Jack of Harts

The Republic of Texas

by Charles on December 8, 2020 at 12:01 am

Posted In: Diaries

The Republic of Texas Space Force transformed itself after the introduction of gravtech. New craft had longer range and flight duration, allowing them to easily and quickly travel anywhere inside a star system without requiring a transport. They could defend entire star systems, and they quickly built three craft to do so. The F-2 Star Fury, more of a refit of their existing F-101 Fury, was the first. The purpose-built A-2 Savage and the B-3 Tornado came next, and those three craft worked well together. Their combined mix of lasers, missiles, and autocannons proved devastating to both space and ground targets, and the dedicated hard points for external heavy weapons made them a threat to any enemy warship as well. The three craft dominated the Texas military around Earth and all of her colonies in the first half of the 23rd century, and were in fact still in service in many reserve units when The War came upon us all.

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BattleTech

by Medron Pryde on December 7, 2020 at 12:01 am

Posted In: Diaries

Those of you who know me know that I am stubborn. I am opinionated. I have a very straight definition of good and bad. And when people tell me that I’m wrong when I know I’m right, I have a tendency to say “no, you’re wrong,” and then quote chapter and verse to prove it. And I’m not always tactful when sufficiently annoyed. That has earned me friends in good measure. It has also earned me enemies.

Some of those enemies lie about me. Some twist the truth about me. Some got me removed from my position as a Catalyst Agent.

I largely withdrew from BattleTech after that. I’d been writing and publishing my own Jack of Harts stories for years at that time, and I just dove further down into that. I’m still there, and still writing, and enjoying it. And I would not be playing BattleTech right now at all if one of my best friends had not pulled me back in.

He has spent years dragging me into games at conventions or in his house or anywhere he can. He asks me for my ideas about game rules and anything to do with BattleTech from the meta to the deepest of in character story elements. It was my greatest pleasure, at one of these conventions, to drag him over to an author I knew and introduce them. Because I knew he loved the man’s work. This Saturday, that author called my friend to wish him a happy birthday.

My friend kept me involved in a game that I would have walked away from entirely if left to my own stubborn pride. He is the primary reason I still have any involvement with BattleTech. He is the primary reason I recently began painting miniatures again for the first time in years. And he is the primary reason I recently put a couple hundred bucks into the BattleTech kickstarter.

This last weekend, while enjoying a time of playing BattleTech with friends and soon-to-be friends, I had fun. It wasn’t the first time I had fun doing so, you understand. But it is the first time I did so with people I did not know without wondering which one of those people was ready to stab me in the back at the first opportunity. We were all there to have fun and play some games. So we all had fun, and someone new to the game won it all.

And we all agreed about something. That BattleTech felt good good right now. It felt promising. It felt like it did two decades ago. Like there was a future that would be fun to be part of.

I’ve spent most of my life reading and studying and playing BattleTech. I will never be the fan I once was. The time when I would spend hours and days engrossed in every sourcebook, with a spreadsheet open so I could log the slightest minutia is long gone. That passion for what is undeniably one of the largest invented universes ever put to print was burned out of me by the actions of others. But I can enjoy it again. I can spend time with friends and play it again and can look forward to painting miniatures and putting them on the table again.

And that is why I put some more money into the Kickstarter for wave 2 today. The minis really are good. I want the ones that weren’t ready for wave 1. And, yes. I would even like to have a piece of art made for me in the style of the universe. My friend got that, and it is amazing. So I sprang for a canon character while I was at it. It really is a one-time-opportunity that may never be repeated.

So I’m going to get a piece of fantastic art that my friends and enemies will generally recognize as me if what my friend got is any indication.

That’ll be cool. And that’s enough for me. I like cool.

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The Family Affair

by Medron Pryde on December 6, 2020 at 12:01 am

Posted In: Diaries

The crosshairs flashed on his target. He pulled the trigger.

The solid slug blew clear through his target and deep into the stairs behind it. Bits of warbot sprayed all over the stairwell and stone splintered behind it.

“Good shot,” Jon said into the silence that followed.

