Forge of War (Jack of Harts)

by Pryde, Medron

  Jack wanted to tell her she was wrong. But he just couldn’t. She was right. He was afraid. And that left him…almost unable to decide what to do. Almost.

  “Fear is no weakness,” Gabby corrected with a shake of her head. “It’s a natural reaction to a threat. Yes, you’re afraid that the life you know is about to end. You’re afraid they’ll leave you alone. You’re also afraid that they should leave you and won’t, because of misguided loyalty to a person you used to be.”

  Jack let out a long breath and nodded. She was right.

  “Well, that’s crap,” Gabby spat out. Jack jerked back and looked at her with wide eyes. “If you decide to take that long walk, you’ll be taking the decision from them.” She pointed out over the lake and glared right back at him. “And they deserve to have the chance to make their own decisions on what to do after War ends.” She jabbed in the chest, hard enough to hurt. “So don’t you dare try to take it from them, you hear?”

  Jack swallowed hard, eyes still wide, and then spun to look at Lila. She just shrugged and walked away, so he returned his eyes to Gabby. It wasn’t like he could argue her point. Even the person that wanted him dead couldn’t argue. Or the part of him that wanted him dead. “Yes, Ma’am,” he whispered, raising both of his hands to signal his defeat against her stellar logic. Or the victory of his own ability to talk himself back into living. He was going to be lucky if he got out of all of this double-think with his sanity intact.

  “Better.” Gabby pursed her lips and shook her head. “Now I really do think you should be waking up soon. Now that we’ve had this little heart to heart and understand each other at least,” she finished with a raised eyebrow that informed him there was only one answer she would accept.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” She nodded in approval, and Jack pulled in a long, hard breath. He really was afraid after all. “See you tonight?” he asked, actually realizing he was afraid of that answer too.

  “Don’t worry, Jack,” Gabby answer in a voice that calmed his fear. “I will be here as long as you need me.” She nodded her head towards where Lila still stomped down the beach. “She just needs to work off some steam, but she’ll be here too. Don’t worry.”

  He stood still for a moment, wondering if he was crazy. Imaginary friends gave him advice only he could hear. And he listened. Or maybe they weren’t imaginary. He didn’t know which possibility scared him more, but either one raised all kinds of crazy flags. The real crazy part was that he’d never regretted listening to them yet.

  He sucked in one more long breath and shut his eyes.

  Jack opened his eyes onto a bright white room that brought tears to his eyes. A groan moved from his head to his toes and back again and he glanced over to a bulkhead covered in posters of pretty, young singers he’d met over the years on USO tours. Taylor and Jennifer dominated the center of the display, of course.

  Jack smiled at the pictures of the two old friends and carefully flexed his arms and legs, feeling his joints crack from the motion. He’d been asleep a long time. He yawned hard enough to bring tears to his eyes and to pop his jaw, and then worked it from side to side to get it used to moving. He tossed his covers to the side and swung his legs out to plant bare feet on the warm deck. Leaning forward, he placed his elbows on his knees and rubbed his jaw to get feeling everywhere that mattered before wiping the tears from his eyes.

  Betty’s holoform flickered into existence, her bright yellow sundress fading into being around her, and his eyes teared up again in protest against the bright color. “Welcome to the land of the living!” she pronounced in a bright tone.

  Jack rubbed his temple with one hand and tried to say that he was. All that came out was a horse cough. He sighed, raised a hand, and cleared his throat. Then he reached for the cup that was always there and downed the mead in a long draw before slamming it back down with gusto. He shook his head, blinking away more tears, sniffed once, and cleared his throat one more time.

  “Yes,” he finally croaked out, his mouth and throat feeling somewhat closer to alive. The honey in the mead did an amazing job of rehabilitating vocal chords. Still, he had to clear his throat again. “Where are we?”

  “Well…” she answered with a wince.

  The hatch to his quarters opened at that moment, saving her from a question she obviously didn’t want to answer. Jasmine’s avatar walked in wearing blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a smile, holding a bundle of clothes in her arms. “I see Sleeping Not-So-Beauty is finally awake,” she said with a chuckle and dropped the bundle on his bunk before stepping away again.

  “Hah,” Jack answered, rubbed his forehead, and eyed the container holding his contacts. He never wore them while sleeping, and the girls had long since banned displays of any kind in his sleeping cabin. It seemed they wanted him to sleep while in bed, not play solitaire. “Seriously, where are we?” he asked and wiped grit out of the corner of each eye.

  Jasmine chuckled. “We arrived in system a few hours ago. We’ve been prowling ever since, scouting for anyone that might be hiding.”

  Jack blinked and yawned again. “Hours?” He shook his head to clear it. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier?”

  Jasmine and Betty shared a wry glance. “Because there was nothing to wake you up for,” Jasmine pronounced, as if to suggest that the answer was obvious and that he shouldn’t worry about it.

  Jack cleared his throat and rubbed his scruffy jaw. He’d been asleep a long time. It took serious work to dust the cobwebs out of his mind. He looked at the uniform on the bunk next to him with a shake of his head. “I suppose you want me wearing that?”

  “As opposed to what you’re wearing now?” Jasmine asked with a raised eyebrow.

  Jack snorted. “Not like there’s anyone else to see.”

  “Jack,” Betty said in a serious tone, pulling his attention back to her. “Please.”

