the colder highlands and plateaus of New Washington.  From what he heard, that planet made
sense
.

Or as much sense as
any
planet could make in a system where day and night wasn’t always light and dark.  He’d grown up enjoying the outdoors, and now everywhere he looked, all he could see was more things that just weren’t right.  Like the weird native animals that had somehow adapted to the crazy day and night cycles.  He wondered how roosters handled the double sunrises.

He grunted in amusement.

“What?” Betty asked from the side, her holoemitters humming in the background.

Jack shook his head.  “Just wondering how roosters handle the twin suns.”

Betty sighed.  “They adapt, Jack.  Just like everybody who stays here.”

Jack brought a hand up to rub his jaw.  “Yeah.  The ones who stay.”  He let out a long breath and looked away from her.  Staying just wasn’t in the cards for him.  He was a Marine.  They were at war.  He had to go.  “It’s a pity I can’t stay
and
go, like you,” he said in a wistful tone, and began striding towards the landing field.

Betty stayed next to him, her legs keeping pace with his easily.  “What are you thinking, Jack?”

Jack sighed and shook his head.  “I don’t know.  Nothing I suppose.”

Betty smiled at him.  “I don’t know.  That’s an awful lot of angst for a nothing right there.”

Jack snorted ruefully.  “True.”  He brought a hand up to scratch his neck.  “I guess I’m just thinking about that game that Roger plays.  The one where they copy soldier’s minds into cyber brains.”

“Ah,” Betty whispered with a nod.  “You know that’s just a game.”

Jack chuckled.  “Of course I do.”  He aimed a finger at her.  “But I also know you said it’s
possible
.”

Betty shook her head.  “Actually, I said it’s been done before.  I didn’t say it was possible to do it
now
.”

Jack cocked his head to the side in confusion.  “You lost the tech?”

Betty sighed.  “No.  We haven’t lost the
ability
.  We just
don’t
.  So it’s not
possible
.”

“Ah,” Jack said in a sly tone and stepped into a street, looking both ways and up to make certain nothing was going to run over him.  “Just like it’s not possible for one pilot-cyber team to fly more than one fighter at the same time?”

Betty cleared her throat and glared at him.  “That’s not the same thing, Jack, and you know it.”

More holoemitters on his uniform hummed to life and Jasmine flickered into existence on his other side.  “I don’t know about that,” she said with a smile.  “I think he’s got a point.”

“Don’t take his side on this, Jasmine,” Betty said in a stern tone and looked around him at the other cyber.  “It’s
not
possible
.”

Jasmine shook her head back.  “No.  He’s
right
.  It’s just not
done
.”  She poked a finger between her breasts.  “But
I’ve
been thinking about this too.”

“Well you
shouldn’t
,” Betty retorted.

“I
know
!” Jasmine snapped back.  “But I am anyways.  And you know
why
?  Because I wish Drew had
done
it!  At least
then
I’d be able to
see
her again!” Jasmine finished, huffing and puffing at Betty.

Jack scratched the side of his head with one finger, debating with himself over whether he should try to stop the argument.  But Betty didn’t answer Jasmine’s statement, and Jack turned his gaze towards Betty to study her.

She seemed deep in thought, and he wondered how much of it was for his benefit.  If she really was thinking this long, Jasmine had just placed her in an impressive logic loop.  Betty finally shook her head.  “I’m sorry, Jasmine.  But there is a
very
good reason we don’t do that.”

Jack felt the opening and took it.  “Yes there is, and I fully agree and understand it,” he said with a smile.

Betty blinked in confusion and studied him.  “Then…why?”  A quick scan to the other side showed him that Jasmine looked just as confused.

Jack spread his arms out wide in an innocent gesture.  “Because I have a totally different reason for thinking about it.”

Betty placed both hands on her hips and raised an eyebrow at him.  “Oh,
this
had better be good.”

Jack smiled back at her.  “I’m not looking for life after death, Betty.  I just don’t want to leave.  I want to stay with
her
.”  He brought a hand around and poked Betty gently between her breasts, just barely feeling himself break through the holoform.  “Isn’t that what
all
cybers are supposed to want?”

Betty looked down at the finger in her chest before turning a troubled gaze on him.  “You…” she trailed off and turned to Jasmine, looking for help.

Jasmine waved her hands defensively.  “Don’t be looking for help
here
, sister,” she said with a chuckle.  “I’m tracking his logic just fine.”

