Forge of War (Jack of Harts) (53 page)

Jack glanced at Betty, and she encouraged him to continue with a twitch of her head.  “And what?  You think they might wonder if you are nearby?  Since they know we’re the only squadron in Alpha Centauri that flies Avengers?”  Jack paused to slip his fingers through the loops of his boots and stuffed his feet inside them.  “Maybe you even
hope
they wonder?”

Hal nodded and walked towards the hatch.  “Anything that makes the Chinese less likely to start another shooting match is worth pursuing,” he said in simple tones, all but a small measure of humor gone.  “I doubt it will work.  But we’re willing to give it a chance.”

“Ah.”  Jack stood up, tightened his belt, and smiled at Betty.  “Are we ready?”

“Always,” she answered and her form flickered.  Her yellow sundress faded away, replaced in the flicker of an eye by her full service Marine uniform, complete with matching flight jacket.  “Shall we go?” she asked with an impish smile.

“We shall,” Jack returned with a humoring smile and followed Hal through the hatch.  It opened and they stepped into Cowboy Country to see the last of the Cowboys disappearing down the corridor towards the launch bay.  He grunted at the sight.  “Maybe we should hurry,” he added and jogged past the holoform of the cybernetic mind of the
Guardian Light
.

“Don’t worry, I’m warming our systems up,” Betty returned, keeping pace with him.  His mind went back to the mad scramble of pilots and cybers on the
Constellation
when the Shang attacked Fort Wichita; how the passageways had been so crowded that the cybers were forced to sit on the shoulders of their pilots in small mode to avoid having someone walk through them.  He smiled at her, realizing one more time how the
Guardian Light
was like no warship he’d ever been on.  Not that he had a lot of experience with them.  He would have to ask Katy about
her
impressions.

Betty raised her eyebrow, a quizzical look on her face.

Jack shrugged, aimed an impish smile at her, and shot down the corridor, into the launch bay.  Jack looked up to see the squadron’s mix of Avengers and Hellcats cradled four rows high, all the way to the end of the large bay.  He’d seen the bay empty, and it was a truly mammoth empty space.  He still didn’t know how Hal had cleared out the space for it, in addition to the fighters he already carried, but somehow he had without losing anything important.  At least Jack hoped nothing important had been lost.  But it was difficult to think about just how large the bay was when he was looking at it, filled with Avengers and their much smaller Hellcat cousins.  It looked cramped and tiny with the fighters taking up the bulk of the space.  Jack licked his lips in amazement.

“Betty?” was all he said though.  They had more important things to do after all.

“Ready,” she answered, either not catching his slight pause or letting it go for later.  She was probably just letting it go for later.

Jack felt gravity weaken around him and jumped up towards their fighter.  The subtle tug of the fighter’s gravity generators pulled him towards it and he flexed his legs, coming to a rest with a soft click of his boots next to the cockpit.  With a quick step forward he dropped into his seat, sat down, and began fastening his restraints.  His eyes scanned the displays as they began to flash to life around him, showing the fighter’s systems coming online.

“Cowboy One to all Cowboys,” Charles voice came over the comm. system.  “Report your status.”

Jack checked the displays once again, making certain that all systems showed green, and a pleased smile covered his face as the canopy came down, sealing him in.

“Cowboy Fourteen, ready to launch,” Katy reported, her voice showing only the calm readiness of a combat veteran with decades of experience.

“Buckaroo Flight is locked and loaded,” Ken’s words came through his system.  They carried a different tone than Katy’s, less military precision and more of the California surfer attitude that Ken projected when he flew.  That attitude was probably one of the reasons he and Ken got along so well.

“Dutchman Flight, ready for action,” Jessie announced in a no-nonsense tone that reflected his Kansas farming background.  Jack had been mildly surprised to find that Jessie had a truly dry sense of humor and could pull off jokes with the best of them.  Not that anyone could tell that when he was preparing for battle.  He got a bit more serious then.

