Forge of War (Jack of Harts) (27 page)

She slipped her arm into his with a smile of her own.  “I would love to,” she answered and they began to walk.  She leaned in close and whispered.  “I’m glad I kissed a stranger last night.”

Jack let out a long breath and smiled.  “Just to be clear, we’re talking about me, right?” he asked.

Samantha slapped him with her free arm.  “And just how many strangers do you think I kissed last night?”

Jack sucked in a deep breath.  “Well, you were moving pretty quick…”

“Jack?” she said and gripped his arm tight.

“Yes, Ma’am?” he asked.

“You can shut up now.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

She gave him a satisfied smile.  “Good.”  She leaned against him as they walked.

Jack looked down, examining the scarf that was a match for the one she’d given him hung around her neck, draping over her breasts.  He reached his free hand over to grab the scarf and ran his thumb over it.  “What is this?”

“A scarf,” she answered, not taking her head away from his arm.

Jack raised an eyebrow at the top of her head.  “I’ve seen a lot of these walking around town.  All different colors and patterns.  And I see that some of them are more prestigious than others.”  He lifted her scarf off her breast and waved it in the general direction of a particularly snooty group of young men and women walking off the beach, all wearing a scarf of some other design.

She smiled and pulled her scarf out of his hands.  She waved it in his face.  “They’re school scarves.”

“Ahhh,” Jack whispered, projecting a tone of total understanding.  “So they come from a rival high school?”

Her body stiffened and she slapped his arm in a playful manner.  “College actually.”

“No,” Jack said, projecting shock as best he could.  “That can’t be.”  He cocked his head to the side and examined her smiling face.  “Unless you’re one of those honors students of course.  Getting ahead of the pack and all that.”

She bumped her hip against his leg playfully.  “And just how young do you think I am?” she asked.

Jack pulled in a long breath, enjoying the moment and really not wanting to break it.  “Well…” he said through pursed lips, considering his words carefully.  He smiled as something came to mind.  “I think you’re old enough to know your father wouldn’t approve of me, and young enough that you’re willing to risk it.”

Samantha chuckled.  “And what makes you think my Daddy has
any
say in who I date?”

Jack sighed and patted her arm with his free hand.  “If you call him Daddy, not Father, you will
always
be his little girl and he will
always
have something to say about who you date.  Whether you like it or not.  And it will often be through the megaphone of a shotgun aimed at the lad he has something to say to,” he finished with a wry smile.

Samantha chewed her lip for several seconds before shaking her head and patting his arm.  “Good answer.”

“I try.”

“You succeed,” she corrected.

“Yes, Ma’am.”  Jack smiled at the young lady on his arm, enjoying every second of it.  “So what school do you go to?”

“New Churchill College.  Business major.  What about you?”

Jack chuckled.  “Bemidji State.  And if I’m being honest, I majored in music, drinking, and girls, and not necessarily in that order.”

Samantha laughed.  “Do you play?”

Jack gave her a very large grin.  “I’m told I play very well.”

Samantha slapped his arm.  “Music.”

Jack chuckled.  “Oh…right.  That.”  Jack made a production of a regretful sigh.  “Yes, I play the guitar, I pluck a good fiddle, and I can do a mean harmonica too.  Do
you
play?”

Samantha gave him a slow smile.  “Yes,” she finally whispered.

Jack pulled in a deep breath in admiration.  She truly was a
lively
one.  “Are you going to
tell
me?” he finally asked.

She pursed her lips and cocked her head to the side.  “Do you think you can guess?”

“What do I get if I guess right?” he asked.

She smiled at him playfully.  “A walk on the beach?”

He looked over at the beach.  “We’re already doing that, aren’t we?”

Her smile grew.  “A
longer
walk on the beach.”

“OK.  I’m in,” he said with a satisfied smile.  Jack examined her right hand closely.  “Well, no calluses, so you don’t play a guitar.  Unless you’re left handed or use a pick.”

Samantha shook her head with an approving smile.

“Right.  So I’m guessing no harmonica?”

Samantha chuckled.  “Cold.”

“Right.”  Jack pursed his lips in thought and scanned her body.  She had better posture than most young ladies, suggesting she either had someone who taught her to walk properly, or she played something that required it, or both.  He watched her breath for several seconds, recognizing the smooth and controlled tempo of it.  “Well, you certainly have healthy lungs,” he said with a smile.

