{"id":9874,"date":"2020-11-22T00:01:36","date_gmt":"2020-11-22T06:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jackofharts.com\/?p=9874"},"modified":"2020-11-21T04:17:23","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T10:17:23","slug":"the-audacious-affair-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/?p=9874","title":{"rendered":"The Audacious Affair"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jack twisted his stick and thrusters flared them around a few pieces of tumbling wreckage. Jack slammed the throttle forward, and engines roared tongues of blue fusion flame behind him. They accelerated towards the British vanguard, and Jack smiled with approval as their point defenses engaged every incoming enemy missile.<\/p>\n

Jack found the Spitfire he was looking for at the very head of the vanguard. No surprise there. He tapped a button on his communications display to start transmitting. \u201cHey, Lance, old buddy. You\u2019re looking a little lonely out here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot lonely at all,\u201d Lance answered a second later, and his smiling face appeared on one of the displays. \u201cIvan\u2019s giving us a warm welcome, in fact!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did I tell you about trusting Russian vodka?\u201d Jack asked as the range closed, pulling the throttle back to match speed with Lance\u2019s squadron.<\/p>\n

Displays flashed as Betty logged them back into the British networks. A whole new universe of fire plans and point defense options filled his cockpit. Laser turrets and missile pods realigned, thrusters burned to shift them into optimal angles, and gravitic cannons hummed to life as their capacitors achieved maximum power.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t,\u201d Lance said with a chuckle. \u201cIt can give you a real headache in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then Jack\u2019s little squadron of Avengers fired in time with the British vanguard. Grav beams and missiles reached out to smash one Russian ship, and wreckage filled his vision. Pieces of former warships drifted around them. Surviving point defense lasers fired at each other in fitful spurts of otherworldly destruction. Jack accelerated them through the flashing wreckage, trusting the deflection grids to deflect anything too small to dodge, trusting Betty to avoid anything too large to deflect, and really hoping none of those point defenses took a personal disliking to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have incoming fighters,\u201d Betty reported, pulling his attention away from wreckage.<\/p>\n

Jack glanced at the displays to see nearly a hundred Russian fighters closing with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIgnore them,\u201d Jack ordered and focused on the battleship he wanted so very much dead. \u201cStay on target.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStaying on target,\u201d Betty acknowledged.<\/p>\n

They shot out of the wreckage in time to the screaming duet of rock and roll guitars and opened fire with every weapon they had left.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

The Audacious Affair is available at the following retailers<\/p>\n

Amazon<\/a><\/p>\n

Barnes and Noble<\/a><\/p>\n

Apple Books<\/a><\/p>\n

Kobo<\/a><\/p>\n

Smashwords<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack twisted his stick and thrusters flared them around a few pieces of tumbling wreckage. Jack slammed the throttle forward, and engines roared tongues of blue fusion flame behind him. They accelerated towards the British vanguard, and Jack smiled with[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…<\/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-9874","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\/9874","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=9874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9875,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9874\/revisions\/9875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jackofharts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}