by Medron Pryde
Jack knew Vanguard well. He’d escorted her in battle multiple times during the Alpha Centauri campaigns and it hurt to see her torn armor. Air and wreckage streamed from her flank, but the displays confirmed she was already beginning to stabilize her deflection grid again. She had power, her point defense grid continued to fire at the main Shang attack, and she continued to maneuver. Jack let out a long breath in relief.
He didn’t know Valiant but still winced at the pair of dead engines and the open wound that had been her flank. She’d taken the lion’s share of the missiles and she must have lost multiple reactors. The displays showed her deflection grid beginning to lose cohesion. If it kept up like that the grid would fail completely in less than a minute, leaving the behemoth hideously vulnerable to attack.
Victorious and Victory were damaged too but their deflection grids began reforming as he watched, hazy shells of twisted gravity on his displays. They moved to interpose themselves between Valiant and the Shang missiles getting far too close for comfort, and he saw their point defense batteries going to rapid fire. They would do their duty, giving their wounded sister time to repair her shattered systems or die trying. Jack nodded his head in respect towards the two ships before looking back to Vanguard. The displays showed she was moving the wall of battle forward into a wedge formation, taking the point position herself. That took serious courage.
The punishment those leviathans could absorb and keep fighting was truly amazing but even they were not indestructible. Their smaller escorts were far more fragile. Five destroyers and eight frigates were dead, including all of Valiant’s dedicated escorts. Several dozen close-in fighters were done too, though only two pilots had died with them.
He shook his head and scanned the displays concerned with matters a bit closer to home. He was down two Avenger drones. The Cowboys in total had lost eleven fighters, but all of his pilots remained. Thank God for that. It could have been worse. Much, much worse.
He tore his eyes away from the displays to look at Amparo. “How are you?”
Durango’s cyber winced. “I’ve been better but I’m alive.” Her smile took on a forced appearance and a quick glance at the display showed the torn armor down the American battleship’s flanks.
“I like you alive,” Jack said. “It beats the frak out of the alternative.”
“It sure does.” Amparo sighed and shook her head. “Can I ask you to do something for me?”
“Your wish is my command,” Jack said with an expansive wave of a hand.
Amparo pursed her lips as if worrying about his answer. “I need you to run away.”
Jack almost growled. He did scowl and his eyes narrowed. “Like hell,” he objected, his tone belligerent.
Amparo smiled at the response and nodded. “I hoped you’d see it that way.”
Jack cocked his head to the side in confusion. She was planning something but he couldn’t even begin to think what it might be. “What’s up?”
“We’ve localized the center of the gravitic disturbance,” Amparo answered immediately. “If we can find what is causing it and destroy it the disturbance should go away.”
“Like a deflection grid without generators?” Jack asked.
“Exactly,” Amparo answered in a proud voice. “In fact, based on how gravity is working around here, we think that’s exactly what it is. A gravitic generator tuned to destabilize hyperspace. Now the problem is that it’s on the other side of whatever is firing those God-awful missile barrages at us,” she continued in a more serious tone.
“Ah,” Jack muttered, sobering as he glanced at a display showing that area. There were a lot of ships there. “That’ll be a tough nut to crack.”
“Exactly.” Amparo smiled at him. “Now in about…sixty seconds, the American task force is going to start running. One ship at a time. All of the small ones. It’s going to look horrible, like the task force is abandoning the wall of battle after taking that barrage on the chin.”
Jack blinked, his mind running over the idea. It had possibilities. “And you want us to run with you?”
Amparo smiled encouragingly. “If you are running towards the outer system, they probably won’t fire on you much.” She shrugged. “Hopefully.”
Jack pursed his lips in thought. “You mean they might want to suggest to other ships that running truly is an option?” He let out a quick breath and rubbed his chin. “Get us all to break up into little packets they can chew up later?”
“That’s our projection,” Amparo answered. “No guarantee of course, but if you can flank them while ‘running away’ you might be able to take out the generator.”
Jack frowned, finally catching on to one thing she’d never said. “I can’t help but notice that you never say ‘we.’”
Amparo sighed. “I was hoping you wouldn’t catch that until later.” She shrugged. “Durango, Arizona, and Enterprise have to remain in the wall of battle. We didn’t have the acceleration to keep up with the cruisers before we ate that missile barrage. We certainly don’t now.”
Jack turned a questioning look at Christine.
Enterprise’s brain gave him a sad smile, already resigned to her inability to move as swiftly as her smaller cousins.
“I see,” Jack said, feeling like if he left them here he would never see them again.
“I trust you, Jack,” Amparo said in a soft voice. “Take out that generator and open a route for us to get home.”
Jack nodded slowly, noting the worry in her voice. He didn’t like it.
“And don’t wait around for us when the bubble drops. Just go,” she ordered.
Jack frowned and started to protest.
“No,” Amparo cut him off. “We’ll be right behind you but we can’t afford to get caught looking for each other in hyperspace. We’ll rendezvous at Serenity in two weeks real time,” Amparo finished.
“I don’t like this,” Jack whispered. “It doesn’t feel right.”
Amparo sighed. “Then ask yourself this. ‘Is this the best thing you can do right now?”