Samantha raised a warning eyebrow at him.

“I’m serious,” he answered with a chuckle.  “You control your breathing like you were trained to.”

She pursed her lips, examined him carefully, and finally nodded.

Jack pondered for a moment, and smiled again.  “You’ve got good lips too.  Flute?”

Samantha smiled and patted his arm before shaking her head.

“Ah…darn.”  Jack shrugged and scratched his chin with his free hand.  “Well, you don’t have the lips of a brass lass, so no tuba for you.”

She gave him a surprised look for a moment, then shook her head and shuddered theatrically, forcing him to chuckle.  It was actually a very
good
theatrical shrug.  He frowned and studied her again.  She had impressive control of her gait, very graceful, with each step landing exactly where she meant it.  He’d seen that before.

“You have nice legs too.”

She aimed another raised eyebrow at him.

He gave her an innocent smile.  “I mean you have good posture and have very good control of where you walk.  You do stage work.”

Samantha smiled.  “Getting warmer,” she whispered.

Jack smiled back and licked his lips.  The theatrical control of her body suggested training.  “Acting?”

Samantha sighed and walked on.

“Not exactly,” Jack whispered and considered more.  Back in the club on New Years she had slipped through the crowd without bumping into anybody.  “You know your way through a crowd and have an excellent sense of timing with the music.  So you perform in a crowd.  I’m going to say no to opera though.”

She looked at him for a long moment with a curious gaze.  “Why?”

Jack smiled at her.  “I’ve known opera girls.  They wouldn’t have been caught
dead
in that club on New Years.  They would be at their family’s Holiday Ball hobnobbing with all the other members of ‘real society’ and all that bunk.”

Samantha nodded in approval.  “You may continue.”

“I’m going to say no to ballet as well.”  At her questioning look, he smiled.  “Ballet companies prefer stick figure girls. 
You
, my lady, are no stick figure girl,” he said with an admiring look.

Samantha laughed and gave his arm a soft pat.  “We’re running out of boardwalk,” she said with a nod.

Jack glanced ahead to see where it ended about a block away.  They still had plenty of time.  He shrugged and pulled in a deep breath.  “I think your performing style is…singing…and some dancing or…choreographed stuff…with a bunch of other people.”

Samantha aimed an admiring smile at him and shifted back and forth on his arm.  “Getting hot,” she whispered.

“Yes, you are,” he answered.

She slapped his arm.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he whispered and chewed his lower lip as he watched her move.  It was a very enjoyable sight.  He laughed as all the hints came together.  He could be wrong, but it matched everything he knew so far, so it was worth a guess.  “I’m willing to bet a very long walk on the beach,
and
a short dip in the ocean if you approve, that
you
are in a
glee
club.”

She stopped and spun to face him.  “How?”  Her gaze turned suspicious.  “Did your cyber tell you?”

Jack shook his head.  “No, Ma’am.  Using a cyber like that on you would be spying.  I don’t spy.  I’d much rather
discover
who you are in person.”  He aimed his best charming smile at her.  “And
you
are worth all the time, and all the pitfalls, and all the worry in the galaxy to discover.”

She raised an eyebrow and slapped his arm playfully.  “You, Sir, flatter too much,” she whispered.

Jack waggled his eyebrows at her.  “Only as much as you deserve.”

She smiled and gave him a thoughtful smile.  “Whatever do I do with you?” she finally asked.

Jack shrugged.  “I guess that depends on what you
want
to do with me.”  He gave her another charming smile.  “Is this a multiple choice question?”

Samantha smiled, pulled his head down, and kissed him on the lips.

Jack pulled back, sucked in a deep breath, and smiled.  “Ooh, I like that one.  But I think I’d be remiss if I answered before I’d seen any of the other options.  Don’t you agree?”

“Yes,” she answered with a flirtatious smile.

“So what about that swim?” he asked.

She looked up at him, her lips twisted in amusement.  “Maybe.”

Jack gave her his best charming smile.  “What, oh lady, do I have to do to make you agree?”

She shook her head and turned around to pull him back the way they’d come.  “Guess,” she finally said in an amused tone.

