Forge of War (Jack of Harts) (47 page)

“We shall speak of this later,” Aneerin announced.  “Your lift has arrived.”

Jack swallowed, pulled in a deep breath, and stood up straight.  “Well, I’d hate to miss my ride to battle,” he returned with a wry smile, tipped his hat to Aneerin, and ambled onto the lift.  The cybers followed him onto the lift, the doors closed, and Jack felt it begin accelerating away from the observation deck.

Jack leaned back against the wall of the lift, watching Betty and Hal standing side-by-side.  Hal wrapped an arm around Betty and Jack smiled as she leaned into the other man.  Then he blinked as his mind caught up with what Aneerin had said.  About losing loved ones to age.

“Hal?”

Hal’s gaze jumped over to him.  “Yes, Jack?”

“Do
any
Peloran die of old age?”

“They do not,” Hal answered with a knowing smile.

Jack nodded slowly, glanced at Betty, and sucked in a breath.  “So…who
has
Aneerin lost to old age?”

Hal gave Jack a sad smile.  “That would be a question he would have to answer.”

Jack let out a long breath.  “He spoke as if he’s outlived
many
loved ones.”

“I can not answer that,” Hal said with a shake of his head.

Jack nodded slowly.  “I understand.  But…if he had non-Peloran children, where
are
they?  Where were they
born
?  Where did they
die
?”

Hal shrugged with the arm not wrapped around Betty.  “I’m sorry, but I really can not answer.”

“I know,” Jack whispered and gave Betty a long look.  She smiled and nodded.  “I guess…I’m just wondering.”  Jack shrugged.  “Aneerin was here before Contact.  He
had
to have been to be as good at English as he was when he showed up.  The question is, how
long
before?”

Hal shook his head.  “I am sorry, Jack, but we cannot give you the answers you seek.  You have to find them yourselves,” he finished in an earnest tone.

Jack frowned at the cyber and shook his head.  “So what happens when we
do
?”

A smile transformed Hal’s face.  “Then you will recognize the worlds around you for what they are.”

Jack frowned at Hal and was about to ask what he meant when the lift slowed to a stop and the doors opened into Cowboy Country.  He looked back from the doors to see Betty and Hal standing apart, and an expression on Hal’s face that said the time for those questions was over.  It was time for battle.  Jack nodded but gave Hal a wordless promise that they would speak on the matter again.  Hal smiled as if he looked forward to it.

Jack grunted and stepped out of the lift.

Jack stepped out of the lift and into Cowboy Country with a swift stride that took him through the main room in seconds.  Unlike the majority of the
Guardian Light
, the walls of Cowboy Country weren’t a clean white.  Symbols and flags and other decorations festooned the walls, reminding the Cowboys that they were all American.  The United States Marine Corps symbol, an eagle standing atop a globe with an anchor driven through it, dominated one wall in all its silver and gold glory.  Another wall hosted the American, Texan, and Marine Corps flags, and the other two walls sported honors that the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112 had received from her creation in World War II all through the centuries until the Battles of Alpha Centauri.

The first two battles at least.  Jack had a feeling they were going to be adding a new one soon.  The thought that they might lose never occurred to him.  They were Marines after all.  And he had Betty and Jasmine on his side.  He glanced back and forth at them with smiles that they answered.  Not to mention Hal and
his
guns of course.  With all of that arrayed against them, the Chinese didn’t have a chance.

Jack left the main room behind and walked into a long corridor leading to the launch bay.  Hatches on either side opened into the sleeping quarters belonging to each pilot.  Sixteen private rooms in all, he idly wondered how Hal had built them.  There had only been ten the last time he was here, one for each Cowboy on the
Guardian Light
.  Of course, he’d learned never to underestimate the old battleship when it came to being able to rebuild himself, from the inside out if necessary.

The hatch at the end of the corridor opened into the launch bay and they stepped through into it.  Jack scanned around the cramped chamber, taking in the stacked ranks of Avenger and Hellcat fighters in their cradles, ready to launch at a moment’s notice.

“Good of you to finally show up,” Charles said, his voice coming from the small speaker in Jack’s ear.

“Well, you know what they say,” Jack answered with a big smile, looking towards Charles’ Avenger.  “Fashionably late and all that.  And my fashion sense is
amazing
.”  Jack bypassed the ladders and walked to where his Avenger rested, not really wanting to abuse his aching muscles.

“Only if the judges are cows and corn,” Charles noted with a shake of his head.  “Real civilization on the other hand….”