“Thanks,” Jack said and moved to another firing position, keeping his eyes on the shattered drones all around them. And the unmoving warbot now lying against the bottom of the stairs. “Having fun?”

“Absolutely!” Jon said as they waited for the next attack. “Haven’t had this much fun since… well… since I was born.”

“Good to know,” Jack said and licked his lips. He’d seen warbots that looked just like that wandering around Juneau back in the day. Though Juneau hadn’t called them warbots. They’d had a much softer name for them. Something about border defense and customs if he remembered correctly. They didn’t have very intelligent AIs, but there was one thing he clearly remembered about them.

They always traveled in groups.

Jack let out a long breath. The warning in the back of his mind was still screaming. He shook his head. “Because all of this so far has just been the warm-up act. The real assault is coming.”

They didn’t have long to wait. It started with the hum of more flying drones. Then came the sound of metal feet echoing down the stairs. Too many. Far, far too many.

***

The Family Affair is available at the following retailers

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The Gemini Affair

by Medron Pryde on December 5, 2020 at 12:01 am

Posted In: Diaries

“I’m picking up active targeting radar,” Jasmine announced as the Hellcats flew inside one lightsecond of them. “Looks like a Technicron Actitrax Mark XII or XIII.”

“Wasn’t the Mark X they last one they used?” Jack asked.

“In the official upgrades,” Jasmine said with an annoyed look.

“Which makes these homegrown upgrades,” Betty noted. “They could have anything.”

“Fantastic,” Jack muttered. “I love not knowing what to expect.”

And that was when the Hellcats began firing missiles from their wingtip launchers. Displays flashed crimson all around Jack as hundreds of the small, guided projectiles began flying towards Jack’s squadron on plumes of blue fusion flame.

“Then you’re going to love what happens next,” Jasmine returned with a smirk.

“Mmmm?” Jack asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We’re getting radar emissions from Raytheon targeting packages,” Betty announced.

Jack blinked in confusion. “I thought Raytheon and Technicron didn’t play well together. Something about…missing data packets or something?”

“That’s right,” Jasmine said with a nasty smile. “These guys aren’t fighting with a full deck.”

“And we’ve got a plan,” Betty added.

Jack chuckled at the wicked amusement in their eyes. He might have asked for an explanation in most cases, but now probably wasn’t the right time for that. Missiles moved faster than words after all. So he just relaxed and said, “Then make it so.”

***

The Gemini Affair is available at the following retailers

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Wolfenheim Emergent

by Medron Pryde on December 4, 2020 at 12:01 am

Posted In: Diaries

Malcolm’s Blackhawk starfighter shuddered as decoys and jammers shot out to confuse the enemy missiles. His laser cannons pulsed as the fighter squadrons around him laid down their own line in space and countermissiles shot out to kill the missiles that fought through the electronic warfare. Normandy added her own fire to the defense, along with every surviving ship in the fleet. Lasers, missiles, and energy shields destroyed them by the scores, but the fleet’s point defenses had been too badly damaged to stop everything the Shang sent their way.

Malcolm held his hands on the controls as the surviving missiles came in for the kill. His left hand rested on the throttle controlling movement in every direction, his right hand holding the stick directing orientation. It was deceptively simple and complex at the same time, especially for someone who’d not played many fighter sims in his life. But training turned it into instinct. He no longer thought about moving.

Malcolm felt danger coming, and it was time to be elsewhere. He moved the throttle to the left without taking time to think about it. Slowing down to think about it could get a man killed, after all. The Blackhawk’s thrusters flared and the better part of a dozen fighters accelerated with him as the missiles entered their final attack run.

Several fighters moved between him and the missiles in the last instant, even as their final point defenses continued to fire fast enough he could see the heat radiating from them. One lost an engine and fell out of formation to a near miss that was still too close. Another came apart and her engines exploded out in every direction to a different missile. And a third fighter fired an entire stream of countermissiles at one missile before simply disappearing as it rammed another aimed directly at him.

The missiles kept coming.

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Wolfenheim Emergent is available at the following retailers

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