Jack felt a smile of confidence enter him and began to throw out option after option in his mind as he searched for just the right tactic.  He was
so
on for this game.

Many, many hours later, he strolled back onto the base that was his new home along with the rising Alpha Centauri A to see Charles waiting for him with a frown.

“You’re late!” Charles snapped.

Jack automatically went to attention, snapping his heals together and deciding that right now was probably the right time to actually channel all the Marine stuff they’d shoved into him back in boot camp.  “Sir!  I have ten minutes until I report for duty, sir!  I am not late yet, sir!”

Charles’ frown deepened, his eyes running up and down Jack’s dirty, soggy, and sand-spattered Dress Whites.  “What in
Hell
did you do to your uniform?” he growled.

“Sir!  I swam in the ocean, sir!” Jack said, his voice full of pride.

Charles shook his head and growled.  “Why in
Hell
would you do something so stupid with your Dress Whites?”

Jack’s face broke out in a grand smile.  “Sir!  There was a
girl
, sir!”

Charles lowered his head, brought a hand up to it, and shook his head, mumbling something that sounded like “Why do I bother?”  The man looked up, made a show of looking at a watch on his wrist and tapped it.  “Nine minutes, Jester!  Be bright and shiny!  We have a
long
day today!” he finished with a wicked gleam that said he was not going to give Jack any slack.

Jack smiled back.  “Sir!  What do I do with the remaining five minutes, sir!”

“Get out of here!” Charles shouted

“Sir!  Yes, sir!” Jack shouted and broke into a run towards his barracks.

The Hellcat cut through New Earth’s atmosphere with a deadly grace, engine exhaust painting white contrails of water vapor across the bright blue sky.  Maneuvering thrusters flared, flaps lifted, and she banked to the side, lines of ice crystals shimmering off the laser turrets on the tips of her wings.  She maneuvered like a dream, reacting to her pilot’s commands without hesitation.

“Any regrets?” Jack asked, examining the inside of the cockpit with a proprietary air.  He’d wanted to fly one of these since he was a kid and it felt
good
now.

Betty, sitting on the console in small mode, shook her head.  “None.  Oh, this is a nice little bird for shooting other birds down, but there is no way she could do what we do.”

“Good,” Jack said with a smile.

She cocked her head to the side and smirked.  “You?  Any regrets?”

Jack pulled in a long breath and let it out before answering.  “No.  Yes, I wanted this.  I always knew the Hellcat would be a fun ride, and she is.”  He smiled at Betty and shook his head.  “But the things the Avenger can do…” he faded out and whistled.  He sighed and released the throttle to brush the scarf hanging around his neck.  “Trust me.  No regrets at all.  We never could have ‘saved’ the Peloran with Hellcats, and we certainly wouldn’t be here now.”

Betty smiled at the scarf.  “Of course.  Parish the thought.”

“Well,
you
wouldn’t have met
Hal
,” Jack said with a smirk.  “I think we’re even on that score.”

Betty smirked at him.  “Well
I
at least…”  She stopped and cocked her head to the side.  “Well, what do you know?  The next candidate is in the air.”

“Perfect timing,” Jack said with a shake of his head.

She answered him with an innocent look and a cocked head.

Jack placed both hands back on the throttle and stick and swung them to the side.  The Hellcat banked and sliced through the air, following his commands like they were second nature, to face Leif Erikson Spacebase.  A Hellcat came into view in the distance and Jack glanced down to the screens to confirm that, yes, it
was
Devilcat Ten.

“This is Cowboy Five to Devilcat Ten,” Jack said in a jaunty tone.  “You may try to kill me now.”

“Roger,” the Devilcat pilot answered and his engine pods shot flame as he accelerated into battle, white contrails streaming after it.  Maneuvering thrusters began to flare, and the Hellcat started gyrating through seemingly random maneuvers at the command of her cyber, making the fighter hard to hit, and spraying streams of ice crystals off her wingtips.

Betty responded in kind and their Hellcat bucked through the atmosphere like an angry bronco.  Jack swallowed, forced his eyes to focus on the enemy Hellcat through the maneuvers, and watched for the attack.  He saw it coming, and shifted the Hellcat to port at the last instant.  Training lasers and missiles streaked by, missing him by meters, as their lasers chattered away in point defense mode, destroying anything that got too close.

