Forge of War (Jack of Harts)

by Pryde, Medron

  “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.”

  Hello, my name is Jack. If there is one thing I have learned while fighting with the Peloran, it is that they are utterly ruthless in battle. They may seem like kind old men and women, the kind of people you would trust your babies with, but once they get into battle, they are relentless. They will never strike where expected, and they will never hold ground that must be held. They practice deception like an art. Sometimes I wonder if Sun Tzu asked them for tips.

  Deception

  New Washington filled the Avenger’s displays, a beautiful, cloud-shrouded world shining in the starry blackness of normalspace. Jack would love to visit it if he could, and he studied the images relayed to him by Betty’s drone in normalspace. He didn’t understand the science of how the Peloran transmitted into and out of hyperspace, but it was a truly impressive advantage to be able to send a single scout through and get real time data on enemy movements.

  Jack scanned the displays that showed the Chinese holding position outside the gravity well with awe. He hadn’t thought the Chinese had that many ships left, let alone that they could assemble them all in one place. Over four hundred Chinese ships held position nearly two lightseconds away, far enough out that they didn’t risk hitting the planet with a stray hammer. They were still following the treaties. That was interesting.

  Other displays showed fifty Shang warships in orbit over the planetary capital. Missiles and lasers fired into the atmosphere, boiling down to the capital itself. Live news feeds from surviving transmitters on world showed some of the missiles exploding to point defense, but not nearly enough. The capital was losing, and the news feeds showed another Skywatch defense base exploding as Shang fire smashed into it. In the distance behind the base, civilian buildings collapsed beneath the fire of more orbital bombardment with Shang fighters giving point blank support. Other reports showed the capitol building itself in flames, surrounded by the rubble of tall buildings spilling into the streets. It was Yosemite all over again.

  Jack clenched his jaw and checked the displays showing the Cowboys spread out around him in hyperspace. The Peloran had been busy rebuilding their own warships, and refitting the warships that would fly with them, over the last month. But they’d also been busy building new drones to fly with the manned fighters of every fighter squadron with them. A dark smile covered Jack’s face at the thought of that.

  Sixteen fighters made up the official manned Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112. Eight of the Avengers were original Cowboys. Of the other two, Tom could fly anything, and John was a veteran of the Black Sheep Squadron, the first “real” attack squadron to use the Avengers. The other six new Cowboys flew the Hellcats they were trained to operate. Jack doubted that would be permanent. Mixed-fighter squadrons simply didn’t work as well, but being in a craft you didn’t know worked less well, and there weren’t enough qualified Avenger pilots to pick just them yet.

  Eleven nearly identical drones accompanied every manned fighter, giving the Cowboys an effective strength of one hundred ninety two fighters. That was equivalent to the firepower of an entire Marine Spacecraft Wing, and far more firepower than the entire 4th MSW that the Cowboys belonged to had projected when The War began. Jack idly wondered if they could even properly be called a squadron anymore. He frowned as the idea stopped being idle at all. They were going to have to talk about this.

  “Cowboy One to all Cowboys,” Charles began transmitting, interrupting his train of thought. “There appear to be a few more attackers than we expected.”

  A dark laughed escaped Jack’s throat at the understatement, and he heard it echoed back through the comms from the other Cowboys.

  “I agree,” Charles said in an answering growl. “Aneerin needs a diversion to get their attention. I told him that we could do that. Are you ready to go in first like proper Marines?”

  “Oorah!” the Cowboys shouted in unison.

  The entire Shang fleet blinked on the displays. “That is our target,” Charles said in a commanding tone. “If you have any q
uestions, ask them now!”

  Jack swallowed and gave Betty a worried look. She shrugged. “Hey Chief,” he began. “That’s fifty warships, and we don’t know how many fighters. We don’t have the firepower to kill them.”

  “We do not have to kill them, Jester,” Charles answered with what sounded like a shrug. “We just need to get their attention.”

  “Right,” Jack said in a doubtful tone. “And while we do that, what about the Chinese?”

  He heard a dark chuckle over the comm. system. “Well, Aneerin will grab their attention.” Charles answered.

