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

this.
    Jack finally saw the result of their initial bombardment and nodded very slowly.  There was a gravitic hit on the Shang cruiser vomiting air.  And the displays showed something that looked like a small space station starting to come apart after a primary capital laser cannon sliced through it.  Two hits at this range were enough to impress him.  But that small station worried him.  He wondered how the Shang could have known they were coming early enough to plant actual space stations in ambush.
    And then the Shang stopped firing on the bulk of Third Fleet and the brief chill in Jack’s spine turned icy.  “Well, now I feel special,” Jack muttered under his breath.
    “You should,” Betty returned.  “I’ve always said you’re special.”
    “Thank you.”
    Betty gave him a wry smile.  “Are you sure you heard what I said?”
    “Every word,” Jack answered and nodded towards the Shang as they fired again.  This time the missiles began to close on their formation.
    “Oh,” Betty muttered and shook her head.  “Right.”
    Jack shrugged towards her and returned his attention to the incoming missiles.  They were still several seconds out and he glanced over to see their fighter’s gravitic cannons charging for another salvo.  It was time and their cannons opened up again.  The very fabric of gravity twisted once more as the warships coordinated another massive salvo around him.
    Then he saw the first of the American missiles come back to life, spewing blue flames as they streaked in to attack the Shang formation.  Point defense networks came to life, blotting them out of the sky by the dozens, but the survivors dove in and exploded in the midst of the Shang fleet.  More accurately, they imploded, becoming miniature black holes sucking the smallest atoms in space into them for the briefest of split seconds, before releasing their hold on gravity and spreading the gathered bits of material out to rampage through the Shang force at significant percentages of the speed of light.
    Deflection grids flared and failed, armor tore away from hulls, and atmosphere poured from wounded warships.  The missiles did what nothing else had been able to do in the entire battle.  They penetrated the Shang jamming and gave Jack his first clear look at what the Shang had.  He didn’t like the look very much at all.
    The forty cruisers and equal number of escorting destroyers were bad enough, even if Third Fleet would normally be enough to take them down.  But now Jack finally knew how they were throwing so many missiles at Third Fleet.  This truly had been a trap all along and they’d flown right into it.  The small space stations were actually a dozen or so small missile platforms, firing their missiles in perfect unison with the Shang warships.  He wondered how many missiles they had in the ammunition bays.  Then he looked at the display showing the first salvo of closing Shang missiles and let out a long breath.
    This was going to hurt.
    “Hold on tight, people!” Jack ordered.  He relaxed, counting down the seconds and feeling the twinge of nerves.  Here was a bad place to be.  He pushed the throttle to the left and maneuvering thrusters added a port shift to Betty’s evasion maneuvers.
    The Shang missiles screamed in, American and British point defense lasers and missiles reaching out to bat them aside.  But the mere forty or so American and British warships didn’t have a prayer of stopping all of them.  A missile passed by close to starboard, right where Jack would have been if he hadn’t shifted to the side.  Two more passed above him, and an Avenger in front of him ate a missile coming straight for his position.  The Avenger came apart and Jack let out a relieved breath on confirmation that it was one of the drones.
    And then Jack lost all sense of time as he began dodging and weaving, adding his randomness to Betty’s maneuvers.  Fighters exploded around him, missiles tore at