Forge of War (Jack of Harts)

by Pryde, Medron

  The bonfire shattered and faded and both of them sat in a ship, flying through the heavens to anywhere they wanted to go. His heart leapt for joy in his chest at the idea of being free to go wherever he wanted. The ship faded and flames and stars filled his eyes again. He looked away and the bonfire came back, but this time the party seemed further away than before. He could return if he wanted, but it would be hard. This wasn’t the dreams he remembered since…his mind skittered off that thought again. Something about this was harder. More final. He would have to close all the doors behind him to join the party again. And somehow, somewhere, he knew he wouldn’t wake up if he made that decision.

  Jack frowned and turned his head to look at Betty. He felt afraid and he didn’t know why. “What happened?” he asked.

  She bestowed a beaming smile on him. “That is a question you should never stop asking,” she said and he felt her joy slip into him until she gave him a hard look. “But you know what happened.”

  Jack’s heart quailed at the thought and he took a step back towards the party in reflex. It came closer into focus and he realized he was more than afraid. He was terrified. “Do I?” he asked, trying to keep the terror from his voice. Her look of complete understanding and acceptance told him he’d failed utterly.

  “Of course you do.”

  The party flickered but he shook his head and the party came back into view. All of his friends, everything he’d lived for all of his life, right here. It was all for the taking. All he had to do was take the step and he would never have to leave again.

  He didn’t take the step. He met Betty’s gaze. He trusted her. She smiled and opened her mouth again. “It’s never easy to face what we don’t want to face.”

  Jack chewed on his lower lip. “So what don’t I want to face?”

  Her smile turned grim. “Your death.”

  He didn’t jerk away from her. He let out a long breath and nodded his agreement. There wasn’t really anything to say after all. She was right. He pulled in a deep breath, steeled his nerve, closed his eyes, and forced his mind not to skitter.

  Jack opened his eyes as the flash of rising from between hyperspace into normalspace faded away. He gasped at the massive Shang warship filling the sky in front of him. It was less than a kilometer away and he could actually see the individual weapons turrets spinning towards him. They had surfaced too close. Way, way, way too close for his comfort.

  “Chaaaaaarge!” Hal shouted and every weapon in the squadron opened up as the ships accelerated towards their target.

  The Peloran were insane. This was crazy, and yet every fiber of Jack’s being thrilled with life as they charged into battle. That terrified him more than the battleship before him bristling with weapons and completely willing to crush him like a bug. Far, far more.

  “Oh fu….” He started and the universe turned on its side as every weapon in the squadron fired at once. Over a hundred grav cannons, fourteen of them massive capital ship versions, ripped into the Shang’s flank. Hundreds of missiles followed them in, causing more breaches in the deflection grid with their waves of explosions. Kinetic lances flashed through the holes and impacted at relativistic speeds, causing shockwaves of vaporizing metal that reverberated the ship as if hit by nuclear warheads.

  With the deflection grid largely breached, the laser turrets on warships and fighters alike began to play across the entire length of the ship at maximum rapid-fire rate. Jack didn’t know how many lasers fired at the ship, but he could count the thirty-six that the Cowboys fired, and that was from only nine fighters.

  Peloran battleships carried around eighty fighters he knew, with the smaller ships carrying far fewer. All told, a full squadron of Peloran ships would usually have at least three hundred fighters of various classes, from light interceptors to heavy anti-ship fighters. The five Peloran ships weren’t a full squadron of course, but they should carry two hundred between them. After casualties, he figured maybe seventy heavy fighters remained for the five ships. Another fifty light interceptors boiled out of their launch tubes, and the laser arrays of every fighter went to rapid fire. At an educated guess, he figured there were probably somewhere between three and five hundred lasers firing from the fighters alone.

