{"id":5922,"date":"2017-04-03T00:01:17","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T05:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jackofharts.com\/?p=5922"},"modified":"2017-04-04T02:23:22","modified_gmt":"2017-04-04T07:23:22","slug":"5922","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/?p=5922","title":{"rendered":"The Gemini Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/jackofharts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Avenger-Closeup-800.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-5923\" src=\"http:\/\/jackofharts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Avenger-Closeup-800-201x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"201\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Avenger-Closeup-800-201x300.jpg 201w, https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Avenger-Closeup-800.jpg 537w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 201px) 100vw, 201px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cReady?\u201d Betty asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLaunch,\u201d Jack ordered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLaunching,\u201d Betty announced and their Avenger shuddered as it fell away from <em>Vagabond<\/em> at the maximum burn their maneuvering thrusters could manage. He looked up to see the long train of their <em>Privateer<\/em>-class freighter come into full view and he saw the damage they\u2019d taken with his eyes for the first time. The engine section was torn apart completely, individual engines hanging off the end of the ship by stray cables or less. And <em>Vagabond\u2019s<\/em> main wedge-shaped body was peeled open from just behind the bridge to the rear hatch where she linked to the cargo pods. Those had been two very well targeted shots. Somebody knew what they were doing over there. They just didn\u2019t know enough to realize how deep they\u2019d stepped into it.<\/p>\n<p>Jack smiled and placed his left hand on the throttle and his right hand on the stick. He slammed the throttle forward, and four fusion torch drives sent them screaming towards the enemy freighter on tongues of blue flame. Their enemy recognized the danger too late, but Jack gritted his teeth as it launched far more missiles at him than a peaceful freighter had any business carrying around. But they\u2019d already proven that they were no peaceful freighter.<\/p>\n<p>****<\/p>\n<p>The Gemini Affair is a short story written for An Atlas to Time, Space, and Bonfires.  There\u2019s a kickstarter for it right now in case your interested in seeing a couple dozen stories by different authors.  And this one, of course.  ?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kickstarter.com\/projects\/1776452973\/an-atlas-to-time-space-and-bonfires-a-sci-fi-antho-0\" target=\"_blank\">An Atlas to Time, Space, and Bonfires Kickstarter<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cReady?\u201d Betty asked. \u201cLaunch,\u201d Jack ordered. \u201cLaunching,\u201d Betty announced and their Avenger shuddered as it fell away from Vagabond at the maximum burn their maneuvering thrusters could manage. He looked up to see the long train of their Privateer-class freighter[&hellip;]<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/?p=5922\">&darr; Read the rest of this entry&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diaries","uentry","postonpage-1","odd","post-author-medron-pryde"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5922"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5928,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5922\/revisions\/5928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}