He forced a smile, pushed the pain from his mind, and stepped in. “I don’t know, Ma’am,” he said in a calm voice, barely loud enough to carry over the sound of the storm around them. “Where I’m going, I think I might need an awful lot more luck than that.”
Samantha panted, her anger fading as she looked into his eyes. “You…you…never give up, do you?” she asked in a wondering tone.
“I never have,” Jack answered with a wry smile. “You know, I’m on liberty until the storm ends. As long as you’re not walking away, I got a while to not give up.”
Samantha shook her head for a long time, her mind racing behind her eyes. “Really?” she asked in a tone that gave him no leeway at all for his normal bravado. “You think you do?”
Jack swallowed, considered his feelings for any hesitation on the matter, and smiled. “I do.”
She met his gaze for several seconds, studying him before coming to her decision. She turned towards the car, waved it away, and wrapped an arm around his. “OK.” She let out a long breath and smiled at him. “You’re on the clock, so make it count.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” he answered and began to walk down the street as she hugged his arm tight enough he was afraid he was going to have to worry about blood circulation. They made their way across the base, huddled together against the wind and rain, passing deserted parking lots and darkened buildings. They stopped at the edge of the base and watched the trees swaying back and forth in the wind. Leaves fluttered by them, branches snapped, and once Jack pulled her back around a corner seconds before an entire tree limb flew by.
They leaned against the side of the building, sheltered from the wind, for several seconds, Jack enjoying the feel of her body against him. “Maybe we should find some shelter,” he said into her ear.
She looked up at him with an impish smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“What can I say? I like storms,” he returned and guided her away from the edge of the base. They dodged more branches, and once even a car tumbling down the street, before reaching his quarters.
He shut the door against the wind and rain, and looked around at the small room. The opposite wall was drenched by the brief storm, and water puddled on the floor. His personal stuff was gone, packed up for return to the Guardian Light, but the bare furniture remained, a small table, a chair, and a bed, all of which folded into the wall when not in use.
“Not exactly the Taj Mahal,” Samantha whispered as he slipped the trenchcoat off her shoulders to reveal her white shirt and black shirt. Despite the protection, her clothing was drenched, and Jack forced himself to breath as he hung her coat up next to the door. He stripped his own all-weather coat and hung it over hers.
“Home sweet home,” he finally answered and looked up at the clock on the wall. “For a couple more hours,” he added and pulled the chair out of the wall. It clicked into place and he waved for her to take it. She sat down with a smile and he pulled the bed out of the wall, feeling it thunk into place. Then he sat down, his feet touching her in the tight confines of the room, and leaned forward to examine her.
Her red hair was tangled by the wind and dripping all over the floor. Any trace of makeup she might have been wearing was gone, pealed off by the storm, leaving behind only the base woman. Wet and bedraggled by the storm, she was the most beautiful creature he could imagine.
“I love you,” he whispered.
Her bright green eyes sparkled and she placed a hand on his cheek. “I love you too,” she whispered and leaned forward to kiss him.
An eternity later, Jack groaned in pain and limped towards the small shower. Samantha was seriously strong. He was pretty certain he had at least one cracked rib, maybe more, and he didn’t want to think how many of his muscles were pulled or torn. He knew for a fact that his shoulder had popped out once. That had been fun putting back in place. He probed his mouth with his tongue, tasting blood and, yes, noting a loose tooth. He turned the water on, hot, and felt the steady thrum loosening his muscles. He breathed in the steam and lifted his face to let the water wash the salt away.
Samantha joined him a few minutes later, and began to run her electric hands over the bruises beginning to form on his body. He winced as she touched one her elbow had caused, and winced again when she touched where her knee and nearly broken a rib.
“Not bad for a puny Earthling,” Samantha whispered with a sly smile.
“Heh,” Jack returned, trying really hard not to laugh. It hurt to laugh.