“Too slow,” Jack transmitted in an easygoing tone, but held his attention on the Hellcat.  “Don’t take so much time planning your killshot next time.”

“I’ll try.”  The opposing Hellcat turned and slashed back in, disappearing behind another wall of missiles..

Jack pulled their Hellcat up and over the missile swarm and they flashed past the fighter before the Devilcat could fire again.  “Too predictable.  Shake it up next time.”

“I’m doing my best,” the Devilcat said in a frustrated tone.  The Hellcat made another pass, missiles and lasers stabbing at him again.

Jack banked slightly, using the Devlicat’s momentum against him, and slipped by without a struggle.  He frowned in thought but continued talking.  “Come on, I saw that attack vector a lightyear away.  Do something random.”

“I’m trying!” the pilot growled and dove in, more aggressively than Jack expected.  The attack would have been suicidal in real combat, as it left the fighter too easy to shoot down, but in a simulation it had the chance of getting points.  Missiles streaked in from the Hellcat’s wings, Jack dropped the fighter towards the deck, but the missiles had the arc on him and several managed to hit near enough to the deflection grid that it flickered.  The screens showed the Devilcat with several dozen points from that attack.

Jack frowned in annoyance.  “You’d be dead if you tried that in real life.”

The Devilcat laughed.  “I wouldn’t have
tried
that in real life,” he finished and fired again.

This time, Jack saw it coming and arced around the missile’s flight path.

“You’re relying on your cyber to fight for you too much.  You need to fight like a partner.”

“I’m
trying
.  But I can’t
think
that fast!” the pilot blurted out and came around for another pass.

Jack and Betty avoided the attack again and Jack sighed.  “You’re right, you can’t. 
None
of us can.”  He dodged another salvo of boiling missiles.  “It takes time to verbalize our thoughts, to put them to words, to consider what we are going to do next.”  He tried to drop under a missile barrage, but nearly half of them hit, giving the Devilcat over a hundred points on the sim ranking.  “See what I mean?  There I was talking and I’d be dead if that was real combat.”  He nodded and Betty fired, her missiles hitting the Hellcat’s deflection grid head with a series of direct hits that generated over a hundred sim points.  He felt the urge to move and dropped them down to hug the deck just before a dozen flaming missiles flew over them by several meters.

“How did you do that!” the Devilcat shouted in astonishment.  “You moved
before
I fired!”

Jack grunted.  “We’re always moving.  I just did something different that your cyber couldn’t track.  You need to do the same.  Don’t plan anything.  Just…let your hands move whenever you feel like moving them.”

“That makes a real good fortune cookie but how does that help me now?”  Another missile salvo missed him and Betty.

Jack sucked in a deep breath, let it out, and nodded as he realized that this guy just wouldn’t have a chance of living in a real fight.  This was all he had.  “OK,” he said to Betty.  “Let’s take the gloves off and show him how it’s
really
done.”  He flexed his fingers on the controls, readying himself for a
real
fight.  However long that would last.

Betty shook her head.  “Jack, we don’t need to do this.”

Jack cocked his head at her.  “Yes, we do.  He’s no pilot.”

Betty aimed a displeased frown at him.  “Everybody watching already knows that, Jack.”

Jack shrugged.  “But
he
doesn’t.  He has to realize…crap!” he interjected as several missiles impacted their Hellcat.  The Devlicat’s points went up by another hundred or so points.

Betty crossed her arms and glared at him.  “OK.  Fine.  But we don’t have to totally
humiliate
him.”

Jack shook his head in disagreement.  “That’s not my goal, Betty.  But we
have
to show he’s not in his league here!”

Betty shook her head.  “No. 
We
don’t. 
You
do.”

Jack shook his head and held on tight as more missiles impacted their wildly gyrating Hellcat.  “I’m doing my
job
, Betty.”  The Devilcat received another couple hundred points.

She aimed a sad smile at him.  “No, Jack. 
Your
job is to
screen
.  You’ve done that.”  She shook her head.  “Now you’re just
mad
.  You can’t believe
anybody
let someone like him in a fighter.  You want to show everyone what a
real
pilot is. 
You
want to show
them
.  That’s your
pride
talking, Jack.  Your righteous indignation.  You
don’t
have to let that control you though.”

