Jack of Harts 2: Angel Flight (5 page)

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,” Betty 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.

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
and
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.

Gabrielle smiled as if following his train of thought.  “Jack, I’m giving you a landing beam to
Los Angeles
.  Please follow it.”

Jack raised an eyebrow.

“Captain Wyatt has ordered a full briefing and she wants her fighter commanders to report in person.”

Jack shook his head.  “You can’t tell me you have enough room in your bays for all my Avengers.”

Gabrielle laughed.  “You’re right.  But I can squeeze you in.”

Jack cleared his throat.  “I have five piloted Avengers here, and another twenty-seven cybernetic Avengers that are going to need a place to refuel and rearm.  We can’t hoof it all the way to Serenity on our own power.”

“I know,” Gabrielle growled.  “We’re going to have to do some tricky maneuvers to keep all the fighters working.  Now will you please come to the briefing?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Jack returned, feeling a bit harassed.  Gabrielle looked triumphant and Jack turned to Betty who just smiled at him.  “Betty?”

“On it, Jack,” Betty answered, interlaced her fingers, and cracked her virtual knuckles.  Then she wiggled her fingers and brought their thrusters to life to move them towards
Los Angeles
.  It was smooth sailing in the cruiser’s wake, the normal chaos of hyperspace suppressed by the generators of the squadron carving their way towards the large gravitic wave linking the massive Epsilon Reticuli system to the much smaller Serenity.

Betty slowed their fighter as they came up beside
Los Angeles
and moved them towards the hangar bay opening in her flank.  The open doors revealed a hundred meter long maw that he could see through into space on the other side of the ship.  Marine tanks, shuttles, and other craft filled the center of the bay, anchored to the deck or upside down to the overhead.  There was not a single unused surface in the bay, except for those that were supposed to carry the cruiser’s squadron of Hellcats.

Jack winced as the vertical dimensions of the hangar bay opening registered.  It truly was far too small for his comfort.  Betty slowed them to a crawl relative to
Los Angeles
and turned them broadside to the entrance.  He felt the jerk of their engines rotating to lay flush with the fuselage, decreasing their height by several meters.  Then she engaged maneuvering thrusters and squeezed them between the two doors and through the energy field holding the atmosphere in.  It distorted around the Avenger and he saw it ripple as his cockpit moved inside.  The rest of the Avenger followed, making the single Hellcat on that side of the bay look truly miniscule by comparison.

Jack let out a long breath.  The Hellcats had been designed for naval duty nearly half a century ago.  Avengers on the other hand were maybe three years old, proof-of-concept craft designed to show that America could build a hyperspace-capable fighter.  The powerful generators, massive capacitors, and the penetrators designed to rip through the barrier separating normalspace from hyperspace required an equally massive craft to carry them.  No one had expected them to deploy on anything other than the testing ranges, but all that had changed after the Battle of Fort Wichita.  In the last two years he’d landed on carriers, battleships, dreadnoughts, battlecruisers, and even a German heavy cruiser almost as large as a battlecruiser, all ships with large enough hangar bays to support his massive fighter. 
Los Angeles
was by far the smallest ship he’d ever tried to land in.

Not that he was actually doing anything.  It was Betty’s job to squeeze herself into the bay and Jack held his breath.  They had mere meters of clearance above and below, but Betty held them in place like a champion.  The fighter finally came down for a landing that filled nearly the entire space designated for Hellcat parking.  Jack looked down and, in a testament to how large the Avenger was, saw the single Hellcat fitting like a glove next to the nose of his fighter.

“There,” Betty said with a smile.  “Fits like a glove,” and Jack wondered if she’d guessed his line of thought well enough to repeat it on purpose.  Probably.

“Yup,” Jack returned, looking at the hangar around them.  “Just be careful about flexing yourself.  I wouldn’t want you breaking anything.”

“Oh, it’s sweet of you to worry about me,” Betty said, a twinkle in her eyes.

“I’m not,” Jack returned with a teasing grin.  “Those Marine boats on the other hand…”

“I heard that,” Gabrielle growled.  “Trust me.  We can handle anything your puny fighter can dish out.”

“And the trash talk begins,” Jack said with a chuckle, motioning for the cockpit to open.  It began to lift away and he tapped the buckle of his five-point harness.  The harness retracted into its housing, leaving him free to stand up and vault out of the fighter.  Betty’s gravity generator snatched him and dropped him safely to the deck where he landed with a spry step, head turning to scan the hangar bay again.

His eyes stopped on a square-jawed, blond, young man in a black leather flight jacket walking towards him.  The man wore a pair of ancient aviator sunglasses dark enough to keep Jack from reading the age in his eyes.  The raven-haired cyber standing next to him wore the same outfit, right down to the shades and the navy blue scarf hanging from their necks.  The names Hunter Roberts and Mercedes appeared on his contacts and Jack nodded in approval.  The names fit the looks.

“Damn,” Roberts said, looking way up at the Avenger as he walked towards them.  “That is a big bird.”

“She is beautiful,” Jack answered, projecting just a hint of challenge to the man.

Roberts shook his head in acknowledgement of the jibe.  “So, I gotta ask.  Why?”

“Because she’s the best fraking fighter ever made,” Jack answered, waggling his eyebrows at the man’s Hellcat.

Roberts snorted.  “Hah,” he said and waved towards his smaller fighter.  “She can do everything your old hulk can and takes less space doing it,” he added, nodding towards the cyber standing next to him.

“Old?” Betty growled next to Jack and he raised a hand to touch her shoulder.  He felt the slight shift in the air where her holoform gathered air molecules close together and color shifted them to look like a real person standing there.  But it was still air and Jack stopped when he felt the barest edge of her holoform.  It wasn’t polite to wave hands around inside holoforms.  She got the message though and her jaw snapped shut.

“Now, now,” Jack answered Roberts with a smile.  The Hellcat might be able to dive into hyperspace now, but it certainly couldn’t do everything an Avenger could.  “We’ve got
way
more firepower than you do.”

Roberts chuckled.  “You can barely squeeze one Avenger into an area designed to support six Hellcats.  I think six Hellcats can outmatch you.”

Jack cleared his throat and shrugged.  He looked at Betty, who was glaring back and forth between the other pilot and his cyber.  “Well, you’d definitely outgun me,” Jack said, trying to stave off an argument.  He looked back and forth between the two fighters and shook his head.  “But I’ll take quality over quantity any day of the week,” he added with a wink.  Roberts opened his mouth to call him on it and Jack chuckled.  “Wanna shoot it out and see?  Simulated of course,” he finished with another wink.