Hello, my name is Jack.  If there is one thing I have learned while fighting with the Peloran, it is that they are utterly ruthless in battle.  They may seem like kind old men and women, the kind of people you would trust your babies with, but once they get into battle, they are relentless.  They will never strike where expected, and they will never hold ground that must be held.  They practice deception like an art.  Sometimes I wonder if Sun Tzu asked them for tips.

 

 

Deception

 

New Washington filled the Avenger’s displays, a bright, cold world shining in the starry darkness of normalspace.  It was a beautiful, cloud-shrouded world Jack would love to visit if he could, brought to him now by Aurora’s Nemesis drone in normalspace.  He didn’t understand the science of how the Peloran transmitted messages into hyperspace, but it was a truly impressive advantage to be able to send a single scout through and get real time data on enemy movements.

Jack scanned the displays that showed the Chinese holding position outside the gravity well with awe.  He hadn’t thought the Chinese had that many ships left, let alone that they could assemble them all in one place.  Over four hundred Chinese ships held position nearly two light-seconds away, far enough out that they didn’t risk hitting the planet with a stray hammer.  They were still following the treaties.  That was interesting.

Other displays showed fifty Shang warships in orbit over the planetary capital.  Missiles and lasers fired into the atmosphere, boiling down to the capital itself.  Live news feeds showed some of the missiles exploding to point defense, but not nearly enough.  The capital was losing, and the news feeds showed another Skywatch defense base exploding as orbital fire smashed into it.  In the distance behind the base, civilian buildings collapsed beneath the fire of more orbital bombardment with Shang fighters giving point blank support.  Other reports showed the capitol in flames, surrounded by the rubble of tall buildings spilling into the streets.  It was Yosemite all over again.

Jack clenched his jaw and checked the displays showing the Cowboys spread out around him in hyperspace.  The Peloran had been busy rebuilding their own warships, and refitting the warships that would fly with them, over the last month.  But they’d also been busy building new drones to fly with the manned fighters of every fighter squadron with them.  A dark smile covered Jack’s face at the thought of that.

Sixteen fighters made up the official manned Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 112.  Eight of the Avengers were original Cowboys.  Of the other two, Tom could fly anything, and John was an older veteran from Black Sheep Squadron, the first “real” attack squadron to use the Avengers.  The other six new Cowboys flew the Hellcats they were trained to operate.  Jack doubted that would be permanent.  Mixed-fighter squadrons simply didn’t work as well, but being in a craft you didn’t know worked less well, and there weren’t enough qualified Avenger pilots to pick just them yet.

Eleven nearly identical drones accompanied every manned fighter, giving the Cowboys an effective strength of one hundred ninety two fighters.  That was equivalent to the firepower of an entire Marine Spacecraft Wing, and far more firepower than the entire 4^th MSW that the Cowboys belonged to had projected when The War began.  Jack idly wondered if they could even properly be called a squadron anymore.  He frowned as the idea stopped being idle at all.  They were going to have to talk about this.

“Cowboy One to all Cowboys,” Charles began transmitting, interrupting his train of thought.  “There appear to be a few more attackers than we expected.”

A dark laughed escaped Jack’s throat at the understatement, and he heard it echoed back through the comms from the other Cowboys.

“I understand,” Charles said in an answering growl.  “Now Aneerin needs a diversion to get their attention.  I told him that we could do that.  Are you ready to go in first like proper marines?”

“Oorah!” the Cowboys shouted in unison.

The entire Shang fleet blinked on the displays.  “That’s our target,” Charles said in a commanding tone.  “If you have any questions, ask them now!”

Jack swallowed and gave Betty a worried look.  She shrugged.  “Hey Chief,” he began.  “That’s fifty warships, and we don’t know how many fighters.  We don’t have the firepower to kill them.”

“We don’t have to kill them, Jester,” Charles answered with what sounded like a shrug.  “We just need to get their attention.”

“Right,” Jack said in a doubtful tone.  “And while we do that, what about the Chinese?”

He heard a dark chuckle over the comm. system.  “Well, Aneerin will grab their attention.” Charles answered.

“He’s only got fifty ships,” Jesse interjected.  “And most of them aren’t Peloran.”

“He has a plan for that,” Charles said.  “Our job is to keep the Shang from spoiling his plan.”

“And the plan is?” Jack asked.

Charles chuckled again.  “Need to know.”

Jack scowled in annoyance.  “You know I hate that phrase?”

Charles continued to chuckle and eight Shang ships glowed on the displays.  Then one began to flash.  “You each have your targets,” Charles said in his commander’s voice.  “Move into position.”

“Roger that,” Jack answered without hesitation and nodded at Betty.  They began accelerating forward, skimming the upper edge of hyperspace.  “Display our course,” he said and Betty nodded, adding a highlighted beam over the displays.  “Mischief, stay on my beam,” Jack ordered.