Jack considered the question, and felt peace fill him again. He still didn’t like it, but nodded very slowly.
Amparo and Christine shared a quick glance. He wished he knew what they were telling themselves. “That’s what we thought,” Amparo said with another shrug. “So break that generator and get our people out,” she ordered and waited for him to nod in acceptance. “Thank you, Jack,” she finished and faded out of view.
“Christine,” Jack said before the other cyber could follow and she met his gaze. There were so many things he wanted to say in that moment. She was a beautiful ship. She was his home. He was about to leave her behind and despite his feelings that this really was the best plan, he still felt that aching feeling towards her. Like he would never see her again if he left. “Be careful.”
The cyber’s smile softened. “I will.”
Jack knew he should say something profound. Something amazing. Come up with a grand quotation before going to battle. Something memorable. Something school children should learn in the future. “See yah later,” came out instead.
Christine smiled, her eyes conveying complete and total understanding. “You too.” And then she faded away.
Jack punched his chair arm in anger. “See yah later,” Jack muttered in a self-mocking tone. “See yah later. Of all the stupid things to say. What was I thinking?”
“You weren’t,” Betty answered, her smile matching Christine’s. “But she knows what you meant.”
“Yeah,” he whispered before sucking in a long breath. It felt like he was leaving their home behind. But he had no choice. He breathed out and breathed in, forcing himself to find peace. Then he smiled and looked at Betty again. “All Cowboys,” he said, forcing his normal carefree tone back into being. “Grab a cruiser and hang on tight,” he ordered, eyes running over the American formation on his displays. As his eyes settled on each one it expanded in his view and detailed vital statistics appeared next to it. He fi
nished reading the last field of data and raised his hand to point at one of the cruisers. “That one.”
Betty nodded. “She’s a good ship. Good captain too.”
“And the cyber?” Jack asked, detecting the reservation in her tone.
Betty sighed, appearing reluctant to blab on a fellow cyber. She answered after only a short pause though. “Well, she’s a bit crazy.”
Jack scratched his chin and considered the possibilities. “Good crazy or bad crazy?” he asked and Betty raised both eyebrows at him. “There is a difference you know,” Jack added in a defensive tone. Betty rolled her eyes. “What? Crazy axe-murderer,” he said, placing both hands on the left. “Someone who’s just a little different from the rest of society.” This time his hands moved to the right and stayed there.
Betty shook her head and sighed. “Well, she’s different all right.”
“Ooh?” Jack asked with raised eyebrows.
Betty turned a wicked smile on him. “She chose the name of an angel.”
“Oh,” Jack answered with a frown. Of course, she was the cybernetic brain of Los Angeles, so he supposed it made a certain amount of sense. “Shiny. Which one?”
Betty just smiled and stepped to the side. A new cyber appeared on the console, standing next to Betty and Jasmine in the standard white uniform of the United States Navy. Long red hair framed a face that would look at home on any college campus, and inquisitive grey eyes gave Jack the feeling he just might end up liking her.
“Captain Jack,” he said, placing one hand on his chest. “And who might I have the pleasure of meeting?”
An amused smile twisted her lips and he caught the lively sense of humor under that face. “Gabrielle,” was all she said.
Jack pursed his lips in thought, and cocked his head to the side. “And here I always thought Gabriel was a he,” he said, feigning confusion.
“The standard presumption of a male-dominated society,” she answered, grey eyes twinkling in amusement.
Jack laughed out loud, slapping the arm of his flight chair. “Touché,” he finally pronounced, granting her a point in their verbal contest.
“Merci,” she returned with a half bow, accepting his point with humility that must have been feigned.
A display flashed for his attention and Jack pulled his gaze away from her to see the display showing each of his five Cowboys. Their fighters and drones held three dimensional flying wedge formations around five cruisers, and one more display showed his fighters doing the same for Los Angeles. Jack nodded in approval. He loved it when a plan came together.
“Well, I do believe we’re about ready to run away to fight another day,” Jack said, forcing a charming smile back on his face as he turned back to her.
“Agreed,” Gabrielle returned and made a show of looking around at the displays on his fighter.
Jack followed her gaze to see a frigate accelerating away from the American task force, engines at maximum burn. He leaned back and watched as a destroyer followed, another frigate, and then more. Finally, one of the cruisers broke away. Jack focused on it and the name Dallas came into view. She was a good ship, one of the Pre-War cruisers, but he’d fought next to some of her sisters and knew she could kill Shang as good as any ship he’d seen. The destroyers Harrington and Grayson followed the cruiser out, snuggling up close to the ship they were tasked with protecting.
He looked away from those three ships to see most of the American cruisers and destroyers “fleeing” the wall of battle in a ragged line that looked like the result of perfect panic. Then Los Angeles spewed blue fire from her main engines and began to follow her sister ships. The frigates Clark and Hammond, a dozen Hellcats, and Jack’s Avengers held formation around the larger ship with ease. The wall of battle fell behind, British and Spanish ships screaming a cacophony of orders for the Americans to get back to the wall.
