Jack of Harts 2: Angel Flight by Medron Pryde Read Free Book Online Page A

their medical frigates away, along with their destroyer escorts.  That was an interesting twist.  He wondered what the Shang would think about that.
    Jack shrugged the curiosity away, relaxed back into his seat again, and watched as the “fleeing” ships continued to accelerate.  The wall’s remaining point defense stopped almost all of the missiles, and the missiles they sent back at the Shang continued to prove almost as effective.  The Shang had certainly prepared their defenses well.  Minutes went by with the American ships slowly reforming into a cohesive squadron that wasn’t quite obvious.  The age-old admonition to “fly casual” echoed through Jack’s mind.  They were certainly doing that, if anything could be casual about ships running for their lives.
    But that appearance was not going to last much longer.  An invisible point in space glowed on his displays, telling him when the task force needed to turn.  Soon.  He glanced at Betty, and she nodded back.  They were ready.  The countdown appeared, and he shifted his view to Gabrielle.
    “You ready?” Gabrielle asked, head cocked to the side in curiosity.
    “Yes, Ma’am,” he answered with a smile and placed his hands on the stick and throttle.
    “Break!” Gabrielle shouted.
    Jack braced and Betty brought their fighter around to face the main Shang formation.  The entire American task force, and the few British ships hanging onto the rear, came around as well with plumes of blue fusion fire filling space around them.  The entire formation came bow-on to the Shang fleet and Jack wondered if the aliens were surprised.  He knew he would be if he were standing in their shoes.  Not that he’d ever wear shoes designed for those midgets.
    “All ships, commence bombardment on my mark,” Gabrielle ordered.
    Jack smiled at Betty who looked smug in return.  They were still far outside standard weapons range, far enough out that hits were all but impossible.  But that wasn’t the same as totally impossible.  And as he’d shown earlier, sometimes it worked to let fly early.  He wasn’t sure if this was one of those times, but copying someone’s idea was the sincerest form of flattery.
    Jack was feeling real flattered.
    “Don’t look so smug,” Gabrielle said with a wry smile.  “It’s unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman.”
    Jack put on act of looking around for someone before shrugging.  “Where’s the gentleman?”
    “Touché,” Gabrielle returned and Jack chuckled.  “Now it’s time to find out what they have,” she added, her tone all business again, and Jack’s displays filled with light codes.  For a split second it was total gibberish and then he recognized the fire pattern.  He smiled in approval.  She wasn’t trying to kill anything.  She just wanted to scare whatever was keeping Third Fleet here into revealing itself.
    “Mark,” Gabrielle transmitted and every weapon in the fleet opened up.
    Five-dozen Avengers fired with him, along with an equal number of Hellcats and their Mexican equivalents, and even three-dozen British Harriers.  He felt the very fabric of space trembling under the assault.  But it was nothing compared to the firepower of twenty American cruisers and destroyers laying down their own salvos of gravitic might.  The British destroyers fired as well, and while their turret-mounted gravitic cannons were smaller they had far more gravitic turrets than the Americans had spinal gravitic cannons.
    The display was truly amazing.
    To add to it, the task force missile turrets went to maximum fire rate, gravitic drivers slinging them away from their parent ships.  The missiles came to life, riding tongues of blue flame and coming around to fly towards the Shang formation.  Then they turned off their drives and became holes in space.  It was odd to see missiles go dark like that and an eerie chill moved up Jack’s spine.  There was just something not right about fighting from ranges like