Jack of Harts

Charles had a real problem in the Hyades Cluster. The Chinese owned it and everybody in it. The planetary managers and landowners were Chinese. But the majority of the people who lived out there were Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, or any of the other dozens of populations the Chinese conquered on Earth. They got sent out to the stars so the Chinese would have some more breathing room on Earth. And us handing administration over to the Free Chinese didn’t help. The locals considered them just another batch of racist Chinese bastards. So they didn’t cooperate with us. Charles thought that if he dressed up in a business suit and treated them as equals, he could bring them over to our cause. He walked the streets without nametags, ranks, or visible weapons, and just talked to them. Visited their businesses. Bought their products. Made friends. That changed everything.

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.