“Can lick me,” Jack responded with a smile.  “Farm girls
totally own
beach or college girls.”    He glanced at Betty, she smiled, and he felt the gravity melt away.  He kicked against the deck, sending him floating up through the gantries to where their Avenger waited.  He grabbed a bar to arrest his motion, spun around it, and landed next to his cockpit.

“You haven’t met the college girls in Philadelphia,” Charles riposted as Jack came to a stop.

Jack chuckled and stepped down into the cockpit.  “True.  But can we at least agree that there ain’t nothin’ worth fightin’ for in all the worlds that ain’t a girl?”

Charles’ face appeared on one of the displays, one eyebrow raised.  “What about Truth, Justice, and the American Way?”

Jack chuckled, sat down, and began locking his restraints.  “That sounds great in a comic book, but this is real life.”

“Yes it is,” Charles noted, his face twisted in a look of deep thought.  “If being honest, those were not the reasons I joined either.”  He gave Jack a shrug and a smile.  “I would also note that the reasons I am still here have…morphed as time has gone by.  Have
your
reasons changed?”

Jack grimaced at the pointed question, and he glanced at Betty where her twenty-centimeter hologram sat on their fighter’s console.  She just smiled, but Jack shook his head.  She knew precisely why he’d gone.  Revenge.  But that wasn’t really the reason he still wanted to stay.  “Yes,” was all he said.

Charles’ smile grew and he shook his head.  “Would you care to share?”

Jack blinked and looked at Betty.  She just smiled and crossed her arms, waiting for his answer.  Jack winked.  She didn’t need him to say anything.  She knew.  “Well, maybe I just don’t like backing out once I’ve given my word?”  Betty cocked her head, seeming to weigh his answer, and raised one hand to give him a so-so gesture.

Charles grunted in a way that suggested he didn’t believe that was the real reason.  Or at least not the only one.  “Well, perhaps you will tell me some day?”

Jack raised a questioning eyebrow at Betty and she returned an approving nod.  Which pretty much summed everything up.  “Sure thing, Chief,” Jack said with a smile and a nod.

“Good.”  Charles nodded as if accepting an oath, and Jack shifted his head to the side in recognition.  “Now shall we get down to the business of being ready to launch?”

Jack shrugged and scanned his displays, making certain that all systems reported online.  “Well, yeah, whenever we get shallow enough to
do
our business.  Maybe just speaking for me, but I don’t want to surf the rapids.”

Charles chuckled.  “Yes, but we should be
ready
.”  His pointed look said he really needed an answer quickly.

Jack looked at Betty and she nodded.  “Well,
I’m
ready,” Jack said in a jaunty tone.  “How ’bout
you
?”

Charles remained silent for several seconds before saying anything.  “You do not know how lucky you are.”

Jack smiled at Betty.  “What can I say, Chief?  She’s way better than I deserve.”

She sat up tall on the console, crossed her legs, and smiled that smile that said he had a century or two to stop talking like that.

“That is
so
true,” Charles said in an approving tone before switching the communication signal to an all-Cowboy frequency.  “All Cowboys, prepare to launch,” he ordered.

Jack looked at Betty and she nodded.

“Mischief, here,” Katy reported from just off his wing.  “We’re ready.”  She’d been shot out of her fighter defending Fort Wichita, making this her first chance to fight again since that day.

“Buckaroo Flight is ready,” Ken’s voice said next, reporting for himself and the new recruit
he
was charged with acclimating to the squadron.

“Dutchman Flight is go,” Jessie added.

That made all six fighters of his division ready to fly.  “Chief, Jester Division is ready to fly,” Jack reported.

“Excellent,” Charles transmitted after a few more seconds, presumably after getting Jay’s report.  “Launch as soon as Hal gives us a green light.”

“Roger that,” Jack answered, leaned back in his seat, and let out a long breath.  He glanced over to Betty and she cocked her head the side.  “Division,” he said and she nodded, bringing the entire division into a single conference line.  “Looks like it’s time to do what we do best,” Jack announced.  “Hurry up and wait until we get the green light.”

“So you have experience with that too?” Katy asked.

Jack shrugged.  “Not as much as you’d think actually.  Aneerin ain’t one to have everyone stand at attention because he has the rank to demand it.  Hell, I think his men would
laugh
at him if he tried that one,” he finished with a snort.

“How do they maintain discipline?” Ken’s recruit asked.  Jack glanced at a display to confirm her identity.  Dawn.

“They don’t,” Jack said with another shrug.  “I don’t know exactly how it all works, but they really
are
genetically engineered super soldiers.  They go from calm and collected tree hugger to total killer in the flick of an instant.”