Jack smiled and nodded towards the console where Betty sat in small mode.  He had a good set of people working with him.  He would take them into battle anytime.  She smiled, seeming to know exactly what he was thinking, and her holoform flickered.  His smile broadened as her yellow sundress came back into focus, now that they were in the privacy of their cockpit, and she crossed her legs.  He shook his head.  Yes, he truly had good people here.

“Jester Division is ready to rock and roll,” he reported, trusting her to transmit his words on.

She smiled back at him and nodded, accepting what his smile said over the words meant for Charles.  Then his eyes pulled away from her as the
Guardian Light’s
hull began to split open, showing him the multi-colored swirling spectrum of hyperspace’s twisted gravity waves.  His breath caught once again at the beauty of it all.  It was one of the most amazing sights he’d ever seen in his life.  The sight was almost enough to make one believe in God.  He let out a long breath as the reminder that it was his job to go out in a fighter and fly through it, with nothing but a see-through canopy between him and…everything.  This was a truly amazing life he led now.

“All Cowboys, commence launch pattern now,” Charles ordered and the first of the Avengers shot out of the kilometer-long battleship, reaching out for hyperspace.  Avengers and Hellcats blasted out after their commander one after another, far enough from each other to remain safe.

Finally a green light came on, telling him it was his time to launch.  He and Betty shared another smile, he slammed the throttle forward, and their Avenger clawed her way into hyperspace, leaving the
Guardian Light
behind.

The colors of hyperspace twisted around each other, the chaos they revealed more deadly to life than any vacuum Jack had ever breathed.  The deflection grids around every ship in the Peloran squadron held the chaos at bay, bubbles of control over gravity exerted by their powerful generators.  For a moment Jack wondered how Tom had piloted through hyperspace without them, then decided he really didn’t need to know.  It would probably make him sick.

The Cowboys pulled away from the gleaming white hull of the
Guardian Light
, eddies of color in their wakes.  Sixteen fighters and over a hundred drones became a solid wave of gravity washing over the natural ebbs and flows of hyperspace as they left the Peloran squadron behind.  Jack let out a long breath at the realization that they had as many fighters as the Constellation had carried at Fort Wichita, and they weren’t the
Guardian Light’s
entire complement.  There were the
Peloran
fighters and interceptors as well after all.

The Cowboys passed through the wall of hundreds of interceptors screening the squadron and Jack shook his head in wonder.  A few months ago, the Peloran would never have sent out so many cybers in command of their own craft, with no genetic Peloran to mind them.  It simply wasn’t done.  And the Peloran really seemed to hold onto their “the way things should be” practices.  But he had to hand it to Hal.  In the last month, the head of the Terran family of the cybers had truly gone all out in his decision to “test” the fully cybernetic drones.

Jack examined the console of his fighter, where the small holoforms of the two cybers controlling his eight surviving drones sat, leaning close to each other in conversation.  He let out a long breath as he considered Betty and Jasmine.  He couldn’t imagine either of them ever going Berserker on humanity, like all the old bad sci-fi stories talked about.  Of course, they were born to be
partners
, not servants.  Had been for thousands of years.  That imperative went so far that he doubted they could ever leave it behind now.

They truly
were
friends.  Jack had grown up in a world where cybers were rare, unknown, and otherworldly.  In northern Minnesota, they simply had not been normal.  Now he lived in a place where cybernetic humans outnumbered genetic humans at least a hundred to one.  They were everywhere.  There were so few genetic Peloran on the
Guardian Light
that if you met someone outside the pilots’ countries, he or she would almost always be a cyber.  They did repairs, they fought, and they died hundreds of little deaths while defending their friends, and all they asked in return was the chance to interact, to be friends.

Jack smiled at the thought and nodded, eyes resting on Betty and Jasmine.  The Chinese were wrong.  They had to be.  He couldn’t believe that humanity had anything to fear from them.  Ever.  Not as long as humanity continued to be friends.

Betty cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow at him.  “What are you smiling about?”

“Life,” he returned without a pause.

She pursed her lips, eyes showing that she was considering his answer
very
carefully.  “That’s an awful big thing to be thinking about.”