  And of course there were the five warships. He flew close enough to the Guardian Light that he could see the warship’s point defense lasers physically moving along the runes to their firing positions on the forward hull of the massive battleship. The Peloran were leaving their flanks exposed for a single devastating strike, he noted with a corner of his mind. At full capacity, the Peloran battleship was rated for three hundred point defense laser arrays, while the other ships had impressive arrays of their own. Of course their point defense networks had been mauled in the previous fight. Still, he thought as many as five hundred lasers bridged the gap between the Peloran warships and the Shang flagship.

  Kinetic lances were a visible blur of motion followed by an explosion of debris. Missiles were too for that matter. Grav beams weren’t technically visible in their own right, but like a black hole they sucked everything around them into their beams. Every spare piece of garbage in orbit rushed into the beams that somehow managed to be darker than space. On its own, that would have been impressive. But when the better part of one thousand lasers fired across the distance of a mere kilometer in a kilometer-wide strobe pattern, Jack saw something he’d never known was even possible.

  Lasers were not visible. Not even as visible as a grav beam. But their effects most certainly were visible. Armor designed to absorb damage from a hundred different types of punishment covered the ship, though the grav cannons and kinetic lances had already pierced it in many places. Still, most of the armor was still there when the laser barrage initiated. The armor had not been designed to take the entire weapons output of the better part of a Peloran Battle Squadron at point blank range. The armor melted under the assault, turning white hot and pouring away from the ship into the gravitic beams. As the armor went away, the lasers burned further in and deck after deck melted or evaporated into gas. Usually the gas would have inhibited the lasers’ effectiveness, but the gravitic beams sucked that in too, and the lasers continued to dig deeper and deeper into the ship.

  Puff after puff told the tale of another deck evaporating under the assault until they reached the core of the Shang ship where its primary power generators rested, usually protected from any conceivable assault. The generators exploded, breaking the back of the Shang dreadnought, and spewing wreckage out in massive waves of debris. The lasers melted or vaporized the debris, the gravitic beams sucked it in, and the battleship simply came apart, each piece melting or evaporating and falling into the very visible gravitic beams.

  Jack had no words for it. He’d never imagined anything like it. No book or lecture on war had prepared him for combat so devastating in such a short amount of time. He’d never imagined he would be close enough to see it with his own eyes, without any magnification at all from the cockpit systems. And he’d never imagined in his deepest darkest fantasies just how much he would enjoy it.

  And then he did have a word. It was just one word, a word he’d learned in Texas that fit the situation perfectly. It was a very long word. “Yeeeeeehhhhaaaaaawwwww!”

  The Peloran Battle Squadron sailed into the disintegrating dreadnought, flames filled his vision, and Jack hauled the stick to the side. Debris scattered everywhere, bouncing off deflection grids, and Jack and Betty flitted back and forth and up and down as they sought a safe route through the hulk of an exploding warship.

  And then the other Shang finally reacted. It had taken them time, far more time than he’d expected. Of course, when he took the time to consider it, it made sense. Who would have been insane enough to surface inside a major Shang fleet formation after all? He suppressed a mad giggle of delight at the shock they must have felt. They ignored the British in the distance now, and all of their missile fire slashed in towards the Peloran Battle Squadron and the one Avenger tha
t Jack and Betty flew. He felt for a moment like he was in the bright center of the universe, the focus of everything that lived, as the missiles swarmed in, and he twitched to the side to avoid them. Many impacted with the debris of what had once been a battleship. Other missiles navigated the debris and smashed into Peloran warships, and the deflection grids flickered. The Peloran ships’ point defense filled space before them with a wave of exploding missiles. None made it through from that direction. The missiles from every other vector came in without any active defense though, dodging and weaving through the debris of the former flagship. Many hit the debris, and explosions surrounded the squadron. But wave after wave of Shang missiles found their way through the ruins and exploded, ripping the Peloran deflection grids apart with gravitic interference.

  The Shang lasers opened up then, seeking to do to the Peloran what they had done to the Shang flagship. Shang debris and Peloran armor melted and vaporized under the assault, atmospheric gases belching out into space. Already badly wounded by the earlier fighting, Jack watched the Peloran ships writhe under the assault. He licked suddenly dry lips, knowing they couldn’t take this assault. They just couldn’t. The only good thing, if it could be called a good thing, was that they were surrounded. Every Peloran weapon had struck one side of one target, while the Shang ships fired on multiple Peloran ships, from all sides. The damage they took was horrendous of course, but it had to burn through all of the armor on all sides, not simply the armor on one vector.

