Jack of Harts

Hyperspace flickered and rippled, sending out whips of rainbow light in every direction as it fought normalspace for dominance. Jack couldn’t count the number of ships he’d seen entering or leaving hyperspace, even with his boots off, but very few of them had generated a lightshow this impressive. The ship emerged from hyperspace slowly, like a great whale feeling its way to the ocean surface, taking care to keep from breaking anything like a hapless ship that might be too close.

Jack wondered at the thought that had wandered through his mind as he watched the ship come into focus. One last blast of petulant hyperspacial rainbows flashed out in protest before falling back to where they belonged, leaving Jack alone with one of the largest ships he’d ever seen in his life. His eyes rebelled against the visual scale of the ship, unwilling to admit that its apparent size could be accurate. It couldn’t possibly be that large.

But then he began to pick out individual weapons turrets on the ship’s flanks and it almost began to make sense. And if he thought of those engine pods and other odd protuberances of similar size running up its flanks as heavy cruisers that were just bolted on, he began to understand the true size of the leviathan. It wasn’t as large as Columbia, but Jack had seen very few ships larger than this new arrival.

“Jack?”

“It’s not them,” Jack said, before feeling the oncoming storm strengthen in the back of his mind. “But they are involved.”

“Update the drones. Flag ‘Bogey White’ and ‘Bogeys Yellow.’ Send one.”

Betty and Jasmine nodded to each other and seemed to relax as the drones began to flash between “Bogey White” and “Bogeys Yellow” on the display. Unknown starship in the area. Hostile action improbable. Unknown starships in area. Hostile action probable.

Jack’s eyes flicked over to watch the drone with his own eyes. It turned, flashed out through the rainbow, and Jack’s message to Sunnydale was on the way.

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