  “He’s only got fifty ships,” Jesse interjected. “And most of them aren’t Peloran.”

  “He has a plan for that,” Charles said. “Our job is to keep the Shang from spoiling his plan.”

  “And the plan is?” Jack asked.

  Charles chuckled again. “Need to know.”

  Jack scowled in annoyance. “You know I hate that phrase?”

  Charles continued to chuckle and eight Shang ships glowed on the displays. Then one began to flash. “You each have your targets,” Charles said in his commander’s voice. “Move into position.”

  “Roger that,” Jack answered without hesitation and nodded at Betty. They began accelerating forward, skimming the upper edge of hyperspace where the gravity waves became more chaotic. “Display our course,” he said and Betty nodded, adding a highlighted beam over the displays. “Mischief, stay on my beam,” Jack ordered.

  “On your beam,” Katy returned and he smiled as the displays showed her and her drones following behind his formation.

  Around him, he watched the Cowboys splitting up into individual flights, each making their way towards the Shang on different courses. They snuck around the main Chinese formation, just close enough to examine the fleet while staying far enough away that they would not be detected.

  “They’ve painted my drone,” Betty reported, annoyance written on her face.

  Jack scowled. So much for not being detected. “Get out!” he shouted as weapons fire from a squadron of Chinese fighters and a scout craft bracketed her drone.

  “Too late,” she answered, returning fire with her gravity cannons. The Chinese scout craft belched wreckage-filled atmosphere, even as the drone maneuvered to avoid the twenty fighters, spilling decoys to draw off or blind the enemy weapons. There were simply too many though, and she was flying alone. Only ten percent of the missiles held lock, but they were enough to rip the drone apart as Jack watched.

  Then the displays showing normalspace winked out and Jack sighed. The displays came back up after a second, showing information coming in from the other scouts the Cowboys had sent through. A quick look showed that two more were gone, but the other thirteen were still moving and seemingly undetected.

  “Should I send another drone?” Betty asked.

  Jack licked his lips, but shook his head. “No. But…” he trailed off. If they sent someone to investigate in hyperspace, it would be bad. “Mischief, move to screening positions.”

  “On it, Boss,” Katy returned and her Hellcat and drones peeled off to surround the Avengers.

  If anybody came through, the Hellcats could destroy them with missiles before they knew what happened. The Avengers just weren’t designed for fighting in hyperspace, a fact Drew’s death had brought into sharp focus. Jack glanced at Jasmine with a worried look, but she pursed her lips and six of their drones moved forward to hold position between the Hellcats and Jack’s Avenger. Jasmine smiled at Jack’s questioning look. “Just in case,” she explained, and Jack turned to ask Betty if she approved. She nodded and he leaned back in his seat, relaxing as he waited for the reports to come in.

  They detected no one diving into hyperspace to find them and Jack smiled. The displays actually showed the Chinese turtling up to make themselves harder to attack. The Avengers flew deeper into New Washington’s gravity well, with no Chinese resistance, the multicolored hues of hyperspace darkening as gravity strengthened. The Chinese held the outer orbitals behind them, while the Shang held the inner orbitals inside the gravity well below them. The Cowboys were well and truly surrounded, even if the rock behind them wasn’t moving. Still, rocks had been used as anvils in the past, and a Shang fleet was a real good hammer.

  Jack licked his lips. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” he quoted.

  “For we are the United States Marine Corps!” Jay shouted, and only then did Jack realize they’d been transmitting.

  “Oorah!” the other Cowboys shouted as Jack stared at Betty in surprise.

  She smiled back. “I thought he’d do something like that,” she whispered.

  Jack shook his head and smiled.

  “Surfacing in three…two…one…” Charles transmitted and Jack closed his eyes.

  A bright light flashed through his eyelids, he opened them, and he saw their target in the distance. The large Shang cruiser fired on New Washington, sending missiles and lasers into the gravity well, and even from orbit Jack could see the explosions on the planetary surface.

  The gravitic cannons in the wing of his Avenger came to life, twisting space between him and the Shang cruiser. The ten remaining drones joined in, and the concentrated gravity distortions ripped through the Shang shields, digging deep into the ship itself. Laser turrets sent laser pulses into the unshielded flank, vaporizing armor and weapons alike, and the grav cannons ripped the ruins out of their target’s flank.