A glance ahead showed another salvo of Shang missiles still moving towards the wall and Jack smiled. No missiles tracked the ragged task force. The Shang were playing the game the way they’d thought. Well, those aliens were not going to enjoy the end game. He frowned as he noticed several British destroyers and frigates pull away from the wall and begin following them as a more organized force. He focused on the lead destroyer, but the display zoomed in on one of the frigates instead. Jack raised an eyebrow in surprise until he recognized the name. Recovery. The British were sending their medical frigates away, along with their destroyer escorts. That was an interesting twist. He wondered what the Shang would think about that.
Jack shrugged the curiosity away, relaxed back into his seat again, and watched as the “fleeing” ships continued to accelerate. The wall’s remaining point defense stopped almost all of the missiles, and the missiles they sent back at the Shang continued to prove almost as effective. The Shang had certainly prepared their defenses well. Minutes went by with the American ships slowly reforming into a cohesive squadron that wasn’t quite obvious. The age-old admonition to “fly casual” echoed through Jack’s mind. They were certainly doing that, if anything could be casual about ships running for their lives.
But that appearance was not going to last much longer. An invisible point in space glowed on his displays, telling him when the task force needed to turn. Soon. He glanced at Betty, and she nodded back. They were ready. The countdown appeared, and he shifted his view to Gabrielle.
“You ready?” Gabrielle asked, head cocked to the side in curiosity.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he answered with a smile and placed his hands on the stick and throttle.
“Break!” Gabrielle shouted.
Jack braced and Betty brought their fighter around to face the main Shang formation. The entire American task force, and the few British ships hanging onto the rear, came around as well with plumes of blue fusion fire filling space around them. The entire formation came bow-on to the Shang fleet and Jack wondered if the aliens were surprised. He knew he would be if he were standing in their shoes. Not that he’d ever wear shoes designed for those midgets.
“All ships, commence bombardment on my mark,” Gabrielle ordered.
Jack smiled at Betty who looked smug in return. They were still far outside standard weapons range, far enough out that hits were all but impossible. But that wasn’t the same as totally impossible. And as he’d shown earlier, sometimes it worked to let fly early. He wasn’t sure if this was one of those times, but copying someone’s idea was the sincerest form of flattery.
Jack was feeling real flattered.
“Don’t look so smug,” Gabrielle said with a wry smile. “It’s unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.”
Jack put on act of looking around for someone before shrugging. “Where’s the gentleman?”
“Touché,” Gabrielle returned and Jack chuckled. “Now it’s time to find out what they have,” she added, her tone all business again, and Jack’s displays filled with light codes. For a split second it was total gibberish and then he recognized the fire pattern. He smiled in approval. She wasn’t trying to kill anything. She just wanted to scare whatever was keeping Third Fleet here into revealing itself.
“Mark,” Gabrielle transmitted and every weapon in the fleet opened up.
Five-dozen Avengers fired with him, along with an equal number of Hellcats and their Mexican equivalents, and even three-dozen British Harriers. He felt the very fabric of space trembling under the assault. But it was nothing compared to the firepower of twenty American cruisers and destroyers laying down their own salvos of gravitic might. The British destroyers fired as well, and while their turret-mounted gravitic cannons were smaller they had far more gravitic turrets than the Americans had spinal gravitic cannons.
The display was truly amazing.
To add to it, the task force missile turrets went to maximum fire rate, gravitic drivers slinging them away from their parent ships. The missiles came to life, riding tongues of blue flame and coming around to fly towards the Shang formation. Then they turned off their drives
and became holes in space. It was odd to see missiles go dark like that and an eerie chill moved up Jack’s spine. There was just something not right about fighting from ranges like this.
Jack finally saw the result of their initial bombardment and nodded very slowly. There was a gravitic hit on the Shang cruiser vomiting air. And the displays showed something that looked like a small space station starting to come apart after a primary capital laser cannon sliced through it. Two hits at this range were enough to impress him. But that small station worried him. He wondered how the Shang could have known they were coming early enough to plant actual space stations in ambush.
And then the Shang stopped firing on the bulk of Third Fleet and the brief chill in Jack’s spine turned icy. “Well, now I feel special,” Jack muttered under his breath.
“You should,” Betty returned. “I’ve always said you’re special.”
“Thank you.”
Betty gave him a wry smile. “Are you sure you heard what I said?”
“Every word,” Jack answered and nodded towards the Shang as they fired again. This time the missiles began to close on their formation.
“Oh,” Betty muttered and shook her head. “Right.”
Jack shrugged towards her and returned his attention to the incoming missiles. They were still several seconds out and he glanced over to see their fighter’s gravitic cannons charging for another salvo. It was time and their cannons opened up again. The very fabric of gravity twisted once more as the warships coordinated another massive salvo around him.
Then he saw the first of the American missiles come back to life, spewing blue flames as they streaked in to attack the Shang formation. Point defense networks came to life, blotting them out of the sky by the dozens, but the survivors dove in and exploded in the midst of the Shang fleet. More accurately, they imploded, becoming miniature black holes sucking the smallest atoms in space into them for the briefest of split seconds, before releasing their hold on gravity and spreading the gathered bits of material out to rampage through the Shang force at significant percentages of the speed of light.