  The Avenger jerked and screamed around him and he winced against the pain in his ears. Stars exploded behind his eyelids and he blinked them away. “Ow! Ow! Ow!” Betty shouted, beating her body against the flames that covered their fighter with her hands. He held on tight as the fighter spun away from whatever had hit them, his eyes locked on Betty. She froze and looked up at him with wide eyes. “Oh, Jack,” she whispered.

  Jack felt something else smash into them and he recoiled from the explosion.

  Jack opened his eyes and he met Betty’s gaze. “I always thought the Peloran were real boring,” he said with a shake of his head. “Turns out they know how to throw some real killer parties.”

  Betty laughed, a pure soprano laugh that tinkled off the sand at their feet. “Oh, Jack.” She looked at the party and the bonfire, and shook her head in mirth. “You do amaze me.”

  Jack smiled. “I will always try.”

  “Good,” Betty returned

  “Oh! I thought we’d lost you!” a voice interrupted and Jack turned to see Kelly bouncing out of the party towards them. She waved her hand back to the party. “We’re here! The Boundary Waters, Jack!” she shouted, and the moon shown down on the water as far as the eye could see, glinting starlight on its surface. It truly was paradise. “Fish and love and life and the party, Jack! You don’t need all that pain and fire and stuff! Just stay here!”

  He let out a long breath as he followed her words. He could live forever, right here, and never miss a thing. He never had to risk anything again. And there was so much more than just the party. The party flickered away and he saw so many things flashing around him. He and friends fished in the Boundary Waters. His mother and father sat on the porch of their house. More scenes flashed through and he felt the wish to stay and live it all fill him. Everything could be his, no fear, no loss, if he just stayed here.

  “All you have to do is give up how amazing you could be in life,” Betty said, interrupting his vision of perfection. “This is what you know, Jack,” she said with a wave towards the party and Kelly. “Out there is what you have never imagined,” she added with a wave of a hand towards the lake and the battle raged around the party. “What is beyond that moment, Jack? Do you want to know?”

  “What do you want, Jack?” Kelly asked and sat down on a freshly created wooden stool next to him. “Something you could lose in a second? Or something you could have forever, right here? All of us? Your friends?”

  Jack shook his head and hesitated. They were both right. He supposed that was what made the decision so hard. That was why he dreamed this dream every night. But this wasn’t a dream. He wasn’t asleep. He blinked as the realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

  “Come with me and find out what’s out there,” Betty said with a smile and held her hand out for him to take.

  “Stay with me and live forever,” Kelly answered, leaned into him, and planted an electric kiss on his mouth. Jack froze as his mind exploded. Everything but Kelly disappeared in the blink of an eye and he reached out to pull her close without hesitation. The stools ceased to exist and he fell onto the warm sand, Kelly landing on top of him. Red hair spilled around him, the sent of sweet jasmine floated in the air, and fire consumed him as he felt the rush of tongue on tongue.

  And then he froze as ice flowed down his spine. The fire faded and he knew in that instant he was truly dead. For the first time in his life, he looked Kelly in the eyes and didn’t want to fall asleep in her arms. If he did fall asleep right now, with her, he wouldn’t wake up again. He lifted her carefully, separating their lips, and she cocked her head to the side, confused. “What? Don’t you want this?”

  Jack let out a long breath and gave her a sad smile. “More than anything. Almost.” He saw the hurt in her eyes, the smell of jasmine faded, and the party came back into focus with his understanding. He lowered her into the sand next to him, pulled his hands out from under her shirt, disentangled his legs from hers, and with an iron purpose pushed himself back up onto his feet, never taking his eyes from her. She scrambled to her feet as well, straightening her shirt, and watched him, a look of stunned rejection on her face. He waved a hand towards the him playing the guitar. “He does. But I just realized that I’m not just him anymore. I don’t want what he wants anymore.”

