Jack of Harts 2: Angel Flight

by Medron Pryde

  Deflection grids flared and failed, armor tore away from hulls, and atmosphere poured from wounded warships. The missiles did what nothing else had been able to do in the entire battle. They penetrated the Shang jamming and gave Jack his first clear look at what the Shang had. He didn’t like the look very much at all.

  The forty cruisers and equal number of escorting destroyers were bad enough, even if Third Fleet would normally be enough to take them down. But now Jack finally knew how they were throwing so many missiles at Third Fleet. This truly had been a trap all along and they’d flown right into it. The small space stations were actually a dozen or so small missile platforms, firing their missiles in perfect unison with the Shang warships. He wondered how many missiles they had in the ammunition bays. Then he looked at the display showing the first salvo of closing Shang missiles and let out a long breath.

  This was going to hurt.

  “Hold on tight, people!” Jack ordered. He relaxed, counting down the seconds and feeling the twinge of nerves. Here was a bad place to be. He pushed the throttle to the left and maneuvering thrusters added a port shift to Betty’s evasion maneuvers.

  The Shang missiles screamed in, American and British point defense lasers and missiles reaching out to bat them aside. But the mere forty or so American and British warships didn’t have a prayer of stopping all of them. A missile passed by close to starboard, right where Jack would have been if he hadn’t shifted to the side. Two more passed above him, and an Avenger in front of him ate a missile coming straight for his position. The Avenger came apart and Jack let out a relieved breath on confirmation that it was one of the drones.

  And then Jack lost all sense of time as he began dodging and weaving, adding his randomness to Betty’s maneuvers. Fighters exploded around him, missiles tore at warships, and the entire American formation scattered and reformed multiple times a second. A destroyer slid by overhead, gravitic cannon firing in time with the fleet, and three missiles smashed into it, sending it spinning away, spewing debris and atmosphere. A frigate simply disappeared under five missiles and another Avenger exploded off to the side.

  More missiles engulfed a cruiser and Jack focused enough to bring up the name. Washington, the only other Los Angeles-class in the fleet, writhed under the assault of missile after missile penetrating her point defense grid. Adams and Hancock threw every missile and laser they had at the incoming missiles, desperately trying to save her from destruction. But one of the missiles must have found Washington’s magazines because one second she was there, taking fire gamely, and the next she came exploded without warning. Jack averted his eyes from the death and destruction, and weaved to starboard without thinking.

  “That was Snake’s ship!” Betty shouted as a missile tore at their port deflection grid, missing them by meters.

  “I know,” Jack said, pushing the throttle down to send them under another quartet of missiles.

  “Snake’s gone!” Betty shouted again.

  That got Jack’s attention. He scanned the displays, looking for the right one, and gritted his teeth as he saw it. That empty hole in the squadron display should have had Louis Mattioli’s fighter on it. For a second, he didn’t know what to do, the weight of losing another Cowboy freezing him in place. Then he let out a long breath, sucked it in, and let it out again. This was no time for grieving. And Snake’s cyber was going to need something to keep her going right now.

  “Jasmine,” he said, and her holoform came to attention on the display. “Get Natalie and keep her in the game,” he ordered. Jasmine nodded and he looked back to the displays showing their remaining fighters. Another Avenger came apart and he winced. “Better yet, bring her into our formation.”

  He looked at Betty. She nodded in approval.

  “I’m on it,” Jasmine returned and Jack pulled hard to the left, barely in time to miss another missile that would have torn them apart.

  A display blinked. He saw five Avengers slide into formation around Los Angeles and nodded in approval. They spat death at the incoming missiles, slotting into the point defense network with ease, and he suppressed a worried look as Natalie’s holoform appeared on his console. She looked like she wanted to bolt.

  “There’s still bad guys that need killing out there, Natalie,” he said, looking into her eyes and gauging her current mental health. Her eyes didn’t want to meet his and he felt her desire to leave. “I need you,” he added and pulled up on the throttle as he had another vague feeling that he really wanted to move. This time, six missiles passed underneath him and Los Angeles’ point defense took them apart. Natalie looked shaken, but she licked her lips in response to his statement. “Do I need to make it an order?” he asked and saw her wince.