“Well, that’s fine if you want a mass of killers,” Katy interjected.  “But without discipline, how do they train them to fight together?”

Jack smiled at Betty and she shrugged back.  “Well, you remember all those regulations we had to memorize that tell us how to stand or act when we’re interacting with anyone from a civilian to the commanding general’s wife’s foo foo dog?”

He thought he heard something that sounded like a snort from the other end.  “I remember,” Katy finally said, sounding suspiciously like she was trying to keep from laughing.

Jack raised an eyebrow at Betty.  She smiled back.  “Well, the Peloran are born knowing all that.  Some kind of genetic memory.  And outside of a very few individuals, they are all very…team oriented.  Put five Peloran together, and they’ll move as one like it’s instinct.  They don’t
have
to be trained to fight together.  They do it without thought.  It’s kinda scary, actually.  I think that’s why their ambassadors are always alone.  They don’t want to freak us out.”

“But how do they—”

The light turned green.

“It’s time!” Jack cut Katy off with a shout and slammed the throttle forward.  Not that he really needed to of course, with Betty on the ball.  But it felt good to push it forward himself.  Like a pilot was supposed to do that when they launched.

They shot through the launch hatch and out into the kaleidoscope of colors twisting through hyperspace.  He saw the other Cowboys shooting out with him, and then frowned as something caught his attention.  Each of the fighters had a different icon associated with them.  Charles had the face of a wolf, Jessie a fox’s face, and everyone else had another animal.  He had the face of a deer.

“What is that?” Jack asked, waving a hand at the icons.

Betty smiled.  “Those are our Peloran callsigns.”

Jack frowned, not liking the way this looked.  “We already
have
callsigns,” he reminded her, letting a little too much of his annoyance get through his voice.  He’d
earned
his callsign after all.

She raised an eyebrow at him.  “A Peloran callsign is an honor, Jack.”

“Right.  An honor.  Is that why
they
get to be hunting animals while
I’m
a deer?”

Betty laughed and shook her head.  “No, silly, it’s a
hart
.”

Jack raised an eyebrow at her before scanning the displays with a skeptical eye.  “No.  I’m pretty sure that’s a deer.”

“Look at the antlers, Jack!” Betty shouted and laughed.  “It’s a
hart
.  H-A-R-T.  An old stag.  The King of the forests.  A
noble
animal! 
Way
better than a little
fox
!” she finished with a shout of derision.

Then his displays flickered again and he looked over to see the drones peeling off the
Guardian Light’s
outer hull.  The drones slotted into formation around them, one after another, swelling the numbers of fighters around the massive battleship.  Jasmine’s twenty-centimeter tall hologram flickered into existence on the console next to Betty and Jack smiled at her.

“Well, hello again,” he whispered and Jasmine smirked at him.

Charles voice cut into the cockpit before she could answer though.  “All flights, move forward and watch for enemies”

“Roger that,” Jack answered and nodded towards Betty.  She smiled and they began accelerating away from the Guardian Light.  “Mischief, stay with me,” he ordered.

“We’re on your tail,” Katy acknowledged.  “Just lead the way.”

“Will do,” Jack said with a nod and looked at the displays to see the Cowboys approaching New Washington from every direction.  “Mischief, you ready?”

“I’m five by five,” Katy answered his question.

“Good,” he said and frowned at hyperspace ahead of them.  “I’m sending a drone up to scout for us.  You stay in hyper for now.  Hellcats aren’t supposed to be able to transit on their own, so let’s not let them know the rules have changed yet.”

“Got it, Boss,” she acknowledged, her voice betraying just how much she was going to enjoy showing them the new rules.

Jack turned to Betty.  “Send a drone through.”

She nodded and he watched one of the drones moving forward.  He glanced at it, focused on it, and watched as it disappeared in a maelstrom of roiling gravity.  A second later, the displays of his fighter filled with information transmitted from normalspace.

New Washington dominated the view, a cold blue pearl in the starry night.  Icons appeared around it, first a dozen, then two dozen, and more.  Scores, and then hundreds of ships filled the skies around New Washington, and Jack swallowed the frog that appeared in his throat.  The Scout Service had missed a few ships.  The Chinese ruled the skies, surrounded by the wreckage of orbital stations.  It was Yosemite all over again, only this time the enemy was sticking around to make certain the point was made.

“Girls?” he asked and began to chew on his lip.  This was bad.  Real bad.

“Yes?” Betty and Jasmine returned, their voices sounding as nervous as his.

Jack licked his lips.  “We’re going to need a bigger fleet.”