“Yes, it is.”  Jack shrugged.  “What can I say?  We might be going into battle.  It makes me think about the important things in it.”  He looked at her, glanced at Jasmine, and then returned his gaze to her with another shrug.

“Ah,” she answered with a smile.  “The
important
things.”

“The things that make it worth living,” he added with a wink.

Betty laughed, her smile one that said she knew what he was doing.  “And
now
you’re just flattering,” she said with a shake of her head.

“Nothing but truth,” he returned, a hand raised over his heart to show his sincerity.

Betty shook her head again.  “You can be impossible, you know?”

Jack waggled his eyebrows.  “The difficult I do on command.  The impossible at will.”

She smiled and leaned back, letting him get away with his bravado this time.

Jack relaxed back in his seat as well, pulling in a long breath and letting it back out.  In the comfortable silence that followed he returned to watching the two cybers at their rest.  He really hoped they wouldn’t have to do anything today.

“Jack?”  Betty asked and he turned to look at her again.  She looked embarrassed.

“Yes?”

“You know those upgrades we were talking about?”

Jack raised an eyebrow, deciding not to pry it out of her.  He just waited, knowing his sense of time and her sense of time would force her to break the standoff first.

She cleared her throat.  “The missiles, the extra grav cannon, the lasers?”

Jack smiled.  “I also remember better armor and shields,” he supplied.

“Yes.”  She looked bashful, her gaze falling away from his face.

He considered her body language for a long moment.  It spoke volumes, and his slight suspicion woke up into full-blown
knowing
.  “Betty?”

“Yes?”  She looked over at the other cybers, her body language suggesting that she wanted to join them and disappear.

Jack pursed his lips and held his gaze on her.  “Did someone upgrade our fighter, leaving
me
to be the last person to find out?”

“Well, you’re not the
last
.”  She looked at him, then shifted her eyes away from him again.  “And if it’s any consolation, I think the Chinese will really dislike the news when we give it to them. 
If
we do,” she corrected herself with a shrug.

Jack sighed.  It
was
her body after all.  He smiled at the thought and shook his head in acceptance.  “So how much of it did we get?”

Betty’s expression brightened with joy.  “Oh,
everything
.  We’ve got the improved armor, the laser turret is back, another grav cannon, and we actually made the
missile launchers
work.  Getting rid of those nasty capacitors saved
so much space
,” she finished with an expression betraying pure ecstasy.

Jack frowned in thought.  “So, just curious, but how much of the ship we got on Earth is actually
left
?”

Betty made a show of tapping her chin and considering the question.  “Um…you’re sitting in it,” she finally answered with a bright smile.

Jack snorted.  “Well, at least we kept the best part of it,” he said with a wink.

Betty sniffed.  “Men.  Always thinking the place to sit down is the best.”

“Hey!” Jack protested.  “Never forget the fridge.  You
didn’t
forget the fridge, did you?”

Betty smiled.  “Oops.”

Jack covered his heart with one hand.  “You wound me,” he whispered in a pained tone.  “Where am I supposed to keep my beer?”

“You don’t
drink
beer,” she said with a raised eyebrow.

Jack sniffed.  “Maybe because I don’t have a fridge to keep it
cold
?”

“So
maybe
you’ll never have a fridge in our
fighter
,” she returned with a hard glare that spoke far more eloquently than her soft tone.

At that moment, Dorothy flickered into existence on the console in the same small mode that the other used, wearing the long black Victorian dress that was her preferred clothing.  Jack shifted his gaze to her, wondering if all of the cybers dispensed with their uniforms once inside their fighters.  Every one he’d seen so far did.  She looked back and forth between them with an appraising eye.

“What are you two quarreling about
today
?” she asked in a pointed tone.

Jack snorted.  “
She
won’t install a
fridge
for me,” he answered, pointing a thumb at Betty.

Dorothy smiled towards Betty.  “Good girl.”

Jack grunted in disappointment that she was taking Betty’s side.  He crossed his arms and made a performance of acting put upon.

“Thank you,” Betty said with a knowing smile.