“On your beam,” Katty returned and he smiled as the displays showed her and her drones following behind his formation.

They Cowboys split up into individual flights, each making their way towards the Shang on different courses.  They moved around the main Chinese formation, just close enough to examine the fleet while staying far enough away that they would not be detected.

“I’m painted,” Aurora reported from normalspace as her face flickered into existence on one of the displays.

Jack scowled.  So much for not being detected.  “Get out!” he shouted as weapons fire from a squadron of Chinese fighters and a scout craft bracketed her drone.

“Too late,” she returned, returning fire with her gravity cannons.  The Chinese scout craft belched wreckage-filled atmosphere, even as Aurora’s Nemesis maneuvered to avoid the twenty fighters.  They were simply too many though, and she was flying alone.  Enough of the missiles tracked her and the Nemesis came apart as Jack watched.

Then the displays showing normalspace winked out and Jack sighed.  The displays came back up after a second, showing information coming in from the other scouts the Cowboys had sent through.  A quick look showed that two more were gone, but the other thirteen were still moving and seemingly undetected.

“Should I send another fighter?” Betty asked.

Jack licked his lips, but shook his head.  “No.  But…” he trailed off.  If they sent someone to investigate in hyperspace, it would be bad.  “Mischief, move to screening positions.”

“On it, Boss,” Katty returned and her Hellcat and Wildcats peeled off to surround the Avengers.

If anybody came through, the ’cats could destroy them with missiles before they knew what happened.  The Avengers just weren’t designed for fighting in hyperspace, a fact Drew’s death had brought into sharp focus.  Jack glanced at the displays to see Jasmine and the cybernetic Drew’s fighters in close formation around him.  He nodded in approval.  He wasn’t exactly certain what was going on there and he wanted to keep them close until he knew.  And maybe closer once he did know.

They detected no one following them and Jack smiled.  The displays in fact showed the Chinese turtling up to make themselves harder to attack.  They flew deeper into New Washington’s gravity well, with no Chinese resistance, the multicolored hues of hyperspace darkening as gravity strengthened.  On the displays, the Chinese held space behind them, while the Shang held the gravity well below them.  They were well and truly surrounded, even if the rock behind them wasn’t moving.  Still, rocks had been used as anvils in the past, and a Shang fleet was a real good hammer.

Jack licked his lips.  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” he quoted.

“For we are the United States Marine Corps!” Jay shouted, and only then did Jack realize they’d been transmitting.

“Oorah!” the other Cowboys shouted as Jack stared at Betty in surprise.

She smiled back.  “I thought he’d do something like that,” she whispered.

Jack shook his head and smiled.

“Surfacing in three…two…one…” Charles transmitted and Jack closed his eyes.

A bright light flashed through his eyelids, he opened them, and he saw their target in the distance.  A large Shang cruiser, he could see it firing on New Washington with missiles and lasers.

And then gravity fell on its side as the gravitic cannons on either side of him came to life, twisting space between his fighter and the Shang cruiser.  The ten remaining Nemesis drones joined in, and the concentrated gravity distortions ripped through the Shang shields, digging into the ship itself.  Laser turrets sent laser pulses into the unshielded flank, vaporizing armor and weapons alike, as the grav cannons ripped more off.

“Now, Mischief!” Jack shouted and her Hellcat and Wildcats opened up with lasers and missiles.  Hundreds of small missiles billowed out of the fighters, spread out, and closed in on the Shang warship.  They passed through the smashed deflection grids and exploded against the tortured skin of the cruiser in wave after wave.  The cruiser shuddered as the explosions worked inward, flash-frying deck after deck until they reached the core.  And then the cruiser evaporated.

“Good shot!” Jack shouted and scanned the displays.  Of the fifty Shang warships, five of them no longer existed.  Three more staggered out of formation, their flanks ripped wide open from stem to stern.  The other warships stopped firing on New Washington and began towards the Cowboys.  “Oh frak.”

“Secondary targets, now!” Charles ordered and a new target flashed on the displays.

“Shoot it, shoot it, shoot it!” Jack shouted as Betty brought them around for another attack.

“I’m on it,” Betty answered, her mouth grim, and the gravitic cannons opened up again.  “They’re targeting us!”

Jack swallowed, watched the gravitic cannons rip through the deflection grids again, flexed his fingers, and let out a long breath.  Then he pulled them to port and rammed the throttle forward.  The engines flared behind him and the Avenger began to maneuver for all their lives as Shang missile and laser batteries began returning fire.  Around them, the Nemesis drones spun around them, making a joint defensive flight plan designed to confuse anything trying to shoot them.

“Stay with me, Mischief!” Jack ordered and pulled the throttle back, feeling the engines flare again, hard enough that he actually felt the pull of gravity.

“Like you could get away!” she returned as her Hellcat and Wildcats began to fly through his formation on random maneuvers of their own, spitting out more missiles at their target.