  Her eyes glinted in the firelight. “Then what do you want?” she whispered, pain in her voice.

  He rubbed his chin and looked at her, chewing his lip. “Not just this.”

  Her eyes narrowed, she took a step back, stood tall, put a hand on her hip, and examined him for several seconds before saying anything more. “Well, we can offer more if you want. How about Sarah? Or Jennifer? Or maybe you want Taylor? Hell, we’ve got a whole party here,” she said, her voice hard and arms outstretched. The bonfire exploded to twice its height behind her. “Why pick and choose?” she asked and every girl at the party turned to walk towards them. “I can give you anything you want, Jack,” she said and he understood in that moment that every word she spoke was truth. He also understood one other point.

  “You’re not Kelly,” he said, his voice clear and calm.

  Kelly smiled. “Oh, I’m so much better than Kelly.”

  Jack turned and examined Betty from head to toe with a quick glance. “And you’re not really Betty.”

  Betty smiled and gave him slight nod of approval.

  Jack turned back to Kelly. “You’ve got a good pitch by the way.” He rubbed his chin. “Up until the end at least. The fire’s a bit much. But if you’d been Taylor, I might have fallen for you.” Jack pursed his lips and studied the woman standing before him. “But I don’t think you could do Taylor.” Kelly’s eyes flashed in anger, and Jack chuckled. “Kelly’s a better fit for you, and I really would do anything for her. Hell, I would for all of these girls,” he added with a wave towards the others. He stared at the him on the guitar for a long moment and felt the truth settle into his soul. “I love ’em all.”

  Kelly’s eyes blazed with passion, and she placed one hand on his shoulder. “Stay here now, Jack. Live with us forever.”

  Jack smiled back as calmly as he’d ever smiled in his life. “No.”

  Kelly’s face twisted with anger at his rejection. “You can’t run from me, Jack!” she growled.

  Jack felt his smile grow wider and he chuckled. “I’ll never run from you.”

  Kelly blinked, the anger fading from her face. She took a step back, studied him again, and shook her head. “I misjudged you,” she whispered. “I tho
ught you were a boy.”

  “I was,” Jack said and looked at the him playing the guitar. The other him stopped and they shared a long gaze. Jack nodded and the beach partying guitarist faded away.

  Kelly moved in to touch him, raised herself on tiptoes, and looked him in the eyes. “I’ll be watching you,” she said, her breath warming his lips. “I’ll be waiting for you.” Then she and the party faded away.

  Jack let out a long breath and spun in the sand to face Betty. “Well. I know who she was. But who are you?”

  Betty smiled back. “I’m the one who didn’t misjudge you.”

  Jack chewed his lip. “Actually, she nailed me perfect.” He frowned at the spot he had been playing the music from. “He would have stayed. But I’m not him anymore.”

  Betty smiled. “Then who are you?”

  Jack frowned and turned to see a ray of multihued light appear, the end of a rainbow illuminating the beach and the waves. He concentrated and a set of United States Marine Corps Dress Whites appeared on his lanky frame. He looked down to see them illuminated by the rainbow’s light. The gold buttons and stripes gleamed, and he brought a hand up to feel the metal globe, covered by an eagle and an anchor. He straightened his tie and tipped the hat towards Betty with a wry smile.

  “I’m a Cowboy. Beyond that, I don’t know. Would you like to help me find out?” Jack asked, feeling more alive than he’d ever felt in his life, bathed in a rainbow’s light. He breathed in the fresh air after an early morning rain and held his elbow towards her.

  “I would love to,” Betty answered in an approving tone and slipped an arm inside his.

  “Well then, I suppose we should get back to livin’,” Jack said, and they walked into the rainbow together.

  Jack’s eyes snapped open and he saw the multi-hued light of hyperspace. He gasped and heard a whistling of air that filled any spacer with dread.