Jack of Harts 2.5: Wolfenheim Rising by Medron Pryde Read Free Book Online Page A

officer and aimed a steady gaze to him.  “Malcolm,” she intoned, following one of the few actual orders he was prepared to give her.
    “Olivia,” he answered after a quick breath.  He was too much a civilian to confuse the issue of command with fake titles he hadn’t earned.  And if he was just another civilian, given names were an appropriate form of address.  “You wanted me?” he asked, raising an eyebrow with the highly in appropriate words that would have gotten him reprimanded if he were in the military.  Lack of rank, in this case, surely had its privileges.
    Olivia rolled her eyes, but amusement colored the haunted look they normally held.  “Hardly.”
    “Bugger.”  He made a show of a regretful sigh that brought a slight smile to her lips.  Very slight.  Anyone with less sensitive eyes probably would have missed it altogether.  “So why ask me up here then?”
    Olivia grimaced and waved a hand towards the holodisplay next to her.
    Malcolm followed her eyes and scanned the ships anchored in the Peloran yard.  Most were modern or near-modern warships undergoing repairs or refits.  British, American, German, and even French ships dotted the girders running through the yard.  They were the last of a long line of warships that had been flowing through the yard for months, and Malcolm wondered if they would make it to Sunnydale in time to rendezvous with the fleet.  But one ship declared her century of age with every first-generation gravtech curve and fin.  Hastings was the last, the oldest, and the most troublesome of his ships.
    “I wanted to tell you in person,” Olivia said, her voice betraying worry.  “Well.  Wanted isn’t really the right word.”
    Malcolm sighed.  He hated to throw the word around, but he was starting to wonder if the ship had actually been cursed when she was still in her original building slip.  She’d certainly suffered from enough “unfortunate events” during her time in service, and even her brief time under his ownership had been “eventful,” as one of his people had said.  “What happened this time?”
    Olivia opened her mouth to answer, but an alarmed shout cut her off, and they turned towards the sensor display in the middle of the bridge.  “Multiple hyperspace footprints on the Earth–New Earth Run!” Anton Lee reported.  Malcolm suppressed a groan as he saw the flashes on the display.  “Designating Bogey One.  Thirty-one lightseconds out, point zero one cee, and accelerating to cross The Red Line now.”
    The display zoomed in to show a tight formation of eight ships emanating  hyperspace radiation in all directions.  He couldn’t see what they were at first, but the displays confirmed it was a military formation.  The three-dimensional pattern allowed them to support each other on the off chance that someone might be waiting for them.
    Then the displays cleared and revealed eight new Austin -class destroyers.  Even he knew those ships.  The Austins had a truly unique forward wedge, designed to look like a double-headed hammer.  Each of those eight hammerheads carried twice the firepower of any single ship in his squadron, and even if limited to broadside weapons his ships would be hard-pressed to defeat them.  He licked his lips and knew deep down in his bones that those ships were not just stopping by on their way to Sunnydale.  The fleet needed to leave now .
    “Olivia?” he asked, his voice revealing more nerves than he really meant it to.
    “Got it,” she answered and pointed out a pair of chairs at an empty station at the rear of the bridge.  He and Dawn took her suggestion with haste and she turned to the man operating the sensor display.  “Plot us a course for Sunnydale, Lieutenant Lee,” she ordered.
    “Yes, Ma’am,” the man answered and his fingers flew across the controls.  On the display, hundreds of possible courses appeared and then faded out as he erased swaths of them that took the squadron too