They finished washing, pulled on the clothes that by some miracle had not been torn apart, and walked out to see the sun glinting off the storm-cleansed buildings. Tree branches and leaves littered the street in front of them, and a car lay on its side against a building across the street. He looked back towards Samantha as she tried in vain to straighten her wrinkled and rumpled shirt. She looked up at his gaze and he smiled. It had been a truly amazing storm, in more ways than one.
Betty flickered into being next to them and nodded to Samantha with a sad smile. “Liberty’s up, Jack,” she announced in a matching tone. “Five minutes to assemble.”
“Thank you,” Samantha whispered to the cyber. As Betty flickered away again, Samantha turned Jack towards the administration building with a firm hand. “Let me walk you back. Wouldn’t want you to fall down and hurt yourself,” she added with a wink.
“Heh,” Jack repeated, still trying very hard not to laugh. “Very funny. I think I might be safer falling down.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Well, if you’d rather,” she said and started to step away.
“No!” he retorted without hesitation, holding her fast. “No.”
She gave him a knowing smile, stepping in closer to hold her body tight against him. Then she began walking towards the administration building, stepping through puddles in the street that glinted in the new sun, while avoiding the tree branches. They walked in silence until the finality of the administration building rose above them and Jack swallowed.
Samantha stopped, looking up to the building with a sad shake of her head. “Will I see you again?”
Jack smiled. “As long as I have anything to say about it.”
“And if you don’t?” she asked, a worried look on her face.
Jack laughed and sucked in a deep breath. “Then me an’ God are gonna have some words on where my heaven is.”
She gave him a soft smile. “I thought you didn’t believe.”
“If He can get me back here, I’ll give Him the benefit of the doubt,” Jack returned with a shrug and a wink.
Samantha shook her head, sighed, and reached up to pull him down by his coat lapels again. She stopped him, centimeters from her lips, with one of her patented mischievous smiles. “You really are never going to give up, are you?” she asked, her warm breath playing across his face.
Jack pulled in a deep breath, filling his nose with the scent left after the water washed away all the perfumes. He loved that scent. “No, Ma’am,” he whispered with another wink.
She nodded in approval and patted his arm. “Then…” her voice faded away and she cleared her throat. She released her hold on him, reached for her neck, and slipped her necklace off. She quickly slipped it around his neck and clasped it. “Bring it back,” she ordered.
Jack almost saluted her on the spot. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said, acknowledging the order.
She smiled in approval, turned him to face the administration building’s door, and pushed him forward. He did not resist and did as she ordered. Beside him, Betty and Jasmine flickered back into existence and followed him into the building where the Cowboys were to assemble one last time.
The War was waiting for them all, and it was past time to get back into it.
His eyes adjusted to the relative gloom inside the building, and he saw that he was the last to arrive. Then the lusty cheers started, reminding him that the walls were clear. He groaned as Jay walked up to give him a hearty slap on the back. The other Cowboys fol
lowed his lead, and once they realized Jack was genuinely in pain, they of course redoubled their efforts to congratulate him on his luck with crocodile smiles.
They were real bastards. Jack smiled and weathered the abuse without complaint though. They were his bastards after all. He would remember them all. And paybacks for something like this…well…there was a word for that, and as Jack weathered their friendly ribbing, sometimes literally, he made mental notes, his mind already planning his sweet, sweet revenge.
THE WAR
Hello, my name is Jack. We all do battle every day, even though most of us never realize it. Some of us use rifles, pistols or great warships. Some use the natural wits we are born with. We are most dangerous of course when we use every weapon at our disposal. I am alive now because many people in my life taught me how to use all of those weapons to survive. In many ways, the battle of wits is the one I enjoy the most, as the vanquished always have a chance to return and do battle again.