Jack looked away from her and rubbed his chin, not wanting to admit she was right.  But she was.  He swallowed and pulled in a deep breath.  “I see your point.”

Betty smiled and ran her hands down her yellow sundress, straightening it with the air of a proud mother.  “Thank you.”  She pulled the fighter around in time to avoid an entire missile salvo and her smile turned angry.  “Oh,
that
was just
insulting
!” she shouted and shook a fist at the other fighter.  “We countered that gambit five
centuries
ago!”

Jack cleared his throat, smiled, and raised a finger.  “I really
don’t
want to come back to base with less points than him.  You don’t either, do you?”

Betty glared at him for a moment, before shaking her head.

He winced as two missiles shredded the deflection grid and chewed his lip.  “Is one salvo enough to pass him?”

Betty cocked her head to the side and gave him a feral smile.  “With both of us working together?  Absolutely.”

Jack nodded and placed his hands back on the throttle and stick.  “Let’s get behind him.  I’ll tell you when to fire.”

Betty nodded.  “That works for me.”

Jack pulled the Hellcat around in a swift motion that the Devilcat didn’t expect.  They dropped on his tail in a moment and Jack smirked.  He focused on the fighter, held the throttle and stick with light fingers, and waited for it to move.  It moved all the time of course, but Betty followed it with only the reflexes that a cyber could match.  It was the true randomness that Jack looked for, and he carefully guided them through the Hellcat’s contrail.

He waited for just the right circumstances, following the Devilcat through turns and loops.  The Devilcat dove into a mountain valley, scattering ice crystals across the sky as her wingflaps extended.  Jack and Betty followed, bucking through the contrails, and high, mountain peaks towered over them.  He flicked back and forth, holding the fighter in their sights, and finally felt confidence in his gut.  “Now.”

The Hellcat shuddered as the missile pods on the end of the wings erupted.  The missiles ripple-fired out in a solid stream of flame from the launch rockets that accelerated them away from the fighter.  The rockets flared out, the gravitic drives that made up the bulk of each missile came to life, and the missiles flew towards their target.

The Devilcat’s lasers opened up in point defense mode, and missile after missile exploded.  But each successive missile died closer to the fighter.  The wave of missiles closed in on the fighter and onboard sensors detected the gravitic sheer of the deflection grid surrounding their target.  Tiny artificial minds recognized the threat, switched their drives to overload, and the drives burned themselves out in a split second, ripping at the deflection grid with the power of miniature black holes.  The Devilcat’s grid failed and the last of the missiles flew up and ripped the fighter apart.

Jack looked up from the screen that showed the computers’ analysis of the attack and locked his gaze on the Devilcat fighter in front of him.  The missiles, still alive as they hadn’t actually burned themselves out, shot away, making for home base on their own.  Jack nodded and pulled their Hellcat away from the Devilcat fighter.

“And that’s that.  Try out’s over.  Head back to base now,” he ordered.

“How in Hell did you do that?”

Jack smiled.  “Well, that’s what happens when a pilot and cyber work
together
.  Better than the sum of our parts and all that.”

“But…we were
winning
,” the Devilcat said in confusion and slowed his fighter around to match Jack’s speed.  “We were
hitting
you.”

Jack sighed and glanced at Betty with a rueful look.  “Well,
that
was because we
weren’t
working together.  We had a little argument going on over here.”

“About me?”

Jack gave Betty a surprised look but she just crossed her arms with an “I told you so” expression.  Jack cleared his throat.  “Yes, actually.”  He shook his head.  “So how did you think
you
were doing?”

The Devilcat cleared his throat.  “Well, at first you were really keeping me from getting hits.  But once I started hitting you, I thought maybe I had a chance.  That I’d figured out whatever it was you were trying to tell me about.”

“You really
don’t
know what I’m talking about?”

The Devilcat laughed.  “Oh sure.  You sound like Obi Wan saying ‘Trust your feelings, Luke.’”

Jack laughed as well.  “Yeah, some of the people testing me for pilot aptitude were pretty cuckoo when it came to stuff like that.”  He frowned.  “Didn’t you meet any of them when
you
joined?”

The Devilcat snorted.  “There aren’t many Americans on New Earth.  We volunteered, so we serve.”