  “Now, Mischief!” Jack shouted and her Hellcats opened up with lasers and missiles. Hundreds of small missiles billowed out of the fighters and drones, and closed in on the Shang warship. They passed through the smashed deflection grids and exploded against the tortured skin of the cruiser in wave after wave. The cruiser shuddered as the explosions worked inward, flash-frying deck after deck until they reached the core. And then the cruiser evaporated.

  “Good job!” Jack shouted and scanned the displays. Of the fifty Shang warships, five of them no longer existed. Three more staggered out of formation, their flanks ripped wide open from stem to stern. The other warships stopped firing on New Washington and shifted their attention towards the Cowboys. “Oh frak.”

  “Secondary targets, now!” Charles ordered and a new target flashed on the displays.

  “Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it!” Jack shouted as Betty brought them around for another attack.

  “I’m on it,” Betty answered, her mouth grim, and the gravitic cannons opened up again. “They’re targeting us!”

  Jack swallowed, watched the gravitic cannons rip through the deflection grids again, flexed his fingers, and let out a long breath. Then he pulled them to port and rammed the throttle forward. The engines flared behind him and the Avenger began to maneuver for all their lives as Shang missile and laser batteries began returning fire. The drones spun around them, spewing decoys of their own, in a joint defensive flight plan designed to confuse anything trying to shoot them.

  “Stay with me, Mischief!” Jack ordered and pulled the throttle back, feeling the engines flare again, hard enough that he actually felt the pull of gravity.

  “Like you could get away in that turkey!” she shouted back as her Hellcats began to fly through his formation on random maneuvers of their own, spitting out more missiles at their target.

  “That sounds like a challenge,” Jack said, then swallowed as the displays began tracking more and more missiles flying towards the Cowboys. He pulled the throttle back to the firewall where it rang against the metal frame. “Come on, Betty, get us out of here!”

  “I’m charging, I’m charging,” she returned as the missiles approached. The laser turrets picked them off one by one, but the Shang were focusing more and more fire on them, and that was beginning to overload their point defense grids.

  Jack licked his lips, betraying her nerves. “Betty? Any time now.”

  “Almost…there!” she shouted.

  Jack shut his eyes as the worlds flashed around them
, etching the sight of incoming missiles on the inside of his eyelids. He blinked and saw hyperspace around them. A glance at the displays showed the other Cowboys blinking into existence in the area as well and he sighed.

  “Hey, Chief,” he transmitted after finding Charles’ fighter.

  “Yeah, Jester?” Charles sounded almost as breathless as Jack felt.

  Jack shrugged and looked at Betty. “I think we got their attention.”

  “That we did,” Charles answered in an impressed tone as Betty nodded.

  Jack shook his head and willed his heartbeat to slow. “So what do we do with it now?”

  “Well,” Charles began with what sounded like a smile. “Now we keep it.”

  Jack chuckled. For a man that didn’t like to gamble, Charles sure knew how to push the cards when he felt the need. “Right. New attack vector?”

  A new set of targets and movement orders showed up on the displays.

  “Exactly,” Charles answered, his tone suggesting he was still smiling.

  Jack sighed at Betty with a smile of his own. “You heard the man.”

  Betty nodded with a wink and they accelerated towards where their new target waited in normalspace.

  “Keep on my six, Mischief,” Jack ordered.

  “On it like glue,” she answered and her Hellcats slipped into formation behind him.

  “Promises, promises,” he returned with a smirk and flexed his fingers, preparing for the next stage.

  “Surfacing,” Betty reported in a grim tone.

  Jack shut his eyes as they rose back up into normalspace and opened his eyes to see an intact flank of the Shang fleet before them. Gravity twisted around him and reached out to tear at one of the Shang ships. Betty’s drones joined opened up as well and the deflection grid covering the Shang’s starboard flank opened wide. Focused gravity ripped deep into the armor, and tore the atmosphere out of the warship. Behind him, Katy’s Hellcats flashed into existence, rising up out of hyperspace like sharks on the hunt.