  Her pilot was dead. She was technically released from her enlistment, though that officially didn’t take effect until the end of the battle. But not all cybers had waited that long in the past, and he had personally seen entire squadrons come apart when the cyber just cracked. He didn’t think Natalie would but her eyes betrayed a nervous terror. Her world had ended with Snake’s death but she nodded.

  “I’m good,” she said in a strained voice. It was a lie of course. She was anything but good, but he was willing to take it one step at a time.

  “Then let’s kill us some Shang,” Jack said.

  “Yes, sir,” Natalie answered, a dangerous anger in her eyes.

  That situation taken care of good enough for now, Jack’s attention returned to the larger battle. Point defense lasers and missiles struck out at another wave of missiles, and he dropped them below Los Angeles in time to intercept four missiles trying to sneak around them. Then another explosion to starboard caught his attention and he pulled back. An armored plate emblazoned with the name Monterrey tumbled past his cockpit an instant later.

  Jack set his jaw against the mounting destruction and glanced at the displays. They were losing ships, but explosions in the Shang formation told the tales of losses on their side too. The range showed one lightsecond. They were still too far away for even cybers to generate hits on anything beyond a random lucky guess, but they were getting closer. If they could weather the missile storm just a little longer, the Shang would be in for a major lashing.

  Then hundreds of missiles came to life and streaked in to attack the Shang without warning. The display blinked a travel path back to Third Fleet’s wall of battle and Jack chuckled as the missiles ripped into dozens of ships and missile platforms. The Shang had allowed themselves to focus on the smaller ships of his force and forgotten that Third Fleet still had some tricks up their sleeves. As the Shang redeployed again to guard against that angle of attack, he watched the range incrementing down towards half a lightsecond.

  “Initiate fireplan delta in three,” Gabrielle ordered and Jack leaned back.

  “Two.” Jack flexed his fingers and shifted his fighter to the side.

  “One.” Several missiles passed by, clawing for his fighter, but his point defense lasers picked them off with ease.

  “Fire,” Gabrielle ordered and gravity turned on its side.

  Every surviving ship in what now looked more like an oversized squadron fired in unison once again. Beams of twisted gravity shot towards the Shang at lightspeed, accompanied by the focused light of massive laser cannons designed to burn capital ships. The barrage lanced out, arriving microseconds after their last wave of missiles washed over the Shang. The gravitic cannons hit the fluctuating deflection grids like the hammers of God, overriding their control of gravity and tearing armor away from their targets. Then the lasers struck and Shang warships began to melt and burn as armor, interior bulkheads, crew quarters, mess halls, assembly areas, and anything that stood between the most vulnerable parts of a warship and outer space ceased to exist as solid matter.

  Shang warships spun away, radiating debris and atmosphere, missile platforms tore apart, and a larger station finally appeared in the center of the formation.

  “That’s the source of the jamming,” Be
tty informed him and Jack nodded.

  “Concentrate all fire on that station,” Gabrielle ordered.

  The remains of their attack force began to spin, bringing the spinal gravitic cannons on target, and Jack flexed his fingers again. It was all coming down to this. The surviving Shang ships and platforms fired more missiles at them, and the fleet’s defense grids met them with every missile and laser they had. Space filled with exploding missiles and dying ships and even lasers became visible to the naked eye, burning the debris and gases between the two fleets.

  Jack jerked his head around as the St. Paul took several hits on her forward wedge. At first it looked like the heavy armor there had absorbed the blows, but then Jack realized the Shang had gotten a lucky shot straight down her throat. One of her gravitic cannons lost control and gravity went wild, lashing back and forth. Whips of gravity sliced the cruiser apart and reached out for her escorting destroyers. Heim and Cunningham tried to maneuver away but the wild gravity was too chaotic and too quick for them. One instant they were gamely firing at the Shang station, and then atmosphere spewed out from decks open to space as the pieces of the two brave ships began floating away from each other. There wasn’t even an explosion.