Wits
Jack sat down in his cockpit as the canopy lowered to seal him in, eyes scanning his surroundings. The three suns of the Alpha Centauri system shown down on Leif Erikson Spacebase, their light glinting off the pavement scowered by the morning thunderstorm. Leaves and tree branches lay strewn throughout the base beneath power washed buildings, and the sunslight gleamed off them for all to see. Around him on the landing field, spider-like shuttles, Avengers, and Hellcats gleamed like the day they were built. Jack scanned the retreating the ground crews, their work cleaning debris off the shuttles, fighters, and landing field complete.
He carefully snapped his restraints in place, not wanting to aggravate any of his bruises, before nodding to the twenty-centimeter small version of Betty sitting on the console. As usual, the moment the cockpit closed, she reverted to her favorite yellow sundress. Well, to be fair, it was his favorite too. It fit her in a way the Marine service uniform never would. “Cowboy Five, ready,” he said after a quick scan of the instrument panels showed that they really were ready.
Betty was on the ball as usual. She smiled and crossed her legs, leaning back on the console. She was home, literally, and she relaxed into it fully.
“All Cowboys,” Charles’ voice came over the comm. system, “launch and maintain overwatch positions over the shuttles.”
“Roger that,” Jack answered before nodding to Betty.
Betty sat back up straight, crossed her arms with a nod, and Jack felt New Earth’s gravity melt away as the Avenger’s grav plating powered up, making the massive fighter as light as a feather. The barest hint of maneuvering thrusters pushed them away from the ground with ease, and he kept his eyes pealed as they rose up into the air in near silence.
Jack looked down on Leif Erikson Spacebase with a critical eye. Litter floated in pools of water, clogging up drains. More than one vehicle huddled against the ground, smashed by a falling limb. And now that he could see the forest surrounding the base, he winced. Limbs, and even entire trees, littered the outskirts of the base, torn down by the mighty winds of the night before. They would be cleaning the mess up for a while.
But it wasn’t his home anymore. He would have nothing to do with the cleanup.
The shuttles floated up into the air, huddling under the protection of the fighters, and Jack felt a faint acceleration. The shuttles and fighters pulled up, main engines engaging as they left the ground behind, and rocketed up through the planetary soup the locals called an atmosphere.
The air soon began to darken as they approached vacuum and the air became sparse. The Avenger’s engines split away from the hull, giving her better maneuverability in space. Jack looked around to see the other Avengers doing the same. As the last vestiges of atmosphere faded away, the main engines came to full power, and the formation of fighters and shuttles accelerated away from New Earth, making for the Peloran task force in high orbit. Jack scanned the displays, and they came to life with the identifications of dozens of warships. British, American, German, and even French cruiser and destroyer squadrons screened the formation, surrounding the six surviving ships of the Peloran Battle Squadron. He even saw two British light carriers flanking the Guardian Light and nodded in approval.
As the formation approached, the engines went silent for a moment before firing forward, slowing them down to match the orbital speed of the massive warships. They passed through a wall of Peloran interceptors, parasite fighters deployed to watch the flanks of the task force. Betty nodded in time with a flashing display, bringing to his attention that the interceptors accepted their friend or foe identification. Once through the wall, most of the shuttles broke away from the Cowboys and made their way towards the warships their orders tasked them to supply. Only a single shuttle held formation with the Cowboys.
They passed by the bone white spire of a Peloran destroyer covered in golden runes, and Jack focused on it, trying to read the name buried in there. He frowned as he couldn’t find it and grunted in annoyance. He’d even been practicing the Peloran runes. He’d made progress, but obviously still just couldn’t read Peloran in the wild. They left the destroyer behind and the massive kilometer-long battleship it escorted began to fill space before them.
A final burst of engines brought them around to match course with the Guardian Light and the fighters came to a halt relative to the task force command ship. The shuttle pulled ahead and slipped into the large, bone-white landing bay in the rear of the battleship, slowing to a halt before lowering itself to the deck. The new recruits, several Hellcats and a couple Avengers, followed the shuttle in first, leaving the original Cowboys to cover them. Nobody really expected an attack at this moment of course. They were just being careful. Then the veterans flew in on blue-white puffs of fusion rocket power, piercing the energy wall covering the landing bay with their long noses.