  He met her gaze for a moment before letting out his breath and nodding. “Yes, Ma’am,” he intoned as he came to his feet and unfolded the uniform. When he finished donning it, he looked in the mirror and gave a slow nod. He did look better. He felt better too, like pulling on the uniform gave him something he was lacking. Which he supposed it did. It reminded him he was a United States Marine. He pulled in a long breath to steady his nerves and stepped out of his quarters.

  The corridor ran down the center of the scout ship’s command section to the bridge. He’d flown off a different warship every few months for years, during the long Hyades Campaign. But after that campaign ended and the Shang began to run, The Fleet had been forced to split up to track down the remaining scattered forces. Jack had been on this scout ship for months, alone with the cybernetic crew that kept her flying. Jack sighed as he walked down the corridor, passing cybernetic crewmembers bending over exposed wall panels and hatches to perform maintenance work. He wondered if they would find the same thing they’d found on the previous scouting missions.

  Nothing.

  The hatch in front of him opened and he walked onto the bridge with Jasmine and Betty in tow. He scanned the displays spread throughout the bridge that showed all twelve drones in space. Four surrounded the scout ship and four fanned ahead in hyperspace to search for the enemy. Four more flew spread ahead of them in normalspace, maintaining a watch of their own. All of the scopes were empty of bad guys. Jack didn’t like that.

  “So the outer system’s clear?” he asked as he sat down in the captain’s chair and began locking the five-point harness in place.

  “Clear as glass,” Jasmine answered.

  Jack frowned and considered the displays showing the system around them. It was supposed to be a major Shang base, but in hours of work his girls hadn’t picked up so much as a peep out of it. “Let’s check out the inner system then,” he finally ordered in a doubtful tone.

  He felt a vibration through the deck as the scout ship began to accelerate. “On the way,” Betty said.

  “Worried that we’ll find too many of them to fight?” Jasmine asked wit
h a cocky smile.

  “Or that we won’t find any at all?” Betty asked.

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. I just…what if they’re gone here too?”

  Betty smiled in a reassuring manner. “Then it’ll be time to return to The Fleet and tell them what we found.”

  “You mean what we didn’t find,” Jack muttered with a scowl.

  Betty cocked her head to the side and gave him a concerned look. “What’s troubling you?”

  Jack studied the displays for several seconds in silence, looking for any hint that this wasn’t what it appeared to be. Then he shook his head. “That this could be it. The end.”

  Betty turned her head the other way, studying him as closely as he was studying the displays. “Of what?”

  “The War,” he answered without a pause.

  Betty pursed her lips. “Don’t you want it over?”

  “Of course I do,” Jack said without pausing to think. Then he winced as he realized he wasn’t actually certain he did. Betty caught his self-correction and aimed a raised eyebrow at him. He paused to consider his next words more carefully. He owed that to both Betty and Jasmine. “I just…I just don’t know what to do if this is it. What’s next?” he asked, looking back and forth between both of them.

  Jasmine looked at him with a smile. “Well, I have it on good authority that you want to go see it all. Every place you haven’t been. I think that sounds like a swell vacation.”

  In that moment, Gabby’s words from the dream came back to him and he understood why he felt like he did. Jack cleared his throat before answering. “Look. I feel…old…tired.” He tapped his chest with one hand. “I just don’t know what I have left.” Jack stopped, the final thought freezing in his mind before his lips could put words to it.

  Jasmine and Betty shared another understanding glance.

  “Well, Jack, this is your lucky day,” Jasmine said and patted him on the shoulder. “Because we just happen to specialize in revitalizing the old and tired.”

  Jack shook his head, a hint of anger at her flippant answer flashing in his eyes. “I’m serious,” he growled.

  Jasmine met his glare with a calm look and an understanding smile. “So am I. We knew what we were signing up for when we chose you. All of you. We picked family. And family don’t give up on family.” She stopped for a moment, swallowed, and her smile turned far more sincere than the wry sense of humor it usually displayed. “Just like you didn’t give up on me.”

  Jack’s sat slack jawed at Jasmine’s statement, feeling like a bull had just run him over. He had no words to respond with, nothing at all came to mind. He just sat there in his captain’s chair, feeling like a bump on a log.

  Betty grabbed his attention then and just looked at him with a gaze that said she would never give up. “We have a mission to perform right now, and we are going to do it. And when that is done, we are going to go see the universe like you promised. Understood?”

  Jack swallowed at the sheer determination she projected. She truly was serious. He smiled and fell back on the two words designed for situations exactly like this, ironed into him from a youth in rural Minnesota, and reinforced by the steel of the United States Marines. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “Good,” Betty said with a sniff and looked over at the viewscreen showing hyperspace ahead of them. “Now shall we go?”

  Jack nodded, licked his lips, and screwed up his composure for one more try. If they were still here, if they had any sensor platforms, Jack’s ship would be detected very soon, so he might as well make an entrance worth remembering. “Record for broadcast, please,” he asked with the strongest voice he could manage. He sucked in a deep breath and steadied himself. “This is Captain Jack of Hart Squadron, United States Marine Fighter Wing 112.” He paused as a smile twisted the side of his mouth up. He allowed bravado to take over, hoping no one could hear the uncertainty that had become a part of his life. “If anyone’s out there to hear this, be awful careful about starting a fight, because the Cowboys have arrived.”