  Jack swallowed and shook his head, turning back to the real threat. He just didn’t have time to worry about anything he couldn’t do anything about. His eyes were on the station when it began to come apart. One piece began to drift away, cut off by a laser beam. A second later, a gravitic beam tore a tower away from the station and sent it spinning away into the void. A second after that, missiles began sucking armor off it, leaving behind massive gaps in her protection that the lasers quickly took advantage of.

  Explosions shuddered through the station, ejecting debris and atmosphere into space that made the lasers glow brighter. They speared the station, cutting and burning into it, deeper and deeper. Explosions billowed out and grew until they engulfed the entire station.

  It was beautiful. A thrill of power flowed through him and he luxuriated in watching the Shang die at his hand. He shivered, another chill running up his back, and looked back towards Betty. He wasn’t sure what he should feel now.

  Betty smiled in understanding. “The gravitic interference is fading. I think we got it,” she announced.

  “All ships! Dive! Dive! Dive!” Gabrielle ordered, and Jack watched the first destroyer flash away. He doubted they’d even waited for Gabrielle to stop talking before pushing the button.

  Hovering next to Los Angeles, atmosphere spewing out of deep rents, Tacoma fired off another volley of missiles and gravitic cannons, before initiating her hyperdrive. Then his breath caught in his throat as the entire ship went dark. Something had broken over there. Perez and Mendoza filled space ahead of Tacoma with their point defense networks, but they weren’t quite good enough. A single Shang missile smashed into the helpless cruiser and broke her back, sending pieces of her flying in every direction. Ships flashed out around her, seeking the safety of hyperspace, even as other ships exploded and the point defense networks that had protected the task force came apart.

  Jack saw another cruiser barreling in towards the Shang, her flank on fire. He couldn’t read her name, but a single word hovered in the display next to her. Saltillo. She was another of the beautiful Mexican State cruisers, but her beauty was gone, her graceful lines torn apart by Shang weapons. He saw space warp around her and could feel her desperation as she dove for safety. But as other ships flashed out around her, she hung in the firing line, the rainbow lights of hyperspace failing to engulf her. The frigates Salazar, Castillo, and a half-dozen remaining Mexican fighters doggedly protected her, point defense lasers and missiles standing defiantly against the Shang missiles seeking to destroy their charge. But a massive salvo of missiles consumed them in a massive firestorm of explosions.

  The fires and debris of shattered starships surrounding her, Los Angeles reached out with her powerful hyperdrive to rip a hole into hyperspace. Energy flowed through the pulsating rent in the fabric of space and the cruiser glowed. It had to have been an optical illusion, but for a moment it looked to Jack like angel wings engulfed her in a protective embrace. And then she disappeared, sinking beneath the surface of normalspace. Clark and Hammond delivered one final volley of point defense missiles before following her into hyperspace on colorful wings of their own.

  His eyes snapped forward, watching another incoming storm of Shang missiles. A bare handful of Avengers remained between him and that storm and his eyes glanced over Natalie and Jasmine to lock onto Betty. She gave him the smile that said there was nothing at all to worry about. She had everything under control. Then the Shang and all their works disappeared in a flash of rainbow light.

  They say that every thing that does not kill you makes you stronger. If that is true, then I must be Hercules by now considering all the things that have failed to kill me. The Shang tried real hard but I got away. A lot of other people didn’t, many of them far better people than me. I try to remember them all but there are so many. So I toast to absent friends and go on with life. It’s the ultimate way to cheat death you see. Live.

  Eclipse

  Hyperspace swirled around Jack’s Avenger, rainbow currents of gravity bringing every color under the stars to his eyes in one crazy kaleidoscope of chaos. The fighter’s gravity generator forced a bubble of serenity into the stream around them, but hyperspace pooled and eddied outside it. Frigates, destroyers, and others fighters created pools of their own calm, though more than one hung dead in the currents of hyperspace already beginning to pull them away from the rest of the task force. They were going to have to get their gravitics back up if they planned to move under power. Of the nine cruisers that left the wall of battle only Los Angeles remained, proudly proclaiming her lordship over hyperspace with a vast calm sphere around her.