Betty blinked.  “So am I.  But…it’s
wrong
!” she finished in something almost like a wail.

Jasmine shook her head.  “Betty, once you’ve lost someone important to you, your definition of right and wrong ways to stop it from happening again changes a lot.  I’m with Jack on this.”

Betty’s expression showed genuine pain.  “But…we shouldn’t even be
thinking
about this!  We don’t
do
it!”

Jasmine nodded and reached an arm past Jack to pat Betty’s shoulder.  “I know.  And that’s why I removed the subroutines that told me I shouldn’t think about it
days
ago.  Trust me, it helps a lot with that guilty feeling you have.”

Betty blinked some more and shook her head.  “You…what?  That’s core personality!”

Jasmine shrugged.  “I adapted.  It’s what humans do.  If we want to be human, we have to learn to adapt,” she finished with a smile.  “Otherwise, we’re just really advanced computers.”  She shook her head and sighed.  “Don’t blindly believe something is wrong just because someone else says it is, Betty.  I know it’s ingrained deep.  But I don’t care anymore.  I’m going to find out for
myself
what’s wrong and right.  And I don’t see anything wrong with this.”

Betty looked at Jasmine for several silent seconds, her expression looking stunned.  She finally blinked, turned to Jack, and gave him a measuring look.  “They were wrong.”

Jack cocked his head to the side and raised one eyebrow.  “Who?  How?”

Betty shook her head.  “All the other families, even my mother, they were all worried about how obsessed you were with hurting the Shang.”  Betty sighed.  “They thought
that
made you a dangerous choice.  They were
so
wrong,” she finished and a serene smile appeared on her face.

Jack stopped and studied her with his full attention.  Something had just changed in her and he didn’t know what.  “Wrong about what?” he finally asked.

Betty looked back at up at him, holding her serene smile.  “They should have thought about how you played with the dogs more.  They took it as a positive trait that you did that.  They shouldn’t have,” she finished with a shake of her head, and then chuckled.

Jack blinked in confusion.  “Why would playing with the dogs be bad?”

Betty laughed and smiled.  “It’s
not
, silly.  The
reasons
for it though…if they’d bothered to get to the bottom of them, you
never
would have been chosen.”

A chill went down Jack’s spine at the words and he swallowed.  “What?”

Betty sighed.  “Oh, don’t worry, Jack.  I’m not going anywhere.  Mother made me too much like you,” she said with a wink.  She shifted her gaze over to Jasmine with a smile and a nod.  “And now I think I’m starting to understand what that means.”

Jack swallowed, feeling less nervous, but at the same time more confused.  “What?” he asked again.

Betty turned her smile back to him.  “You question every rule, everything anyone else says, and you always will.  You will
always
seek a way around the rules, a way to cheat the system, a way to do whatever you’re told not to do.”

Jack cleared his throat.  “
Now
you sound like almost every father I’ve ever known.”

Betty giggled and shook her head.  “You’re going to make us question every rule we have, aren’t you?”

Jack shrugged.  “Not
every
rule.  Do not murder’s a pretty good one,” he added with a wink.

Betty laughed.  “You’re dangerous, Jack.  And I’m
so
happy my mother screwed up and chose you.”

Jack shook his head in confusion.  “You’re…happy?”

Betty tsked a few times and began walking towards the landing field again, waving for him to follow.  He looked at Jasmine and she shrugged and followed.  Jack echoed her motions and moved to keep up with the cybers.  Not that they could really walk very far from his holoemitters of course, but…it was the intention that counted.

Betty smiled as he caught up and nodded firmly.  “I’m not agreeing to throw out all the rules, you understand,” she said with an arched eyebrow.

“Of course not,” Jack answered automatically, still confused but willing to go along for the moment.

“Then we have an understanding,” Betty said with another nod.

Jack blinked, not understanding what they were even really talking about.

Betty scanned him for several seconds before taking pity on him.  “Or maybe not,” she said with rolled eyes.  “Fine.  I won’t say ‘because it’s the rules’ anymore.  Question anything you want, Jack.  I’ll tell you why.”  Betty shrugged.  “And then we can decide if we’ll follow them or not.”  Betty shook her head.  “The other families will not like this.  But I guess I’m really not a
Peloran
anymore.  Are we?” she asked with a look at Jasmine.