Jack of Harts

The Hyades Cluster was something we’d never seen before. It was the most densely populated region of space short of the Solar System, and the Chinese owned it all, lock stock and barrel. They’d wiped out nearly every colony within a hundred lightyears, and we had to go in and root them out. We had to break them and take them, in the place they’d spent decades fortifying for just this kind threat. Well, as usual, Charles had a plan. Several plans, if we want to be precise. One was to send us Cowboys, and all the other hypercapable starfighter squadrons we had by then, out on raiding missions to hit their flanks. He really loved flank attacks. Hit the enemy where they didn’t expect to get hit. He could quote the Art of War frontwards and backwards. He used it all and more against the Chinese and the Shang.