  The British destroyer Eclipse flowed down another rainbow stream to appear in front of them. She was heavily wounded, her starboard broadside ravaged by the final Shang missiles. Jack could see through her armor and air continued to leak out of the deep wounds reaching into her central spine. But half a dozen sturdy Harriers maneuvered around her still-living frame in a defensive formation obviously intended to keep her that way.

  Gabrielle flickered back into his cockpit and let out a long sigh of relief. “We made it,” she whispered.

  “I never doubted it for a second,” Jack returned with all the sincerity he could muster.

  “That’s sweet of you,” Gabrielle said, shaking her head the whole time. “But you know how dicey that was. Thank you,” she finished and held his gaze until he nodded in acceptance. “Good. Now we need to form up so we can get out of here.”

  Jack glanced at the displays showing the names of the disabled ships. Harrington, Clark, and Vargas. “What about them?” he asked, waving a hand towards the destroyer and frigates.

  “That’s where I come in,” Gabrielle answered with a smile. Tractors beams lanced out from Los Angeles and snatched Harrington out of her gravitic stream. More tractor beams reached out for Clark and Vargas, and soon all three ships hung off Los Angeles’ flank, anchored in place by the pure brute power an American heavy cruiser.

  “Are you sure you can handle that much dead weight?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Gabrielle returned. “They’re not dead. Their engines still work perfectly. And I can keep hyperspace at bay for as long as they need it.”

  “If you say so,” Jack noted in a doubtful tone.

  “I do say so,” Gabrielle said in a hard and determined voice. An edge of desperation tinged it though and Jack winced.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Jack answered very quickly, not wanting to worry the warship any further.

  “Better,” she growled and looked up to examine the entire surviving task force. “All ships, form on Los Angeles, match course and speed, and follow me,” she said in her command voice.

  The massive fusion engines belonging to Los Angeles, Harrington, Clark an
d Vargas came to life in tandem. Their gravitic bow wave crashed through the hyperspatial currents and created a wake expanding behind her like a ship at sea. The rest of the surviving starships and fighters of the task force moved into the slipstream the cruiser created. And then Jack felt them diving deeper into hyperspace to leave Epsilon Reticuli and normalspace far behind them.

  Jack studied the displays to see what had survived the final charge into the Shang force. Three British starships, with perhaps twenty Harriers swarming around them, brought up the task force’s rear. The destroyers Eclipse and Assault were the only true warships remaining of their squadron, while Recovery was a medical frigate that only mounted a point defense grid because the Shang had long since proven that the Red Cross meant nothing to them. Jack frowned at the three ships. There was something not right there, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  He shook his head and scanned over to look at the American ships. The destroyers Adams, Hernandez, and Garcia held position just behind Los Angeles, their gravitic wedges merged with the cruiser’s wake to strengthen it. Hammond, Vega, Perez, and Mendoza held position between the destroyers and the British, their smaller gravity generators unable to significantly impact the wake around them. But those frigates were optimized for point defense against both missiles and fighters, making them a very important part of the task force. Jack frowned. This wasn’t a task force any more. At most it was a reinforced squadron, and he wasn’t certain he’d be even that optimistic if he were the station commander seeing them show up.

  At least some fighters had managed to get out with them. Before The War, he knew that would have been impossible. His thirty-two surviving Avengers were the first hypercapable fighters ever designed. But the Peloran had gone all-in when it came to helping the Western Alliance upgrade their existing technologies in the last two years. Third Fleet benefited the most from those upgrades, and every single one of their fighters was hypercapable now. Around forty Hellcats and ten Mexican Azcarates held position around the starships. Five times that number of fighters had started the battle. It was a horrendous loss ratio, though a quick glance at the displays showed that two-thirds of the pilots still lived. He’d lost Snake too but his other pilots began to report in via the displays and he nodded slowly in approval. They’d lost far more Avengers than he wanted but managed to get Los Angeles out. Jack was impressed. She took a lot of killing to make it stick.