Jack and Betty’s Avenger slowed down to a soft landing, landing gear taking what little shock there was with ease. Jack breathed a sigh of relief as the canopy opened to let in the Guardian Light’s air. A deep breath of the air brought him home with its familiarity. He unbuckled his restraints and pushed himself gingerly to his feet. It was easy. The gravity was neither too strong nor too light.
“Well give me pigtails and call me Goldilocks, but this is just right,” he whispered, stepping up out of the cockpit. He looked and saw a full-sized uniform-wearing Betty laughing at him with a wicked glint in her eyes. “No!” he added, stabbing her with a finger that went through her chest without any resistance. “Bad Betty!” She just laughed harder. He raised an eyebrow at her.
She continued to laugh, not mollified in any way by his scolding, and nodded towards the floor.
Jack stifled a snort, a snort would hurt after all, and jumped off the fighter. Betty’s grav plating generated an invisible wave of gravity he surfed down to the deck. He stepped off with an easy gait and turned to see the rest of the pilots climbing out of their fighters.
Jack moved away from the fighter, looking for Hal. The holoemitters in his uniform hummed to life as Betty transferred to it, and his eyes scanned for the ship’s cyber. Finally he saw the Guardian Light’s cyber in the distance, walking out from under the giant tree at the end of the landing bay. Jack focused on the cyber, saw the soft edges of his form and the way the air moved around him. It was Hal’s real physical avatar, not a holoprojection.
“We should…form ranks and stuff,” Jack whispered to Betty.
“Agreed,” she answered and cocked her head to the side to signify that she was passing the message on to the other cybers. Every other cyber leaned in to their pilot and whispered to them in unison, and Jack smiled as the pilots turned to look at Hal. Then they allowed their cybers to shoo them into formation. Jack suppressed a chuckle at how easily they allowed themselves to be handled by their better halves, even Charles who took up his position ahead of the Cowboys without hesitation. Any thought of laughing ended when he caught Betty’s look and stepped into formation before it got any more deadly.
Jack cleared
his throat, looked at Hal again, and caught a smile. Jack’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he smiled back with a shrug. He looked around to see the shuttle’s ramps lowering, and nodded slowly. He still had a little time.
“I’d like to talk to you about something,” he whispered low enough that even the pilots around him could pretend they hadn’t heard, glancing back to Hal.
Hal’s avatar nodded back, acknowledging that the ship heard and understood.
“Guardian Light,” Charles said, stepping forward as Hal approached with a waved hand aimed at the Cowboys. “I present to you, representing the United States of America, the Republic of Texas Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112, the Cowboys.”
Hal smiled at the assembled pilots. “You are well presented. Your base of operation welcomes your return. I look forward to knowing those of you I have never met before.” A holoform flickered into existence next to the avatar. “If you will please follow me to Cowboy Country,” the holoform asked and waved for the Cowboys to follow.
Jack began to move with them, but stopped when the avatar caught his eyes, giving him a slight shake of the head. Jack nudged Jessie, glancing towards the Cowboys, and Jessie accepted the command with a tilt of his head and a smile. He helped escort the Cowboys after Hal, leaving behind only two other pilots. Jack raised an eyebrow at Charles and Jay, wondering what exactly was going on. They shrugged and turned to Hal, waiting for the cyber to tell them.
“Aneerin would like you to join him on the observation deck if you are willing for a…planning session,” Hal said in explanation.
Jack looked at Betty in surprise and she smiled back, letting him know she wasn’t concerned. Or surprised. He frowned at her, wishing she’d told him this was going to happen. Her expression took on an innocent look.
“We would love to,” Charles said to Hal. “Come on boys and girls,” he added and stepped off to follow Hal’s avatar.
Forge of War (Jack of Harts) Page 41