“That sounds like a challenge,” Jack aid, then swallowed as the displays began tracking more and more missiles flying towards the Cowboys.  He pulled the throttle back to the firewall where it rang against the metal frame.  “Come on, Betty, get us out of here!”

“I’m charging, I’m charging,” she returned as the missiles approached.  The laser turrets picked them off one by one, but the Shang were focusing more and more fire on them, and that was beginning to overload their point defense grids.

Jack licked his lips, betraying her nerves.  “Betty?  Any time now.”

“Almost…there!” she shouted.

He shut his eyes as the worlds flashed around them, etching the sight of incoming missiles on the inside of his eyelids.  He blinked and saw hyperspace around them.  He glanced at the displays to see the other Cowboys blinking into existence in the area as well and sighed.

“Hey, Chief,” he transmitted after finding Charles’ fighter.

“Yeah, Jester?”  Charles sounded almost as breathless as Jack felt.

Jack shrugged and looked at Betty.  “I do think we got their attention.”

“That we did,” Charles answered in an impressed tone as Betty nodded.

Jack shook his head.  “So what do we do with it now?”

“Well,” Charles began with what sounded like a smile.  “Now we keep it.”

Jack chuckled.  For a man that didn’t like to gamble, Charles sure knew how to push the cards when he felt the need.  “Right.  New attack vector?”

A new set of targets and movement orders showed up on the displays.

“Exactly,” Charles answered, his tone suggesting he was still smiling.

Jack sighed at Betty with a smile of his own.  “You heard the man.”

Betty nodded with a wink and they accelerated towards where their new target waited in normalspace.

“Keep on my six, Mischief,” Jack ordered.

“On it like glue,” she answered and slipped in behind him.

“Promises, promises,” he returned with a smirk and flexed his fingers, preparing for the next stage.

“Surfacing,” Betty reported in a grim tone.

Jack shut his eyes as they rose back up into normalspace and opened his eyes to see an unravaged flank of the Shang fleet before them.  Gravity turned on its side and gravity tore at one of the Shang ships.  Betty’s drones joined opened up as well and the deflection grid covering the Shang’s starboard flank opened wide.  Focused gravity ripped deep into the armor, and tore the atmosphere out of the warship.  Behind him, Katty’s Hellcat and Wildcats flashed into existence, rising up out of hyperspace.

“Now, Mischief!” Jack ordered.

The fighter and drones fired another salvo of missiles that spread out and attacked the Shang cruiser from multiple vectors as it desperately tried to avoid the gravitic cannons tracking it.  Ready for the second assault, Shang point defense lasers brought the missiles down by the scores.  Shang counter missiles fired, rippling out to wipe Jack’s flight out of existence, even as the Shang cruiser writhed under their assault.

“Oh, Lord, for what we are about to receive,” Jack whispered and held on to the controls with a tight grip.  And then it was time to just go anywhere that wasn’t where he was.  Betty’s drones moved ahead, lasers firing in full point defense pattern, as he moved them from side to side and up and down without thinking, whenever he felt the urge to be somewhere else.

Missiles cartwheeled in, some ripped apart when they hit gravity beams, others burned away by lasers, and some broke through everything to charge in at Jack’s flight.  The fighters and drones maneuvered wildly, a mix of cybernetic and genetic reflexes guiding the random movements that tried desperately to avoid any place a missile was about to be.  A drone lost a nose to a grazing hit, another lost a wing.  Two exploded nearby.  Another almost directly in front of him took another missile and Jack closed his eyes to protect them from the flash.

“Next target!” Charles shouted and the displays flashed, shifting to an undamaged Shang heavy cruiser.

Jack swallowed and nodded at Betty.

She smiled back and their remaining drones turned away from their tumbling target to the new one.  Gravitic cannons lanced out and smashed into another set of deflection grids.  They didn’t go completely down this time.  The ship had better grids than her smaller cousins, and Betty didn’t have enough drones left to rip them open.

“Mischief,” Jack ordered with a grunt.  Her missiles boiled in from behind, some exploding just short of the remaining deflection grid, shredding it with gravitic interference.  The rest tore deep into armor and weapons systems, ruining the heavy cruiser’s flank.

The displays flashed in warning and he flicked his eyes over to see hundreds of Shang fighters pulling up and away from New Washington, their engines burning long trails in the atmosphere below them.  They shot up out of the atmosphere, closing in on the Cowboys, and Jack swallowed.  This was going to hurt.

A flick of his eyes to other displays showed the Chinese turning towards the gravity well, looking like they were about to accelerate in.  Jack swallowed again, wondering if they were going to break the treaties.  If so, this battle was about to get ugly.

Then new arrivals flashed into existence on the displays and Jack recognized the icons of the Peloran task force, finally revealing its existence, firing into the Chinese fleet’s collective ass.  He shook his head with a smile.  The old man was doing it again.