Dorothy turned her full attention to Jack, assuming a posture that said she was all business now.  “Do you know the
Vanguard
?”

Jack cleared his throat as his body made an approximation of coming to attention while still strapped into the seat.  His mind ran over the word she said like a name, considering what she meant.  Only one thing came to mind.  “The British
Dreadnought
?”

“Yes,” Dorothy answered with an approving smile.  “Charles wants your division protecting her.”

“Got it,” Jack said and aimed a sloppy salute at her.  “Thanks Dorothy,”

“Go get ’em, Jack,” Dorothy returned with a smile and flickered back out.

“Bring ’em up,” Jack ordered with a nod towards Betty.

She waved a hand at a display and he examined the ships making up the British Second Fleet’s Third Battle Squadron.  He reached out and grabbed the holographic representation of the
Vanguard
in one hand, spinning it around to look at her far flank.  He nodded, reached towards another display to grab his flight, and pulled it over onto the
Vanguard
.  He released the massive warship and grabbed one of her escorting battleships, the
Thunderer
.  He examined it for a bit before grabbing Jessie’s flight and bringing them together.  Finally, he reached for Ken’s flight and dragged it to the
Ajax
, last of
Vanguard’s
larger escorts.

“Does that look good to you?” Jack asked as he saw a British scout fighter fly out of a particularly bright gravitic wave into view of the Cowboys.  The British fleet wasn’t far away.

She considered the assignments for a moment before nodding.  “That should work well.”

“Good.  Transmit that?”

Betty smiled at him.  “Already done.”

“Shiny,” Jack chuckled back.  “Now division please,” he requested as they passed by the fighter.

“Division on,” Betty answered.

“OK boys and girls,” he said to the other members of his division.  “You get the idea?”

“Stay tight on your six, right?” Katy asked.

“Always,” Jack answered with a chuckle.

“Sounds to me like you want the easy job for yourself while we protect the weaklings,” Ken added.

“I don’t know if I’d call a battleship a weakling,” Jessie interjected.

“Good point,” Ken answered.  “We’ll keep the BBs safe, Boss.  You just make certain nobody kills
Vanguard
if the balloon goes up.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jack said, suppressing a smile as the first British destroyer screen came into view ahead of them.  “Now let’s get in and see what we can do,” he ordered, grabbing the throttle and stick.  A push of the throttle towards the firewall sent them screaming forward, and he watched in approval as the other fighters held pace with him.

“Roger that,” Jessie returned.

“Got it, Boss,” Ken added

“All over it,” Katy transmitted to his console.

“Break now,” Jack said and penetrated the British formation, passing escorting frigate, destroyer, and cruiser squadrons waiting in hyperspace.  Fighter squadrons road the gravitic waves washing around the larger ships like surfers as the much larger warships simply drifted through them.  Jack frowned, wondering what they were waiting for as the Cowboys approached the battleships and command
Dreadnought
s at the heart of the British fleet.  Then he shrugged.  It honestly didn’t matter much to him.  His job was to sit back and wait, much like those fighter pilots behind him riding the waves, until the big guns decided it was time to bring the pain.

“Jack?” Betty asked and he glanced at her, then down to the display she was eying.  He saw the comm. system blinking, ready to transmit, and smiled at the not-so-subtle hint that he really should be talking to one of those big guns right now.

“This is Captain Jack of,” he paused as he looked at the icons blinking in one of the displays, showing them the transponder symbol of a Hart.  Betty smiled and nodded, urging him on.  “Hart Flight to
HMS Vanguard
,” Jack finished, trying not to sound too awkward about it.  “Aneerin has volunteered us to escort you in.”

A man appeared on one of the displays, wearing the uniform of a British admiral, arms clasped behind his back.  The officer looked like a shop owner considering how much candy Jack was going to steal from him.  A shop owner with a shotgun hidden behind the counter.  “We have received word from Aneerin regarding your orders.  Are
all
of your fighters truly hyper-capable?”

Jack smiled at the question.  “Yes, Admiral.  The Peloran have upgraded the Hellcats as well.”